Senator Abdullahi Adamu is currently the chairman of All Progressives Congress’ nine-man Reconciliation Committee. He spoke to LEO SOBECHI and ADAMU ABUH on how his committee plans to resolve various crises in the party, as well as his activities as a Senator and former chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria .* Farmers At The Mercy Of Middlemen
So, the party is brave to be honest with itself and followership to say ‘yes, we have some problems here and there, and we want to take deliberate steps openly to see how best we can resolve the problems identifiable thus far.’ That is what gave birth to this committee on national reconciliation. It’s our hope that God would give us the wisdom necessary and required to help and resolve conflicting interests within our party.
But sometimes, in the course of wanting to go on that path, you have some hiccups here and there. There is no political system or regime where you don’t have such frictions. Of course, in some cases the friction is more than in other cases. So ours is not an exception. But, for instance in Enugu State, where one of your members comes from, there was an idea to have a consensus arrangement where one of the parties said no, let us go to the field and settle it…?
It is not because it doesn’t matter to have one, but you don’t start quarrelling over what you don’t have. My early teachers said to me, in any situation that I found myself, I should always start with what I know and go looking for what I don’t know. Well, you see, we have one problem as a people. And I say this without prejudices to the assignment I have as chairman of the reconciliation committee of the party.
Now, we are talking about transmission of results electronically, nobody is quarrelling with that. The issue is, we have tested electronic voting and where there is no energy as in national grid, they use generators. They take the voting equipment and charge them and when they go low you have to recharge them. Sometimes, they have to go somewhere to charge the batteries. It is as bad as that in Nigeria of 21st century. There is nothing wrong if we want to modernize; I see nothing wrong with it.
During the debate on the issue at the National Assembly, people from a particular part of this country gave evidence in persons as to the state of energy availability in their areas. Who am I to deny that? They say he who wears the shoes knows best where it pinches him.