Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed is a politician and educationist. He was a member of the House of Reps from 2003 to 2007 (Zaria Federal Constituency) and a former Senator (June 2011 to February 2012), representing Kaduna North Senatorial District. He is currently the Pro-Chancellor of Baze University in Abuja, and he is currently in the news for his interest in running for president. In the following interview, he spoke on his reasons for making a bid for the No.1 office in Nigeria, his chances, his own brand of politics, and more. Excerpts:
Daily Trust: You recently left the APC and joined the PDP, and thereafter declared for the presidency. Is it a decision you took on your own or were you advised?
Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed: I took the decision myself. But I must add that it coincided with advice given to me by people who would have in the past advised me to go for a lower office. As usual with me, the simple reason is that President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has brought the economy it found standing to its knees. Insecurity has spread to other regions with new dimensions. His anti-corruption war is strictly meant for his opponents, and people he has scores to settle with while looking the other way for friends and relatives. Back to your question, I have ticked all the boxes as far as the presidency is concerned. Nigeria needs to be rescued, and it is people like me who are to do it: I have simply presented myself.
DT: But there already are many aspirants in the PDP. What do you think will give you an edge?
Baba-Ahmed: Since you’re talking about having an edge, let us realize the challenges against me: I don’t have the kind of money other candidates have, but by the grace of God, I am able to do every legitimate needful. Though it is not something to flaunt, people who know me will tell you I do not do money politics, because it is the root of our problem including that of our present government. Remember that I was ripped-off in 2007, and I lost in the tribunal and court of appeal? Remember that I also lost my Senate seat at the tribunal and court of appeal? All these I lost, gallantly, and with full trust in God. That trust is, in itself, an edge.
And this is another point that many Nigerians following Buhari fail to realise, that there is more than one honest person in Nigeria. In fact, there are many. The only difference is that the rest of us living honest lives do not engage in wicked ways.
DT: Is it true that some powerful politicians and ex-generals are the people championing your presidential ambition?
Baba-Ahmed: That’s not true. I’m championing my own ambition, but one of the best things that can happen is to have them support me. I must also add that I consulted widely.
DT: With President Buhari’s cult-like support in the North, and South West, how would you penetrate these areas in the event you get the PDP ticket?
Baba-Ahmed: Correction: President Buhari does not have a cult-like following in the South West. Just look at the 2015 results again; that was nearly 45-55 in the South West. Upon hearing the narrowing margin between Buhari and Jonathan in 2015, I became convinced that Buhari didn’t actually win 2003, 2007, and 2001. Yet, he distracted all those governments by suing all the way to Supreme Court. Jonathan and PDP did not sue Buhari but willingly handed over power in 2015.
As for the so-called cult-like following in the North, you need to appreciate the psychology of it. Buhari built his politics on the hatred of the masses for the elite. Now his government has bruised and destroyed most of the elite, but the masses are feeling it more. Mine will simply be to promote love and unity among the masses, the middle class, and the elite. Also, Buhari promoted agriculture far beyond education; I will simply do the opposite. This will be the end of exploitation of the masses, sentiments, and lack of awareness. With my kind of politics, that era is gone.
DT: What is your impression about the APC-led government’s approach to the fight against corruption, and to salvaging the economy?
Baba-Ahmed: To date, the government has not addressed the menace of inflated government contracts, as it ravages the economy and provides for corruption, and 2019 election funding. There are six other technical aspects of corruption which his government appears completely clueless about: Fighting corruption is about government in power and not about governments past, and Buhari doesn’t seem to know this. Those who are not in power logically have no funds to steal, but only those in government.
Buhari’s focus is on PDP, and past governments, and hardly on his own government in power, which is wrong. His government also thinks fighting corruption is about arrests, which have not yielded any convictions and have remained media entertainment. Real anti-corruption is about blocking all the avenues of corruption, which his government has not been able to do.
Regarding the economy, the whole of Nigeria is now only worth 40% of what it used to be. Millions of jobs lost from companies leaving Nigeria and indigenous ones closing down. The government competes with the private sector in borrowing from banks. To put it mildly, Nigeria’s economy has never been as mismanaged as during this administration. I genuinely believe unless this government is shown the way out, we’re only a few years away from a collapsed economy, and total breakdown of law and order.
DT: Some major billboards of yours are springing up nationwide. What’s your campaign funding like?
Baba-Ahmed: On a lighter note, at least I didn’t pick up my phone to call my bank manager to pretend that I borrowed money to buy form. Those who know what borrowing is, know you have to be worth more than twice what you are borrowing. But the masses, or the illiterate ones who don’t borrow, who are not well-integrated into banking, easily believe that this candidate does not even have money for the form. But back to your question: Surely, my funding comes from clean, legitimate, hard-earned sources, from friends, and family.
DT: Does that mean you have a fully-stocked ‘war chest’, or you are still going to embark on fundraising?
Baba-Ahmed: As you know, there is the legal provision of campaign funding in the Electoral Act, and I’ll faithfully go by its provisions. It is in my interest because I can’t imagine getting the kind of money that they talk about, for campaigns. And I am very prudent, and I live within my means. I do not overburden friends and family unnecessarily.
DT: As you’ve ventured back into full-time into politics, what is the plan regarding the running of your university, Baze?
Baba-Ahmed: They are two separate things. My role had been to establish a university, which by the special grace of God I have done, though you never quite finish such projects. That is why I am Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the governing council.
In my capacity now, I am only an aspirant, not yet a candidate, not yet elected. I remember there is at least 60 to 90 days from being elected, to being sworn-in, which you are given time to drop all your commitments that would clash with your role as president. As we speak, the management of Baze University is entirely independent of my role as a politician, completely detached, and I am fully entitled to pursue a career independent of which I have established. It helps, too, that the university has seasoned managers.
The Vice-Chancellor is a two-time DG of the Nigerian Law School, there are two Deputy Vice Chancellors, one of them is a two-term Executive Director in NDIC and a Professor of Economics, the other DVC is a qualified Nigerian lawyer from the United Kingdom. The Registrar is a retired Major-General. All I do is the role of an establishment, key appointments, borrowing, financing, and so on. So, they are completely separate and I pray that somehow that those I am contesting with, would find it in their heart to forgive me and my “transgressions” and deal with me only, and not the university (laughter).
DT: Many watchers find it interesting that on some of your billboards, the appendage ‘PhD’ is added. Was it a conscious move?
Baba-Ahmed: If you notice, I have never used the word ‘Alhaji’ in my names, and I have been to hajj. The simpler, the better. And the word ‘doctor’ has been overused and misused in Nigeria. But in the context of politics in Nigeria, you need to show certain things, and in the context of what Nigerians need, it is not out of immodesty, it is out of guiding the electorate to what we specifically require in Nigeria. If you believe in education, and identify with, and promote education, there is going to be an inconsistency if you yourself have not reached a certain level of education. So it was conscious.
I’m leading by example, and by the special grace of God, I have conservatively contributed to the education of 11,000 individuals, and there’s evidence that, with federal might, I can educate many millions of Nigerians within four years. This is a promise.
DT: From entrepreneurship to politics, then to education, and back to politics. How would you say these experiences would add up to what you will offer the electorate?
Baba-Ahmed: I think it is divine intervention in my life, as it happened this way. Way back in 1996, when I was completing my MBA in Cardiff, I dreamt of having a private university. But not until 2007, I was doing my feasibility studies and updating them from time to time, and not until when I saw the daylight robbery in which my election was taken away from me, and all the way to the Court of Appeal, and I could not go back to the House of Reps. I thank God for all that has been happening in my life. So I re-invented myself.
Ordinarily, it would have been the university when I retire from politics. But God made me lose, even though the results showed that I won. He made me not to go back because He wanted Baze University to come to life. God decided that I go to the Senate, and I challenged Makarfi and defeated him at least for eight months before he went to the courts. I went back, then I paid more attention in 2015 when the chances of opposition were brightest, and I was meant to contest governorship in Kaduna. Again I assessed the situation, how Buhari was so much in favor of El-Rufai even before the primaries, and how the primaries were interfered with, and I decided to maintain a dignified absence from what was happening in the APC. I stayed away from the 2015 elections but voted to bring about change.
Now, after seeing Buhari and his governors ‘perform’, I feel it is the right time to present myself. I’ve had the most interesting career. A bit of public life, as I started at the Nigerian Security and Printing Mint, went back to school, started my consultancy, went into construction and real estate, then politics, followed by my university, then back to politics, and back to university again. Each and every step, I am learning a lot. What I’m offering Nigerians now is a development strategy, of one sentence: ‘use quality education to build the economy that would solve our security challenges’.
DT: Why are you running for the presidency?
Baba-Ahmed: It is the only office that has enough constitutional powers that would enable me to carry out the grand design I have for Nigeria, to transform the present-day, chaotic Nigeria. Nothing less than that because I need to attack insecurity. I need to reform the economic order of Nigeria, stabilize the naira, drive down interest rates, pay federal public servants more.
What I intend to do for Nigeria, you will excuse me for not elaborating here, because security is the first thing, and security is not discussed in public or the pages of newspapers.
As President, I would account for every square meter of Nigerian territory. It used to beat my imagination in 2014 and 2015 when APC was challenging the then PDP government, if you are not fully and officially briefed about security, how did you know what to do. Right now, I am a civilian, and outside the government, so how would I know what I am talking about? I need to get into the office, receive official briefings, then work with the experts to begin to provide solutions. With Daily Trust
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