By Ben  Agande
Alhaji Gambo Magaji is a foundation member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party; from the day it was All Peoples Party to when it went into merger with the United Nigeria Democratic to form the All Nigeria Peoples Party.

Though he is the party’s chairman of the board of trustees, he wants to be the national chairman of the party to, in his word, ‘reposition and re_engineer it for the challenges of 2011’. In this interview with Vanguard in Abuja, he speaks on his vision for the party and other issues affecting the party.
Excerpts:

You have been a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party since  it was All Peoples Party. What would say led to the party’s continuous misfortune?

This is an interesting question that calls for going back to the formative stage of the All Peoples Party, the Alliance for Democracy and the Peoples Democratic Party.

At the beginning, there were two parties only, the PDP and the APP. Later on because of some disagreements, the Yoruba elements within the APP decided to pull out and went on to register the Alliance for Democracy.

Alhaji Gambo Magaji

During the elections of 1999, the APP and the PDP won fifteen states each while the AD won six but because the leadership at that time wanted at all cost for Olusegun Obasanjo to be President, and he was coming on the ticket of the PDP, the issue is they must make sure that there is an apparent advantage for Obasanjo to come in.

That was why six states of APP were confiscated from the APP and added to the PDP to give the PDP the advantage of having twenty one states. That was the beginning of the problems.

When we came to the primaries at the convention to elect our presidential flag bearer, everybody knew what happened. We were in Kaduna and everybody at that time thought that Dr Olusola Saraki was going to be our flag bearer but the authorities at that time wanted at all cost to get a weakling within the opposition party so that Obasanjo would have an easy ride.

The leadership of the APP at that time refused to even sell the presidential nomination forms to Saraki. He was so frustrated. At the end of the day we ended up with Presidential primaries in Kaduna where we elected Chief Ogbonaya Onu as our flag bearer, only for the leadership of the party to disappear from Kaduna to resurface in Abuja the following day with the combination of Chief Olu Falae and Umaru Shinkafi as the presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate respectively.

That was the beginning of our problems. There was no sense in our giving the presidential ticket to somebody who is not a member of our party. The followership of the country nationwide was demoralized and that gave added advantage to the PDP.

When Obasanjo became the president of this country, he realized that he came through some sort of fraudulent mechanism and knowing that president Obasanjo is somebody who does not believe in multiparty democracy. If you know the antecedent of Obasanjo all along his life as president of this country and even in his book, Not My Will, he said he abhors multi party democracy.

He believes in one party system. Immediately he became the President of this country, he decided to translate into action his abhorrence for multi-party democracy.

He unleashed thuggery, intimidation and whatever you can imagine to ensure that PDP becomes the only surviving political party in Nigeria.

In 2003 election, we lost Kwara and Kogi states. By 2006, Obasanjo already had his tool, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to work for him. They unleashed all sorts of imaginary charges against all perceived opponents of his regime.

Those of them who were spineless like the former governor of Jigawa state, caved in. President Obasanjo even said that any political party that is not in control of four states of Kano, Lagos, Sokoto and Borno is not in full control of the country.

That is why he wanted to win those states at all cost in 2007. In the wee hour of the substitution of candidates, Obasanjo hijacked the ANPP candidate in Sokoto and he left the party twenty four hours to the last day of submission for the PDP. Because he was in control of INEC, everything was smoothened for him.

The issue is that the fact that we have only three governors now does not mean that the ANPP is dead or has lost its supporters. What ANPP lost are some individuals who are really not committed members of the party but who used the party’s platform for their personal advantage.

Some people have argued that by frustrating its presidential candidate, General Mohammadu Buhari out of the party, ANPP has shot itself on the leg.  Would you absolve yourself of blame?

I always feel bad for people who feel that General Buhari is ANPP and ANPP is General Buhari. They have failed to realize that General Buhari joined the ANPP on the 25th April, 2002. He met a political party already vibrant and having nine governors.

The nine governors were there before he came into the party. By the time he left us we were left with only three governors. I put it to you, was his stay an advantage or a disadvantage? I rest my case.

The last two chairmen of your party were people who came from other political parties and some people have argued that this has contributed to the misfortune of the party. Why did the party make such a mistake?

The ANPP by its nature tries to promote equity and fairness. When the United Nigeria Democratic Party came to us in 2003 and wanted to merge with us, a committee on merger was set up and I was the chairman of that committee.

When we agreed to merge, we changed our name from APP to ANPP in order to accommodate the ‘N’ from the UNDP.  At that time, there was a care taker committee under then Governor Attahiru Bafarawa. I was a member of the committee and I was fully in charge because the governor then had no much time.

We thought that with the big names that were joining us from the UNDP it was going to be an advantage for us.

When we went for our convention and Buhari emerged as the candidate, we gave the chairmanship to Don Etiebet and the chairman of the BOT to Admiral Aikhomu.

At that time we had members in the National Assembly but after the election, instead of us to gain we lost all the members from the south except two or three of them.

If not because of me ANPP would have disintegrated since 2004. I had to literally push Chief Ume_Ezeoke to invoke section 13 (2) of our constitution in order to check the issue parallel executive.

By 2006, we were able to weather through the storm and we said since Don Etiebet was leaving the party, in the spirit of fairness and equity, we should make Ume-Ezeoke the chairman of the party. Some south east members like Chief Mike Ahamba, George Moghalu and one or two persons vied for the position.

My views were sought and I said that as far as I know Ume_Ezeoke, he was okay especially with his advantage of being the speaker of the House of Representatives. If they asked me today, I would not have said so.

He took over the party and we lost everybody from the south, except the senator that we have by default.  The only place we have some advantage is the south west where we have some members of the state Houses of Assembly but because of the bad leadership, even our gubernatorial candidates who won their elections left us.

The truth of the matter is that the supporters of the ANPP are still intact. If you call for a free and fair election today, PDP cannot win where ANPP won before.

What would you do differently if you are voted as the chairman of the party?

What I will do is simple. I know the problems of the ANPP. If I become the chairman of the party tomorrow, the following day, I will start direct communication with all foundation members of the ANPP. Majority of them left the party not because they don’t want the party but because they were not accorded the respect they deserve.

Secondly, these foundation members have equal rights and equal stakes as any member of the party whether you are the chairman of the party. But when you start discriminating, that is when you begin to have problems. The first thing I would do is to reach out to all the foundation members and all those who were elected on the platform of the party from 1999 till date.

I will also set up a reconciliation committee to reconcile all the feuding parties within the party. After that I will move out for a national drive for new membership because we believe if we do that one within the shortest possible time of taking over, we will not only rejuvenate the party but we will also re_engineer and reposition the party to face the challenges of 2011.

PDP is not in good shape and I can tell you no political party in this country is in good shape. But I believe with me on the driver’s seat, we know what we will do to reposition the party and take advantage of the other problems in other political parties.

What are the chances of the ANPP in 2011?

: Our chances are bright. As we are talking now, no political party can beat its chest and say we are going to win elections out rightly. The advantage we have in ANPP is that we know our weaknesses and we know the weaknesses of the other political parties and we will take full advantage of the weaknesses of the other parties and translate it into action.

Some people have argued that the position of the chairman of the party should remain in the South. Are you not scared of the possibility of losing out as a result of this argument?

I am not scared. We had zoned it twice to the south but the disadvantage outweigh the advantage of the zoning it to the south.  The resources of this party come largely from the north through contribution by party members and other means.

That resources are being used to try to woo members from the south but unfortunately the leadership is not concerned with the progress of the party and the followership in their areas. For instance, when the issue of Government of National Unity came up, I opposed it because I said there would be no advantage to us as a party.

At the end of the day the chairman got a position for his son and most of them got positions for their brothers and friends. This is the type of the leadership that we have which I want to change. If we continue to zone the party to the south, one day we will wake up to find out that we don’t have followership in this country again.