Former National Democratic Party (NDP) chairman in Kaduna State and campaigner for General Ibrahim Babangida presidency, Hassan Mohammed Jallo, is threatening fire and brimstone. Currently a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State, he is warning the party not to allow Babangida to lose the party’s primary.

He said that if Babangida does, PDP will lose the 2011 presidential election.

Ironically, Jallo says Babangida will not relinquish power if he wins the 2011 presidential poll. This, he said, would be a punishment for Nigerians who say that zoning of the presidency is undemocratic
Hear him: “What I am saying is that if zoning fails, the price we are going to pay later in life is going to be great. If they say they are jettisoning zoning, the North will not have anything to lose because I know once we grab the power, we will never allow it to go.”
Jallo did not stop there. He says politicians have failed the nation and that only the military regimes in this country have done well. As far as he is concerned, President Goodluck Jonathan is a “ non-starter “ in Nigerian politics.
Excerpts.

As a die-hard supporter of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), how would you rate his chances in the 2011 presidential race?
He has a very bright chance because he is going into the contest with a non-starter in Nigerian politics. His numerous achievements, when he was military president, are also added advantage.

Who is a non-starter in Nigerian politics?
The President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, is a non-starter; if you should compare him to IBB. Compared to IBB, Goodluck Jonathan is a non-starter. IBB is more popular.

Don’t forget that IBB was a military president. Would you say he was a democrat?
He was the president, a military democratic president because if there is any Nigerian leader, dead or alive, who has done so much for democracy and democratic institution in Nigeria, that person is Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. He introduced two-party system in the country. He organised the best, freest and fairest elections in Nigeria.

But that election was annulled?
IBB was even a democrat when he was in the military. The fact that June 12 election was annulled doesn’t mean anything. We have had worse elections in Nigeria than June 12. The 2003 election was worse than June 12. Again, the 2007 election was worse than June 12. It was a stolen mandate. Obasanjo’s election in 2003 and 2007 were stolen mandates. He was not elected by Nigerians. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) brought Obasanjo to power for two consecutive terms. So, what are you talking about? Is stolen mandate not worse than June 12? It was worse than June 12. And mind you, people are just looking at one side of the story. About three courts declared June 12 election inconclusive. Even before its conclusion, the court had stopped government from holding that election. The then chairman of INEC defied the order of the court and went ahead to conduct the elections. So, June 12 presidential election was done in violation of the court order that said the election should not hold. So, the military government of that day acted on the orders of the court.

Why do you want Babangida as the president of Nigeria?
IBB has good presidential quality. He is a marketable presidential material anytime, anyday, anywhere. He ruled Nigeria for eight years, and there is no Nigerian leader that has matched his record of achievements. None has touched the lives of the people, like IBB. There is no aspect of human life that IBB has not touched. When you look at the political, economic and foreign policies on ground, all the policies we are practising now were brought about by IBB. He formed the NDDC, in the Niger-Delta region. This government just changed the name. When you look at People’s Bank and community bank, this government came and changed it to microfinance bank. What is microfinance bank? He created almost 400 local governments in order to bring government closer to the people. At least, there is no state of the federation that IBB has not left a legacy, a landmark achievement, visible projects that people can really go and touch. With the meagre resources that the regime had, they were able to turn Nigeria around.

What do you have now? Apart from corruption, what do you have? There are booklets that contain IBB’s achievements, sector by sector. Tell me one regime after IBB that did better. Tell me one civilian regime that has done so many projects that have touched the lives of the people. When you look at the second phase of Kaduna Refinery, the petrochemical sector, it was constructed and commissioned by IBB. The Eleme Petro-Chemical Company Limited in Port Harcourt was built during IBB regime. Fertilizer company and third mainland bridge in Lagos were built under IBB government. He created 11 states, over 400 local governments and two political parties.

You are talking about the positive side of IBB. You mean he has no negative side?
There is no man, whether a leader or not, whether a leader or a follower, whether a husband or a wife, who people will not say he has negative side. There is no regime that does not have a negative side. The regime of Goodluck Jonathan is spending more money on power generation than even the Obasanjo regime. They said Obasanjo regime spent 15 billion dollars on power. This present regime, by our calculation, has surpassed even the 15 billion dollars. Where is the power? So, there is no regime, being the local government, state government, Federal Government, even individuals that will not make mistake. Mistake in government is natural because they are ruling people. And mind you, Nigeria has over 300 ethnic groups, so many nationalities. So, you don’t expect a leader to please everybody. Some will feel pleased; others will feel aggrieved. But IBB is the best Nigerian leader. He is the man to beat in 2011 elections. He is going to win the PDP primaries clean and clear.

What is your conviction?
Is it not delegate election? Wait and see.

There was this Northern Political Summit …(cuts in)
No, no, no, stop talking about Northern Political Summit; that was not Northern Political Summit.

What was it?
That was government arranged political forum. They selected delegates. If you went there and your name was not among the selected government delegates, they never allowed you in. Did you see any prominent northern politician in that forum? Only selected people, greedy politicians. They are hungry, looking for money. These are outdated politicians that are looking for money from government. So, government was using them to deceive people that it was Northern Political Summit. It is a lie. You cannot hold Northern Political Summit and leave behind people like IBB, Atiku Abubakar, and Sule Lamido. You cannot hold Northern Political Summit without people like General Muhammadu Buhari. When you are talking about Northern Political Summit, all northern politicians must be contacted, must be consulted, and must be invited because you are talking of the North. And if you are talking about the North, you are talking of Nigeria. So, it was a government-arranged summit, which failed woefully.

How did it fail?
It failed because at that summit, they expected the delegates to adopt Jonathan for the 2011 presidency. Mind you, our boys were there. Most of the delegates did not even know the agenda of the summit. More than half of the delegates went out of the conference hall even before the event was concluded. It was a failure. So, you cannot hold Northern Political Summit without the key northern politicians. Why is it that IBB, Buhari, Atiku were not invited? When you are talking of the North, forget about political parties. When you want to build a nation democratically, you put your political differences aside because they said it is Northern Political Summit, not PDP Northern Political Summit. None of the prominent northern politicians was invited because they knew that they would not dance to the tune of government. Zoning must stay. Presidency was brought to the North not for Umar Yar’Adua and Jonathan. Zoning was brought to northern Nigeria, not for Umar Yar’Adua. The fact that Obasanjo gave the ticket to Yar’Adua did not mean that it was only for Yar’Adua. It is for the North and we will not allow it to go.

What organisers of the Northern Political Summit said was that Jonathan is now the symbol of Yar’Adua ticket, since it was a joint one?
It is not a joint ticket. If it is a joint ticket, why did Jonathan bring back two ministers sacked by Yar’Adua for corruption? Yar’Adua’s aides were removed from government after his death. This government is now witch-hunting Yar’Adua’s family. This government has also sacked Yar’Adua’s Chief Security Officer. His ADC is being haunted. Most of the projects started by Yar’Adua have been stopped by this government. So, if you are saying that this government is a continuation of Yar’Adua’s government, why are they witch-hunting his ADC, his family?

Do you have the evidence to back all these claims you are making?
We are in Nigeria. Ask the government. Why did they sack CSO to Umar? Why is it that his ADC was nominated for a course in London and for no reason he was recalled and posted to Jaji? Why did they stop the dredging of River Niger ?

They have not stopped it?
They have stopped that work? Go and find out. Why did they remove Turai’s brother as the Chief Executive of a parastatal of NNPC immediately after Umar’s death? Why did they bring back the two ministers sacked by Umar? Where is the seven-point agenda of Umar? They have turned down the seven-point agenda. They are now running under zero point agenda because they don’t have agenda. The only agenda is to succeed themselves.

You mean Jonathan’s administration has not achieved anything?
This administration has achieved nothing and it will not take Nigeria to anywhere. This administration must go. They don’t mean well for the country. If they said the government is the continuation of that of Umar, where is the seven-point agenda of Umar? Why did they stop it? Take your mind back to General Murtala’s regime. When Obasanjo succeeded him, he (Obasanjo) did not change any policy of that regime. Obasanjo did not sack anybody in that government. He continued with the same Murtala/Obasanjo government. That is why it is still being called Murtala /Obasanjo regime. We cannot, today or tomorrow say this is Goodluck Jonathan /Umar Yar’Adua’s regime.

Is it not constitutional for Jonathan to succeed Yar’Adua?
Death can happen to anybody. Government is government, whether democratic or not. When you are in government, you don’t need government. Government is of the people, by the people and for the people. So, government is government. The business of government is to better the lives of the people, whether military or civilian. Military happened to be the best system of government that has ever run Nigeria well. Politicians, from 1999 till date, have failed us woefully. All the meaningful projects we have today were done under the military rule.

What are IBB’s chances when the South-South and some northern states have pledged their support for Jonathan?
Forget about the people of South-South or South-West. Mind you, these zones held series of meetings, and IBB loyalists told them point blank at that meeting that they will vote for IBB. At the first meeting, Obasanjo did not want any drama because the press was there. He just overruled everybody and said the South-West was going for Jonathan. I told him that even at gunpoint Gbenga Daniel, Olagunsoye Oyinlola will go for IBB. Secondly, we are talking of delegate election, not the previous delegates of the PDP. Each delegate has to go and cast his vote. IBB is very popular in the South-West. And I assure you, without fear of any contradiction that the South-West will vote for Babangida. Thirdly, Obasanjo is not a democrat. He is just a selfish politician. How can he take side as the BOT chairman of the PDP? He has taken side even before the PDP primaries. Obasanjo is supposed to be a leader, a father to all aspirants. It is only after the primaries that he can support a candidate. Both Obasanjo and Jonathan are party leaders. They are not supposed to take sides.

What do you think Obasanjo has against IBB?
Envy. Obasanjo is envious of IBB and he is afraid of IBB.

Why?
He is envious of IBB because he knows that if IBB comes to power, he will perform better than him (Obasanjo) because he did it before. Tell me the achievements of Obasanjo. Of his eight years as the Nigerian President, tell me, what did he achieve? Is it corruption; the wasting of money on the National Stadium, Abuja? What did Obasanjo achieve in Nigeria? They sold all our assets, bought all our assets. Go to Abuja. You appoint ministers, no government agency for them. National Assembly members, no government houses for them. What kind of country is this one? Now, they are trying to start building houses for National Assembly members. Obasanjo sold all the houses. What is left for Obasanjo to sell was the Aso Rock in Abuja. But where is the money? Where is the Abacha loot? Obasanjo claimed he recovered Abacha loot. Where is the Abacha loot he recovered? So, Obasanjo is the worst leader Nigeria has ever had, and now he wants to rule the country through the back-door, another third term. No way; he must give way.

You mentioned only two governors in the South-West. What of others?
Mind you, other states are not PDP states, and IBB is going to meet every delegate from each state. Every aspirant is expected to meet every delegate once he has the offer to run in 2011 elections. It is not enough for you to sit in Abuja because you are president; you want to rule. What have you done when you were given the opportunity? Now you are ruling. Goodluck Jonathan, what has he achieved? What has he done? We can show you the visible projects of Umar Yar’Adua.

Will you say the same thing of Nasarawa State governor who went with all officials to Jonathan, likewise Benue and Plateau states?
It is because you are a supporter of Jonathan; that is why you are telling me about the states that are in support of Jonathan. Have you spoken about how people were chased away in Katsina when they wanted to hold a rally for Jonathan? Have you talked about Kaduna when Jonathan’s rally failed? Kaduna journalists were there. Some of the newspapers said Jonathan/Sambo rally in Kaduna failed. Why are you not giving these instances? They could not hold rally in Katsina. Let them go and hold Goodluck Jonathan rally in Kano. What about Borno? They were chased away.

We understand IBB rally flopped in Ibadan? What do you say?
It is a lie. It is a lie. That is what I told you initially, that every leader has positive and negative sides. Even if you are a husband in the house, your wife and children will always complain about your negative side and commend your positive side. Even if you are a local government chairman, you will have your negative side. Some will like you, others will hate you. That is natural. What is happening to world leaders? What I am saying is that this zoning, if we don’t insist on it, the price we are going to pay later in life is going to be great. If they say that they are jettisoning zoning, the North will not have anything to lose because I know once we grab the power, we will never allow it to go. We said zoning should be allowed so that there can be equity, every section of the country should taste power, should be able to rule this country.

That is why IBB said the Igbo should be allowed to produce the president in 2015, so that we put the civil war behind us. If Shagari regime could pardon Ojukwu, I don’t see any reason we should not put the civil war behind us. The Igbo are Nigerians. They are part of Nigeria. Civil war is part of our history. So, they should be given another opportunity to rule Nigeria. But when you say there should be no zoning, Igbo are not going to rule for the next 30 years because this man will say he is spending Umar Yar’Adua’s four years and he will start his own eight years; that is 14 years. Then it will come back to the North again for another eight years. When you go back, South-West will say it is their turn. Where are you placing the Igbo? Do you mean Igbo are not Nigerians or they are not going to rule? In 2011, power must shift to the North. In 2015, power must shift to the South-East.

Where does it shift to after 2015?
When you get to the river, you know how to cross it. We cannot talk about what happens after 2015 because we have not got there yet. But for equity, justice and fair play, North should rule for only four good years, 2011-2015. After 2015, it should be given to the South-East.

Which means that you are not satisfied with the PDP position that everybody is free to contest?
That is too ambiguous. PDP is hypocritical about this issue. It is not telling Nigerians the truth. Go and read the constitution of PDP and see what it said about zoning. They brought the issue of zoning into PDP constitution for peace to reign in Nigeria. But today we have a leader that does not want peace in Nigeria; we have a leader that wants Nigeria to disintegrate; we have a leader that wants Nigeria to crumble upon his head.

Will it crumble?
At the rate we are going, if anything happens to Nigeria now, the whole blame will go to Goodluck Jonathan because he is the president.

Is it likely to crumble with what is happening?
With what is going on, we are heading to that because this zoning issue we are talking about is not a small matter. You need to go to the masses and hear their comments. People have taken the zoning issue between North and South as a matter of life and death. Come on election day, we must insist on voting our northern candidate. So, what I am telling you is that they are setting a bad precedent for Nigeria. Before we worked with anybody based on equity, justice and fairness, and that was why MKO Abiola won election in Kano, Kaduna, Zaria, Borno, and Bauchi. But now the zoning issue has polarised the system, corrupted our people. It will not happen again.

Edwin Clark said the other day that no northerner raised the issue of zoning when Victor Attah, Donald Duke and Peter Odili, all from the South-South, campaigned for the presidency. Why now?
Nobody raised the issue because the PDP, as a party, knew that at the primaries only northern candidate would emerge. That was zoning. In 2007, a lot of people came out, and at the primaries, the PDP knew that only a northern candidate would emerge. It was an arrangement. When you say you are zoning to a particular zone, people will come out to contest; but at the end of the day, a candidate from that particular zone is the one that would emerge as the candidate of the PDP. A lot of people emerged because the constitution of Nigeria gives them the right to emerge. But you cannot read the constitution of PDP without reading the constitution of Nigeria. The two have to be married. Secondly, people get the constitution to guide the day-to-day function of their association. So, why can’t PDP respect its own party constitution and respect zoning for them to retain power? I am telling you, without fear of any contradiction, that only IBB can win election for the PDP. If PDP risks giving its ticket to another person, it will lose the presidency.

Then who will win?
We haven’t come to that yet. I cannot tell you because at the end of the day the North will present a consensus candidate, who, I don’t know for now. Nobody in PDP can win election for the PDP if not IBB.

Between IBB and Atiku, who should step down for another?
With their maturity and the way they are going now, two of them may not go into the primaries. The better of the two will emerge and the other will support him.

You mean Atiku should step down for IBB?
IBB and Atiku are two gentlemen. They are friends and they really love Nigeria and the North. At the end of the day, one of them will step down for the other. Two of them will not go for the primaries. The better will always emerge. And I am for IBB. Atiku is a democrat. He knows what is right. He knows what is the best for Nigeria. And at the end of the day, Atiku will step down for IBB.

You mean Atiku will step down for IBB?
This is my own feeling. This my own belief.

You are convinced that IBB is the best?
In Nigeria of today, IBB is the best across all the political parties. We are not afraid of any government candidate or any incumbency. Power belongs to God and He gives to whoever He wishes at a time He wishes. Mind you, IBB is looking for this thing from God, not from any mortal. Only God will stop IBB in 2011.

What will happen if IBB loses the primaries?
IBB will not lose the PDP primaries.

If…(cuts in)
I don’t work with if…, and I don’t work with assumptions. IBB will not lose the PDP primaries. He will win clean and clear. IBB is the man to beat in 2011 because he is the most popular, most acceptable and the most democratic.

What’s your Plan B, in case he fails?
We have plan ABC. When we are through with plan A, we go for Plan B; but definitely, we are not thinking of Plans B and C. What we are after is Plan A because we are 100 per cent sure of getting the PDP ticket. It is a delegate election. We are going to seek for votes from the delegates. We are not talking of any Plan B. IBB is not thinking of any Plan B because we are sure that PDP, being a principled party, will do what is right and IBB will pick the PDP ticket at the primaries. We have no fear of any contradiction.