Katsina State governor elect, Honorable Aminu MaSari, was the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Lack of internal democracy, he says, pushed him out of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to join Congress of Progressives Change, CPC, founded by the now president-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, but which later merged with two other parties to form All Progressives Change, APC. In this interview, he says the opposition, since 2003, had always won Katsina’s governorship election but always rigged out even as he says his administration will walk its talk.
Did you envisage, with the power of incumbency both at the state and the federal level, that you, in particular, could win when you won your party’s primary?
There was never any doubt in my mind. From 2003, it has been the opposition that has been winning the governorship election in terms of real votes. We all knew what the PDP was doing, after all, we were once members of the party. Since the entrance of General Muhammadu Buhari into politics, in Katsina, it has always been the opposition winning. We knew it and we knew what was done to scuttle the victory. Not that people did not vote. They voted for the opposition. In 2003, 2007, 2011, the people themselves knew that if there was free and fair election, their votes would give victory to the opposition. In 2011, if you remember, the party had the three Senate seats and had twelve in the House of Representatives. We lost the governorship and that was because people did not vote for CPC then, because some people in the CPC betrayed the party. We are lucky this time around that the party is united, and went into the election a united party. So, there were not too many problems in terms of rancour and disaffection . We were sure we would win. Ask the security agencies, they would tell you that the APC was set win.
What did you do wrongly in 2011 that you lost and you did rightly to get to the Government House in 2015?
There was nothing done wrongly then and there was nothing done right that was not done before. Simply put, INEC and the security agencies, at least in our state, decided they would serve the Nigerian people positively. I think that was the difference. It is not as if we did something different. Yes, we campaigned vigorously, as we did in 2007 and 2011. But the atmosphere of the campaign this time around was conducive. There was no litigation holding the party down, so the party was able to move as one body and, fortunately for us, PDP didn’t do primaries in accordance with the rules of the party; so, there was serious opposition after the governor anointed his candidate. Most of the leaders of the party left, some openly joined us, some secretly joined us.
What were the challenges you met on the way before winning the election. The president-elect was faced with litigations and hate speeches?
We faced the government with all the accusations. I think in terms of campaign, this was the most bitter since 1999. This time, the campaign was a personal one. It was no longer an issue-based campaign. But we tried to engage an issue-based campaign. We did not join PDP in terms of personal attacks, mudslinging, but we remained focused on issues. For example, we raised the issue of education, because the state of education in the state now, compared to what it used to be, is really bad. We raised the issue of local government system and agriculture, which is supposed to be the main stay of the economy in the state. These were some of the issues we raised and campaigned upon and we refused to be distracted from issue-based politics. The PDP really had no issue to campaign with, that is why it was easy to go about abusing us using foul languages here and there. But, luckily, the party did not face any litigation before and after the primaries. We did not have the kind of challenge the general faced at the national level. But from the national to state levels, one could say this campaign was the dir
Post a Comment