Abdulrazaq-Gwadabe, a former Senator, is seeking re-election to represent the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Senatorial District again. She spoke with media men in Abuja recently on her past experience at the Upper Legislative Chamber and why she wants to go back there
WHEN you were in the Senate from 1999 to 2003, what was the experience like?
Over the years, because of the way I’ve interacted with people at my job, coming to the Senate and having understood the nature of people from different places, I could easily understand their point of view and where their argument was coming from. But one thing in the Senate, in the very early stage that shocked me into understanding that this place is about knowing how to lobby your fellow people and not assuming that everybody is going to see things with you the same way, was when we were filling our bio-data.
We had to fill so many things and in one place, they left four spaces for children’s names. As I was filling, I could hear one of my fellow Senators calling somebody and saying ‘ah, Distinguished, how many lines, there is not enough line here for us’. And the other fellow asked, ‘how many children do you have?’ One said ‘I have 13’. Another one said, ‘me I have 26’. So, I turned my head just to see the faces of those who had this number of kids.
What I took away from that was that I had to map my people there. If I need something to be done in a particular way, I will go for certain people that I know will stick with it and those who will not stick with it and I realised that the number of children you have and that you’re taking care of will determine your strength in holding onto a bargain or a position on any issue. So, that was the first thing I learnt just by people filling forms and cracking jokes and that helped me throughout my term in that place. The point is that when people have too many baggage – and we are all getting the same pay and allowances – would find it difficult to stick to principles when the heat really comes on because the first consideration for most (not all) would be that, well, this would be a way of solving part of their problem.
Some of us who did not have as much children, still had to support people – those who had school fees to be responsible for and all that. These were the kind of things that came to play when the executive needed to have some voices to disrupt the system within the legislative arm. Some of these things played easily for them to pick up. These were a few things I picked up very early. One doesn’t generalise, but I found that the cultural biases largely influenced the makeup of the person.
You were very close to late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo and even when they wanted to remove him, you were one of the women against his removal. What attracted you to Okadigbo? And were events to be replayed again, will you still stand by the Oyi of Oyi, as Okadigbo was known?
I will still vote against his impeachment today. The Oyi of Oyi is of excellent mind. I love excellent, intellectual minds. The intellectual sagacity came with some form of arrogance that reflected in his charisma. When you are arrogant with your knowledge, you know what you know and you are not afraid to exude what you know and correct those who do not understand what you know and I like that. But a lot of those who don’t know as much don’t like to be told off. If you find a very intellectual person, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. So, that may be the only thing that was lacking in him. But nobody is complete. Okadigbo was a man of distinction who knew what he knew and was not bothered about what you said.
When we were to vote for the Senate President then, I was looking for somebody that had experience. We were all green coming from nowhere in 1999. They say in a blind man’s land, the person with vision in one eye could see better than the rest of us. So, I pitched my tent with him, as against the others who were running, and, at that time, it was zoned to the Southeast – virtually all those who were elected from the Southeast vied for that position. (mind you, I studied law in the UK and then I came back and did my Masters in Nigeria, and after coming back, I did my NYSC. They posted me to Lagos but I didn’t want to do it in Lagos. I wanted to go to the East)
East? Why?
I wanted to understand another part of Nigeria very well, the language of the people and their culture. I already knew the Yoruba and Hausa. I believe in one Nigeria and I am completely de-tribalised. So, I really wanted to use that year to learn the language and their ways. I remember my father was saying, ‘I don’t understand you. Everybody is coming to me to help post them to Lagos and you want to go to the East’? Eventually, the posting came out and it was Lagos again, mainly because those who studied abroad were all kept in the capital.
…Cuts in…Okadigbo matter ma
So, back to my experience in the Senate; after inauguration, we were cheated out of that game but we stood solidly with Okadigbo. We said that you cannot start a new democratic process with green horns. Eventually, when the time and opportunity came due to the Evan or Evans issue, we were able to impeach Evans and bring Oyi. From the day we brought Oyi, the debate on the floor became robust.
If you don’t have anything up in your head, you will not even dare press the bell to indicate that you wanted to speak. You dare not press that buzzer. I enjoyed it. The debate was rich and the laws we were making were impressive. Even those who didn’t know as much were lured in and people learned a lot by that.
But by the time the politics came in to remove him, we tried hard because what we wanted was to build independence of the legislature quickly so that whoever comes will have an established order of doing things and the respect for that institution. Then, you must admit that once you hear the word Mr. President and Oyi stands up to move, you know that power is moving. That was our experience.
Why are you staging a comeback 15years after you left the Senate?
One of the things I learnt then was that you should always ask your community what they want. Don’t assume they are suffering. When I was campaigning in one of the communities, I discovered that the men complained that women take hours to go from their home, around 6am, to fetch water in the river; they walk long distance and before they come back, it’s by 11, 12 or even 1pm; and I felt that that was too much. So, I decided that we will attract borehole for them. We did that and I was so excited that we were able to bring borehole. The men were happy but the women were not. They said you don’t like us. I brought them water and they said I didn’t like them. I asked them why, they said: ‘It’s because you don’t understand. What we had before paid us.’ I discovered that when they wake up at 6am, they take all their laundry and go to the river. They used to spend the day to socialise, do all their activities and they enjoyed it. The husband and children are there at home and they have fun and when they are done, they now come home with their water. Now, the borehole is right in their nose and I deprived them of such a nice social time. So, they wanted their time and that was it for them. I took away their freedom. So, you don’t always assume that somebody is suffering. Maybe he likes it in that particular way because it comes with some form of consolation which money cannot always buy.
So, what’s with this comeback bid now?
I asked myself the same question. But honestly speaking, it’s different. We have watched quietly the system changing in the direction that I never envisaged. I came into politics with a lot of vibrancy. I really wanted Nigeria to be better than the rest. Once you have a strong institution, it doesn’t matter who is sitting on top of the institution, it must be made to work.
How do you think your constituents will receive you now?
If you recall, they commissioned Abuja Monorail some two months ago. I was invited and I attended. As we walked in, the Abuja political class and the chiefs were sitting to the right and people were sitting to the left. I was ushered to the front and I sat down. I now saw the President on the right and we all got up. As Mr. President entered with the former Minister of Abuja, el-Rufai, and some of the villa escorts, that was it. I looked round and was taken aback. Mr. President is the Governor of Abuja. He is also our President. When the President visits any place, there is usually a lineup of party stalwarts, chiefs and the people that practice politics, eminent personnel in that area. But there wasn’t such lineup. Then we were ushered into the train. I was the only Abuja based person in the train. All the chiefs and everybody were sitting out there. They were prevented. These are people that practice politics here, they are the ones that keep the party buoyant. They are eminent personalities that should be recognised at all opportunities. So, I had to ask ‘you mean your politics here is that bad, that you are no longer recognised? What is the problem?’ So, they explained that one, the people representing them don’t come back after they are elected and things like that. So, I felt that we have to have better representation. Politics must be better. If it is the quality of representation that is causing this, then I’m ready to run. Everybody knows that the Senatorial seat in Abuja is occupied by the opposition party. So, the lacuna between governance at the top and the people, in the FCT, the highest office you can aspire to here, is serious. Even though it’s a legislative seat, you can use it to ensure you have better politics played locally. So, these were the things that really started agitating my mind. Then I decided to go round, talk to people and get their feeling. I went to all the wards, spoke to all of them and the feedback I got was frightening to me too. They complained and they said, you represented us well; why don’t you come out again.
Some of the aspirants over the years will tell me that when they go on tour, people tell them that if you promise to be like Senator Khairat Abdulrazaq who served us, then we will vote for you. All of that was what brought me out.
What are you bringing to the table now, especially contesting against an opposition incumbent?
You must understand the FCT terrain because it varies. How do you get development to them? It is effective understanding of the terrain, the needs of the people and how you budget for it for effective development.
Are you hopeful of winning?
We still have to go to the primaries. We have six area councils and in each of the area councils, we have layers of Nigerians. All the area councils here are currently chaired by APC. There was one before that that was PDP but he defected. All the area council heads are now APC. Nigerians, as I have come to see, have changed. They are not the kind of Nigerians we used to have. Their mindset has closed up. They can discern, at least I know in the territory, voting for a party and voting for an individual. The point is people are going to vote on issues. We are pushing them to vote on issues than personalities. The tendency is they will look at performance. I know the electorate will look at what the incumbent has done; what the person coming to take over is offering, and what do people hope to get? They are going to decide all of these and this will weigh heavily on the way they will vote. I hope that we will clinch it by the grace of God.
Why and how did you lose the opportunity for re-election in 2003?
As you know, I did not technically lose the primaries in 2003. There was a lot of agitation from the National Assembly for the impeachment of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo at the time and we were the people pushing for it because we felt that he was very unconstitutional in his actions. Every constitution, particularly the Appropriation Act, was always flouted. We worked hard to put things in place and he messed it up. When he comes to do his budget presentation and state of the nation address, you will find that what he said never tallied with the budgeting. For instance, that time, you can’t be saying my thrust is agriculture and then you are giving less than N100 billion to agriculture. You can’t tell me that your thrust is health and you are giving more to defence than health. That’s not your thrust. So, whatever you are saying in the state of the nation address must tally with what you have presented to us.
So, largely, we now looked at his address and say this is where he wanted to go and we will help him get there. We tweak the budget in a manner that will reflect the direction that he wanted to go and we would want to see the system go and achieve that and we worked tirelessly to do that. But when it comes to implementation, he will now become selective as to which ministry he is going to give funds. If you don’t get money, you can’t do anything. We said, no, if we continue the process this way, we are going to get to a point where some of us that wanted to see Nigeria do well, we won’t get there. This second term he is seeking; let us ask him not to go.
So, we were called to a conference – all the appointees, ambassadors and legislators of the PDP – at the Yar’Adua Centre. Audu Ogbeh was Chairman of the party at the time, and they selected people to speak and people spoke. I came up and summarised what every speaker had said. I said we were all going round in circles, we knew what the problem was and we knew where the problem was. I said: ‘Mr. Chairman, please let us beg Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo not to run for second term in the interest of the country and in the interest of the party.’
There was an explosion of applause. They forgot that he was seated there. I think somebody must have said something. Somebody reminded us that he is Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. I responded and said I appreciate that you would rather call him chief. But for a man to say he is going to give up his life and serve his nation, I think he needs to be honoured and he served his nation and rose to the highest level you can give a man in that military field, General. I think we should honour him by addressing him as General Olusegun Obasanjo. He is just a chief of a small community in Nigeria. But he has risen to the highest level as a General and Commander-in-Chief of that army. So, I repeated what I said. I said I was talking about our President, General Olusegun Obasanjo. Everybody clapped for me and then the Chairman said to me to go and sit. I sat and that was the nail.
The nail; how?
So, when it came to time for primaries, I said I won’t give them that pleasure of not seeking re-election, that I will go. I didn’t just want the people to ask in future that why didn’t I go for a second term, then I can tell them why. I’m a fighter, they will hit me but I won’t go out of the way. So, that was what happened. They just didn’t want me to return.
At some point you moved to ANPP?
It’s good to stand for something. Whatever anybody says, General Muhammadu Buhari is standing for something. I was sitting in my house and watching the Congress of the ANPP on the TV and General Buhari emerged as the flag bearer then and the next thing I saw, he raised the hand of Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, the Oyi of Oyi, as his running mate. I said these are the people I’m going to follow. I think I can work with them to get the Nigeria we want. So, that was how I defected from the PDP to ANPP. I remember the party was excited and they wanted to give me automatic ticket to run for the Senate. I said no. I didn’t come to run. I came to make sure that we tilt Nigeria in the direction that will yield the best. That’s how I joined the presidential campaign team and we went everywhere. I don’t know if anyone of you have ever been in the political rally of those days with General Muhammadu Buhari. You need to understand the following he has. We went to Adamawa. I refused to go on planes because I wanted to see what the road situation was and what the people, their lives, were like. So, we drove all the way to Adamawa.
The day the President arrived for that campaign, when we got to the airport, we sat in the VIP lounge and the plane landed. We could see from the window how the human surge compromised the perimeter fence of the airport as sea of heads went to tarmac as if they wanted to carry the plane. The plane came to a stop but you couldn’t see the tarmac. The only thing you could see was sea of heads and the plane like it was sitting on their head. Everywhere on the tarmac was filled with human beings. The man could not come out. They had to reverse a jeep into the cargo hole so that they don’t mob him as he comes out through the main door and that was how they got him out. It’s frightening because being mobbed like that; you could get killed out of love.
So, every time he goes up, I will wait. When Oyi went up, I will follow Chuba because they loved Chuba everywhere you went, the two tall men, the same birthday, the same height. Everything was just so similar and the crowd loved Oyi in the North. So, you have two men that people loved. It was a pity they didn’t win. After the loss, we went to court and I went back to my chambers. We did so many things in the main time.
