From Desmond Mgboh, Kano
Hon Danlami Hamza is no doubt a renowned Buhari supporter in the North. A very experienced politician, who started his political career in the defunct Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Hamza retired from the Kano State Civil Service as a permanent secretary and rose to an enviable height in the banking sector and was a two time member of the House of Representatives. He is one of the associates of Buhari, who fought in the trenches with him in the run up to the APC primaries. In this interview sheds light on this and other issues.
First, has it been with you politically?
Well it has been well. I have been on sabbatical in terms of contesting elections, but I can say that I have been very active in terms of the politics of my party, the All Progressives Congress and we seen the first grand victory of the party. We have made some achievements on our promises and there is still need for more work. We intend to fulfill all our promises as enunciated then by our presidential candidate, President Muhammed Buhari. So far, so good. There are challenges, yes, but they would be met.
The Buhari administration has past the halfway point. How would you rate your party and its accomplishments?
Candidly, my assessment of my party and the administration would be to indicate that the objective was to substitute the perfidy that was the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, of former president, Goodluck Jonathan and I think that to a great extent, that has been achieved. The sense of impunity and nonchalance that were being displayed by office holders are no longer there and based on the promises of my party – security, stability and of course the economy- I think that out of these three , two have been achieved more or less. The economy is a global phenomenon, it is not just Nigeria alone and I think that with some little bit of concerted and focused efforts, I am sure that the next few months can make a whole of impact on the Nigeria economy.
Recently we had the outburst by former vice president, Abubakar Atiku that he was being marginalized in the APC by the Buhari administration of President Buhari. What is your take on his remarks?
I think it is a very, very sad commentary on the politics of Nigeria. Somebody who was vice president for eight years , a privileged position who had the opportunity to be at the topmost position of the governance of this country, who was even left at the helm of leadership on one or two occasions, I think it is asking for too much if you think that if another president comes in there and you need to be consulted on a daily basis . What for? Other former presidents, not even vice presidents, they avoid government. You avoid government entirely and you try to let people run their own show. If they ask you for advice, that is okay. But you don’t demand it as of right. And he was talking about spending money. Well certainly he knows that it wasn’t money that got Buhari elected as president. Whether you like Buhari or not, Buhari is Mr. 12 million votes. He carries his 12 million votes any day and what happened is that people like Asiwaju Tinubu, who was God sent, did the calculation correctly, matched with Buhari and the ANPP and we got the presidency. And this can be replicated any day, any time. If people like Tinubu do not talk of spending money to make the Buhari Presidency a reality, I don’t think that anybody should be talking about that.
So what you are saying is that Atiku was misrepresenting reality when he made the claim of his monetary investment in the party and in the emergence of Buhari as President?
Atiku not only misrepresented reality, but get this fact clear. Former Vice President Abubabar Atiku fought Buhari deadly. We were at the convention in Lagos. He fought Buhari dirty. My friend was spraying dollars all over the place. We were scared. A couple of friends and myself approached Asiwaju, we stopped him on the ground there and we begged him. We said, “Asiwaju, what you have done so far, please we beg you in the name of God, complete it tonight. Whatever you have done is going to come to nothing if Buhari did not emerge as the candidate of the party. Then Asiwaju laughed and said, “My brothers, they said nobody owns the party, nobody created the party. We would show them that we sat down and worked out this party. Don’t worry you would see what would happen tonight.” So, for anybody to claim that he spent or had gone through thick and thin for Buhari to emerge as the president, it is certainly not Atiku.
Are you saying that after the primaries, some of the party members who had rivaled Buhari did not come back to start supporting the presidential candidate of the party in line?
You see, if Atiku had had his way, Buhari would never have emerged as the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and that would have been the end of the story. Having emerged the presidential candidate of the party, I don’t think that his contribution or otherwise would have stopped the presidency coming to Buhari. It was a moving train. Nothing could have stopped that presidency. Nothing! Not Atiku! Not him ten times!!
What is your response to Senator Aisha Alhassan, a minister in the Buhari administration, openly declaring loyalty to the same Atiku, saying she would vote for him in 2019?
I don’t claim to know her much, but from what I have read and heard about her, I am not surprised. It was not claiming, it was the statement she made: ‘ Our President Come 2019, God Willing” and in trying to explain herself later to the BBC, she said that Baba Buhari never told them he was going to contest 2019. But the question would be ‘Did Atiku tell you he is contesting 2019?” Why are you casting your votes this end and not that end? But what does it matter? We know the real APC and I don’t think that people like Aisha are in a position to influence matters. And it is pity that she is still there in the cabinet. Any self-respecting person should have resigned her position. That would show the level of commitment she has towards Atiku. Atiku was vice president of this country. He should have his rich political house, no doubt, but I know Atiku’s politics very well. It is a pity that people still keep telling him that everything has a price and he has been missing it and he has not seen it up till now.
Do you think Atiku would make a good presidential material? Secondly, does he have the chance in your party to emerge as the candidate?
See Atiku comes with a lot of baggage and I don’t know how he is going to dislodge the baggage. His people, for instance, in Yola, accuse him. What will he show for the eight years of his vice presidency in Adamawa State? They joked that the only thing he did was extending the airport run way so that the presidential aircraft he uses would land conveniently in the state. Of course, he built a private university for the privileged but how many Yola people children attend that school? So, there is so much excess luggage that that guy has and therefore has a job to do. But look at how somebody of that standing has danced round how many parties?
When has sustaining a dream become a sin? We know that in America, there were presidential candidates that aspired for several times?
But in the same party! In the same party!!
And we know that Buhari, your model, contested four times before luck smiled on him…?
No! No!! He did it twice with one party and he was virtually pushed out of the party. I was a member of the ANPP, I was a member of APP and even when Buhari left for CPC, I was still in the ANPP.
Today Buhari is becoming less popular in Kano. Many people feel that he has not done well in terms of projects, that he has not visited Kano or that he has suddenly discovered Daura as his home state.
Not suddenly, he has been visiting Daura regularly. Even when he was a military head of state, every Sallah Buhari must go to Daura. Even when he was in PTF, Buhari was constantly in Daura. Please don’t distort history. About visiting Kano, yes, people would have loved to see him immediately. He should have visited Kano in every quarter given the way we like him. But where has he visited? In terms of projects, it is true what we are saying. But I am somebody who knows how the national budget is prepared and I will be dishonest to you to talk like a man on the street on this matter. The budget of the Federal Government of Nigeria could be a joke if you don’t know. Mr. President can have one or two projects he is interested in and that the minister of planning would make sure they are included. But after that, a would include what the president did not approve.