I’m not intimidated by Buhari, Atiku, others – Nda-Isaiah - TopicsExpress

I’m not intimidated by Buhari, Atiku, others – Nda-Isaiah The All Progressives Congress, APC, may be parading well-heeled poli­ticians as presidential aspirants in General Mohammadu Buhari, former Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, but Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah believes that he has a good chance to clinch the party’s ticket. In this interview, the chairman of Leadership Newspapers outlines his plans for the country if elected. He said the nation is lying on its belly and needs to be revived through exceptional ideas and vision which he said the govern­ment of President Goodluck Jonathan lack. Q: You’ve gone round the country in the cause of your campaign for your party’s presidential ticket; from what you saw on ground, are you encouraged? Sam: I am very encouraged. But I am also aware of what it takes. I have even gone beyond the campaign. Everybody has his strategy. The country has been grounded to a halt. So, it has affected everything. I am encouraged by what we have heard on the field and in so many places. People were very excited that I am in this race. Yes, I am going to continue and I will do whatever it takes to win, starting from the primaries. Q: When you say everything, what exactly do you mean? Sam: I mean everything. We will speak to the del­egates and do everything. I cannot begin to tell you about our strategy. I am sure I do not have the kind of money that every other aspirant has. I do not believe that buying up people is the way to win. So many people have paid so much money just to win. Q: Is it about the money or the realities on ground? Sam: There are primaries yet to be conducted from the ward level to the centre. Even recently, you know that those who spent heavy money, their candidates did not win. I do not want to call names. What is happening now is good. There was a particular state we visited and we spoke to the delegates; they gave us their word that they will support me. They only asked us for one thing: that we should al­low them to take money from other aspirants. If they even give me the money, I will take. Money is not everything. I can understand the concerns of people wanting to buy up votes. But those delegates are Nigerians. Many of them know that they do not have to vote based on money. It is even better now that it is secret balloting. If for instance, three aspirants give you money to vote for them, at the end of the day, you will only have to chose one person. It is not for the highest bidder. Q: There are claims that APC is working on nominating its candidate through consen­sus. Are you disposed to that option? Sam: Our constitution made it very clear. Consen­sus means common consent among aspirants. It means if there are four aspirants, all the four have sat down and have agreed that it should be by consensus. Consensus cannot be imposed on anyone. The way I know that con­sensus is done, you have to look at the candi­date that is most likely to win, using contem­porary realities on ground. In this country, we understand the issues that are on ground. We know the issues President Jonathan intends to campaign with. We know the sentiments he wants to recklessly whip up. If we do not address them, we are not going to win. The way to win is to know what your opponent is planning and then counter it. The way to go about consensus is to look at the four aspirants and then consider who among them can beat Jonathan. If they do that, maybe consensus will be possible. But the way I see it now, the way supporters of some aspirants are behaving , I do not see that happening. Instead of the party to be striving hard to have a consensus candidate, they should focus on having a free, fair and transparent primary. When that happens, it will be clear to everybody who has won. For instance, everybody thinks he can. I am sure the four of us all think we can win. I intend to win based on my strategy. If I do not believe that I can win, I will not be wasting my time campaigning. I have a good job I was doing before joining the race. What we do is to focus on free and fair primaries. Q: In a situation where the free and fair primaries you are advocating for do not happen, what will you do? Sam: It will happen. Nobody owns the party. This is not ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) or CPC (Congress of Progressive Change) where one person can just be in charge. We have all agreed that we are going to have a free and fair primaries. So, do not ask me what I will do. Q: But you know that some aggrieved members who left the party anchored their reasons on the fact that Buhari and Tinubu have hijacked the party… Sam: Who are these people? Did Tom Ikimi contest? He did not present himself as a candidate. The person who is now the national vice chairman of the party in the North-East won even though many people from that area told him to step down. Some governors asked him to step down and he refused. He campaigned round and won. I am one of those who campaigned for him. So, it is not true. If Ikimi wanted to contest, he would have done so. That is the question I expect my colleagues from the media to be asking. He was never a candidate. How could he have been rigged out of the party? Buhari and Tinubu are party leaders. During our meetings, you need to see how people stand up and oppose them. They just wait for the opportunity for them to speak so that they can oppose them. They have lost out in many arguments. Q: Do you believe that APC has what it really takes to unseat Jonathan even with claims that the exit of some of its chieftains has weakened it? Sam: Some people have left and many others have joined the APC. Many governors came into the APC. How many governors have defected to the PDP? Even when we were in Rivers State, we received many commission­ers and former PDP big weights. More critical people have come into the APC than the PDP. At least five governors left the PDP for APC. How many governors have left the APC for the PDP? In this country today, after the presi­dent, you come to the governors in terms of who has the political power and relevance. Q: What do you make of claims by some that APC presidential aspirants are focus­ing more on attacking Jonathan than ad­dressing issues concerning their ambition ? Sam: I think you should be asking me about myself. All I have been doing is telling people what I will do. The first thing I will do when I become president is to be a government of big ideas that will change everything. I cannot speak for everyone. But why shouldn’t we criticise the presi­dent? It is over 200 days since the Chibok schoolgirls were kidnapped. Last week, another 50 set of women were kidnapped in that part of the country. We should just keep quiet? We are not even criticising the President enough. The country has been grounded. Q: Would you entirely blame the situation of the country on the President? Sam: So, we should blame it on the people? We have a president who was elected to govern and provide leadership, security and order. He has not achieved any. That is his job. The job to give order and direction to the country is your responsibility or mine? It is that of the president. The first job of any president is to provide security. If you do not achieve that, you have no business continuing in office. Q: You have always been speaking out against this government and previous gov­ernments. Has there been anytime you were threatened as a result of your stance? Sam: Apart from economic wars, there has not been any direct threats. Like Leadership Newspapers, you are aware we have the repu­tation of having been taken to court by three presidents. I have passed that stage. The way I write, I bring out facts and logic. It is very hard to fault. You might not like me, but you cannot fault my claims. By the way, the things I write or say about the president are not personal. At a certain level, the president himself will see that I am right. When there is a job to do, there is no sentiment. I have never had any sentiment. I do not have anything against Jonathan on a personal level. I even think he is more decent that his predecessors. Everybody is stealing and the president is not doing anything about it. When the former CBN governor complained, his (President Jonathan) brilliant idea was to suspend him. The country is broke now because of corrup­tion. Ask any PDP governor and tell them you will not publish whatever they tell you they will open up. The PDP governors are not being paid their dues and they are very angry. When oil was selling for $50, it was considered a windfall. Now, it sells for more than $100 and there is no money to pay states their dues. The Customs Service alone has raked in about N1 trillion in one year. Q: Among all the aspirants, do you consider yourself the best? Sam: I think I am the only one who has a clear programme. I am not saying others do not have their own programme. We need to hear it, then we can compare. I am waiting to hear their plans. Q: Do you think you can reengineer things to work well in this country since you said everything has been grounded? Sam: Let me tell you, Nigeria is a blessed country. There are only few countries that have what we have here. We have all kinds of natural resources. The most important of this is the human resource. If I am talking about big ideas, there is no way I will be able to achieve anything if there is corruption. There will be no corruption in my government. You know why? Nobody will steal. If you steal and you are caught, we have enough laws in this country to deal with you. I am going to person­ally supervise these things. It is not difficult to tackle corruption. Even the oil we are produc­ing, we can produce the double of what we are producing now. Apart from the stealing that is going on in government, there is stealing of our crude oil itself. Are you telling me that we do not have the capacity to stop the thieves? If we do not have the capacity, them we are not a country. Aside that, we need to explore all our oil quickly. In the next ten years, oil will not have this kind of critical importance it has now. We need to quickly explore it in all the six geopolitical zones. What agriculture can achieve for us is big. Government must be directly interested in agriculture. There are many countries that subsidise agriculture ev­eryday. The United States of America subsides agriculture with $1 billion everyday. It’s more in many European countries. There are ways to do this. If you really want to do it, you will do it. I laugh when people talk about having experience on the job. Q: People are equally making that argument that you do not have any political experience and therefore unfit to lead the country. Sam: Are you telling me that my critics want us to go back to the experience of the past? Do you want the experience of the past that has brought us to this level? Is that the kind of experience that they want? What wonder­ful experience have we had in this country that anybody will now begin to tell me about experience? Is it because they have worked in governments that are very corrupt? The world has changed, nobody has any experience of the future. We all have an experience of the past. What you need to change the country is vision. Some of the greatest presidents in this world have their first jobs as presidents. Nelson Mandela’s first job was as president of South Africa. He was even in prison and did not know what was happening in the world. Tony Blair said his first job was when he became prime minister. David Cameron’s first job was as prime minister. So, what is this thing about experience? Those talking about experience would have to look at their records. What we need is a leader with vision. That is what I am providing. In this country, we need a paradigm shift. We cannot use the experience of the past to move forward. See where past experiences have brought us. We need a new shift and new ideas to move this country forward. Q: Were you alarmed when you heard that President Goodluck Jonathan had been endorsed as sole candidate of his party? Sam: I was not alarmed at all. He will have to run on his own records. We will force him to run on his records. Nigerians are not fools. When the time comes, we will see. We are very ex­cited that Jonathan is running. Jonathan is a divisive figure as a person. He has divided this country by his actions and by some of his speeches. We have had corruption in this country before, but Jonathan has taken it to a new level. Why should we not be happy that a guy who came in and criminals started all manner of evils is running? Kidnappers have even touched one of his uncles. Jonathan is not a strong candidate. There are people in PDP that are stronger candidates than Jona­than. I am sure Jonathan and his camp are watching and praying for a particular candi­date to emerge from our camp. They have their calculations. Q: But PDP is insisting that the APC does not have a candidate that can match Jonathan… Sam: Because he has done so well? He is a joker. Q: The presidency controls all the in­stitutions of government that con­duct elections and it is almost impos­sible to defeat a sitting president. How does APC intend to overcome this obstacle? Sam: I agree with you that it has not happened in Nigeria before. I can tell you clearly that if I get the ticket, it will happen. It has never hap­pened before because those doing it did not have a clear strategy on how to achieve it. For a president that is this unpopular and has de­graded the country in so many ways, I do not think it is hard to defeat him. If you have your plans, you will defeat him easily. Has the op­position not beaten sitting governors in Ni­geria before? Rochas (Governor Okorocha) defeated a sitting governor. The same thing happened in the South-West. It has happened. It is just to do it at that scale. Anything you can achieve in the village, you can achieve at the centre if you apply the same principles on a bigger scale. That is not an issue. Our issue is to get the right candidate. I agree with you that it is hard. I do not agree that any candi­date in APC cannot defeat Jonathan. Jona­than has not achieved anything. What he has done now is to divide the country. If you hear how some people in­tend to vote, you will be surprised. Jonathan can be defeated easily with a landslide. It is also possible not to defeat him if we do not field the right person. Beyond these reasons you have given, what other factors do you think can work against APC going into 2015 elections? If we begin to fight ourselves, it will affect our chances. It is not just APC. Any party that fights itself will have issues. That is key. Q: What has the campaign for the top office taken from you? Sam: The main election has not even taken place and it has taken a lot from me. We are just inching towards it. It’s quite exhausting. It has taken a lot. But I entered into it with clear eyes. So, I am not complaining. Culled - sunnewsonline[dot]com

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