What are the attributes that really drew you to the President?
The first one is his simplicity. I
just love his simplicity. He is a very simple man. Then I like the fact
that he is very straight forward. I like people who know where they
stand with anybody. It is either yes or no. When he says yes, it is yes;
when he says no, it is no. Then, of course, integrity, to me, counts a
lot. The fact that every man can testify that he is a man of integrity
gets me because I love integrity and then transparency and
accountability. A country like Nigeria where anything goes and then you
see a man that has chosen to be transparent and accountable. Look at all
the positions he has held in this country, yet he remains a simple man.
I love that kind of person. Why can’t I support him? Why can’t I point
Nigeria to that kind of person? He is good for our county? So that is
why I did it.
But many Nigerians don’t really
share these ideas. Some will be quick to dismiss all these, saying that
beyond the facade, you may discover many others things when you dig
deep.
Well, if they say that, they have
a right to their own opinion but then we want to see the evidence to
justify that. You don’t need to look far. Just look at the positions the
President has held: governor of North-Eastern State, which is now six
states: Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba. Then he went on
to become the Minister of Petroleum Resources and held that position
for three and a half years. Can you hold such position and not have oil
blocks? If anybody thinks President Buhari has an oil block, let him
show it to us? After that, he became Head of State and he was there for
20 months; after that, he was Chairman, Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, and
we know all the achievements he made in that position and then today
President. Not many Nigerians have this kind of pedigree and who are not
going to be stinkingly rich. I am not saying President Buhari is a poor
man, but then I don’t think he is stinkingly rich when he held all
those positions. He should be stinkingly rich and it is only a very rare
Nigerian that will not be stinkingly rich after holding those
positions.
You said when he was toppled
you were truly sad. Now he has another opportunity! What do you crave
for? Or do you say he has changed from who he used to be and perhaps
may not realize those things that he would have truly accomplished if
his government then had continued?
Whether he has changed, yes, I
would say he has changed in some areas and, in some areas, he remains
the same. You know that age tempers a man. Age has tempered him but for
good. Remember, after he was inaugurated, some officials of the former
administration were about travelling out and the security officials and
agencies were stopping them and, you will recall that a statement was
issued that they shouldn’t be stopped. That shows you that the man is
really temperate now rather the old Buhari. The military man would have
packed all of them immediately he was inaugurated and they would be
heading for jail and then you would be sifting the weeds from the shaft
there after. So, that already shows that he is a different man, a more
mature person, a more reflective person, a more contemplative person
and that can only come with age. Again, you would see what played out in
the National Assembly. You know he is a man who wants to respect the
Constitution. That shows he is already different from the soldier that
ruled this country. If he was a person that didn’t want to respect the
Constitution, he would have interfered in the selection or the election
of the leadership of the two chambers, but he left them and said anybody
that emerged, he will work with. What he didn’t know is that not
everybody was going to respect the rules and we saw what played out. In
terms of whether he is a changed man, yes, he is a changed man. He is a
true democrat now. There are so many things that have come up in just
six weeks of the administration that show you that this is a man that
respects the Constitution and will continue to respect it. So, he is a
changed man in those areas, but then there are some areas like
accountability, transparency, integrity; of course you know that he will
never change in those areas and that is the reason he was elected.
Imagine a man who was a military leader 30 years earlier getting elected
just on the basis of integrity, transparency and accountability; you
know that kind of man will never change that.
Some persons argue that if this
man doesn’t exercise his authority, things might still go wrong because
a leader is a leader. Being the President of Nigeria, he is the leader
of the party in all ramifications. There is a proverb in my place that
an elder doesn’t sit idly while the goat dies in tethers. He can’t be
sitting while things are going wrong.
If you also permit me to quote
another proverb or a saying that a tiger doesn’t proclaim its tigress. A
tiger doesn’t need to come out and say ‘I am a tiger’. When he does
that, go and check properly, he can be a cat, but when you see a tiger,
you know it is a tiger. So, he doesn’t need to ride over everybody
before they know that he is a leader and indeed he is a leader. He has
the traits, the characteristics and all the potentials. He has
everything it takes to be a leader. He doesn’t need to throw his weight
around before everyone knows he is a leader.
Let me take you back a little
to the issue of allowing the last government officials to travel. Does
that mean that he has hands on probity, assuming there was something to
probe?
He has said it that money in
billions of dollars will be recovered. But you know the world is too
small a place for anybody to hide if you are running from justice. The
world is too small a place to hide. You will be fished out. So, there is
no need that you say they should not be heading for jail if eventually
the law goes after them. Very few countries can they hide in and how
long will they hide? So, it doesn’t mean that anybody that has ill
gotten wealth will not regurgitate it. They will. Remember when he went
to Germany for the G7 summit, he met with President Obama and Obama
told him to just give us information on where the loot is hidden and we
will help you recover it and the government has been working on that.
So, that shows that looters will never go free.
Is he going backwards? I mean where is he going to start to probe?
He can’t afford to go too deep
into the past or else it will be destructive for his administration.
There are some things you can’t close your eyes to while you don’t want
to shine the torchlight into the dark recesses of our past; immediate
past where things are evident. The Yoruba have a saying that the corpse
we buried, the leg is sticking out and, if you bury a corpse and the
leg is sticking out, you can’t pretend. When there are trails all over
of the monies in billions and trillions, then a responsible government
can’t close its eyes to that.
Let’s look at insecurity. In
the last two weeks, the bombings have increased. People have expressed
fear that the government’s efforts in the past one month and two weeks
haven’t really paid off because I know that the President, immediately
he was sworn-in, travelled to places and there was this assurance. But
then it does appear much hasn’t been done in that direction?
Let me draw an analogy. One day,
the world woke up to hear that Osama bin Laden had been killed by the US
Navy Seals. But did you know how long it took to plan that operation?
It took 24 months of painstaking planning. Drills, simulations, all
that happened until they got him. I am not saying it is going to take
24 months before this government breaks the back of Boko Haram. I am
just telling you that planning needs to be carefully done and that is
what is being done. In his very first week in office, he went to
Niger, Chad and why did he go? Because of this Boko Haram thing and one
major reason he went to G7 is because of the Boko Haram issue because
the leaders of G7 said ‘come and let us know what we can do to help’.
After that, the leaders of Chad, Niger, Benin Republic, Defence Minister
of Cameroon also came here under the Lake Chad Basin Commission. They
are planning. Before the end of this month, after he comes back from
America, he is going to Cameroon and why is he going there? Still on
Boko Haram and you know there is a multinational task force they are
contributing to and Nigeria has released 21 million dollars for the
joint task force. That is money Nigeria can use in other areas but it
has invested 21 million dollars in that joint task force. That shows
seriousness and I think July 21 has been picked as a date for that
force to swing into action. Nobody can fairly accuse this government of
not doing anything about Boko Haram. It is doing a lot and, eventually,
we will see the end of insurgency.
Let’s also look at the
appointments so far made by the Buhari government. The government has
been accused of lopsiding the appointments. It has been people from the
North. That’s the impression out there.
Those people from the North, are
they Nigerians? So, if they are Nigerians, they have the right to be
appointed and then I am sure there could be up to 500 appointments still
ahead. Federal Boards that just got dissolved alone had 601
appointments. They are going to be filled. The cabinet is going to be
constituted. Other persons and aides are going to be appointed. As at
the time they began to talk, only nine appointments had been made and
they said eight northerners and one southerner. They forget that some
of those appointments are statutory, the next in rank. They just have to
be the ones that will take those positions and some of those again are
security chiefs. Security is an area where you take the very best. It is
not something you subject to emotional considerations or other
primordial sentiments. Take the very best who can deliver particularly
at a critical time like this. So those who have started counting, I
think it is premature. There about 500 appointments left to be made and,
when those appointments are made, that is when they can begin to
analysis. Doing it after nine appointments, I think that is hasty and
fault-line in our country. Nigerians are too suspicious of leadership,
other ethnic groups, too suspicious of many things. If we are less
suspicious, then this wouldn’t have come up yet.
There are still these feelings
from the members of the public that President Buhari and his political
allies in the South-West, people like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, have fallen
apart; that, in fact, the President has disappointed the South-West that
massively voted for him at the polls. How do you address this
sentiment?
I am glad that you used the word
“these feelings” which is different from reality. Just a couple of days
ago, Bola Tinubu himself came out to say there was no rift between him
and the President. I think things that are unfolding are part of our
political experience, political development. You will see that in the
next dispensation, most of the things that happened now will not happen
because the actors would have learnt. If the President in the next
dispensation wants to leave the leadership of the chambers of National
Assembly to elect their own leaders as President Buhari has done, the
party will need to play its own part. Everybody involved will play his
or her own part so that what has happened now will not happen again. It
is part of the learning curve, but for anybody to say the West is
disappointed, it is not true. A lot of people who voted for President
Buhari in the West have been loyal to him. Even those who didn’t vote
for him are beginning to see that he is a leader worthy of their support
and they are giving their support.
Do you really believe in the
Presidency of Mr. Buhari to radically move this country away from what
it used to be, judging from the fact that he is an old man now? Won’t
his age really affect him?
You have heard the saying that
old wines are tastier. Buhari is like a wine that gets better with age. I
said this earlier and, I repeat again, he gets better with age; sound,
sober, contemplative, not rash. You see what is happening now, Boards
have been dissolved. There are terminations and new appointments. You
know he could have done that in the very first week and then he could
have made mistakes, but this is the sixth week and he is doing all those
things and I think, at the end of it, all Nigerians will be glad that
they elected him. I don’t foresee failure; no, it will not happen, but
it will demand that Nigerians will give him support and work with him
but I believe in the change that was promised to this country.
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