Alhaji Abudulkadir Abdusalam is the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP). He has been critical of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. In this interview with BODE OLAGOKE, he speaks on why the APC government can’t fight corruption, delay in cabinet formation and advised on what the President should do to enhance his performances among others.]
The issue of corruption in Nigeria, you alleged in an interview that it is been selective. How do you mean?
The corruption fight is been selective because it is not total, holistic and comprehensive enough to be far reaching so that certain people like the governors who about 16 of them are at the National Assembly now. Most of them have their files with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Most of those who surround Buhari who used state money to campaign for APC, people like Rotimi Amaechi, Tinubu, Dariye and a host of them are there. There are still with him and nothing is been done about them. His emphasis is been selective and discriminative and is one NNPC and the people at NNPC are from the same one category while we have a lot of other areas that should have been touched by now. If Buhari can actually fight corruption to the extent to which he gives the impression that he would fight it, Nigerian will be appreciative of it because Nigerians would be better for it.
Today he has no roadmap on how he wants to fight the corruption. Or is he going to arrest them today, take them to court, negotiate with them- somebody who has stolen N10 billion, give us N6 billion and take N4 billion? That further encourages corruption. This is not a military regime although he is playing everything as if he is still in a dictatorial administration. In all these corruption thing, all these money they said they have recovered, where are they, where is the money going to be channeled to and for which development basis? And if you are fighting corruption, one of his governors said he has discovered an individual in Nigeria who stole $6.1 billion in America and despite that our discovery, we are still asking the international community to give us a loan of $2.1 billion to be able to put infrastructure in the war-torn North East. So the corruption is basically been selective. It should be holistic and should be from 1999 when Obasanjo, Atiku and co, came to power. All those previous governors whose cases are with the EFFC should be freshly reopened and properly addressed.
Do you agree with APC that within the last 100 days, that the government has achieved much even without ministers?
Like I have said consistently, they came with the concept of change. Let me pick it from their manifesto, they said they are going to fightsecurity, fight economy, create jobs and fight corruption; none of these can you give them five per cent because they have not attained anything in all of these. Now come to lob for the youths, how manyjobs have they provided? They said every year, they will provide 3 million jobs, this is the fourth month and they have not provided one thousand jobs, not even one job. How do they want to get 3 million jobs? If you ask me to give Buhari percentage of any achievement, I will not give him up to five per cent because APC and Buhari don’t quality to go beyond five per cent. They are still rambling in the triangle.
As an opposition man, the comment by President Buhari recently that ministers are just noise makers, are you offended?
Yes, he has offended our psyche because his sense of self-supremacy is been over-exhibited and is getting too far. He assumes he knows it all, he understands it all and appreciates it all. First, his party says they have no hand in the selection or appointment of ministers for Buhari, which means that Buhari is the only one who knows the saints in Nigeria. Who is perfect, who is more knowledgeable, and who is more committed to the course of Nigeria that only him to his heart can bring about who and who becomes minister.
Why is it that it is him alone and it has taken four months without ministers and now to worsen the situation, he said ministers are lousy, irresponsible and lazy and only the technocrats who could work the job of ministers. Have you ever heard that anywhere in the world where the political office holders- they must take political decisions- the civil servants cannot take political decisions- that is where Buhari got it wrongthat politicians cannot take political decisions. Can civil servants take political decisions? Political decisions are what matters all over the world international diplomacy, internal diplomacy, economy, social and other wise. If you don’t take political decisions which are the responsibility of the minsters, then the technocrats cannot take political decisions because by our system they must not be heard, they can only be seen. I don’t get where President Buhari got his own deas or concepts that ministers are noise makers but only the civil servants. He wants those who will be quiet, who will be knelling for him, bowing and saying may the king live long, that what he wants.
One wonders, if you party is in power, what would you have done differently in the last 100 days?
No, don’t go into my party first. Go to the ruling party, let us talk of what they say they can do and at what time they said they cannot doit. Let’s pick it one after the other. For instance, security wise, Buhari said when he assumes power, he will lead the ministry into the war-torn area, he has probably managed to visit that place ones. Two, he said that he has absolute confidence in our military that they can fight the insurgents. But later, he changed and went and created the joint international military task force with Chad, Cameroun and Nigerto fight the insurgents which means that confidence he said he had was misplace initially. That is security and the war is still going on right now.
The tactics is changing. First, they told us that they are capturing the Boko Haram people; again, they told us that they want to negotiate with the Boko Haram people. Is it the people that you are capturing and defeating that you want to negotiate with? If actually they are defeating these people, you don’t need negotiations with them, go ahead and crush them because that is the promise they gave. Every day in one place or the other, we hear people are been kidnapped, armed robbery are taking place, in Abuja here, people can no longer sleep. The security aspect of it has not been met in any way. You said ok, he saw youths who voted for him in their large numbers,who liked him and appreciated him and the APC, he would provide jobs. Four months has gone and no jobs have been created instead those who are working are losing their jobs. In the construction industry, more than 6,000 people have lost their jobs.
In the banking industry, more people are losing their jobs and with this J.P. Morgan Chase thing, many more people are going to lose their job because international currency will not be provided for us in Nigeria and when we don’t have these funds, there is problem. You discover that even our emerging market is being brought to question at today because before international investors relay and deal with us, they will still go back to those major world marketers
to find out if they can deal with country, is the government working, is it operating? All these questions would be asked. The economy is growing into the doldrums and that is the fear that Labour Party has, and that all of us should join hands to ask Buhari and his APC to stop playing to the gallery and find solutions to this economy headlong. Every aspect of Buhari’s promises, he has not provided the way to carry, achieve or attain them.
Let us go to women. When they were going for the jamboree they went for in America, not even a single woman was carried along. Out of all his appointments, he has not been bold and courageous enough to appointment women into the special adviser or other such position. The Amina of a woman, instead of submitting her name to the Senate, he is still dilly dally over it. The women aspect of our life is been neglected and these are a majority of people who voted Buhari to power.
Coming to it again, Buhari said when he came, he met an empty treasury but no sooner than that, he made some millions of dollars available to joint task force on Boko Haram, he has been spending trillions of dollars so far now without appropriation. To what extent is Buhari implementing the budget that was passed? Is he refereeing to the budget in any way because day in and day out you will hear that so and so trillions of dollars has been spent, where is the appropriation and where is the National Assembly to ask questions? Where did you get these appropriations that you are dishing out?
The relationship between the President and the upper chamber of the National Assembly since the emergence of the Senate President doesn’t seem to be cordial. Presently, the Senate President has been dragged to the Code of Conduct Bureau for charges that were apparently rehearsed from his previous tenure as governor thirteen years ago? Do you see this as a good omen for Nigeria- the fight between the President and the Senate Presidency?
The fight is carried to the National Assembly because of the inept nature of the APC because it is CPC that is ruling in APC. The ACN has been disenfranchised, the ANPP has been put aside, and they are not even considering the ANPP not to talk of the APGA. So it is the CPC in APC that is operational that is in government and are feasible, all other birds of different feather can no longer jail in the same place.
A responsible political party would have sat down and fashion out who gets what. They didn’t do that because CPC is in control of APC and then it was taken to the National Assembly. Buhari men lost out and the PDP people- that is why I say there is no difference between the APC and PDP because they are one and the same thing because it was when PDP moved to APC that APC became more relevant and attractive. No time had the APC shown to Nigerians any agenda. For the executive and the legislature not agreeing is a fault of the party conglomeration of different people coming together and forming a political party. It is as a result of one party dominating all over and above all. There is no way we are, Nigeria will be the worse forit because APC will soon crash as a result of non-agreement. Now they are probably punishing Saraki after thirteen years. Even the CCB went to bed and suddenly they discovered that one Saraki existed and it is now that they will charge, accuse and bring him to book. What about all other people, all those presidents who have come and gone except Yar’Adua, what about all those governors? It will not work because we have a party that is not together, and that is the APC. Nigeria may be the worse for it.
You will agree with me that there are two most active opposition parties on the political landscape now- the PDP and your party…?
No, not two, PDP and APC are one and the same thing. The PDP is not an opposition party. There learning to play the role of an opposition and they have not been able to get it and they can’t get because it is just like saying the King, the Queen should come and be in opposition. It will not work. APC is an off-shot of the PDP. PDP now and APC are one and the same thing. So PDP cannot sufficiently say it is an opposition party. It is them who are still struggling to call themselves an opposition party.
Two elections are coming up within this year and your party the LP will be making a very bold show in these two elections. How is your party ready to take on Kogi and Bayelsa?
It is the press that keeps on saying PDP and APC. If you go to Kogi we have made tremendous difference. In Kogi, the practice in the past is that the so called majority tribe must produce governor and that is why the APC produced the governor from the majority and PDP did the same thing and another political party did the same thing. We want to show the world equal opportunity and social justice. With equal opportunity for everybody, that was why we picked our own candidate from one of the so called minority-the Ebira tribe- which is been supported by the central and part of the Igala people. So you discover that the man we choose is the man that has been tested and tried.
He is a very sincere, dedicated, honest and common man and that is the former deputy governor, Felix Alawo. The Kogi people want change. The same people that have been ruling them since the creation of the state remain consistently and constantly dominating and the Kogi people have to show for it. Kogi has no business with poverty considering their geographical location, and the passaged throughout all parts of Nigeria. They have natural resources; they have human resources for people not to be poor and wretched as the Kogi people are now. That is why we looked for somebody who is credible, dependable and reliable and that is the person of Felix Alawo. You discover that in Kogi, we are going to make a difference. We have finished our primaries in Kogi. In Bayelsa, we are still working out our strategy for producing a credible candidate because we cannot produce any candidate anyhow in our own situation. You will be surprised; the person we will produce in Bayelsa will be the person to beat.
In some quarters, some people are saying the acting chairperson of INEC doesn’t have the capacity to conduct that election. What is your take on that?
What do you consider as the capacity? Is it because she’s a woman?
Talking about that INEC is not properly constituted; there are vacancies of national commissioners, it is a legal thing?
That is part of what we are saying. There is no functional government in the country. There is government but is not functional; if it is functional they would have submitted her name for approval and get other people as commissioners to be part of her. Buhari thinks he can bring them there, from where to be members of INEC commissioners? I don’t know the versatility of Buhari in reaching out to people all over the country because he was a minister, governor, head of state, general and now a President. If all these background and pedigree he has no much people to rely upon at the blink of an eye to produce 30 people to occupy sensitive and prominent people, then there is problem ahead.
