Sen. Umaru Tsauri represented Katsina central senatorial district between 2003-2007. He spoke on President Muhammadu Buhari’s fight against corruption and issues affecting his party in this interview with Ruth Choji.
The PDP has zoned the 2019 presidency to the north, who were the persons that took the decision seeing that the party is still not settled after losing the presidential elections?
Nigerians have been making this mistake for long, the PDP is intact, and it is being led by the acting chairman and the National Working Committee (NWC). We only lost election but that is to show you that democracy has come to stay in Nigeria. There is hierarchy in every political institution and in the PDP, the constitution outlines that, the NWC, Board of Trustees, National Executive Committee (NEC) and the National Convention are the highest decision making bodies. So both the caucus and the NWC decision will be approved by the NEC. The only body above the NEC is the convention and if they decide that, the 2019 be zoned to the north, then so be it.
The APC led government has continued to blame the PDP of basterdising the Nigerian economy and putting the country in a financial mess. How do you react to this accusation?
Well, it is democracy, and everybody can insult the other person and go to sleep in his house. You can’t do that in a military regime. If they said the economy has been bastardized, why did they take over? Is it not to correct it? If they said the PDP has spoilt the Nigerian economy, they are there to correct it. So if they want to shoot, they should shoot and don’t talk. It is like their fight against corruption, it is used to get back at the PDP, but we shall be vindicated. Our party has been talking and obviously if you look at what we are saying, you will see that, what we are saying is the right thing. If the APC government is witch-hunting the PDP past government, very soon we will know because in the APC, the only person that is upright is the president, Muhammadu Buhari. Aside him, nobody can claim to be upright.
So if the president really wants to fight corruption, then he must go way back before the merger. If he does that, then we will know that he is doing the right thing because he will catch everybody that is corrupt. All the dirty things that happened in Nigeria and that has brought us to where we are now were caused by some of the people around the president. They are very close to the president, and they even surround him so we are waiting to see how the fight will go. Yes we are crying as the opposition, but we will stop crying if he will take his probe to the time before the merger and even after that.
What is your reaction to the agitation by the North-east zone of your party to occupy the chairmanship position for remaining part of this NWC?
There is an acting chairman right now. The constitution said when the chairman exit, maybe he dies, resign or is impeach, the deputy takes over as acting chairman, pending when a chairman is going to be elected from the zone the former chairman comes from. We cannot continue like this unless the constitution is amended and you know it cannot be amended for now.
Some of the PDP staff raise the alarm that some officials corrupt themselves with funds meant for running the party immediately after the elections. And so the party is broke. How true were these allegations?
It is a difficult thing for me to answer because I was the former deputy national auditor of the party and I know what was happening in the headquarters. I happen to be officer one in the office of the DG, campaign officer of president Goodluck Jonathan. So anything that has to do with monetary aspect, whoever talks may not likely know much about it. Except if you are in the leadership committee or campaign organization.
When staff of the PDP were talking, we could not say anything because we don’t know what happened. You cannot get a kobo out of the secretariat without the knowledge of the staff. It is just like the local government, when the chairman wants to eat 20 kobo, he has to make it fifty kobo because the accountant, and others the money will pass through must eat out of it. So if the staff are complaining, they are complaining of what they know, but people from the outside can only assume.
Some states that PDP won during the election are being nullified by the tribunal, some see it as a ploy by the ruling party to take over the remaining states. Do you think a trend is being set?
As a former senator, I tried to avoid talking about cases that are in court, but as a politician belonging to PDP, the nullification of the elections of Wike and Darius of Taraba are a big blow on democracy.
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