Lagos — UMAR ARDO, former lecturer at the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna, was Special Assistant to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, on States and Local Government and later on, Research and Strategy. Prior to the 2007 general elections, he was the initiator, and organiser of the Peter Odili for President campaign. In this interview with Correspondent, NJOKU PASCHAL, the politician, who is aspiring to contest Adamawa State Governorship on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), speaks on the crisis rocking the party in the state. He also bares his mind on the controversy surrounding the return of Atiku to the party, among other issues.

Excerpts:

Why do you want to be the Governor of Adamawa State?

Honestly, my ambition was not actually a planned one. It's as a result of my interaction with the politicians in the country both at the local, state and national levels that I came to realise that unless one takes a proactive measure by oneself, one would not be able to get things done the way one believes things should be done. Since the essence of politics is to serve the people, and the desire to serve the people has been uppermost in my mind since my childhood, I thought I better go out and seek power with the objective of making life better for the people of Adamawa State as a whole.

What is that priority area you would want to focus attention on if voted in as governor?

My first objective is to conquer hunger because our people are living in hunger and abject poverty. Once we conquer hunger, then we will be able to have focus, think, act and behave better. So, I intend to achieve this by creating wealth, and I will do this through large-scale commercial mechanised farming.

Secondly, I will establish side by side to these farms, agro-allied industries that are going to process these produces of the farms and get them in large commercial quantities. By so doing, we will be able to absolve the mass energy of our people that is the semi, full and unskilled labour for them to be able to fend for themselves from the initial stage and then ultimately be wealthy people.

Again, we are going to harness our vast economic trees that we have in the state particularly shea butter and locust beans. I have been to Mali, Burkinafaso, Moroco and I have seen how shea butter and locust beans serve as the mainstay of their economies. Just as oil is to Nigeria, that is how shea butter and locust beans are to these countries. In Adamawa State, we have more of these economic trees than Mali and Burkinafaso put together; and from the research submitted to the international community, the Nigerian shea butter is one of the best in the continent but in terms of export, we are at zero level.

This is a very sad development. So, our people are living in a midst of plenty but living in hunger and that is unacceptable.

We are also going to harness our mineral resources, which we have in abundance in the state. Generally, these ones will create enormous wealth for people of the state and for the state's treasury. We are going to stock the state treasury with a lot of money. With this money, we are going to do basically two things: develop the physical infrastructure and the human infrastructure. The physical infrastructure includes construction and rehabilitation of roads; hospitals, schools etc and human infrastructure are health and investing in education. We intend to do all these because it is the essence of governance.

Now that you want to contest the Governorship of Adamawa State, don't you think the intra-party skirmishes rocking your party, the PDP that have resulted to a faction, would jeopardise your chances?

Not at all; you see, the PDP faction in Adamawa is as a result of the dishonesty, irregularities, impurities and illegalities of the government side of the party. For one, the exco as a whole has not been elected. Since 2006, when the Joel Madaki led exco served out its second and final term, there has not been an elected exco in the state PDP. It is not me that said they are illegal. INEC said they are illegal and wrote two letters to the National Working Committee (NWC) and submitted report to the extent that the PDP exco in the state was illegally and irregularly constituted. So, we could not continue putting up with illegality, and because of that we decided to establish as a protem measure, the Medan Teneke exco. This exco is fully accepted and the faction is fully accepted. The difference is clear, everybody sees it, we brought in registers and membership card and so far we have registered more than 360, 000 people. That is about 10 per cent of the total population of the state. It is about 65 to70 percent of the total population of registered voters in the state. You cannot beat this faction, no matter what you do. This puts Adamawa PDP as having one of the largest registered members in the entire country and we are not by any sort of imagination, the largest state in the country in terms of population. So, we believe very strongly that the National Working Committee of the PDP will see reason and do justice by giving the state the chance to resolve the crisis by dissolving the two exco, merging their registers and establishing a caretaker committee that will conduct free, fair and transparent congress in which each and every person from the delegate at the ward level to the chairman at the state level will come out and contest the election and be voted for by the people.

In view of this, I recommend Option A4 for such congresses because it is a very good, transparent and less corrupt option for modern day voting pattern.

So, I believe that when we get this done and the crisis resolved, under the PDP platform, I will try my luck and see how far I can make it in terms of getting the people to support me. As it is today in Adamawa State, I have captured the imagination of the state, at least, I believe I have more than 70 per cent of the people of Adamawa State in sympathy with my cause and I am very satisfied with that.

When you left the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, you played a significant role in the re-run election that brought Governor Mutala Nyako back. But now, your relationship with the Governor has gone sour; what went wrong?

It is not that I left the camp of the former Vice President. The only thing was that when the Vice President Atiku Abubakar was moving out of PDP, I did not move out with him because I believed very strongly that it was not the best option. If you have to fight, fight it in the house. You need not to go out and dig trenches for each other. Let us box ourselves within the house and then get things sort out.

But with regards to Governor Nyako's election, I did not participate at all in his first term election in 2007, by that time I was very busy at the national level trying to see how we could get Peter Odili elected as the President of this country.

When Nyako's administration was subsequently annulled after 8 months in office, and he had to face the public, and because of his low popularity rating, he had to go and look for many people across the

State to come and support him to win the election. I was one of those he looked for. He did not come to me directly, he came through Dr. Peter Odili and it was the former Rivers State Governor who asked me to go and support Nyako. When I came in, I was made a member of the State Strategy Committee, made the Secretary of the Southern Senatorial Campaign Committee and then the Chairman of my Local Government Campaign Committee. In all these, I participated well, I did give in my best and we won superlatively. But after some months, I parted ways with the Governor when I realised to my chagrin that he was not doing what we agreed on. So, I objected to some of his moves, especially the nomination of Commissioners from the local government areas and the primaries, which they did not conduct for local government election. What they did was just to write names and insisted that it had to stay. Honestly, I rejected and opposed it, and then he saw me as an opponent. Still unrelenting, I came and made an overhaul of the entire party structure, look at the papers and then realised that just the way they imposed local government chairmen, that was how they imposed the party's executive in the state. Nothing was done according to law and within the constitution of the party. I challenged that and this led to the creation of a faction in the state PDP. The Nyako regime in the state from all intent and purpose is not sincere, because it is covering an illegitimate party exco.

The National Chairman of the PDP recently directed the Adamawa chapter to register Atiku, but instead the party announced it has barred the former VP from returning to its fold. Under this scenario, who is fooling whom?

You see, the Chairman of the ward, Fidelis Kosa, has registered the former Vice President in his ward and we accept him at the ward and local government level. It is only the government and Kugama that do not want Atiku back. If they insist on that, let them leave the party, they can go. None of them was a member of this party by 2005. Kugama and Nyako were all ANPP people. It was Obasanjo's arrangement that caused this quagmire. Honestly, this kind of politics has destroyed the fabrics of the PDP in the state, destroyed the basis of unity in Adamawa and destroyed the essence of government in this state. So, these are the anomalies that we are trying to fix and rectify. Frankly speaking, they are jittery because if they claim they are popular, why are they afraid of a statewide congress? However, we have insisted that the congresses must hold, besides, whether the National Secretariat likes it or not, within the constitution of the party, no organ of the party including the National Executive Committee has the power of legitimising what is illegitimate. The constitution of the party has specified how the state organs are going to be formed and operated. It has stipulated the processes that must be followed and none of this was followed, not one, so it is an illegitimate exco. INEC said so and two letters were written by INEC on this matter and reports were submitted. The illegalities, irregularities and the impunities of the Kugama led exco is what they are displaying in their disobedience to the directive of the National Secretariat. But it does not really matter because the executive committee of Yelli Ward has carried out the directive, which is the Vice President's ward. A few weeks ago, Kugama said they have removed the Chairman of Yelli ward, Fidelis Kosa, but if you go to the National Secretariat, you will find out that it is Kosa's name that is there. But Kugama said he had removed him and paraded one Sidiki before the world as the chairman of the ward. Kugama must be prosecuted for perjury. That act was very irresponsible and must not be tolerated. If we continue to tolerate this nonsense, it will take us to the doldrums.

So, it is a duty imposed upon the NWC by the people and by the constitution of this country as well as that of the party to do what is right; which is to create an exco that is lawfully and legitimately elected through the processes as outlined by the party's constitution.

Should there be no congress held in Adamawa after all, what would happen?

Look, if they say they recognised the Kugama faction, it is they but not the law. If they fail to conduct these congresses in Adamawa State, I have already completed my documents; I will file a case in a court of law and then stop PDP from participating in any election from councillorship to governorship of this state.

However, I believe strongly that the NWC has seen reasons and, is going to do justice and right to the people of the state by dissolving these so-called factions and establish a committee that would conduct congress for this state.

Recently, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu, was asked to embark on leave, which is a subtle way of telling him that he is no longer needed in the commission; what is your reaction?

This is an executive prerogative of the President or the Acting President as the case may be. Iwu has not really been that wonderful INEC boss that some people expected. It was adjudged that the 2007 general election was a very poorly organised and badly executed election in the country. Both foreign and domestic observers have said so; the law said so as some of the tribunals annulled most of these elections, which clearly showed that the poll was poorly conducted.

Whether it was purposely poorly conducted or a mistake of the head and not of the heart, that, I do not know. But the fact that Iwu has gone is okay. I have nothing against him as a person and I have nothing for him. What is important is to have an INEC that is credible, honest, just and fair to each and every person contesting election in the country. The nomination of a new INEC boss should not be skewed towards giving somebody advantage and giving another disadvantage. If it is done so, then the President's stand on removing the former INEC chairman is of no use. But if he gets a credible person and has the intention of conducting a credible election, then kudos to him.

There is allegation in some quarters that you are doing a hatchet job for Atiku, how true is this?

How could I have done a hatchet job for Atiku when I went and removed AC in Atiku's own Local Government Area? Atiku was not happy with that and should not be happy with that. I was doing what I believed was right. When we pushed for congresses, now that we are pushing for congresses, they would run and say it is Atiku. Let say here that Nyako met with Atiku and they discussed and assured that he would return the former Vice President back to the party. He sent Kugama who went and met with Atiku, and swore to the former Vice President on the Quoran that he was going to support him in his bid to return back to the PDP. They met with the National Chairman and discussed it. They met with the National Deputy Chairman and discussed it. In fact, the National Deputy Chairman, Bello Haliru called and told me that look, these things have already been concluded and that Atiku is returning. It is through Haliru that I got to know all these things. But suddenly, they are now beating a big retreat. Not only that, they are even saying that they have banned Atiku from returning back to the PDP. And I ask: where is the honour. If you would meet with somebody, talk and agree with him and suddenly, you decided to beat a big retreat, it is rather unfortunate but I know what happened.

Why the sudden u-turn by Nyako and co?

Naturally, there are some power blocs who called Nyako and told him that he does not have the right to work for Atiku's return.

Therefore, Nyako knowing fully well that he has no political structure to remain in power if such power blocs put their hands off him, he had no option than to beat that retreat without honour. That single act has put his credibility and integrity into disrepute. But there are those people who have honour and insisted that they would continue to support Atiku's return and that is, the members of the NWC. The NWC is standing by that position, but Nyako and Kugama have chickened out. On the contrary, they even went out creating fake chairman and secretary before the national secretariat. What kind of people are they?

Few weeks away, Nigeria's democracy will be 11 years; what is your impression?

I am a student of history. I know how for example the United States of America came up in their democracy. We are trying but our major problem is that the political class is so corrupt and insensitive to the true feelings and yearnings of the people. But, it would change for the better since people like us are coming in with sincerity of purpose and clarity of plan and with the intention to do what is right, the political landscape of the country would change for the better.

We should realize that between 1776, when America got independence and 1920, was about 144 years of democracy, yet America was unable to elevate its Vice President to a position of Acting President. But, we within a period of 11 years of full democracy, were able to elevate our Vice President to the position of Acting President. That was a huge kudos to us and it has put our country on a huge leap ahead of the United States in comparative measures. So, we are doing fine, and I believe we will even do better as time goes on. It is a matter of, to falter and then correct yourself and forge ahead.