Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, President of the African Business Roundtable and Chairman of NEPAD is currently vying for the position of national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). He was Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority and governor of the old Gongola State.? In this chat with FRANCIS AGBO and CHIBUZO UKAIBE, Tukur relishes his chances in the chairmanship race.?
The party, you helped to found has been in power since 1999. Nigerians have negative impression of the party. What plan do you have to improve the image of the party?
Honestly, this is the reason I said I can no longer sit down and watch. Let us be fair, if you see something going wrong are you going to sit down and say let the problem sort itself? Or will you be a part of the solution? The truth of the matter is Nigerians don’t really want our party, PDP now; our party is on a nose dive. If we do not halt it and move it back to the right track, I can assure you in the next 5 years or so there will be no PDP and I will be sorry for you people and for myself. The philosophy of the party is for the good of you and me. If you have a baby that is crying and you don’t want to give it milk, it will die. But so far, all we see is palliative measures to entrench the party. The PDP was taken over by people who believe in the euphoria that forever PDP will win. But that is a lie. PDP are not going to win or rule Nigeria any longer unless we change. I can tell you how we formed PDP, We went to the villages; I went to the typical village and asked a fellow, we want to form a party, and I said what is your biggest problem here? And he said my biggest problem here is that I need good road so that I will carry my yam to the market. We need vans to come, but van could not come. Others said I wake up about 4 or 5 every day to go and fetch water. If only we can get borehole we will be very happy. Others said their children and wards can’t go to school even though we have heard that government gives free education, my child is 4 years old and cannot walk about 4 or five miles to school. If only we can get schools nearby for our children. So these formed part of our manifesto. And we promised to provide critical infrastructure for the people. But we have not kept our promise!
Now when you abandon these, then it affects the popularity of the party. The party is to blame because it behoves the party to ensure that those elected on the platform of PDP implement the policies and programme of the party. It is the party that should ask the governor and the chairman of the local government; have you delivered what you promised the people because we gave you the ticket. The ticket is a licence that the party gave you. The party leadership should say I want to see in your budget for the local government the projects for the road and we have to see it done. If you do that then you get the applause and nod of the people. After one year, when you come around to campaign, you will have a resounding reception, because all the things you promised them have been met. But when you go and sit down in the office and things do not work well, you want them to elect you; they will not do it. Except you go and bring somebody else and write false results and come to the party headquarters and say he won. It is possible for us to allow our people to build that consensus through education; by them expressing their likes and dislikes. It cannot be done in one day, or a year not even five years or six years but down the road, it will be done. And the direction will be clear for people to see and follow. The time to show that direction is now because if it is not done now, how can we make progress? I can tell you, I have no iota of doubt that our great party, PDP is going to die if we don’t do something about it.
?
How do you intend to ensure there is internal democracy in the PDP?
Let me tell you if I have covenant with you, you are supposed to respect what we agreed? You have to respect what we agreed because after all before you went for election you saw what was there. Let me start with the ward. If you say you want to be to chairman of your ward it is the people in that ward that will elect you. So, why should they elect you? What covenant did you agree with them? As for me, I want to see it spelt out clearly, that as chairman of the ward your job is to see that your ward is happy. You have no reason to be bothered about the local government. No, bother about your ward. The ones for local government and governorship will bother about their constituencies. Same applies for the state and national legislators. If you are a senator you must tell me, what did you agree to do, what is your concept for the people. You want to be senator of Nigeria, to make laws. That is your job. You have to know what is lacking so that you can know how to tackle the deficiency. You have to tell them. As a governor, state or national assembly member, ward or local government chairman, tell the people what you want to do when you are going for campaign. I will tell you what I will do when I become chairman. When I was a governor I told them. I did not just go to Gongola, I prepared a blueprint, and somebody told me recently that somebody stole my blue print. I prepared my blueprint and I told my people never to go to Lagos again to look for contracts. Then Lagos was the headquarters. Yola is our headquarters. Bamanga was the governor, the buck stopped with me. If you wanted to abuse me tell me, my house was open. I would tell you come to my house and I would meet people there, we would sit there and talk. I told them what I would do and I distributed the work for all of them. Gongola would have had much more today if they allowed us to go ahead with what we planned for the people but for that unthinkable and unnecessary coup that Buhari and his colleagues did. That coup put our country back by 30 years. They did nothing. There was no reason for that. So these are the kind of things the media should analyse. Where it is wrong say it is wrong, where it is right say it. Where there is grey area say so and we will correct it. Today, people will come and say all sorts of things and people will keep quiet. One thing about us is that we don’t want to offend people even though we know they are not right. Yes it is not good to offend but also it is wrong to perpetuate wrong things when you see it happening.
?
How do you intend to enshrine party supremacy?
By accepting what you say you will do. It is not imposition. It is just like a contract, offer, consideration and acceptance. The contract is binding.
?
So all the candidates will sign that contract?
That is what the party wanted to do before. Our party wanted to do that. It is there now in our constitution. The PDP constitution says party is supreme. It is not about exercising power. If there is doctrine of separation of power in our constitution, between the executive, legislature and judiciary, why don’t we respect it?
?
If you look at the way the party is in the state, it seems to be in the pocket of the governors, what will you do to make the party supreme.
I am one of the founders of PDP. I want to make sure we implement our party constitution. So if they take me, I will implement the party constitution to the letter. I am going to work genuinely to implement the constitution for the good of the people, for the good of the president, governor and legislators. If we follow the constitution, everybody will be so happy, because we don’t have to fight or go to court every time, whether we win or not.
?
Do you intend to put up a committee that will be monitoring the local governments and states?
All the time our party should be working. At the moment they are not working. I don’t know what is happening. When elections are finished everybody just comes down to Abuja. We should sit down and have meetings. I am a member of the PDP but they don’t even call me for meetings or discussions.
?
You said if the PDP is not reformed, it will die but what we heard from present and previous chairmen is that the party would rule forever?
The PDP is sick. The party is dying now. PDP needs some body like who knows the nature of the sickness as well as the prescriptions to make to cure the ailment. Why did we not rule the West? Do you know why? The people are highly educated. That is the reason why we lost there. The people there are politically savvy.
?
Two chairmen of the party stepped on banana peel and fell. If you win, how are you going to go into that office and leave without controversy?
All the offices that I have held, God helping, I left of my own accord. Go and find out. In the civil service, people found it hard to believe that I would leave as Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, especially when people were looking for it and the president wanted me to stay. Even when Abacha appointed us ministers, we are the ones who agreed to leave. Let me tell you, if banana peel is on the seat let the banana peel be there, because if the banana peel is there, I will tell them I don’t want again. If I see the banana peel, I will tell them I don’t want the position. I am not interested in material things. My pedigree speaks for me. I am the only African today who is not president of a country that has addressed the general assembly of the whole world at the UN. I went and addressed the general assembly, representing the black private sector. This is the first time the world will give a black person that opportunity. I have done same things in AU and ECOWAS. I have met all the heads of state in government. Today I can call former president of France Jacques Chirac, former Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair, former President Bill Clinton, and they will relate with me very well. Tell me, what do I want again? So, for me I just want to pay back to the society and that is why I want to be chairman. If you want me to pay back I will pay back, I am not afraid of you saying you don’t want me. Nobody called me for this race. If the people believe they want me, you cannot drive me away.
?
What qualities make you different from others gunning for the same post with you?
Competition is good let them come and compete, let them show their credentials; what they have done. I like to confront those that say they want to be PDP chairman. What have they done to correct the dwindling fortunes of the party? Tell me, can any of them call General Yakubu Gowon, or call Adamu Ciroma or Bello Kirfi or call former president, Shehu Shagari, or sit down with the board of trustees chairman or the heavy weights in the party and talk. But Bamanga himself is a heavy weight who has seen it all and is ready to bring his wealth of experience to the table! My opponents know that I am the best candidate but instead of opening accepting that, they trivialise the contest by always referring to my age. They said I am old man but I am not going for wrestling, I am not going for boxing. I am going to sit in the office and give the leadership with intellectual maturity. So let people be fair about issues. The media should ask the opponents questions. Can you do the things that Bamanaga Tukur can do? What are your track records? Bamanga Tukur has been a civil servant; he built our ports which the country needed badly. He took politics to government of the biggest state, convinced his people they left the opposition GNPP to joined NPN. So why can’t we be truthful. Only the media can tell them. I want them to be asked these questions so that we don’t waste time. We are in dire need of every effort to build our country. We have so many problems and you want to add more problems again by coming to compete, so that they can put your name so that you can be asking people to give you money.
I don’t ask people to give me money. All I want is to make sure party leadership and faithful understand democracy needs a strong platform that is fair and square. You need to make sure that you allow people to express their own wishes and feelings in the party that they are. Let the people decide don’t impose anybody else. People who want to go there don’t understand the substance of power. They want power but they don’t understand what the substance of power is. Power does not mean that you go and impose people and deprive people of their income, no. you have to understand the substance of power. Power is to be used in a way that will make the lives of people better. You ask for their mandate and then you use the best opportunity and combination, knowing the ratio. To know the ratio, understand and create the balance, bring consensus so that everybody can feel a sense of belonging, motivate them to understand. But some people just want power just like that. People have to understand that we did not form PDP only for Nigeria. The concept behind the PDP is that it will be the voice of the black man. We looked at South Africa. What we want is like the ANC, we agreed to make it PDP. The basis of the party is to give everybody voice because democracy is the aggregate wish of the majority. That is the reason why PDP won hands down in the first instance and then later we started going down. I will work closely with other party men and structures to resuscitate the party. Nobody will build a house and will want to see it fall or be destroyed. So believe me chairman of the PDP to me as person does not confer any advantage, either of name or of wealth. Mine is to ensure that legacy lives.
?
As chairman of the African Round table, how has it been steering the ship of that summit?
I held a summit recently in New York. When you see our website, people were standing outside. Businessmen of repute all over the world came for the summit. Our president and foreign minister were there. And we will continue to do it because it is the right thing to do. We are telling them that if the private sector will deliver at the moment, what we will do is to condition our state actors to believe that just because you are minister of commerce or culture does not make you farmer or trader. The ministers should be able to make traders and farmers intricate members of their programmes then you will be a better minister because it is the same farmers and traders you will use to deliver. The driving force of the economy is the private sector. All the petty traders are the people driving the economy, because you need them. If you take care of them, they are the ones that will give what we call in economics, multiplier effect. This will result in bigger volume, then more people will get capacity and people will get more income. With the little money, they will be able to send their children and wards to school to be educated.
?
Nigeria marked 51 years of independence this month, what is your take as a statesman?
But Nigeria is not 51 years of political independence because the military officers for selfish reasons took over power. When you say political independence you are saying you are free to appoint or elect who you like, but in our case, some people later came and interfered. Is that independence? When you talk about independence, include the interferences that took place. So these 51 years is sort of punctuated with the barrel of the gun. In fact it is part of the experience we need to internalize. Not that we needed to have it but it came by force. But not everything in the world is wholly good or wholly bad. There is the good the bad the ugly. But you have to find how to balance them so that they can give you the best out of what you have to contend with. Some people could not even do what we have done. In 1963, I was reading a journal on the World Bank and they said three countries will emerge as developed countries in the 21st century; Brazil, India and Nigeria. India has done, Brazil has also become developed but Nigeria has not. Why? Military interference in governance is the bane of our development.
?
But many Nigerian believe military government was even better than the civilian government? How was it better? If it is the element of dictatorship we want, it had happened. We have to start understanding certain things in this our country? Are we Nigerians? Do we wake up in the morning and feel like Nigerians or do we wake up in the morning and feel like I am from Sokoto, or from Ekiti, Delta or Anambra? How and where do we wake up? Start thinking that. The day we wake up and start feeling Nigerian that means nothing can colour your concept of moving forward. The day you wake up and you see somebody you don’t know at all and you do not emphasis that preference for Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, then we are getting there. We have to start asking for merit. If we think of ourselves as Africans, the moment you walk in here and say I am a black man that is my own race. If I see a Lebanese and Chinese I can make them out instantly. But you as a black man you can convince me that you are from Niger, how would I know you are not a Nigerian. We have to start respecting the rights of one another and to know where the rights of the other one starts. The power given to you is not meant for you to dispense according to your wishes. You dispense it according to the norm.
?
It is believed that some powerful interests in your state are against your emergence as chairman of the PDP?
As for me, I don’t care about whether a few people in Adamawa are opposed or not opposed to me. I am only stating my case. In any case, I am not contesting for PDP chairmanship of Adamawa State chapter. I am contesting for national chairman of the PDP. I need the vote of all PDP delegates to the convention to win. I am sure of victory because it is clear that I have a head start over my detractors. If I win, I will strengthen the party, reform it, shore up its negative image and provide purposeful leadership.