Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed was the 2023 vice presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP). In this interview monitored on Channels Television, he speaks on his move to reconcile the warring factions in the party and why he attended the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the Julius Abure-led faction, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU writes
What do you make of what happened recently at the National Assembly over Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s attempt to enforce a court order?
Lack of priorities; these are people who will not react to the recent dastard acts in the North-East. These are people who will not react when the Naira crashed; these are people who will not react to constitutional breach or school abductions. It shows that our priorities are completely misplaced. So, I call what happened, with due respect to Natasha, I’m happy for her to go and get her seat back, but it was a joke.
I am not impressed by those kinds of things, and if these people cannot come out and defend what happens to your security, to your livelihood, yet they come out for frivolities, I won’t talk too much on this, but not just them, it is across the society in Nigeria. I do remember clearly that I got caught up in traffic. That was during the Id el Maulud, which is our version of the birth of our Holy Prophet, and it held in 2017 here in Abuja.
I estimated nothing less than one million people who sponsored themselves. They started arriving in Abuja at night, and it held the next day peacefully. They left Abuja peacefully. This was a religious matter because the venue then was set for Abuja. The traffic came from Mabushi all the way to Eagle Square.
And I got trapped in that peaceful procession. Now, I was telling myself, if these people turn left, you know what I mean by left, by Eagle Square. If they head into the villa, a helicopter will fly out with Buhari, and that will be the end of the government.
That is how easy it is. But Nigerians won’t do that for their security, for their currency or for anything. Rather, we’ll do it for ethnicity, and we’ll do it for religion, and all that. I can’t imagine who goes around to villages killing hundreds and thousands of people, and again, because it must be hundreds of people who are killing hundreds of people. And 10 people will not come out for the sake of the Naira. Priorities are completely misplaced.
When you have 100 people protesting, police don’t even have to come out. When you have 1,000 people protesting, they will be arrested. If you have 10,000 gunshots, water cannons, and arrests, if you have 100,000 people, they begin to look for the leaders to negotiate and make some transfers to them.
Tinubu is welcome to continue to spend Nigeria’s resources in destroying Nigerian political parties, using people like Wike
So, when a million people protest, a helicopter flies out of the villa, or some cars smartly drive out through tunnels of the villa. Now, we still don’t have our priorities right.
And when I say constitutional democracy belongs to the people who have earned their freedom, democracy is for the United States of America. They fought and they drove away the British hundreds of years ago in the war of independence. In France, you know their history and all those.
We Nigerians, Muslims, Christians, northerners, southerners, have to all understand what democracy is, even out, clean out religion and ethnicity, and make it our private things. And it is civic matters that democracy is about. We have to stop talking about North-West, South-South, South-East, and all these regions.
Talk about social strata, the middle class, if it exists, the classes. Talk about them. How will they vote? Talk about labour unions. Talk about security personnel. Talk about farmers. Talk about traders and importers. Those are the geopolitical zones that we should be talking about.
From the point of view of the public, the picture of disharmony emerging about Labour Party, has been getting bigger and more alarming. How did that look to you when you turned up at that factional NEC meeting led by Julius Abure?
This is what leadership is about. I’m not a Labour Party leader, but I aspired to a position of leadership and leaders don’t allow matters to degenerate, irrespective of party lines.
There are times that you belong to everybody so long you’re a leader. And remember the Doctrine of Necessity. If His Excellency Peter Obi and myself had been sworn in, there are things if he didn’t do, I must have to rise to challenge.
Why did you feel that it is your responsibility to be the one to try to visibly and publicly unite the party?
I was just about to say it. Not too long ago, his younger brother’s property was demolished. And I know he’s been busy at that. He went to Daura for President Buhari’s funeral and in the last week or so, one governor has been on his case that he should not come to the state.
So, I need to understand that Peter Obi’s hands are full. And maybe, he’s shy to say, you get up, go do this, go do these things. That’s why I told you that leadership is about taking initiative.
Was he aware of the fact that you were going to attend that meeting?
He knows everything I do. I do carry him along. I absolutely told him that I was going there. Obi is a very easygoing person and, you know, he leaves you to use your judgement and initiatives. And I trust that’s what he did. But he was fully in the picture.
What was the response of the Abure faction when you came to make the case that you came to made?
They were elated. They are yearning for leadership and I told them that I’m there to do it. They are yearning for an end, so to say, about whatever we’re going through as a party.
But while I was there to reconcile, I was also reconciling Labour Party and the general public by the same token. I was doing many things at the same time.
So, in a sense, you were being politically pragmatic by your move, in the sense that some have suggested that the coalition may well end up anointing Atiku Abubakar as its candidate…
No, I have not been convinced why I should join ADC. Where was ADC in 2023, when Labour Party got 10 million votes? The general message is that I am yet to be convinced to leave Labour Party. I am yet to be convinced. And Obi himself, I don’t want to speak for him.
But he will speak for himself. To the best that Labour Party’s arms are open to embrace back Obi. I would like Obi to again win the nomination of Labour Party and contest in 2027, with or without me.
But you do know that there is a rumour going around or reports going around that have suggested that you want to run for president in 2027…
Some people speak their fears. It is not true. I never said that. There’s electronic evidence of the entire procession. I didn’t say that. Look at my trajectory. And I’ve said this repeatedly, that in 2019, I aspired for the presidency and I lost, together with 11 others.
And during that contest, I felt so honoured by a certain act, which very few people or probably no one recognised. There wasn’t a single aspirant north of River Niger and Benue in that. It’s not that they didn’t have the resources or the experience or the people to contest in 2019. They decided to wait it out.
And I felt if my Nigerian brothers showed me this level of respect, the least I could do when it came to 2023, after the disappointment of the eight years of APC, was let a southerner come. And I religiously supported Obi, like I would do again.
So, in 2027, unless if certain two people that I have tremendous respect for decide not to take it, and God Almighty in his infinite majesty keeps dropping it for me, except if that happens, I can tell you Obi, for sure, because he’s in the game, he contested before, I’m with him and I’ll support him.
If he doesn’t, or another person that I wouldn’t call his name from the South, otherwise, I’m not ambitious. My key ambition is: Stop the killings, stop the stealing and stop the slaying.
We’ve seen Abure in the close company of the FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, who of course, is openly working to re-elect President Tinubu in 2027. What’s your reaction to the recent meeting between the duo?
There is no way you can stop people in their ways. What you do; help the trick to trick the trick. Get your intelligence in whatever way you have. Try and maintain your security. Know all the underhand tactics of people and manage it that way. There’s nothing else you can do.
God has put us in this game with sharks like Tinubu, Wike and all others. It is left to us and the people to find our own ways, our wisdom to manage it.
You know it is happening. You see it happening. But I keep saying, whoever captured so easily a country like Nigeria in the way they did and how we let them, including me, our fight was not good enough, then there is nothing else they won’t attempt to do. Between 2023 and 2027 is like destroy all the parties.
If that is your point of view as you suggested that Wike is a spoiler and you know that the Labour Party is currently being spoiled, whether it is by themselves or by some other external force, and then you see that person you believe is spoiling the party and splitting the party into factions, having what appeared to be a convivial meeting with one faction, what does that tell you?
It tells me to be smarter. It tells me to be more careful and open my eyes. It tells me to be more dedicated and focused. There was a time that when they caught drug couriers, they would arrest them right at the airports and charge them right at the airports. And then there was a time they became smarter, that all right, let them exit the airport.
I have not been convinced why I should join AD… I would like Obi to again win the nomination of Labour Party and contest in 2027, with or without me
And in one fell swoop, you catch the courier, the importer, the distributor, and the user. So, Uncle Tinubu is welcome to continue to spend Nigeria’s resources in destroying Nigerian political parties, using the kind of people like Wike. We’re small. We don’t have their kind of wisdom. We don’t have their kind of money.
But like Nigerians say, one day the monkey will go to the market and it will come back. I won’t say more than that. Lots of people have to share in this blame. You see all the things that Wike is doing.
I don’t agree with them. But it is justified to an extent. I’m trying to say that whatever he’s doing, deep down in his mind, I’m trying to remotely psych how he thinks and all that. Right at the Eagle Square in the glare of the whole world, a party that he sustained while others were away, a very dear friend of his, at the most critical moment, backstabbed him.
As far as he’s concerned, these are two Northerners who cheated me. These are two Hausa Fulanis. These are two Muslims who cheated me. And we’ll teach them a lesson. This is Wike. So, humanly speaking, I want to be fair, whoever is treated that way will definitely fight back. I used to tell these people, be careful even in your acts of politicking.
Even your acts of treachery; be careful. There is a time you trick somebody beyond imagination. And the people who did this to Wike, they come from a very rich history with Wike. What he did for them in 2011, the relationship and the friendship, how it lasted.
They came a long way and the very last minute they did thats to him, he vowed to destroy the party. He’s a human being. And by the way, if it will get to Wike, I heard something going on in the FCT. Do you see that beautification he’s doing with the fences?
They said it’s to stop the cows from grazing. He’s blocking off all the green areas from the cows to graze. But that’s for Wike to ponder. Well, that’s very interesting. I agree with him. I mean, in a federal capital city like Abuja that you want to keep clean, you don’t need to see grazing in here.
What do you make of what the Minister of Art, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, said about you over the comment you made about Vice President Kashim Shettima?
I am holding my head high. And I’m repeating here again, and I’m on air in a very credible television station with highly professional individuals that evils do happen in societies like Nigeria. And Nigerian politics has not been shielded from that. So, I’m holding my head high and in the service of God Almighty to say this.
And by the way, don’t expect me to join issues with the minister. I have been on a mission to take away her boss’s job and I will not allow her to distract me. We are not related. Her elder brother is a good friend of mine and we’re talking of distant generations. Let’s not even talk about family here.
Look, like I said, if someone like Nana Kazaure is free, she will ask the minister to go and reconcile her past life and leave me alone. I am dealing with Shettima. And what I said was that Uncle Tinubu has tried for staying put with him for this long. Now the minister, her honourable self, there is one special assistant in the villa.
They could be more logical by saying I tried to say something which I couldn’t say. They are waiting for me and they’re encouraging me to say what it is, so that they will respond. I haven’t said it yet. And they are so recklessly, dangerously inching closer for the world to know what this thing is.
But it’s only fair for you to say what it is…
It is even more unfair to say it in the way they want me to say it now. You can accuse me. I think the point is, saying it is even more drastic. You can accuse me of intense opposition.
You can never catch me for lying. I’m not perfect, but I don’t lie. Instead of them to keep quiet, nobody has been unfair to Shettima like the people who refused to allow this thing to die. They should have simply kept quiet and let it go.
They refused and people are still talking about it. What I said was that before that 4.am declaration that President Tinubu won the 2023 presidential election, things happened that it had to be at that 4 am.
Let’s leave it at that because if I was lying, I would either be in court by now or some other place. But I am not lying. These things happened but I won’t say.
