“One Day Their Actions Will Haunt Them, Even After Retirement” — Buba Galadima Warns Judges, Says They Will Answer For Selfish Decisions

A chieftain of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Engineer Buba Galadima, has accused President Bola Tinubu and his associates of ingratitude towards the former Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, and disclosed that he had advised El-Rufai to go into exile and had sent an emissary to beg him not to return to Nigeria from Egypt.

Galadima spoke on the Naija Unfiltered Podcast on Symphony TV, in an extended interview with the programme’s host, Mr. Olawale Oluwade, in which he also said power must pass to the South East in 2027, described the President as worse than Stalin and Mussolini in his conduct of democracy, and said his own fifteen children cannot obtain employment in Nigeria because of their surname.

“Tinubu And His People Are Ingrates”

Asked about El-Rufai’s continued detention and what he had said to warrant it, given his contribution to the President’s victory in 2023, Galadima answered directly.

“Tinubu and his people are ingrates as far as El-Rufai is concerned,” he said.

He said he had warned the former governor. “I’m not the best friend of El-Rufai. In fact, I advised him that he should be careful of the way he carries himself. That he either goes on exile or they will jail him. I said so on record on the BBC and on either Arise or Channels TV.”

He then disclosed an intervention through a third party. “In fact, when he said he was coming from Egypt, I went and met Kwankwaso and told Kwankwaso that he should beg El-Rufai not to come back. These people do not mean well to him.”

“And Kwankwaso called him, and he postponed the day he said he was coming. But suddenly, he announced another date and came. You just out of bravery go and stop a moving train, show your chest and stop a moving train.”

“They Can Do Anything Under The Sun To Come Back To Power”

Galadima said the detention should be understood in the context of the governing party’s determination to retain office.

“The desperation with which APC is going, they can do anything under the sun to come back to power, because they know what it entails if they lose power. What they have done to people will visit them. This is the law of nature.”

He did not absolve the former governor. “He, El-Rufai himself, is paying for what he has done to other people,” he said, while adding: “But that does not mean that this issue that led to his detention is politically motivated.”

“We Are Not Asking Tinubu To Release El-Rufai”

Pressed on what northern elders were doing about the detention, Galadima rejected the premise of the question.

“What you are saying now, is it not part of the problems of Nigeria? Why should any leader protect somebody because he’s one of him? Let the law take its course,” he said.

“We are not asking Tinubu to release El-Rufai. Let justice be done to him according to the laws of the country.”

He framed the demand as one of equal treatment. “What he did, for which he’s been detained, has been done by other people, and they were released on bail. So why not release El-Rufai? On bail.”

He added: “It doesn’t have to be because El-Rufai is a Hausa or Fulani or what. I don’t know what he is, because other people told me he’s even Yoruba.”

Told that El-Rufai has repeatedly identified himself as Fulani, Galadima said: “Somebody tells us that he’s from Irabaji. We don’t know.”

On The Phone-Tapping Allegation

Galadima questioned why El-Rufai was in detention when others who made similar claims were not, pointing to the substance of what the former governor is said to have alleged.

“Why didn’t they arrest Sunday Igboho? Sunday Igboho didn’t say he tapped anybody’s phones,” he said.

He then challenged the legality of the practice El-Rufai had alleged. “What’s the law? Tell me the law which stops that one — the national security adviser tapping my phone and other people’s phones.”

When the host suggested the law might permit it, Galadima objected: “So there are two laws in Nigeria? I’m hearing that from you.”

He directed the question at the office concerned. “Tell Nuhu, does he have that right? After all, a single act by Tinubu has now put him into the dustbin. This is why when you are in power, you have to be careful of tomorrow.”

“Power Must Go To The South East”

The position Galadima opened and closed the interview with was on the location of power in 2027.

“The only way to unite this country is for this time to allow people from the South East to also taste power, and I can stand on any platform and support that, and canvass for that, and convince people that it is the right thing to do,” he said.

Explaining his support for Mr. Peter Obi, he described the argument he puts to voters. “For example, I’m supporting Obi. If you see the Herculean task of us trying to explain why it should be Obi, because we ask one simple question: ‘Do you want Tinubu to come back?’ Nobody I ask has told me that he wants Tinubu to come back. Nobody.”

“‘Do you want Nigeria to be divided?’ No. Then in that respect, what you should do is to support a southerner, to divide the south as the south divided the north into compartments of religion and tribe. And from that background, you support the lesser evil of the two.”

He said some of the reasoning behind the strategy could not be stated publicly. “These are strategies that I cannot say on television, but they are realities of life.”

“Stalin Or Mussolini Were A Child’s Play”

Galadima said the President did not meet his definition of a democrat.

“You people in the press have not been noticing something — that the ruling government and its allies in states have structured a situation where they don’t want to allow any opposition man to look for votes, and yet some of you have been praising Tinubu as a democrat,” he said.

“I don’t look at Tinubu as a democrat. In fact, Stalin or Mussolini were a child’s play in democracy when you compare to what Tinubu is doing.”

He gave as his principal illustration a foreign borrowing. “How can one individual govern under laws of a country, go to another country and stay and sign a loan of 7 billion US dollars to do what?”

He returned to the point when asked about legislative oversight. “That is why we have the National Assembly, the legislature, to do that for us. Are they doing that? If they are doing that, can Tinubu go to France and just sign a 7 billion dollar loan for Ogun alone?”

He said the project did not answer his own region’s needs. “When people are building a 7 billion naira port in Ogun, I feel pained, because they should have sorted out the issue of desertification, because that desertification affects so many issues in Nigeria,” he said, linking it to the farmer-herder conflict.

“Part of farmer and herder crisis, because the herdsmen who are from that area move in search of pasture to areas hinterland, that causes friction, and the rains are not there. They should have used channelization to make people irrigate farms so that they produce food for us.”

“When you in Lagos will be sitting and using bureau and making wealth, give us the opportunity to use our strengths and produce food to feed you.”

He also said he was entitled to campaign anywhere. “I should be allowed to go to Ogun, even though I disagree with Tinubu bringing that port to Ogun, and say why I am disagreeing, because Ogun and Lagos are not the only Nigeria we have. How about Ekiti? How about Oyo? Even Osun? There are other places.”

“A Complete Negation Of The Electoral Act And The Constitution”

Galadima alleged a coordinated effort to obstruct opposition campaigning.

“There seems to be a structured violence by the APC across the country to stop opposition from accessing their states, which is a complete negation of the Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.

Asked what the alternative was if he had confidence in neither the President nor the electoral commission, he said: “Confidence I don’t have in both the president and the INEC. But I also know that the president and INEC are not bigger than God, and they are not bigger than all Nigerians put together. If we say no, what can INEC do?”

He cited Osun. “Fifty something people were alleged to have been killed, but they stood their ground, and they got what they voted for. What stops other Nigerians from any corner of the country doing the same and retrieving their mandate?”

“Only God And Tinubu Know”

Challenged on his earlier statement that only God and President Tinubu know what will happen in the 2027 election, and asked whether he was telling voters their ballots would not matter, Galadima said the host had misread the order of his words.

“I think maybe you forgot your opening statement quoting me, that only God and Tinubu know what is going to happen in 2027. The first element is God, not Tinubu. He can do his wish. God can decide otherwise. So we are on the side of God.”

Asked whether God votes, he replied: “God does not vote. It moderates what happens on Earth. God is not INEC. God can sink Nigeria, including Tinubu, despite his powers, but he does not do that. It happened severally in history, all over the world. People who felt they are powerful, they fell like a pack of cats in the eyes of those whom they oppressed.”

He rejected the suggestion that he was counselling resignation. “No, I’m not bringing God into elections. I’m bringing God into the affairs of mankind. Man proposes, God disposes. For those of us who believe in him, either Muslim, Christian, or even the traditionalists, we always factor his last-minute intervention into things.”

“You would think you are powerful, nothing can happen to you because you hold the levers of power, and that is because most African leaders, including Tinubu, don’t learn from history. If Tinubu looks behind him, there are photographs of those who were sitting on that chair before. It means that if he has sense, he should also think that one day he may not be there.”

He added: “It’s God that decides who can be in power at a particular time, whether he acquires it by force, by consent, or by consensus of the people. So today, God made him the president of Nigeria. It doesn’t matter how he got in there. It is what God will probe when he goes to him — how did he get there? And I assure you that God will ask him if he has gotten there wrongly.”

He said the campaign was not waiting on providence. “When I said God, did I go to my bed and sleep? Am I not here talking to you now? You have to stand up before God helps you.”

“Of All The Known Presidential Candidates, Tell Me One That Has Visited Any State”

Galadima said the opposition ticket he supports was the only one campaigning.

“Of all the known presidential candidates, tell me one of them that has visited any state on a campaign except Obi and Kwankwaso,” he said.

Told that the others still had about three months, he replied: “They will soon discover that there is no time. It’s because we discovered there is no time, that is why we were in Benue, we were in Delta, we were in Lagos, we were in Kaduna, we were in Sokoto, we were in Kano, we were in Jigawa, we will be in Yola, we will be in Sokoto again on Monday. We’ve never sat. We are working.”

“Why Should I Be Afraid Of Anything?”

Galadima said his age and circumstances had removed any fear of consequence.

“Look at me now. Do you know my age? I’m well above 75. So I buried children, my own children. Today, in my little village of about 1,000 people, I’m the oldest person. So I am marking time. I am borrowing from other people’s time. Why should I be afraid of anything?”

He said he owned little. “All they can do to me is to kill me. What is it that is left for me? I’m not looking for new clothes. I drive myself. I live in a two-bedroom house. All I need is a cloth to wear, one set, ceiling over my head, food to eat, whether it is amala, shinkafa, braboesco or whatever. That’s all I need.”

He questioned the purpose of accumulation. “All this accumulation of wealth, Mr. Olawale, that people are doing, I keep on wondering, to do what? That’s why it’s suspicious whether some people are accumulating this money to use it to divide this country. People are being told that the way people are stealing, they have an ulterior motive.”

Told he would not lose his life for telling the truth, he said: “Many people spoke the truth and got killed. I was just watching a history of how African leaders were killed from 1960 to date. I’m not better than them. And African people in power, you know they can do anything.”

He said he never had a pension or gratuity. “I never received a pension. I had no gratuity. I go to farm. So why should I fear you?”

On his profession he said: “I’m an engineer, a building engineer. Give me a job to do.” Asked whether he had practised in construction, he said: “They will never give me now, because it means they’re empowering me.”

“My Children Cannot Get Employment”

Galadima said the consequence of his politics had fallen on his family.

He pointed to his daughter. “Have you seen my daughter Zainab? When you engage her, you will see some intellect in her, not that she’s my daughter. But yet she has no opportunity in this country with two first degrees, with five master’s degrees, with an ACCA, with a PhD. All these are her qualifications, but she can’t get a job because she’s the daughter of Buba Galadima, who the nation doesn’t want to grow. Would I be happy? If you are in my position, would you be? So I have to speak for the people. If in the process I lose my life, so be it.”

He said the position was the same across his household. “My children cannot get employment. I have 15 of them. All of them except one are graduates with masters, at least medical doctors. No job.”

“So once they say Galadima, and they ask them which Galadima, they say me — that’s the end. Any Galadima is already marked. So all those who are bearing Galadima from other families should change their names.”

“Tinubu Is Not Doing Well For The Yoruba Race”

Galadima said the pattern of appointments would rebound on the President’s own people.

“Tinubu is not doing well for the Yoruba race. I don’t want to mention tribe, but they should be rest assured that what he’s doing to other people, when other people get the chance, they may try to repeat. But that is not good for us. We are one people. We are one country, indivisible. Whoever tries to go, he has to use the barrel of the gun to excise himself from this Nigeria.”

He said his criticism was not ethnic. “When I’m criticizing Tinubu, I’m not doing it because he’s a Yoruba man, but he is a Yoruba irredentist, and he’s doing harm to the Yoruba race by having 99 per cent of government juicy appointments carved for his people. He’s hurting them, because another Nigerian will come and do the same.”

He put the figure differently a moment later. “Tinubu is bringing people, essentially 75 per cent of his appointees are from Lagos.”

He said the complaint was about Lagos rather than the South West. “Is there any agency of government in Nigeria today that does not have a Lagos man? Or any ministry? If a Lagos man is not the minister or the permanent secretary, the adviser to the minister who will be telling Tinubu what is happening in that ministry is from Lagos. We’ve studied all this. Nigerians will know, and the government is not meant for Lagos alone.”

He contrasted it with the previous administration. “Buhari didn’t do it. Buhari didn’t bring people from Katsina.” He then listed appointments: the National Security Adviser, Monguno, from Borno; two chiefs of staff, Abba Kyari, Kanuri from Borno, and Professor Ibrahim Gambari from Ilorin, Kwara State; the longest-serving Chief of Army Staff, Buratai, from Borno; and a Chief of Air Staff, Amao, a Yoruba man from Osun State.

“So you can see that you did not mention Katsina,” he said. “Because, sorry to use this, people from the other side of the country, once you have a Muslim name, you are Hausa, you are Fulani, and you are all together. It’s not true.”

“My Parents Never Spoke One Word Of Hausa”

Galadima returned repeatedly to his own ethnicity to reject the categories applied to northern politicians.

“My name is Buba Galadima. I’m neither Hausa, Fulani nor Kanuri, and my parents never spoke one word of Hausa before they died,” he said.

He said he is from Dawayo in Bade Local Government Area of Yobe State, in the extreme north of the state, and is Bade by tribe, listing Bade, Ngizim, Karekare, Ngamo, Hausa, Manga and Babur among about ten groups in the state.

“So me, coming from Bade tribe, my tribe of less than one million people, where do I stand?”

He added: “This country, we need each other. And as far as we do not agree that we are one people with a common destiny, and what befalls you I should consider my own problem, then the country cannot move forward.”

Bought Out Of School, And Paid To Attend

Asked how he came to be educated, Galadima gave an account of being enrolled three times.

“Three times I was recruited to go into primary school. Twice my father paid money to the headmaster to remove me from school at the instance of my mother, who never wanted me to go to school because they saw it as slavery,” he said. “In fact, they were being told that all children that go to school, the Oyinbo man will come and carry all of them one day. And I was the only child.”

He said the third attempt failed because of the intermediary chosen. His father asked an older cousin, a friend of the headmaster, Mallam Ahmed Chiroma Potiskum of Fika Emirate, to negotiate his discharge.

“Each time before, first, second, they were giving 50 shillings. This time he went and negotiated for £5. So he came back, took the money from my father, divided the money into two, gave the headmaster half, kept half to himself, and asked the headmaster never to release me back to my parents. That was how I was forced to go to school.”

He drew a comparison with the South West. “In southwest, Awolowo’s biggest popularity was free education. But when you say free education, me I laugh. We were paid to go to school. So is it giving you free education, or you are given free education and being paid to — which one is more?”

The Och’Idoma’s Tears

Galadima recounted a campaign visit to Otukpo with General Muhammadu Buhari, where the Och’Idoma, whom he named as Mr. Obekpa and described as a former minister under the Sardauna of Sokoto, responded to a speech on unity by weeping.

“When the man started speaking, he just started shedding tears. A first class notable traditional ruler like the Och’Idoma, and said that he’s well above 80, that he’s waiting at the departure lounge. What would he tell Sardauna if he dies? That the northern region that Sardauna left for them is now divided along religious and tribal lines. He could not afford it, and started shouting. He had to be covered by palace guards and taken away.”

“You can see the passion of an Idoma man, maybe a Christian or a traditionalist, crying for the death of the Sardauna of Sokoto, who was a Fulani man and a Muslim. That was when it was northern region. So when people say certain things, we laugh, because they don’t know history, even young men.”

He said the Sardauna’s refusal to go to the centre as prime minister was deliberate: “It was because he wanted to stay back and organize the northern region, integrate various communities that are not Fulani like himself.”

“I Was Tried For Treason”

Galadima said he was detained and tried for treason in 2004 under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“Obasanjo jailed me and put me underground, Park Lane Number One,” he said, adding: “Because they said I was trying to overthrow government with my mouth.”

He described the conditions. “If they put you there for one hour underground, chained like this, and you have no place to sleep, I think after 10 minutes you will be sweating, and nobody will talk to you. Even four floors underground. If you want to urinate, they give you a bottle.”

He said he had been questioned or detained repeatedly. “Thirty-eight times I was questioned, interrogated, arrested, locked up. We’ve seen a lot. I’m not saying everything, but we’ve seen a lot.”

He said the charge arose from a protest. “Me and Osita Okechukwu, who later became Director-General of Voice of Nigeria, and under Balarabe Musa, we organized in 2004, May 29, what we call the Stolen Mandate, and we invited General Buhari, Ojukwu, Falae, Balarabe Musa, Tunji Braithwaite and others to protest.”

“It was in the night of that that they picked me. I was the chairman of the organizing committee. The whole of Abuja was about coming down. And they arrested me and said they could only release me if they postponed the activity, and they said they can go and kill me, and they were tear gassed in Abuja, so they now charged me for treason.”

Asked whether he alone was charged, he said: “Yes, only me, because I was the chairman, and I was the one that was blowing grammar on television” — on the BBC, Radio France, the Voice of America and Deutsche Welle.

He said the trial was before a military tribunal. “Military tribunal of 12 generals. And we sat from 9:00 in the morning to 9:00 in the evening.”

He said he addressed the tribunal directly. “I told them, look, all this humiliation you did to me from Abuja DSS headquarters to Lagos DMI is because you wanted to find out about two things. One is whether we are organizing a military coup to remove General Obasanjo from power. Two, whether General Buhari was in the know if there was any such plan. I want to tell you that there is no such plan, but you have to release me whether you like it or not.”

He said he added a request. “But when you release me, please, I beg of you, that if you know of any group planning to overthrow this government, that please link me to them so that I could participate.”

Told that this was a dangerous thing to say on a capital charge, he explained it as a calculation. “You don’t know the psychology. The psychology is that even if there is such a group, none of them can ever divulge the information. So it was reverse psychology.”

He said the tribunal divided over him. “Seven for me, five against me, and General Leimu of blessed memory told the chairman: ‘Excuse me, sir, this is a matter of life and death, and we should allow the suspect to say his mind, and we take our decision.’ He said no. Then they started fighting.” He named a former Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Labaran Murno, as another member, and said three members later died in a plane crash in Cross River.

He said external pressure assisted him. “The Germans in the European Union stood by me. In my absence, they were keeping pressure on the Obasanjo government that I was a prisoner of conscience, that it was politically motivated — and of course it was politically motivated, because I was too much for the government of Obasanjo.”

He drew a lesson. “When you try to intimidate a straightforward, honest man of integrity, you only ginger him to do more. You can only intimidate those who steal. Crooks who are cowards — you show them their record, they start shivering.”

“They Are My Boys. The President Is My Servant”

Galadima said the central problem was the public’s posture towards office holders.

“Nigerians believe that the president or governor should be worshipped because he’s oga. Me, I don’t believe that any governor or any president is oga to me. They are my boys, because I voted for them to go there, so they are my servants. But the Nigerian man doesn’t believe so, and how do we change his psyche?”

“The man you voted for is your servant to go and do a particular job for you. And if he is encroaching and doing excesses, you should have the temerity and the strength to call him back, but we’re not doing that. If they see the president or the governor, they say, ‘Yes sir, yes sir.’ Why? That’s my boy. The president is my servant. He’s only one among equals. Except we do that like the Oyinbo people whom we are copying do, we will never get to where we want to be.”

Asked about the National Assembly’s role, he said its members were afraid, noting that Yobe State has three senators and seven members of the House of Representatives while the dredging of the River Yobe goes unasked for.

On Judges

Galadima placed the judiciary above the legislature in his assessment of the failure of oversight, and in the gravity of its responsibility.

“Do you know, if judges will do that, who is a legislator not to?” he said.

“You know the people we should respect and consider next to God would be the judges. It is the most difficult job on earth, and those that God will punish when they use selfishness in judging the affairs of men are the judges, and it looks like some of them don’t care. But one day, even when they retire, it starts to haunt them, some of their actions.”

Why Obi And Kwankwaso Left The ADC

Galadima gave an account of the departure of Mr. Peter Obi and Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso from the African Democratic Congress, rejecting the suggestion that former President Olusegun Obasanjo engineered it.

He said he had opposed the move into the ADC in the first place. “Me, I never joined the ADC, and I warned at least Kwankwaso not to join. Because when we were talking, Peter ran and joined the ADC because some people there promised him they will make him candidate.”

“And I asked Kwankwaso to tell him they will never do that, because the whole thing was built around Atiku. They will only use him and present him with a fait accompli when Atiku becomes candidate — take vice president. If he wants to be vice president, oh, that’s fair. But if he wants to be president, get out.”

He said the party’s profile rose while Kwankwaso was in it. “Kwankwaso went there only three weeks, he pulled out. But when he went there, in the three weeks, the profile of the ADC skyrocketed. And then Tinubu now started looking for ways to deal with it.”

He said he advised them to wait for an exit point. “I said, you can’t go out, you are already trapped in it. I told you not to. So wait for a particular event that will allow you to go out without being accused of chickening out.”

He said two judicial decisions provided it. “And that situation came when Justice Joyce Abdulmalik on a Thursday delivered one damning judgment against the ADC — knowing fully well that the following day, Friday, the Supreme Court will also deliver judgment on virtually the same issue. And she had the guts to make that ruling.”

“So in the night they called, ‘What do we do?’ I said, it’s not yet, wait for what the Supreme Court will do. Again, the Supreme Court from the sky brought the ADC to the ground, meaning from the Supreme Court they say, go back to the High Court and start all over again. So I said, this is now the time for you to get out. That was why they got out.”

He said the claim that Obasanjo was behind it was “a gimmick and a dummy being sold by Tinubu and his people,” adding: “I can bet my life and swear by the Quran that Obasanjo is not the best friend of Tinubu.”

Confronted with the observation that Obasanjo has criticised every president who succeeded him except the incumbent, Galadima answered by asking whether the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Mr. Obi were Egba men, and said: “So Tinubu is an Egba man, that’s why Obasanjo is supporting him?”

“Obasanjo Is Number One” On Nigeria

Asked to compare Obasanjo, Tinubu and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Galadima answered only on the first.

“The difference between all of them is that Obasanjo, who jailed me and put me in prison, was a nationalist and a patriot who believed in one Nigeria, and he could die for one Nigeria. He is not a tribalist. He doesn’t do mawumagu under the carpet. He will tell you to your face, whether he likes you or he doesn’t like you, even if the heavens will fall. That’s the kind of person I want. The others are a contrast to this.”

He added: “Ordinarily I wouldn’t like him, because he tried me for treason. But you can never dismiss the fact that Obasanjo has passion for Nigeria and that Obasanjo is a patriotic Nigerian. Every human being has got his shortcomings, me inclusive. But when it comes to Nigeria, Obasanjo is number one. While in power he wasn’t perfect, but he did his best to keep this country together, give everybody hope.”

He said he had forgiven him.

He also explained Kwankwaso’s relationship with the former President, saying Obasanjo made him Minister of Defence and later ambassador after he lost the Kano governorship. “Kwankwaso was not an ingrate,” he said. “And this is Yoruba culture, Oluwole. If you don’t know, let me remind you: somebody who fed you, you shouldn’t bite his finger. And we hold Obasanjo in high esteem despite what he has done to me.”

“Atiku Didn’t Fight Third Term. We Fought Third Term”

Galadima disputed the standard account of the defeat of the third term agenda.

“I detest this. Atiku didn’t fight third term. We fought third term,” he said. “The heroes of third term were Attahiru Bafarawa, the former governor of Sokoto State; Ibrahim Mantu, of all people; and Dalhatu Sarki Tafida. These are the people who fought third term.”

On the role of the then Senate President, he said: “That’s the Bafarawa angle, because it was Bafarawa that helped to bring Ken Nnamani.”

He said the former Vice President’s opposition was self-interested. “That was his interest, because he wanted to be president. Did Mantu or Tafida or Bafarawa want to be president? It was patriotism that drove them, and we were the foot soldiers talking on the BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio France International, VOA in Hausa, and mobilized the whole of part of this country.”

He said Mantu paid for it. “That is why until Mantu’s death, Obasanjo never forgave him, and even when he won election, he went to the judiciary to remove him, because he discovered at the last minute that Mantu worked against his interest.”

He gave a similar account of the 2014 defections. “When the five governors were leaving, Kwankwaso mobilized five governors to leave PDP for APC. Atiku wasn’t in the know. They were at the convention, they were seated. When the five governors were walking out, he just followed them. And when they came to do a press conference, he was the most senior person as former vice president. They gave him to read, and it became the Atiku group. Atiku didn’t know what was happening.”

Asked whether he said this because he now supports Kwankwaso, he said he had said it before, and recalled: “Didn’t I support Atiku in 2019? Didn’t he win the election and they took it away from him? I am on the side of the truth, not individual. If Kwankwaso does anything wrong, be rest assured I can go to Wuse Market.”

“He Should Go And Rest”

Asked whether Atiku was not eminently qualified, Galadima said age was now against him.

“He’s a respected elder of this community and of Nigeria. He’s going to be 82 by next year, by my estimation. He should go and rest, because the way this country was bastardized for years, we need vibrant people who can spend 16 hours on their desk to sort us out.”

“It is not about the human being. You should support them. They have supported him before. It’s time for a return match for him to do that.”

Told that Donald Trump is of a similar age and is in office, he questioned the comparison and said there were other candidates.

On Sowore, Adebayo And Duke

Pressed on why he does not support younger candidates, Galadima named Mr. Omoyele Sowore, Mr. Adewole Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party and Mr. Donald Duke as friends, and praised them, but said structure decided his choice.

“Obi in 2023 said he won the election and he was denied. I agreed with him. He might have won the election, but he has no structures to enforce or to protect his victory,” he said.

“For you to win, you must have a structure, and I’m in a hurry. I’m above 75. I want to see a good Nigeria. So for now, I would go for people with a semblance of structure that would enable them to win and hold that victory. And the other people who are younger still have time to take over.”

He said his advice to them had been to join forces. “It is difficult in Nigeria to go alone and succeed at the time you want to succeed. It may take a long time for you to explain, to meet people, to travel around, for them to accept you. But if you go into a group, you suddenly become part of that group, and everybody there knows you. Instead of you following people individually, now they are collective, and you can sell your idea.”

He illustrated with a proverb about fitting a handle to a hoe: “When you went to the bush, you look for a stick that looks exactly as can be used for that purpose.”

He said Mr. Sowore had helped the opposition in the past. “During our struggle, Sowore assisted us very, very well. And that was why Buhari had difficulty in becoming president at the first shot, because we were the only people around him, just two, three, four of us.”

Asked whether he was himself qualified to be president, he said he was “overqualified,” and declined to explain why he was not seeking the office.

The Coalition: “We Are Only Six, With Him Seven”

Galadima distanced himself from the coalition associated with Mr. Salihu Lukman, known as the G100, saying: “I don’t believe in it.”

He described a separate and smaller body coordinated by a former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, while objecting to the word “led.”

“Not led by Kayode. Kayode was asked to coordinate,” he said. Asked who asked him, he declined: “I don’t want to tell you who.” Told the public had a right to know, he said: “They have no right to go into my privacy.”

He said Fayemi had been brought in “as a neutral person to coordinate the group,” and was “doing that effectively, quietly in the background.”

On the group’s size, he said: “Then we are how many? We are only six, with him seven. But we don’t regard him as part of us because he’s a neutral person. All the six are partisan representatives.”

Asked its objective, he said: “The good of Nigeria, and get rid of people like Tinubu.”

He said it was not, at present, about a single candidate. “When you are faced with people like Tinubu in government, whether you like it or not, the opposition must have a common agenda of survival, and when it comes to our survival, we must all tag together.”

He gave examples of that solidarity, including attendance at the burial of the mother of the former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, in Port Harcourt, and at the opening of an office of the Allied Peoples Movement.

“When APC deliberately attacks oppositions all over the country, we are all crying together, and if it reaches no-go, a day to election, we can decide to back one person if we so agree,” he said.

He rejected the view that failure to merge guarantees defeat. “A lot of people tell us, ‘Oh, if you don’t come together, you can never defeat Tinubu,’ because they don’t know anything.”

He set a condition for accepting the result. “If we can come together and fight for a free and fair election, and Tinubu wins, I will be the first person to congratulate him. But not when he does magumagu to win. We will never accept.”

“35 Governors”

Galadima maintained an earlier claim about the number of governors supporting the President.

Told the figure was about 32, he said: “No, I said 35. Why I said 35 is that it’s only” one governor, whom he named, “who is openly, to our knowledge, not supporting Tinubu. But Bala is half.”

He explained the qualification by reference to the Bauchi State governor’s withdrawal from the coalition. “All of us agreed to work to go into ADC, up to the wee hours of the night. In the morning, he called to say that he’s not going, because he was advised not to go into any party with a strong presidential candidate. So we kept on asking, who advised him to do that?”

Asked whether the governor was now supporting the President indirectly, he said: “I am not sure whether he will support us, or he will support Tinubu.”

“I Never Knew The Wolf Was Dressed In Sheep’s Clothing”

Reminded that he had described the President as an “action man” three months into the administration, and asked whether he owed Nigerians an apology for misjudging him, Galadima turned the question around.

“I think it is you that should apologize to Nigerians, for bringing this issue and putting it on the table without really looking at the circumstance,” he said.

“You said Tinubu was only three months in office. And he was making a populist activity, as I would have done if I were in his position. And as somebody coming from this history of opposition, I never knew that the wolf was dressed in sheep’s clothes.”

Asked whether he should not have adopted a wait-and-see attitude before praising the removal of the petrol subsidy at the Eagle Square inauguration, he said: “Yes, because we thought he has got a plan. We never knew that he’s only bringing smart boys from Lagos to rip the country.”

He insisted both positions were correct. “At that time I was correct, and I maintain I was correct. And now, having judged him from his performance, I am also absolutely correct.”

He also pressed the host on the former Vice President’s record on the same issue, citing his chairmanship of the National Council on Privatisation and his position on subsidy and on the sale of the national oil company, and asking: “All these three different positions — can you swear that he will do that, or it’s just a campaign gimmick or desperation to take power?”

On Kano, And “An Ingrate”

Galadima said allegations that opposition figures were working for the President were the thing that most angered him.

“When we are doing all this, some opposition politicians, crooks, will now say, ‘Ah, they are working for Tinubu.’ Nothing pains me in the world more than that,” he said.

“They say, ‘Oh, Kwankwaso is working for Tinubu.’ How? It’s Tinubu and Buhari that caused the fight between Ganduje and Kwankwaso, because they felt he was too much, so they should clip his wings. And it was the same Tinubu who took away Kwankwaso’s son, Abba.”

Of the Kano State governor, Mr. Abba Kabir Yusuf, he said: “Government he formed, he never enjoyed for one good month. From the day Abba was sworn in, they started fighting him.”

He described him as “an ingrate,” adding: “Somebody who brought you up for 40 years, made you governor against all odds. Everybody around him left because they never believed in you, and you desert him.”

He said Kwankwaso’s experience was unmatched. “As of today, there is no politician that carries the experience of Kwankwaso — deputy speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, senator, governor for eight years, minister, not only a minister, minister of defence for four years, ambassador. He has got all the experiences in the world to make him the leader of this country.”

And he explained the ticket’s arrangement in those terms. “It is humility, and in an attempt to heal the wounds of the past, that we persuaded him to step down for Obi, so that he gives the South East a chance.”

“Nigeria Is Not Being Fair To The Senior Citizens”

Galadima described visiting a 97-year-old former Secretary-General of the Christian Association of Nigeria who converted to Islam, whom he named as Professor Dauda Ojobi, an Idoma man from Benue State now living in Kaduna.

He said the man had served as Attorney-General in Benue and in Bauchi, was a professor of law, had come to his village in Bade to learn Arabic, and was among the first set of Senior Advocates of Nigeria.

“He is 97, and he’s more alert than me that speaks to you here, mentally and physically,” he said. “Even though I shed tears when I left his house, that Nigeria is not being fair to the senior citizens who have contributed. I wish I had the means to assist.”

Asked about El-Rufai’s letter from detention, in which the former governor referred to his Arewa upbringing and Islamic values as the reason he would not seek revenge, Galadima said he avoided that register entirely.

“There is something I don’t want in my life in this Nigeria — talking about religion, talking about tribe, or where I come from. That’s maybe my difference with other people. I fought Buhari. I’m fighting Tinubu. And this started in 1979. I was in the trenches up to now. Whatever I do, I’m just Buba. Take me for what I am, not because you’re a Christian or a northerner or whatever.”

“This is why, when I get engagements with the press like this, I want people to realize, watch, listen and get my point of view for what I say or for what I do, rather than for what I am, or where I come from.”

Closing on identity, Galadima made a claim about the state at the centre of the El-Rufai question.

“In Kaduna, in fact, I’ve not seen one indigene of Kaduna who is ruling Kaduna,” he said, listing Balarabe Musa, Ahmed Makarfi, Nasir El-Rufai and Patrick Yakowa.

“In the North, once you blend culturally, you can be anything,” he said. “For example, Kano — most of the people who became governors in Kano, are they from Kano?”

The post “One Day Their Actions Will Haunt Them, Even After Retirement” — Buba Galadima Warns Judges, Says They Will Answer For Selfish Decisions appeared first on TheNigeriaLawyer.