I could have been Senate President –Kwankwaso

Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso is the immedi­ate past governor of Kano State. An out­spoken politician, he does not skirt around issues. He is one of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors that defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013.
In this interview, he accused the leader­ship of his party of displaying naivety in handling the National Assembly leader­ship matter. He also shared his thoughts on a number of other touchy national is­sues.
What would you say went wrong in the attempt by APC to have its candidates elected as Senate President and Deputy Senate President?
I thank the good people of Kano State for giving me another opportunity to represent them, this time as a senator representing Kano Central, the most populous senatorial district in the country. At least, going by the 2015 elections, I think I am the only one who got about 760, 000 votes as a senator. Today I would have been the Senate Presi­dent, but many other factors came to play.
Let me use this opportunity to congratu­late our party for its victory, especially in Kano, where we have everything 100 per cent – from 484 councillors to 44 local gov­ernment chairmen, 40 state assembly mem­bers, 24 members of the House of Repre­sentatives, three senators, which I am one of them to governor, deputy governor. Of course, we gave the president the highest number of votes in this country.
I thank the good people of Kano for do­ing that and I thank Nigerians for having confidence in our party, the APC. I have to say that from the day Buhari was an­nounced the winner of this election, things have started going in positive directions, ranging from exchange rate to shares. Even on the security aspect in this country, things are much better today than they were before the elections.
Now, on the issue of what went wrong as a party, I think there are so many things that have to do with time and this sort of thing, this election or selection partly has relationship with time. I know very well that you are aware that we had so many weeks or months after the elections. That was the time really when action would have been taken to ensure that we had a success­ful election at the National Assembly. This is not the time to say, “I told you or I told them,” but many of us tried to draw the at­tention of our leaders to do the right thing at the right time.
Sometimes, you may decide to do the right thing at the wrong time and that will certainly backfire. Also doing the wrong thing at the right time does not help.
I think the party missed crucial oppor­tunities to resolve the issues, probably be­cause many people who are involved were faced with these challenges for the first time in their political history. As far as I am con­cerned, this is the sixth time that I have been involved directly or indirectly in things like this. In 1992, I was at the centre of it, I was elected deputy speaker of the House of Representatives. I knew the intrigues. I knew what happened. And, of course, from 1999 to 2011, I was indirectly involved as a governor, as a minister, of course, as a leader of the party. So, all those things are not new to me and many other elders in this country. I think time was crucial, which the party missed some crucial steps and, there­fore, things went wrong.
Where were you on the day of the elec­tion for the National Assembly presiding officers and would you say the Presi­dent actually called APC lawmakers to a meeting at ICC on the morning of the inauguration?
Honestly speaking, it was in the morning of that day that I saw a text message that we should go to the ICC. Unfortunately for me, I had so many people from Kano that came to see me. You know, our colleagues in this game of politics are always being handled like glass or egg, so I was trying to receive them when I got a call that senators and members were waiting at the ICC. As I was moving out of Hilton hotel, somebody called again and said that they were at the National Assembly and they were just about to start elections.
I diverted the driver, instead of going to the ICC to where the elections were tak­ing place. There was a huge traffic on the road of Abuja, so I said instead of going to ICC, it was more important to go to Nation­al Assembly. And, in any case, I was sure that members who were at the ICC would not want to stay there while elections were talking place. So, I drove straight to the Na­tional Assembly and moved straight to the chamber. It was when I arrived the chamber that I realised I was in a wrong place.
It was when I entered that I saw Bukola being sworn in as the Senate President. So, I was not in the ICC. Of course, I was at National Assembly but I arrived after the election. I was there calling them to come. Unfortunately, they did not come to the Na­tional Assembly and I had to follow them to ICC and then to other places. That was what happened that day.
Now, nobody told me, but I saw a text message that we were going to be addressed by the president but not from the president himself but some officials of the party.
But did you suspect anything had gone wrong at the time you went to ICC and came back? Do you think there might have been mischief in the whole thing?
By who?
By either the party or some other individual(s)?
I told you the party missed some vital steps and they gave an ample opportunity to the Bukola group and they used it effective­ly. They used all the advantages that had to go with the mistakes of our leaders. Well, I am aware that the G5 or G7 group and their supporters were really interested in seeing one of us or one of them really being rel­evant. I am aware of that group within the APC. I am also aware that there are many people or there are some people who are in the party who also believe that my brother, Senator Bola Tinubu, has taken so many things and they thought that it was time for them to put a break so that he did not have to go also with that elections because they had the perception that Senator Tinubu was supporting another candidate.
Of course, there are other groups of sena­tors that I know that believe that Bukola has given them so many things; he supported them especially in the party. Maybe he took advantage of some supporters of the party who had to channel a lot of support through him. And many senators believe that they are supported by him and, there­fore, they are all out to support him.
There are many other factors really that were responsible for all these things – the new PDP issue, the Tinubu issue, closeness with some people who are sympathetic to the party and, of course, the issue of de­lay that I mentioned earlier on. Many of us from G7, some governors, some other high ranking or senior officials of the party, in my opinion, have got a lot of capacity to exert both positive and negative influ­ence. And I think all these things were not taken into consideration by many leaders. There are many other senators also and members of the House that very much believe that the consultation between them and the party was not good enough. The party would have done more in terms of relationship, closeness and even knowing precisely the direction of the party.
Some of these things are correctable, like making consultation with the members of the National Assembly and so on and so forth. I think many things went wrong. I am sure you know that I am in the group of the Ahmed Lawan and co. But before then, definitely I was one of the supporters of (George) Akume. Under normal circum­stances, he should get the seat; he should be the natural holder of that seat for obvi­ous reasons. First, he is probably the eldest among all of them. I know him long before PDP, as an adviser to my elder brother, and governor for two terms and then, he was the minority leader. I have not heard anybody who would pass vote of no confidence ion him . Now that the party is the majority, under normal circumstances, he would have been the Senate President. Of course, his state did very well for the party and all these put together will qualify him to be the Sen­ate President.
There are many other sensitivities that one must take into consideration in making these decisions and that was why even be­fore consultation, I put one and two together and supported him right from the beginning . But when decision was made by some other people that the two of them should merge. He called me at 4am one day. I was in Kano and he said: “this is what is happen­ing in Abuja. What is your opinion?” He did that because he knows that he would not want to do anything that will go against our collective interest. I said:” “I am here in Kano, trying to complete my project and programmes. I cannot help you this morn­ing. What you need to do is to consult those around you before you take decisions, but whatever happens, I want to assure you that we are all together.”
The merging became easier because the party, going by what we all know, was sup­porting that ticket and we supported them to the last minute. It is sad that they did not get it because under normal circumstance, all members of the party should go on the party line and that is how it should be. But here we are, we had a situation where a party is on one side and some other members of the party are on the other side.
From what you just said, does that im­ply that the party is presently divided?
Well, I think the party, unfortunately, is divided. But it is not too late to correct many things. The party should take certain steps to ensure that such things do not hap­pen again. I am one of those who certainly advised my brother, Bukola that he should not go too far with that ambition. At this level, people should be more careful and conscious of what they do and what they do not do.
The situation is even worse in the case of Tambuwal. The Tambuwal case was a case of going out of zoning but all other positions went to the member of the party but this time, because of the ambition of the members of the party, they went and con­nived with people who are not only oppo­nents of the party, but also enemies of the  party, to fight the party after the people of this country had discarded these people and their party.
Now, because of their ambition, these people who were made irrelevant got a lifeline. I do not think that is the best way to go. Members of the party should have certain limitations; you should know when to start and when to stop. I think this is go­ing too far in romancing members of the PDP. As far as we are concerned, PDP was dead. Ambition made certain people to do what they should not do in democracy and party politics and now, we are just about to create unnecessary life for them in PDP to the extent that some of them started making all sorts of statements. Recently I read and I do not know if it is true or not, Ike Ekwer­emadu talking rubbish, nonsense. It is like now they have reasons to speak again. I think that has to do with the mistakes of our own members. I believe that at the end of the day, the party and members must get a way of coming together and behave well and I think that is the only way that we can make progress.
What is the way forward?
Well, I do not know. The party must be doing its own bit, but if I were the nation­al chairman, I would either write to these members individually, a letter or call them and tell them. There has to be discipline in the party. It does not matter if you are 10, 20 or 1000, whatever your number may be in the party; once there is no discipline, there will be problem. I am one of the senior senators by any standard today in this coun­try, but because of the consideration of the fact that Buhari is from the North West and I am from Kano, I didn’t aspire to be Senate President. We have to be considerate.
It is not like you will just come by all means and take it, whether it favours your own name or it favours the party or not. All these things must be respected by the party and members and I believe that it is something that will bring the members back together and have good understanding. What complicated the whole matter is that more than 50 per cent of Bukola supporters are in PDP. If you take the condition of the position of Senate President, I do not know the percentage one would give and, there­fore, it becomes more difficult really and the implication of all these now is that very soon, the leadership of the senate will start “Tambuwalising” the party and, of course, the government as we have seen in 2011.
Do you support calls from some circles that the chairman of the party should resign, having handled this issue poorly?
No, I do not think that I should be in a hurry to say that he should resign. All I know is that many things have gone wrong, to the extent that the party has to put its acts together, to make sure that things that are going down are stopped. From there, we will build a party again.
Supposing Bukola and the other people want to hang on to the fact that President Buhari intervened and said it should be resolved for the party to be able to deliver. What is your say on that?
I think the position of Buhari is clear. He wanted the party to handle it. He did not want to put his fingers in it. What I know is that I am not sure if he is happy that mem­bers of our party could not be loyal to it, could not go by the dictates of the party. I am not sure if Buhari is a happy man even though he did not put his fingers, but he was expecting that members of the party should remain loyal to the party.
What do you make of suggestion that Ekweremadu has taken the slot of South East in the sharing of offices?
That is not it. Ekweremadu’s emergence has nothing to do with the South East. The APC should carry the South East along by way of appointment.
As a parliamentarian, you do not have the power to even ask Ekweremadu to step down.
I am not saying he should step down or he should stay. I am saying what they have taken did not belong to them, all those who supported him and his party to get it have made a big mistake for themselves and for the party and indeed for the country and they should be ashamed of themselves.
What are the challenges the house will have, having the senate president from the APC and the deputy from PDP?
The president will face a lot of irritations in the sense that these people must be very angry with themselves and very angry with Nigerians and, therefore, will do everything possible to put all sorts of hurdles on the way of Mr. President. That is obvious. It is easy for me to read their minds. I was one of them. I was part of their party, but we had to leave the party because of some of these attitudes. In some of the books that I read, especially in Islamic books, there are things that we believe, like if you build school, hospital, throughout your life, you will get reward even after you die. This sort of mis­takes are bad, so bad that if it continues to occur, it will change a system and they had their own agenda to tackle the APC and now, they are angry with themselves, angry with Nigeria because they believe Nigeria belongs to them, but Nigerians rejected them. I have said it over and over again, long before elections, that one of our chair­men was talking about 60 years but it was 16. I keep saying it but they wrote 16 and under normal circumstance, that’s where they stopped and it’s really unfortunate.
Is it true there is a reconciliation pro­cess already initiated between the Lawan group and the other?
I think it is good to have reconciliation, but I am not aware of it. I am just watching the development.