Hadi Sirika, a former Minister of Aviation. In this interview, speaks on the recent meeting between President Bola Tinubu and the leaders of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and why he did not join the African Democratic Congress (ADC) coalition, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU writes
You were at the meeting of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) leaders and President Bola Tinubu, and for people who’ve been wondering about where’s the former minister, was the meeting a way to respond to them?
No, not necessarily. Actually, I’ve been around and minding my business, and of course, taking time to relax and rethink and try to continue what I was doing before politics an before being a minister. I am a professional and the industry is wide and I am now involved with so many things to do with the new innovation in aviation. So, it’s a time to reflect.
So you’re not a part of a coalition? No, I’m not. I was with Chief Bayo Onanuga in the Villa and I said to him, ‘Bayo, you said that I was in the coalition, I was not. I never would be and I don’t think I will. Where did you get that from?’
And he said from the reports. I said which reports? I think at that level, people should have been very diligent to check. People can join coalition; it’s democracy if they want to do so. And I am old enough to be able to decide for myself where I go to.
I am a founding member of the APC and I didn’t just join APC or become a founding member but I believe in the philosophy that took us to politics was President Muhammadu Buhari at the time. I was a member of the Buhari Organisation, where we all started from.
We started from Project Nigeria to Buhari Organisation to All Peoples Party (APP) to All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to CPC and to APC. So, I have been there but for those people in the coalition, like I said, it’s democracy.
They can go to where they want to go to. They are supported by the constitution of Nigeria but for people like us who once were in politics, maybe in the House of Representatives or the Senate and were very visible can say no to anything if we don’t like it. So, on the belief that people like us should ordinarily be in the coalition, we don’t do things without thinking deep through it. I’m not an impulsive person.
And I’m not in politics just for what some people are in politics for. I am in politics because I believe in ideology. I was the secretary of the committee that wrote the constitution and the manifesto of the APC itself with Chief Audu Ogbeh as the chairman. And like I said, the APC name, I gave the name. So I think they got it wrong that I have joined the coalition.
How much of Buhari’s 12 million votes will be President Tinubu’s now that it looks like the CPC bloc is with him and was that also why the meeting held?
To be honest, the purpose of the meeting was to go there and officially pay condolences to the president, who did extremely well after the demise of our leader, President Buhari, and secondly, to appreciate him for what he had done as well to assure him of the support of our party, for which now he’s the leader.
So, the main purpose is really to go there and pay our respect and appreciate him for what he did for President Buhari because it’s in our tradition, when you have a leader, after everything has died down, the man has been buried, you go to him and you also pay condolences to him because he deserves it more than we do.
But talking about the 12 million votes, I have to quote our leader, who was director general of the Buhari Organisation from 2003 to 2015, shortly before Governor Amaechi was made director general. So, he’s our leader and he still is, and when he was asked whether the 12 million votes are dead.
When you look at the numbers and the other parties, I don’t see anyone, who is politically positioned to draw the masses to vote against the APC
He said, no, votes don’t die. They’re there and they were created by President Buhari and his team because he connected with the electorate with the people.
We traveled 600 local governments by road out of the 774 in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. We’ve been to every local government in the country and the masses connected with him and they believed in his ideology and his principles and what he stood for.
They saw in Buhari a leader who will take them out of the woods, a leader who will take them to the Promised Land, a leader they can connect who is honest, straightforward.
What he says is what he means, a leader who has the experience that is required to be the president of Nigeria, a leader who speaks their language.
And you think President Tinubu is doing well to deserve the votes…
Since the votes are not dead and since the people that are in this APC now are people that came from Project Nigeria to Buhari Organisation, to APP, to ANPP, to CPC, those 12 million votes, these are the people that are still available and still in the APC and to which President Tinubu will benefit from because he’s the leader in the APC.
When a lot of people saw you in that meeting, they said is he using the meeting to get a soft landing for the fraud charges against him. Is that what you’re doing this time around?
Unfortunately, this matter is in court of law and it’s not a matter that should be subjected to press discussions. But I’m not the kind of person that gets rattled by things like this. I’m a very clean man, if you care to know.
I’ve worked with people, permanent secretaries, directors, heads of agencies, and the government has every instrument at its disposal to determine my character and personality. But since it’s a matter that’s in court, I think it’s indecent to talk about it on television.
So, you were not there to get a soft landing?
I was there because I ought to be there. Like I said, I cannot count, well, let me rephrase, to say that most of the people that are today running around claiming to be leaders of APC are people that were never there when we were there.
They joined us 10 years after we began the struggle. We are the owners of the project. We have a purpose for the project. If you will count a few people on your hands, I will be one of them.
It cannot happen without people like us. I’m not being boastful. You can go back in time in 2002 when we started, and everywhere you go, I have been in every single meeting and more importantly, on the recommendation of our leader, President Buhari sent me to be the first person to go to Lagos to speak to Asiwaju Tinubu, to try to bring him to an alliance
. It was my report after I got back that we began to shuttle between Lagos and Kaduna, as it were, to try to forge an alliance, common candidate, and all of that which all failed. And I was in the major committee.
When you say the CPC bloc will be able to rally the numbers significantly, how feasible is this and why are you guys so confident that it is a possibility?
Well, first and foremost, I wouldn’t like the idea that you’ll reduce President Buhari to the North-West or even to the North like a warlord of ancient days.
President Buhari, I think, is the most experienced Nigerian dead or alive. He’s lived in all parts of Nigeria and he extended hands of friendship to all sections of Nigeria.
The first two vice presidential candidates of our party were from the Igbo extraction, and the two others came out from the South-West. At some point, his staunch, almost vocal supporter was Prof. Tam David-West of blessed memory. So, President Buhari is all over Nigeria.
That’s one. Number two, President Buhari is no more but his ideology and principles lives on and it’s a movement. So, why are we so confident that APC will win election in 2027? We’re so confident because if I take example of my state, who are the politicians in the states that the masses connect with, which party are they involved with?
We feel that the people in Katsina still identify with his ideology. I don’t want to go to the saying that all politics are local, which it is, but we’re confident that we will win in Katsina and also in many other states. And when you look at the numbers and the other parties, I don’t see anyone, who is politically positioned to draw the masses to vote against the APC.
