Senate not retirement ground for ex-governors - Senator Kuta Senator Dahiru Awaisu Kuta represents Niger East senatorial district and chairs the Senate committee on federal character and inter-government affairs. In this interview the lawmaker says the upper legislative chamber is not a retirement place for former governors and insists that President Goodluck Jonathan cannot be stopped from re-contesting in 2015. Excerpts: Your governor, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu is one of the seven rebel governors who have joined the nPDP but you have chosen to remain in the mainstream PDP, what informed your decision not to go with him? I have been in politics for the past 33 years. I am a founding member of the PDP, I was with G-34 and the first deputy director of administration of the party here in Abuja and I set up the first national secretariat of the PDP in Abuja before they finally moved to Wadata plaza. You can see that right from the beginning I am a founding member of the PDP, most senior staff in the secretariat of the PDP know me. Is the person who brought the PDP to Niger State, I think it will be awful for me to be outside the main stream of the party. Secondly, I am a self-made man, I have never had a godfather, I don’t have a mentor. I take my own decisions the way I see them. I don’t take decisions because others have taken. I am with the main stream PDP because we brought it up, we suffered humiliation from the military and even before I came to the Senate I was in detention for more than five weeks in this struggle. I don’t think there’s anything that will make me revolt against the main stream PDP. Nobody will ever make me to leave the PDP. Nobody can do that. But don’t you think that doing so will put your political future in jeopardy considering the fact that governors have always had strong grip on the political structure in their states? I am grassroots man and I still want to say that I have been in politics between 33 to 35 years and I am one of the few senior politicians in Niger State, nobody brought me to PDP. I have strong support of people of my constituency, I am confident of the type of relationship that I have established between me and the people who elected me, so apart from God I don’t fear anybody in politics. But do you think the rebel governors have a genuine course to leave the party? I don’t want to say much about that because I have a lot of respect for one or two of them such as Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State who suffered incarceration at the formative stage of the PDP, he has been a close associate of mine, and has been interested in my progress in politics that is why I always reserve my words whenever I want to talk about this group. I know Sule Lamido has a lot of concern for his people and this country. He is one of those few governors that has really performed so he might have a reason. Where I have a misgiving is that this is democracy and once anybody is qualified to contest elections nobody has the right to tell him not to contest. Apart from that I think some members of this group are self-seekers but I respect Sule Lamido because I know he means well but some of them are self-seekers in this their struggle. So I want to say that what has happened so far is actually something that will not augur well for this country, it’s something that those so-called rebels should sit and reconsider. Some of these so-called rebel governors have their own reasons for doing what they are doing but I still want to say that if President Jonathan has met all the requirements to contest election he has the right to contest election in 2015. There is no democracy anywhere. no gang up anywhere that can prevent Jonathan from contesting in 2015 because he is a Nigerian and as a free citizen of this country he is qualified to contest. If he is disqualified by INEC that is a different thing, but no human being can stop anybody from contesting election once we are in a democracy. So it think they got it wrong because there is nowhere in a democracy where some people will just gang up and say you should not contest, that is not democracy again. I feel that they should look at it again. Democracy is freedom of choice so they should all go to the polls. If Nigerians feel that Jonathan is not suitable they can vote him out and vote in another person to replace him. But now it’s undemocratic to prevent anybody from contesting election in a democracy. The Senate is seen as a stabilizing institution in Nigeria, but there is this trend where governors who go to the Senate have served out their tenure, are you not concerned about it? The Senate is not like that, once you are in the Senate you don’t bring the office of the governor into the Senate, you come into the Senate as an ordinary senator like any other person. That you have been a governor for two terms does not mean that you can’t be vibrant even after retirement. If you are talking about governors who are just below 50 years they still have a lot to offer in the legislative arm, there is nothing wrong with that. There are some of us who are already 65 years old we are still here in the Senate. But you can’t stop those who are just coming in and they have age on their side. Senate is not a retiring ground, Senate is for vibrancy, for robust discussions and anybody you see in the Senate is somebody who has qualified to be there but I think one of the fears is that some outgoing governors are in the habit of imposing themselves because of the types of resources they have, but I think people are becoming more and more politically aware and there is a point money cannot reach in this country. You can have all the money in this world and you will still not make it. And the moment you are in the Senate you don’t bring governorship into the Senate, it won’t work at all because the Senate president was once a governor, a minister who has seen it all in this world and no former governor can intimidate the Senate President. So when they come in we just see them as ordinary Senators, it’s like secondary school we have class one to six and when you come, you start from class one, we don’t regard any former governor as former governor but a junior senator who also has to come of age, so it is not a retiring ground at all.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 21:11:25 +0000
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