One of the senators-elect has set an agenda he wants to pursue in the eighth Senate. He’s from the human rights community, Shehu Sani had been picked up by the administrations of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, and Gen. Sani Abacha for periods ranging from two weeks, four months, and four and a half years, all spent in some of the better known prisons including the ones at Kirikiri, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Aba. During that time, he was tried by a military tribunal along with Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, the late Shehu Musa Yar’adua and others. He got a life imprisonment that was converted to 15 years before he was released by Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar. Now, his people in Kaduna Central Senatorial District in Kaduna State have elected him into the Senate. His case is interesting for the simple reason that he’s one of the few from the human rights community that have been able to get into the choked political space where others have failed.
With residents of Kaduna, the state capital, making up a significant population of the electorate, and the fact that the ruling party in the state was interested in the election, I had, in the course of an interview asked Sani what factors were responsible for his victory. First, he rejected the notion that the capital city was a battleground of any sort. “I will like to confute the argument that Kaduna Central is a battleground between the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party,” Sani said. “We need to remember that this is where progressives like Col. Abubakar Umar and Balarabe Musa (both former state governors), and many more live. Over the years, we have been able to sensitise and mobilise the people, and change their thinking from the hitherto conservative and reactionary mindset to a new path of progress, of unity, of nationalism and patriotism. We have been able to change the thinking of people especially in the Kaduna metropolis. This election is a product of that sensitisation and mobilisation. I schooled in this city and most of the LGAs that constitute part of my senatorial zone are places that I have known for many years and have also developed a good working relationship with community leaders, associations, student bodies and political bigwigs too.”
Would his credential as a human rights activist influence his personal legislative activity? “I am going to the Senate with a civil rights background, as a person who has fought for democracy, who has struggled for democracy, who went to jail for democracy. So, that will shape my ideas and submissions and activities in the Senate. My politics is politics of principle of conviction, of commitment to the cause of the common man and of freedom and democracy for our country. That will continue to shape my own stewardship in the Senate for the next four years,” Sani said.
Knowing that how the leadership of the eighth Senate is composed would impact whatever legislative activities Sani intended to pursue, I asked him if senators-elect who were keen to occupy leadership positions had asked for his support. “We have just been elected and we don’t know ourselves. We have to sit down and know the kind of people we are going to work with. Nobody has reached to anybody to my own knowledge. I have been in touch with almost all those who are elected, and no one has been in touch with any of them that they wanted to be this or they wanted to be that.”
The leadership of the eighth Senate can’t be the only force to consider if Sani must meet his goal. There’s the fact that his party, the APC, doesn’t have the two-third majority it needs to do as it pleases on any important legislative matter that requires two-third majority. How did he think this would play out? “The APC can’t be involved in contention with the PDP members because we have a simple majority, not two-third majority. There will still be court cases, so the best thing to do now is to allow them to settle down and get used to life after power,” he said.
I reckoned that Sani might not have challenges with the Senate leadership and the minority party only, but with the executive as well if he must achieve his aim in the legislature. Since he had it in mind to stand for the common man, wouldn’t that affect his relationship with the executive which boss has a military background? “I came from a combative background and I am used to criticising government, and attacking policies,” Sani explained. “If there’s a time we need to criticise his (Buhari) policies, certainly I will be in the forefront.” I had to ask him if he didn’t worry that such an approach might bring friction between him and the executive, but he was emphatic, adding that he wasn’t bothered. “If what is done is virtually against the interest of Nigeria, I will be a lone voice.”
“Senator, are you saying that in spite of the fact that you are on the same political platform with the president-elect, your human rights background will be the number one factor that will inform how you relate with the executive from the Senate?” I had asked. “What will guide my activities in the Senate is the interest of the people who elected me,” Sani pointed out. “I have seven LGAs, 468,000 votes from a place where there are over three million voters. So, I will have to consult them in every of my activities, and whatever I append my signature to will be that very issue that is at peace with my people.” But wasn’t he concerned that he would have issues with his party if he chose his people over party directives on legislative issues? “I don’t think my party will go against the wishes of the people because we were voted in by those people. They slept in the queue, they starved in the queue, day and night, so I am confident that my party will very much not go against the interest of the people that voted them,” Sani said.
What kind of Senate did he expect to see especially with regard to pressing national issues? Sani was confident that there would be a “very robust and vibrant Senate, going by the list and profile of the persons who have won seats. Secondly, you know we don’t have a two-third majority in the Senate, so there may be some reaching out to the other political parties to see how we can have a working relationship. The president-elect will need serenity in the national assembly to be able to immediately initiate and prosecute policies that will impact.”
Asked how much he spent on delegates before he won the primaries in his party, Sani said he spent nothing; all he did was to sensitise the delegates to the fact that they could not desire change and yet do things like the party they wanted to change. But did he spend close to N1bn in order to prosecute the election? This got him laughing. “If I have got N1bn, maybe, I should have gone for the Presidency, not the senate,” he said.
Sani intended to do something about human rights conventions that Nigeria signed but which had yet to be domesticated. “I think these are the most important issues I am going to attend to and ensure that no convention is left to gather dust in this very tenure.” What kind of Senate would he like to see in the next four years? “We need to rescue the Senate from what I call David Markism.” By that, Sani said he meant rescuing the upper legislative chamber from being in conformity with whatever is the expectation and request of the executive. “Whatever the executive tables must be treated on its merit and should be passed on its merit, not that because it’s from a certain party we should endorse it.” As for whether or not the eighth Senate should work on the recommendations of the National Conference, Sani preferred that the current administration went away with the documents that contained the recommendations. “I see no reason for the National Conference, because there was nothing that was said at the conference which had never been said before,” he said.
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