The Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Party in the 2023 election, Mr. Dumebi Kachikwu, is unhappy that politicians who have had numerous opportunities to serve Nigeria but failed, have now connived to hijack the party from the genuine members, who sacrificed over the years to nurture the party to where it is today, to actualise their political ambition in 2027.
But he has promised to resist them and run again as the presidential candidate of the ADC in the 2027 poll. In this interview, he tells Atiku and other aspirants who are eyeing the ADC as the platform for actualizing their ambition, to keep off and look elsewhere as the party has no space for them in 2027.
Kachikwu particularly warns Atiku to go and rest as there is no room for him to use the ADC ticket to run as president having tried and failed to use his positions to salvage Nigerians from pains and penury over the years. Excerpts:
Many presidential aspirants from the south, including yourself, want to contest against the incumbent, Bola Tinubu in 2027. Don’t you think this can ruin the chance of the South to produce the president in the next election?
I believe it is the right of anyone who wants to contest to do so, including Atiku Abubakar. All I am saying is that for the sake of equity and fairness in the type of political system we run in Nigeria, Atiku should allow the South to also produce a president in 2027 as we did when it was the turn of the North to do so without trying to disrupt the system. We have a Southern President and if anyone wants to run against him, it should be Southerners who will run against him in 2027. That is the point I am making.
But from your experience, what do you think is responsible for lack of progress and good governance in Nigeria since independence till now?
It’s very simple. I believe that the British people left us with a banana peel. They didn’t give us a country. They gave us what you will call a geographical expression. They, ab initio, divided us. They gave us a country with a geographical expression of tribe, tongue, religion and region. And as such, from inception, we continue to see ourselves from a regional perspective, or from a religious perspective, or from a tribal perspective. So we have never seen ourselves as a nation. And this is the biggest problem we have in Nigeria. What must we do? We need to come together on a table and come up with a new charter that defines who we are as a people under the green, white, green of our flag. Who are we? What binds us together? What do we stand for?
What’s the characteristic of this new nation? What are the do’s and don’ts? What are the things that ultimately hold us, that we will say this is an essential for our people? We need to define this ethos that will ultimately hold this new nation together. Until we do this, we’ll continue with the experimentation that has gone on for decades. If I were to be president, seeing I have met this situation, I keep on saying that the job of a president, first and foremost, is to build national cohesion. If I were president Tinubu, knowing that the election that brought him in was one of the most divisive elections we ever had in the history of this nation, seeing the role tribe, tongue and religion played in that election, I would have pursued national cohesion first and foremost. I would have tried to heal the people. I would have tried to erase the doubts of many, no matter how difficult it is. I would have tried to let everyone feel that they are a component part of this nation, this country called Nigeria. That he has failed to do.
So if you become the president, how will you tackle that problem?
First and foremost, I will address all inequities, all inequalities, all injustice in the fabric of our nation. I will address it squarely. There’s nobody who is above the law or above our country. In addressing that, I will then bring representatives of the people to a round table, where we then ultimately take on the difficult issues that have been bedeviling our nation for the last couple of decades. As long as we run away from the difficult conversations, they will continue to mitigate against us as a people. So we must face these issues squarely, talk about them and come to a resolution concerning all these issues. Once we discuss these things, we’ll find that we can move forward because everybody ultimately knows that these issues have been discussed, addressed and that we are now seeking healing.
For example, you saw the late President Buhari came in and appointed his kith and kin into all available positions in Nigeria. President Tinubu came and did the same thing. So each time a president comes, it’s about his people. Until we address why this happens and what we can do about it and why it is morally wrong, and why it should not stand in a nation where we are all the same, we will continue to face this problem. The President that comes after Tinubu will do the same thing because he will say, Buhari did it, Tinubu did it, why wouldn’t I do it for my people? So we must address these issues squarely.
Will you not then become a very unpopular president if you fail to cater for your own people simply because you want to be seen as a nationalist who operates on the basis of meritocracy?
I think you’re wrong. I believe that when you take care of everybody, you take care of your people. The mistake we keep on making is taking care of our people and leaving everybody. But when we take care of everybody, our people are part of everybody and they will be taken care of. So you deal with the issue of unpopularity. Once you do the right thing for all categories of Nigerians-both rich and poor- everybody will feel it. If you go after a nation that works for everybody, we are part of that word everybody and everybody will be taken care of. We must start looking at everybody as against what we do now when we appear as if we are a nation for the few privileged persons.
Energy is the fulcrum of national development of any country. It is believed the removal of fuel subsidy by the president upon resumption of office is the main cause of inflation and high cost of living in Nigeria. How will you handle the issue of fuel subsidy if you become Nigeria’s president?
I believe that any oil-producing nation should be providing fuel subsidies to her citizens. I don’t think it’s right that poor Nigerians are paying the price of our inefficiencies or our inability to manage a subsidy system. I believe that just a few Nigerians have abused the subsidy scheme and that the right thing to do is to go after those people, prosecute them to the full extent of the law and bring sanity into the system. That’s what we ought to have done. But when I say this, I want to juxtapose this against the situation President Tinubu met on ground. He didn’t remove the fuel subsidy. We must be careful about saying that the President removed fuel subsidies on the day of inauguration. Late President Muhammadu Buhari removed fuel subsidy. He didn’t provide for it in the budget. And President Tinubu came in, saw that there was no provision for fuel subsidy and merely made the announcement. A lot of people rightfully or wrongfully believe that he was the one that removed subsidies. No, President Buhari didn’t provide the subsidy. So President Tinubu believes that doing away with subsidy or not continuing with what late President Buhari had done is the best way to mitigate against some of the disasters he met when he came in.
You played a very strategic role in the performance of ADC in the last election and stood for the party despite the challenges that nearly engulfed it. But it appears you left the party and went to sleep shortly after the presidential election, thereby leaving it for others to take over. What really happened?
I think you are wrong in your assessment. First of all, I believe I am one of the few presidential candidates who continue to speak, who is very vocal about national issues. So I’m not going to sleep like a lot of people after elections. Number two, I believe that within our party, we’ve been in court since post-elections and that court process has joined our party together. We continue to discuss, we continue to meet about the court process. And we went all the way to the Supreme Court that has been going on for the last two years. So having these divisions within the party, we were waiting for the highest court of the law to eventually decide the matter so that our party will once and for all rest over these issues.
With the takeover of the ADC structures from your control by many powerful politicians from other parties, and having lost your grip on the party, are you not afraid that this poses a major challenge to your presidential ambition in 2027?
I have no fears of them usurping or affecting my chances within the party. I believe that ultimately, sanity will prevail, justice will prevail in my party. I believe that these people will find that my party is not the kind of dirty platform that is suitable for their brand of politics. And I believe that, as we can see already, they are finding their way out and they are looking for alternative parties like the ADA that they are trying to register to use. I don’t believe that my party will be a vehicle for them. At the same time, I don’t believe that the party belongs to just me as a presidential aspirant or candidate. I believe that we are open to other people coming to contest in the party. I believe in the vibrancy of party primaries and let the best person win. And whoever wins at that time, I will support the person. All I keep on championing for, is that we must do things the right way.
The new entrants led by David Mark pleaded with Nigerians a few days ago that they should give ADC a chance to prove that they mean well for Nigeria. If the goal that you have is to passionately transform Nigeria and provide better leadership, why won’t you team up with them to actualise that goal?
They have been tried, tested and found wanting. They have nothing to offer and they are no better than President Tinubu. In fact, I believe that President Tinubu is actually smarter than most of those people who are parading themselves as saviours of Nigeria. They have nothing to offer. If they had something to offer, 85 to 90% of them are people who have held offices at different levels across Nigeria. They are former vice presidents, former governors, former ministers, former this, former that. They are a crowd of formers and let’s leave them in their position. We need a new direction. We need a new lease of life in Nigeria. We need bold, fresh ideas. And we cannot ask the people who have destroyed our country to be the people who should come and save our country. We are immersed in what we call the Stockholm Syndrome, people who have an affinity for those who are abusing them, those who have held them in captivity.
Credit: Vanguard
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