•Galadima
Buba Galadima is the Secretary of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP). In this interview, he speaks on the defection of Governor Abba Yusuf of Kano State to the All Progressives Congress (APC), why nobody should attempt to rig the 2027 general elections. He also explains why the Kano State governor will not be reelected in the 2027 if the election will be free and fair, among other issues, reports Daily Independent.
Excerpts:
Governor Yusuf has now defected. Did he do so in the interest of the people of Kano State or in his own interest? What is your assessment?
His own personal, personal, personal interest. Not Kano.
So, do you see Governor Yusuf’s move to the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a betrayal of Dr. Kwankwaso or a survival decision forced by political reality, something you’re well familiar with? Because you yourself have moved from one camp to the other over time
I would have preferred Governor Yusuf’s move from NNPP to another platform other than APC. I would have said he moved well. But in this case, it is only a matter of survival, not Kano people, not the peace in Kano. He wanted us to swallow. We can neither take any of the above. I wish in the course of this, our discussion, you would give me three minutes to read a piece sent for me from U.S by Dr. Nnaoke Ofere. We have to state that in the middle of the conversation so that people would know how other people outside Kano, Nigeria, think of this betrayal.
I want to say with clarity that this betrayal is the third in the history of the whole world. One by Judas against Jesus. The second was Brutus against Caesar. Now the third one that ought to go to the Guinness Book of Records is the one just announced by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano. That is why our leader had asked that the world should declare every 23rd of January as the world’s greatest betrayal day.
So it sounds like you guys must be really hurt. I mean, this cut really deep, didn’t it?
You see me wearing white hair. You don’t know my age. I’m well above 75. And if I would shed tears on anything, it must have touched me beyond expression. Because I don’t give in to sentiments just like that. I could remember my journey to Umuawo in Anambra State. 2 a.m. by road from Enugu to Awka, from Awka to Umuawo, just to go and secure a platform that the greatest beneficiary is Abba Kabir Yusuf. I could remember for three days, Kwankwaso and I, never had a blink of an eye, let alone sleep. And there is nothing under the sun we did do for Abba to prevail. And he did prevail. And the way he prevailed, unknown to many Nigerians, was the man who took our victory in 2019 and gave it to Ganduje, General Buhari, was the architect of making Abba Kabir Yusuf the governor of Kano. The world needs to know. Because Abba Kabir Yusuf had left the house of God, and went to the house of Ganduje. He left God for a human being. It was Ganduje using his own words, even though he took our victory and gave it to him in 2019.
He called him Abuna Abu. Do you know the meaning of Abuna Abu? It was a song sung by the famous Hausa musician, Elhadi Muhammad, shah of Katsina. Abuna Abu was a man who would go to the bar, drink, walk on the streets naked, or sleep on the streets, or sleep under the tree. Then there was no overhead bridge.
Ganduje called General Muhammad Buhari without mentioning his name, Abuna Abu. And Buhari felt bitter. When we won election and they wanted to take it, Mallam Bichi, the former DSS director, if he fears God, he can narrate the story. And when he writes his memo, he needs to put that. Buhari put down his feet and said that boy won election in 2019. We took it away. Now he won, give him this victory. You see how God works. They took us to court. The tribunal came to give judgment in our favor. I want to tell the world today. They abducted them, brought them to Abuja, and they were given a written judgment. They said we lost. We went to court of appeal. The court of appeal was intimidated to give judgment to Ganduje. We know all the dramatic scenario in this matter. We went to Supreme Court. The Court in his infinite wisdom, three judges out of the penal of five said they would never pose a black bar to Buhari.
I don’t want to mention their names. That this boy was unrecorded, won his election in 2019, and it was taken away from him by force, and the judiciary didn’t help him. This time, they will not be alibi to injustice.
So, Abba Kabir was made the governor of Kano through the processes of court and through the assistance of Buhari. Meaning that God was at work. Now they were telling people that they won, that even if we win election, the APC will take it. So, why don’t we join them? Meaning, that he has forsaken God and he thought APC and President Tinubu will announce him. Even if he wins an election, it’s a temporary victory. God will visit him.
A concerned analyst has said that Abba Yusuf has liberated himself from the overbearing influence of Kwankwaso. What’s your reaction to that?
Kwankwaso didn’t partake in his government. Three months into his tenure, they abandoned Kwankawaso, and called all his media handlers to paint Kwankwaso in black. But we decided not to say a word for a simple reason. We wanted him to come out from his own mouth to announce that Kwankwaso was a bad man. After all, if they meet in public, he treats Kwankwaso like a king.
But beyond that public appearance, there’s something else. They called us names. They said, we were working for Tinubu, when they were the people that were hobnobbing with President Tinubu and his people in government. So, we decided to keep quiet and allow him to use his own mouth to say he’s leaving us such that we can have the sympathy of the people of Kano. And this is exactly what is happening. If today, there is any election, free and fair, Abba Yusuf cannot get 5% of the votes of Kano people.
From everything we know, Senator Kwankwaso midwifed Abba Yusuf’s rise. In Kano politics, as in politics generally, that creates a debt. Has that debt now been formally defaulted on by Aba Yusuf?
You should know better. You just showed me a picture depicting Ganduje and Barau Jubrin raising up his hands.
If this happens to somebody from my own community in Yobe, the man will commit suicide. Because both Jubrin and Ganduje were not Kwankwaso’s adversaries. They were Kwankwaso’s boys made by Kwankwaso. All of them, Kau Sumaila, Barau Jubrin, Ganduje were Kwankwaso boys. They went to school of Kwankwaso.
So that was hurting him really bad. But it should also lead to some questions about why these people didn’t leave
I can give you that answer. Do you know for sure that if Ganduje had the chance, he would kill Kwankwaso? Because he stopped him physically by using facts from entering Kano.
That’s an allegation. You can’t make allegations
Didn’t he stop him from going to Kano for three and a half years? How many times was Kwankwaso stopped from attempting to enter Kano?
Well, there’s no evidence that there’s a link between the two
You said he nurtured them and they dispersed. Is there nothing wrong? It’s also because you have not listened to the same Alhaji Muhammad Shata, the famous Hausa singer, who said, let me use small Hausa, say that. “Dan Adam Itache Kadesashi Mey yuklukluk Sheikaz muzama” meaning that you plant a tree, water it, it grows, makes leaves when you come to sit, it stabs you. They felt that Kwankwaso is too domineering and too acceptable to the ordinary people. All of them now got together to think that they will destroy Kwankwaso from the North.
I want to say that Abba during his speech he gave a message. He said on record that he has stopped blind loyalty. I don’t think he’s sending this message to Kwankwaso because he’s already indicted Kwankwaso in the marketplace. So how can he do blind loyalty to him? He’s sending this message to his new masters, Tinubu and Ganduje, that he’s not going to do a blind loyalty to them.
Do you have any loyalty to the NNPP which is the party that was used as platform?
I have no evidence, at least not commensurate with our input.
I’m wondering about the NNPP’s grip on its elected officials.
I don’t think he has ever been an NNPP member. He was only a beneficiary of the NNPP. And God saved Kwankwaso because he would have lost his political support because the people of the NNPP felt that they were not reorganised by the governor. And this is what happened when he gave the last palliatives, parting gifts to Kwankwaso’s councilors and chairmen. 15.8 billion Naira. When he finished, somebody in the crowd said, “Your Excellency”, he looked, he said, “now that we have paid your enemies, how about those of us who supported you?” “Where is our share?” That person was arrested and all those around that place were arrested and taken to prison. So, he wasn’t working for NNPP. He was actually working for APC.
Why do you think he chose former governor Abdullahi Ganduje, who you could say is the face of everything the Kwankwasiya movement opposed? In that regard, looking at the elephant in the room, what does it mean for Dr. Kwankwaso that his former rival, Abdullahi Ganduje, is now the one offering Abba Yusuf political shelter?
I’m not Kwankwaso, but I feel extremely bitter that our victory is taken to our enemy who made us to have sleepless nights and use our resources, put our lives on line to secure victory for Abba Kabir Yusuf. And today he’s abandoning us to acquire a new master in the name of Ganduje, who is everything bad in Nigerian politics. He’s a bad product. And man, he owned several bad names. Too many to mention. Too many to say. Unpredictable. Now he chose him to be his master.
You’re a member of the party’s board of trustees. Is this the beginning of a structural unraveling of the NNPP? I mean, he’s the only governor you had. And he’s taken quite a lot of responsibility
Before he became governor, we never had a councilor, house of assembly, rep, senator, or governor. And without anything and anybody who met him and others, what stops God from doing that miracle? That is why I have to read the written document by Dr. Ofere, who is a leading voice in African public thought and policy and writes weekly opinion column for the African Mind Journal.
“Politics, like biology, has limits. A parasite that destroys its host does not survive. The host is the source of life and sustenance for the parasite. Only a suicidal parasite, therefore, attempts to destroy its host. A politician who turns against the platform and people that gave him relevance risks political extinction. This is a lesson Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf and his cohorts appear not to learn.”
Let’s just widen the conversation a little bit because you insist that President Tinubu will lose in 2027 if the election is free and fair. That’s a big if. Are you saying that the real battle is not popularity but control of the process? And if so, what evidence do you see today that the system is being positioned to favour the ruling APC?
Do you need me to tell you why Tinubu wants all of the 36 governors to migrate to his party? What bothers me, he said he won in 2023. Why does he need anybody again if he has performed well? He can maintain his votes and still become president. I want to remind President Tinubu. When former Governor Ambode was alleged to have done something against him, he refused him a second term. So why is he now encouraging betrayal from other political figures?
Well, he would say that his people have said that they’re not encouraging betrayal, that the other parties are falling apart and people are simply gravitating towards the APC.
By using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and coercing the judiciary
Let me ask you a question that is unfortunately going to be almost a final one. If 2027 ends up being neither free nor fair, which you say, that’s the only way that the ruling party is going to win. What is Nigeria going to look like the morning after?
Nobody, I want to tell you, can afford to rig the elections of 2027. Let them try it. We will all go down with it.
Well, I seem to remember you saying the same thing at every election cycle. You always said the same thing and then you had to accept whatever the outcome
You want to force me to talk about what I can do? That’s what you are aiming at.
I’m not trying to force you
I said they can’t rig the elections. Anybody who rigs this election will rig out his life. I want to assure you that Nigeria is no more the Nigeria of yesterday. We are sophisticated. We’ve got restive young men and women who are very persistent and they cannot allow people like you to cheat them.
You mean the Nigerian farmers will allow Tinubu’s government to come back to destroy agriculture? Or the young men who have no jobs and they see their police showing power to the president’s son. So what will my son say? He has no access to even civil defense. And somebody’s son is going with military cantonment.
