BY SUZAN EDEH
Senator Baba Tela, one-time chairman Senate Committee on Communications, who recently  decamped from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), in this interview with Vanguard, speaks on his emergence as  the ACN  gubernatorial candidate in Bauchi State, his chances and how to deepen democracy in the country. Excerpts:

How will you describe your nomination as the governorship candidate of the ACN in Bauchi State?

By the grace of God and the wishes of the people of Bauchi State, I was declared winner of the nomination and I am prepared to go into the election. I call on all of us that have contested, it has been a very keen contest, to come on board so that together all of us will salvage the state and take this state to greater heights.

I call on all the contestants in all the positions that have been contested  to kindly join hands with those that have been nominated because we are all members of the same party so that we can join hands together to move forward and salvage Bauchi State.

Everyone knows the antecedents of the states controlled by ACN. They have been progressive states; they have been on the move development wise and have been fantastic.

In what way does your background relate to your political ambition?

I was born in Azare in 1959. I did my primary school and secondary school in Azare. From there on I went to the school of Basic Studies in Ahmadu Bello University, ABU Zaria. I did my first degree in Business Administration in ABU, then, I went into business and from there I set up one of my factories and quite a few of them are all over the country now.

Politically I have ventured into politics. I contested and won the bye_election for the Bauchi North Senatorial District in 2002. Before then I have served as special assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo for about a year before contesting for the bye-election to the Senate. After that I contested again in 2003 and 2007.

Going by the incumbency factor in the country, how confident are you that you are going to unseat Governor Isa Yuguda in Bauchi?

It is not difficult to unseat anybody because incumbency in itself, if it is properly used, is not a hindrance to anything. Incumbency should not be anything that one uses to the disadvantage of the other person. To my mind, incumbency is not something that should frighten anybody. After all we have seen it in so many places where incumbents have been unseated.. I think the most important thing is to use incumbency to justify why you are there, not impose yourself to be there because of incumbency.  So incumbency if it is not properly utilized is not a threat to me, to any person who is a democratic. So, unseating Yuguda is not going to be difficult because of the apparent lack of progress in so many spheres.

Lack of internal democracy in the parties has been one of the major problems bedeviling the system and you have been a victim. What is the way out?

I think the way out is for us to democratize the political parties because internal democracy in any organization apart from political parties is very important for democratic development. Once you don’t have internal democracy within the parties, things will not work. I think there must be a resolution within the parties, there must be a code of conduct, and there must be a system to democratize the parties.

A situation whereby you have one person dictating what happens to a whole structure, of people, of political parties is not right and does not augur well for our democracy. So in order for emerging democracies like ours to develop, we must democratize the political parties, first and foremost. While we are doing that we should do it with the people in mind. There was an attempt to do so a while ago. We should democratize the parties in such a way that they will be the pillars for young democracies such as ours otherwise we are going nowhere.

You did mention some programmes during your declaration while in PDP. How will you go about with these programmes on the platform of ACN?

Essentially what the people of Bauchi State needs whether it is PDP or ACN does not change. Everybody needs to have security, electricity supply, transportation, water supply, quality education, etc – the basic necessities of life. If you can access them without much problems then you can free yourself and earn something to uplift your social standing. So basically, all you have to do is to be able to merge the policies and programmes of the party you are in and the ones you visualize to be what you will do to lift the lifestyle of the people who elected you into office.

How do you view the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan as the PDP presidential flag bearer?

I am not in PDP any more so I will not answer that question.

ACN was trying to work an arrangement with the CPC for the presidential ticket. But will you or the ACN work with other political parties?

I don’t have much information about the ACN/CPC alliance. But suffice to say that any other political party that is ready to come on board in terms of merger with ACN in order to put up the government of the state in the next dispensation, we are willing and prepared to welcome and discuss within the context of the national policy of the ACN.

You have been a senator under PDP and a governorship aspirant under PDP. At the last minute you decided to come to ACN.  People will be interested to know why?

That is the issue of internal democracy. We did everything to make sure there was justice and fair play, put some sense of openness in the party in the nomination of the candidates. That did not happen so you have to go somewhere else where you feel that would happen.