Any party going into a coalition is already a defeated party – Senator Dansadau
Senator Saidu Mohammed Dansadau, is the National Chairman of National Rescue Movement (NRM) one of the new political parties. In this exclusive interview with MYKE UZENDU, Dansadau reveals the party’s novel leadership election plan, its view on restructuring, Obasanjo’s third force, state police and how NRM will transform the country.
As the name implies, your party wants to rescue Nigeria. How do you intend to do that?
We plan to do that by doing things differently from the way and manner other political parties have been doing things. We have three broad processes; NRM is set to change approach, change style of Nigerian politics and then change leadership recruitment process.
Democracy in the opinion of NRM is not just about having civilian administration or democratically elected government, but it is about freedom and provision of good governance and that is the ultimate objective of the National Rescue Movement.
For the first time in Nigeria’s political history, a political party is coming up with a manifesto that has the input of all major stake holders in the Nigerian economy.
We have written letters to all professional groups in this country, all trade unions, religious leaders, traditional rulers, youth and women organisations, enclosing our manifesto and asking them to look into areas that affect their profession with a view to making their observations and input.
All the observations and input that we are going to receive, we are going to setup a commission of experts within and outside the party to harmonise all the inputs, put them in our manifesto and then we file an amendment with INEC.
By so doing, we shall be the first political party that will produce this type of manifesto. We are also going to make all these groups to be part of our leadership recruitment process.
In other words, in NRM, we shall have a three phased primaries. In the first instance, members of the party will play the primary role and then professional group, trade unions and all other organisations who are non-partisan will play a secondary role.
The final which is the tertiary role, will be played purely by members of the NRM during our primaries. By so doing, we are providing an objective process through which presidential candidates, governorship candidates and all other seats that have been provided by the constitution will be contested for under our party.
It will be purely objective, a process that money or god fatherism will not influence. All kinds of sentiments will have very little to do with our process.
Our process is immune to all kinds of vices or sentiments you can think of. We are also the first political party in this country that has come up with this type of process.
In fact we have many political parties but I can vouch to say that we are different from all the political parties that have existed from the time of independence till date.
We are a political party with a difference, we are out for a serious business, we are out to fix Nigeria and we shall demonstrate to Nigerians that we have the capacity, we are ready, we have the commitment to ameliorate the socioeconomic and political challenges that have bedeviled this country for so long.
Do you think professional politicians will be willing to buy into this transparent platform?
Honestly speaking, by the credibility tests that we have planned that all our candidates must go through, from the so-called career politicians, only five percent may be able to scale through the process.
The remaining 95 percent will emerge from what we describe as fresh politicians, especially from the youths who have been dominated for so long by the older generation.
We want to bring the Nigerian youths forward. We want them to play critical role in nation building, we want to see how much they can do in terms of providing good governance.
Since independence to date, it is people from our age, from the age of 60 and above who have been running the affairs of this country and if what we have on ground today is all we can give to this country, it means we have not done well.
If we want to be crude, then I can say that we have failed. And if we have not done well, what do we do, we have to change style and this style is to bring forward the Nigerian youths, give them a trial and see what they will be able to offer.
Apart from the youths and women, there are also the professionals, serving and retired, technocrats and civil servants who are credible and will scale through the credibility test.
Time has gone when you can bring anybody whether he has the right antecedent or not and you give him ticket as a governorship candidate. In fact, no other political party can do that, we are out to rescue Nigeria and its people.
One of the problems hampering active participation of youths is finance, how do you intend to handle that?
In National Rescue Movement, money is not a primary factor. The primary factor in NRM is your credibility, your honesty, your fear of God, your determination and resolution to use power to serve God and humanity.
In our party, even presidential aspirants do not have to pay that fortune, they may not even have to pay up to N500,000 not to talk of somebody contesting for state House of Assembly or House of Reps, chairman of local government or councilor, so money is not the primary factor.
My conscience is telling me that Nigerians have learnt from a very hard way and have realised, especially the ordinary voter in the village that money politics is substantially responsible for the denigration on the quality of leadership in the country, and the worst victim of this bad leadership is the ordinary Nigerian that is out there in the village, that is on the street.
And they are ready to teach fraudulent Nigerians a very good lesson by not voting them into power. Credible Nigerians are in every nook and cranny of this country and they are known, these are the kind of people I want to field as candidates.
They don’t even need to have money to get our tickets because nobody will take bribe at the National Secretariat of NRM. Nobody will sit down here in Abuja, after your people have nominated you, you have won your elections, you have won your primary and somebody will come here and give us millions, and then we cancel your name and put somebody’s name. No that is not going to happen.
So once you are elected by your people, you are elected and you don’t need to campaign during the election, it is the party that is going to campaign for you and the party is not going to give anybody money to vote for any of its candidates.
All we are going to do to the Nigerian people is to give them credible candidates with the fear of God who will serve them creditably in the interest of the nation. Therefore money is not even a secondary factor.
All these ideas as good as they sound, have you made attempts to sell it to the older parties before forming NRM knowing that we already have 68 political parties?
Of course, they are very much aware of the radicalism of my ideas, remember when I wanted to contest for the National Chairmanship of the ANPP, in 2002, the ANPP governors and the power that be in the villa at that time knew that if I emerge as the National Chairman of the ANPP, it will defeat PDP at that time, so there was conspiracy between ANPP governors and the power that be at the Villa in order to truncate the convention.
They weighed all options; they spent all the money in order to make sure that I was defeated. But at the eve of the convention, at 1am after examining all options and they realised that once the convention took place that I was going to win the election, they now conscripted a judge who issued a court order, restraining the party from holding the convention.
We knew what happened, a Judge was woken up at 1am and he issued a court order which was back dated and truncated the convention because they knew very well that if I come back with this radical ideas, that will transform the party which will lead to some governors at that time not winning second term, and that it can lead ANPP to win at the center, that’s why there was conspiracy.
Don’t forget that in 2008, I resigned from the ANPP, it was not out of nothing, it was because I was not satisfied with the way and manner ANPP was being ran at that time and nobody was prepared to listen.
Nobody wanted any amendment that will make ANPP a clearly national party with ideology which would provide good governance as opposed to the PDP, because most of the leaders especially the governors at that time were not after providing good governance. All they were after was the obvious thing.
So, it is not that we haven’t tried it before, we tried but it wasn’t possible and that was why we said this time around, look people have now realised that we have no option in this country except to have credible people at the helm of affairs.
That is the only way out and I am very glad to say that with the kind of reception we are getting from all nooks and corners of the country.
In fact from the ordinary Nigerians, the elites are still contemplating but I am still very glad that NRM as a movement is still answering its name as a movement.
Are not threatened by Obasanjo’s third force?
I don’t believe in Obasanjo’s third force nor do I believe in any coalition.
So, your party is not planning to go into a coalition?
For me it is defeatist when politicians begin to feel that they have to come together in large number, simply to wrestle power from the ruling political party. It should be a contest of ideas not a contest of conspiracy and coalition.
Each and every political party must showcase what it stands for, the package it has for Nigerians, I think that it is unwise.
If you go through an experience and you fail to get the desired result, why should you do it again? ACN, ANPP and all other parties that make up the coalition, that is how we collected power from the PDP, but where are we today, have we gotten the desired change, have we gotten the desired result, of course no.
Why should we go back to it, we should change strategy and that strategy is NRM.
That is why we are appealing to all Nigerians of good will, patriotic Nigerians who regard political power as an instrument of serving God and humanity to come forward.
Our hope and prayer is that NRM will make Nigeria a democratic home for third world countries like America is when you are talking about democracy.
Is your party talking with any serving governor or members of the National Assembly to woo them into NRM?
I am in talks with some politicians, members of the National Assembly, but I am not in talks with any governor.
I feel that from the National Assembly, there are some few ones that we can fish out that we believe that they can meet the criteria of our credibility test, that if they so wish, they can come over and be part of this epoch making efforts to rescue Nigeria and its people.
What’s the position of your party on restructuring?
My belief is that if NRM is in power for just four years, I don’t think you will hear any agitation for restructuring, State of Biafra, Boko Haram, cattle rustling, kidnapping, armed banditry.
All these vices are products of bad governance. It is not restructuring that Nigerians are looking for, what they are looking for is good governance, to grow the economy, Nigerian youths to get employment opportunities, industrialists and entrepreneurs to get enabling environment, Nigerian farmer to have a market where he can make profit.
So that whatever trade you are engaged in, you will have a conducive business environment so that all together, we can now grow the economy and everybody will be very busy and nobody will have time for agitation.
This issue of state police, does your party believe in it?
Well, the party has not taken any position, but I personally for one, believe in it because it has a lot of advantages.
The population of Nigeria is growing so large and it doesn’t make sense that you take somebody from Yobe State as a police officer and post him to the riverine area of Bayelsa State.
He doesn’t know the terrain, he doesn’t know the culture and tradition, he doesn’t understand the language. How does he help in intelligence gathering, it doesn’t make sense.
Therefore, state police can substantially help in law and order and ameliorating the security challenges which we are going through.
Why did you choose the bee as your party’s logo, are you coming to sting Nigerians?
Bee doesn’t sting anybody until you attack it, to show its power to repel enemies. All we are saying is that the nation’s armed forces are capable of repelling any foreign attack that is just the stinging aspect of the bee.
But don’t forget the unity of purpose of the bee, anywhere you see them it’s like a group. That family that you see, that’s how we want to turn Nigeria.
So, irrespective of ethnicity, religious differences, political inclinations, geography, NRM will make Nigerians see themselves as members of one family. Each and everybody will protect the interest of the other.
Bee is a selfless insect, it doesn’t consume the honey it produces, it doesn’t gain anything but it produces the honey for humanity.
That represents the ideals of NRM public officers. All public officers elected under the NRM will provide selfless service to the Nigerian people, provide welfare and job opportunities for Nigerian youths, provide enabling environment for industrialists, for entrepreneurs for every Nigerian to realise his potential.
If anybody dares to attempt steal public funds, he will be severely dealt with. It is unacceptable under NRM.
No ethnic group in Nigeria or any part of the world hold any negative connotation against bee and that is how NRM government is going to be. Every ethnic group in Nigeria will see NRM government as its own, no discrimination whatsoever.
Another thing about bee is its medicinal nature, nobody can tell you the number of medicines that are made from honey.
Just as you cannot enumerate the socioeconomic challenges in this country, so the NRM government is going to ameliorate in the way that honey is used as medicine to heal different types of ailment.
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For me it is defeatist when politicians begin to feel that they have to come together in large number, simply to wrestle power from the ruling political party. It should be a contest of ideas not a contest of conspiracy and coalition. Each and every political party must showcase what it stands for, the package it has for Nigerians; I think that it is unwise. If you go through an experience and you fail to get the desired result, why should you do it again?
