Articulate and easy going Alhaji Umar Abdullahi Tata is a gubernatorial aspirant from Katsina state. A man who has joined this race to serve and deliver to his people the dividend of democracy.

Charged with the burning desire to change Katsina state including Nigeria, the All People Grand Alliance Katsina leadership (APGA) plans to exploit the problems of Nigeria to become advantages that would lift up the state if elected into office come April 11th 2015.

Since he is the people’s mandate, he is advising his contenders who were busy sleeping while he was reaching out and touching the lives of his people not to bother stressing themselves for the game is already over. His hands he said are long and that what is between him and government house is just a matter of time.

In this piece with Zainab Tanimu, he opens up on his plans for the good people of Katsina state come 2015 victory at the polls. Excerpts…

How did politics start for you?

I joined politics not long ago sometimes in 2010, so basically a green horn. Some people have such a voluminous and rich CV, some don’t. I happen to fall within the category of those who don’t. I started from a small humble beginning and retired as a directorate cadre, an Assistant Director. So, all my life I have been in the civil service.

I have served for 23-years. Within this 23-years of service, I have served in various capacities in different ministries as such know the whole wheel of administration. What it requires and what it needs to govern, to administer and manage people.

At a personal level, I can tell you I have managed people more than the state government did. I told you I have been in the field for 4 good years starting from a small beginning like I said and there is nowhere in Katsina state I have not been to. Not only in Katsina state, in Kaduna state, Kano state even Niger Republic and Lagos state. So you see, my hands are so long and I have touched so many places and if serving people is about ‘giving’ and not ‘taking’, I have given enough to know I have the best credentials.

Sir, what stands you out from other contenders especially those from the opposition parties?

Well, I can tell you I am far ahead of them and some of them are far ahead of me in another area. So, where I have advantage, I have weakness and where they have advantage, they have weakness too.

I am ahead of them in reaching out to the people. I have been with my people when all these other contenders were busy sleeping. I have virtually done everything any human being can do for any human being. You can think of it from whatever sector; health, education, etc. There is no particular aspect of human life of my people that I have not touched. That is, the entirety of the total number of 4,901 polling units in Katsina state. You see, when I was busy working for my people they thought I was wasting my time. They thought I was a new face in politics. They thought I will get tired and exhausted as such stop along the way. But God in his infinite mercy sustained me and I continued so fast and now they continue to think, okay, there is nothing as easy as changing the sense of a common man. All you need to do is come out, cook your tricks and within one day you try to buy them off and that is the end. No, gone are those days! It does not work that way. So, in that sense, I am ahead of them but when it comes to party politics, I am the newest and the smallest party in Katsina because I am the one who brought the party to the state so in that aspect I can tell you I have a disadvantage there. But even at that, if you see the turnout of people when I go out campaigning, you would realize that the party does not really matter. I am the first person in the history of Katsina state who brought a party and contested for a gubernatorial position under that party within a period of 2months to election. Unless God does something, I think Insha Allah the only thing standing between me and government house is time.

Talking about them having advantage over me could be simply because they have bigger parties and these bigger parties probably have better structures more than I do and to some extent get help. Take for instance, the PDP has the government and is helping its candidate and the APC; the candidate get assistance not because of his person. I tell you, 90% of those assisting are doing so because they believe Buhari would form the next government and they are expecting reward so they are aligning themselves with APC not because they have a good candidate.

Sir, you were in PDP. Could you tell us why you left the party?

I left PDP because I needed a vehicle that could take me to my people so that my people could now pass their judgment on me and PDP for what reason was not willing to give me that platform and if it had done that fairly I would have still remained in PDP. But when you try to enforce your ‘will’ saying your law must hold this way over every other issue, I am not the kind of person that submits to those kinds of selfishness. So, I left because I have lost hope of fairness. I left PDP because I don’t think the party is important to its managers. I left PDP because I don’t think the people mean anything to the managers of PDP and I left PDP because I think to them PDP is just a business and not a vehicle through which services can be delivered. So I cannot be associated with such kinds of people as a party.

But PDP is regarded as the biggest party. How do you reconcile that?

Are you talking of now or before? I don’t think is the biggest party. If it is the biggest party, how can the biggest party seek for election postponement? How can the biggest party be afraid to go to the polls and test its size. I am telling you we are gradually seeing its exit. I tell you in a matter of few months there won’t be PDP any more in Nigeria Insha Allah.

Sir, now that you have touched on the election postponement, some quarters are of the opinion that there is something hidden under the carpet as regards the election postponement. Some kind of tricks going on they say. PDP tries to put the blame on Jega and Jega not coming out in clear terms as to what is actually happening. In your own view what do you think is actually going on?

There is one proverb in Hausa which I would translate to English. ‘Dan de zeimutu, laya batayimeshi’. That is, a child destined to die, no amount of talisman you will use on him as protection that can save him from dying. You see Jega is an appointee of the PDP government and for PDP now to accuse its own appointee that means something is wrong within the PDP. Before, it has always been the opposition accusing the INEC but this time around for the first time it has happened the other way round and we are just watching as they dance naked in the market and are exposing themselves. Like I told you they just thought Nigeria of 2015 is the same Nigeria of 2011 and that things would happen the way they wanted. They see themselves as God’s anointed children and that they are the luckiest people on earth who don’t have to work for anything as it would fall from heaven for them. It does not happen that way. By the time they realized that it was late and there is no time to change it they thought the best they could do is to seek for postponement using all kinds of trivial excuses so that they could see how they could couple some things. To me, I don’t think six weeks would make any difference considering the fact that they have been in power for six years. So, the Jega they are accusing if truly they are accusing him, I think Jega is working based on the provision of the law. He is working under the provision of the electoral law which they are all parts and parcel of. They are trying to subvert that law and I think they should be the ones to be defending themselves not Jega in this case since he has the law on his side.

Like the talk about the PVC, as they are saying, such has always happened. There is no election that comes without any complain here and there. If it is not voters’ registration it would be ballot papers issue. If you recall the 2011 election, in the mix of the election it was even cancelled and had to be rescheduled all over again. So, there is no election that has been without its own hitches. So all these things are just mere excuses that they are trying to give to avoid the doom’s day and it would surely come Insha Allah.

Sir, do you see yourself emerging victorious considering the power of incumbency?

The power of incumbency? The governor is not contesting anyway so there is no factor of incumbency there. So if you are talking of him assisting somebody, I know how we assisted him in 2011 before he could even scale through to become governor. Then, he was the one contesting. Talking about him assisting someone to become somebody, I see this as a non issue.

Sir, if elected into office come march, 11^th of April, what plans do you have for the people of your state?

My main objective from a broader perspective is that, I want to change Nigeria from Katsina. I want to show how Nigeria can work from the desert. You see, I am trying to exploit the problems of Nigeria to become the advantages that would lift up my state. That is why my main pre-occupation when I become governor is to build a power generating plant that would give me 200mg watt of electricity in Katsina. I want to build my independent transmission lines, I want to build and generate, transmit and sell my power. Distribute it independent of the federal system and I would have 24hrs power supply in Katsina. This is what I want to achieve in my first 2-years as governor Insha Allah and is life-long commitment and I am telling you I won’t fail in that Insha Allah. If I have the power, I tell you the sky is the limit. I am going to industrialize Katsina. I am going to turn around the farming system in Katsina.

Election is said to be like sport where someone emerges as a winner and the other a loser. If you happen to be on the losing end, what would happen?

You see, I am not in this contest as ‘a do or die’ thing. I thank Allah for bringing me from an obscure position, an Assistant Director with the Federal Civil Service and ‘He’ catapulted me to this high level contesting for the office of the governor, the governor of a state. Not a smaller state but a bigger state like Katsina which is in terms of size No. 2. We have 34 local government areas of which in terms of population we are almost No. 4 in the country so I believe God has a plan for me to have brought me this far and I would by the grace of God take the mission to the end. If the people of Katsina decide that I am not the right man for the job, I would thank Allah and would still continue doing the things I have been doing for my people. I would not stop. So, I have no problem with failure.

What do you have to say regarding ensuring free and fair election in the forthcoming election?

You see, I am a local politician and therefore would want to restrict myself to my state but one thing I know for certain is that calculation on ground shows that PDP would not win any election unless God does something but as it is now I think we are seeing the demise of PDP from Nigerian political terrain In sha Allah. I know PDP would do everything possible to hold on to power and Insha Allah they will not succeed. So, what I would tell my people is let us pray. It is prayer that has kept Nigeria this far. There is nothing we have not passed through and it is not by any human effort that we come this far. So let us pray, if we pray sincerely Allah will surely find a way for us.

Sir, the political scenario seems to be so tensed now with accusations flying here and there. Would you now say Nigeria is moving forward as regards politics?

You see, before now I was in PDP. Why I left PDP is because those that matter in PDP have no direction. They don’t know what they want. They know where they want to go to but how to get there, they are not bothered about that. Some of them feel that because Jonathan has been having things so easy it is like he is an anointed son of God that everything must just flow the way he wants it. It doesn’t work that way and that which is needed to be done, they don’t do. Jonathan does not do anything. They have made him hostage. The right people he should see he does not see. He does not see the people who are working for him neither does he know them. You understand? The system around him is so rotten. I have never seen such a system like that before. So, there is no way God would allow such a system. He could have been lucky the first time, the second time, the third time but to say he would remain making it all his life, I think anybody who thinks it has to remain that way must certainly have something medically wrong. So, now that they are realizing that, there is no time. So they are desperate. They are doing every kind of stupid things to see how they could hold on to that. God’s favour they think they have, I don’t think God works that way. God loves Nigeria, not Jonathan. As an individual God can take him out today and Nigeria would remain.

The situation is tensed and like I said, we should pray to God says, ‘those who put their trust in Him, He makes a way for them’.

Sir, you are fighting at the national level and you do not have a presidential candidate and I heard that some of your party leaders endorsed Jonathan as their candidate. Are you comfortable with Jonathan as the candidate of your party?

We in Katsina endorsed Buhari as our candidate. I am the leader of APGA in Katsina and we have said bye-bye to Jonathan. We have done what we could do for Jonathan and I think time is ripe for us to change direction and look at the person whom the people want. Look at the person who has promised. Look at the person from whom our hope can be borne and this man is Buhari. In Katsina is Buhari we have chosen.