Obi-Kwankwaso Is A Healing Ticket That’ll Make Nigerians Forget The Past — Galadima

Buba Galadima is a chieftain of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, and a veteran political strategist. In this interview, he explains why the joint ticket of Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso will defeat President Bola Tinubu as long as the election is free and fair. The elder statesman speaks on why he made a U-turn to support Obi and the reason the North has decided to accept the former Anambra State Governor. He also speaks about the prospect of holding the election, saying that Tinubu is afraid of losing in a credible poll, among others. JOY ANIGBOGU brings the excerpts:

 All is set for the commencement of campaigns. Names have been submitted, INEC has released those names, and your principal is among the candidates. What do you make of the polity as it is right now? 

I always speak frankly. There are a lot of uncertainties within the polity, and nobody except God and President Bola Tinubu knows where we’re heading. That’s the truth on the table. NDC is not even very sure that it can still present its candidates and contest this election. African Democratic Congress (ADC) is also in the same situation. There’s no party that’s sure it’ll contest this election except the All Progressives Congress (APC) because they dictate the tune. They ask the judiciary what to do. They ask INEC what to do. They also use the security agencies to enforce their will on the docile people of Nigeria. So, we’re ready, if we’re allowed by them, to face them at the ballot. My hope has always been that they’ll allow not a free and fair election, but even a semblance of an election. 

So, why are you blaming the President for the situation in the country? 

I’m not blaming him. I’m only stating the obvious. That’s his character. What I’m saying is that they’re not being fair even to themselves, let alone to the country or the people of this country whom they claim to care about. 

The President has said that he won’t be responsible for helping the opposition put its house in order. And you’re now heading the reconciliation committee of the party, why do you blame the President for any internal issues in opposition parties? 

That exactly confirms my view. Where do we get to this reconciliation? We get to this reconciliation because the only way the parties were asked to generate candidates are through direct primaries or consensus. And neither of those can successfully be done by the opposition. The obvious thing that the government knows is that gladiators will try it out with one another. Fracas can happen. Or even the government can push in its agents and thugs to disturb the process. Since Tinubu is afraid of competition, he doesn’t want anybody to compete with him up to now, as I’m talking to you. That’s why we learnt he is saying that he is not going to campaign physically. That he has done what he needs to do and that is his campaign. But the truth of the matter is that he’s not going to be able to campaign physically, because he has nothing on the ground to show that he has done anything that would warrant a single vote by any Nigerian, maybe except his wife or children. There’s nothing in politics like the will of the President. I have to give examples to understand the genesis. It’s not only my party; it’s almost every party. 

But what’s the problem with your party? 

There’s no problem with my party except the Nigerian factor. The Nigerian factor is that the two ways of producing candidates are impossible for any opposition party to achieve. If the government or the APC sends moles into your own party, if you’re doing consensus, whatever you do, they’ll say they don’t agree. You go for direct primaries, they send their own thugs to disrupt. So, we’re faced with this enormous responsibility of reconciliation. 

As you go into the 2027 campaign season, does it bother you that you don’t have a governor within your fold? 

You see, if you’re a politician, you should convince yourself that we can do the impossible. And we have had experiences in this. For example, in 2019, every political juggernaut in Kano migrated to the APC, all the former governors, all the former senators, all the former members of the House of Representatives, the chairmen of local governments and councilors. Kwankwaso had no single former councilor except himself. And we defeated them flat. They had to use federal might, the military, police and DSS to take that victory from us, and the courts to take that victory from us. We have this experience. We can reenact that for Nigeria if there would be a semblance of an *****election. Semblance of an election doesn’t mean free, fair and transparent, because we know that this government and these people in the APC will never dream of conducting even the semblance of an election that we’re requesting for because they’re afraid to their bone marrow that if they’re subjected to the Nigerian people, even Tinubu won’t secure his polling unit. If you say no, let him allow a free and fair election. From your face, I can read you. You didn’t believe me when I said he will lose his polling unit. 

The interesting part is that a lot of people hardly believe you because you’ve been just about all over the place as far as politics is concerned. Are you not concerned? 

Let’s sort out my integrity first. I didn’t at the same time follow Buhari, Kwankwaso and the Obedient Movement at the same time. 

In 2023 you said that Peter Obi was not at the level of Kwankwaso, and Kwankwaso couldn’t be a running mate to him. Now, Kwankwaso is a running mate to Obi, and you’re pushing that mandate. What has changed? 

You don’t know what has changed? If I say that Southerners believe that it’s their turn to produce the president, can I be correct or wrong? Everything is on the table. The South, believes it’s their turn, even though it’s not by law. You believe that? I’m not driving sentiment. I’m just saying the obvious, that the South believes this is their turn, even though it’s not constitutional. It’s not a written law. If I’m a strategist in politics, and there’s a mindset of a certain group, and I have to conquer them, I have to give in and win, or stand alone and lose. 

So you buy into the narrative that it is the turn of the Southeast? 

I say first, the South. We can come to the Southeast, because this Obi-Kwankwaso is a healing ticket. It’s a healing ticket, so that Nigerians can forget the past. 

In 223 you said the Obi camp was pushing a Southeast agenda. So, what has changed now? 

What has changed is that since the start of this politicking, have you ever had one single Igbo man from the Southeast, who has talked about Igbo presidency? Can you quote one person in the last one year from the Southeast who said Obi is going to be Igbo president? They can hold on to any sentiment within their hearts, but they’ve never pronounced Igbo presidency. They themselves are now projecting Obi as a Nigerian president. And through our discussions and interactions with them, we told them that the best way for the Igbo man to be president is not to ask for an Igbo president, but to say Nigerian president. And we’re quite satisfied that that criterion is met. And there are other things. Normally, when elections are near, Northerners are being attacked all over the Southeast. When did you hear in the last one year and one-and-a-half years that Northerners were attacked in the Southeast? 

 Thank God for the understanding that is prevailing between the North and the Southeast. And that’s what convinced us that any Nigerian, anybody who believes in Nigeria and can act Nigeria would be supported to be Nigeria’s president. 

But beyond the tribal and ethnic sentiments, another reason why you said that Kwankwaso could never deputise Peter Obi was because of the Kwankwasiya Movement, which you said is about 32 years old, and that Kwankwaso has more experience than Peter Obi. At this point, where Kwankwaso is a deputy to Obi, does that no longer exist? 

It exists. But we’re using it, leveraging on it, to win the election. Because we want to be where we can influence events and assist people like you—and build the country. If the Kwankwasiya alone cannot make Kwankwaso president, then we have to think of a way for him to participate at the highest level of government, such that all these noble ideas that we have for Nigeria can be translated into physical presence. Now, you see, Nigerian politics is a very funny game. Do you want Tinubu to come back? You’re a Nigerian. You’re Nigerian before becoming a journalist. Why do we now support Obi? And it’s because we’re political strategists. We do the arithmetic. We don’t act before thinking. We think before we act, each time. And we have done our arithmetic fairly well and discovered that if we’re using the sentiments of the South, Obi is from the South to become president. If Kwankwaso will find it difficult—not that God cannot make him president, even if he doesn’t have the Kwankwasiya Movement, but it can be difficult. If he doesn’t have the means, you people are accusing him of having no money. You people are accusing him of having only Kano. And we tried to explain, as if the press were paid to pin Kwankwaso down to only Kano. And I kept asking, is there anybody that you can say for sure can deliver his state, any politician in Nigeria, like Kwankwaso? You have no answer. So, we agreed with you. Oh, Kwankwaso doesn’t deputise. If that’s the issue, Kwankwaso can step back. You know how rams fight? They lock horns, and they pull back and gather momentum to hit again. Meaning in Hausa that the pulling back by the ram is not cowardice; it’s only preparatory to a stronger punch. So, we want to defeat all these things at the same time. If you want to defeat Tinubu, what would you do? We thought the best thing to defeat Tinubu would be to bring a southern candidate that can have a minimum of five states. If he has above five, it’s a bonus. 

An APC leader insisted that based on the numbers where would Obi votes come from, considering the arithmetic which you just mentioned? 

So, Nigerians don’t believe that Obi can master five states in the South. Tell that chieftain from Delta State that Obi will win Delta and Lagos States. Tell him I said so. 

How does the North perceive Peter Obi? 

We’re trying to tell them Obi is a Nigerian who means well for this country. And all the accusations, all the labelling they’re doing, are incorrect by political adversaries and a government that is trying to run down a strong Nigerian who wants to build their future.