Former governor of Kano State, Senator Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya, spoke with our correspondents on why he joined the ADC at a time the party is embroiled in crisis. He expressed hope that the party would come out stronger, saying all the issues would be resolved before the general elections.
You defected from the ruling party to the ADC, what informed your decision to take that step?
Well, I could just tell you a small story. The last ten years in the Senate we decided to form All Progressives Congress, APC. We are a large minority, because in the minority we had ANPP, CPC. AC . All of us were all in the opposition.
So, we decided to form APC. And when we formed APC, Buhari came along and became our candidate. I was with Tinubu in the same committee with him on designing the logo and so on. The party did well for those eight years. I was in the Senate for eight years. These last three years, surprisingly, things changed.
And that’s why we said, let us now form another party and see how we can salvage the nation. That’s what we did the last time. What we did for the nation the last time was for the better. Buhari at that time did his best. So honestly, we decided, not me alone, many of us decided to go to ADC as an opposition party. Some of our people, I was not around, but some of our people were there,when they did the demonstration. And even a faction of the PDP was part of that group to go along in that demonstration.
So, all we are doing, all we are thinking is how government can do better for the people. That’s democracy. It’s for the people, by the people and of the people. All I’m saying is let us see how we can bring something for competition or at least for comparison to the government and that will help the government to pick up and change its attitude to serve the people as much as they can.
Does that mean that you were part of the formation of the ADC, part of the decision for people to move and take over the ADC right from the beginning?
No, I wasn’t. But I appreciated their concern. Even though I was still in the APC. Until after the last convention, I was a member of APC and then I resigned. I took membership card of ADC. So, I hope things will be better for this country.
But why this time? Why did you choose to move this time?
Well, you can see the situation. When your people at the local level are complaining, the government tries to import maize, rice, and other things to bring down the cost of items. After bringing down the cost of items, it makes the people poorer.
Because the farmers will have to sell three bags of maize to give them one bag of fertiliser. So if they produce the corn, they cannot recover the cost of the money they put in. Since the inflation is so high, and things need to be changed for the interest of the common man in this country, that was one of our few reasons, and I hope things change.
Are you not bothered by what is happening within the party?
Well, I believe things might be resolved. What we did on our own part, what some of our people who were leaders of the team did on their own part, I believe they did it honestly.They wanted a ground that they could be there and play politically in it. That’s why they felt that moving to another political party would help them to come up with parties that the Nigerian people would support.
We learned that they are considering so many options because of the predicament that, the party has found itself, whether to move entirely to a new party or to stay back and fight. If you are to advise the leaders of the ADC, which direction would you ask them to go?
Of course, we are talking to the leaders, so I think it’s not something that I would make public, but I believe they are doing the right thing and at the end of the day, the leaders of the ADC and their lawyers will come up with a good solution to the problem.
Whatever it takes in the interest of having peace and stability in the nation on the political space, Like allowing ADC to take over, and run for election. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that. I was the chairman of INEC in the Senate. So when we made these laws, some of them were changed later during the last administration. But to us, we felt that anybody can join a party and work with it and even try and win an election.
But even the conditions we gave before, none of the parties, apart from those who won the seat in the government, have satisfied the conditions. I came in as the chairman of INEC in the Senate with 91 registered political parties. After my complaint, one was added, there became 92.
So I told the then chairman of INEC, you must reduce this number at all costs. We can’t go to election with 91 parties. Even the people would not be able to recognise the parties because the ballot paper will be so long. So I told them to reduce it. What they did, they reduced it to I think 19 or 18. And even that one, some of those, out of those 18, about nine or so did not qualify to be on the ballot paper.
Yet they left them because at least they wanted a kind of peace or to give people a democratic chance to operate. So, it doesn’t mean that only nine or four or six that have qualified for this would remain as a party, for the people. But I believe this time the government should be a little bit more relaxed on those conditions. As long as it’s for the interest of the people. The law is for the people and we should do it for the interest of the people.
Do you have the time for ADC to put its house in order, participate and present candidates in the 2027 election?
I believe we have. We have up to 51 days or 50 days to the end of the deadline for the primaries. Well, that’s the deadline for the primaries. Within 51 days we can be able to resolve it. I just hope so. Unless INEC is trying to trap us and harm us.
You have been chairman of INEC at the Senate. When you look at the reaction of INEC to opposition political parties in the current dispensation, what can you say?
Well, I believe that they shouldn’t go the way they are going. People are registering in the party and it took over one month before they informed the party. People have already registered, have made a commitment to be in the party. After one month they now tell the party, no, you cannot participate. I think it is wrong. From day one you should invite the national chairman of the ADC and others and inform them that it’s a problem. You people, what can you do? The last time, when we were in government there were some parties who could not even submit full names of the members of their party to INEC and if INEC was to go through those names, there would be more problems in the country.
Because some of the names were for other political parties. So, I think INEC itself should have invited ADC earlier. Almost a month earlier than this and resolved it. If they could not resolve then, because it was within the first 30 days, the party could have done something. But they left it till after the party came out and people were rushing into it and then you say, no, you cannot recognise the leadership. People will say, the National chairman of INEC is biased and at least they should not be.
You were part of the formation of the All Progressives Congress, (APC). And it emerged through a similar process…
What we did in the APC was to bring political parties together, and then created a new party and registered it, because at that time APC was not a party. It was just, nothing, but just a coalition, a group of coalition political parties. So this one, the elders are now looking at it. I think definitely they will come up with a solution to inform INEC about the way forward.
But I don’t think INEC should crucify them.They should tell them to find a solution to make progress.
Would it have been better if they had formed a new political party like you did during APC?
Well, it would have taken more time to run that arrangement. But for them to take over another party is also good, if the party accepted? Because I’m sure there are more than 20 something members of the EXCO. It’s only one person who is protesting.
The others didn’t come out to protest. So they should have looked into that direction. He’s the only one on his side and INEC should look into that and support the party. Not because I’m a member of the party. But INEC should look into that.
Do you believe those who are trying to say that, the hand of government is in what INEC is doing and that the government is actually working for a one-party state?
If that happens, it is democratically wrong. If this happens, that INEC will only allow one party, that is not democratic. When there is a political party, there must be opposition. You must give people opportunity to choose who they want.
You are a very active politician, even during the Abacha days. Now some are making comparisons with what is happening now with the Abacha era. Do you see the similarities?
Well, I think its different, Parties were formed and Abacha was their presidential candidate. All the parties, not one particular party. Here, there is a party coming up together to also form as an opposition. At the time, if things went like that, there wouldn’t be any serious opposition. Because the parties themselves are adopting him.This one is different. INEC is refusing to accept those parties. So it is completely different.
Lets look at Kano, with what is happening, the governor has moved from an opposition party to the ruling party. How do you think it will play out?
If you look at the opposition party, we have Senator Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State. We have me, also a former governor and serving senator for years. Then we have the former APC governorship candidate, also on board, Gawuna. We have the former minister of state housing from Kano, also under the new group, the ADC. We have many prominent members in the Senate, senators and House of Representatives members, they have all joined ADC. So if you look at the scale in Kano, you will find that the weight is more on ADC side than on the other side.
Kwankwaso has a lot of followers. His last vote was over a million. That’s a lot. I have my own votes from my Senatorial District at that time. Over 300,000. Gawuna had over 900,000 votes. So, put all these votes together, you will get over two million. That’s almost the whole Kano in ADC.
So, what it means is that, all those people you have mentioned, ADC is confident of taking over Kano?
In Kano, by God’s grace, we don’t don’t have any problem. We have confidence in Kano.