Buba Galadima is a Nigerian politician, spokesman of the People Democratic Party (PDP) 2019 presidential campaign. Galadima, who hails from Gashua, Yobe State, is an engineer by training and a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University.
In this exclusive interview with Nuel Anaba and Bernice Eke at his place of residence, he spoke on the current issue of AMCON confiscating his properties.
Neptune Prime: Good evening sir, newsmen actually reported that you were unwilling to meet up the debt and that was the reason why AMCON took over your property.
Buba Galadima: That is a big lie, nobody ever issued me with a debit to pay any money and I can only pay any money even if debit is issued to me when I know that I have borrowed and eaten the money. All the things said about me taking a loan and refusing to pay is only political propaganda.
NP: We actually learned that earlier today, you were outside, under a tent. You said you were not going to leave the building that you have been thrown out of…
BG: Yes, yes, yes (interrupts). If you had come yesterday, you would have seen all of us outside the building.
NP: Wow! But don’t you think maybe, it could be some of your political enemies, like the government of APC?
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BG: Whether it is the government of APC, AMCON or any of my enemy that tried to do this, what I want to assure you is that they have generated a lot of sympathy for me, they have promoted my status, they have confirmed my integrity in the eyes of the people of this country. I will even be grateful to them because instead of getting any mileage on what have been trying to destroy my image and integrity, they have assisted in building me. If I stand for any election today, and if there is a free and fair election case, then in civilized societies, there is no human being in Nigeria that I will not defeat.
NP: So what’s your next step sir?
BG: I go back to where we started. I have a judgment with the Court of Appeal, that judgment is being reviewed by a high court. You can know that is now kangaroo and I want to assure you that I have not taken any kobo from anybody and if there is I want to ask that they present a cheque which I used to withdraw one kobo. Of course, I went to the bank to borrow and fund a contract and the bank gave me two conditions;
1. That they will bring in the goods
2. That they will domesticate the payment
Which I agreed and the Kano State government agreed to do that which gave me the contract in 2003. In fact, when we opened the LC, (Letter of credit) 1, 2,3,… times the LC was never honoured and we tried to find out.
A Jewish friend of mine in Greece told me that “look this LC cannot be honoured because your correspondence bank in New York is under probe by FBI that is, UBA New York.
UBA New York was an outfit of UBA Nigeria and then, Abba Kyari the present Chief of Staff was the Managing Director of UBA, Hakeem Belo Osagie was the Chairman, so the FBI requested the Nigeria government to extradite to them, to the US for money laundering so this is what has affected me, it is not my fault that the contract was not executed. It was the fault of the bank that put me in this problem.
In actual sense, I heard a counterclaim of N500,000,000; they made me lose money because if the contract had taken place successfully, I would have been a rich man now, not standing under the tree here, talking to you (referring to the interviewers).
But you know the law is on us. Even though they claim the money was put in my ledger it will never be found, let them produce any ledger where they input this amount of money in my favour, there was never anything like that.
We will go back to court. This is a case where maybe me I may not be able to see the end because this is a case that may take 20 years. We have to start with de novo, but first I want to extricate myself and the owners of this property here and that of my office, let them take the position of their properties, we will go to court on Friday.
There were a lot of defects in the manner they have filed their case, in the manner AMCON itself behaved and got entangled in something they had never known. If AMCON had listened to the advice that the people they gave authority to retrieve this loan supposedly from me, who told them that “look we cannot do that because the matter was in court”.
Why didn’t AMCON join when we were in the Court of Appeal as interested parties? It was after the case was judged against the bank that started this matter, ambushed me and started a new case against me which means that this case will now start all over again in the High Court.
You go to the High Court, only God knows how many years it will end, you go to the Court of Appeal, only God knows when they will listen to these cases. Then you go to the Supreme Court which has an Avalanche of political cases that they are not able to determine yet.
When will they finish that one and attend to the case of Buba Galadima? So I just laugh. If they are trying to humiliate me, they will fail, if they are trying to muzzle me, they will fail, if they are trying to destroy my integrity, they will fail because as far as am concerned, they have failed to me and at the end of the day they will have to pay for this humiliation because I will sue them for what they have done to me.
NP: We have seen you on the television, most times we hear you say you are in still in APC even though you still mention RAPC. Some people will always say that any person who goes back to APC his sins are forgiven, do you think that if you now go back to APC…
BG: A Senator friend of mine came here 3 am this morning and jokingly I asked him, distinguished Senator? He said yes. What party do you belong to? He said, you know that money we distributed during election, they asked us to go back to APC and our sins will be forgiven, that is why we are not in court. It is because you are making noise that is why they are doing this to you.
It doesn’t matter. Even if they put a gun on my head, I remain Buba Galadima, I remain who I am. I am the National Chairman of the Reformed All Progressives Congress APC.
NP: Thank you very much, sir.
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