‘We never conducted primaries inside Borno Govt House-ANPP

Alhaji Yusuf Adamu

JAMES BWALA ,in Maiduguri, speaks with the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP),Secretary, ALHAJI YUSUF ADAMU, on the allegation that the party imposed candidates for the local government election.Excerpts:

There were allegations that your party imposed candidates on the members for the forth coming local government polls.And that primaries were conducted in the Government House to pick favourites of the governor?
We did not hold any primary election, at least to my knowledge, in the Government House. All our elections were conducted in the local governments and in our party secretariat . We have nothing to hide concerning the primary election. However, whoever is telling you that elections were conducted in the Government House is only saying his own opinion but that is not true and as the Secretary of the ANPP in Borno State, I am not aware of such thing. Secondly, I want to tell you that we are a party that respects due process

But in the case of Biu Local Government, we heard that somebody won a landslide victory but because he has not been ‘respecting’ the governor, so to say, he has been denied that victory. How do you react to this?
We have our rules and regulations in the party and we have the constitution of the party and there are a lot of process that you have to go through. That is, screening, security reports and many other things. Therefore, one needs to scale these hurdles . And even after the primaries if you do scale through, the party has the power to disqualify you. We are going to an election which we want to win.If we present somebody who has problem or any other thing, definitely, we are not going to win. Therefore, we have to rescreen our people to make sure we put the right people in places. Even BOSIEC is screening now to check all these abnormalities. If you look at the electoral law you would see that there is room for replacement. If after checking peoples’ documents it is discovered that there is problem with your tax clearance certificate or any other thing, definitely, BOSIEC will reject such a candidate and would advise the party to fill in another candidate.What took place in the case of Biu is what is called democratic process of following due process .And I want to tell you that the ANPP is the only party in Borno State that is going through the democratic way of choosing their candidates unlike what is happening in the opposition parties.

Despite all what you have said, there are also allegations that the party’s leadership and of course, the Governor was involved in the election of who becomes a candidate, particularly some members of the House of Assembly. What is your take on this?
You know in politics you have to be dynamic. You know we have a situation whereby you find people agreeing and disagreeing on some candidates and it is normal for people to agree and disagree .The party has a process whereby many people participated in the screening process of picking a candidate, but as far as we are concerned, the governor has assured us that he is going to provide a level playing ground to make sure that the best candidate emerge and that is what we have done. If there is anybody that is aggrieved, and as far as we are concerned, the governor is the leader of the party and if he comes in where there is problem, I do not see that as an issue. What I want to tell you is that the governor has always referred people back to the party.

What we want to know is whether the governor imposed any candidate or not?
Let me tell you that the governor has never imposed any candidate anywhere and there is no way the governor can impose any candidate because the party follows due process.

But from all indications, there are protests in all the 27 local government areas, most especially in Gwoza and Biu, which are the two most populated areas?
Whatever you say I would tell you that that is democracy in action. People have to agree that time. Now with some of these internal crises rocking your party how do you think your party is ready to win in all the 27 local government as the governor said? A: Thank God in my state PDP won in Jere but if you go to places like Gombe a day to the election all ANPP candidates were disqualify and PDP people emerged as winner however, in our state we have played democracy and we should at least be given a pass mark because we are people that believe in democracy, we are people that respect the rule of law and we are people that believe that you should not use government machinery to frustrate candidates after winning election. If you go to BOSIEC they would tell you that we have fulfilled all the necessary things that need be within the schedule time. In fact there is a law now which has been pass at the house of assembly that forms should be given freely to people because people have complained that they have no money therefore, nobody should complain now.

Finally Sir, a lot of people have applauded your performance in Biu as caretaker chairman, now as the party secretary in the state, we want to know sir, who is the candidate for the chairmanship of Biu local government primary election?
My heart bleeds when there is problem in my local government, and my prayers is for my local government to have somebody who would touch the lives of our people and I am assuring you that by the grace of God there would be a dynamic chairman in Biu that would continue with the good work that we have done in that local government who would bring peace to the people.