Emmanuel Aziken
10 November 2008
interview
Senator Adamu Aliero was probably acting out a script from his political science education when he engineered the collapse of the opposition in the Northwest into the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 2007.
For a man who canvasses a strong opposition as a rudimentary need for a virile democracy, such is the irony with Senator Aliero. As a governor on the platform of the ANPP, he was known for his very healthy relationship with former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, then of the PDP.
Born in Aliero, Aliero Local Government Area of Kebbi State, the young Adamu had his primary education at Aliero and subsequently had his secondary education at the nearby Government Secondary School, Koko.
Aliero attended the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, from 1977 to 1980, where he obtained a degree in Political Science.
Following a civil service career, first at the College of Education, Sokoto, and subsequently at the Customs from 1981, Aliero retired into a life of business and politics.
In 1997, he was elected to the Senate on the platform of the United Nigeria Congress Party, UNCP, but following the cancellation of the elections, Aliero contested and won the office of governor of Kebbi State in 1999. He easily won his re-election in 2003 before turning his attention to the Senate where he first began his political odyssey.
In this interview with Vanguard's Emmanuel Aziken, Aliero enunciates on his legacy in Kebbi State, the political configuration that stimulated the mass decampment from the ANPP to the PDP in 2007 and speaks on his friends, Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar. Excerpts:
As a former governor and now a Senator, what's your experience like transiting from the executive to the legislative branch of government?
These are two different experiences. As a governor, you are the chief executive of the state, you are the chief security officer of the state and you are in charge of the state, which is your constituency. You are concerned with the welfare and well being of the people of the state and you are concerned with the security in the state. You are also concerned with the development and the progress and prosperity of the people who elected you.
But, as a Senator, you are more or less a lawmaker and the whole nation is your constituency and you make laws for the good governance of the country and, in doing so, you learn a lot from the different sections of the country and it makes you a better Nigerian. The Senate, I always say, is a mini Nigeria, it represents people of different social and economic backgrounds.
Was it really your life ambition to be a governor, Senator or a Customs officer?
My ambition in life is always to put smiles on people's faces, make life better for fellow human beings. It doesn't matter whether one is a senator, a governor or a businessman, as long as you have the interest of the people at heart, that is always my driving force. I always try to advance the course of humanity regardless of the situation I find myself.
Do you miss the trappings of office of a governor?
No, not at all. As a governor, I never allowed that office to get into my head, I related very well with the ordinary folks when I was in office and on getting out of office, I didn't find it difficult to adjust because I am used to that kind of life and it is that same kind of life I am living up till now. There is no difference whatsoever. I never got carried away by the paraphernalia of the office, instead, I tended to ignore such paraphernalia and live like a common person.
I did drive myself as a governor, I came out to visit people without security, I travelled even abroad without escort and the same thing applies now. Even though, as a former governor and as a senator, I still have security, but, sometimes, I just move on my own, I never allowed the situation to control me.
In your own perspective, what legacy do you think the ordinary man in Kebbi would associate with the eight years of your administration?
Eight years as governor of Kebbi State I left a lot of legacies behind. To start with, I met that state virtually in a comatose situation. All aspects of human endeavour were at their lowest ebb and I drew a plan because I came with a mission and a vision on how to improve on the welfare and well being of the people of Kebbi State.
I started with education and I did a lot in that sector, rehabilitation, reconstruction, building more secondary schools, recruitment of teachers, expanding the capacities of the schools I met, building tertiary institutions and even including a university of science and technology which was unthinkable in 1999 because Kebbi State could not even fill its own admission quota in the universities.
By the time I came in, only 5% of the students who sat for the SCCE passed, that is, out of maybe 1,000 persons who sat for the exam, not more than 50 persons passed. But now, you have as high as 80% to 85% passing because of what we have done. We have really revamped and rejuvenated education sector in Kebbi State to the extent that we have restored the confidence of parents and the students to be in school at all times.
If you talk of rural development, I built a number of roads in Kebbi State and even federal roads that were in serious degree of dilapidation, I decided to rehabilitate all of them to the extent that we had an agreement with the Federal Government to reimburse the state on whatever amount we spent.
I provided water to well over 2,500 communities in Kebbi State and this includes boreholes, urban water supply, hand pumps.
By the time I left office, I had on record over 700 towns and villages that were connected to the national electricity grid. When I came in, only about 18 towns had electricity but by the time I left, over 700 were connected to the national grid.
In healthcare, we did a lot by rebuilding the hospitals I met because they too were in bad shape. We had to renovate them, re-equip them by buying modern equipment for diagnosis, we equipped them with x-ray machines, scanners and other diagnostic equipment that were second to none in the country. We even recruited specialists in various medical fields such as gynecology, urology, endocrinology, radiology, cardiology, among others.
We went to Egypt to recruit a number of doctors, particularly where we could not get qualified Nigerians to take care of the sector. We even built a school of nursing and midwifery which is now one of the best in the country. We equipped it to the extent that the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria even decided to make it a degree awarding institution because of the quality of equipment and the quality of teachers we had in that institution.
Besides transiting from the executive to the legislature, you have also moved from the ANPP to the PDP. What informed this decision?
As far back as 2005, 2006, there had been a clamour for power shift and the northern governors were in the forefront of the power shift. Our own zone happened to be the zone that constituted the biggest opposition and, luckily for us, we had a presidential candidate who wanted our support. We agitated for this power shift and now we have it and one of us, by then governor, was nominated to stand for election and we all decided to close ranks and support him.
When we were approached, we had to sit and discuss with our people and, luckily, they saw reason in what we told them and they all decided to support us collectively and we moved en masse into PDP. It was not only in Kebbi, this also included Sokoto because, historically, the two states had always been together politically.
In the days of NPC, we were together, in the days of NPN, we were together. In the days of NRC, we were together, in the days of APP, we were together, in the days of ANPP, we were together and now we are in PDP and we are still together. So, what God has put together.
But you had the prospects of Muhammadu Buhari from the Northwest as your presidential candidate?
ANPP by then had no leadership. ANPP was bedeviled with a problem of leadership, it was never straightforward and it was never reliable and, today, as I am talking to you, the main problem of ANPP is leadership. I am happy that Gen. Buhari has realised it now.
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