David West: Jonathan Being Led Astray

Social critic and former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Professor Tam David West speaks with GBENRO ADESINA about the political developments in Nigeria, urging the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega not to allow President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and Peoples Democratic Party to destroy his good name Sir what is your reaction to the postponement of the country’s elections and what does it portend for the nation? The postponement of the presidential and other elections by the powers that be in Nigeria is a great disgrace to Nigeria, my country. However, I need to let you know that the shift has a good and bad side. Philosophically, the shift is good for Nigeria because it shows that for the first time in the history of Nigeria, a party in government is afraid and jittery of election. Before, the party in government always thought that considering the fact that it has the resources and control of the state machinery, election is a walk over. The party in government always thought that they are the Alpha and Omega and that they can do anything. But with the state apparatus of power, the party is still afraid of election. It is bad that they are creating unnecessary tension in the country. Having said that, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, as a leader and president of Nigeria, needs to know that he has signed a pact with history. There are two sides of Jonathan: political Jonathan and historical Jonathan and there is a difference between the two. Political Jonathan has been messed up. Historical Jonathan with the postponement and many others issues in retrospect has been messed up. Jonathan will leave Aso Rock with zero, zero Jonathan. The Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega has been given everything to carry out credible election. I have always said that the independence in INEC is fraudulent because the commission has never been independent. With all humility, the former head of state, the late Sani Abacha was to make me chairman of National Electoral Commission of Nigeria, NECON . People had come to congratulate me in this house where you are interviewing me. Seriki Shasha in Ibadan, one of the spiritual leaders of Abacha knows about it. I and Abacha had been friends right from when I was a commissioner and he was GOC in Port Harcourt. He wanted me there because he knew that with me, there can’t be corruption in the commission. However, Abacha changed his mind and I didn’t eventually get the job. Politicians will like somebody they can twist as INEC chairman. I am not saying that Jega can be twisted. Jega, my academic colleague who I respect, has a fantastic record in the academics. It is not easy to be ASUU’s president. He has a flawless record in the academics and political activism. I am afraid they are messing him up and he should know that after INEC, there is the university community. Whatever he is doing there, he should be guided by the fact that he is going back to the university system. [caption id="attachment_20524" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Professor Tam David West[/caption] When I showed my letter of appointment as Minister of Petroleum Resources to Felix Adenaike, he said that I should take the job but quickly added, “when you go to government, don’t do what Tribune can’t publish because Tribune will publish all the things you do. If you do well, we will publish, if you do something wrong, we will publish”. I am saying the same thing to Jega. INEC job is temporary, your career is in the university, whatever you are doing, be conscious that at the end of your job in INEC, you can go back to the academic community and boldly look at your friends and colleagues eyeball to eyeball and say, “I have made you proud and protected your sanctity as INEC chairman”. Jega must be careful so that they will not destroy him. Now to Jonathan, I said that the political Jonathan has been messed up already. Jega must do everything human and spiritually possible to ensure that the elections are free and fair as well as credible. Anybody from any quarter, no matter how powerful, should not be allowed to influence him and the process. He must ensure that anybody that gets there is the voice of Nigerians and not the infinitesimal cabal who have been holding Nigeria to ransom from time immemorial. Nigeria is greater than the individual. He should guide against all wrongdoings. Whatever happens, election must not be aborted. It must not be inconclusive but conclusive. But do you think INEC should have gone ahead with the elections? That election that was postponed should have been held if we are all sincere and patriotic. This is an election that INEC had been preparing for for a very long time, and a week to the election, the government said that it has to be postponed. It shows irresponsibility. No responsible leader will do this to a major election. This year’s election is very crucial in Nigeria. It is an election that will make or break Nigeria but I believe that Nigeria will not break and that those who want to kill Nigeria will die first. Late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu once said in London, that “nobody can break Nigeria, I tried it and I failed”. The bottom line is that Jonathan and his party believe that by extending the time, they will be able to catch up with the fantastic momentum of APC. Can they do it? I will later come to it. What happened is that PDP underrates the opposition and it is very risky to underrate your enemy. Jonathan doesn’t have good advisers. PDP had never prepared for what they are seeing because they underrated the opposition. What they are seeing has taken them by surprise. They thought with their maladministration and corruptive administration, it is business as usual but Nigerians are saying change is a must and change for betterment is what they want. They are saying that enough of bad government whose lives of its citizens means nothing to. They are saying no to terrorism, no to economic woes, no to insecurity, no to devaluation of our currency, no to abuse of power, no to corruption, no to kidnapping, no to Boko Haram, no to politicization of military and the para-military for their selfish gains, no to fraud, no to under development, no to the bastardisation of education, no to poor health sector, no to wastages, no to lack of structures that can build a healthy society, no to all wrongdoings. Now that their scorecard shows failure, they have become desperate to retain power in the most crude and illegal way. Again, their desperation has led them to be making mistakes upon mistakes, multiple mistakes. Look at Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant to the President On Public Affairs saying that APC will not last one year and that if it does, he should be called a bastard. Now that APC is more than a year, is Doyin Okupe now a bastard? They underrated APC formation saying that it will not happen because it is a conglomeration of strange fellows. When they found out that the merging was going on well, they came to say that the merger committee had broken down. I said that we have not had the first meeting and PDP said that we had broken down. Another thing they did is the planting of some of their men in the merger committee. We know them. Later, their agents showed their faces. What I am saying is that APC was ready for what is happening right from the beginning. They did everything from the outside to frustrate the primary, but our primary held and was successful. They never wanted to register us. God is with APC and nothing will stop the party. We have finished all the conditions for registration, they went to INEC and came up with all sort of hurdles to prevent the registration of APC. There was one condition difficult to fulfill, the merger must have a secretariat in Abuja. We didn’t have money to build a house for our secretariat. God performed a miracle. Few days to the deadline of registration, a business man wrote to us giving us his newly built complex free of charge as our secretariat. Then, they came up with another issue saying Tinubu and Buhari cannot work together, that also failed. To cut the story short, PDP has tried everything to frustrate APC but they have failed in all because rather than addressing fundamental problems, they were busy chasing shadows. As at now, they have come up with another stupid gimmick against APC which is attacking the personality of Buhari. Don’t you think that the Federal Government’s excuse on security is genuine? They said that they are postponing election for security reasons. President Jonathan’s National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, whom I know very well, a former ADC to Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, a very likeable man, very pleasant person, firstly flew the kite in think-thank Chatham House, London asking for and justifying postponement of the election. It is what PDP had planned for long. The reason they give is a lie. Sambo came and said the election should be postponed. They called the council meeting, Jega said there that he was ready to conduct election and they said INEC was not ready. Some of the PVCs that are yet to be collected are registered by PDP with fake names. INEC has assured us that they are ready and from that background, there is no basis for the postponement of the election. They used security as an excuse but they have failed. The security challenges that they are unable to resolve in about six years is what they want to resolve in six weeks. The reasons they are giving us are suspicious. In any case, as at today, as we are speaking, the insurgents are still bombing and operating. Their activities have not reduced. Six weeks is around the corner, let us wait and see how far they can bring down the activities of the terrorists. One thing I know and so sure of is that there must be a change in Nigeria. We need a new leader that can deliver us from our many problems and the person that can do it is Buhari. How correct is the insinuation that they are working on elongation? In fairness to them, I don’t think their mind is on elongation; their mind is to buy time to be able to catch up with APC’s momentum but they can’t catch up because Nigerians are now more conscious about what they want. What about interim government? That also will fail. The fight is not between PDP and APC but between PDP and Nigerians. If they are doing it to perfect rigging, that will be very difficult now because Nigerians really want a change. If Jonathan has done well, I as an Ijaw man will be very happy. If Jonathan wants to come to my house, I will not open my door for him because he has messed up Ijaw people. He is confused and doesn’t know what to do. If they extend the election till December, they will still lose. Don’t you have the fear like some Nigerians that Buhari can make Nigeria an Islamic nation? That is unfounded fear and one of the attacks on the person of Buhari. I have heard them saying Buhari will Islamise Nigeria. No Muslim head of state in Nigeria can make Nigeria a Muslim country and no Christian head of state can make Nigeria a Christian state because we are a secular state. Being a religious fundamentalist is good because it shows that you believe in your faith. A religious fundamentalist is different from a religious extremist. They talk without researching. I went to Kaduna, I found out that three of Buhari’s cooks are Christians, his second security officer is a Christian, his second driver is a Christian, and his confidential secretary is a Christian. These are the people that have been working with him for a long time. The late Babatunde Idiagbon’s wife is a born again Christian. In 1984 in Geneva, we had OPEC meeting but we had agreed that we will finish the meeting before 25th December. The meeting did not finish and they extended it to 25th of December. I told them that I could not stay to have a meeting on the day of the birth of Jesus Christ. OPEC is composed of over 90 per cent Muslim members. I told them that if they schedule a meeting to the day Prophet Muhammed was born, I will still object to it. I told them to respect the birthday of Jesus Christ and Muhammed. They were arguing, I said ‘no problem, I am the leader of Nigeria’s delegation, I am pulling out Nigeria’s delegation. I am not going to be here on Christmas.’ I pulled out the Nigerian delegation and the meeting collapsed and there were lots of problems in the oil market. Some Christians told Buhari that I had caused international problem, therefore, he should sack me. When I arrived Nigeria, I went straight to report to Buhari what happened. He said, “Professor, I heard what happened on television. BBC and other international news media agencies have reported what you did.” He congratulated me on what I did. He said you are right, we must respect our religion. That same night, Buhari sent me Christmas present. How can he be anti-Christian? Without being insultive, I don’t respect the intelligence of Jonathan and his men. If Jonathan is intelligent as a PhD holder that he claims, he should know when they are leading him astray. Jonathan has not shown the intelligence of a wise man. What I am saying in totality is that after they had failed in everything, they started attacking Buhari’s person. They also said that Buhari searched Baba Awolowo’s house. I had told many people that Buhari’s running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, is Baba Awolowo’s son-in-law. Are you going to love Awolowo more than his son-in-law? The quality of Buhari is making Jonathan to be afraid. They feel that if Buhari is elected president of Nigeria, those of them that are corrupt are in trouble. I said for corrupt Nigerians, the fear of Buhari is the beginning of wisdom. When all their strategies have failed, they asked themselves, what is the next plan and their next plan is to postpone election. But has that helped them? No, because they have caused more problems for themselves. What is your view on the certificate problem as it concerns Buhari? The issue of certificate they have raised is the most stupid and senseless issue that no sane man would ever think of. PDP is so anxious to destroy. How can a logical human being think that Buhari doesn’t have a school certificate? Buhari has a school certificate and he has more than a school certificate. On the statement credited to Fani Kayode that Buhari’s certificate is forged, Buhari is going to court and I am one of his witnesses. How do you perceive the threat of the militants from the Niger Delta? Nonsense. Asari Dokubo is my cousin and I used to give him pocket money in this house. Dokubo’s highest certificate is O’level. He was thrown out twice in the university. He was thrown out in the university of Port Harcourt and University of Calabar. He has the gift of the gab. He can talk from morning to night without content. He is a content empty person. That one has freedom of speech doesn’t say that he should be irresponsible. Violence is not a preserve of only one person. He is saying that he would pitch himself against the Federal Republic of Nigeria if Buhari wins and you think Buhari will fold his arms and allow anybody to destroy the country we have all built. Let’s wait till then. I feel sad that Jonathan has not dissociated himself from Dokubo’s statement. That means that he is supporting militant actions. Honestly, Jonathan does not think like a PhD. I can be too sure that one of their plans is to launch aggressive attacks on the personality of Buhari in the next six weeks, but it will not take them anywhere. Nigerians seem to be in a dilemma. They think if Buhari wins, there will be crisis or if Jonathan wins, hell will be let loose. What is your position on this? As long as election is credible, I assure you, there will not be post-election problem. The only thing that can bring post-election crisis is incredible election. If Jonathan loses, the threats of my brothers will not materialize. If Buhari loses, the north will not cause problems that can’t be curtailed. Some of the militants said they would deal with people like you? Nobody can deal with me except God. Jonathan and his campaigners said that he built many universities as part of his achievements. Do you, as an academic, see it that way? It is a nonsense claim. What is the content of the universities he has established? University is not just label, but content. Jonathan makes all sorts of claims because he does not have anything to claim. Buhari’s supporters see him as someone who does not condone corruption. But can the president police everywhere? So how can such a virtue translate into a change of our value system generally? Quite simple. Within six months, Buhari will bring down corruption. When he is elected, the fact that he is the president will make people have the fear of getting involved in corruption. He will put in place structures to checkmate corruption. He will fight corruption with his life style. As a former minister of petroleum, what is your assessment of oil resources today compared to your time? NNPC is only for contract sharing. Corruption in NNPC is monumental and they are getting away with it because they know that their leader can’t fight it. People in government have oil blocks. Do you know that Buhari does not have oil block or shares in any oil company? I don’t have either, despite the fact that I was a former oil minister who was very powerful then. What is your view on the fact that Buhari can now take the advantage of coming back to office to enrich himself just like the others have done? Absolutely not! Why should he destroy the reputation he has built for 73 years just because of four years? As long as Buhari is comfortable, as long as he can afford food, shelter and clothing, I tell you, he needs nothing again. Can some of the policies of that time work in our current situation? Buhari is going to operate from a different atmosphere, a democratic atmosphere using constitution not decree. Somebody said he overthrew Shagari, no. It was the armed forces that overthrew Shagari and selected Buhari to be the head of the government. Could you believe that Buhari’s government then was more democratic than Shagari’s parliament? In Buhari’s exco, every memo was passed by vote. When a minister presents a memo, Buhari will ask every minister to comment. After, he will say,“gentlemen, let us vote”. Could you believe that Buhari, Idiagbon and myself lost a memo? What is your reaction to the belief that Buhari is weak and that it was due to this reason that Idiagbon was more visible when he was the military head? That notion is wrong. Idiagbon and Buhari worked together like twins. Idiagbon loved Buhari so much with absolute loyalty. What is your reaction to the current happenings in Ekiti State? It shows that we as a nation are very primitive and not serious. Simple. The government of Ekiti State is primitive, not democratic. It is an obvious fact that democracy has been truncated in Ekiti State and I am not seeing sanity in the state as long as we have undemocratic government at the centre. The Federal Government is part and parcel of the current happenings in the state. In fact, it is the Federal Government that is promoting all the illegality there. Jonathan has disappointed me as an Ijaw man. Jonathan has never impressed me because he doesn’t think like an intelligent person. He has embarrassed us at the international level. I have come to a stage that there is nothing that Jonathan government does that surprises me. A former CBN governor, Charles Soludo, stirred the hornet’s nest recently (in fact, twice). Do you agree with his position on the present administration? I have not met Soludo personally and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala but I believe 10 of Okonjo-Iwealas can’t be compared to one Soludo. Soludo is more thorough than Okonjo-Iweala. I believe Soludo more than I believe Okonjo-Iweala. Okonjo-Iweala is Jonathan’s problem. Nigeria is the only country in the world that makes provision for fraud in the annual budget. Why did I say that? We have proven that petroleum subsidy does not exist but every year you make a provision for subsidy that does not exist. What do you think Nigerians stand to lose or gain for electing either Buhari or Jonathan? By electing Jonathan, we have everything to lose. Somebody that is not truthful, somebody that lies with one thing will lie with many things. If Jonathan over time showed that he was improving in what he was doing, I would have given him a chance, right now. Every human being knows his strength and weakness but Jonathan doesn’t know his weakness and even his strength is doubtful. Such a leader is a disaster. Is Jonathan redeemable? No, he is irredeemable. Even if you give him another ten years, he can’t redeem himself. Jonathan says stealing and corruption are different, how can such person fight corruption? A leader that can’t see that he is destroying himself, a leader that will accommodate somebody who is saying that if his candidate loses an election democratically, he will make the nation ungovernable and you have not arrested him? Even when somebody like Theophilous Danjuma said arrest him, you allow him to abuse the elder statesman who is doing what he should be doing. I can’t entrust Jonathan with a project called Nigeria for one hour. Come to Buhari, though people say blood is thicker than water but in this case, water is thicker than blood. Buhari is a Muslim Fulani and I am a Christian Ijaw. Whenever I talk about Jonathan’s failure, I have agony in me. In 1987, there was a public lecture where I borrowed from Martin Luther King Jr. that one day a minority man will become a president of Nigeria and if my dream of 1987 has come to pass, I have been vindicated and thank God. But Jonathan has messed up my dream and it is quite unfortunate that it will take a very long time before the presidency will come to us again. As for Buhari, I have implicit confidence in him. Buhari is a man that his worst enemy can’t say that he is corrupt, his worst enemy can’t say he is undisciplined. Buhari is transparent, you can trust him. Buhari leads by example. He is frugal. As a minister, the only amount I could spend in a month without account is N200. No minister could spend more than N200 without giving account. I love Buhari because I love Nigeria. I love Buhari because I have confidence in him that he can take us to light. I love Buhari and I thank God for making him appoint me. As a consultant professor, I was earning N20,000 per annum. When I was appointed a minister, my salary was N18, 000. Buhari didn’t believe this when he found out. He called for my pay slip and when he was given and found out that my salary was higher to what I was earning as a minister, he added N2,000 to make what I was earning as a consultant professor. If Buhari is elected, I promise Nigerian that within a year the difference will be so much they will not know that this is a country that had been governed for six years by Jonathan. Things will change. Corrupt people will start correcting themselves or running away. Education will improve and our greatest asset, petroleum industry will improve. Petroleum makes at least 85 per cent of our annual budget and 95 per cent of what Nigeria has abroad. Any government in Nigeria that can’t manage petroleum is a failure. Jonathan’s government is a failure. Compare the management of the petroleum sector and the economic policies of your time with what is happening now. During the era of Buhari, Nigeria didn’t import a litre of petrol; rather, we were exporting. Buhari has promised that if elected, he will build more refineries. Jonathan can build a refinery within 18 months but he chooses not to build a single refinery. If he builds more refineries, then we will refine more products, price of petrol will come down and the poor will not suffer. Okonjo-Iweala once said that if the petroleum price does not stay at N140 or N170, the economy will collapse, it is a lie. When I said that petrol should not be sold more than N40 per litre, they were abusing me and later, one professor of petroleum in Texas said it should not be more than N35. A virologist said N40 and a petroleum expert says N35 and that shows that I was still far off. Now, Jonathan lied. Okonjo-Iweala, you lied by saying that if petrol price does not stand at N140, Nigeria economy will collapse. When Occupy Nigeria came, you yourself reduced the petrol price to N97 and the country’s economy did not collapse, now you have reduced petrol price to N87, Nigeria has not collapsed. You are lying. They are running government that is not based on science. They are not scientific. In 1984 or 1985, there was an increase of petrol price by five kobo or thereabout and we made Chris Anyanwu to be talking to people for months. When it went through, Buhari said there should not be increase in kerosene price even with one kobo. Reason, kerosene is the only thing that villagers know showing that God has given Nigeria petrol. Buhari said we can increase PMS by five kobo but on no account should we increase kerosene price even by a kobo. Buhari refused to accept IMF loan. He gave me reason for that. The government then rejected IMF loan, did counter trade... We devised a system that makes IMF irrelevant. London Financial Times then called it extraordinary. Shagari was negotiating for $2b from IMF. IMF gave all sorts of conditions. Buhari told me he would not take IMF loan. Then, Colonel Gadaffi sent Major Malaud, his second in command to Lagos. Malaud said that Gadaffi was prepared to give Nigeria $4b interest free. Gadaffi offered Buhari $4b interest free. Buhari got up and thanked Gadaffi and the Libyan government for the good gesture and said that as juicy as the offer is, Nigeria will not accept the offer despite the fact that we didn’t have money. About counter trade, many people are ignorant. Counter trade is not trade by barter. Counter trade and barter are two different things. When I was a minster under Buhari, he appointed me without knowing me. $5.5 was N1. N2 was one pound. Today, a dollar is about N197, over N300 to a pound sterling. During Buhari’s time, he was told to devalue the naira and he said, I will not devalue the naira. He stood firm and they respected him. What Jonathan does not realize is that these international bodies don’t respect people who are soft; they respect those that are tough with responsibility. The moment an international body sees that you are shaking, they will leave you alone. Does it surprise you that America is not buying our oil? There was a particular country that I will not mention which was troubling us, we stopped our oil supply to them, and they came to beg us. That is a leader that makes Nigeria proud. Buhari can make Nigerians proud. I know that he has what it takes to lead us and what is more important is that Buhari believes in God’s guidance. This man prays regularly.