DUTSE—Former Jigawa State governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, has asked his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha, to forgive him over their prison experience, as he claimed total responsibility for their ordeal in the hands of the law.
In an interview with international radio station, VOA Hausa service, monitored by Vanguard shortly after his return from Abuja, in company of the two sons, Lamido described his arrest as the beginning of restoration of confidence in political leadership in Nigeria.
The 69-year-old former governor recalled that he had been incarcerated in the past for holding opposing political views, declaring that he would never be discouraged in politics.
The protégé of late Malam Aminu Kano said he had gone through many political incarcerations in the past and noted that if the purpose of his recent arrest by the EFCC was to humiliate, deconstruct and destroy him and his family, he won’t be discouraged.
Lamido said his arrest by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, was a political hazard that a serious politician must pass through.
He said: “In the process to improve democracy, there would be some mistakes. I am not a perfect human being; I have my own shortcomings. And in my own case, I’m outspoken, which perhaps explained why people found me too offensive and irritating”.
The former Foreign Affairs Minister explained that his pains weren’t his detention, but his sons who were innocent but had to suffer simply because their father served as a governor.
Lamido admitted he caused their detention and as such they should forgive him and be patient with the situation they found themselves.
He pointed out that he is determined to serve his people, adding that he had no grudges against anybody over his arrest, and that those who see him as a corrupt person were entitled to their opinions.
A federal high court in Abuja has granted bail to Sule Lamido, former governor of Jigawa state, and his sons, Aminu and Mustapha.
Lamido in Prison
The former governor was granted bail on self recognition, while his sons paid the sum of N25 million each.
One Aminu Abubakar Wada, a party to the case, was also granted bail on the sum of N25 million.
Gabriel Kolawole, the vacation judge, who heard their bail application, had adjourned ruling to 2:30pm after hearing the matter for about one hour.
However, he did not show up until about 3:52pm.
On Thursday, Evelyn Anyadike, a justice of the federal high court in Kano remanded them in Kano prison after they were docked on a 28-count charge of corruption and money laundering brought against them by the EFCC.
Anyadike adjourned their trial to September 28 but said they could approach the vacation judge with their formal bail application.
They were transferred to Kuje prison in Abuja on Monday and brought to the court early Tuesday.
Joe Agi, counsel to the Lamidos, prayed the court to grant the accused persons bail on the grounds that they were presumed innocent before the law until convicted.
Citing section 125 of the administration of criminal justice act, he further urged the court to grant the applicants bail, saying the former governor honoured an invitation by the anti-graft agency while he was abroad, and did not flee from the law when he had the chance.
Chile Okoroma, counsel to the EFCC, however, argued that the punishment for the crime (money laundering) the accused persons are alleged to have committed was seven years imprisonment without an option of fine.
Okoroma said they might flee because of the heavy charges hanging on their necks. After listening to arguments from both sides, Kolawole ruled that the accused persons be released on bail on the grounds that the prosecuting counsel was not able to prove if they would jump bail.
Lamido was required to release his international passport to the court while his sons were asked to present two sureties each.
The judge said the sureties must have landed property valued at N75 million. Armed policemen massed around the premises of the court, forestalling a repeat of what happened at the federal high court, Kano where supporters of the Lamidos besieged last Thursday.
The travails of the Lamidos began in 2012 when Aminu was arrested by the EFCC at the Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, for failing to declare a sum of $ 40,000. He was prosecuted and convicted; with 50 percent of the undeclared sum forfeited to the federal government.
But the investigation into the source of the funds led investigators into the closely guarded web of corruption and money laundering involving members of the former first family of Jigawa state and their cronies.
A former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido and his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha who were docked in Kano prison are currently at the federal high court in Abuja seeking bail.
The trio were remanded in Kano prison along side with one Aminu Wada Abubakar last week Thursday but were transferred to Kuje prison in Abuja on Monday.
Lamido and his sons were arraigned and docked on a 28-count charge bothering on corruption and money laundering, a accusation levied against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The only vacation judge at the Abuja court, Gabriel Kolawole is yet to arrive the court at the time of filing the report, according to thecable reports.
…set to get bail tomorrow; supporters keep vigil at Kano prison
By Soni Daniel, Regional Editor, North
After spending 72 hours with his two sons in Kano Central Prison, immediate past governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, has imputed political motives to his incarceration.
Lamido in Prison
According to the former governor, he is being persecuted by those who feel that they would not be able to actualise their presidential ambition with him around the political arena.
Lamido, who spoke exclusively to Sunday Vanguard through his media aide, Umar Kyari, yesterday, drew the attention of Nigerians and the international community to the attempt being made by those he called “my political enemies” to silence him using the instrumentality of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Lamido pointed out that it was clear from the outset that there was a grand design to put him away in prison for a long time under the guise of money laundering and sundry charges so as to pave the way for his political enemies to have their way.
The former governor, whose many supporters relocated to the Kano Central Prison where they kept vigil over him and his two sons, said he was determined to prove to Nigerians that he was innocent but was merely being witch-hunted by those who feel threatened by his rising political profile.
Lamido’s spokesman said: “This current effort to frame and denigrate the former governor of Jigawa State with a view to rubbishing his high performance in office will come to naught at the end of the day.
“Lamido remains nothing but a scion of accountability and integrity who has always fought on the side of the people, particularly the downtrodden and the vulnerable, since he came into the national political scene.
“He remains unshaken over the trumped-up charges slammed on him by the EFCC knowing that he has not committed any offense to warrant being thrown into the prison over a bailable offense.
“But the refusal by his traducers to grant him and his sons bail when others charged same day and time for even more grievous offences were admitted to bail speaks volume of the intention and mindset of those who are after him.
“Nonetheless, Sule Lamido strongly believes that, after being imprisoned several times all in a bid to pave the way for sustained democracy in Nigeria, the current effort by the EFCC and others to humiliate him and his family over the so-called money laundering charges will not break his resolve to continue to fight on the side of the people.
“It is Lamido’s strong belief that having not committed any offense against the state to warrant being sent to prison, he and his two sons will be freed and vindicated against the wicked plot of their adversaries”.
Meanwhile, Lamido is said to have been overwhelmed by the large number of friends and well wishers from across Nigeria who have thronged the prison to show solidarity with him and his two sons.
A close source at the prison told Sunday Vanguard that Lamido was jolted by the show of love and solidarity that he shed what the source described as “tears of joy” on Friday.
The former governor reportedly came out on Friday afternoon in one of his best attires to the office of the prison controller with a view to getting close to all those who had thronged the prison yard to see him.
Sunday Vanguard learnt last night that Lamido and sons were likely to be admitted to bail tomorrow (Monday) as a vacation judge was most likely to hear their bail application on that day.
A source said Lamido’s associates had already prepared in many ways to meet whatever conditions the judge might stipulate for their release from prison pending the hearing of the case in September.
Lamido and his two sons, according to the charge sheet of the EFCC after what the anti-graft agency described as a thorough investigation, alleged during the arraignment of the accused persons at a Federal High Court sitting in Kano, that they laundered N1.35 billion.
They were slammed with a 28-count charge bordering on criminal breach of trust.
The trial judge, Justice Evelyn Anyadike, adjourned the case till September 28 while ordering that the suspects be remanded in Kano Prison.
Anyadike, however, ruled that the case will be handed over to a vacation judge to listen to the accused persons bail application while the judiciary goes on vacation today.
A federal court has ordered a former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, and his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha, accused of fraud, remanded in prison custody in Kano till September 28.
Sule Lamido
The former governor was arraigned on Thursday alongside his children for receiving N1.35 billion kickback from a government contractor.
The money was allegedly paid into accounts controlled by the governor and his sons.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is accusing the four suspects of money laundering, amongst other charges.
They were due for arraignment Wednesday, but the court appearance was rescheduled to Thursday (today).
Security was stepped up around the court vicinity in Kano ahead of the hearing Thursday.
Delivering a ruling, Justice Evelyn Anyadike ordered that the four accused persons be remanded in a Kano Prison Custody because the EFCC said they lacked enough facilities to accommodate them.
She rejected the pleas of defence counsel, Effiong Effiong, SAN, that the accused be kept at EFCC custody, saying the commission had complained of inadequate facilities.
Twenty eight-count charge bordering on a number of alleged breach of trust by Sule Lamido, Aminu Sule Lamido, Mustapha Sule Lamido and one Aminu Wada Abubakar, was read in court.
They pleaded not guilty after the charges were read to them.
The case involved N1.351 billion.
The judge ruled that the accused persons be remanded pending the hearing of their bail applications.
Earlier, the defence counsel, Mr. Effiong, had argued that remanding the accused persons in prison would amount to trampling on their fundamental human rights.
He pleaded they be sent to either of EFCC facilities in Abuja or Kano.
However, the counsel to the EFCC, Chile Okoroma, objected to the plea, saying EFCC facilities were full to capacity both in Kano and Abuja.
The case was adjourned to September 28 for ruling on bail applications.
There was pandemonium in court between those supporting Mr. Lamido and those against him, leading the police to fire teargas canisters into the air to disperse the crowd.
Mr. Lamido, his sons and Mr. Abubakar are accused of using their positions to siphon Jigawa State funds.
PREMIUM TIMES had in 2014 reported how a construction firm, Dantata and Sawoe, paid N1.3 billion as 10 percent kickback for contracts it won, into accounts owned by the governor and his sons.
It also showed how, between 2007, when Mr. Lamido assumed office, and 2014, Dantata and Sawoe Construction Company was awarded contracts amounting to N13.5 billion.
The state government made payments for the contracts to the construction firm through five banks – Zenith, Access, Diamond, Sterling and UBA.
Within the same period, according to a probe of the transactions by the EFCC, Dantata and Sawoe paid out over N1.3 billion into the accounts of companies in which the governor and his sons had interest.
Abuja – Former Imo State governor, Ikedi Ohakim, has been arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for alleged corruption while in office.
EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde
He was arrested around 8am on Thursday from his residence in Asokoro District of Abuja, after failing to honour an invitation from the commission on Wednesday.
An official of the Commission confirmed the arrest to Vanguard in a telephone interview, saying Ohakim was still being quizzed as at the time of filing the story.
It was not clear if he would be allowed to go on bail.
Ohakim was arrested by agents of the commission to shed more light on the alleged transfer of the state funds to acquire choice property in many locations, a charge he flatly denied when confronted with the evidence.
The EFCC is said to be preparing charges against the former governor having been convinced by the evidence provided by former key officials in the government, who were previously arrested and interrogated by the agency.
The arrest of Ohakim coincided with the summon extended to former Jigawa governor, Sule Lamido to appear before the operatives of the commission to explain issues relating to the alleged siphoning of state funds by him during his tenure.
Although EFCC did not ascribe any specific amount to Lamido, it accused the former governor of making some payments for jobs done to companies said to have relationship with him and his family.
Lamido, who was abroad at the time the invitation was sent to him, quickly returned to Nigeria on Monday and presented himself to the commission on Thursday, saying that he had not committed any offence to warrant running away from the interrogators.
The former governor is said to have stood his grounds that he did not commit any financial impropriety during his tenure and would always make himself available whenever the operatives needed answers from him on the way he ran Jigawa State for eight years.
EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed the invitation of Lamido and his appearance on Thursday as well as the arrest of Ohakim.
The All Progressives Congress has accused Niger Governor Babangida Aliyu and his Jigawa counterpart Sule Lamido of getting stuck in the pre-election mode, urging them to wake up to the reality that electioneering campaign is over and it is time for nation building.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Saturday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party described the duo’s “unprovoked vituperation against the APC and the President-elect as uncouth,” ill-intentioned and in bad faith.
”Nigerians have switched from pre-election to post-election mode, making the unsolicited advice and the rehash of the vitriolic
electioneering campaign rhetoric from the two governors totally out of tune with reality.
”Our commitment to Nigeria is sacrosanct irrespective of the state of the economy, hence we do not need any cheeky advice from Governors Aliyu and Lamido. We are not making any excuses, but we will let Nigerians and indeed the world know how much the economy has been wrecked and the role of anyone in bringing the economy to its knees,” it said.
APC said, “The two Governors have forgotten even the role they played in seeking to scuttle the change that Nigerians so much desired and for which they voted.
”Governors Aliyu and Lamido are so bitter and traumatized that they have forgotten it was their party, the PDP, that divided Nigeria along its ethnic, religious and regional fault lines. They have forgotten that it was their party that cleaned out the commonwealth in its desperation to win at all cost, at a stage shunning the Naira for US dollars and helping to crash the value of the local currency.
”Governors Aliyu and Lamido are also imagining where they would have been now had they not betrayed the G7 of which they were original members, seeing the group up to the starting line but cunningly refusing to take off when the race was flagged off. They made a wrong choice and lost out and they must live with the consequences of their choice, instead of continuing to snipe at some imaginary enemies.
”The chance to be part of a historic opportunity to rebuild Nigeria was offered to the two Governors on a silver platter, but they chose to put their personal interests above the national interest. The fate they have now suffered is a direct consequence of their shortsightedness and selfishness, and they must accept the full blame for that,” the party said.
It assured Nigerians that the APC will redeem its campaign promises irrespective of the state of the economy, saying, however, that the change that Nigerians have voted for will not come overnight but through a gradual, painstaking and consistent acts of good governance, discipline and perseverance.
“We are therefore calling on our compatriots to give their unalloyed support to the incoming Administration as it embarks on charting a new path for the long-suffering nation, while shunning the naysayers who, in their own time, frittered away the opportunity to rebuild Nigeria,” APC said.
DUTSE—Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State and former minister in the Second Republic, Senator Bello Maitama Yusuf, are currently flexing muscles over N15 million campaign funds allegedly diverted by the latter.
Consequently, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which reportedly released the money to the Senator, is seeking to arrest him, with a view to recovering the money disbursed for purposes of electioneering.
It was alleged that he defected to All Progressives Congress, APC, after taking the money.
While Governor Lamido asked Senator Yusuf to refund the money or face arrest, the Senator dared the governor to arrest him.
Vanguard authoritatively gathered that Governor Lamido approved the release of N15 million to Yusuf for onward disbursement to the electorate in his Gwaram constituency during the governorship, state assembly and House of Representatives elections.
Senator Yusuf, in a swift reaction, denied ever taking campaign funds from PDP for disbursement to electorate in his constituency, adding that his defection to All Progressives Congress, APC, was the reason the story was concocted to malign him.
Yusuf said: “I am just a victim of circumstance; because I defected to APC.
“It is unbelievable. I do not have business with campaign funds. I spend my own money for the development of my people and the party.”
Publicity Secretary of PDP in Jigawa State, Alhaji Musa Abdullahi, confirmed that Senator Yusuf received campaign funds and that the party had reported the case to the state Police Command.
State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, ASP Abdu Jinjiri, confirmed that the command received a complaint from the state PDP in respect of the alleged campaign money.
He said investigation was ongoing, and that the command had sent its men to invite the senator for questioning.
DUTSE – Governor Sule Lamido’s political woes may have deepened following the plan by his deputy,Alhaji Ahmad Mahmud to dump him for the opposition All Progressives Congress Party.
Baring any last minute change, the deputy governor will be received along with some Lamido’s loyalists to the APC today , by chairman of the party, Alhaji Ado Sani Kiri, party’s gubernatorial candidate, Alhaji Badaru Abubakar and other APC chieftains in the state at his Gumel ward.
Already, the Deputy Governor purported defection has triggered apprehension in the PDP camp as many of its supporters who spoke with Vanguard on condition of anonymity expressed surprise describing his action as “betrayal of trust.”
Ahmed Mahmud was a two-term deputy governor of Jigawa state who was elected with Sule Lamido on the platform of the PDP.
Other prominent politicians expected to join the APC are the two ex-Jigawa governors, Ibrahim Saminu Turaki and Ali Saad Birnin-Kudu, Ex-Senator Bello Maitama, some serving commissioners, special advisers and special assistants.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday condemned hate speech by some political leaders describing such statements as unhealthy for democracy.
The party specifically faulted a statement credited to the Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido where he was quoted to have said “to break the APC all that is needed is to kidnap two leaders and the APC will break.”
Briefing newsmen in Abuja, director of Media and Communication of the party’s presidential campaign organisation, Mallam Garba Shehu, said such statement was unpalatable and should not come from such highly placed Nigerian like Governor Lamido.
Shehu said the party takes such threat serious especially when it is coming from a top chieftain of the ruling party.
He stated that the APC decided to alert Nigerians and the public about such a threat against its leaders and sensitise them against any eventuality.
By Henry Umoru & Wole Mosadomi ABUJA – Governors Sule Lamido of Jigawa State and Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, yesterday, took on their Kano counterpart, Mallam Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso over his accusation that the two governors betrayed five other governors on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who agreed to dump the party following their irreconcilable differences with the leadership of the party.
Governor Aliyu, Niger State
Sule Lamido
It will be recalled that Governors Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko of Sokoto; Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara; Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano; Babangida Aliyu of Niger; Sule Lamido of Jigawa; Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and former Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, who were members of the G-7, within the ruling party opted out to form what was known then as the new PDP. While the other five governors teamed up to form the All Progressives Congress, APC, Governors Sule Lamido of Jigawa and Babangida Aliyu of Niger returned to the PDP.
Speaking on their exit from the PDP weekend, Governor Kwankwaso said both Aliyu Babangida and Sule Lamido betrayed the other five governors by returning to the PDP.
Why I betrayed them— Lamido
Responding to the accusation while speaking to journalists in Abuja, Governor Lamido said: “I am a betrayer, confirmed. I betrayed them. I did, yes. I am aligning myself to what he said. I am aligning my answer to what he said, go and find out from him. But I did that in the interest of the nation.”
In his response, Governor Babangida, however, said there was never a time the G-7 group planned to dump their party(PDP) for another party and that there was no basis for any of the members to label him as a betrayer.
He said at the time he led the G-7 group, the objective was to resolve the leadership problem in his party and not to dump it as some of them have done.
A statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary Israel Ebije in response to Governor Kwankwaso’s claim that he (Babangida) was privy to the G-7 decision to decamp to APC, Aliyu said there was never a time the issue of dumping their party for whatever reason was discussed.
He described the defection of some of them to the All Progressives Party as a personal decision which he as leader could not query and as such those of them who refused to defect with them should therefore not be seen as traitors.
Aliyu however said he has no regrets in leading a group that brought sanity to the PDP at a time the party was passing through difficulties. He said their effort was indeed nationalistic and a reflection of maturity of Nigerian democracy.
I never planned to dump PDP— Babangida Aliyu
His words: “Let me state in categorical terms that I never discussed with the G-7 governors over issue of decamping to the APC. I led the group primarily to stabilize the PDP. At that time, the PDP was having challenges hinging on impunity which had to be addressed.
“Let me, therefore, intimate that based on principle, I never planned to abandon the PDP for another party. It is also important to note that the G-7 achieved its objective of repositioning the PDP which was at the time passing through leadership challenge. Therefore I had no reason to leave, besides our effort brought the ruling party back on its feet.”
He said he will remain committed to the PDP and would work towards ensuring that the party wins all elective positions in Niger State.
Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State while speaking in Kano, weekend, said: “Everyone knows that Governor Lamido was part of us, he was the leader of the group. He took us to a certain height before choosing otherwise and we were all surprised by his final decision.
“But, if there is anybody who would criticise our exit, it shouldn’t be Lamido and the Niger State Governor. After all, our judgment would decide the outcome of the general election. However, we know that PDP is no longer the monster it used to be, and I tell you they are ready to do anything to have someone like me who was considered as an irritant back in their fold.”
KANO — Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State has accused his Jigawa State counterpart, Mallam Sule Lamido, of betraying the group of five Peoples Democratic Party, PDP’s governors who left the party following their disagreement with party leaders.
Kwankwaso
In an interview with newsmen, weekend, in Kano, Kwankwaso also faulted insinuations that the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC, General Muhammadu Buhari (ret) was not healthy enough to stand the rigours of governing Nigeria.
According to him, “the exit of G5 Governors from PDP has demystified the ruling party, adding, however,that PDP was no longer the monster it used to be.
He said: “Everyone knows that Governor Lamido was part of us, he was the leader of the group. He took us to a certain height before choosing otherwise and we were all surprised by his final decision.
“But, if there is anybody who would criticise our exit, it shouldn’t be Lamido and the Niger State governor. After all, our our judgment would decide the outcome of the general election.
“However, we know that PDP is no longer the monster it used to be, and I tell you they are ready to do anything to have someone like me who was considered as an irritant back in their fold.”
Buhari fit as fiddle —Kwankwaso
On the health status of General Buhari, Kwankwaso said he could vow that the former military ruler was as fit as a fiddle.
He argued that the “controversy was being mischievously unleashed on the polity by the ruling PDP to score cheap political points.”
Although Kwankwaso admitted that he was not a medical doctor, he said his judgment was based on his practical experience with the retired General over the past couple of months.
Said he: “You know that I’m not a medical doctor but a civil engineer, therefore I would speak as a layman. I don’t think these guys got it right on General Buhari because between December 10 to date he engaged in rigorous campaigns and rallies, crossing over two states per day and I’m convinced a sick man could not have successfully done that.
“My judgment was on what I have seen practically, his performance and strength is awesome and he appears ready to do the job of number one citizen.”
On Obasanjo’s exit from PDP
Kwankwaso also described the exit of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from PDP as a huge blow to the party, adding that the party leadership mismanaged its fortune.
He argued that “Obasanjo is a father figure to so many gladiators of this republic and for him to have publicly disowned the party underscores the in justices we had for long cried about.”
On the forthcoming general elections, Kwankwaso appealed to the stakeholders to play by the rule of the game, noting that violence would do no one any good.
In this concluding part of the interview with Gov. Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, he says his fellow governors who defected from the PDP ought to have followed the honourable path by quitting office. He also speaks on what he calls `the healing process’ for Nigeria.
Sule Lamido
You can see the difference between those days and today, when a governor will leave the party that sponsored him to office and join another party while still maintaining the office he got from the old party.
When we were fighting in the PDP, I told my colleagues that the issues we were fighting for were fundamental. We were fighting for justice, we were fighting against impunity and we were fighting for due process. The people we were fighting were dangerous. It was like by the time they fight back, our offices, our personal lives and families and relationships could be on the line. Therefore we should stay in the party and fight. If we were going to join the APC, then we must be prepared to resign our offices. There is something called honour around leaders, especially elected leaders. I don’t wear your gown and use it to make shakara for you. It is not fair and it is not right.
And then, soon the military intervened, and all of you were witnesses to, and victims of, military justice. Some are saying the way the military handled the persecution of the political class, sometimes sending people to 200 years jail terms, sometimes on trumped up charges, was meant to decimate the political class. How did it affect you personally?
When the military took over in 1983/1984, the people holding power were part of the first generation of leaders. The people who came in were the third generation of the military. The first generation were the Ironsis, the Maimalaris, the Gowons, the Ojukwu’s and so on. Those who came in 1984, the people they displaced from power were part of the old order, the leaders who took over from the colonialists.
Because the new leaders were part of military leaders, the difficulty they had in asserting their authority, their attempt to replace first grade leadership with third grade meant they had to literally destroy the old order, because there was no way they were going to share space with the Ziks, the Awolowos, the Mbadiwes, the Aminu Kanos, the Joe Tarkas. It was necessary, or so they thought, to first destroy what was standing before they could find the ground to stand. They set out to disgrace us, remove our moral authority and make it sound as if we were thieves, crooks and corrupt people, and they made themselves look like saviours and revolutionaries, blah, blah, blah. They deployed lack of due process, lack of law, lack of human rights and even lack of cultural background.
And you can see the effect of these. They ended up taking away our history and truncated our political track records. How many young Nigerians know the story of Nigeria today? They don’t know and they don’t want to know because there is no running story. There is no continuity in our political evolution. What you have is a patchwork of eras. These boys were not able to replace what they destroyed with anything worth keeping. They were marauding the landscape with their military laws and decrees with immediate effect but we ended up having no effect because these laws and their system of rule was hanging. It had nothing to stand on. Even when they started their political transitions, they made things worse by disqualifying everybody who was in politics between 1960 and 1983. You can see the consequences. We are paying very dearly for it.
You played prominent roles during the military transitions to democracy. In particular, what did you see as your mission when the movement towards the formation of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party was going on? Did you see it as an opportunity to continue from where you stopped in 1983?
Our mission was informed by the coup of 1983 and the aftermath of it. Between 1983 and 1998, the military did incalculable harm to the polity. By 1998 we had no sense of our history. We did not know where we were coming from. We lost track of the contributions of our founding fathers, what was their vision and mission. The past was shut out. In its place was the culture of nepotism, brute force, abuse of power, mindless corruption and political greed that was not governed by any sense of restraint.
That is why today, governance has lost meaning. Government can become the property of the governor and the state his estate. Thank God we are able to maintain definite tenures. If we had no tenure limits, we would be having 36 state emperors and a king at the centre, each with the power to extend its dynasty. We have no philosophy that guides the way we do things and run a system in order to deliver good governance and use public resources to serve the people. It is everybody doing just as he likes. You can only get anything if you know Mr A or Mr B; citizens have lost their rights.
So, in 1999, after Babangida tried to continue and failed, he set up an interim government and left. General Abacha allowed the interim government to operate for only 82 days and he took over. He too tried to transform into a civilian president after five years in power. Generals Buhari, Babangida and Abacha had transformed politicians into praise singers and sycophants. People like us felt very offended and worried. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC) founded by Babangida were government inventions.
They were owned by the military government, who gave politicians offices, houses, cars and even allowances. They also felt free to ban, disqualify any candidate and annul concluded elections. It was very obvious that he who paid the piper dictated the tunes. So, the party system the military set up was just a fraud, because the military was also using these associations of praise singers and political conmen to sabotage the parties and transition programmes they were running. We felt there was danger.
We felt pained that Nigeria, the leader of the black race, can be so trivialised. So, myself, Abubakar Rimi, Solomon Lar, Alex Ekwueme, Iorchia Ayu, Solomon Ellah, Bola Ige, and two others, formed the G.9. We met at Ekwueme’s office in Raymond Njoku Street, Ikoyi and discussed Nigeria extensively.
It was agreed that for some of us from the North who had worked with the military to prove that we were not part of the Abacha agenda for the North, we should go and form a group and challenge Abacha. ‘Go and challenge Abacha if you want those of us in the South to believe you’ . We agreed. We formed the G.18, which was purely a northern formation.
We challenged Abacha on a number of issues and gave it to Solomon Lar to go and read it out in the media. After that, the security agents came and picked me and Rimi and we were incarcerated. When the news came out the following day, the South became convinced of our commitment and therefore more people joined us and we formed the G.34, which was a national movement. We became interested in forming a party that will protect democracy, attract and unite all Nigerians, a party that will consolidate democracy, develop the country and make Nigeria a showpiece in the comity of nations.
Eventually, a man who did not play a role in the formation of the PDP became the president of Nigeria under the PDP banner. Somehow, the two of you clicked and have worked together ever since. So, how would you portray Gen Olusegun Obasanjo’s role in our democracy since 1999. Is Obasanjo a saint or sinner?
Before we go there, let us discuss how he emerged. There was a coup in 1983 and Buhari, a northerner was head of state, who took over from Shagari, a northerner. Then, Babangida, a northerner overthrew Buhari and ruled Nigeria for eight years. After that, Abacha, another northerner, took over and was in power for five years. And there was an election won by Chief Abiola, which was annulled.
This had a very profound effect because the elections of June 12 were very transparent and credible. The North was seen as a power monger. When Abacha died and we formed the PDP, we were looking for a Nigerian symbol. The issues in 1998 were not about development. The main issue was giving the Nigerian nation, which was like a ship adrift in the ocean, a chance to find a steady course once again.
We needed someone who will take the country out of bickering and bring about unity. We decided that the Yoruba had been wrongly treated and must be appeased because of their son, Abiola. Obasanjo was in prison, and we were looking for a Yoruba Nigerian president, not president of Nigeria for the Yorubas. If we had asked the Yorubas to give us a president, they would have given us Bola Ige, Abraham Adesanya or Olu Falae. These people may not solve the problem of uniting the nation because we feared they might be pursuing ethnic agenda. Our leaders reflected and decided to bring out Obasanjo, a man whom we knew was very sound and a nationalist.
What did Obasanjo do with the opportunity given to him?
Leave your personal opinion about Obasanjo. I know you hate him like nobody else. I have seen your writings. That is your own business. How did we click? you asked. When he made me foreign affairs minister, it was a time when Nigeria was a pariah nation in the world. I never knew him from Adam before he became the elected president. To me, Obasanjo was either crazy or a genius for him to place the heavy burden of that huge ministry on someone he never knew from Adam.
I knew that as a foreign affairs minister, what you say or do, or do not say or do not do can make or unmake the image of a nation, and this was a time when Nigeria’s image was already in the worst of shapes. I was touched, and I swore to myself that I will stand by this man for as long as he continued to be active in politics. And within three years of Obasanjo’s ascension to power, Nigeria’s unity was fully restored, and her image abroad was also restored. By 2001, Nigeria was stable and very, very reconciled. And when he started preparing for his second term, the very people who put him there wanted him out. I did not go along with that. I asked why they should use him and dump him.
In 2003, when we went for campaign in Rivers, Obasanjo made another very profound impact on me. At the arena where we were having the campaign, Peter Odili, the governor of Rivers State, stood up on the podium. He said: “We, people of South-South, our chiefs, leaders and the entire people, we met and decided that we want to control our oil, because God, in His infinite mercy, put the oil in our soil. And God does not make mistake. So, Mr President, we want to hear from you what will be the fate of our oil when you come back for a second term. We are going to give you our votes 100%; even if you are dead, we will still vote for you”.
Odili said so, right there at the campaign ground in Port Harcourt. I was cringing inside when I heard this, because it was a public place and a sensitive thing to say in a public place. Here we were, looking for votes. I was wondering what the president’s reply would be. Then, Obasanjo, in his normal character, stood up. He said: “Peter, thank you very much. I agree with you, God does not make mistake. He also made that man, Sule Lamido, a Nigerian, just like you. Therefore, the oil is for all Nigerians, irrespective of where they come from”.
Only someone with moral authority and courage will say so while looking for votes. So it made a serious impact on me. These are the things that define Obasanjo. We do have our own ups and downs, but once it comes to the issue of Nigeria, he and I are on the same page. I think he and I share the same intensity for Nigeria. He says Nigeria gave him everything, and he is ready to give his life for Nigeria. He said so. The same thing applies to me. Nigeria gave me the space to grow, gave me the opportunity to go to the House of Reps, gave the opportunity to be a minister, Nigeria gave me everything. So, I am willing to give back to my country.
You have governed Jigawa State for almost eight years now. We all know where the state was in 2007. It was rated by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics and the Central Bank of Nigeria as the poorest state in the North and Nigeria. We know where it is today, as one of the most rapidly growing in terms of infrastructure and the best in doing business according to international rating agencies. This is why my newspaper gave you an award. What was the template you brought here that brought about the great turnaround?
We are not just talking about developing Dutse into a little beautiful city but creating 27 new towns all over the state.
Every human being has pride. Every human being has a sense of belief in himself, or at least, should have it. These will become obvious when the institutions or the platform he needs are given him to demonstrate it. The first thing was that I knew my people to be very proud, very hard working, very industrious and very humane. I was humbled that they made me their governor.
The first thing I did was to ensure that the government belonged to them. When you are down, it is up to you to decide that you want to pull yourself up. Otherwise there is nothing anyone can do for you. We felt embarrassed and pained when we were being rated so lowly, and we knew that what they were saying was true. We had to unite to save ourselves from ourselves.
So, I decided that I was going to lead, not in terms of being a leader but being part of the people. I do not have any particular training, or qualification, but even when I was foreign minister, I kept my eyes open, and I noticed that there is something called class, and when I became governor, I decided it was an opportunity to prove that what other people now take for granted in other parts of the world we can do it here. I am going to build structure, infrastructure and institutions that will support our collective drive towards achieving human dignity. Our destination is peace and prosperity and a humane decency. We started by having a conference of all Jigawa citizens. We called it the Talakawa Summit.
This summit brought in all artisans, all professionals, from the local midwife in the village to the carpenter, from the woman who makes fura to the vulcaniser and the carpenter. We decided to listen to them first. Then I told them that Jigawa had been a victim of poverty, squalor and destitution. We the elite were here living in comfort and the ordinary people were living in pain. We have switched off from human compassion. We must switch back on and begin to look our people in the face, their clothing, what they eat and how they live.
It was time we listened to their stories of agony, ordeal and pain. It should not be like what we always did, discussing about hunger, poverty, refugees and their kwashiorkor in the comfort of seven-star hotels without even listening to the people who were going through these things. When they had narrated everything, we decided to use what we got from them to form the basis of how to run our government. So, what you are seeing today is the result of the collective will, strength and energies of the people of Jigawa State, not Sule Lamido.
We all travel all over the world and we read about how Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and now Dubai grew and transformed from backwardness to grade one entities. Why can’t we do the same here in Jigawa State? These people started from somewhere, now see where they are. It is up to us to compel ourselves to be what we want to be. It is not Sule Lamido, but the resolve of Jigawa people to put the inglorious past behind them and move from darkness to light. We refused to go by the Nigerian pace but we decided to dictate our own pace. We knew our potentials, and we summoned the discipline and commitment and passion to change our situation.
What do you say about President Jonathan, the Peoples Democratic Party and the future of Nigeria?
If you look at the party from 1999, the way things happened was not the way things were planned. Man proposes, God disposes. It is part of human evolution that things unforeseen can come in and take the centre stage. Nigeria has been traumatised. We began in 1999 with so many injuries and so many difficulties. We had to reconcile and restore Nigeria first before anyone could start aspiring to be governor, president and what have you. Of course, as human beings, we make mistakes.
I think what redefined Nigeria was denying Obasanjo a smooth sail in 2003. He went through a lot of pain to get re-elected, and that eroded confidence and trust among his friends and associates. In a way, all these things influenced his thinking towards 2007. And then, Umaru Yar’ Adua was in office. He was there for only three years and he died.
In 2007, Yar’ Adua, a Fulani, a Northerner; Buhari, a Fulani, a northerner; Atiku, a Fulani, a northerner, all of them northerners, Muslims and Fulanis. There was no southerner in the presidential race in 2007, yet the elections were very acrimonious. The power struggle among these otherwise brothers was very bitter, and when we do these things, it has a way of defining the disposition of the younger generation. By and large, our activities also impact on the environment.
The structure of the PDP made sure that there was no way that Atiku and Buhari could have beaten Yar’ Adua. Buhari had no structure but depended on the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP). Atiku was a PDP creation. At the end of the election, there was total distortion of realities, due to the amount of propaganda. Even though there was no way the duo could have won the election, they made a lot of people to believe that the election was rigged.
It was pure mischief, but these things stuck. When you tell a lie over and over, it begins to wear the toga of the truth. They went to the tribunal, they lost. They went on appeal, they lost. And the more they lost the more the propaganda. At the Supreme Court, the judges are also under the same influence in the environment. There was a tie. It took the maturity of the Chief Justice of Nigeria then, after examining the implications for the nation, and he broke the tie accordingly.
Buhari never attended the Council of State meetings when Yar’ Adua was president. But when Yar’ Adua died, the very first meeting Jonathan called, Buhari was the first to be there. And they were Muslims. They were Fulanis and northerners. These things also permeated down to the grassroots. By stroke of providence, Jonathan became the president.
By 2011, Jonathan won the election, and some people started saying he is a southerner. Who was there before him? Was it not a northerner? There are certain things in life you cannot avoid. As a Muslim, I intensely believe in God, and there is nothing that man can do to change the course of destiny.
Whatever the shortcomings or strong points of President Jonathan, they are part of the process of national healing, and it is the duty of all of us to come together and be part of the national healing. Nigeria cannot be hinged on a single person or section. So, in 2015, whatever it is, we must be ready to rally around the president.
Even if he makes mistakes, we should be able to pull him back. But when you vilify him, or deride him, or disown him, you will take away his authority from him, and you will strip him of his pride and he will become like any other person. That is not the way to go because, as they say, things that go round will come round. Today, it is Jonathan. Next day it can be anyone else.
You cannot build a strong, united, prosperous nation with that kind of attitude. If you think the leader you elected to office is going wrong, rally around him and stop him from straying. When you abandon and malign him, he is going to be like any other person, and he might begin to get out of hand in a way that does no one any good. And remember, he has his own supporters.
Before you know it, the nation is broken again into factions. So, to me, maybe I am becoming too old and don’t see things from the perspective of the youth of today, but I think our values are being eroded, as a people, as an economy, as a nation and as Africans, and we must not allow that to happen. Nigeria was here before Jonathan and after Jonathan, Nigeria will be here, I am very sure.
Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State on Tuesday emerged from a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, giving an indication that the Peoples Democratic Party stakeholders would beg former President Olusegun Obasanjo who dumped the party on Monday.
Sule Lamido
Lamido, who is the North-West Coordinator of Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign, told State House correspondents that Obasanjo remained the father of all.
He said Jonathan and all the state governors were creations of the former President.
He explained that it was only appropriate that “when a father is angry with his children, the children should beg him.”
Lamido said, “Baba (Obasanjo) is more than a party man. He is an icon, a national symbol and a leader and an inventor, a creator of all the institutions today in Nigeria from the President to the governors who are his own sons, are all his creations.
“And so, when a father is angry with his own children, we will only say we are sorry to him. But then, we cannot be renounced for whatever it is.
“If you do any political DNA of our blood, you will find his (Obasanjo’s) blood in us. No matter what we are, we may not be able to live up to his expectations.
“We might have made some mistakes, but abandoning us is not the solution because the country is first before anything else. So, he is our Baba even up to the President.
“Baba is our baba no matter what. He is angry with us, but then, what do we do? He gave us the life at a time when Nigerians were fighting us, he stood for us. Since 2011, in 2007, he stood firm for us.
“He is our father. And so, if we made some mistakes, we are only human because we are heading human institutions. And I think by the time he reflects, how could he abandon his own children like that. Wherever we are, we are right in his heart. He feels for us, he cares for us.”
When asked to be specific on whether they would go and beg Obasanjo to return to the party, Lamido said such issue was not the kind he would announce publicly.
“When there is some kind of misunderstanding between a father and a child, you don’t go to NTA or any other media to say you are going to do this.
“I mean the bond between us is so strong. I know he is equally pained. I know what he is going through because he is our father, but I will not tell you the strategy because when he was producing us, you were not there, when he was making us, were you there?,” the governor said.
When told that some party chiefs had already said they would not miss the former President, the governor said Jonathan who he described as Obasanjo’s first child had not said so.
“But then, the first child is the President, did he say so?,” he asked.
When asked again if Obasanjo’s constant criticisms of the President did not worry him, Lamido said “when parents get old, they tend to manifest signs of old age.”
He added, “What I am saying is that all of us have parents. When we were born, they pepped us, gave us their love, gave us everything. By the time they get old, naturally, there is what they call role reversal. We became the parents and they became the children. So, what is wrong if our parents begin to manifest those signs of old age?”
Lamido insisted that despite all the perceived setbacks, the PDP would still win the forthcoming elections.
He said, “What is this opposition in Nigeria? You must know Nigerian history. Nigeria cannot be governed by an aggregate of pain, anger and frustration.
On Tuesday, January 26, 2015, Governor Sule Lamido went to the Jigawa State House of Assembly to present his eighth and last Appropriation Bill. It was an emotionally charged moment, and the Speaker of the House, Hon Adamu Ahmed, could not hold his feelings. He broke down in tears several times as he responded to the budget speech. He had these nostalgic words to portray what has become nationally acclaimed of Lamido’s transformational tour of duty in Jigawa State:
Sule Lamido
“It is noteworthy at this moment, to ask ourselves, are we better off as a state, as a people, as indigenes of Jigawa State of Nigeria? The moment to answer this question is now. Where are the people looking for change? I believe not even PDP supporters or members, nobody from Jigawa would like this to happen in Jigawa because we can’t afford to change all the developmental projects we enjoy in the state. I believe the change they are advocating…concerns only those states that have not performed. You will all agree with me that Sule Lamido throughout his eight years has made Jigawa State what it is now and these legacies would remain forever and can never be erased in the history of this state.
“On this juncture, as the representatives of the people of Jigawa State, this Honourable House, on behalf of the people of Jigawa State, thanks Governor Sule Lamido enormously for his tireless efforts in ensuring the safety and security of our lives and properties throughout his stewardship as Chief Security Officer of the State. We thank you very much and wish you Allah’s guidance and protection in your future endeavours”.
Little else can describe the people’s gratitude to a leader who exited them from lowly rating eight years ago as the poorest state in Nigeria to one of the most infrastructurally fulfilled today, where all 27 local government council headquarters boast of well paved roads, drainages, street lights, schools, hospitals, water supply and all the good things of life that make modern life worth living.
In this interview, we go back to Lamido’s beginnings, and he shares his interesting life’s experiences in high quality language no longer common among today’s leaders. Excerpts:
Can you tell us about your family background, your mother, father, and how it all began?
You see, something that may be seen to be conventionally appropriate may not be culturally appropriate to us. Even in Igbo culture, asking a person as old as me about my mother and my father is a misnomer. You may find me conservative or somehow not forthcoming, but it is not in our tradition to talk about our mother or father. Where I come from, people know me very well. So, I don’t think it is right for me to advertise my background. Some people may say I am trying to be too cocky or too arrogant.
I don’t think so. You are one of the leaders of this country, and if young people read about your background, they may be inspired by it.
The inspiration should be by the ideas I believe in and the thoughts I share. So, I will like to decline that question.
All right. But I do know that you were born in Bamaina, and you grew up there. Perhaps you would like to tell us what it was like in those days as a child over sixty years ago. What can you remember about growing up as a boy?
I grew up very secure, with a very strong notion of myself. Being the only child of a village head …. I had my younger brother when I was already 16 years old … I had the total domination and monopoly of the love of my parents and people, and I knew what I symbolised in the family I came from. I was in a position to compare and contrast the life I lived compared to those of my playmates and age mates, and I considered myself advantaged. Even as a youth, I had always reflected deeply about things I found in my environment and they left deep impressions on me.
As a child who was pampered so much, and as a parent, do you agree to the notion that pampering children leads to their being spoilt?
The love and pampering was not the sort you see these days. I was seriously admonished any time I went beyond my radius. Pampering should not be meant to spoil a child but to help in building the character and to give him the support he deserves. It has helped me never to feel inadequate in any situation, and it helped me to develop an independence of mind that is now part of me.
You went to school in Birnin Kudu. How were you able to go to school even though in those days Western education was not widely accepted in the North? More so, someone from a royal background such as you?
Because of the status of my father then, being a village head, being the symbol of authority, and therefore, the structure of the emirateship, where they give orders to conscript children for school. Those of us from privileged backgrounds were sheltered within the cultures and traditions of our people. Western education was a new thing altogether, and it was mostly the children of the ordinary peasants who were conscripted for school. When I was barely five years old, my father gave the name of one of the children of a member of the family, but a distant member of the family, for school enrolment. The father of the boy was offended and objected. He saw it as a punishment. He said, after all my father had someone of this boy’s age, so why not also send him to school. It was a very big quarrel. So, in trying to make the point that he was not sheltering his own son and send another man’s child to school, he decided I should also go to school. We went to Birnin Kudu. I could not speak Hausa, I could only speak Fulfulde. I was sent back because I was too young. I was sent back to the village, and my grandmother was very furious with my father for daring to send me to school. I stayed at home until I was six years old and the district head in Birnin Kudu and the headmaster of the school sent for me again and I started. In those days, you read from elementary one to four, and then you went to senior primary where you read from primary five to seven in boarding school. After that you went to teachers college or secondary school. While I was in the school, I was always running away. Anytime I ran home my mother would always hide me. Sometimes I slept in the bush, just to stay away from school. I knew the bushes very well because, you know, as a Fulani boy, I used to lead animals into the bush to graze and drink water. I never liked school. It was not for our types. Western education was a kind of taboo. Up to the sixties, even enrolment in the Nigerian army was not for those who came from responsible or privileged backgrounds. I am not trying to denigrate or insult anybody. It is a fact of our history. I kept absconding from school, but eventually I managed to pass my exams and gained entrance to Barewa College Zaria, in 1962.
When I began to comprehend issues, Nigeria was already independent. So, I grew into an era when the first post-colonial leaders had taken charge. I cannot remember much of how the colonial masters administered the country. They had taken over from the British and were working hard to build a younger generation for the future. The late Sardauna, Ahmadu Bello, and the late Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, often came to see us from Kaduna and Lagos. They always drummed it into us that a lot was being expected from us, and that we were being prepared for the future of the North and Nigeria. And there was obvious intention, in the curriculum of education at that time, to emphasise character and leadership training. The facilities and teachers in the few schools were excellent. There was a lot of mentoring, and we realised that there was more to schooling than learning. There was a conscious effort to create a leadership for the future, and so much was done, so much was spent on us towards that.
I find it ironic that you, a Fulani, from a royal background, when you started to encounter leaders such as the Sardauna Ahmadu Bello, who was a conservative royalist and Mallam Aminu Kano, who fought for the masses, you tended to swing towards Aminu Kano. What led you to that?
I don’t think I was swayed by anything. You know, Ahmadu Bello was leading the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and Mallam Aminu Kano led the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), which was leftist. Even though, coming from a fairly prosperous local family, I was also a normal child growing up and leading the cows to the bush. My character was strongly defined by nature. I observed and absorbed things, the blue skies, the way the birds were flying, the greens, the animals. When the other boys came to our house to eat, I observed how they went about it and I was struck by the fact that a lot of people did not have what I took for granted. If I saw a baby goat being beaten by rain, I felt gripped by something in me and I often cried. I don’t like to see people suffering. I just don’t like anything that creates agony or pain. My encounter with Mallam Aminu Kano only helped me channel my nature into a political attitude that agreed with me.
What was Mallam’s political thought?
The history of the North was that the emirs were the custodians of the values, culture and religion. Islam defines leadership very clearly. When the British colonial masters came with Indirect Rule, they empowered the emirs, and this often portrayed the traditional rulership as oppressors. Mallam Aminu Kano was against the exploitative and oppressive tendencies that sometimes reared their ugly heads among the emirs. He believed that every human being needs to be appreciated, and that material status should not be the criterion for grading a human being. He preached love, concern, care, brotherhood, benevolence, charity, respect for elders, protection of the weak, the women and the young. These teachings sharpened my focus. He taught us that politics should be centred on human beings first of all. You have to be a human being first before you become Christian or Muslim, rich or poor, Hausa, Fulani, Igbo or Yoruba. If you see poverty, pain, suffering, disease, squalor or destitution in a fellow human being you should feel concerned and do whatever you can to alleviate it.
At a very early time in your life, about 30, you became a member of the House of Representatives. How did you achieve that?
After I finished from Barewa College, Zaria, I was to go for an engineering course in India under the Railways. That was in 1966. After the Igbos had left the north as a result of the crisis, they were looking for engineers to man the rails and other departments. In December before Christmas they came to Zaria and I filled a form. We underwent a course in Zaria. But I discovered that the work of being a railway engineer entailed a lot of physical labour and I did not like it. I left and came back to my village and stayed for two or three months. But later I was interviewed to join the Nigerian Police. I came first in the interview and we were to leave for the Police College, Ikeja in March 1967 for training as Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP). Then your brother, Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared he was going to secede from Nigeria. At this point the zeal in me to join the Police went out of me and I did not report to Ikeja when they asked us to come. I came to Kano and looked for a job. I was employed by the Nigerian Tobacco Company (NTC). I later got employment in AC Christlieb in Apapa. They were into cosmetics and provisions. They were also agents for Beecham. I lived in Lagos for about four years and had a very wonderful life and I enjoyed myself. If you had money and status in Lagos in those days, the city was paradise. In December 1977 I resigned, came back to Kano and started my own company, Bamaina Holdings Company. I was doing very well. I married my first wife in 1972. When I started in Kano I became the distributor of the company I had worked for. Then, somehow, the ban on politics was lifted, and I found the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) philosophy very appealing. If wealth and social status was what qualified one for choosing a political party I would not have chosen PRP because it was seen as a party of the ordinary people, the illiterate and what have you. The likes of Abubakar Rimi, Musa Musawa, Dr Liman, Jalingo, Wada, Dr Junaid Mohammed and me, we were the real cream of the PRP. We were all gainfully employed and doing very well in our fields. We were in the PRP to liberate the downtrodden.
It was when we were preparing for the elections that the late chairman of the party, Mallam Saleh Iliyasu, called me and asked me who was going to represent my area in the House of Reps, I said I did not know. To me, the fun really was in the mobilisation, voter education and campaigns, attending rallies and making powerful speeches. I tried to resist because I had just left Lagos the year before and my family was with me in Kano. But I was really forced to go to the House in 1979. You will not believe it, because of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) power of manipulation and oppression, the people turned their backs on the party and the PRP won most of the elections by a landslide. And in those days, there wasn’t this coercion, this intimidation that you are a Christian or southerner, unlike today. The children of those we liberated are now holding forte. In all corners of the North, most of those holding power are sons of peasants. The crisis in PRP was induced from the NPN to weaken PRP. And so, I and several members of the House of Reps decided to leave PRP. And to us, because there was morality and conscience involved, we felt it was wrong for us after leaving the party to maintain the positions the party sponsored us to attain. So, towards the end of 1982, we left the PRP and the House of Reps. We came to Kano, met Abubakar Rimi, who had also joined the NPP. We told him it will be wrong for him to leave the PRP and stay in office. He disagreed. He said: ‘look, Sule, Governor Mohammed Goni of Gongola State left the Great Nigerian People’s Party (GNPP) and he is still governor there’. We insisted that it was wrong. At the end, he too resigned, but we agreed that though we were now in the NPP, we will continue to maintain the principles and beliefs of the PRP because we were really PRP, it was a commitment.
You can see the difference between those days and today, when a governor will leave the party that sponsored him to office and join another party while still maintaining the office he got from the old party.
When we were fighting in the PDP, I told my colleagues that the issues we were fighting for were fundamental. We were fighting for justice, we were fighting against impunity and we were fighting for due process. The people we were fighting were dangerous. It was like by the time they fight back, our offices, our personal lives and families and relationships could be on the line. Therefore we should stay in the party and fight. If we were going to join the APC, then we must be prepared to resign our offices. There is something called honour around leaders, especially elected leaders. I don’t wear your gown and use it to make shakara for you. It is not fair and it is not right.
And then, soon the military intervened, and all of you were witnesses to, and victims of, military justice. Some are saying the way the military handled the persecution of the political class, sometimes sending people to 200 years jail terms, sometimes on trumped up charges, was meant to decimate the political class. How did it affect you personally?
When the military took over in 1983/1984, the people holding power were part of the first generation of leaders. The people who came in were the third generation of the military. The first generation were the Ironsis, the Maimalaris, the Gowons, the Ojukwu’s and so on. Those who came in 1984, the people they displaced from power were part of the old order, the leaders who took over from the colonialists. Because the new leaders were part of military leaders, the difficulty they had in asserting their authority, their attempt to replace first grade leadership with third grade meant they had to literally destroy the old order, because there was no way they were going to share space with the Ziks, the Awolowos, the Mbadiwes, the Aminu Kanos, the Joe Tarkas. It was necessary, or so they thought, to first destroy what was standing before they could find the ground to stand. They set out to disgrace us, remove our moral authority and make it sound as if we were thieves, crooks and corrupt people, and they made themselves look like saviours and revolutionaries, blah, blah, blah. They deployed lack of due process, lack of law, lack of human rights and even lack of cultural background.
And you can see the effect of these. They ended up taking away our history and truncated our political track records. How many young Nigerians know the story of Nigeria today? They don’t know and they don’t want to know because there is no running story. There is no continuity in our political evolution. What you have is a patchwork of eras. These boys were not able to replace what they destroyed with anything worth keeping. They were marauding the landscape with their military laws and decrees with immediate effect but we ended up having no effect because these laws and their system of rule was hanging. It had nothing to stand on. Even when they started their political transitions, they made things worse by disqualifying everybody who was in politics between 1960 and 1983. You can see the consequences. We are paying very dearly for it.
You played prominent roles during the military transitions to democracy. In particular, what did you see as your mission when the movement towards the formation of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party was going on? Did you see it as an opportunity to continue from where you stopped in 1983?
Our mission was informed by the coup of 1983 and the aftermath of it. Between 1983 and 1998, the military did incalculable harm to the polity. By 1998 we had no sense of our history. We did not know where we were coming from. We lost track of the contributions of our founding fathers, what was their vision and mission. The past was shut out. In its place was the culture of nepotism, brute force, abuse of power, mindless corruption and political greed that was not governed by any sense of restraint. That is why today, governance has lost meaning. Government can become the property of the governor and the state his estate. Thank God we are able to maintain definite tenures. If we had no tenure limits, we would be having 36 state emperors and a king at the centre, each with the power to extend its dynasty. We have no philosophy that guides the way we do things and run a system in order to deliver good governance and use public resources to serve the people. It is everybody doing just as he likes. You can only get anything if you know Mr A or Mr B; citizens have lost their rights.
So, in 1999, after Babangida tried to continue and failed, he set up an interim government and left. General Abacha allowed the interim government to operate for only 82 days and he took over. He too tried to transform into a civilian president after five years in power. Generals Buhari, Babangida and Abacha had transformed politicians into praise singers and sycophants. People like us felt very offended and worried. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC) founded by Babangida were government inventions. They were owned by the military government, who gave politicians offices, houses, cars and even allowances. They also felt free to ban, disqualify any candidate and annul concluded elections. It was very obvious that he who paid the piper dictated the tunes. So, the party system the military set up was just a fraud, because the military was also using these associations of praise singers and political conmen to sabotage the parties and transition programmes they were running. We felt there was danger. We felt pained that Nigeria, the leader of the black race, can be so trivialised. So, myself, Abubakar Rimi, Solomon Lar, Alex Ekwueme, Iorchia Ayu, Solomon Ellah, Bola Ige, and two others, formed the G.9. We met at Ekwueme’s office in Raymond Njoku Street, Ikoyi and discussed Nigeria extensively.
It was agreed that for some of us from the North who had worked with the military to prove that we were not part of the Abacha agenda for the North, we should go and form a group and challenge Abacha. ‘Go and challenge Abacha if you want those of us in the South to believe you’ . We agreed. We formed the G.18, which was purely a northern formation. We challenged Abacha on a number of issues and gave it to Solomon Lar to go and read it out in the media. After that, the security agents came and picked me and Rimi and we were incarcerated. When the news came out the following day, the South became convinced of our commitment and therefore more people joined us and we formed the G.34, which was a national movement. We became interested in forming a party that will protect democracy, attract and unite all Nigerians, a party that will consolidate democracy, develop the country and make Nigeria a showpiece in the comity of nations.
Eventually, a man who did not play a role in the formation of the PDP became the president of Nigeria under the PDP banner. Somehow, the two of you clicked and have worked together ever since. So, how would you portray Gen Olusegun Obasanjo’s role in our democracy since 1999. Is Obasanjo a saint or sinner?
Before we go there, let us discuss how he emerged. There was a coup in 1983 and Buhari, a Northerner was head of state, who took over from Shagari, a northerner. Then, Babangida, a northerner overthrew Buhari and ruled Nigeria for eight years. After that, Abacha, another northerner, took over and was in power for five years. And there was an election won by Chief Abiola, which was annulled. This had a very profound effect because the elections of June 12 were very transparent and credible. The North was seen as a power monger. When Abacha died and we formed the PDP, we were looking for a Nigerian symbol. The issues in 1998 were not about development. The main issue was giving the Nigerian nation, which was like a ship adrift in the ocean, a chance to find a steady course once again. We needed someone who will take the country out of bickering and bring about unity. We decided that the Yoruba had been wrongly treated and must be appeased because of their son, Abiola. Obasanjo was in prison, and we were looking for a Yoruba Nigerian president, not president of Nigeria for the Yorubas. If we had asked the Yorubas to give us a president, they would have given us Bola Ige, Abraham Adesanya or Olu Falae. These people may not solve the problem of uniting the nation because we feared they might be pursuing ethnic agenda. Our leaders reflected and decided to bring out Obasanjo, a man whom we knew was very sound and a nationalist.
What did Obasanjo do with the opportunity given to him?
Leave your personal opinion about Obasanjo. I know you hate him like nobody else. I have seen your writings. That is your own business. How did we click? you asked. When he made me foreign affairs minister, it was a time when Nigeria was a pariah nation in the world. I never knew him from Adam before he became the elected president. To me, Obasanjo was either crazy or a genius for him to place the heavy burden of that huge ministry on someone he never knew from Adam. I knew that as a foreign affairs minister, what you say or do, or do not say or do not do can make or unmake the image of a nation, and this was a time when Nigeria’s image was already in the worst of shapes. I was touched, and I swore to myself that I will stand by this man for as long as he continued to be active in politics. And within three years of Obasanjo’s ascension to power, Nigeria’s unity was fully restored, and her image abroad was also restored. By 2001, Nigeria was stable and very, very reconciled. And when he started preparing for his second term, the very people who put him there wanted him out. I did not go along with that. I asked why they should use him and dump him.
In 2003, when we went for campaign in Rivers, Obasanjo made another very profound impact on me. At the arena where we were having the campaign, Peter Odili, the governor of Rivers State, stood up on the podium. He said: “We, people of South-South, our chiefs, leaders and the entire people, we met and decided that we want to control our oil, because God, in His infinite mercy, put the oil in our soil. And God does not make mistake. So, Mr President, we want to hear from you what will be the fate of our oil when you come back for a second term. We are going to give you our votes 100%; even if you are dead, we will still vote for you”. Odili said so, right there at the campaign ground in Port Harcourt. I was cringing inside when I heard this, because it was a public place and a sensitive thing to say in a public place. Here we were, looking for votes. I was wondering what the president’s reply would be. Then, Obasanjo, in his normal character, stood up. He said: “Peter, thank you very much. I agree with you, God does not make mistake. He also made that man, Sule Lamido, a Nigerian, just like you. Therefore, the oil is for all Nigerians, irrespective of where they come from”. Only someone with moral authority and courage will say so while looking for votes. So it made a serious impact on me. These are the things that define Obasanjo. We do have our own ups and downs, but once it comes to the issue of Nigeria, he and I are on the same page. I think he and I share the same intensity for Nigeria. He says Nigeria gave him everything, and he is ready to give his life for Nigeria. He said so. The same thing applies to me. Nigeria gave me the space to grow, gave me the opportunity to go to the House of Reps, gave the opportunity to be a minister, Nigeria gave me everything. So, I am willing to give back to my country.
You have governed Jigawa State for almost eight years now.We all know where the state was in 2007. It was rated by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics and the Central Bank of Nigeria as the poorest state in the North and Nigeria. We know where it is today, as one of the most rapidly growing in terms of infrastructure and the best in doing business according to international rating agencies.
This is why my newspaper is giving you an award. What was the template you brought here that brought about the great turnaround?
We are not just talking about developing Dutse into a little beautiful city but creating 27 new towns all over the state.
Every human being has pride. Every human being has a sense of belief in himself, or at least, should have it. These will become obvious when the institutions or the platform he needs are given him to demonstrate it. The first thing was that I knew my people to be very proud, very hard working, very industrious and very humane. I was humbled that they made me their governor. The first thing I did was to ensure that the government belonged to them. When you are down, it is up to you to decide that you want to pull yourself up. Otherwise there is nothing anyone can do for you. We felt embarrassed and pained when we were being rated so lowly, and we knew that what they were saying was true. We had to unite to save ourselves from ourselves. So, I decided that I was going to lead, not in terms of being a leader but being part of the people. I do not have any particular training, or qualification, but even when I was foreign minister, I kept my eyes open, and I noticed that there is something called class, and when I became governor, I decided it was an opportunity to prove that what other people now take for granted in other parts of the world we can do it here. I am going to build structure, infrastructure and institutions that will support our collective drive towards achieving human dignity. Our destination is peace and prosperity and a humane decency. We started by having a conference of all Jigawa citizens. We called it the Talakawa Summit. This summit brought in all artisans, all professionals, from the local midwife in the village to the carpenter, from the woman who makes fura to the vulcaniser and the carpenter. We decided to listen to them first. Then I told them that Jigawa had been a victim of poverty, squalor and destitution. We the elite were here living in comfort and the ordinary people were living in pain. We have switched off from human compassion. We must switch back on and begin to look our people in the face, their clothing, what they eat and how they live. It was time we listened to their stories of agony, ordeal and pain. It should not be like what we always did, discussing about hunger, poverty, refugees and their kwashiorkor in the comfort of seven-star hotels without even listening to the people who were going through these things. When they had narrated everything, we decided to use what we got from them to form the basis of how to run our government. So, what you are seeing today is the result of the collective will, strength and energies of the people of Jigawa State, not Sule Lamido. We all travel all over the world and we read about how Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and now Dubai grew and transformed from backwardness to grade one entities. Why can’t we do the same here in Jigawa State? These people started from somewhere, now see where they are. It is up to us to compel ourselves to be what we want to be. It is not Sule Lamido, but the resolve of Jigawa people to put the inglorious past behind them and move from darkness to light. We refused to go by the Nigerian pace but we decided to dictate our own pace. We knew our potentials, and we summoned the discipline and commitment and passion to change our situation.
What do you say about President Jonathan, the Peoples Democratic Party and the future of Nigeria?
If you look at the party from 1999, the way things happened was not the way things were planned. Man proposes, God disposes. It is part of human evolution that things unforeseen can come in and take the centre stage. Nigeria has been traumatised. We began in 1999 with so many injuries and so many difficulties. We had to reconcile and restore Nigeria first before anyone could start aspiring to be governor, president and what have you. Of course, as human beings, we make mistakes. I think what redefined Nigeria was denying Obasanjo a smooth sail in 2003. He went through a lot of pain to get re-elected, and that eroded confidence and trust among his friends and associates. In a way, all these things influenced his thinking towards 2007. And then, Umaru Yar’ Adua was in office. He was there for only three years and he died. In 2007, Yar’ Adua, a Fulani, a Northerner; Buhari, a Fulani, a northerner; Atiku, a Fulani, a northerner, all of them northerners, Muslims and Fulanis. There was no southerner in the presidential race in 2007, yet the elections were very acrimonious. The power struggle among these otherwise brothers was very bitter, and when we do these things, it has a way of defining the disposition of the younger generation. By and large, our activities also impact on the environment. The structure of the PDP made sure that there was no way that Atiku and Buhari could have beaten Yar’ Adua. Buhari had no structure but depended on the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP). Atiku was a PDP creation. At the end of the election, there was total distortion of realities, due to the amount of propaganda. Even though there was no way the duo could have won the election, they made a lot of people to believe that the election was rigged. It was pure mischief, but these things stuck. When you tell a lie over and over, it begins to wear the toga of the truth. They went to the tribunal, they lost. They went on appeal, they lost. And the more they lost the more the propaganda. At the Supreme Court, the judges are also under the same influence in the environment. There was a tie. It took the maturity of the Chief Justice of Nigeria then, after examining the implications for the nation, and he broke the tie accordingly. Buhari never attended the Council of State meetings when Yar’ Adua was president. But when Yar’ Adua died, the very first meeting Jonathan called, Buhari was the first to be there. And they were Muslims. They were Fulanis and northerners. These things also permeated down to the grassroots. By stroke of providence, Jonathan became the president. By 2011, Jonathan won the election, and some people started saying he is a southerner. Who was there before him? Was it not a northerner? There are certain things in life you cannot avoid. As a Muslim, I intensely believe in God, and there is nothing that man can do to change the course of destiny. Whatever the shortcomings or strong points of President Jonathan, they are part of the process of national healing, and it is the duty of all of us to come together and be part of the national healing. Nigeria cannot be hinged on a single person or section. So, in 2015, whatever it is, we must be ready to rally around the president. Even if he makes mistakes, we should be able to pull him back. But when you vilify him, or deride him, or disown him, you will take away his authority from him, and you will strip him of his pride and he will become like any other person. That is not the way to go because, as they say, things that go round will come round. Today, it is Jonathan. Next day it can be anyone else. You cannot build a strong, united, prosperous nation with that kind of attitude. If you think the leader you elected to office is going wrong, rally around him and stop him from straying. When you abandon and malign him, he is going to be like any other person, and he might begin to get out of hand in a way that does no one any good. And remember, he has his own supporters. Before you know it, the nation is broken again into factions. So, to me, maybe I am becoming too old and don’t see things from the perspective of the youth of today, but I think our values are being eroded, as a people, as an economy, as a nation and as Africans, and we must not allow that to happen. Nigeria was here before Jonathan and after Jonathan, Nigeria will be here, I am very sure.
