Spokesman of the President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation,Festus Keyamo, has blasted the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar and challenged the former Vice President to campaign on his record as public office instead of his questionable and much touted private businesses. In this interview withJOHN OSADOLOR and JAMES KWEN, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) posited that President Buhari has all it takes to win the 2019 election based on his performance in anti-corruption fight and economic performance. Excerpts:
As Spokesman of Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organization, elections are fast approaching, the opposition is very stronger and Nigerians are waiting and watching. What are you going to tell Nigerians about the person of the President and what are the old things that need to be reemphasized?
Well, as for the president, except people who want to be outrightly mischievous and who do not want to look at the circumstances that we found ourselves as a nation in 2015 any dispassionate assessment of the President and his performance in the context of what he met on the ground which is public knowledge, will agree with me that the President performed a miracle, keeping the country afloat, keeping the economy afloat, ensuring that there was no mass retrenchment of workers in the public service. There was no downsizing, because in many countries that went through economic crises, just like Nigeria public sector workers had lost their jobs. There was mass retrenchment because of the economic crisis in 2016 – 2017 and the first and second quarter of 2017 when the GDP stand below one per cent.
The fact that the President piloted the nation gently and deftly through that period is a huge credit to him and his team. People will say he should have done things differently, he should have adopted different strategies to tackle the economy but those people if you interrogate them further, none of them will be able to tell you a clear alternative plan that they would have executed and l am saying this deliberately, I want to be very clear on this. None of them could give a very clear deliberate alternative plan they would have executed at that time with the condition they met on the ground. They will only criticize and criticize, draw them out and ask what they would have done in that circumstance, then you will not have an answer from them.
We went through the same crisis like Venezuela and some countries and they went into clear depression and people ran away from the country. It shows that it could have been worst for Nigeria because in the case of Venezuela and such other countries, it was a case of adopting wrong economic policies to tackle the drop in oil prices and they went into depression, petroleum prices affected the entire country in very negative ways. What opposition has done or is doing now is very clear and Nigerians should understand this and see through it. They are playing on the very unfortunate economic slump caused by external factors. They are playing on the emotional issue to see whether it will take them through the finishing line in 2019.
However, if you look at it most dispassionately, what we are seeing now is a classic case of a wrong doer wanting to take full advantage of his wrong doing and benefit from his wrong doing. That is the test case we are seeing now. Because you have people who depleted the national reserve that could not cushion the economic crisis. It is the same party that depleted those reserves to $29 billion from 50 -60 that they met. It is that same party we are talking about, they are saying they want to rescue Nigeria now and its. So it is a wrong doer benefiting from his own wrong. It is the same party that could not save to create the cushion Nigerians could have had during that period, the cushion in the form of buoyant foreign reserves because that is the only thing that could have taken us through that period without a slump in the Naira.
That was the same thing that happened in 2008, remember, but Obasanjo at that time credit to him, had left some foreign reserves so we passed that period. There was a slump also but we were able to go through it. Now, in order to refresh the economy in such time of crisis, everybody agrees that you have to spend, you have to bring in money and invest in critical infrastructure to boost the economy that is what the government did, they went out borrowing, not borrowing to pay salaries. They went out borrowing to invest in critical infrastructure because before Jonathan left they were already borrowing to pay salaries. Borrowing to pay salaries is like throwing money into a well, you are not seeing critical infrastructure, there is no return for investment unlike what we are going to have now.
So the summation of that question is that the President has proved to be a very deft and prudent manager of resources at a very critical time before the GDP began to rise and we have passed the worst already. The GDP is rising again, I think we have GDP of 1.9 or so and it keeps rising. That I think is one of the most critical credits we must give to the President and of course, you know that they said it may be stale but for me it is not stale. This second point is still critical in Africa that nobody has been able to question the integrity of Mr. President. That is clear even to his worst enemies, the opposition. The perception of his person has not changed even with the opposition. The perception that he does not steal, he does not stalk money somewhere or hide money somewhere in bank account or the wife has one hidden property or there are stories of people going to the Villa as we have in the past where the First Lady is collecting money left, right and centre, those stories have not been heard of.
So perception is very key. Perception to galvanize the citizenry to believe in a cause is very key. When the citizenry feel that the head is not doing what he is preaching you cannot galvanize the people and that is what happened in the past regimes. I do not think that there is a President since 1999, I do not think there is one set of President, First Lady and the Vice President that there is a perception and it has come to stay that they do not want to benefit from any deal going on somewhere. Their names have not been linked with deals going on anywhere.
In the past it used to be that once there is a contract going on somewhere they will say the President or Vice President is interested in that deal or the First Lady is interested in that deal and the people believed because there was perception that they were corrupt. Now if you go and tell anybody that is bidding for a contract, just think about it, tell anybody now that the N5 billion you are adding is for the President, is for the first family, the person will first look at you and say are you are silly? What are you talking about? Buhari? The person will first think you are mad. Are you telling me that Buhari said you put N5 billion on top this for him or the Vice President said this deal going in Customs, some containers are for him or the First Lady or vice President. That was what we used to know in this country before.
We have seen a First Lady now whose younger brother, the same father, the same mother has lost an election in the party of her husband. I am not commenting whether it is negative or positive, I don’t know whether he will win the appeal, I don’t want to preempt but we are seeing it now that there was an opposition to it in the first place. In the past there won’t have been an opposition in the first place, that the First Lady’s brother was running all aspirants would have dropped. They would have run away. They will know is waste of money. That is positive side of it. It will tell you about the person of the President, it tells a lot about the person of the President and his wife. That is the second selling point. His personal integrity has not been impeached by anybody.
They made all the noise but I am sorry we are going into an election, they said don’t talk about the past about the other people but now that was in the past when the government spokespersons were only to sell and promote government achievements. I am here to do to promote the achievements to compare it with the opponent because we are in a competition. So don’t tell me not to talk about you when you are talking about me. No. In my office now it is a competition. They think they can harass people, pilot people, to pilot me how to run my campaign, I am sorry an opponent cannot tell me where to punch him.
Atiku Abubakar must run on his records. He cannot deceive Nigerians. He cannot run on promises. So let’s get it clear from now on that Atiku Abubakar has a record in public office just like the President. So, all those talks about creating jobs is barbadash. Don’t tell me about private businesses or eateries or companies you formed, those ones are not open to public scrutiny they are based on nebulous documents of companies that we cannot scrutinize. What we can scrutinize is your record in public office. So he has to run on that record, you cannot come and run on the record that I am a private businessman. No, you are not Donald Trump that came from nowhere you came from the public sector; you have been Vice President for eight years.
So, if you are looking at my records I must compare it with your record. You have a record. Run on that record. Let’s look at it. How many jobs did you create between 1999 and 2007? Run on that; don’t run on the number of eateries and schools you opened. As Vice President how many jobs did you create? We lost jobs so there is rising unemployment because it has been rising systematically not that unemployment started rising in 2015. So you said you are coming to create jobs, now tell us what you did about jobs whether unemployment was wiped out between 1999 and 2007 come and tell us how you wiped unemployment then. Tell us then don’t tell us about your private companies. Tell us about your public record don’t deceive us.
Did you build one single rail line between 1999 and 2007 which is critical to the economy of the nation? All over the world now, rail, roads and water transportation, what did you build? Tell us one rail you built despite the fact that there was a cancellation of our debt. So even if you say you got debt to be cancelled it is a lie. It was the G-8 policy that cancelled those debts. There was the G-8 general policy on Africa that time and we just fell into it, it was not just a complete negotiation by Nigeria alone. Nigeria did not go for debt negotiation. Check, it was G-8 and 18 countries benefited. Sub Saharan Africa was 14 or so and most poor countries so that they can start on a clean slate so their debts were forgiven. In fact, it was G-8 policy not any debt negotiation by Nigeria so nobody should get credit for that and despite the fact that they wiped out and they stated on a clean slate no debt was serviced at that point. They should have built critical infrastructure with the money because they freed up funds because what G-8 wanted at that time was that they want African countries to develop. Instead of servicing debt they freed up funds for themselves. Why did you not complete the second Niger Bridge? Why did you not complete the Lagos – Ibadan Express Way, which was the most important road in the country and you are telling us what now? To come and do what? We are waiting!
It took the President six months to appoint Ministers and in the implementation of the TSA the Banks lost all the staff that handled public sector accounts and also there was a ban on the influx of dollar which economists said it was very significant, adding to our problem beside the fallen oil prices. How do you look at that?
I have looked at all the countries where the prices of oil fell. I looked at Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Angola and I laugh because all of them have Ministers in place so why didn’t the presence of Ministers prevent them from going into recession? They should answer me. People just repeat a lie one thousand times and the lie wants to become the truth. That the presence of Ministers will prevent you from going into recession, is barbadash, that is the simple argument that I can put. That Ministries don’t run? Another person was saying policy direction, policy direction.
So the Ministries don’t have policy directions? They don’t have instructions. The Bureaucratic Heads of those Ministries, the Ministries are not run without them, they don’t know how to implement policies without the Ministers? The Ministers are important but they are not the necessary pole you need to put on the Chess Board to prevent us from going into recession and they have been driving this point since as if it is one huge gap that was opened that really made us go into recession. Other countries have Ministers but they went into recession why didn’t the Ministers prevent them from going into recession? Why? They should answer me. They should tell us not about all these fanciful things, in clear language, no buoyant foreign reserves that gave foreign investors the confidence to come and invest in your economy because when they see the credit level of your foreign reserves that is what give them the confidence. So those who pulled out was because of the foreign reserves they saw , those who want to come did not come.
Who depleted the foreign reserves, was it Buhari? He tried to build it, he has built it now almost to 100% I hope you know that, almost 80% though it dropped a bit in the last few weeks because of some fluctuations in oil prices and all of that but he has built it to that appreciable level it was approaching $50 billion. From the very tightest position he found himself, what would you have done? Tell us, just tell the nation don’t tell us the fanciful ideas of policy, tell us what would you have done in this stark reality of the drop in oil prices at the same time. Oil production dropped from 2.2 billion barrels per day to about seven hundred thousand (700, 000) barrels per day and then the price also crashed at the same time. All these factors conspired together at the same time. How would you have reflated the economy without borrowing? We were borrowing in the last regime to pay salaries, it is a recurrent expenditure.
The President has not borrowed one Kobo to pay salaries. Just look at it and you are saying someone is not a better manager of resources because he did not steal to form private companies all over the place? Is that the price the President should pay for being honest? That he did not float companies all over the place? That he did not have children to float companies? It is the worst logic I have ever heard from very worst minds that the President, the person who has been so powerful and who has held very powerful positions in the country, who had access to the biggest budget at a point. Apart from being the Head of State, see the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). PTF was a parallel government. The budget available to the PTF at that time was one of the biggest budgets ever. He had the complete control of that budget. It is a scorn that the man did not establish any business. I am appealing to the conscience of Nigerians, I am tapping on the conscience of Nigerians. Has it become a crime, a thing of derision that a public officer did not steal money to establish businesses. Are we fools that we will think that Atiku picked money on the road to establish businesses? That in 1982 or in the 80s when he left Customs that he was a billionaire that he picked the money on the road? Are we idiots, are we really idiots?
I am in this campaign as a crusader and that is why I told you I will not collect one Kobo for the role I play. I am saying it on tape I will not collect one Naira. It is a crusade for me to do what is right and history and posterity will record me. It is the same type of attack my Boss got in 1984 – 1985 when this same man was doing the same thing I am doing now supporting him. He was blacklisted by the NBA at that time simply because of Buhari. He suffered because of Buhari. He knew there was problem coming and that happened, when they toppled him what followed at that time was one of the worst era of corruption we witnessed in this country.
That was what they wanted to do, the elites, the power brokers they wanted him out at that time and they wanted the person in the mode of a Babangida which is the same thing they are telling us now – liberal, reach out, friends everywhere, in business cycle, that was the image of Babangida and Nigerians slipped into the worst era of corruption. It was institutionalized. It is the same thing that is about to happen that is why some of us are screaming too loud don’t let this happen. That is why in the agenda of Atiku Abubakar he has no anti-corruption as his agenda. He said jobs, security, economy that is the three. No anti -corruption and that is the elephant in the room. In Africa, without the anti- corruption nothing works, you want to create jobs without fighting corruption, you want to create economy without fighting corruption, you want to fight Boko Haram and terrorism without fighting corruption and the money they steal from the arms, there is no passion for it? You want Nigerians to believe you and follow you?
That is all about trust. He doesn’t want to put it. He can’t put it. I dare him to put it and I will draw him out to a debate. He can’t put it, how do you want to fight corruption now with a Congressional report in the US saying that they collected bribe on your behalf. The Siemens that give the bribe have been convicted and they have confessed but the person who received is in the country here and they said we should talk about issues. Character is not an issue? They should not tell me how to run my campaign. Character is an issue. What Atiku Abubakar campaign is telling us is that character is not an issue – that we should run issues based campaign. Character is not an issue, when there are reports here and there?
What about the TSA?
It is unfortunate that there are some collateral damage. The nation must find a way to cushion some collateral damage from the TSA. But every revolutionary policy must have its advantages and disadvantages as well. What you normally do is put it on a scale which is more advantageous. We know in the past that we have the TSA. They put the policy on the table but they never implemented it. It was the Jonathan administration that developed the idea but they never implemented it. Not even 10% implementation. Jonathan didn’t start the process of implementation because they have no political will. It was just an indictment on them, no political will because that is the key of cutting down waste and blocking loopholes in public service which is our major problem because once you do that you will free up a lot of funds for capital projects.
Now we talk about the downside but the advantage is that it blocked what is called the grand corruption, the Vice President calls it grand corruption where people just take money indiscriminately not that you hide. You take money indiscriminately from the agencies, parastatals and the MDAs and they just tell the federal government that this is the balance. This is the balance of what we spent directly without referring to a central paying system. So everybody was just doing what they like. It was guerrilla movement what we have then was guerilla government- no centre command. They were running guerrilla financial system just per MDA. Intact, if you see what I saw as a prosecutor in the EFCC you won’t believe it. Because these cases are in court, I don’t want to go into the details of those cases in the court but I am speaking from the bottom of my heart what I saw.
The board will develop something within their limit as it is, split it into three or four places so that they could exceed their limit because they said your limit is N100 million. As a board one contract will be split into five, they will say N99.5 million and authorized payment from the Ministry nobody knows what is happening at centre of Federal government.
President steered us away from handouts and said come back to that path of growth. It took India and China long time to come out of poverty. You know they started this their programme in the 1990s. China, India they started this their programme of pulling out of poverty by industrialization. China went to industrialized and invest in infrastructure and all that. So it has taken them years now to come out of poverty. If they have started this in 1999 when they came, if they have started to block wastage invested in infrastructure by now we should be pulling out of poverty. By now we would be doing it. They couldn’t do it for 16 years they want us to do it in three years and blackmailing us for the foundation they laid. It is a curiosity. That is where we found ourselves.
When you talk about the fact that the Ministers are the ones that articulate these policies what people are saying is that if they were there on time recession would not have happened?
I have cited an examples for you, maybe I will ask you a question, show me an economic Bible somewhere because it is not science where 2+2=4, it is a social science. I have asked people show me a reference, show me economic Bible somewhere chapter four talks about appointment of Ministers where without it a government cannot function? Show me one. Not people just coming to television talking. Where is the economic Bible hidden somewhere that this is the blueprint of economic revival, Ministers in place, show me, you must quote an author – an economist, because it comes down to perception or opinion. Because you are not quoting an authority, it comes down to the basis of opinion and that’s what I told Oby Ezekwesili the other day on Channels. It comes down to opinion don’t come and be shouting policy direction! policy direction! Tell us what you would have done differently, easily, quickly in clear language not policy direction, clear language.
Is there anywhere in the world where it is written that where you have Ministers you may not succeed or the other way round. So should we scrap ministers?
Don’t forget that the thing you mentioned about budgeting was that before the next budget was ripe Ministers were appointed. They were appointed in October /November there about and they came in in June. You know that it is the bureaucracy that prepares even the budget estimates. It is the bureaucracy that prepares it. The Ministers are political heads. I am not saying they are unimportant, don’t misquote me but they are not the critical factors to ensure that the Ministries function and government does not go into recession. They are not the critical factors because if it were so those other countries that have Ministers would not have gone into recession.
The simple logic is that people should not be deceived but they should check out information in the super high way. Knowledge is not hidden again nobody should come and deceive Nigerians with knowledge. Not even legal knowledge each time you google you get what you want, it is as simple as that. Google unemployment figures by the World Bank report, Nigerians had 100 million extremely poor people as at 2012 but they are using that to play on the emotion of the people now? Because they want to sneak to power at all cost they are now playing on these figures and our emotions as the problem started three years ago? But they said 87. 5 and they shout poverty capital! Babangida wrote a letter to Obasanjo which was headline of all the newspapers in 2003; ‘Nigerians are Suffering’. Have you seen that headline? I have the headline when Babangida wrote that famous letter to Obasanjo telling him that Nigerians are suffering so they now use that word suffering that started three years ago.
You know that perception include prudence and integrity. Mr President’s integrity as a person with what you just say about what happened in 2012 with the report on 100 million and then 87.5 million now. Why do we have more people then and have lesser people now that are extremely poor?
It shows that figures are not sacrosanct so I don’t want to take advantage of things that they are taking advantage of it to say we are now suffering less. The suffering is much not that it is much more. You can see the figure mentioned now. Figures don’t lie these are the figures. So if I want to play with figures now I will just go to town and be banding figures but that will not be doing good to the poor. We understand that things are difficult. The point is that the difficulty did not start three years ago. Buhari was elected to solve the difficulty, yes! No doubt about it. For others who have solved those kind difficulties how long did it take them? I just cited the example of China, read the China report and the Indian report. What even happened with the world poverty clock is that, Nigeria overtook India because India was dropping not because Nigeria was rising so fast. Nigeria rose, unemployment but not that it was euphoric that India was growing and it over took it. No. It is just that India was dropping. India was dropping read the report so the index of the poor of India dropped and Nigeria now went up. In their perception, calculation, all of that base on per capital income because that is how they calculate it. So it means that for those nations to pull out of poverty like India did or as India is doing not because they are totally out of it just that the numbers are dropping is that put in place long term policies and programmes. Long term policies and programmes to continue to create jobs to pull out of poverty and this is not magic. It is not magic let’s put it on the table. It is just some complex economic theories. It is just simply to ensure that you don’t depend on one item to feed your family.
This is just the problem. There is no any other problem. Diversify the economy, create other avenues by which we earn money as a nation to booster the economy so that when there is even a slump in oil look at Dubai, UAE and others tourism can survive them. Tourism alone but they depend on oil as well but they are now into tourism. So if we have had very good investment in agriculture and we export agricultural products over the years, developed other sectors, developed tourism, developed even solid minerals and all of that. So if there was slump in oil prices we would have kept afloat. It is just that the issue of the mono economy, the kind of economy we run did not start in the last three years and now we are hearing of the rice revolution, we are hearing of the revival of the fertilizer blending plants, we are hearing of the highest revenue in the history of Nigeria in the revenue coming from agricultural sector.
I am sure you know that in the first and second quota, it rose to N597 billion. You saw it in agricultural export – in cocoa, in Seames, in yam and all of that. We got about N500 billions earnings because of the concentration in agriculture now. The farmers are doing well especially the rice farmers. There is a special programme going on called the Anchor Borrower’s of the CBN pumping money into rice farming alone. Is it a crime for a government to say reconserve these funds don’t spend them anyhow. Let’s pump them into these areas. The Ministers are now not wasting funds because of the TSA they cannot just approve and pay MDAs under them. It is a good thing, people are complaining but am sorry that is the best way to go. The elephant in the room is corruption, I am sorry it is corruption. They have done up to 30% now of budgetary releases for capital projects. For 2016, 2017 they have achieved up to 30% releases which was actually up to N2.7 trillion.
Before you know that nobody did more than 10% of actual releases for capital projects. Before it was all expenditure go and see actual releases not budgetary provisions because the budgetary provisions are always fanciful and all of that but not actual releases. If you see the passion the President has for projects, he is the real Mr. Projects not some people who dance projects. The President is the real Mr. Project. He completed the Lagos, the Kaduna, the Abuja Rail. Of course it was 80% or 70% I don’t know percent so I can’t quote but you know he made sure these projects were completed and they are functional and expanded them to standard gauge from single gauge. Lagos -Ibadan Rail, standard gauge, 80% completed, you know there are 15 stops, four and five are ready now. That is the economic nerve centre, that axis. Look at the legal bottlenecks they created for the Lagos – Ibadan Express Way before we came. Cases were in Courts here and there how can government be so irresponsible before now? They just have to brush it aside and said just get it done. Just go there now and see it is up to that intercession now for three and half years after 16 years. I can’t believe this. I am taking about issues now.
There is a lot of excitement since Atiku Abubakar was picked as the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party. There have been reports that your camp is jittery now.
Cuts in… do I sound, did I look jittery here? I am member of the camp. I am looking relaxed.
How do you react to that perception?
It is a normal thing in two weeks time, you know it is excitement within their camp. You should also know that there is anger within their camp. Some people are threatening to leave their party too. It is a perception created in the air by a section of the press. We know the game. It is not the actual issue on the ground. If you enter some parts of the country they are shouting; ‘we don’t want’. Wait, you think the President is unpopular? You think he has lost his support base? In the middle of recession when some people want to take advantage of it they gathered in the square near Hilton for one week calling on people to protest but nobody turned up that was in the heat of recession.
The people trusted the President they wanted to take advantage of that situation by instigating people. I am sure you remember. The support base has not changed! So when you talk about jittery, I am answering your question of jittery. Nobody is jittery. The numbers are good! The numbers are just good! Those people who have waited patiently since 2003, who were patient, who kept voting him, they never go anywhere not only the lieutenants but the masses, that most numbers that kept returning to the polls, they are not going to go over night, they are only going to grow. They trust him. Nothing is shaking here, nobody. We have never been so confident. It is not only the large population that want to benefit from an Atiku Presidency that own some of the mouthpiece that we make us run away.
We know ourselves we know where our votes are, we rely on the very ordinary people who trust the President. After all the razzmatazz we will go to the polls and we saw it in the past before. We have done testing in the mic and some people were in pains at the end of the day after the all the razzmatazz and they thought they will win. The President has consistently won. In 2016 even in the heat of the recession the President party won Edo. That was when we were passing through difficult times, 2016. That was heat of recession which everybody would have revolted but they trusted the President, they knew the arguments on the ground. They won Edo, they won Kogi, they won Ondo, they won Ekiti, they won Osun. I just count the numbers for you. It is the numbers that matter.
The Question of trust, you don’t think that anything has happened around him… (Cuts in)
You see it is not that they will say one person is God one person is Satan. They will put him on comparative analysis. Because you see, the honest truth is that you must find scandal in all regimes all over the world. At times you see Secretary of States resigning, one scandal or the other. In Britain you see some of their Ministers resigning because you will see one scandal, there was a time the Parliamentarians said they were maintaining houses in London and they still being paid housing fund and this became a scandal and they resigned. I am not saying there is totally non scandals but there is difference. The difference is this, how do government react to these things happen. This one hallmark of one government if it happen it will happen. Look at Nigeria over years a lot of scandals happened. There are some situations in the past when clear scandals, some people were kept in the office up to the point they handed over power. We saw the Petroleum Minister in the last regime buy houses everywhere,investment everywhere, buy private jets, flaunting wealth but questions were not asked. At the end of the day she left. So in the past, they sacrificed the institutions of state just to protect people. But painful as it has being now people have been sacked, inner circles, DSS Chief, Babachir Lawal has gone, all these people have gone, Finance Minister gone. At the end of the day the institutions of the state must be protected. At the end of day people must be sacrificed to make sure those institutions remain credible in the eyes of Nigerians.
You said your Principal has not lost his support base but looking at the fact both him and Atiku are from the North, don’t you see Atiku breaking into that base?
Professor Bolaji Akinyemi said something very significant two weeks ago. The former Foreign Affairs Minister, a well -read man, he said somehow, the Northerners don’t trust Atiku. You hear that statement from Professor Akinyemi, Iam not the one saying it. He is not even in APC, he is apolitical am sure you know. Atiku had not emerged at that time. PDP made the mistake that they have made over the years and the mistake they made in 2015 which they are repeating now by abusing the President all the times calling him a Muslim Jihadist and all that which is not true, I repeat.
Calling him names, calling him this and that that he is the parochial man from North. As untrue as these statements are, the President is gaining the truth on two fronts. One, you are making his people trust him the more, that is what happened in 2015. That is why he swept the entire North except Gombe that narrowly escaped. He swept the entire North because he was presented with that image. You know it is parochial kind of politics. When the noise was coming from some anti Muslim areas it just appeared that they boxed themselves into those areas. South South, South East people were shouting because you cannot enter South West because we have Muslims there. South West 50% Christians, 50% Muslims. South West is divided into two. My grand Mother is a Muslim, my mother is form Ogun State. But in the head Christian areas South South, South East he lost and these sentiments continue. Even though a southerner is not on the ballot now but these sentiments continue because they thought it was there strongholds and kept the campaigns to keep these regions to themselves, presenting the man as a Demon. Anti Christan, anti this, small thing that happen they must link it to religion, somebody has been beheaded it is Fulani herdsmen. That rating is being used in the last two years to instigate hatred in some parts of the country against him. But they forget that in the part of the country where you have the highest number of voters, you are rallying them behind. They saw him as their hero as wrong as that narrative is so we are calling them to continue to do that. It is a sure lost for them in the election except they begin to address issues. The second game is that those in the South who do not believe you who expediency they have come to the ruling party because they want tickets and they want to be part of the ruling party. There Ares some persons even the Ibos now, see in the final stretch of elections they have never voted opposition party since 1999. The Ibo must be part of the ruling party. At the final stretch of the elections all these sentiments will die pure core calculations will come in, what do we benefit?
You will see the change. The point I am making is that there is now more support in the South. Because it did not happened one day, we do not know the Armageddon but if you know the amount of defections in 2015 to APC from the whole of the South South to now is actually monumental. First of all PDP has collapsed in the South West. All people have left, even people like Ladoja and all that in Oyo have left, in Lagos , Obanikoro all left, in Ondo, Mimiko left, PDP has collapsed and the support in the West is even more than the 2015. Because look at the entrance into the party. In the East you will see the entrance, Ken Nnamani, Jim Nwobodo, Orji Kalu, and Hope Uzodinma.
In the South South, Uduagan came in so you are now saying they are making in roads into the President area and the President is sleeping and is not making in roads. It is a harvest! It is a period of harvest. You harvest I harvest. Let me tell you this, PDP did not get 12 million votes in 2015. Let us be honest we are Nigerians. They did not get 12 million votes and the 15 million votes of Buhari was the pure raw efforts of Nigerians, real support. The 12 million was upped to save the face of the President then. They upped Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom last minute, they were adding figures. They did not get 12 million votes so they should not start the 2019 elections thinking that they had 12 million votes. They should start calculating from 8 or 7 million. We have 15 million already.
Let’s look at APC after the primaries there are a lot of issues how are you ensuring that they don’t become an issue in 2019?
I don’t want to go in the details of these intra party conflicts. The party will be in the better position to address those issues. I know there is an appeal committee in place to resolve some of these issues. However, politics is a situation where interests collide so badly that they must not be in the same room. Even in smaller parties that have potential to win their locality like APGA there were shootings in Anambara that someone has to run for his life. We know that in PDP primaries in some places there were shooting and scattering of ballot boxes. Any ruling party because the interests are many must have these problems. All parties that are strong have these issues , if you see any party where they are shaking hands and handing over flags to candidates know that the propensity of the party winning elections is not great. Is just an African thing so we should not even debate that. In very developed countries we also have major parties. So you cannot run away from that fact. We cannot, it is a measure of the size of those parties. Their capacity to win elections that attract interests that are diametrically opposed into the fold and the fold cannot contain everybody somebody must give way.
How do you think the herdsmen attacks in the Middle Belt will affect the President chances?
You see some people said funny things about what is happening in the Middle Belt. We have a situation where a section of the country is crying more than the bereaved. That is the situation and doing that for political reasons. The people who trumpet anti Buhari linking it up to Buhari that he is the one perpetrating it are not coming from the Middle Belt. They are coming from the South South and the South East. Why? Because they want to turn that narrative to their advantage. Many people in the Middle Belt are not linking it to Buhari, why because they know is an exogenous problem. So the very people who are there are not shouting anti Buhari. You are the one shouting anti Buhari outside the place. I saw in the Middle Belt Christians gathered and they were praying for Buhari to come back. I tweeted it, they were fasting and praying. Some people may doubt the authenticity of local government elections now but APC just swept the local government polls in Plateau State. They swept all no protest, the President party. The people who are affected there are they trusting the President less because of that? Will he lose vote significantly because of that? The simple answer is no. There are stories of how they turned the situation into political fortunes, how it were Christians that killed Christians. Will you go and tell the Birom People who have been having problem with Fulani that Buhari caused the problem when they know what happened in the past in Jos. When they know there was a time 2000 of them died in 2004, when the governor had to be suspended from office for six months. You want to go and tell these people that Buhari caused these crises?
South East are complaining of not been well represented in terms of appointments do you think Buhari will still garner their support?
Constitutionally, most senior Ministers come from the East, we have four senior ministers from the East only one is a Junior minister. In the North we have seven junior ministers. It is so bad the narrative in this country. Their constitutional right was given to them and they made senior ministers. If not for political delineation you have Delta Ibo but for political convenience they fall into South South but they are Ibo speaking and they are part of Ohaneze and they are given powerful positions when the government started, Minister of State for Petroleum and GMD NNPC, he is an Ibo speaking man. There is no correlation between appointments and development. The most undeveloped part is the East with the worst roads, Enugu – Owerri road is the worst. For sixteen years the major road PDP did is Onitsha – Owerri road, one hour drive with all the heavy ministers and appointments in the area. The second Niger Bridge remained like that despite the heavy earnings. The President just within two years has done the that. They should give the President some accolades.
What do you have to say about Orji Kalu, Babachir Lawal, Akpabio and Maina that have issues of corruption but are in APC?
First of all INEC will not even register you as a party if there is a clause is in your constitution that certain Nigerians cannot join your party. One critical clause that INEC register a party is the clause that this party is opened to Nigerians of all creed, all colour, all beliefs. If you block some people out, INEC will deregister you. That is what we call section 33, freedom from discrimination you are violating the constitution of Nigeria. So even if you take those people into the party, they cannot go to pulpit of the party and preach its gospel. Who is the leader of the party, Buhari. The leader of the party remains Muhamadu Buhari so they cannot control him, he controls them. When a sinner is coming to Church he is coming on the umbrella of the priest. This is the situation of all those joining the party. In honesty, nobody can stop them. Let them be coming but don’t let them be leaders of the party. Buhari is the National Leader of the party. That is what we are selling to Nigerians which the leaders of the other party lack. Then for those who have corruption cases but join APC, we have members of PDP since 2015 that have been refunding money and are under investigation.
Most importantly, the issue of Maina, when they testified about him in the National Assembly there was no correspondence to the President by the Head of Service, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Minister and all that. But less than 24 hours when it came out the President said get him arrested. That is what I talked about earlier, how do you react to scandal as a President and the man fled he was declared wanted and people for mischief are saying the President is hiding him somewhere. I am not saying that in terms of corruption we are where we should be because it was pervasive. The vice President have divided it into grand corruption, let’s tackle the grand corruption first where people just opened the treasury and take out money.
There is serious effort to end this humongous stealing. No government recovered money like this government since 1960. People have rubbished the government about the money but the money has to be taken back to the federation account and it will go into budgeting before use and that is what is been used for the social intervention programme that captured 12 million people, conditional cash transfer to the market money and school feeding programme instead of sharing it among the big boys let the poor people eat the money instead. So the grand corruption, they have addressed it. It takes time, cultural reorientation to stop all of that and you cannot in your true conscience said we have not moved from where we were in 2015. It may be painfully slow but there is some movement. There is a deliberate effort. There is a focal point.
(TLP)
