The Secretary of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Alhaji Buba Galadima, in this interview monitored on Channels Television and culled from Daily Sun, speaks on various issues including why the internal crisis rocking the party, alleged suspension of its 2023 presidential candidate, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso by a faction of the party and why Muhammadu Buhari failed as president of Nigeria.

What is the state of your party, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), following the emergence of a new national chairman?

We are trying to start work early enough for the 2027 elections, so that we will set a direction for this party, and it is my candid opinion and belief that our party will be the party to beat in 2027. There is every reason to say that because we have 36 governors in Nigeria and the only governor who is doing what we see visibly and living up to the expectations of their covenant with the Nigerian people is NNPP’s Governor, Abba Yusuf of Kano State. The other governor who is working is the Abia State governor, Alex Otti.

People have to get the background correctly. Our National Chairman, Prof Ahmed Alkali, resigned his position after the elections and in his own words, ‘to give room for reorganizing the party.’ That was his reason and since then, we have had an acting National Chairman, Abba Kawu Ali from Borno State, who was the National Vice Chairman of the party from the North-East where Alkali comes from. And there is a period to which you can act and he acted for one year by the end of last month.

Therefore, we have to find a new person if we are not holding an election to continue to act until when we conduct a proper convention to elect officers of the party. Again, the Deputy National Chairman of the party, Dr Ajuji Ahmed, who is a political scientist, an experienced bureaucrat, a speechwriter to the former vice president and a special adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, has the pedigree to pilot the affairs of any organization and we are now putting him again from the North-East to take over as acting chairman of the party.

Just ask who is a politician in Nigeria, if 10 of them raise their hands, try to find out, only one of them may be a good person. The other nine are living satan because Nigerian politics doesn’t need honest men, women or young people. It is the end that justifies the means. I have given this government two years to see them but fortunately for us, we have only one political party that you can approach and say you told us you are going to do this, where is the evidence that you have done that.

Most of them even refused to attend public debates; most of them don’t even have manifestos and I don’t think most of them have party constitution. They have told you something and what they are doing tells you a different thing. That is why I said Nigerian politicians are satan.

Are you sure that this particular situation that you have with these men who have suspended Kwankwaso will not come back to affect the NNPP in 2027?

What was satan’s promise to God? That he is going to destroy as many as he likes. That is his main job and he took that promise and he is doing it very well. Do you know the person who is pushing these people to say what they are saying? That is why we expelled them and they know that we know. But all you need to know is that they were expelled for doing anti-party activities. They were working for other interests other than that of the NNPP to which they profess in the day that they belong to and they are still funded by the same people.

They have gone to 11 different high courts to stop us from this convention but no judge listened to them. All their submissions were dismissed with ignominy. So, all I’m trying to tell you is that we are not ruling out even within us, they may still try to get other people but those who pay other people to destabilize other parties should know that we are grounded and we know this business and it is very difficult to take us in the battle.

Are you aware of the resignation of your party’s North-West zonal women leader over exclusion from appointments so far made by the Kano State governor?

Some people have accused you of not being able to stay in one political party; that you moved from Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), APC, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and that you will not be in NNPP in 2027 with the way things are going?

Where I made my name was at the 1987 Constituent Assembly when men were men, not this charlatan and bread and butter politicians. That was when the soul of Nigeria was called to question and we were the gladiators. I was very young among men of substance, experience and knowledge yet I stood out. I am not praising myself. The 1987 Constituent Assembly that promulgated what they called the Peoples Constitution for Nigeria led to the convening of the Constitutional Conference by General Sani Abacha, and the 2014 National Conference convoked by President Goodluck Jonathan, and I have been a principal actor, not a bench warmer.

So, I thank God that I am satisfied with the honour and integrity I have carried since then. You know that I will never take nonsense from any human being even when life was sweet for me. Now, what am I afraid of? I can only do what I think is right. It may not be right but once I’m convinced that what I am doing is correct, I will go ahead and damn the consequences. I have never jumped ship in politics from one party to the other; it is one thing leading to the other. If you are merging with the other parties, you change the name.

The party we formed was the CPC; I wrote the constitution and the manifesto because ANPP was not working to produce the president of Nigeria. They were working for the PDP, so we felt that we could not stomach that. The world should know that Buhari didn’t form CPC. We formed the CPC and for six months, we were trying to convince him to leave the ANPP and join the CPC. He refused to do that until we went and got a statesman, whom Buhari was a beneficiary of his largesse.

We went and persuaded him because he bought the first car for Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and Shehu Yar’Adua, to talk to Buhari before he accepted to join CPC. When we left CPC to form APC, it wasn’t because I jumped ship, it was because we thought that the best way to get PDP out of power was to congregate and we did that successfully. And when the going was going and APC wanted to deviate, we said no and we left to have an alliance with the PDP and support the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. And I want to tell you that I can swear by the Quran that Atiku won the 2019 presidential election.

The lesson from all those things that happened in the past was what just happened in Senegal. Politicians should start to use their heads. Whenever anybody says if this thing doesn’t happen, it is over my dead body, God will make him die so that the thing will happen. When Bassirou Diomaye Faye, under pressure from the European Union was released because he was not charged and he was named the presidential candidate, in one week he became the president of Senegal.

Seven of them went to meet Buhari on the day the final list of the caretaker committee of APC was to be formed and Buhari gave him a blanket paper to go and fill names and this was why Senator Sani Mustapha fought Buhari when General Buba Marwa told Buhari that Sani Mustapha was making life difficult and he doesn’t want to put their names.

Buhari failed not because he had no idea of what to do, he failed because he removed the umbilical cord. We were in the trenches with him for 15 years and we sacrificed everything in life and he thinks he can betray us and God will allow him succeed. If he is a proper Muslim, let any of the Islamic clerics tell him that if you go for jihad and you receive the booties of the war, you share it with those who went to jihad.

When we came with the booties by defeating PDP, he took our reward and gave it to some people like the ones I mentioned and he thought God would leave him. Buhari has not seen anything. So, what I’m telling you is that I have never jumped ship from one party to the other, we are always transiting.

What is your thought on APC today with President Bola Tinubu; is it different from when President Buhari was there?

Let me tell you something; you Nigerians don’t understand, Tinubu has not promised Nigerians anything. He didn’t participate in any public debate to make a promise that he was going to do this or that for you. It never occurred to you that he was too smart not to engage in public debate.

If someone is afraid to tell you that we can reach a covenant with him, why would you vote for him because you are giving him a blanket cheque? We were the only people who campaigned on issues, the only people who have got a manifesto written and we are the only people who are now following that manifesto religiously.

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