Alhaji Suleiman Baba Ali is a former health commissioner in Kogi state. The All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant, in this interview, spoke about his ambition, party politics and the worrying governance style in the Confluence state. Excerpts:
You are of the APC. What we know about the APC in Kogi state is chaos. At the same time, there is a celebration. But the celebration is half-hearted because of the chaotic situation. There is no unity. Factionalisation is still there. The legacy parties are still looking at themselves as separate from one another and not a whole which formed the APC. Why is it so?
I agree with your definition of chaos. Yes, they have issues and challenges. Those issues and challenges are not insurmountable. Those challenges and issues were there with us when we won 53 per cent of the votes cast in the presidential election. Those issues and challenges were with us when we won the three senatorial seats in Kogi state. Those issues and challenges were with us when we won six out of the nine House of Representatives seats in Kogi. Why do we lose the State House of Assembly? We won 11 out of 25. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had 14. To a large extent, it has to do with candidates. If it was a gubernatorial election, we would have won. When you add together, the votes we had from those 11 seats that we won, it’s more that the votes that the PDP got from their 14 seats. So, we would have won if it was a gubernatorial election.
The issues that we have in Kogi have to do with leadership. If you ask for my opinions on some of those things, it’s a struggle for leadership between those you refer to as the new group in the party and the older groups in the party led by Prince Abubakar Audu. I don’t even believe that there is an argument over who the leader of the party is in Kogi state because the constitution of the party is clear about that. Prince Abubakar Audu as a former governor remains the leader of the party in Kogi State. We accept him and respect him as such.
What throws up the problem and the issue is that there are those who believe that Prince Audu is bigger than being a governor. And that he should allow some other elements to come in and take that position, while he sits back and becomes a kingmaker. It is those who hold that opinion who feel challenged by the fact that as the leader of the party, who is also throwing himself into the race to be governor, while there are other aspirants who are also seeking to be governor.
So, that will raise a lot of issues because as a leader of the party, he is supposed to be an arbiter and an independent umpire among all the aspirants. But when he now becomes an aspirant, being the leader at the same time, then there is a problem. That is the only issue that I see. Apart from that, I don’t think there is any big issue or chaos.
Audu remains the leader of the party. Nobody argues about that.
But he didn’t deliver Kogi state because of the popularity of the APC. Kogi State was delivered maybe because government was not paying salaries and people were tired of the government. Don’t you believe that the victory was not due to APC’s hard work?
I will disagree with you to some extent with respect to that. Yes, it’s just like what happened at the national level. The PDP did the campaign because of non-performance of Goodluck Jonathan-led government. So, by their action and performance, they campaigned for the opposition to take over.
The same thing happened in Kogi. It does not happen just in Nigeria alone, but in other places. People will ordinarily not leave a government that is performing and delivering democracy dividends to the people. The people are not going to leave a performing government even if you have a strong and virile opposition. They look at the programmes of people who are campaigning to take over and the performance of the incumbent government and make comparison in taking a decision as to either to vote out the old government and bring out the new one or stick with the old one.
In Kogi, apart from the fact that the APC has a compact programme based on the APC manifesto at national level, the state government of Governor Idris Wada and the national government of Goodluck Jonathan also helped us. They campaigned for the APC as far as I’m concerned by their non-performance or abysmal performance.
The APC in Kogi state worked hard. I will tell you the reasons why I said that the APC worked hard. This is not the first time the PDP has been in power. We have had the PDP government in the last 12 years. They have never worked. Former governor Ibrahim Idris didn’t perform in those two terms.
Yet, the PDP still won and brought in Wada. They won because at those various points, the opposition was not together. Members of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) were not together. The parties were not together. So, it was difficult to get them to work. If you now say the only reason why the APC won was because they had a non-performing government and the APC didn’t put itself together, what would you say about those other times when we had the same government that was still not performing? Yet, the opposition couldn’t win. So, we won this time because we had a good programme. We won this time because we had a party that is compact. We had new people and entrants into the party. The APC has legacy parties’ including the new PDP that came together to form alliance. So, the party worked in Kogi state.
What are you doing to ensure that Audu becomes the father of the party in Kogi state and not a contestant? What are you doing to convince him?
To a large extent, that is the responsibility of the elders of the party. As I said, I worked in an administration led by Prince Audu; 1999 to 2003. You must give that to him. I have said that every time. Among all the governors we have had in Kogi, his performance is still the best. I’m proud to have been associated with that government. But basically, we think this is the time for others to have their hands on governance in Kogi. Those of us who have learnt from him and imbibe good things from him, this is an opportunity for us to do well, while he plays the fatherly role and stays back. He should give advice on how to make Kogi a better state. At the same time, he should be able to fight for Kogi at national level so that he can get bigger and better things because of his fatherly role. He may not be able to get these things directly if he is the governor himself. That is the role of the leadership of the party at national level. They should look at it and I believe they are looking at those possibilities.
I see this thing as a personal ambition. We were told that everybody in Kogi is weeping and asking Audu to come back. Are you weeping for him to come back having worked under him in the past?
I don’t know about that.
Why do you want to challenge him at the poll, having worked under him?
I’m not challenging him.
But you want to become governor…So, why is Audu running again?
I had an interaction with him. Before I came out to declare, I went to see him and I told him that I would run for the governorship election. At that point, he had not made up his mind to run. He was still considering the possibility of running. So, he has not made up his mind to run absolutely.
What did he tell you when you met him?
That is a private discussion between me and him when I went to meet him and I will leave that. So, I believe that once I told him I would run and if he chooses to come to the fray and run against me after I had seen him and told him that I would run, that question on why he is still running can best be answered by him and not me. But I’m not running against him. I’m running for governor of Kogi state. Let’s be clear about that. It’s not about Prince Audu or any other person. Don’t forget that we have almost 20 something aspirants who are running. But we believe we can add value. We can make a difference in governance in Kogi state. That is the reason why I’m running. Every Kogite is free to run.
You are a businessman. You have been in oil industry, construction and printing. Why do you want to leave your business to become governor?
I have had the privilege. I have been an entrepreneur throughout my life. I have worked with government twice; first as commissioner in 1999 to 2003 and later as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Team Nigeria Trust Fund at federal level. You can impact society in different ways. The problem in Kogi state has got so bad that all of us cannot continue to stay in our comfort zones. If all of us who believe we can add value continue to stay in our comfort zones, then we will continue to have wrong people coming to rule us. We cannot complain. This is because we have the choice to either watch them doing it or to go in and offer service. For me, it’s a sacrifice. My business is running. I have been an entrepreneur all my life minus those two times I have been in government. I have been employing people. My movement into governance does not change that.
What you need to run a company are structures. Once you put organization structure within a company in place, the company runs either you are there or not. You may hear the problem one company collapsing when there is a bad manager. It is also happening in governance. So, for me, I believe it’s a passion to chage Kogi. What we have in Kogi is very depressing, beginning from the state capital. I’m from Lokoja. I grew up in Lokoja. I schooled there. I went to Holy Trinity School. I went to secondary school in Kotonkarfi. So, I’m familiar with Lokoja. Lokoja we see today is not Lokoja of our dream. Lokoja is the least developed and dirtiest state capital in Nigeria today by all standards. I want somebody to challenge me on that. I have been round to the 36 state capitals in Nigeria. They are not like Lokoja in terms of development and cleanliness, we are at the bottom of the ladder. So, I don’t want to stay in my little cocoon comfortably and continue to complain and grumble. We have been doing that for the past 12 years of PDP government in Kogi state. Yet, we all stay back and refuse to do what we should do. You have to get into this if you believe you have value to add and make a difference. Coming from my private sector experience and a corporate Nigerian, I have worked with state and federal governments. So, I’m pretty balanced in terms of my views, experience and exposure to bring about the impactful change that we need in Kogi. That is the reason why I’m running.
