Babachir Lawal is a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). In this interview, he speaks on the recent defection of some chieftains of the party to Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and the court ruling against ADC congresses in Adamawa State, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU reports
Are you firmly in the ADC or politically aligned with the NDC in substance if not in name? I don’t know why you would think it could be anything but a firm commitment to ADC. I was one of the founding fathers of the party and we didn’t join ADC with the expectation that every Nigerian would be a member of the party.
That is the philosophy of APC, which preaches one-party state and desires one. We joined ADC to build a party that has endurance; that has longevity, will focus on processes and procedures rather than a frantic and urgent outcome. So, I remain in ADC along with all other people of like-minds and I think we are doing well. Like in politics, sometimes a passerby can just assume what is happening inside that room.
Until you are inside the room, you will not know what is going on there. Peter Obi joined the coalition after it had all begun for quite a long time. And let me tell you the history of it. He had always been somebody that is very shifty when it comes to ADC. We never felt his heart was in it. And we went over backwards. We’re a party that is broad based. We want to carry everybody along and to accommodate Obi.
I will tell you at one time, we just felt that he needed some encouragement to stay in the party and we offered him to singlehandedly bring the organising secretary of the party, which is who is at the heart of the processes of the party. We never extended that goodwill to any other member of the party. If you have confidence in the party’s organising secretary that assures you that you cannot be manipulated out because the heart of electoral processes in a political party is the organising secretary’s office.
So, we said bring that person from wherever you want and he brought the organizing secretary single-handedly. He is now the organising secretary. We did that because we felt that he was somebody that needed to be pushed, to be edged along, to be encouraged to join the party. So, you can see right from inception, we suspected that his heart was not with us.
Why do you think his heart wasn’t with you?
I can’t talk of him. Obi doesn’t want to answer that himself. If you trace his history from the formation of the ADC, every now and then, he’s somebody who will tell you ‘I will be on the ballot come 2027. I’m not going to participate in a dollarized convention.’ He kept on saying that. It’s a mantra with him.
What that means is that Obi is saying that he can only remain in a political party where he is the sole candidate. I don’t think it is suspicion; I think it is fear, and a politician who fears election has no business being one. He doesn’t want to participate in primaries. He prefers to be the consensus candidate. Now, put yourself in the position of the party’s leadership.
This is a political party of heavyweights; former this, former that, some with ambition, some like us with no ambition. So, the only way you can make progress is to create a level playing field for everybody.
You supported Obi in 2023. You then both went into the ADC, but he has now moved on and you say you will now fight him politically. What exactly changed overnight?
No, I don’t want you to say we both went into the ADC. We met in the ADC. Everybody had his own route to get in there. It’s up to him. He has decided that ADC is not the vehicle. Obi didn’t bring me into politics. I was never a member of the Labour Party.
Throughout the time I was supporting Obi, it just happened that in that election cycle, our goals matched and aligned and we felt that we could support each other and pursue the same goal. It’s not as if Obi is the best product that a political party can produce to be president.
There are so many other people that can make good presidential material in this country. Obi entered Labour Party as you recall without primaries. Now, he’s facing primaries, and he doesn’t think he’s going to lend himself to the processes and he goes. Bye-bye for him. But you see, I didn’t join politics because of him and I think I probably would have been in politics longer than him because I’m older than him.
There’s no way I can tie my own ambitions and political inclinations to one person. He didn’t pay my school fees. He has never given me a bag of rice to eat in my house, so I don’t understand how you would say that because Obi has left, I should follow him. Consistency in politics is not about the person. As life progresses, you meet better materials, so I think I’ll get a better material in this party.
Who among the leading presidential candidates are you closest to at this point? There are three aspirants now in the party, isn’t it?
I’ll start with Atiku Abubakar, who is from my state and whom I like to call my elder brother. I’ve been unable to do party politics all these years because I joined politics to back Muhammadu Buhari and now Buhari is no more.
Now Atiku, I like to look at him as my elderbrother. He’s from my state. For Rotimi Amaechi, you remember he was our DG campaign during Buhari. That’s the first time I ran into him politically. We were in the same cabinet and retained our friendship along the years. So, we were quite polite and civil to each other.
And we are friends. The third person, the newcomer, is Mohammed Hayatu-Deen. Hayatu-Deen was my classmate in the School of Basic Studies in 1990. He is not just an economist and a very good technocrat. He had distinguished himself in the private sector. So, you see, all three of them have one reason or the other to feel that I owe them loyalty or support.
Who are you giving your loyalty because your support is quite valuable?
I know that. Right now, I am in the National Working Committee of the party, and that position imposes on me the need not to support a particular candidate openly, not even if I have one. Time will come after the primaries or after the consensus, when we settle on a candidate, then we’ll go full blast on supporting him.
But the one that is clear is that Obi has lost your support…?
He hasn’t even lost my support; he threw away my support because he left the platform that I operate from. I can’t do anti-party because Obi is tall or short or educated. I have my own plans and processes and what I want to achieve.
A state High Court has nullified the ADC congresses over due process violations in Adamawa State. How damaging is that to the credibility of your party?
We’ve gotten to a season where the high courts are the political umpires. They go into all manner of things, left, right, and centre. Some genuine, some, you know, all sorts of manner of. But you see what they did, I’m not a lawyer, and actually I didn’t pay much attention to it because they say nullified, which means we can do another one. So, we could do another one.
And I understand that their quarrel was that the party didn’t submit a register of members and guidelines for the congresses. Now, while the case was going on, I used to receive briefings from our lawyers and what they said at one time was, sir, we presented to the trial judge, copies of our membership register, copies of our due processes. There have been guidelines provided to us by the party.
He refused to accept it. But I said, so what does that mean? My lawyer said, we have put it on record, we have presented it, and it is his prerogative as the judge to reject them. He has refused to accept them, but it’s on record, and we’ll resolve the matters at the appropriate time.
Does that judgment not confirm what critics have long said that opposition parties like the ADC are plagued by the same impunity they accuse the ruling APC of?
I think you should open your ears and listen to what I’ve just told you but it is obvious you are not ready to accept what I told you. Those were the two reasons why they went to court, among many others, I don’t know. By the time we go to congresses, INEC has said they will not attend. Remember your almighty INEC chairman said INEC will not monitor the processes. Our register of members was submitted to INEC 21 days before the commencement of the congresses.
What is your opinion on the alleged tussle over who controls the structure of ADC in Adamawa State?
I don’t know why we should jostle about the control of the party. I’m the National Vice Chairman of the party in the North-East Zone, so I don’t need to go and struggle with somebody over the control of the party in one of the six states in my zone. I’m already right up there. I am not contesting for any elective position in 2027. I have no interest, so why would I want to control a party at the state level.
With Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso leaving the ADC, how much political weight has the party lost?
Even if it were one person that leaves the political party, it’s a heavy one because the final result is an aggregation of individual votes. For somebody like Kwankwaso, I was at the forefront of literally dragging him into ADC because we felt that he had an organic followership and he would add value to us. Obi on the other side, also a sub-organic followership, they call it Obidient Movement.
The NDC that Obi and Kwankwaso moved to appears to be the new bride for many Nigerians. What is it about the ADC that vindicates your own decision to stay in the party?
No, it looks like a big something. If Peter Obi leaves and the South-East decide to leave with him, they go with the House of Representatives members. If Kwankwaso decides to leave with 44 members of the House of Representatives or whatever in Kano, some will follow him. In fact, if he has said 17, it means that it is not much, given the number of Kano State people and South East people that are in the House of Representatives.
Whether you support the ADC or the NDC, are we heading towards a scenario where division in the opposition effectively guarantees victory for the APC?
No, it doesn’t automatically guarantee. Let me give you a simple scenario. If you are going to be strategizing for a particular party, we could sit down and say, well, good riddance, the South-East and South-South will no longer follow Bola Tinubu, they’ll follow Obi, we’ll take away that one, and then up in the North, ADC will produce a candidate. So, our position is that the votes that NDC will take majorly are going to be out of what would have naturally gone to APC from the South.
