GANDUJE, ARCHITECT OF HIS TRAVAILS – SENATOR HANGA

GANDUJE ARCHITECT OF HIS TRAVAILS – SENATOR HANGA

Senator Rufai Hanga, representing Kano Central Senatorial District, is one of the leading figures in the New Nigeria People Party (NNPP). In this interview, he spoke on a range of issues affecting public perception of the 10th National Assembly and its leadership.

He also bared his mind on the performance of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu so far, saying that “if you hear people castigating him or condemning him, maybe it is hatred.” Excerpts:

Considering the controversy that trailed the recent issue of budget padding raised by Senator Abdul Ningi and his subsequent suspension, can you say that the National Assembly is a united institution?

The National Assembly is very united. I think it has never been like this. Even the budget was done jointly by the Senate and the House of Representatives and it was hitch-free. The committees sat together and scrutinized together. In Nigeria, whatever you do, people will criticize you. As far as I am concerned, the Senate is very united. The Senate President and the leadership of the House of Representatives are doing well to carry everybody along. The Speaker is uniting the House. Although I have not been around for sometime, but I have not heard of any squabble or quarrel. I think there has never been a more united National Assembly like now. In spite of that, a lot of Nigerians despise the National Assembly because they are outsiders. A lot of comments are being made which are not correct.

If there is so much unity as you have presented, what then brought about the issue of Northern Senators and the dust raised by the accusation of budget padding?

This issue of budget padding was over-emphasized and over-exaggerated. Even Ningi himself said it several times. He didn’t say there was budget padding. What he observed was that some monies were not accounted for and the Chairman of the Appropriation committee explained that they were meant for the first line charge. For example, any money assigned to the judiciary, we don’t call them to come and explain it like we call other ministries to defend their budgets. Once judiciary makes a request, we discuss it privately and put it in the budget.

Apart from the judiciary, there are also other organizations that receive direct first line charge from the budget. I was not around when the whole thing happened, but the information I heard was that immediately the National Assembly punished him (Ningi), he resigned from the leadership of Northern Senators because he felt betrayed. He felt that whatever he did, he did it with the knowledge of Northern Senators. Yet, they left him in the lurch to be punished. Out of that anger and the feeling of betrayal, he resigned as the chairman. After his resignation, the whole Northern Senators came together for the change of leadership.

The general impression about the presence of different regional groupings in the Senate is that you people are more concerned with ethnic consideration than the national course. Is that not correct?

It is not correct. First, you must appreciate that Northerners, Southerners and South westerners know their regions better than anybody. They meet, discuss, and come up with the right advice on any issue that concerns their regions. For example, in the North, we have irrigation areas. At our caucus meetings, we discuss ideas that can improve the irrigation system. From my experience, there has never been a time when Northern Senators sat down to say that they are not part of Nigeria. I have been in the National Assembly three times.

I was in the House of Representatives; there was no Northern Senators’ Forum. I was once in the Senate, there was no Northern Senators’ Forum and there has never been any problem. The only thing that happened is this Ningi saga and it is the reason people are making insinuations about these sectional caucuses. As lawmakers, we are here in the National Assembly to unite the country.

A lot of people are talking about the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio. Regardless of what people say about him, he is a nice man, he is doing fine, he is carrying everybody along and he respects every section of this country. As far as I am concerned, he is a nice man. He is doing fine. If not, things would have gone wrong.

By May 29, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be one year in office. So far, would you say Nigerians have fared better under his administration?

I will not say Nigerians fared better in the last few months Tinubu has been in power, but it is not the fault of the government. Former President Muhammadu Buhari had already devastated and shattered the country before he left power. If Asiwaju were not experienced, things would have been worse.

People criticized him when the naira fell as low as N2,000 per dollar, but now it is less than N1,000. The damage had already been done by Buhari. It is easy to destroy a thing, but it is not easy to rebuild it. You can bring bulldozer and demolish a house now, but it will take you some time to rebuild it back to its former position. Tinubu is doing fine; I am experienced and I know what I am talking about. If you hear people castigating him or condemning him, maybe it is hatred. If somebody is rational, he will know that he is doing fine.

How then do you see the position of the Northern Elders Forum lamenting that they regretted voting for him?

Maybe they expect him to use a magic wand to correct what has gone wrong, which is not possible. Maybe they were expecting him to be a magician, I don’t know. It is not right to condemn somebody who is only a year in office. We need to give him time. Now, look at the rate of dollar, it has come down to N900. If you have been condemning him before, now you can see the improvement. It is only a matter of time. You need to give him the benefit of the doubt to see what happens. I believe the future of the economy is looking good for the country. If he can do what he did to the dollar, the same will happen with many other things. The journey is long, people have to be patient.

The former governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, is in the eye of the storm, facing an investigation committee and the threat of suspension from the ruling All Progressives Congress at the same. How do you see him in this travail?

What Ganduje did in Kano is not a secret, he devastated so many things. Anybody from Kano knows the atrocities he and his wife committed while in government. And he never denied it. Even his first son went to the committee and confirmed that he was a director in one of the companies being investigated.

I am surprised why the EFCC is pursuing former Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello, while Ganduje who did much more harm is there sitting as the Chairman of the APC. When he was asked to lead the governorship election campaign in Edo, the only thing you could see was his picture collecting dollars. That nearly destroyed the party in Edo.

He is accusing Governor Abba Kabiru Yusuf and the ruling NNPP of masterminding his travail. Don’t you think so?

Is the ruling party the cause of his collecting dollars? Was it the ruling party that asked him to be grapping land even in the graveyard? Was it the ruling party that asked him to close a school and sell the institution to some businessmen? If the government is salient on that, it means something is wrong. You have the right as a governor to claim land and compensate the owners, but to close down a school and sell it to businessmen is illegal.

Sometimes in the early part of the present government, the news was all over the place that the presidential candidate of the NNPP, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, was going to ally with President Tinubu, but suddenly everything turned sour. What went wrong?

Nothing went sour. It was just a mere speculation that Kwankwaso was going to ally with Tinubu. What I know is that the relationship between the two of them is cordial.

Kwankwaso and Tinubu are friends. They were in the National Assembly together. While Kwankwaso was the Deputy Speaker in the House of Representatives, Tinubu was a senator. They also served together as governors at the same time. I was equally there with him in the National Assembly. What people expect is to see Kwankwaso castigating Tinubu or Tinubu castigating Kwankwaso for no reason. It is not possible because they are friends and the relationship is still cordial.

When Tinubu came to power, Kwankwaso went to Aso Rock to congratulate him and have a friendly chat with him. I am very close to Kwankwaso, I know he respects Senator Tinubu, but there is no question of alliance between the two parties. We are independent.Our party is independent of other parties. You can be in different parties and still be friends. That is even more civilized. I have never had Kwankwaso speak ill of Tinubu. He always speaks well of him and he respects him. He has never criticized the president.