In this interview monitored on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Mathias Baba Tsado, a former presidential aspirant of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), speaks on why President Jonathan should consider joining the 2027 presidential race, arguing that it is Nigerians that need him to rescue them from hardship. Excerpts….
You were an aspirant in 2019. Are you not considering running?
No, no, not at all. You know, my desire to run for president initially wasn’t born out of ambition. It was purely out of passion for the society, seeing that the country was going in the wrong direction. If you remember, that was the era where young people came out and marched to say, you know, we need to address the problems or challenges that were facing the country. So, it isn’t so much of an ambition. If I am able to get or assist them or someone, a group of people that can help us to fix the country, why not? I’m ready to work with that person. It wouldn’t be whether I become president or not, but if the Nigerian state begins to work for the people. So that’s basically it.
So right now, you are not running for anything?
We haven’t started running. Everybody is consulting.
Oh, I see, you’re consulting.
Yeah, every politician always consult, particularly those who have shown interest to run for office at one point or the other. So it’s okay to consult. If, like you just mentioned in your introduction, the kind of clamour and the calls that President Goodluck Jonathan is getting today to come back to run for office, if I begin to get that kind of call from my people, why not? I’ll go back to go and meet them to run for election.
So what do you make of this call for President Goodluck Jonathan? Because clearly, if you look at it, if one looks at it, what they’re looking at is a guarantee, but it’s clearly not out of…I don’t want to use the word, but his wonderful capacity. This looks like the call by a group of people who seem to be self-centered and what they’re looking for is guarantee that when the president is gone, he cannot run for a second term.
I don’t think that is entirely correct because if you look at the calls that are coming, most of these calls are coming from ordinary Nigerians who are not likely going to run for election.
A group of people that came out from North East to address a press conference a couple of days ago to say, we want the president to come back, we want the former president to come back, to come around for election. I don’t think they are interested in whether power comes back to the North or stays in the South. The history, the performance of President Goodluck Jonathan, unfortunately, some of us didn’t see it at that time. People are beginning to see that come. Let’s reanalyze the situation. Since the APC came over and took power, everything is going backward. This President Goodluck Jonathan has been out of office for 10 years and for every election cycle, his name has been coming up. It means that the people are saying, oh, we are missing something and why wouldn’t they miss something? Fuel was N87. Dollar was N150 to N190. A bag of rice was N10,000.
A couple of days ago, I went to the markets to get some groceries, just a couple of things to make soup and stew for my kids who were around for the holidays. For just a pot of stew and soup, it was about N40,000. How many Nigerians can afford that? How can people survive this kind of thing? So it is not out of place to see that Nigerians are saying, see, take us back to where we were. You know, if you join a vehicle and you say the vehicle should take you to a particular destination. And then the driver seems to be roaming around the street, doesn’t know where he’s going to. I think the natural thing to do is to say, sir, if you don’t know where you’re going, please take me back to where you picked me from. And that is what Nigerian people seem to be telling the APC because sincerely speaking, APC has demonstrated to Nigerian people that they do not have the capacity. I saw a cartoon of presidents, late President Buhari, may the Lord rest his soul, and that of the current president. And somebody said, from frying pan to fire. And it has become clear that this is really the sad situation of the Nigerian people today.
There are other people who are saying the APC is not doing well. We are offering ourselves and we can do better than what the party that is currently in government. Why don’t you think that people are willing to try these new people? Why are they looking for President Goodluck Jonathan?
When you introduced me, I said, when the people call you to serve. You see, the position that President Goodluck Jonathan finds himself today is a position that most politicians are yearning for. And you see, the thing is, it doesn’t matter. In fact, he demonstrated he’s not somebody who is desperate to be in government. You remember when he said his ambition is not worth blood of any Nigerian.
He has not declared that he wants to run for election, but for somebody like me, I am praying for a day that will come that President Jonathan will declare and say I want to run. Because sincerely speaking, I think Nigerians who, those that have his contact, those that have access to him should speak to him that look, at this point, the other rumors around in 2023 that you are going to run and all that, they were rumors, but this time around, please come around sir, because Nigerian people today, they need you.
Some people are saying he may not be eligible to run. They are bringing up this section, section 137.3, I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, section 137.3 of the constitution. And he said this section states that the person who was sworn in to complete the term for which another person was elected as president shall not be elected to such office for more than a single term. So he has already done one term.
For me, I don’t think I want to speak to whatever the legalities of whatever it is, but as far as I’m concerned today, the thing is that the call from the Nigerian people is for the former President to come and run. If he so decides, let him assemble the legal team that will thrash out every legal encumbrances that probably will befall him. But as far as the Nigerian people that are clamoring for him to come and run, I think they should be heard. As we speak to you today, this is 9 a.m., there are families in this country, millions of families in this country that this morning, they can’t guarantee what they will eat this morning.
I understand that, but you see, the thing is, the conversation really about governance in Nigeria is that we’re trying to move from strong people to stronger institutions. So when we keep looking, and I think we do this every time there’s an election, we start to look for some honest man, a principled man, a good man. We keep looking for a strong person. Meanwhile, our institutions are not strong enough to uphold our principles.
This is a good point, this is a good point you are bringing up, because sincerely speaking, one of the presidents that we have had in this country that has focused on building institutions was President Goodluck Jonathan. He was one person that was not, even from his body language, you can see that he’s not somebody who never dabbled into judiciary issues. He never dabbled into what was happening in the National Assembly. He just let things be. And, you know, because we were short-sighted, all of us started clamoring for the turn of the General. We needed a strong man. We have had strong men now. Where are we?
Let’s move on to the elections, the by-elections in the existing constituencies, and of course the hue and cry around the results of those elections. What did you make of it?
I think it was one newspaper that I saw where they say APC, PDP, NNPP, all of them were condemning the elections. The states that are been controlled by PDP, the candidates won. The states that are been controlled by APC, their candidates won. The states that are been controlled by APGA, their candidates won. The states that are been controlled by NNPP, their are candidate won. What does it tell you? I think what we had in the by-elections was more like a local government election, a situation where the state governors’ candidates, the state governor’s party and his candidate will win all the seats. Sincerely speaking, this is not good for our country. This is not good for our democracy. And again, please, forgive me if I take you back to President Goodluck Jonathan. These things were not happening during this era.
It’s a good thing that you were talking about elections because we’ll be delving into them shortly. So do you think that we need to, while we’re focusing on the people whom we’re asking to run, do you think that we’re focusing enough on the election process?
Oh, well, there have been a lot of people, there’s a guy called Peter who has been clamoring for electoral reforms. There are a couple of people that are asking for electoral reforms. Yeah, here and there, we know that the process is flawed. But again, you see, there are so many things that we have to address. We have not spoken about the issue of vote buying. It irritates me to my spirit that you want to serve the people. And because you want to serve the people, you want to go and meet them and give them money to vote for you. Does it make any sense to you? It tells you the desire, the intention of those that want to be your leaders. But the reforms that are in the National Assembly, we hope that this will be implemented. We hope that the president will sign into law. But again, a call I want to make to Nigerians, particularly those who are leaders of institutions, leaders of organizations, leaders of religious bodies and leaders of civil society groups and all that, that we should begin to preach to the people. I would love to have a situation where a Mallam or a pastor will stand up in the church and tell the people to say, please don’t sell your votes.
