Buhari’s failure to tackle insecurity may stall 2023 elections – SDP Chairman

 

 

Alhaji Shehu Musa Gabam is the National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party [SDP]. The youthful party leader, in this interview with Cyril Mbah, expressed deep skepticism about the likely outcome of the 2023 polls. Gabam urged Nigerians to hold President Muhammadu Buhari responsible if the election fails, stressing that recent developments and the high level of insecurity in the country, has led many politicians to conclude that the proposed general elections was planned to fail. Excerpts.

 

Hon. Chairman, the SDP has been described in many quarters as a Third Force, do you agree with this description and how do you hope to make a difference in governance should your party win the 2023 general election?

 

We are working with like-minded people because the dynamics of politics have shifted. We are no longer living in the era where political thugs are employed to snatch ballot boxes. The practice has been rendered useless based on the Electoral Act. We are also not bothered about thumb-printing ballot papers because that also is no longer valid. It is outdated. The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System [BVAS] will transmit the results of the number of people accredited at the polling units and if the number of accredited persons at any polling unit exceeds by even one person, the law says that the result is null and void. If the ballot box is tampered with or has cracked, the election at that unit is null and void and will not be valid.

 

If the BVAS works well and if Nigerians are prepared to vote for a prosperous, great country and if the statistics produced by the Independent National  Electoral Commission is anything to rely on,  76% of those who will determine who will become the next president, senators, governors are youths. Forty percent of the youths are students while 36% are other classes of youths. This means that it will be extremely difficult for any party to win at the first ballot. The votes will be shared and if the youth believe in the generational shift and believe in having firsthand infrastructure, the best educational system, good healthcare, infrastructure, capacity development such as IT, then the youth will vote according to their conscience for an individual who believes in the development of Nigeria. Also, no matter how excellent or how good the blueprint of a presidential candidate may be, the person may not likely achieve anything tangible in office without properly deploying people with capacity in the various ministries and government agencies and parastatals to do the needful. No individual vision can transform a country. The individual vision and the proper deployment of labour can easily transform a country. We believe 100% in a strong and united Nigeria. We do not have another country except Nigeria and we do not pray to be Internally Displaced Persons [IDPs].

 

Many people and communities are looking forward to having a peaceful country like ours and we must live with the reality of our existence. God did not make us to be like the Chinese with the same language and ethnic grouping with single religion among other things. Our diversity is what makes us unique and it was made by God who did not consult anybody before doing so. God also made Nigeria one of the richest countries on earth in terms of our naturally endowed mineral resources which are so abundant.

 

There is nothing in Europe or America to compare with what we have in Nigeria. We have a virgin economy. All what it takes to attract rapid development is to open up the economy of Nigeria to good investors, amend the Land Use Act and the constitution so that we can stop producing lazy, irresponsible governors. Anybody who wants to run for the seat of governor should know he/she is coming for serious business which includes going to look for investors to invest in his/her state to enable the governor pay the bills of the state.

 

The slogan of your party is ‘Progress.’ What type of progress do you mean since progress can either be forward or backward? Recall that the APC has a slogan called ‘Change’ but the change we saw has not been positive in any way.

The pattern of progress we are talking about has been the desire to develop Nigeria and make it a highly prosperous country. We desire to eliminate or take away ethnic, religious bigotry and develop a very strong, viral, lovely country where every citizen will have a sense of belonging and be proud to have Nigeria as his/her country. We must start this with equity, justice and fairness. I am a Fulani man. My parents are Fulani but it was not the Fulani ethnic group that made me who or what I have become today. It was the collection of efforts of Nigerians that imputed in me and made me what I am. My loyalty is to my country and not to my ethnic group. I grew up in a community with Igbos, Yorubas among other ethnic groups. We went to the same primary and secondary schools and we interacted peacefully, playing together and eating in each other’s homes without noticing what ethnic group one came from. God did not consult anyone before creating the religions and ethnic groups. These religions and ethnic groups existed before we came into existence and we found them when we were born. So, we do not have the power to change anything as it affects our religions or our ethnic groupings. It takes only a mad person to confront nature or for someone to be fighting over something that is beyond the person. Now, instead of fight for prosperity, we are fighting to entrench poverty, hatred and division in the minds of our people. It has gotten so bad that people even in the southeast with one ethnic group are slaughtering themselves, the same thing is happening in the northwest and other parts of the country. This is because we have lost our values; we lost our humanity and every sense of decency in us. We are now producing a population that we are not training and this same population is now turning against the system, killing and slaughtering people because the leaders have failed in their responsibility to provide proper leadership and deterrence. All what is happening today cannot happen if we have a good leader who can stand firmly and take a bold decision on national issues.

 

There are eighteen political parties. We have discovered that many of the parties are participating in the 2023 polls just to be among the parties that contested the election and do not have the strong desire to win. What does the 2023 election mean for the SDP?

 

In the last election, the former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke was our Presidential Candidate and I was his running mate. Duke was rated the best in Nigeria as at then because he is a man of credibility and integrity. We did not compromise. Our election was one of the top-most and the two big parties saw us as a major threat and filled litigations against us up to the Supreme Court levels. In the present election, we have candidates from the presidential level to the state houses of assembly. We are the only party that does not have serious legal issues arising from congresses and national convention. Our convention was rated the best among other parties and it was devoid of internal conflicts. Our party office is also the best political party office. We have changed the image of politics and our party is very organised because when you want to change a system, you have to start with yourself to demonstrate the capacity to provide leadership.

 

As a stakeholder, are you not worried at the spate of violence that has trailed the electioneering campaigns so far across the country?

 

I am worried because the violence can truncate the elections. I saw the security briefs released by the British Embassy. What was released by the embassy was what I warned about earlier in previous statements to media houses. If we take the security situation, zone by zone, the only states in the northwest where elections can hold are Kano and Jigawa. In the north central, Nasarawa and Kwara states may have elections.  In the northeast, only Bauchi and Gombe states can have peaceful elections. In the southeast, the situation is burdensome. There is uncertainty in the entire states of the southeast and nobody is sure of anything. Voter apathy will be inevitable because people are not sure of their safety when they go to cast their votes. In the southwest, the situation is the same. The INEC office has just been burnt and this has never happened before in the area. Is it INEC’s fault? The answer is no. It is the President’s fault. The President is not only a President; he is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces who is responsible for every deployment. The Federal Government has a monopoly for peace and violence and it appears that wherever there is violence, the government has a hand in it. Therefore, I cannot tell you that elections will hold throughout the country because if the government is interested in conducting free and fair elections, it will deploy the full arsenal of government to restore law and order wherever there is a threat. The INEC can only deploy its personnel and equipment in a secure environment. In a situation of anarchy and crisis, INEC cannot deploy election materials.

 

Are you saying you have doubts about the election holding?

 

Yes, I have absolute doubts because the president has not demonstrated clearly that he wants to have free and fair elections. I repeat, the president has not demonstrated that good intention of conducting a free and fair election. If he believes in the legacy he wants to leave behind, by now, the atmosphere would have been conducive and the INEC would have started feeling confident that it is possible to have elections nationwide. In a recent INEC meeting, the leadership raised serious concern over the level of insecurity in the country. The Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu is not in charge of the security apparatus. Even though he presides over Election Security Council, he does not have power of enforcement. All what he does is to brief security agencies of trouble spots to enable them restore sanity because in the absence of sanity, there will be no deployment of materials.

 

So, what is the way out now? What do you suggest?

 

The way out is with the President who is the Commander-in-chief. The buck stops at his table. He swore to an oath. Precisely, he swore to Article 1 of the constitution to ensure the protection of lives and property but that article of the constitution has been grossly violated and compromised by the president. If there is anarchy and chaos, how do we expect elections to hold? There are by-elections that INEC has not been able to conducrt in the past four years because the areas are crisis locations. It takes only an empty-headed person to give an assurance of certainty that the elections will hold because for now, there are no indications that a conducive environment will be there for elections.

 

How prepared is your presidential candidate for the 2023 election and is SDP part of the negotiations going on now for some presidential candidates to step down for others?

 

I am not aware of any negotiations.  So, we are not part of any negotiation and we did not produce our presidential candidate out of stupidity. We did thorough research and found out that those with experience in the management of power or running of government over the years, who have been in positions of authority, did not use their experience to help the country grow. Rather, the situation became worse. So, it showed that leadership is not about experience but commitment, ones’ agility and readiness to bring transformation. It is also clear that to move Nigeria forward, a younger, more vibrant person who can dedicate his time, effort and resources to reposition the system is required. Our presidential candidate falls into this category. He is about 50 years, mentally very alert and sound. He has deep grasp of current issues. He has excess energy to meet the challenges of leadership. We are not worried about having an experienced person as a presidential candidate. Alhaji Shehu Shagari was very young when he became president of Nigeria. Late Chief MKO Abiola was not even what we might call a practici8ng politician but was brought by his military friends to become president because they had a beautiful content and nice proposal not because Abiola was a Muslim. Nobody bothered about religion then but what mattered was that they provided a content that would drive development in the country. Our business in the SDP is to make Nigeria a great country.

 

What do you advise the electorate to do during the 2023 elections?

 

I will target my advice to the youth who fought for #ENDSAS. Many of them lost their lives in the process while properties worth million were burnt.  Lagos is yet to recover from the effects of that protest. Part of what the youthful demonstrators demanded was good governance, infrastructure, good education and good health sector. Unfortunately, if we have an election and the same youths, who constitute 76% of the voter population, are the ones now selling their votes, then, we may not see the light we are expecting at the end of the tunnel. Many of them have been seen in recent elections selling their votes and displaying the money they collected including US Dollars publicly on social media. This is a national shame and a national embarrassment and I have not seen anybody being arrested or prosecuted. Even house wives and mothers were seen posing with the money they collected in Osun and Ekiti. I have not seen the youth taking the opportunity provided by elections to change the system. The highest threat against democracy today is vote buying and selling. If the government and especially security agencies can deal squarely with vote trading, we will soon have a prosperous and rapid democratic development. Anything short of that will lead the nation into anarchy.  When people use money to buy votes, it automatically turns our democracy into a cash and carry affair and this can lead Nigeria into becoming like countries where drug cartels are holding sway and calling the shots. Such a situation does not lead to true democracy. So, I will advice the youth and the elite of this country especially the fathers and mothers to understand that strengthening the country and making it prosperous with the coming general elections is paramount. Everybody will be engaged when the system is running properly. I urge the people who are put under pressure to collect money to do so but to vote for the right candidates, for Nigeria, for unity, prosperity as well as for good governance and not those who offered money to them to get into office. We have more than 200 citizens in the country. This nation has produced the highest number of orphans in the world under this administration and the highest number of widows. The cost of living is extremely very high and the purchasing power of Nigerians has been reduced to zero percent. There is no training of any sort going on for people who have not gone to school. Is it not a shame that Nigeria is still importing embroideries from Senegal despite our skills and resources? If every state government trains one million people on plumbing business or other specialist jobs in the building or fashion industry, are we not going to be supplying labour to other nations? The same thing can happen with tailoring, carpentry and so on. We can create competition within the major skills and trade that drive the economy and by doing so, we will not only have enough manpower locally but we can export. We have the talent and the gifts but people in authority do not care about these things.