Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje was the immediate past acting national chairman of the ruling Peoples' Democratic Party, PDP. He spoke with journalists in Kwara State on his challenges as PDP chair, Boko-haram, 2015 , and the need for government to devote larger percentage of its budgetary allocations to security to further strengthen the nation's security agencies in the search for lasting peace. He also addressed other issues of national importance.

Excerpts:

Sir, can you kindly share your experiences as the immediate past Acting National Chairman of the Peoples' Democratic Party, PDP?

We thank God for all successes. The success is you, the media.  Why do I say that? When I was the National Secretary of the party, I asked you to partner with me.  You never disappointed me.  I made up my mind that when I was there that each time I come home is when I will make official statement.

One major reason that guided me apart from the guidance of God was the fact that I went along those offices with a high sense of decorum and discipline.  I never allowed myself to be deceived by any other phenomena whether money or any other material consideration.  I held so much with passion the idea of integrity, fairness, equity and honest of purpose.  Those were my guiding principles.   I paid the least attention to materials gains when I was in these offices. I want to believe that these are one of the things that helped us to achieve because eventually, there was a time when some top officials in Nigerian went to somebody who is very close to me, you all know, and asked him where you brought this man who does not like money. We have tried to dissuade him but he is not yielding.  How can you bring somebody who does not like money? In Nigeria, we use money in politics. And the person replied them, have you seen anybody who does not like money.  That man has passion for integrity. He therefore dismissed them.

For anybody who wants to come and play hanky panky politics will think twice, also if you are fair and honest and you have vision, you will be courageous to tell anybody the truth. What people have been dodging, what people have been going around to circumvent, I say it the way it should be no matter whose ox is gored. There was a time when some members of mine in the National Working Committee, NWC, said that the tradition is that people do not last on this chair.  Not only that you will not last, you will also not even spend half of the time you are to spend as the acting national chairman. But I think at the end of the day, people appreciated the truth and my courage. I have taken some positions which to some people appeared confrontational but to me it is saying the way it should and not confrontation.  I have had occasion to tell some people,  you cannot do that, you have been the president or vice president of this country for some years,  then if you have to talk  this way, then you have been deceiving Nigerians and if you are not very careful, I can send you out of this meeting.  Who are you and he knows that I can do it because I have done it once or twice to people they thought are untouchable.  If you call someone party leader, he must be able to do that occasionally.

So I think, the honest of purpose, passion for being fair, gave me the courage to do such a thing and so when there was the need for a change of baton which came so suddenly, unfortunately, anyway, it came suddenly and we needed to put someone on that chair and the time to do it had not come.  The party found itself almost on a dilemma and they did not  minx words that the most senior person in the party should head the party, more especially when the Constitution of the party says that ‘when there is a vacuum in the position of the chairmanship, whosoever the  chairman hands over to the national secretary.  So I was asked, has the chairman handed over to you and I said yes.  And they said I should continue.  And I stood up to say they should give me at least 24 hours notices because I have to consult and think about it.

They were surprised and we had to enter into lobbying too because that was part of politics. They said we are not giving you 24 hours, let us break.  It was after that lobbying that I said Ok, I have agreed to lead. That was necessary because all these things I am talking here, would have been said to be cheap.

I believe with the support of the press, people, and other eminent personalities who had seen in us transparency, honest of purpose, balance in action and passion for integrity that helped us hold sway. It is not enough to say that those who went ahead of me did not go about it with integrity or honesty of purpose, but I think, it is the way you hold or drive some of this values or virtues is what is important.

Anyone of us who finds himself in position of authority tomorrow, must be upright, think about integrity which is the foot print you want to leave on that position.  You must also think least about personal gain. We must think of how to develop this nation. That is exactly what drove me to be humble as I am.

The last interview I made, a question was asked about the acceptability of PDP and I was giving answers, a newspaper which talked about acceptability of PDP and surprising the newspaper that talked about the acceptability of PDP was The Nation and I cut it out as if I thought the question was coming.  I then flashed it and said can you imagine, this is The Nation saying that. So I am waiting for Punch too to do that kind of thing.  I will also cut it.   If you get to my office, I am waiting for that of Punch.

Back to my point, towards the end of my service there were a lot of pressures that I should continue.  But I declined. We must stand by whatever we say.  That is one of the cultures that I introduced in to PDP. If we say we are going left, just go that left, even if we are going to encounter some dangers, let the entire people see that we are keeping our word. That is exactly what we did and at the end of it, PDP is good for it.  If I had conceded and say Ok let us play politics with it.  Yes I will still be there as chairman but I think you will not be as proud as  you are today and by and large it will affect the  PDP and it will affect the governance.

When a politician is talking, he talks with the aggrandizement that he must make himself to be so clear and important more than what he thinks he is.   But I think that is a wrong notion. I believe if I am not capable of surmounting a task, I should not say I am capable but an average Nigerian politician is optimistic to a fault.   If you ask him, can you win election?  He will say of course I have people there. That is an example.

When I am giving speeches I give speeches as an administrator.

What are the major challenges you faced while acting as the chairman of the largest party in Africa?

I had a lot of challenges when I was in office.  But to God be the glory many of them were surmountable.  One of the challenges was to make the PDP members obey the rules they themselves made as a result of the population. When the PDP tells you, it is the largest party in Africa, I have been to the South Africa, one of the largest political parties in Africa, and I know their population. I was there to represent Nigeria when they were celebrating their centenary. Immediately after the celebration, I met with the National Chairman of ANC and by the time he saw part of our party membership's registers, he was shocked with the figure he saw, he then asked me, are all Nigerians members of the PDP and how are you coping with them all?

Because of the population of PDP, it becomes difficult because we are governing human beings remember, particularly Africans, and Nigerians. It becomes difficult to get everybody to agree to obey all the regulations and directives.

When you talk about internal democracy, some of us who are inside know what we are talking about. You are talking about internal democracy where one person speaks out and everybody rushes at it.  It does not happen in PDP. We sit down. We argue.  Whether you are president or former president, immediately it is party politics we are discussing, everybody is on the same level.  PDP is a leveler, It is a leveler because when we come together, we discuss. Everybody is the same. And we tell ourselves the truth and when we step out, everybody knows his or her level.

We maintained discipline but not that we dish out orders. The challenge of overall internal democracy was one of the greatest ones that I faced. We were able to tell governors, sit down; you are a governor and do your job as a governor.  We were able to tell the senators, you are a senator, go and do your job as a senator. As far as we are concerned we scored very high.

Secondly, as large as the population of PDP is, the moment we brought in PDP to the grassroots, the second thing I did was to ensure that we returned the party to the people.  We ensured that people followed structures and procedures in hierarchical orders. So ward chairmen will not bypass their local government chairman, zonal and state chairmen and come to national level for complaint.  When an instruction is handed down from the headquarters, it goes down. We are able to return the party to the grassroots. The party in my time actually became the peoples' party.  With this, we were able to instill discipline. These are some of the challenges and how I approached them.

The forthcoming 2015 Presidential election has being generating a lot of controversies in the Nigeria's political system. What is your position on the President Goodluck Jonathan's silence on his ambition?

The dynamism in politics makes everything in this country to be political. President Goodluck Jonathan about a year ago was in America, made a statement that he was not going to contest the 2015 election.  I think he made it when he was meeting with President Barrack Obama. He came back and some Nigerian politicians did not take it well with him. They said, ‘you are a politician, you cannot take that decision alone.  You have your party, you have your people. He said this three times again that he was not going to contest in 2015.  You would recall that up till the present moment, his party, PDP, has never made a statement on that. This is because the party realizes the dynamism in politics.  That does not mean that the PDP has accepted that statement neither had they come out to say ‘yes it is true he is not contesting.'

He kept quiet except recently when the polity was being heated that he is going to contest or he is not going to contest. So in order to create a balance relationship between him and Nigerians and his party, he must react.  Then he asked people to step the debate down, he does not want any discussion about 2015 now.  It is distractive.  I agree it is very distractive. Unfortunately with the incidences going on, is when we should begin to think of 2015.

I think we should leave that the decision with the political party to begin to do its own work secretly and not making an issue out of the present situation. When it is made an issue, people are diverting attention when people are dying in the hospital, and government is now spending money on 2015. I think the stand of Mr. President on the issue is appropriate.  People should keep quiet and leave him to pay attention to governance.  When the time comes, the door will be open and politicians be let out to go and contest. For goodness 2015 is still some time away now. Before we start talking about 2015, it should at least be one and half years or two years from now

Peoples' Democratic Party is yet to decide on its Chairman Board of Trustees, BoT, what is your opinion on this?

The issue of BOT, if you look at the clause of the Constitution of the PDP, the business of BOT is purely the business of BOT.  The clause says there shall be BOT which shall comprise a certain category of members of the party. The administration and running of BOT is purely that of the members. It is not the work of the party.  But of course the chairman of the party is a member of the BOT. The BOT will appoint its own chairman by itself and not a question for the party or the public.  Whether they like it or not, they must obey the clause of the party position which says, ‘appoint your own chairman among yourselves.'

The Constitution did not say when the President comes from this zone; the vice should come from the other zone. It is not in the Constitution of PDP.  But if it is at the discretion of BOT to say the chairman should come from this area, it is not the constitution of the PDP. It is the discretion of BOT. And that is why some of us are just looking at them.

The secretary of BOT remains the highest office there now and he has a right to convene meetings. Also, two-third of members of BOT has the right to ask the secretary to convene a meeting.  So if a meeting of BOT is convenes today, the chairman of the BOT will emerge because if it does not, they are not obeying the constitution of the party and

then the party comes in and gives them instruction of time duration to appoint their chairman.

The issue of whether a personality is being considered or another not being considered is because PDP is a phenomenon that must be talked about. Positive or negative, talk about PDP.

The Boko Haram insurgency has thrown Nigeria into a state of dilemma, what is the way out?

Insecurity in the country calls for concern.  Not only for politicians or people in government but is for everybody.  I think it has gotten to a point where we have to organize ourselves in groups and associations, and even within the family to educate ourselves about how to be extra vigilant and security conscious.  Nigeria is already a very big target for attack.  Therefore the issue of being careless, carefree, or ignorance should be removed. We should call ourselves to order and sit down with our family and say ‘if you are going on the road, you should not play with any substance. It calls for education.  Also it calls for leaders in Nigeria to come together in small groups not in national conference but at a very small group of leadership around Nigeria and proffer solutions and suggestions to government so that at the end of the day, when we are making use of these suggestions, it will be seen to be a suggesting coming from everybody.

Another is that we should give it a religious approach.  Let us talk to our religious leaders, both Christians and Moslems to talk to God and pray for Nigeria. Also to ensure that they go to their followers and educate them more about what God says.  What kind of punishment awaits people that take lives? Quran forbids the taking away of lives not even that of a fellow human being  but it says do not take live?'  I say do not take human life because you cannot create it. Life is so sacred. They should continue to preach tirelessly about the high degree of sin that is inherent in the taking of lives.

On the part of the government, it is very important for government to diversify attention and pay more attention in terms of allocating funds to training our security officers to make the modern time approach of combating terrorism because it is a different world on its own.  It is not about policing or soldiering.  It is about a special skill to train.  Immediate after 9/11 in America, the money allocated to defense has now taken 30 per cent of the total budget of America and 73.3 percent of that 30 percent is used to train personnel and buy equipment for the purpose of ensuring that the insurgence of terrorism is quenched.  I see no reason why we cannot do that in Nigeria. We have other priorities yes, but life first. With the little that I know about government, I know both the military and the police; lot money is being released now to train our personnel in America, India and UK. I think it should continue.  Security is a matter of concern and I think the government is taking the bull by the horn. Training is not something that you can go and buy at the shops; it has to take some time.  And then the personnel will come back and you buy the equipment.  If you buy the equipment now and the personnel do not know how to use, it becomes useless.  I think about 600 personnel came back before I left office and they were posted to some pressure areas like Borno and Yobe.  You can see the kind of arrest and discovery they have made.  I also learnt that about 200 were also posted to Kano and they have been able to make some substantial feat. Bye and large, it is because we had taking it for granted, these people had eaten so deep into us before we knew it.  It will also take some time before we can win the war and I know the government will win the war.

Lastly, as a trained teacher, what is your plan for the profession now that you have been relieved of your appointment as the party helmsman?

I made a statement that if I am given an opportunity, I will go back to teaching because I have passion for that profession. When we were trying to run election in Cross River State, the issue of continuity reared up, I killed it immediately. I was discussing with one of the movers of continuity, he asked me what are you going to do after you left office, I said I am going to teach.  He felt disappointed. As a matter of fact, in developed political cycles, I should now become a consultant, go to schools and share experiences. So when I talk about teaching, I do not mean going to classrooms to teach pupils. No matter what ever level you teach, as long as you are impacting knowledge and as long as you watch your students or pupils assimilating the lesson, oh now, I feel high good. That is what I enjoy doing most.  When I teach and I watch people's eyes brighten up and I know they will ask me questions and I later go home and sleep.

You are quite aware I have a school.  I have acquired a large piece of land where I will transfer the senior students and affiliate with a higher institution in Kwara State and give this state another good educational institutions. I will find out time to go to such school and impact knowledge. I will let them know, if I have been able to be successful in life, the guiding principles. So that the students can have yards stick to copy