Zannah Gaddama, the chairman, Borno State’s People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has rated Governor Babagana Umara Zulum, governor of the state’s performance since assuming office in 2019.
The leader of the top opposition party said the governor has performed only 10-15% and has vows to takeover government in the forthcoming election.
He mentioned this in an exclusive interview he granted to Maidawaarewa at his Maiduguri resident, the state capital, where he talked about current and old issues in the state as well as their party’s ambition and preparation to wrestle power in the forthcoming election.
Gaddama was elected and sworn-in as PDP’s chairman at the party’s congress that held Saturday October 17, 2021 in Forshams event center, Maiduguri.
Also in this interview, the chairman gives a background of his life, career, politics and their party among other things in the state.
READ MORE: PDP Accuses Zulum Of Building Schools Without Teachers, Substandard Roads
See excerpts below;
Q: You became the PDP’s chairman in Borno after a long internal crisis in the party on leadership, it tells a lot about you and I believe our audience will like to know your background, can you share it?
I was born in December 19, 1961 in Lamisula ward of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, MMC. I attended Hausari Primary School Maiduguri, where I started western education in 1968 and completed in 1975.
I then moved to Government Techers College, Potiskum in Yobe State from 1975 – 78, where I sat for the Teachers Grade lll examination and I was admitted in the same school to run Grade ll certificate for another two years.
From there in 1980, I moved to Borno College of Basic Studies, BOCOBS, where I sat for the Joint Admission Interim Board in 1983, before I later got admission into the University of Maiduguri, UNIMAID. I did my Bsc there in Political Science and Administration and graduated in 1986.
After my graduation, I was deployed to Kaduna State Northwest Nitel zonal headquarters for my National Youth Service Corp, NYSC, in 1987 and immediately after that, I came home to took appointment with Borno State government.
While I was serving in the government, I joined University of Benin in 1990 for my post-graduate studies and study Health Planning and Management. I continue to work for the state government until I reached the peak of my career, the permanent secretary and resigned after 27 years of service. I join politics after my resignation and here we are today.
Q: You seemed to have worked for long and acquired a lot of experiences in the civil service, take us through the journey.
I served in several departments and ministries in the state government. I started in the Hospital Management Board for five years before I moved to the Ministry for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, where I spent almost 20 years.
I started as a Principal Officer in the ministry and roused through the ranks to become the director, local government affairs in 2003 and four years later, I was promoted to the permanent secretary in the ministry.
In that capacity, I also served in various ministries and departments, like Local Government Service Commission, Ministry for Sports Affairs, Ministry for Poverty Alleviation and Youth Empowerment, Ministry of Education and finally the Governors’ Office Cabinet Affairs where I voluntarily retired from the service in 2014, with seven more years of service left before my retirement period.
During that period, I participated and managed several offices as well, both at the state and national levels. I was one time secretary of Yerwa Shooting Stars Football Club, the secretary of El-Kanemi Bebs Football Club and a member of the National Handball Federation of Nigeria, where I became its deputy vice chairman for four years.
I also served as caretaker chairman of MMC and Magumeri local government areas in 2007 and 2011 respectively, as well as member of many clubs and associations. Throughout these years, I am a recipient of several awards and certificates, some of which I cannot even recall.
Q: In those days, during your civil service career, what was the government like and why did you quit before your retirement period?
Well, I left because I realized that my vision and that of those in the government of the day are parallel, so I felt it is better for me to opts out and then I immediately got registered to join PDP in October 2014.
Q: Apart from civil service and politics, what are your other interest. Are you into business or something?
I have never been a business man, but I engage in farming. I have always been a famer. I have an orchard in Alau community, along Bama road and a fish farm, but because of the insurgency, I have not been fully engaged into their operations.
Q: You spent only seven years in PDP and you are now its state’s chairman, what was the journey like?
The journey is not smooth, it is very rough, you know politics, you have a lot of fears to compete with in political activities. I am a very devoted member of the party and I do participate in all party activities.
Before now, the people of my constituency, Magumeri, Gubio, Kaga federal constituency endorse me to represent them at the green chamber. I contested and lost to APC in 2015.
And after the election, I was advised to challenge the result in court but I felt it is not necessary, a waste of time and resources, I rather call to congratulate the winner and go back to the drawing board to see where we made mistakes and continue my party activities.
It was during that time also that the party’s board dissolved the party’s excos and demanded for a fresh election. People endorsed me once again for leadership role in the party but while I assure them of my support in all party activities, I resisted that call but they too did not give up until I succumbed to their yarning.
I also looked at it critically. I asked myself, what if I came forward seeking for a position in the future, won’t they question why I rejected their offer in the past and use it against me? So, I consider their offer and contested in the election. I won and was sworn-in as chairman of the party in 2017.
Q: The result of the 2017 election was the declaration of internal crisis in the party, what went wrong?
At that period, the government of the day was very fearful of our capacity and what we can do politically, so they instigated the losing side and funded their activities to distract ours. They succeed in dividing our minds and we started a very long legal battle which ended in the Supreme Court in March this year, 2022, declaring my opponent as the elected chairman of the party. I accepted the verdict in good faith, we handed over the secretariate which we have paid for and I participated in reconciliation of the party.
Q: Many assumed that Borno State is a one-party state since 1999, what is your view on that?
If everyone will say Borno is a one-party state, I will not accept that because PDP is very strong here, and in 1999, if not because of some anti-party activities by some individuals within the party, it would have won the gubernatorial seat.
At that time, the party has a senator and about 14 or 15 members of the house of assembly as well as some members, house of representative. In 2003 too, PDP has a senator and few members of house of representative and house of assembly.
It was only in 2007 that ANPP won all the seats in the state, it was there when the major problem of PDP started in Borno State and many of the party leaders left and join the winning party.
In 2011, PDP is still viable and was able to win two senatorial seats, two house of representative, Maiduguri and Jere, but from there, most of the elected members and other important members decamped to APC.
We that remain, continue with mobilization effort and other party activities that took us four years and it is yielding result. Our members have realized their mistakes and we have all now come together to work for the party in the forthcoming 2023 election.
Q: Can we now assume that the problems of PDP in Borno had always been from within the party?
Definitely, the party has enjoyed sympathy from people in the state, but there are some few individuals, very few of them, that are being used to create distraction in the party, that has always been our problem but these are all a thing of the past now.
With what I have seen in the recent few weeks, I am sure PDP will take over Borno State and Nigeria come 2023.
Q: PDP has not performed well in the 2019 election, was it the result of this internal crisis?
Not specifically but more of it, insurgency was the number one cause of that poor performance. Because of it, elections were not conducted in many locations in the state. In some places, security agencies were used, while terrorists also created tension in others, bombs were planted and people were scared away during election processes and results were just written.
That was not an election but allocation of votes, that was the order of the day at that time because some of the elections results were written in security formations. They sent away everybody and write results.
For instance, Mafa local government that has 54,000 registered voters as at that time, 51,000 votes were recorded for APC, which is above international standard, nowhere in the world can you get such result, it has never happened anywhere, why should it happen in Borno?
On top of that, Mafa was a deserted local government at that time. Boko Haram have displaced them and the only people that started returning during that time were not more than 3,000, all their wards are moved down to Maiduguri.
We rejected that result and petitioned it. We wrote to the national headquarters, the PDP committee and was taken to the tribunal but was later dismissed. It is because of Nigerian factor, we know.
Also, in Gwoza local government, 98,000 votes were written for APC when the community has never produced more than 30,000 votes.
These and other similar incidents were the result of that election, we all know how many of our communities were deserted by insurgency at that time, some people move down to as far as Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Kaduna and elsewhere.
We have people in the IDP camps as well, but how many of them, the whole IDPs are not up to 700,000 people but yet, elections results combined together are almost about 1.5 million which was just written by those in power in conjunction with some unscrupulous electoral officials who were assisted by few security members. That was not election and our performance cannot be judged by that.
The same thing has happened just recently in Anambra State. Andy Uba of APC got 348,000 votes in the direct primaries of his party, which means only members of APC gave him that number without other members of the public and in the election results, from over 20 local governments areas, with the exception of only one LGA, Uba got only 42,000 votes. If I can get that number in primary election, it is expected I can get over 500,000 votes. This is what is happening in Nigeria.
Q: Let us talk about governance in Borno State, what is your general perception on how it is done in the state?
Governance is all about service, the resources of the state and the people are all entrusted to the governor of the state. As the chief executive, you have to prioritize your activities towards the people first.
Poverty is the number one problem in Borno State today, most of our people are not adequately educated, they don’t have serious businesses, local markets were closed down, big companies that do business with our people, sometimes on credit in the past are no more due to insecurity, they have to pay no matter how little before they get goods because of the threat on people’s wealth.
For me government should prioritize the existence of these local market and security should be enhanced to secure them.
Government could have consider leasing out some of its activities to the private sector to empower our people.
For instance, every year the central bank of Nigeria and commercial banks are given billions of naira to give out to businessmen and women, entrepreneurs, farmers and others, but there are a lot of strings tired to it, especially the issue of collateral which has huge demands.
With the little earnings by our business people, they cannot afford such grants or loans, and we end up missing such opportunities. As a government, we need to key into those things, serve or stand as collateral to those people, to even pay the interests because here in the northern part of the country and especially Borno, majority of our population are Muslims and they look at this issue of interest as a taboo because Islam has shunned against it.
This will develop our local businesses and farmers and they will become employers of labor, that will drastically reduce our unemployment rate.
Secondly, there are businesses that the government have been venturing into and spending a lot of resources. Let me give you an example with sanitation, government can organize individuals, assist them with loans that they can establish their sanitary companies. They will go round the communities to sanitize them while the community members will pay for the services, it will not be more than N1,000 monthly, they can even extend these services to other cities and will become self-sufficient and employers of labor. These companies will in return pay taxes to the government, that is another area.
Thirdly, when you look at Maiduguri, we have a vast land all over, these lands can be used for agriculture, housing and other things, i.e, government should encourage individuals to go into housing activities and help them in accessing loans and grants, they can establish estate, give out on rent, that will generate revenue for the state and themselves.
This will also create more employment for the people. There are many ways of doing it. But now, there are exorbitant rate of taxes and multiple taxes on individuals before government is coming in with others taxation programs, you have to look at economic liability of the people first because you are serving them, governance is a service to humanity.
Even in the civil service and companies that we pay taxes, just a percentage of your earning is taken, but people who cannot afford three square meals a day, in fact just two is hard to get and then you put on an exorbitant tax rate on them, how do you think people can survive this and even think of initiating developmental ideas, programs and businesses.
The government should rather assist them in boosting their business activities, financial or otherwise and by the time they are on solid grounds, the government can introduce taxation programs on them and they will pay without hesitation.
Q: Assuming your party snatched power from the ruling party in the state in 2023, what will be your first point of call, what your think needs urgent approach and attention?
The first thing we will begin with is the issue of poverty alleviation because somebody that did not eat cannot go to school, like they said, a hungry man is an angry man, how can he go to farm or do other businesses and expect him to pay children school fees, it is not possible.
It will be our first and top priority. We will create many poverty alleviations programs and we will make sure everyone is involved, especially young people.
As long as we did not solve this issue of abject poverty, even the security challenges we are facing today will not end because it is due to poverty that people go into those criminal activities, the English man said ‘an idle mind is a devil’s workshop.’
As leaders, we cannot get anything right when our people are very poor and lacks basic needs and these things are tide to education, the economic viability of the state, to our health need, housing and other developmental programs.
Q: The current government in the state has been receiving many praises both within and outside the state for executing several projects across the state, which will most likely impact the lives of the masses and enhance living conditions, how can you rate its performance on poverty eradication and other things?
To me, I can rate them maybe 10-15 percent over 100 because I have not seen it happening. During the era of Sen. Ali Sheriff as governor, I know of the programs he introduced for poverty alleviation, there are skills acquisition centers all over the state where people, especially young once were trained and were given money as capital to make them self-sufficient.
Many of them that I know have succeed at that time, and because the state is very peaceful during that period, business activities in the state were booming.
To enhance these prospects, the government most find a way to open up business activities with our neighboring states and countries like Tchad, Niger and Cameroon. In the past even people from Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso and others African states come to Borno to do businesses but today no one is doing that and has seriously affected our economy. I think, the need to open up a bite for those practices to flourish once again is very important.
Q: You talked about opening up with neighboring countries, which is authoritatively a business of the federal government, how then can the state government impact such decisions?
There should be collaboration between the state and federal government to fashion out ideas and the way to go about it. If the state made an effort, I am sure they will get support from the center.
Presently, people travel from Maiduguri to Banki, which means you can cross to Cameron. People also travel to Gamboru Ngala, it means they can cross to Tchad and Cameron. We also travel from here to Maradi in Niger, so we have to open up since the channels are already accessible.
Q: On the forthcoming election, you express confidence of taking over from the current system, what is your party’s biggest strength?
Our strength is the will of the people of Borno. Today, poverty has taken over our people and the expectations APC put on board, both at the federal and state level are not there, their activities have been disappointing and we are now suffering from inflation.
In 2015, a bag of rice was sold at N7,000 all over the nation but it is N31,000 today.
What is the earnings of the average man with a wife and four children, who also pays rent and other responsibilities, including that of probably his parent and relations.
If he is a civil servant, the minimum wage is N30,000 which is not even paid in most of the states. On top of that are taxes, the balance cannot buy a bag of rice.
Our aim is to change this situation and I believe the people will support us to salvage them from it, our manifesto is directly address to their major challenges.
Q: On your part, do you have any ambition for contesting in an election in the future?
As a politician, some time it will not be your making, it is your people’s call. We are servants of our people, when they make the call and insist that we are suitable for it, we cannot say no. So, whenever that happen and I look at it critically, I will volunteer to contest, I am a politician after all.
Q: What about party politics and leadership, do you wish to serve at the national level of PDP?
Now I am the state chairman of PDP in Borno and the responsibilities on my shoulders are enormous, therefore I cannot start contemplating of moving to the national level. But when it is right time for that and the people feel I am the right person to be there, I can take it but not for now.
Q: Finally, what will be your call to PDP members in Borno State, including the ones that defect to other parties, having coming out of internal crisis and the struggle to wrestle power at all levels.
My call on them is simple, let us forget the past and confront the future together, the task ahead of such is a big one and people are relaying on us to salvage them from poor leadership in the state. Another important thing is that they should be patient, loyal and focus under a united front to confront the government in power and God willing we are going to snatch power in the state.
To those that have defected, I am calling them to come back and join hands with us because many of them that left have not actualize their ambition in those party and are being considered second class members, I think they belong to PDP and they should come back so we can salvage Borno State.
