President of Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), Jonathan Asake, has said that there is an ulterior motive for the nomination of same-faith presidential and vice-presidential candidates by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the SOKAPU leader said it’s insulting for anyone to claim that there were no Northern Christians in APC with the political clout to win elections.
The criticisms of the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate are coming from mostly Northern Christians. Why?
It is so, of course. Take for instance, if power shifts to the South, like in the case of Tinubu today, but you have a Christian from the South, naturally, it is expected that the vice presidential candidate should be a Muslim from the North. If the presidential candidate is a Muslim from the North, it is expected that the vice presidential candidate will be from the South; that balances ethnicity and religion.
But this time around, the presidential candidate is from the South and a Muslim. It is natural that the running mate will be a Northern Christian to balance both ethnicity and religion. This is what inclusiveness is all about with the diversity we have found ourselves in order to allow stability and peace.
In other climes, where the democratic structures are strong enough and people emerged out of strong competitions, out of exhibiting their capacity and capability, you would not mind what the religion of the people is. People are expected to see a very efficient person who is capable, credible, who can do the job. So, it doesn’t matter what his religion is or ethnicity is.
But in our own clime, with this kind of diversity and the structures that are very weak, we need to do all this balancing of political equations or to ensure inclusiveness. That is why the Christian North is concerned about a Christian being the running mate. We have a lot of Christians in the North.
In fact, in what we call the Middle Belt North, we have 14 out of the 19 states that have large Christian populations. That is the reason for the agitation.
What are the Christians afraid of?
It is not of being afraid; it is the situation we found ourselves in Nigeria. Just reverse the role, if it had been a Christian having this ticket, and he picks a Christian running mate and adopts a Christian-Christian ticket, you would not see peace in this country. So, it is actually where we found ourselves; the way we play our politics. There is no how a Christian would emerge either from the North or South and take another Christian from the South or the North and we will have peace in this country. It is something we are used to doing; it is for inclusiveness, which actually brings peace within the polity. The Christian community in the North feels excluded. It appears that there is some kind of religious politics playing out. Why is the APC insisting that the running mate of its presidential candidate must be a Muslim from the North when we have a lot of Christians from the region? It leaves room for suspicion that something else is going on. Why are they avoiding a Christian running mate?
Politics is mostly about winning election. It is said that there are no Northern Christians strong enough or with the political clout to win elections
The people holding this view are actually part of the problem and are being economical with the truth. Who is Kashim Shettima? Which clout does he have? Is it because he has been a governor? We have Lalong who is a Christian, and he is a governor and a former speaker of the state House of Assembly for eight years before he became a governor, and he is the chairman of the Northern Governors Forum. If you place Lalong and Shettima on a scale, who has more political credentials? It is Lalong. Then there is Yakubu Dogara, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. He has been in the House, he has legislative experience and he became the speaker under a very strong competition and opposition. He became a household name all over the nation. Doesn’t he have the clout enough to be the running mate? What of Babachir, who was the Secretary to the Government of the Federation? He became a very strong SGF that everybody knew about him. What of the present SGF, Boss Mustapha? We can go on and on with the list. So, who will you take from the Muslim North that has more clout that those people I have mentioned from the Christian North? Who among the Muslim North in APC now that has been a speaker of the House of Representatives apart from the governor of Sokoto State, Tambuwal? Who among them has been SGF? If you are talking about people that command clout, the Christian North has surplus. So, there must be another ulterior reason other than the reason they are giving.
Right now, we have a Christian vice president. Has it changed anything or addressed your fears?
If it doesn’t change anything, why is it that it is only the position of the VP they are talking about? Why are we not talking about other positions if it will change anything? I can go on and on to tell you other positions that are being insisted must be occupied by Muslims. The president is a Muslim from the North, the senate president, who is the Number Three person and the chairman of the National Assembly (NASS) is a Muslim from the North, the speaker of the House is a Muslim from the South, the deputy speaker is a Muslim from the North. I can go on and on to talk about heads of all the security agencies, heads of parastatals, and heads of paramilitary organisations. You talk about the Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Naval Staff, Chief of Air Force, you talk of the Inspector General of the Police, you talk of the Director-General of the Department of State Security Service; they are all Muslims. I can go on and on, it is an endless list in this administration of Buhari. If you are saying that it has not changed anything, why the insistence that Muslims must hold all those organisations? There is something about it. So, the only person we have now at that level is the vice president and it gives the Christians some sense of inclusiveness. That is what I’m talking about. If you have the Council meeting today, you have the president seated, and you have all the organs, while the vice president is absent, then you find that there is no Christian there. In a country where you have so much diversity and you are not having the appointments to ensure the inclusiveness or take care of that diversity, then something is wrong somewhere. That is why the agitation.
Now that it has happened, what is the next line of action?
The Christian Association of Nigeria has stated its position. From day one, those that championed the Muslim-Muslim ticket for Bola Ahmed Tinubu actually didn’t do it in good faith. They actually knew that Tinubu being a Southerner has large followership among the Christians in the North who were ready to vote for him, and bringing that Muslim- Muslim ticket has extricated him from the large Christian votes in the North and that is a recipe for failure.
Let me tell you, the Muslim North has only one party now. The only one party is not APC, it is not PDP, it is not NNPP, and it is not Labour Party, it is Atiku. Tinubu ought to know that one. If he were properly advised, he wouldn’t have taken Muslim-Muslim ticket. He has even violated the sensibility of the people because Atiku being a Muslim from the North went to the South to pick a running mate. That ensures inclusiveness. Peter Obi from the South has taken a Muslim from the North; that is inclusiveness. Kwankwaso being a Muslim from the North has taken a bishop from the South. It is only Tinubu that is virtually odd. If that is what he wanted, nobody knows, but I think he was actually forced and those that forced that on him don’t want him to be president in this country because he knows that he has played over the sensibilities of Christians in this country. Maybe he is not ready for the presidency.
A wanted terrorist, Adamu Yakkuso alias Aleru was installed the Saraki Fulani in Zamfara State, with government functionaries and retired police chiefs in attendance. What does this tell us?
It tells us what everybody has been crying about from day one that this APC government under Buhari has condoned this terrorism because they have not decisively dealt with this terrorism. So, by that action or inaction, it suggested that the government is probably complicit in this terrorism that is ravaging the whole nation. If not, what else can one say that a terrorist is being installed and people attended, knowing that he is a terrorist that has been killing people on daily basis, kidnapping and collecting ransom on daily basis, yet there is a government there that sits and watches. The primary responsibility of the government anywhere in the world is the security and welfare of the people. Where is the security? People are not secured, they are not having any welfare; people are just going about without any hope. It is suggestive of so many things, but one is that these people are in concert with the government.
The security agencies claimed not to know where these terrorists were. Wasn’t that an opportunity for them to swoop on the bandits?
That is what I’m saying. Even when they have been saying that they didn’t know where these bandits were. The Kaduna State governor, few weeks ago said the security agencies knew the locations of these terrorists and what they were doing, which is true. He also cried out that it is the Federal Government’s duty to go and flush them out, but it has refused. For whatever reason, they are being left to continue to terrorise Nigerians. The meaning is yet to be known. I’m praying that we get to unveil this and that is why we are hoping the team that will come on board must be ready to take this insecurity head on and they should really restructure this nation in a way that people will have their sense of worth; where we have mutual respect for each other, where life will have its own meaning and where people can go about their own businesses wherever they find themselves. Nigerians, we love ourselves, and we love this country.