BY JOHN BULUS

Senator Saidu Umar Kumo, immediate past national secretary of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, was a foundation member of the party. He was elected on the platform of the party to the Senate and subsequently became the national scribe. His appointment as an aide of the President under the controversial government of national unity weaved by the administration of late President Umaru Musa Yar‘Adua stirred controversy.

The action contributed to the subsequent exit of the party’s presidential flag bearer in the 2007 election, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) from the party. Indeed, controversy had shadowed Kumo’s own vituperations against the infidelity of some of his former colleagues in the ANPP.

When former Governor Abubakar Audu and the late Governor Mala Kachallah of Borno State joined the train of some PDP Governors to “persuade” President Olusegun Obasanjo to seek a second term in April 2002, Kumo blasted them as politicians whose political ship was sinking. Similarly, when Buhari left the ANPP in 2010, Kumo as the national secretary of the party was quoted to have described the exit as good riddance.

Following his term in office as national scribe, Kumo contested the gubernatorial election in his native Gombe State on the platform of the ANPP and lost to what he described as the rigging machine of the PDP. Now, Kumo has himself exited the ANPP for the PDP. Vanguard’s John Bulus encountered him on his reasons and prospects in the party he once loved to hate. Excerpts:

What informed your decision to leave the ANPP?

Politics is a dynamic thing. It is not something that is stagnant. It depends on the situation, the current happenings in the entire nation and maybe in your own environment and locality. Yes, by the grace of God, I was one of the chieftains of the ANPP, one of the founding members of the ANPP, but honestly, so many things made me to move to PDP, particularly, the issue of the people of Gombe State.

So, I have been under extensive pressure from immediately after the election up to this moment from my people, my admirers, my supporters especially at the emergence of the present governor, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo.

People think that that was how God wanted it. They said they want me to come and join hands with him and see how he can best lead the state to the Promised Land. So, whatever I do, my primary constituency is Gombe State. It is not the entire country. So I had to listen to my primary constituency. I had to listen to those I have been in politics with for the past 30 years. It is not going to be proper for me to develop deaf ears and refuse to listen to them because they have been supporting me all these years.

Senator Kumo

All what I had wanted to do when I contested the gubernatorial election was to bring development to the entire Gombe State, sanitize the system and them bring peace and harmony within Gombe, set up and make sure people are getting what they should get and politics played the way it should be played. So, these are the reasons why I agreed to join PDP.

So, here I am now in the PDP and by the grace of God, we are going to do everything humanly possible to make PDP control Gombe State and we will support the PDP nationally and then we will make sure the leadership of the PDP is upright nationwide. And then along with the others in the party, we will make sure that PDP becomes a party people will have confidence in and definitely rely on.

You would have disagreed with some persons when you were in the opposition. Do you think you will feel comfortable now you have joined them?

There is nothing like being uncomfortable with it. I am a politician. They are also politicians. Our disagreement probably was because we were in different political parties and the way I see things may not be the way they see things. Now, I have joined them, I will impact what I want them to agree with and they will do the same all in the interest of the entire State. We don’t have any other state than Gombe.

All of us, whatever we are struggling for is to better the lives of Gombe citizens. Gombe indigenes need to be taken care of in all sincerity. Development will be put in place and people will be assisted to reduce the level of poverty within the system. If that is the case, then, we can put our heads together along with them.

So all the disagreement before were political and definitely, we will disagree even in the PDP as well, but on matters of principles, reasoning and issues. So, if there is any superior argument from them, I will agree and if there if there is any from me, they will agree.

Outside from coming to help the Governor, many said you entertain the ambition of realizing your gubernatorial ambition, perhaps after Dankwambo’s tenure. How true is that?

Let us see. Time will tell. It is a matter of time. There is no way it can be said that I don’t have any ambition. People must have ambitions. But it is not time for that. I’m here in the PDP in order to team up with the Governor to better the lots of our people. We will support him to lead us to the Promised Land.

Some say your action betrayed your associates in ANPP, leading and dumping them half way?

There is nothing like dumping them half way. I have finished the election. I believe nobody will say this. It is your question to hear something from me. Nobody in ANPP in Gombe State will say I betrayed him. No body. I can assure you that I’m not forcing anybody within the ANPP to follow me. If you so wish you want to remain in the ANPP, so be it. I thank the ANPP for giving me opportunities.

I tell you, I’m leaving the ANPP with a heavy heart because I’m a founding member of the party. But when situation doesn’t want you to remain in the party, there is nothing you can do. But if the people want you to move forward and you refuse, you may be betraying them.