Chief Maurice Vunobolki is a man of many parts, a retired banker, a “Fellow” of ICAN, one time lecturer and was a gubernatorial candidate under the platform of the National Transformation Party,NTP, in Adamawa State, before he withdrew and pitched his tent with Engineer Markus Gundiri of the Action Congress of Nigeria, (now APC) where he served as the Chairman of his Campaign Organization, in the February, 2012 gubernatorial election against Governor Murtala Nyako.
In this exclusive interview with DailyPost correspondent, AGABUS PWANAGBA, he speaks on the importance of the ongoing merger between CPC, ACN, ANPP and APGA, how Gen. Buhari was wrongly perceived in his pre-election comment and the crisis in Adamawa PDP and other issues.
Excerpt:
Do you see the current merger between CPC, ACN, ANPP and APGA as a healthy development to the nation’s democracy?
It is a healthy development for the purpose of synergy; you must importantly realize that, the political aspirations of people are base on party manifesto. If the political manifestos of parties could be aligned together to form a given interest, it would be a welcome development. You will also realize that the PDP has also become a major political party in Nigeria at the moment; they have the government at the federal level, about two third of government at the state level and same in local government councils. So it becomes very difficult for the opposition, as individual parties to contain with the strength of that party, hence synergy that will bring different political parties into one to form a formidable opposition will be able to help in wrestling power from the PDP.
I make reference to the USA, where it is a two party state; you have the Republicans and the Democrats. And you will realize that intermittently the political parties keep exchanging governments. It becomes a fierce political warfare during elections and you see some parties winning elections by premium margins. If you have a very formidable opposition party in Nigeria, definitely PDP is not going to have it easy, to win future presidential elections in Nigeria. You also realize that even at the various state levels, parties forming synergies have been able to wrestle power from the other parties in some states. So the coming together of CPC, ACN ANPP and APGA to form a political party that will contend with the strength of the PDP in Nigeria is a welcome development. It will strengthen democracy and I believe that if the manifestos of the individual political parties are streamlined towards meeting the needs of the people, there won’t be any difficulty or complexity in trying to arrive at a single political party, with one manifesto and one interest.
Don’t you think there is going to be conflict of interest among key stakeholders from the different political parties, who have different ambitions?
Definitely you are likely to have a lot of conflict arising from the merger of people coming from different political backgrounds. Some people are coming with group interest, while some with individual interest. Only few Nigerians have the interest of the people or the common man in mind while going into politics. Most people want to satisfy ego, some want to have access to national cake, while some want to make name and make news, only very few people have the interest of the people at heart and I know that they are still there. Talking about conflict of interest, certainly this might arise, but then if it’s going to be a genuine adventure, then the stakeholders have to subdue the individual political interest to the group interest. How can we wrestle power from the present government that has not performed, that has not done well to the people of Nigeria? If that is the interest that people are coming together for, it’s going to work, if the interest is for one to become a Governor or a president, that kind of marriage is not going to be convenient, that marriage is not going to last before 2015 general election takes place.
Looking at Mr. President, don’t you think he is performing to the expectation of Nigerians?
Laughs! I will not rate the President’s performance high at the moment, he is going to be two years in office come May, 29th, 2013, but we haven’t seen anything that has changed so far. First and foremost let’s talk about the issue of power that he has promised us, that we are going to have stable power in Nigeria; we haven’t had that yet. He is talking about capacity building; we are yet to see that, he’s talked about critical infrastructures, we’ve seen some jobs going on, on federal roads, but that hasn’t reached about 20% of what has been promised. In the educational sector, the Nigerian Universities keep going down the line in international ratings; we haven’t seen any improvement on that. For the health sector, India and other African countries like Egypt have become the hub of our health tourist. If facilities in Nigeria are workable and are good, we wouldn’t have been having a lot of people migrating to India, some to Egypt to meet their medical needs. I will not say that the President has done well.
Finally the general insecurity in the country is a big concern. A lot of state in the North now and some in the South-South have become practically ungovernable as a result of insurgency. I was made to understand that in some parts of Borno State, about five local governments are effectively under the control of Boko Haram, government structures are not there, you cannot find police stations there and you cannot find local government workers going to work, you cannot find people allowed to freely practice their religion, you can see that the place has been completely taken over by Boko Haram. The same thing goes with Yobe State.
People have been killed and are still dying because of the insurgence. It is only in the last few years that we see these things happening in Nigeria, so the President has not taken the bull by the horn in addressing the general security situation in the country yet. He keeps saying they are on top of the situation, while some people keep going to the grave.
Every time there is an attack, we are made to understand that government is in charge, we are going to win the war against terrorism and all that. Generally speaking, I will say as an individual, because I voted for him, in 2011 general elections, even when in a different political party at that time NTP, I had believed that as a vibrant young man, he was going to come up with ideas, innovations to change the course of this country, but unfortunately, as we speak now, we haven’t seen improvement. We are disappointed.
Don’t you think that the recent comments credited to Gen. Buhari that if the elections are not free and fair, we are going to have a bloody 2015 could pose a challenge to the merged parties. Do you think Nigerians will be willing to associate themselves with a political party with such kind of people?
Laughs! I’m not a member of CPC, but I think that largely, General Buhari might have been misunderstood.
It is just a prediction of what might likely happen. People are increasingly becoming enlightened now, and people are really willing to fight for the course of justice. If the court cannot give them justice, on one hand or INEC cannot give them justice on the other hand, they will resort to self-help. I think that is generally what Gen. Buhari was trying to refer to. He is not saying that he is going to lead any war, to fight if the elections are not free and fair, he was just expressing fears of what may be the outcome of a rigged election.
People now are beginning to think that if we cannot find help from the law enforcement agencies or the umpire, being INEC and cannot find justice from the courts, they will have to resort to self-help. What do we mean by this self help? People will be able to go and vote and guard their elections. If you want to rig them and they pounce on you, it’s going to result to blood and all that. This is beginning to happen now. Some local government elections we had recently in some parts of this country, people went and said that you cannot change our result.
For instance, what happened in the local government elections that took place in Adamawa State recently, particularly the one in Lamurde, here are the results of the elections that are brought from the different wards, and it was evident that the ACN won the election in that local government. When they computed the results, they refused to write the results on the form EC8C, that will declare the result of the election, so the people said enter the result so that the agents can have their copy, but the electoral officer refused that they were not going to enter it, all they did was they called up soldiers and police to come and rescue them, claiming to be under attack.
The policemen came and asked what was happening, and were told that the election officials refused to enter the results. But the electoral officer insisted that he was going to announce the result in Yola, so the police said, okay, enter it in the form and give each agent his copy and you can go to Yola and announce the result. But he refused, so the police were helpless, they couldn’t do anything. The electoral officer called up soldiers, and when they got there, they started bundling the voters, and they started fighting, the voters were fighting to resist that, so there was pandemonium at that local government. At the end, no result was declared. The following day, the candidate of PDP was sworn in as the chairman. You see, these are the injustices that people are trying to fight against. Now, base on what happened, violence took place, blood was shaded, yet they didn’t enter the results or announce it, but went ahead to swear in the PDP candidate. People are getting enlightened; they are even willing to die for the course of justice in this country. People are will to die to see that this nonsense called rigging is stopped in the Nigerian political landscape. So, I don’t see the statement by the General to be revolutionary, but people will be willing to stake their lives, because we have come to realize that, the destiny of our children and that of our country depends on the crop of leaders we have. And if we have people are not properly voted into office, they will keep deceiving our children on assumption of office.
Is the crisis in the Adamawa State PDP a plus to opposition in the state?
It’s nemesis that is catching up with the PDP in Adamawa State, because during the gubernatorial election, they all connived together, probably because at the time, Bamanga Tukur was vying for the national chairmanship of the party, he felt that it was going to be a major threat to become the chairman if PDP should lose the governorship seat in the state. That was why they connived and went to rig elections in Adamawa State even against all odds.
Even when the election was rigged, we went to court, the court ordered for recount of the ballot papers, which were recounted in our favour. The INEC Commissioner ran away and refused to come before the court, with relevant electoral documents. It was a system of connivance that broght the government of Adamawa into office. Now that they have succeeded in edging ACN, from getting the mantle of leadership in the State, the infighting has begun between them, preparatory to the 2015 general elections in the state. You will realize that the two parties involved have interest,and the interest they have is a very myopic one. It,s very unfortunate.
What do I mean by myopic interest? Bamanga Tutkur wants his son to be the Governor of the State; Nyako that has been there for eight years wants his son to succeed him. It has become now a family affair, and is very strange to us in Adamawa State. I was speaking with one of them, and he had the audacity to tell me that Saraki succeeded in Kwara State, so why won’t Nyako succeed in Adamawa State. The situations are different, Late Saraki was never a Governor in Kwara State. He was in the Senate and became the senate leader. His son came and become a Governor. You also realize that even his son stopped his sister from becoming the state Governor, against the wish of his father. Nyako is feeling that he can back his decision with that kind of arrangement, and also make his son or his in-law the Governor of the state on one hand, while Tukur too has been aspiring for his son to become the Governor. So they are now trying to fight for the control of PDP in Adamawa State. But I can tell you that, even if they succeed in getting the ticket in PDP, I don’t see them winning the general elections.
The reason why they were able to rig us out in the last gubernatorial election was because it was an isolated election. Many PDP governors and even the Vice President was in Adamawa State working for Nyako to win, and how many votes were they able to rig us out with, 60, 000 votes only. Now everybody is going to go back to his state, to contend with the forces in their various states. They are going to allow them in Adamawa State to face us; I’m going to see how they will wriggle out of that situation. The infighting will be a plus and could be a disadvantage to us too. But we are not disturbed about what happens in their political ranks. I do know that no matter what happens, they always comeback and connive, because even if they have individual interest, they understand group interest more than other people understand. I see them as people who will fight outside and go back later to reconcile.
Comments