Alhaji Shehu Musa Gabam is the National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Gabam is a vast and knowledgeable politician of repute who has traversed almost all the frontiers of political positions. An erudite scholar and consummate politician born with leadership quality has a message for the Nigerian youths ahead of the 2023 general elections. In this interview with the PEOPLE AND POWER team led by IKECHI ENWEREJI, he spoke on a range of issues and the need to sack APC out of power next year, Excerpts:
Let’s have a brief knowledge of your profile.
I am Alhaji Shehu Musa Gabam, born in Tilden Fulani, Toro Local government area of Bauchi on April 20, 1970, to the family of Mr. and Mrs. Ardo Yamusa of blessed memory. I went to primary education at SLB Primary School B/Ladi and Secondary Education at Commonwealth College, all in Plateau State.
Mr. Gabam was at a young age, an advocate of good leadership and social justice. I join active politics at the age of 20 as a member of SDP in 1990 and five years later I became the youth leader of the United Nigerian Congress Party (UNCP) in 1995. I started when I was appointed as SA to the late Governor of Kano State, Abubakar Rimi of blessed memory, and became the youngest member of G8 that later metamorphosed into the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
I served as a Chairman of PDP National Electoral Appeals in Cross River and the Rivers States and in 2007as a Director of Special Duties to IBB Presidential Campaign Organization. I led the revolution that defeated the power might in 2007 in Bauchi State as SA on Politics and Strategy to Isa Yuguda (ANPP) Campaign Organization and later served as Chief of Staff, Bauchi State Government House. I served as a member of the PDP National Convention Sub-committee among many to mention but few.
In 2011, I was Director Contact and Mobilization, IBB Presidential Campaign Organization, Deputy Governorship Candidate in Bauchi State, and Deputy Director General of Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign (harmonized). I was a PDP National Chairmanship nominee. I served as Director of Chief Raymond Dokpesi and most recently Professor Tunde Adeniran PDP National Chairmanships. I was the Vice Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2019 Presidential elections as well as the current National Secretary of SDP.
At the state level, I led a revolution that produced the Governor of Bauchi State, Isa Yaguda. I was the Chief of Staff of the state and before then, I was Director of Special Duties IBB Presidential Campaign Organisation; I was SA to the late Abubakar Rimi.
We started PDP from G7 and I was the youngest in the midst of the G7 that started PDP. I have been to every state of the federation of Nigeria. There is no state actor that I didn’t know and have not interfaced with. We built PDP for every Local Government and won the election in 1999. I have served on so many committees in PDP.
At a point when we deferred in PDP on the nomination of a gubernatorial candidate in Bauchi State, we opted out and joined NPP; we defeated PDP in Bauchi State, and I was the arrowhead of that movement.
I was also a Deputy Director of the Atiku Presidential Campaign Organisation, when Senator Ben Obi was the Director-General. I was also Director-General of the Late Rimi Campaign Organisation. I was also nominated from Bauchi State to finish the former PDP Chairman tenure of Ahmed Mua’zu.
I was a DG of Prof Tunji Adeniran PDP Chairmanship Campaign Organisation. I was equally DG Raymond Dokpesi PDP Chairmanship Campaign Organisation. There are so many but these are just the ones I can easily remember.
I moved to SDP when we disagreed with the conduct of the PDP. I was in the last committee that was constituted to review why PDP lost the election; we generated the best idea and the best collection and we submitted the report. The individuals approved it, the NEC approved it and we agreed we should start working on the Convention and it turned out to be the worst.
And we made up our mind to leave the PDP and find a party we can rebuild and make it a national platform. And of course, we came into SDP and I was made the National Secretary then while Chief Olu Falae was the National Chairman of the party. So that was how we migrated from PDP to SDP.
I was also the deputy of the gubernatorial candidate of Bauchi State. There are so many you can get when you Google about me.
You have not tried to contest in an elective position; like the Senate or House of Representatives, even governorship, because you have the charisma; you have a vast knowledge of politics of this country?
I did, at a time. I was a Senatorial aspirant in Bauchi State but due to some intrigues, I pulled out of the race; I was also the presidential running-mate to Donald Duke when he was the presidential candidate of SDP. It’s been on and it’s still going on.
How have you been able to steer the leadership of the SDP, since you assumed the position of National Chairman?
Well, knowing the dynamics and obstacles of the party has been interesting; it has been easy for me. SDP is a very good platform; it’s a brand and one of the oldest brands apart from the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP).
It’s only PRP that’s older than SDP. As politicians, if you are going to join a party, you have to look at the brand. The brand has one thing which is – it must be something that people at the community level, at the unit level understand easily what the logo is all about because the logo is what will be on the ballot paper; it is not anybody’s name; it is the logo.
So, we are lucky that the ‘White Horse’ is virtually known in every community in Nigeria. That is very fundamental in politics for many political parties. So, it was an added value and added advantage as well.
Two, some of the gaps that have been established for a very long time, it’s there and it’s for me to brush them up. Thirdly, I went for quality and not revenue generation and that’s why if you go and check the INEC, among the 18 political parties, 15 of them are involved in so many crises and SDP is not one of them.
Virtually, in the whole of the federation, we work for quality; we lost some revenue but we went for quality and we went for people who are going to win the election. And that’s why at the end of the day, if the INEC published the names of all the political parties, you will see the kind of stuff SDP have running for the presidency, running for the governorship, running for the House of Assembly and the rest. We went for the best.
Ahead of 2023, what are your solid structures on the ground to go into competition and fight for power with the two solid political parties; the ruling party, APC, and the opposition PDP?
You know; winning an election does not necessarily mean that, because you are an incumbent, you will have an automatic ticket for victory in the election. The PDP has been in power for 16 years and some people came together and in less than one year, overtook and defeated PDP.
So, the Nigeria of today is not about I have been in power for long. Revolution has virtually overshot everyone; those who will determine the fate of Nigeria today are the young and the women.
They constitute 70 percent of the votes of Nigeria. Unless they decide to sell their votes but if they are committed to solving the problem of leadership, getting committed people on board, voting for real change, and people who have the capacity to bring transformation into the country; they are the only ones that can bring that change. And I am happy it’s not coming through bloodshed because the PVC owners who will determine who will be the president of Nigeria are the young people.
And mostly, all of them are anti-establishment. No party should beat its chest because it is in power or they are governors or senators that may be in their own statistics that will be their determinant for victory. That’s far away from it; I have been in business for decades. The signals are very clear and you can see the reaction all over the states of Nigeria.
In virtually every state of the federation, you can see how people are reacting on social media and all those reactions are anti-establishment because of mismanagement, misgovernance, ineptitude, and incompetence grabbing the Nigerian state.
So, it’s easy for any presidential candidate to deal with the situation because no presidential candidate requires a professor to do research on what he needs to do.
This government has generated sufficient materials to defeat itself. Sufficiently, if I am the presidential candidate I don’t need anybody to tell me what I need to do or not to do. Facts are on the ground, facts are seeable, and facts are touchable. So, sufficient materials have been generated for this election.
Do you have trust in the new electoral system?
Yes, I have; I believe in the leadership of INEC. Prof. Mahmud Yakubu is a great man, a second to none and he has transformed INEC. Not in any history that you can compare, he has brought massive transformation into INEC.
He has taken away almost 80 percent of corruption in INEC. There is no physical interface with INEC everything is done online, unlike before, you submit the document of your candidate somebody will go and take it away; they will conspire with some of the INEC staff and take away somebody’s file.
It’s no longer there and what we are happy about right now is this Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) that is being used. They are strictly doing the accreditation with fingerprints or visual capture and anything short of that you are not allowed to cast your vote.
Once you know you are accredited within this context either with visual capturing or finger capturing and if not you cast your vote that vote is invalid. And whatever that is accredited by the BVAS machines the vote must tally with what is accredited otherwise that polling unit election stand cancelled.
So, sanity has been restored, even though there are elements of manipulation with the BVAS machine, Nigerians are coming to terms with it. Nigerians are raising issues with INEC because of manipulating or disfiguring the BVAS machine, particularly in areas where somebody is going to win, BVAS machine can be disfigured and not functioning and it is difficult for them to reassemble and conduct elections.
All these are processes of rigging but people are getting knowledgeable about it and will be raising this issue with INEC; we also raise the issue with INEC as well.
I think the Chairman is up to date and he is dealing with it squarely. What we experienced in the Ekiti State is not acceptable and we have challenged it, we are in the court, in the tribunal and we are now challenging the whole process and we believe by the grace of God in the end of the day, victory will be on SDP.
This is because knowing the mistakes they have done in Ekiti State, they have corrected them in the Osun State election, and you can see how everything went. People are now challenging virtually every mistake or deliberate error that happened and they have to explain.
So, this is why I am happy that consciousness is very paramount and very visible. And the INEC now understand that Nigerians believe in their franchise.
The greatest challenge we are having as a nation is the security agencies. You see somebody who wears a symbol of a nation, a uniform as a patriotic Nigerian allowing criminals to hijack or disrupt the process. Once the security agencies will understand that they are serving their fatherland; two, they complain more than anybody about their welfare, their equipment, and their uniform, etc.
If you allow criminals to hijack the system that ought to have taken care of some of the difficulties they are facing, they have no reason to complain. Because what they ought to do is to ensure that the system is sanitized and then you can comfortably be in a position and say look this man that is coming will bring transformation.
You can see the Police some of them walking barefoot, wearing bathroom slippers with uniforms; it is not acceptable, and no society will accept that kind of a thing. Not Nigeria at this level.
I want you to give us a very clear answer on this issue. There are some speculations that because of your closeness to Atiku as his former Director General, your party may collapse at the last minute to join Atiku’s campaign.
Those who are saying it have empty heads; they don’t understand the dynamics at all. And they don’t understand that things have changed a long time ago. I don’t have any apology for working with Atiku before now, and that era has gone. I am in a new phase, I am a Chairman of a political party; I want to win the election, I am not the type that compromise, I will not compromise and I believe strongly the presidential candidate that I have is a person of good stuff and I will not be ashamed to put him on a debate with any presidential candidate, he cannot be defeated, he has grape of issues, he understands what it takes.
Two, age is on his side, he works around issues 24 hours; he is a workaholic and Nigeria need a very vibrant somebody with excess energy to grab this country. Nigeria needs somebody who has the will to bite; to create, to work for the country to have peace.
Nigeria needs someone who has diplomatic skills to bring the country together once again. Anything short of this, we are wasting our time. I don’t see Atiku filling this gap, the challenges of Nigeria today is beyond someone who is grabbling with age and health issues; the Nigeria of today needs someone who will move the country forward.
In the absence of doing that; we are at the close range of the youths chasing everybody out of the country and that is why you have ministers who cannot visit their home states today. We have government appointees who cannot go to their states and move around their local governments. That is the level that we are at, a revolution has already come in and it is playing a very critical role.
You have in a state where no state actors are dictating what is happening in the state. The governor will give an order and nobody will respect them and that is the level that we are at.
Now, for anybody who does not realize that the tastes have changed in Nigeria, I think he needs some clinical examination; his mental analysis needs to be examined. So, nobody is talking about the past, they are talking about today, tomorrow, and the future of the country. It is far beyond anything; I don’t believe any other country is far better than Nigeria. Nigeria is the best country on earth; no other country has the kind of gifts that Nigeria has. I don’t believe any citizen deserves to be poor or any family deserves to sleep without eating.
We have more than sufficient given by God. It is the absence of leadership and most of them have been tasted in different capacities. So, you need a new person that will be guided properly; a neutral person that will be guarded properly; that can be pushed properly for the country to move on.
I am not the kind of person that can work for somebody, after all, I am not in their party. I am the Chairman of a party and I was privileged enough to be elected at the convention to be the chairman of a party.
Do you agree that one of the issues that APC had was the cross-carpeting of members from PDP to APC and they formed an alliance to win an election? Right now, we are seeing such occurrences in SDP of people who couldn’t get tickets from their parties coming to SDP to get tickets. How do you get such persons to align themselves to the vision of SDP?
They are already aligning with the vision of the party. Let me tell you, SDP is the first to give a 50 percent discount to the youths; SDP gave almost 90 percent discount to the women, they only paid Expression of Interest Form, the cost of the form is free.
Now, SDP is the only party that has given both the Expression of Interest and the Form free to people with disability to contest and we have them, they came and collected and did not pay a dime; we have them on our record too. Some of them are contesting for the senate and we have given them the opportunity as well. And of course, if you look at the crop of the leadership of the party across the length and breadth of the country, you will find out that the young people have been given an opportunity to excel and I hope they will take the advantage of it and use it.
Now, cross-carpeting is inevitable; you know if you look at the history of how we emerged in 1999; there was no principle at all. People forfeited their political interests and affiliations simply because the interest then was to take the military back to the barracks and restore democracy.
And that is why when people are saying there is no ideology, there is no principle simply because the period the country was in as at then was how to take the military back to the barracks and restore the processes of democracy; that is what it is. But later you see people coming up and aligning themselves with their ideological beliefs and believing in different methods of governance, it is taking shape gradually but the condition and circumstances that led to the birth of democracy in 1999 have nothing to do with ideology and what have you.
In fact, the G7 had a meeting and they agreed that we should forfeit our ideological differences. You know, the NPP was part of it then, the progressives; the conservatives, and others came together to form PDP.
So, people have known this background, and sometimes when they are overstretching issues you know clearly they don’t have the background of how democracy was restored.
What is your assessment of democracy in Nigeria from 1999 to this moment; would you say that Nigerian democracy has come of age?
No, we are not doing well because we tagged ourselves to be “learning.” That tagging is the most dangerous thing we have done in this country. Now we have been under democracy for over 23 years and still counting. Now, when you give birth to a child, expectedly, at the age of 18, he should have been fully matured. Not even at that, this is a government they did not inherit zero structure, then they inherited complement of the structure with problems.
What they ought to have done is to deal with those problems, overhaul the problems and continue where others have stopped. Had it been that there is a policy of continuity, we wouldn’t have been here today; there are so many abandoned projects funded with public funds, and every government that comes would abandon those projects and many more and they keep initiating what they cannot even finish. That is with public money and it is not as if they are using their private funds.
So, this is a tragedy of the kind of systems we are running. There are projects that were started by Jonathan’s government and this government is not doing and they have abandoned them. The same thing with the government of Yar’Adua; there are projects started by Obasanjo that were abandoned. All of them talked about Ajaokuta Steel Company and none of them is serious about it.
Even the railway, what was their achievement? Jonathan started the railway project, but they got to a point they abandoned it and couldn’t finish. When this government came in they showed as if they are very serious about it; look at the energy sector, trillions were injected into it and nothing happened. We are battling to have electricity for even seven hours; the cost of diesel has gone so high. I saw former President Obasanjo complaining that they are suffocating because of a lack of diesel but they are all part of the problem.
You are like the driver of SDP as a chairman, what is your vision of SDP if they eventually become the president of this country; what are the things SDP will be doing to change the narratives of transforming Nigeria?
The vision of SDP is very simple, not just SDP, but any party. What I am talking about covers any party and the entire country. If by the grace of God, Nigerians believe in us and give us the opportunity to govern Nigeria; our first responsibility is the restoration of law and order. If you do not restore law and order you cannot achieve anything. The second is to create a political environment that will attract investors into the country both locally and internationally.
In the absence of a peaceful and viable political environment, there is nothing you can achieve – nothing.
Third, you have to liberalize the process. Some of the constitutional provisions, the land use act, you must amend. By amending them you are inviting investors to go into a lot of mineral exploitations for the good of the state.
You must allow the states to develop their mineral base, and their resource base and pay a certain percentage to the federal so that they can take care of their state; take care of their salaries, their healthcare system, their educational system, and the rest of their states. Anything short of that we cannot survive it; our economy is virgin, we are running a virgin economy untapped.
Nigeria is very wealthy; Nigeria is not a poor country by any means and by any standard. So, if you do not amend that section of the constitution, the governor has the power to bring any investor into the state and develop the resources of the state; to run the state efficiently and effectively, and then a certain percentage will be remitted to the national to run a federation system, then we have not started. This is part of our immediate priority as a government. We will parley with the National Assembly; we will deal with the leadership of the National Assembly to make sure this amendment takes place for the good of the people and for the good of the Nigerian nation.
And of course, employment is our cardinal objective to take away restiveness; to take away a lot of issues relating to lack of employment. So we have our priorities that are defined and we will strictly adhere to them.
Does it mean you will not fight corruption?
By the time we deal with this, corruption is not even the problem of Nigeria; sycophancy is the problem of Nigeria. You must deal with sycophancy by those who mislead people in power; because it is from the sycophancy that corruption keys in. Now, when a leader goes above praise-singing as the first reality then you have eliminated a substantial part of corruption. And again, 80 percent part of corruption resides with the executive. If you deal with the corruption in the executive Nigeria will be rated as an almost free corrupt nation.
There is no free corruption nation on earth because corruption varies from one degree to another; from cash corruption to property corruption. That is what it is. Nigeria has graduated from cash corruption to property corruption right now and moral corruption.
Then when you deal with these things you can rest assured that everybody will go to bed and sleep very soundly.
On a lighter mood, is your Party threatened by the Labour Party’s popularity on social media and throughout the country?
Thank God you said in a lighter mood; when you check our records, so far we have SDP members in the National Assembly. We have produced some of the best governorship materials any party is looking for. So Labour party is our friends, parties should be friends to one another; they should share ideas because it is about the country; and at a certain point when it is necessary to come together, they will come together. But the most important thing is that we must do the needful otherwise we will not be able to come together.
What is your message to the Nigerian state especially the youths and every other citizen who are desirous of transformation?
I have three categories of messages to three categories of Nigerians. First, the elders; the majority of the elders today enjoyed Nigeria when Nigeria was green; they were on scholarships, and they went to the best universities both home and abroad. Before graduating, jobs were waiting for them; cars were waiting for them; houses were waiting for them; unfortunately, they are the ones today de-marketing Nigeria. This is a great disservice to the country; they should have a rethink because they have their children and families in Nigeria and even if their children and families are not in Nigeria, they have relatives.
The second categories are middle-aged. They should learn how to invest in their country. Don’t take Nigeria’s money out, invest in Nigeria. We have big markets in Nigeria; a population of over 200 million is a big market. Nigeria is among one of the largest populations on earth. Every country on earth is looking for the Nigerian market. Even if you are producing toothpicks you will make your money in Nigeria.
So, the middle class who has some means of investing should consider Nigeria as number one; create employment and reduce redundancy. They should be patriotic; they should look inward and stabilize the country.
And of course, the younger ones who are large in population; should first believe in the country, they should stop de-marketing the country. Look at those who are internally displaced in Nigeria, go to the IDP Camps, you will cry for them not to talk about being a refugee.
We must work together to solve the problem of Nigeria. We must work together to make this country great. I am a pro-Nigerian product; I did not lobby or consult God to make me a Fulani man neither did anybody ask God to make him his tribe and his religion nor did anybody create land or own land. These are the discretionary powers of God to make things the way they are. God created everybody geographically where we are.
Now, Nigeria has been working together for decades before independent even during trade by barter. For instance, the entire leaders in the Southeast were born in the north; even before independence, we have been together. Why can’t we work together to solve the problems of our country, and problems of our states, these are very parochial issues. You can see the youths killing fellow youths. Homogenous people killing their own vibrant men; look at the Southeast, very homogenous killings going on there. Look at the North West, very homogenous killing themselves; how could you explain this? It is simply because there is lawlessness, there is a lack of leadership. There is redundancy; parents would send their children to school and the children will come back and have nothing to do. And the system is so crazy that drugs have entered all of our homes. The children are into drugs and it is the failure of leadership.
The youths must understand that in the absence of peace, nothing can be achieved. We must make sacrifices to stabilize Nigeria. The Europeans fought for several years to stabilize Europe and Americans fought for decades too. So many other countries had similar issues but they surmounted them. We are lucky that our bloodsheds are not as bad as we are in a total war; it is regional issues and regional crises that ought to have been taken care of by states and by the federal government.
We have produced incompetent governors in the state who don’t understand what it takes to manage the state and the people. They have the state assembly; they have the authority to produce laws for the good of the state; security agencies, all sorts of paramilitaries in the state, and all their paraphernalia.
So, they lack the capacity to drive the state. Therefore, you see a governor discriminating against his own people in his own state. Those who don’t belong to his tribe in his state; his clan in his state or they do not have the same dialect in his state, he discriminates against them. And these are the people who want to be president of Nigeria. I want the youth to look into all this and understand that they need their country first. They need to bail their country out first.
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