Mallam Sule Yau Sule is the media aide of former Kano State governor and the presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in the last general elections, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau. In this interview with ABDULAZIZ ABDULAZIZ, Sule bares his minds on the political situation in the state. Excerpts:
Your boss, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, held sway as the Kano State governor for eight years but suddenly his party, the ANPP lost the state before his eyes. How did it feel?
Well, I do not believe in this saying that the ANPP lost in Kano but I do not want gto go into details of it because it would be pre-judicial. We all know that PDP did not really win election in Kano. However, as it is now, PDP is let us go with the present circumstance where we found ourselves that for the mean time PDP is declared as the winner. We know what happened underneath; we know what happened behind the scene.
Thank God the trial is going on and we are waiting to see the result from the tribunal.
God has given them this chance. Whatever they must have done for them to be in power, if God did not allow them, they wouldn’t have gotten to where they are. Probably God wants to teach us a lesson because most of us know that PDP really win election in Kano.
They did what they did for them to win. The impression we had was that he was a very fair electoral body being headed by someone that we so much trust, that is why we folded our arms. We never thought anything funny will come up in this election. They took advantage of that and did what they did but we are waiting for the tribunal to finish their deliberations.
There was this popularly held belief that the last gubernatorial election in Kano State was somehow contested between, and Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. To what extent is this true?
I cannot believe in that outrightly because the election was not contested between Malam Ibrahim Shekarau and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. No. It was rather contested between Salihu Sagir Takai and Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso. It’s true, people cannot remove Malam Shekarau from ANPP for his roles in the party. He championed the party and led it to success twice as governor of the state and also became the presidential candidate of the party that really gave him an age over anybody in the party. He became more like a leader by the virtue of the position he held.
So, in disguise, some people may be ascribing whatever contest his own party has stand for, to him but in real sense, the contest in Kano was only between Takai and Kwankwaso.
How did it feel like when trusted allies of your boss betrayed him in the last hour of his administration especially as the elections were approaching?
Well, this does happen if you read the history of politics all over the world. It’s one unfortunate thing about politics. When administrations are coming towards an end, there are people who always want to remain in government, people who always want to be part of the existing government. If they suspect that the person may not come back, they will always look for the next person coming and identify with him.
That is why a lot of people say we don’t have politics of principle and people are only in politics for what they can get not really for what they believe in. This is most unfortunate and is not only peculiar to Kano, it entire nation that suffers from this kind of thing. If you go to other states, you will hear similar stories especially for those governors whose tenure terminated.