Comrade Uba Sani during the weekend decamped to APC and spoke with some journalists on his plan to help Malam Nasir El-Rufai win his Gubernatorial seat. Lola Idahosa reports
Many have alleged that the Federal Government had done nothing to address this problem of insecurity. Specifically, Colonel Dangiwa Umar said the Federal Government should declare total war against Boko Haram and they should equally deploy the reserved soldiers we have to complement the effort of the military. What is your perception and thinking about this contention of Umar?
I agree that total war should be declared on Boko Haram like Dangiwa Umar has rightly said but as somebody who has been in the military for many years, a colonel and a former (governor) of a state, he should have known better that what he is calling for is something the government deliberately refused to do it because ordinarily they should have done it. They know as much as he knows or even better than him. So to call on the government to go and declare war now, I don’t think the government will even listen to him at this moment. This is because to my knowledge they knew (what was )needed but they didn’t do it. My reservation here is, I believe it is deliberate and that is why they refused to end the insurgency. Because as for me, the issue should not be as bad as it is today. It should have been contained much earlier than now. Though, it is not too late but something they should have done much earlier and they refused to do it,I don’t see them doing it now. We will continue to call and put pressure on them to do it. We are almost running out of time because a lot of people have lost their lives. If the situation had been arrested many months ago, some people would have been alive today. So calling for action now is welcome but I believe government has not taken the lives of people there seriously otherwise they would have done it.
Earlier, you said the state of affairs in Kaduna is unacceptable and need to be changed. So what factor makes you think Malam Nasir El-Rufai is the messiah?
That is why I am also here to support Malam Nasir El-Rufai as a stakeholder in this state. As somebody who has held position at the highest level in Nigeria, we are really concerned about what is happening in the state at the moment. Like you all know, the PDP government and the party have failed woefully. The situation in the country is becoming worse on a daily basis and in Kaduna State in particular. A lot of states came recently and they have overtaken Kaduna in terms of development, infrastructure and social amenities. So what is happening here is that the only reason is because of bad governance in the state. And Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has shown that he can do it better. Because as a Minister of the FCT, he has done what no Minister in the history of Nigeria has done. We all know the complications of Abuja but he came and restored the Abuja master plan.
He brought sanity in Abuja and he did it without fear or favor. And we need somebody who can come to Kaduna to face the situation and improve the situation of Kaduna. Because as it is today, there is no single sector that has improved in Kaduna in the last decade. So that is the reason why I believe Malam Nasir El-Rufai has the credential, qualification and is competent to do it. And that is why I am here, to render my support to him and to work from today to ensure that Malam Nasir El-Rufai wins the primaries of the All Progressive Congress, APC and wins the election in the state come 2015.
As a support group for Malam Nasir El-Rufai, what effort is the organization making to address the looming split within the APC because recently General Muhammadu Buhari endorsed Malam Nasir El-Rufai which doesn’t seem to go down well with other aspirants.And there is this rumour that APC may split should El-Rufai clinch the ticket in the state at the end of the day?
I think some of us listened carefully to what Buhari said when he came to El-Rufa’i’s declaration. He made it clear that he came there to support Malam Nasir El-Rufai because of three reasons and he made it clear to everybody and even the neutrals. Because for a long time, he made it clear that he is not going to come out to support any candidate but he said he was there to renege on his own declaration and that this time around, he (Buhari) is there to now endorse Malam Nasir El-Rufai simply because of three reasons. He believes El-Rufai is the most competent among the aspirants. Another reason is because Malam El-Rufai has done it before and if you look at the track record of both the PDP and APC, there is nobody that can say this is his own achievement in terms of governance. We are not talking about sentiments and Buhari made it clear. And he has no apology because El-Rufai is somebody who is competent and has a track record and has done it in Abuja. El-Rufai is somebody who is extremely sincere and he is not corrupt. And you know Buhari to be uncompromising when it comes to corruption. Malam Nasir El-Rufai is one person we all know had headed government office in Abuja as the FCT Minister and the DG BPE. But at the end of the day we know successive governments in Nigeria have done everything for more than eight or nine years to find something against El-Rufai even though he has come out to declare himself as an opposition. But as I am talking to you today, after almost eight years nobody has said Malam Nasir El-Rufai has done anything wrong and so they are taking him to court. EFCC has investigated him more than any Nigerian but eventually they have found out that he has done nothing and as I am talking to you the case is dead and over. And that is clearly to show that you can work in government agency in Nigeria and you can be corrupt free and El-Rufai has demonstrated that. And that is the reason why Buhari said he had no apology. And he is ready to come out publicly to endorse El-Rufai. And as for me, that clearly shows in Nigeria we should reward people that were given responsibility and delivered it in a right way. So if Malam Nasir El-Rufai can do it in Abuja I have no doubt in my mind he can do the same and even better in Kaduna because this is his state.
When you mention the name Malam Nasir El-Rufai, what really comes to the mind of Nigerians is that Minister that demolished houses in Abuja. How will your group convince and assure the masses that if El-Rufai emerges as a Governor he will not demolish their houses?
We are actually going to meet with the people at the grassroots, the stakeholders and everybody to make them understand what Malam Nasir El-Rufai’s agenda is. In Abuja, he demolished houses but that notwithstanding,when he became the FCT Minister, hundreds of people became house owners in Abuja because he was saddled with the responsibility of selling government houses. He sold as much as over thirty thousand houses. As I am sitting with you here, nobody has accused El-Rufai of any fraud. So, El-Rufai demolished houses because of course those houses were built on green areas. The system of Abuja is different from that of Kaduna. And the beggars he took out of the streets of Abuja, he didn’t just take them out but he built over a thousand houses in the outskirt of Abuja and accommodated all of them. He built schools around the area and forced them to go to school and you could see the reasons why the beggars themselves never even protested because they have homes, schools and everybody was eager to leave the streets because they were accommodated. Whether the system is still effective or not that I don’t know but El-Rufai did that.
For those people that lost their houses, you can realize that even when we are in government the Chairman of PDP then and the Senate President were the first people who lost their houses because they built on the green area. So, it was an assignment he took upon himself and he did it without fear or favour. In Kaduna here, all those people saying El-Rufai will take the petty traders out of the street and away from their business, I think they are getting it wrong. Instead, El-Rufai will build bigger malls and markets because he has the capacity to generate resources for Kaduna State. El-Rufai will not take anybody out of the street without getting him an alternative source of business. And he did same thing in Abuja and most of them that are complaining are big men, most of the poor people eventually got a better alternative.
Where is El-Rufai from, Katsina or Kaduna State?
Malam Nasir El-Rufai is from Kaduna State. Infact, his from Zaria in Kaduna State. All those saying he is from another state are being mischievous and out to score some political points. But El-Rufai is from Kaduna State and in particular Zaria.
