Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje is a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a former acting national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He was the one who announced the formation of new PDP when seven governors of the then ruling party, and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar among others revolted in 2014. In this interview with journalists in Ilorin, Baraje says there are clear indications that the ruling APC is creeping into the factors that led to the collapse of the PDP in 2015. Excerpt: You’ve been silent for a while, why?

My silence was because I am an elder of the party and elders don't just talk, particularly the ones that know what they are doing, and I don't believe in flippancy. You don't get me talking because I want to remain focused, and also because I have been busy doing too many things. You are all aware that APC is a new party and the party is a coalition of various political groups which I happened to belong to one of them. Therefore, as a senior citizen and elder of the party, I have been busy building the party together with others who are desirous of building a very formidable party. I have been busy ensuring that we build bridges among the members, particularly between the elders and leaders. It is not easy to come from various backgrounds and ideas to form a political party because our ideologies about the country must be blended as one to move Nigeria forward. While we are busy building, we must ensure that the structures are firm and we have gotten to a reasonable level. However, I think we have gotten to a point where we and Nigerians can assess and make comments.

Why is the APC silent over the trial of the Senate president?

Many of us are surprised or taken aback that the party has not lived up to expectations concerning the trial of the Senate President in terms of giving him a sense of belonging as a member of the party, which is very important to any member, let alone a person of the calibre of the Senate president, who has sacrificed a lot of resources for the party. I have been trying to make the party realise that not only the Senate president, but everybody that contributed to the success of the party matters, from the highest to the lowest in hierarchy. We have gotten to a level where we have to be realistic and ensure that the right thing is done at the right time, and in the right manner. More so, from the fact that we belong to a group that is not very satisfied with the performance of the party, not only because the Senate president is currently going through a very pronounced political persecution, but because there are other cases and instances where we are not happy about the performance of our party.

A case in point is the recent rerun elections in Rivers State. You will agree with me that before and during the elections, the APC did not have the expected and desired presence in Rivers State. With the volatile nature of the rerun election, some of us, with our humble experiences, expected national presence of our party there. It is regrettable! Today, we have counted about 150 rerun elections both at the state and national levels across the country, and the APC has lost majority of the elections. Not because the party has lost popularity, but because of lack of enough presence of the party in the various places where the elections held. Politics is not technical but practical. If the APC decides to abandon its members in the middle of the election, you don’t expect magic from such action.

Politically, the party should be proud that the Senate president is from the APC. Even if he was not wanted by some interests, he went into an election and won. The PDP episode with Tambuwal (former House of Representatives Speaker) is still fresh in history. The PDP then didn’t throw the baby away with the bath water, knowing fully well that such move will be counterproductive. It was well managed and Tambuwal remained the Speaker under the then PDP. Our party may loath the ways of PDP, but out of every bad situation and experience, there are atoms of goodness, and every visionary leader will separate the chaff from the corn and take what is good out of it. So, it is not as if the Senate president has gone against his party.

How would you assess the performance of the APC-led government at the centre?

I want to say there have been distractions. The Buhari-led administration is well intentioned. Lots of things went wrong before Buhari came in and to rebuild is difficult. When there are lots of distractions, you would lose focus and the APC has lots of distraction created by the party itself. In line with the constitution of the country, we have three arms of government. These are the pillars that should hold the country’s fabrics together and if one of the pillars get jeopardised, what do you expect? The Senate president is the chairman of the legislative arm in Nigeria and he is not getting the support that he should get, simply because some very few individuals think they are more powerful than the party itself. As disorganised as PDP was, everybody was a member. The tradition of impunity which gradually crept into the PDP made us raise alarm and consequently left the party. You can see the consequences. Now, the same scenario is creeping into the APC. We must sound a note of warning to President Buhari to shine his eyes. There are people in the party, in the guise of reconciling people, who say they are working for the success of the party, while (they are) actually doing that for their own selfish interest. We would never romance impunity. President Buhari should be wary of them and play more politics now. He has gone into the house and has seen how bad it is; he has reorganised the house and what is left now is to consolidate on the reorganisation.

Is your group playing any role in the planned formation of a new political party in the country because of the disaffection in the APC? We also heard it just like you, but I have not entered into any alliance or gone into any meeting with anybody. So far so good, APC is still on ground but we want Mr. President to shine his eyes as Nigerians would say, but that cannot be done successfully except he plays politics.

Would you consider leaving the party if this alleged impunity continues?

Every politician or group has aspirations in any part of the world and not only in Nigeria. The time we were going into merger to become the APC, our aspiration was that the then government of PDP was not giving us the desired governance and Nigerians were suffering. We want to be part of the solution to the problem to make life easy for our people. But how far have we achieved those aspirations? There is nothing to show on ground now. Some will say our group has the Senate president, but he has not been at peace. Since the coming of Obasanjo in 1999, no Senate president has had dry, blatant, political tyrannical and open persecution as Saraki.

What is your reaction to the trial of Saraki at the CCT?

In any case, the case of Saraki has not followed due process and rule of law. It was the due process that was missing in the case of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, and he was discharged but not acquitted. So, why is Saraki's case different? So, as regards whether we are comfortable with where we are and whether we are joining other groups, every politician has aspirations about the development of his people, and if you cannot achieve it in one place, you go to another place. It doesn’t mean that I am a political prostitute. I am a principled person and will not stop until I get what I want, which in this case is good governance, equality, democratic dividends for my people. Impunity, lawlessness, lack of due process are not what formed the APC. With the intervention of some leaders like us, the party will continue to thrive, but for it not to go the way of the PDP, the president must play politics.

How would you react to the allegation that Saraki was drawing salary after leaving office as Kwara State governor?

Immediately Saraki left office, like any other civil servant, he began to enjoy his pension and the vouchers that pay those benefits began immediately, but the banks still referred to it as salaries. One of the major goals of this trial is to create sensation and media hype. We had barely gone out of the court that day when the media started calling for his resignation. Like you read in the papers, there have been plans for those people to organise protests against Saraki in Abuja, Lagos and Ilorin. But I want to assure that if that happens, we will see the mother of counter protests to demonstrate that the Senate president has followers. Hitherto, APC had only three states in the North Central and with a dint of hard work, Saraki delivered the zone 100 per cent. So, if some people hide under the trial of Saraki to want to destabilise this government, then we won’t sit down and watch, and that is not a threat. Nobody has called for his resignation and the senators have reaffirmed their support for him. But if they are still hell bent on removing him, the worst will happen because we may have the PDP taking over the Senate presidency and deputy. Maybe we should practice it for the first time and see how it would be.

Don't you think that it is the coalition of strange bed fellows that is responsible for the APC’s problems?

In politics, there are no strange bed fellows. There is only a thin line between the Democrats and Republicans in the US. The only thing is that when the situation comes to play, they demonstrate more experience and more maturity. The problem is not because of strange bed fellows. What we did was to come together to salvage Nigeria, and if we had other motives, it has started playing out, especially for some of us that can read in-between the lines because the scenes and scenarios we have seen is not for President Buhari, and that is why he should play more politics.