Dr Umar Ardo is a former gubernatorial contender in Adamawa State and co-convener of the League of Northern Democrats. In this interview with LEO SOBECHI, he x-rays the rationale for the group’s application for registration of the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) as a new political party.

You know, many people misunderstand our position. We are part of a coalition, and there are two viewpoints in that coalition with regard to how to project the politics towards 2027. And these views fall into two broad sentiments. In one, there are those who, or let’s say, one is that of fusing into an existing political party. And in the other are those that canvass the view for registering an entirely new one.

I belong to registering a new one. The League of National Democrats belongs to the group seeking the registration of new parties. And we made our position known. We presented our arguments. We showed the advantages of registering a new political party side by side with the disadvantages of entering into an already existing political party.

We, therefore, recommended that the coalition approve the registration of a new political party. It will be the surest way of getting victory at the polls. So, that is it. We are trying to placate or convince the National Opposition Coalition Group to unite on our viewpoint, to unite in registering a new political party. That way, the political party belongs to everybody in the opposition.

It’s not like somebody who will go, maybe form an association and become the leader of the association. He now submits his application, and then when they approve, they give him the certificate of registration, and it is his own political party. No.

This is like registering a limited liability company. But, if it is a political party, let it be registered by a group so that in our constitution, in the draft constitution, we submitted not only registering another political party, but we even recommended the name of the political party – the All Democratic Alliance (ADA), with green, white, and yellow colours around an oak tree.

Who doesn’t know an oak tree? Iroko tree. In the North, we call it Gamji, in the South, we call it Iroko. It has symbolic value in our societies. After all, we are all villagers. What is at the centre of the village community? Is it not the village tree they call it? They sit down, discuss, and make decisions. So, we put in a tree, we have justified that, we submitted that, and we are pushing into the public domain what we submitted to the coalition committee. So, this is where we are.

Of course, we formed a coalition, and it is the coalition itself that now submits the name of the party. It’s not as if we have to form an association, and then it’s the association that submits.

We are a coalition of groups, individuals, associations, and platforms coming together and forming a party name, and then submitting and doing the necessary things.

What are the requirements for registering a political party? A name, then a logo, a manifesto, a constitution, a secretariat and then leadership, voting leadership in not less than 24 states. We have everything.

So, all we need is to unite every member of the opposition group in this position and then go like the APC (All Progressives Congress) did. We go in our numbers, march to INEC, and formally submit our application.

It is not just the SDP or ADC (African Democratic Congress) or any existing political party. If we just go and collapse into any of them, we would have lost the momentum. We have diffused the impetus that we would have created if we had applied directly on our own. And there are many other constraints.

For instance, there are existing structures in those parties. You must agree with them, virtually all of them. And, if the incumbent is serious or is bent on trying to use any loophole to destabilise it, they have whatever they want those people to use.

They have a victim, or somebody will come out and say, I’m elected to a six-year mandate; we have to wait until my time ends. If you say no, the system now sends him to court and backs him in court. And, if the system backs him and they influence the decision of the court, that is the end of all this.

So, it is best you go directly and register what is collectively yours; when the certificate is given, it is handed over to the chairman, Board of Trustees. When it is given, it is something that he hands over to the successor. So, nobody owns it. Not like this one, where somebody has it and he keeps it, even if he extends the thing forever, as a liability company, we don’t do that in party politics. So that is our position. That is the position of LND.

Unfortunately, that is not true. Why? Actually, I think that Atiku Abubakar, and I know for a fact Atiku is among those who are trying to get the coalition to fuse into an existing political party.

But, left to you, would you, if it comes to advising the former Vice President to bury his ambition, would you support that?
Of course, I would not advise him to bury his ambition. I wouldn’t do that. But that doesn’t mean that I support his ambition.

There is also this allegation that the League of Northern Democrats arose as a seeming counterforce to President Tinubu’s strategic bundling of the South into a bloc, that is, disassembling the country into North and South electoral divide.

No, at all. We formed the League of Northern Democrats to advance the cause of Northern Nigeria in the context of the federation of Nigeria. The North has held political power, most especially during the military, longer than the South. Under the democratic system, the South held power longer than the North.

Personally, I don’t care who holds power. I really don’t. But let the North not have the shorter end of the stick, which the North has. Out-of-school education is rampant in the North, poverty is rampant in the North, insecurity is rampant in the North; all the negative indices compared to the North and South are more rampant in the North. And that should not have happened.

That is why we are introspectively looking into ourselves and asking, why is it so? So, we have to change this narrative. And, it does not mean that the power must have to be in the North.

If the North can come together and get somebody outside the North to put him in power, and then that person advances the interests of the North, we are open to it. If it means that it is the North that will have to take over power and then push and advance the interests of the North, along with those of the rest of the country, we are open to it.

So, we are not rigid as to where we stand on the geo-location of the presidential ticket. What we are rigid on is that the interests of the North must be met.

I know and I have seen that. Not only under democracy, even under the military, the North-West and the South-West, they have been the dominant holders of power in Nigeria from the beginning.

The North-East? Yes, we did during the First Republic- Tafawa Balewa- and the South-East. But things shifted from the first military coup, when the South-East took over, then the North came and removed that, and then (General Yakubu) Gowon was put there.

Gowon, by origin, is from the North-Central. But, by nature, he is from the North-West, because he was Zaria-born, Zaria-grown, Zaria in everything. So, the North-West and the South-West have dominated Nigeria’s polity for a long time, under military and under democracy.

Yes, and the only part of this country that has developed, that has benefited in Nigeria’s being, is none other than the South-West. The South-West have controlled things, whether they are in power or they are not in power, from the time of Lord (Frederick) Luggard, when Lagos was taken as a colony, and the South-West has been the main beneficiary of the Nigerian state.

The South-South may have the oil, but who are the owners of this oil? It is in the South-West. Look at all the IOCs (International Oil Companies) in Nigeria, who are their local founders? It is in the South-West.

So, we need to change the narrative of our country. We need to come together and change things. I don’t care who is the President, so long as things work for this country. We are talking about the North-South divide because things don’t work. And we only get the party right of power on the basis of ethnicity, region and religion. This cannot be sustained. It has not been sustained in Nigeria. It has not worked for us. So, when things don’t work, we should change that.

One-term presidency? I don’t understand the one-term presidency. We do not operate under that template. If Tinibu is working, and Nigeria is improving, you don’t need to tell Nigerians; they will go ahead and support Tinibu.

But if Tinibu is not working and things are not improving, Tinibu should be removed. If things are not working, he should not be there. What business does he have to be there? He should not even be allowed to complete a full term. They should change it and bring somebody who works.

Baba Ahmed, in his letter to the President, asked Tinubu to emulate Nelson Mandela. Do you think such political philanthropy exists in the mind of any Nigerian politician?
You should have asked Baba-Ahmed, did he write a memo to the President when he was adviser, advising him to do that? Why should he write a letter after he leaves office? So, ask him if he has written a letter officially, because that was what he was paid to do, to advise; so whether they take the advice or they do not take the advice is immaterial. But if he advises, he would be seen to be doing his job. He is being paid to do so. Did he write to Tinubu? Did he submit a paper to the President through the Vice President? These things that he is saying, if he hasn’t, then he should not talk.