Buba Galadima is a chieftain of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP). In this interview, he speaks on the alliance talks by opposition political parties ahead of the 2027 general election and other issues

You said people must share the same ethos as your political party, which is a good one. Which NNPP are you talking about; is it the one in disarray, broken and fragmented?

You said NNPP is in disarray. Well, that is only from your perspective. Maybe, those who hold this view are the ones who are encouraging disarray in political parties. I don’t believe so.

The most important thing is that I know you as an investigative journalist. You should be able to know where to go and find out which party is authentic.

If you do that, without much labour, just scroll in your app, or the website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). You will know which one is being recognised by INEC.

Even if some people claim to have one million factions, if they are not recognized by INEC, then they are not a political party because they cannot contest the election.

The NNPP that is recognised by INEC has the logo of the academic cap and the book, with a red and white and red flag. That is the authentic NNPP recognised by INEC. The evidence is that elections were held in Edo and Ondo states, and it was that symbol that was used for the NNPP.

You know for sure that those who are interested in destroying opposition can go to any length to discredit the existence of any political party. It is no news that this is happening to us, but we have weathered through. There is nothing they can do. NNPP will remain NNPP, with red, white and red flag, and the academic cap on a book.

When your party had the chance to do a coalition in the last election, why did you decide to go it your own way, and win Kano State alone?

I still believe that you are one of those who can see through things. And there is no point because the All Progressives Congress (APC) as we put it together was a conglomeration of people of different characters, different backgrounds, and looking at the world from different perspectives.

This is why they are in disarray. The SDP that you talked about in your introduction is a branch of the APC that has created a faction.

And it was those APC people that moved to what you now call SDP, nothing more. How many people from other parties have moved to the SDP? That is the question the people should ask, or you should ask. So, it is not out of place. You are in Lagos.

That is the character of Lagos, to dismay the opposition. You have just seen what AbdulAzeez Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor has done. Look at the support the people of Lagos have given Jandor. I will say that he won the election. It was taken away from him. But today, look at it. He just backpedalled and went back to the APC. How are we going to do opposition?

We should do opposition of principles. Even if you are alone, you should stand based on your principles, not go for chop-chop. That’s what the press should create and support us irrespective of whatever, we will stand on our principles, even if we are the only one.

So why didn’t your party do a coalition with another party in the last election if you felt you wanted to save Nigeria?

I’ve answered you. Maybe, you are not listening to me. We are a party of ideology. We are a party of principles. We just don’t go into coalition for the sake of coalition because we want power at all costs.

Was Obafemi Awolowo a president of Nigeria? Was Mallam Aminu Kano a president of Nigeria? They all still have very clean, good names, and they still have people who support them and can die for them.

So, you don’t need to be a president, or you don’t need to be a Dangote before you have the personal satisfaction of wealth. So, we are contented with the platform we have, propagating our ideals and our principles. One day, we can grow this party and win national elections.

You’ve talked about your ideology, and your commitment to the masses, but NNPP today is just be a regional party. How do you hope to expand your reach across the country?

Who told you our interest is in a particular region? We are promoting national interest. It may be that some people from certain parts of the country have keyed into what we believe, or they can see exactly what we are trying to do, or they had seen before what we have done, and they have now keyed in.

I don’t want to commit the mistake that our principal has made, which has followed him up to tomorrow. And you people keep on talking.

When he was asked if you are not going to be president, who would you support? At that time, he innocently said, if I’m not going to be one, I will support Bola Tinubu. And up to now, you, the press, keep on reminding him that he’s working for Tinubu.

Those who are interested in destroying opposition can go to any length to discredit the existence of any political party. It is no news that this is happening to us, but we have weathered through. There is nothing they can do. NNPP will remain NNPP

If Rabiu Kwankwaso is working for Tinubu, you people should be complaining about what Tinubu is doing to our party in Kano, or what the APC government is doing to our party in Kano.

So, I don’t want to tell you which party, but we have individuals across the country.

We have people who believe in us. They may be a minority in some parts of the country, but they still believe in our ideals.

And I can’t see somebody sitting in Lagos accusing another party of being a regional party when they were part of Action Group, when they were part of UPN, and others because all those were regional parties or someone from the South-East, when they were part of NCNC or part of NPP. All those were regional parties but they grew and expanded.

So, where does the NNPP have influence?

We have influence all over the country. We have an office in Lagos. We have people in Lagos. The mere fact that they are not in the majority does not mean that we don’t have that influence.

Senator Kwankwaso is a product of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and many people may say he only came to the NNPP because it was a special purpose vehicle to fulfil his political ambition. What do you have to say about that?

I don’t think you’ve looked at the issue holistically. Kwankwaso is a product of the PDP, yes. He won governorship under PDP in 1999.

He also won governorship under PDP in 2011. But you should also know that Kwankwaso played a major role in the formation of the APC as a very critical stakeholder. But these parties have deviated from what we thought would be a pro-masses stance.

So, I had gone through parties not based on what I’m going to get, but based on principles. That is the issue and I think that all of us, should try to look at issues from those perspectives.

You keep claiming that NNPP has national influence. I’d like to ask, in the last election, how many votes did your party get, for instance, in Lagos, in the presidential election and the governorship election?

It’s not the issue of the party, the vehicle that we are talking about. It is the issue of the people who look at parties from other primordial sentiments not because the parties don’t have ideals they can key into, or the parties don’t have issues that can assist the people.

Unfortunately, this is what we are trying to avoid, and this is what you, the press, are trying to bring back into our psyche, that parties are regional parties. Parties cannot be registered based on regional agenda. They can only be registered by INEC based on the national agenda.

So, to that extent, NNPP is the party that has a national agenda, because education which we take as our prime focal point is key to everything in life in any region of this country. Maybe the people in Lagos don’t believe in Kwankwaso because he is not from their place or their religion.

Don’t put words into my mouth. So, you are telling me that Awolowo had a regional agenda, or Nnamdi Azikiwe had a regional agenda, when they were doing partisan politics to take over government from the British colonial masters. Don’t promote issues of religion, issues of ethnicity, and issues of region.

This Nigeria must grow. If Kwankwaso has influence, even in his local government, you should assist in promoting him, so that people will see him as a Nigerian who can add value to the politics of this nation.

A lot of people have said that Kwankwaso hardly criticize the President; what’s your take on that, and what’s your take on the problems with Ibrahim Shekarau and your party?

Shekarau left the NNPP on the verge of the election and supported Atiku Abubakar. How many votes did they get in the gubernatorial election in Kano; 15,000 votes.

How many votes did the NNPP get in the gubernatorial election in Lagos?

I don’t know. We didn’t claim that we have a big fish like Shekarau in Lagos. You are trying to tell us that Shekarau has an influence. I didn’t tell you that we had somebody of influence in Lagos.

What is the influence in getting 15,000 votes? We didn’t do well in Lagos because it does not mean that we don’t have anybody.

And you know how the supporters in Lagos were chased away. You can go and ask the PDP what happened to them or the Labour Party. We do things to please ourselves. And we do things because of our strategy of how we approach things.

For example, for me, it is regrettable that we have now abandoned governance and went into politics even less than half to the tenor of this regime.

So, we are depriving the masses of this country of an opportunity to get democratic dividends because everybody now is submerged in alliance, merger, Kwankwaso, Tinubu, Atiku or whosoever. That is not how it should be.

These people should be allowed at least do half of their tenure to see how much they have done. And we are not doing things because we want to please anybody. We are doing things out of our strategy.

And if anybody is honest to himself and sees what the APC government does to us in Kano, it will be uncharitable for anybody to suggest that we are friends to this government.