Former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant in Kaduna State, Sen Shehu Sani has described delegates who vote in primaries as “no better than bandits”.
Sen Sani made the statement in an exclusive interview on The Quest Times Twitter Spaces titled “Insecurity, unending ASUU strike and other matters with Shehu Sani” on Wednesday, July 27, 2022.
Sani made the description when asked to speak on his experience as an aspirant during the 2022 governorship primaries in Kaduna, where he lost out to Isah Ashiru.
Speaking on his decision not to participate in the monetisation of the primary process, Sani said he decided to make himself a sacrificial lamb for young Nigerians who don’t have money to buy delegates.
“Well, I was not ignorant that primaries is about money. I was not ignorant about that as a politician who has won elections and who has contested many times, I know the process.
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“But some of us have to sacrifice ourselves in order to change the system. If I wanted, all I will do is to stash money and give it to delegates. But the message will not be sent clearly.
“So if I wanted I would have brought in cash, line up delegates and give to them. But the problem is that what is the future of our democracy? What is the future of young people who want to aspire into politics and who don’t have money?
“So I made myself a sacrificial lamb. If you dont have money in the present political system, you can’t make it.
“If you look at the Electoral Act, three options were given for primaries, direct, indirect, and consensus. The political establishment strictly went for the indirect system, which was the delegate system. Who are the delegates? Delegates are simply people who are appointed by state governors or leaders of the party.
“They will be given a semblance of being elected, and they will be stereotyped to say this is what you want to do, and money is being given to you and you have to do it.
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“So the delegate system usually sacrifices the best who will not go down with the corrupt system of giving money to delegates. So I believe that our governance system will continue to have problems because the recruitment procedure is highly corrupt.
“You can’t change this country as long as those who are going to take over political offices buy them. People are not elected, they buy the seats. They buy the positions with money,” he said.
Speaking on his securing just two votes at the primaries, he said, “well, first of all, you see I was surprised like now in the primaries, Rochas Okorocha was a former governor, and he got zero votes.
“And then we have Dele Momodu who is a renowned journalist and he got zero votes, Pastor Bakare contested the presidency, and he got zero votes. Because they (delegates) came to me, asking for money and that they tell told me that my opponents have given them this and that and I should top it up so I said no.
“And so my expectation was to get 0, and then I got 2. Up to today, I don’t know who those two are. Over 360 people came to me to say that they were those two people. You can see how fraudulent these delegates are. They are simply not better than bandits.
“If those that came to my house to claim they voted me, actually voted me, I would have been the candidate of the party.
“But I don’t know up to today those who voted for me without giving them anything, and it is a mystery that some people can still vote for me without giving them money. And you can see those two people represent degree of our honesty in the system. We have about 500 delegates and two were those ones who decided to vote without money.
“So on the scale you can see that our political system is 2% honesty, 98% dishonesty and fraud.“