Buba Galadima is a chieftain of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), having defected from APC shortly after former President Muhammadu Buhari was inaugurated as President. In this interview with LEO SOBECHI, the Yobe-born politician speaks on the current powerplay in the build-up to the 2027 general elections.

Is there any semblance of genuineness in the planned coalition of NNPP, PDP, LP and other like-minds?
You should know that PDP is not merging with anybody because PDP is a branch of APC. Nobody needs to tell you that. Labour Party has been taken over. So, only individuals can merge, I mean, can come together and go under one umbrella.

But, you should also know that it is not good for us to commit the mistakes of 2014 or 2013, just to remove Tinubu for removal sake, because you may remove Tinubu as you removed Buhari and still bring in Tinubu and be looking, using torchlight during daylight, in search for Tinubu.

So, my suggestion had been, and I have said it wherever I find myself, that like-minded people, based on ideals and ideology, should come together and challenge this system.

But, if you just go there as a crowd, say you want to remove so and so, immediately you remove the person, then quarrel starts among yourselves on how to share.

I don’t think this is when we will be gambling with the lives and future of Nigerians. For me, definitely, this is the situation where we find ourselves.

But usually, when politicians talk about structure and all that, we are talking about human beings. At the end of the day, how would a credible alternative candidate emerge?
That is the one-million-dollar question for all of us Nigerians to ask. Once we rely on primordial sentiments of religion, where you come from, Calabar, Sokoto; we will never get it right. That is why I said it has to be an ideologically-based union. That it is the principles on which you unite to pursue the set targets.

It doesn’t matter whether it favours you or does not favour you. Once those principles are being adhered to, and will be run as government, then you will have satisfaction.

But, this one will say that I have to be minister, so as to to steal trillion, (because) the other one has stolen billion, so my own time is to steal trillion.

Now, I don’t know from trillion, which one is another figure you people call, I don’t know. But, we can never get it right, definitely. That’s our palaver, and this is why people like me, for whom the clock is ticking again, feel very bad that we may not likely see the Nigeria we are looking for all through our lives.

Words making the rounds suggest that it will be hard for your two friends – the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the former Governor of Kano, Rabiu Kwankwaso – to work together based on what transpired between them in PDP, during the North West Zonal Executive contest. Is there anything like a change of interest and alteration of plans?
All I need to tell you is that today, in Nigeria, there is no politician with the political base like Kwankwaso and there is no politician that any Nigerian can die for, except if he is paid to die, like Kwankwaso. Kwankwaso can get one million people who can die for him, without giving a penny.

But, the truth of the matter is that all the big people don’t want to see Kwankwaso, because they are jealous of him. Their pain is why should he claim that he is the best, that he is the one that performed as governor, that he is a friend of the people. Why should he? So they hate him.

Yet, what you need to look at is, who are in the majority? Is it the few big people or the masses? But, you can have the masses, but can the masses defend your vote? So, that is Kwankwaso’s dilemma, or our own dilemma.

Let me come, let me land properly. Can’t Atiku for once think of giving way and support other people? Can’t he think of that? People have been supporting him since 1992. He should also support others.

Our major problem is even age. That is the truth, and nobody wants to say the truth. If I were Atiku’s adviser, I would advise him to quietly step aside and assist the country to move forward because it doesn’t look like now 85 per cent of those who supported him before will support him again.

When it comes to this issue of 2027, where the likes of Nasir el-Rufai are saying that there is need to support a Southern candidate to remove Tinubu. Where do you think this falls into Kwankwaso and Atiku’s presidential ambition?
I don’t think you got it right. el-Rufai has not said you should support a Southern candidate to remove Tinubu. I don’t think he said so. And if truly he has said so, he has further eroded his base, if he has any.

But, el-Rufai believs that if the issue of morality factors into leadership recruitment, it will not serve Nigeria’s interests for Tinubu to seek a second term…

There isn’t anything like morality in Nigerian politics. It is who pays the piper that dictates the tune. If not, some people should not go near governance. Did you not see the National Assembly?

It seems the first problem with the country now is elite consensus. Can the Nigerian political elite ever form a consensus for what is good?
There is no need for any consensus among Nigerian elite. What is important is, can the masses look at the individual that they are going to vote for? Whether he would meet their basic minimum requirement for good governance.

We are not educated enough to look at issues from that angle. That is the major problem we are confronting.

But some people have cried out against the electoral system, and all ancillary legislations. Why are politicians not agreeing on the need for effective electoral process?
I have always cried out against the electoral system. The issue before us is not whether it is Atiku, Kwankwaso, Tinubu, or whosoever. All of us should come together and fight for a free and fair election, which is possible by using the electoral act.

We should tell the judiciary to dispense justice according to the rules, not according to their wishes. And, if any judge, for example, defaults two or three times in making frivolous judgments, that person should be disrobed. Once we have this kind of system, what happened in Ghana or Sierra Leone will be possible. Then, it doesn’t matter where the man chosen by the people comes from. It doesn’t matter which religion he belongs to; which tribe he belongs to. That is our major problem.

Some opposition elements have expressed scepticism that the National Assembly, as presently constituted, can firm up the electoral act?
Which National Assembly? The day you saw (Senator Godswill) Akpabio emerged as the Senate President, you should read the way forward. That is why in the beginning I told you that if there is an issue of morality, some people should not even go near governance.

Are you now saying that all hopes are lost?
Of course, it is. If you have seen what has happened with Senator Natasha (Akpoti-Uduaghan), would you think you have a hope in this country, or in our leaders?

But, I am not worried with what happened to Natasha for a simple reason that it will boomerang. And, if government is not careful, this Natasha issue with the sensitivity of women in governance all over the world, it can snowball into something that the government will not like.

Two years into President Tinubu’s administration, what word would you give to Nigerians and politicians at this point?
Well, we have seen Tinubu’s cards on the table. So, it is for us now to put our acts together, either individually, as a group, or as a country, to address the situation or else, we can slide into dictatorship.

What will be the mind of your Northeast zone, in the event that VP Shettima is dumped?
Forget about my zone. I don’t talk about zone. I don’t talk about South. I don’t talk about religion. I don’t talk about tribe. I talk about Nigeria. It doesn’t matter what are the feelings of the people from where I come from.

Food production is low and farmers cannot go to farm. There will be big problem next year, because nobody will go to the farm again. And farmers cannot get returns on their investment. Everything to do with farming is cost-effective.

And now, you are importing grains from countries that are using technology to produce. Yet, you are not assisting your farmers by giving them good seeds, giving them implements, or by giving them extension workers to advise them on how to produce.

When our farmers are still using hoe and cutlass, how do you expect us to feed our mouths? Now, when you import, the cost of the imported food is less than the cost of production locally.

Look at how people invested trillions of naira in establishing rice mills, that is now going to be redundant completely. So, with the insecurity all over, people cannot go to farm.

With the cost of fertilizer and tractors, everything has skyrocketed, because of the cost of the dollar. So, how can farming be competitive? It means people will be idle for several reasons, including insecurity, cost of implements, cost of chemicals, cost of this and that. Yet, man must eat.

(Former President) Buhari was bad, completely bad. But, he got restrained from importation and forced the people back to the farm and that has started yielding results.

If we had injected money and if we had injected technology into farming and forced the farmers to use modern techniques of farming, we don’t need to import anything. And, we can get the price of goods to be coming down, because instead of getting ten bags of rice per hectare, if they use extension work, if they use proper chemicals, if they use proper agricultural advice, they can produce 100. This means the cost must come down. And all the factories that were established to mill rice will now employ people, take young men off from the streets. That will help.

We are doing voodoo economics, and some people just want to make money. So, they import to help their friends. Those of us who have no friends, we are left at the mercy of God.