- ‘Nobody can afford to rig elections in 2027’
Buba Galadima is the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP). In this interview, he speaks on the defection of Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the gathering storm in Kano politics ahead of the 2027 general election, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU reports
Governor Abba Yusuf has defected to the APC. Did he do so in the interests of the people of Kano State or in his own interest, and what is your assessment of the move?
He defected on his own personal interest not Kano. Had Governor Yusuf moved from NNPP to another platform other than APC, I would have said he moved well. But in this case, it is only a matter of survival, not Kano people, not the peace in Kano that he wanted us to swallow. We can neither take any of the above.
I wish in the course of this our discussion you would give me three minutes to read a piece sent to me from U.S. just now by Dr. Nnaoke Ufere. We have to start that in the middle of the conversation so that people would know how other people outside Kano and Nigeria think of this betrayal. And I want to say with clarity that this betrayal is the third in the history of the whole world. Judas against Jesus was the first betrayal. The second was Brutus against Caesar. Now, the third one that ought to go to the Guinness Book of Records is the one just announced by Governor Yusuf of Kano. That was why our leader asked that the world should declare January 23, the world’s greatest betrayal day.
It sounds like you are really hurt and that the governor’s action cut really cuts deep…
I am well above 75, and if I could shed tears on anything, it must have touched me beyond expression because I don’t give to sentiments just like that. I can remember my journey to Anambra State at 2.am by road from Enugu just to go and secure a platform that the greatest beneficiary is Yusuf. I also remember that for three days, Rabiu Kwankwaso and I never had a blink let alone sleep.
There is nothing under the sun we didn’t do for Yusuf to prevail and he did prevail. The way he prevailed, unknown to many Nigerians, was the man who took our victory in 2019 and gave it to Abdullahi Ganduje. President Muhammadu Buhari was the architect of making Yusuf the governor of Kano.
The world needs to know because Yusuf has left the house of God and went to the house of President Bola Tinubu. He left God for a human being. It was Ganduje, who abused Buhari even though he took our victory and gave it to him in 2019. He called him Habu Na Habu. Do you know the meaning of Habu Na Habu?
It was a song sung by the famous Hausa musician, Alhaji Muhammad of Katsina. Habu Na Habu was an outstanding drunkard who would go to the bar, drink, walk on the streets naked, or sleep on the streets, or sleep under the tree. Then there was no overhead bridge. That was Habu Na Habu. Ganduje called Buhari that without mentioning his name and Buhari felt bitter.
When we won election and they wanted to take it, Magaji Bichi, the former Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS), can narrate the story if he has the fear of God. And when he writes his memo, he needs to put that. Buhari put down his feet and said that boy (Yusuf) won election in 2019; we took it away, now he won, give him his victory.
Yusuf has abandoned us to acquire a new master in the name of Ganduje, a man he called bad names too many to mention
You see how God works. Somebody for once, especially Buba Galadima, can talk good of Buhari. They took us to court; members of the tribunal came to give judgment in our favour, but they abducted them, brought them to Abuja, and they were given a written judgment and they said we lost. We went to Court of Appeal.
The appellate court was intimidated to give judgment against us. We all know all the dramatis personae in this matter. We went to Supreme Court, and three justices out of the five-man panel said they will never cause a bloodbath in Kano. I don’t want to mention their names.
The said it is on record that Yusuf won the governorship election in 2019, and it was taken away from him by force, and the judiciary didn’t help him, but this time, there could not be alibi to injustice, so Yusuf was made the governor of Kano through the processes of court and through the assistance of Buhari, meaning that God was at work.
Now, they were telling people that they called that even if we win the election, the APC will take it, so why don’t we join them? That means Yusuf has forsaken God and the inability of God to do justice, and he thought APC and President Tinubu will announce him. Even if he wins an election, it is a temporary victory. God will visit him.
Some analysts say Governor Yusuf has liberated himself from the overbearing influence of Kwankwaso. What’s your reaction to that?
Kwankwaso didn’t partake in his government. Three months into his tenure, Yusuf abandoned Kwankwaso and caused his media handlers to paint Kwankwaso in black paint. But we decided not to say a word for a simple reason. We wanted him to come out with his own mouth to announce that Kwankwaso was a bad man after all, if they meet in public, he treats Kwankwaso like a king.
But beyond that public appearance is something else. So, we said we wouldn’t say anything. They called us names. They said we were working for Tinubu, when they were the people that were hobnobbing with the President and his people in government decided to keep quiet and allow him to use his own mouth to say he’s leaving us, so that we can have the sympathy of the people of Kano. And this is exactly what is happening. If today there is any election that is free and fair, Yusuf cannot get five per cent of the votes of Kano people.
From everything we know, Kwankwaso personally midwifed Yusuf’s rise. In Kano politics, as in politics generally, that creates a debt. Has that debt now been formally defaulted on by Yusuf?
You should know better. You just showed me a picture depicting Ganduje and Barau Jibrin raising Yusuf’s hands. If this happens to somebody from my own community, the man will commit suicide because both Jibrin and Ganduje are not Kwankwaso’s adversaries, they are Kwankwaso boys. They went through Kwankwaso’s political tutelage.
You know for sure that if Ganduje had a chance, he would have taken Kwankwaso out because he stopped him physically by using thugs. Didn’t he stop him from going to Kano for three and a half years? How many times was Kwankwaso attacked in Kano? It’s also because you have not listened to the same Alhaji Muhammad Shata, the famous Hausa singer, who said that you plant a tree, water it, it grows, makes leaves but when you come to sit, it sucks you. So, it’s all about jealousy.
They felt that Kwankwaso is acceptable to the ordinary people of Kano, so they must destroy him. That is why all of them now got together in order to think they will destroy Kwankwaso. I want to say that Abba, in his speech, gave a message to Ganduje to take to President Tinubu. He said it on record that he has stopped blind loyalty
. I don’t think he’s sending this message to Kwankwaso because he has already stripped himself naked in the marketplace. So how can he do blind loyalty to him? He’s sending this message to his new masters, Tinubu and Ganduje that he’s not going to do a blind loyalty to them.
Was Governor Yusuf loyal to the NNPP?
I have no evidence, at least not commensurate with our input. I don’t think he has ever been NNPP. He was only a beneficiary of the NNPP. And God saved Kwankwaso because he would have lost the support of his political base because members of the NNPP felt that they were not recognised by the governor.
And that was what happened when he gave N15.8 billion gift to Ganduje’s councillors and chairmen. When he finished, somebody in the crowd said: Your Excellency, now that you have paid your enemies, how about those of us who supported you? Where’s our share? That person was arrested and all those around him were arrested and taken to prison. So, he wasn’t working for NNPP, he was actually working for APC.
Why do you think he chose Ganduje, whom you said is the face of everything the Kwankwaso movement opposed?
And looking at the elephant in the room, what does it mean for Kwankwaso that his former rival is now the one offering Yusuf political shelter? I’m not Kwankwaso, but I know he feels extremely bitter that our victory was taken to our enemy, who made us to have sleepless nights because we used our resources and put our lives on line to secure victory for Yusuf.
Today, Yusuf has abandoned us to acquire a new master in the name of Ganduje, who is but everything bad in Nigerian politics. It is unfortunate that he has gone to a man he called bad names too many to mention.
When you put this defection against the impact it has on the NNPP, can one say this is the beginning of a structural unraveling of the NNPP because Yusuf is the only governor you had and he’s taken quite a lot of other people with him?
Before he became governor, we never had a councillor, House of Assembly member, House of Representatives member, senator or governor. And without anything, we made him and others. What stops God from doing that miracle again?
That was why I have to read the piece written by Dr. Ufere, who is a leading voice in African public thought and policy and writes weekly opinion column for the African Mind Journal. He said politics, like biology has limits.
A parasite that destroys its host does not survive. The host is the source of life and sustenance for the parasite. Only a suicidal parasite, therefore, attempts to destroy its host. A politician who turns against the platform and people that gave him relevance risks political extinction. This is a lesson Governor Yusuf and his cohorts seem not to have learned.
You insist that President Tinubu will lose in 2027 if the election is free and fair. Are you saying that the real battle is not popularity but control of the process, and if so, what evidence do you see today that makes you feel that the system is being positioned to favor the ruling APC?
Do you need any soothsayer to tell you why Tinubu wants to make sure that all the 36 governors migrate to his own party? You don’t know? In fact, what puzzles me and intrigues me is that he said he won election in 2023. Why does he need anybody again if he has performed well? He can maintain his votes and still become president.
I want to remind President Tinubu that when Akinwunmi Ambode was alleged to have done something against him, he refused him a second term in Lagos State. So, why is he now encouraging betrayal on other political figures? By using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and coercing the judiciary.
If 2027 ends up being neither free nor fair, which you say that that’s the only way that the ruling party is going to win, what is Nigeria going to look like the morning after?
I want to tell you that nobody can afford to rig the elections in 2027. Let them try it. We will all go down with it. You want to force me to talk about what I can do. That’s what you are aiming. I said they can’t rig the election. Anybody that rigs the elections will rig out his life.
I want to assure you that one. Nigeria is no more the Nigeria of yesterday. We are sophisticated. We’ve got restive young men and women who are not happy with the system and they cannot allow people like you to cheat them.
You mean the Nigerian farmers will allow Tinubu’s government to come back to destroy agriculture or the young men who have no jobs. Go and ask Prof. Wole Soyinka what he saw when he encountered the President’s son. So, what would my son say? He has no access to even the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and somebody’s son is going with a battalion of soldiers.
