What are your expectations of President-elect General Muhammadu Buhari’s 100 days in office vis-à-vis APC managing its polls success?
Your expectations must be hinged on the preparations of the president-elect to take over the reins of power. First and foremost he ran under a political platform.
The political platform never had a shadow cabinet. If they had a shadow cabinet they would have being able to identify critical issues that they need to arrest so that they can be on the driver seat of the economy. Why should everything be centre around on the president-elect? That shows the weakness of the party. It is a clear manifestation that the party has no knowledge of the government they are taken over.
It is very critical that a government that is coming in to take over the reins of power from another government it has successfully alleged that that government is inept, corrupt, lack focus do not know the fault line of that government.
If you know the fault line of that government that should be the critical point you will use to manifest in your 100days in office. So, if they are telling me that they have to take over the government to know the fault line of the a government they have defeated in an election that even shows that they don’t even understand the mega national leadership question is.
You cannot manage a success without a plan. First of all they were running a election, the election they were running was a whole self political gingery going to assemble people and address them and sign songs and dance.
They now need to isolate the weak points of this government and that is where there grid for reconstruction will start. First of all we are doing a transition without a time line, this is critically wobbling. You must have a time line; at what time do he move into defence building.
What time dose he was able to talk about the cost of his own election and the weakness in the system that brought him. These are post winning statements he needs to make for the people to understand, because Section 91 of the Electoral Act is very compelling on every candidate that contested election that you must do an analysis and file a return on the cost of that election whether you lost or you win.
When you are coming to takeover a government you cannot tell me you are coming to take over on continuity. Is a vague language, it shows emptiness. There is a manifesto of the party, when you superimpose the manifesto on the people to the weakness of the government you have taken over you will know the critical area you will build your support base. You do not start releasing prisoners, you do not start with making general statement condemning people and lucking people up that is the regime they were use to.
You now start and think and tell Nigerian what is the key issue that is paramount to every Nigerian mind; you talk about security, who is responsible for security, has he been doing a good job we have a very weak police force, a police force that is ill equipped, a police force with a weak recruitment base, a police force distrusted by the people, they will provide law, order and security.
Then what is the most critical thing in the mind of every Nigeria, justice, justice. The critical thing in the mind of Nigeria is not corruption. Access to good governance if you want to challenge what is going on who do you report to. So the man who runs for president should know his cardinal point of how to win back the electorate. It is not a question of coming to tell Nigerians that you are not a magician.
Nigeria situation was an advertisement for a magician leader and if Buhari pretended to go and take a job of a magician leader and now tell us he is not a magician that is the beginning of his failure. What is the cardinal issues and the fault line of PDP administration that you want to take over. Is he able to tackle the corruption in the national assembly starting with the membership of his party? Now they are looking at the speakership and principal officer, the party has not set criteria for attainment of that position. They are in the darkroom of quota system and zoning. So, nothing has changed.
How do you think that General Buhari, a former military dictator and a considered Muslim religious fanatic is going to marrying his presidency under democratic governance with rule of law will anything change?
Yes it is very possible but one thing that all the leaders that I have known and read in history books is that they are extremely very intelligent people, very discipline, hard working, they have intellectual capacity and they are highly disposed in cultivating other leaders. If you now put Buhari in this frame of the leaders I have known dose he qualifies? There are certain areas that he is deficient, so this is what he need quickly have to see a way to do body filler by those who are very close to him.
Let me warn him not to advice him don’t give any political appointment to anybody that has contested election and lost, that is the beginning of a revenge psyche. Give them contract let them not show up in your administration at this critical moment. It is not for compensation so, do not give political position to anybody that contested an election and lost.
What is the position of Ndi-Igbo in Buhari’s administration, do you think he is going to repeat his selective prosecution that manifested during his days as a military dictator considering the fact that Igbo’s didn’t vote for him?
First of all when people talk about that Ndi-Igbo did not vote for Buhari I seat back and interrogate whoever is propounding that fallacy.
Those who voted in Igbo land, the elites in Igbo land did not participate in the election and most elites in Igbo land are conservatives, they like order they want progress they have worked for their money.
They were not part of the stealing going on in Nigeria. Every Igbo man that have made money in this country must have walked his way around outside government, so they are conservative people who want to see order in this society so that they will thrive. It is those lazy people who have been stealing that continued with PDP, the elite abstained from participating and mobilizing for Buhari that is what the picture shows.
If the elite have mobilized for Buhari, he could have won here but they did not participate and they were aloof not that because anybody who tells you that he likes what is going on in Nigeria must be benefiting the Igbos are not benefiting in the looting going on in Nigeria.
How can you say they voted for PDP? It is those who are massively involved in getting mega contracts that want continuity that is the first issue that I will interrogate. Another issue is; the Igbos cannot beg Buhari for position in government Buhari needs Igbos more than he needs any other ethnic group because we are the only people that will contribute and bring a working credential to his government. We will put our soul in it, we will bring the intellectual leg, the truthfulness to serve and we have never shied away of being part of any government that wants quality leadership.
So we can’t, but the most important thing is that Buhari must have the intellectual capacity to identify good people and is he tolerant to build other leaders. Because he cannot tell me that he is intellectual sagacious, that is one thing I don’t know he is discipline but that is not enough.
A leader must motivate other leaders, Buhari haven’t shown me that he like theme work otherwise the party have no grid on how to run the country. They have a manifesto let them bring out the necessary leg in the manifesto; I haven’t seen anything happening in the states being controlled by APC that is different from what is happening in PDP. None of APC governors is fighting corruption in their state that is the bedrock of corruption in Nigeria the states.
So, I don’t see the magic and will he be able to confront the national assembly, when the leadership of APC has not set the standard for those who will aspire for the leadership of the national assembly? So what are we expecting in the nest 100days nothing.
Election is not war to my mind election is not war. Election is like a game where you know when the chips are down a war situation can change that you have captured the capital territory of a given nation cannot be capitulation of army, the tactical withdrawal by them so that they can make a formidable franking it could be by way of within space of time that the armament and the defence of the territory will cause more men they can withdraw but in an election is like a game where you see the result coming in and you take a decision.
Is a personal decision not like you need a war, so nobody can equity a election with a war situation because in a war situation can change your enemy can at frank you and invade your own territory and caught off your army. So the concession by Jonathan is a new spirit in Nigeria because is only in this country that indices of political combat have remain seen as shroud as possible.
Politics is won on strength of your constituency and what you call your credentials for which you are using to go for election. In Nigeria you only win an election with money that is why people don’t know their limitations. There is everything against Jonathan winning this election. First and foremost you look at the issue of demography. Before an issue looking at the major players; Mohammed Buhari are more in number than people from Jonathan’s constituency. Jonathan comes from the state call
Bayelsa, the other man come from the state call Katsina.
Numerically he will be persuaded and in the face of political ideology, primordial sentiment set in by the coming together of the amalgamation of AC, CPC, ANPP, ACN, and other fragment of APGA forming a political party, coming together. They have being in power all these electoral contests was contested with people’s money and nobody is asking questions.
Jonathan has decided to cut off his loss by conceding defeat and now it has work for him. So, I don’t think Jonathan has become the new pope by conceding defeat. He saw the result coming in and the best thing are cut off his loses. Is a new culture we are now imbibing in if you know that you are losing you throws in the towel? We see pocket of resistance in some immoral association complaining about the result of the election when the major benefactor of their election has thrown in and conceding defeat. I think they all should bury the hatchet and forget everything and there should be no litigations in this election.
How can you describe the political harlot decamping from PDP to APC because the party lost the election?
First of all we have no ideology. Nigeria is free to move around because it is all about personality, religion and ethnic politics and Nigerians have not being persuaded by anything. The parties themselves, PDP having been in power were promoting corruption in the last 16years and the actors that form the backbone of APC were just people who disagree on personal ground with the major actors in PDP.
They just change camp and the anti-corruption which is the major project of Mohammed Buhari, they have not been able to show within the time of the preparation and time to show that APC controlled state now should ransacked their house in line with their candidate now the president-elect on values, order and corruption. It shows that they are just living on Buhari’s dream. The machinery to set the motion is not only on federal level the state having done nothing. The APC states have no agenda for corruption.
Buhari has started telling Nigerian to be patient with him when he has not even sworn in as president that to governor Nigeria is not a tea party. What is your take on that?
Buhari has one benefit, let us give him the honeymoon till when he is sworn in on May 29th. But so far so good I have not seen anything. By now people that should be coming to meet with Buhari for meeting and issue would have shown people that there is no posturing, that is a new leadership.
It is the same people coming from PDP to join APC. I want to see his marshal plan to deal with Nigeria. Nigeria lack order and impunity is all over the place and the first sorry area he should beginning with Osibanjo tackle is the judiciary. I taught by now they would have come up with plans to deal the corruption in the judiciary. Judiciary is the rotten place I said, when you clean up that place everybody will queue up.
It is a small sector he can deal with, with fine policies and make provisions for the judiciary officer’s proper welfare, then look into the method of appointing judges that is very, very fundamental method of appointing judges and what the judges themselves are doing. Because we need laws now that some of the judicial pronouncement be brought to parliament for people to know what great treason that some judiciary pronouncement have cost this country.
Are we likely to see two campuses in the National Assembly as being postured that PDP will frustrate APC in change agenda?
We have one camp, parliament of the federal republic of Nigeria constituted by
people who used different platform. No ideology but a president that want to lead his country well another parliament is at his disposal, the people. You can go straight to the people using power of persuasion and you must be ready to do the right thing.
The members of the parliament are members of the society. Even in the last parliament most of the critical issues for debate, motion where sponsored by PDP members, which if you go through the record it is so difficult to get, the problem we have is that the president must show the protocol with which he want to tackle corruption. The building institution we talk about is creating opportunity, transparent if you know how to create opportunity for transparency you would have strengthen the institutions.
There are certain positions you must look at institutions like EFCC, 80 percent of people in EFCC are members of Nigeria police force. That place is a transfer dungeon. In EFCC 80 percent of them have not read the law that governor them. They are into debt collection; they are into plea bargain, making agreement with complainant.
The president must show us the protocol of doing this is not by moving around going to campaign and rest of them. During the campaign you see them talk off paper, nobody is holding paper, they talk off record because there is nothing to persuade Nigerians. Nigerians are more proactive in terms of change than even the political parties hoping to see something but they will walk away disillusion. The only integrity that is around is Buhari integrity that he abhor corruption that is not enough in government.