Let us revisit the issue of tackling corruption. How best do you think General Buhari can tackle corruption?

If Buhari wants to tackle corruption, it will not be a miracle. What Buhari needs to do is to make sure that the laws against corruption and the laws against corrupt practices are followed; and religiously followed. And the laws must be applied. Corruption cannot be tackled by giving an example of oneself. That is not enough. Anybody who imagines that you can tackle corruption by somehow getting different laws, I don’t believe that is necessary. You tackle corruption by making sure that those who are guilty of corruption are quickly dealt with in accordance with existing laws. If the laws are bad or inadequate, then amend the laws. So, I don’t believe that there is anything special that you need to tackle corruption; all you need to do is to faithfully (and I repeat), faithfully apply the laws that are already in existence.

Taking cognizance of the xenophobia in South Africa where Nigerians and other blacks are under attack. How do you want Buhari’s foreign policy to look like?

First and foremost, the issue of xenophobia is not a South-African problem. It is a problem for the whole of Africa, especially, the sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, I can dare say that it is a whole African problem, because I know you are aware that because of the confusion created by the Americans, the French and the British in Libya, Libya has now become a failed state. And Libyans are now taking on other people who are fellow Arabs and others of different religions and different colours and they are beheading them. Now, this is a country known for a very old civilization. You are also aware of what is happening in another failed state called Egypt, where the so called soldiers have staged a coup, taken over power from an elected President and have now sent the President to 20 years imprisonment. In fact, he might even be sent to jail for life for whatever it is he has been accused of. I know Nigerians have been molested in Egypt, I know many have also been molested in Libya and other countries. So, I am not surprised that Nigerians are being molested in South Africa and many other countries. Now, the explanation being offered by Nigerians and the Nigerian media is that, oh, we did so much for South Africa; we did so much for Angola. These people are not grateful, and all that; there is no thought of gratitude in foreign policy. If you try to define your own national interest, do it as best as possible rationally, but don’t imagine that at the end of the day, people are going to turn around and say, thank you, I am going to make my shoulder available so that you can climb on me. It doesn’t happen that way. Yes, We did so much for Angola, and for South Africa, but the reality today is that Nigerians have made themselves to be feared and hated in these foreign countries, especially in South Africa and Angola.

The primary reason for xenophobia in these countries is that certain elements in the political class believe that the problem which they have not been able to solve when Mandela came out of prison and then was made the President, they believe that it is not their fault, it is not because of their incompetence, corruption and irresponsibility. No! They want to now shift the blames on foreigners, saying, after all these people are taking our jobs—it is these foreigners who are messing up our economy and so on and so forth. That is simply far from the truth. In fact, there are very few Nigerians, very few other Africans working in the mines in South Africa. About last year or two years ago, there was a massive problem in the mines in which South African police men, black cops were shooting South African miners because they said they were a threat to them, for whatever reason. They cannot blame that on other foreign countries or other Africans or sub-Saharan Africans who are living in the country.

I think the political leadership in Southern Africa will have to do more. A: to tell their own people the truth. B: ANC as a party has to be rejuvenated because I think they have become lazy, corrupt and irresponsible. C: they also have to adopt a number of policies. For example, I am persuaded that South Africa, like Nigeria, has a very lousy national population policy. They are breeding like rats, just the way we breed like rats; and we are not going to continue developing at the rate we are breeding children compared with the resources available.

In addition, the foreign policy of Nigeria will not necessarily be binding on other countries who are either our neighbours or who we share the same colour with. For example, we have problems of Nigerians who are either being executed or who are on death row in China, in Malaysia, in Indonesia, America and Singapore and many other countries. Now, Nigerians have to learn how to be law abiding. Generally, Nigerians don’t have a reputation of being law abiding. For us and our potentials to emerge and translate into reality, into the real, regional power, we have to learn to be law abiding, not only to respect our laws but respecting other peoples’ laws. If we play with our own laws, other people don’t play with their own laws. If we can rationalise misbehavior on the part of our own businessmen and political class or even the common people, other people don’t do that. If you do something and you are punished, they will say, oh, because I am a Hausa man or Fulani man or Igbo man or Yoruba man; serious countries don’t do that. The law is the law and it is blind to their colour and blind to their own identity.

I have been saying this for over 30 years; Nigerians have to learn to respect our own laws and when we are out of Nigeria, we should realize that some of the games we play, some of the explanations we offer to rationalize what we are doing will not avail us when we are outside and we are in other peoples’ countries. We have to be very careful.

There is now the issue of one Kashamu who is a drug pusher and who has been jailed, in fact, in one of the European countries; and he is now wanted by the Americans for extradition in accordance with the agreement we have, a subsisting agreement with the United States of America. All sorts of rumours and lies are being said that it is the fault of Obasanjo, it is the fault of APC, and it is because Kashamu is PDP. That is sheer nonsense! I believe it is in the interest of Nigeria to arrest Kashamu and send him to the United States of America because he is a criminal, and he is a drug addict and drug addiction is not only a problem for the United States, it is also a problem for us and we have to do something about it. So, that is the way I look at it.

I believe Buhari’s Foreign Policy will have to be rational; it will have to be a better Foreign Policy, better managed; I mean, more rationally and holistically focused on our own national interest before we can succeed. And I sincerely hope that Buhari will be able to get a team that will manage his Foreign Policy and advise him on Foreign Policy matters. His Foreign Policy should be Nigeria-centric. The idea that we are going to make our Foreign Policy in the concept of Nigeria-Africa-World, and what have you, is no more. Nigeria’s Foreign Policy will have to concentrate on the biting national interest of Nigeria—whether they are on security, whether they are on the economy, whether they are political—whatever they are, they have to be centred on Nigeria’s biting national interest. We can build a consensus of the political class around that foreign policy so that everybody knows that what we do in A,B,C, we are doing it not because it is being dictated from Washington, from London, from Moscow or anywhere else, rather, it is because it is being dictated by our own national interest as understood by us. That is my view and it is very important.

Junaid Mohammed

What should Buhari do to solve the problem of insecurity, particularly, the nagging issue of insurgency?

This is the most important of it all and luckily, I have absolute confidence in him concerning the issue. Clearly, Boko Haram is the number one problem Buhari will be confronted with. When you look closely, you will find out that Boko Haram and the problem it poses fit into the issue of corruption. We have certain Generals like Ihejirika, like the late Azazi, like this clown now, Minimah who have been leading the Army into a blind alley. Billions of Naira has been siphoned in the name of security, it has not resolved, and there was a dangerous game which is unknown in the history of warfare—using war, a major national disaster, an insurgency, a war situation, to play politics!

Clearly, for the past six years, even though this crisis did not begin with Goodluck Jonathan, Jonathan and the military officers surrounding him and in fact, some of them like Sambo Dasuki, the National Security Adviser, who had never passed any exam, who have never distinguished themselves, who have begged to be put in that place, are there making money at the expense of Nigeria. And every Nigerian has lost people and property in one way or another in the cause of this tragedy in the past six years. I believe that Buhari will have to, tackle the issue of Boko Haram, but tackling the issue of Boko Haram itself alone will not be sufficient. It has to begin with reforming the Armed Forces, particularly, the Nigerian Army. He has to purge the Nigerian officers’ corps and make sure that those who are there are people who went into the Army not to steal, not to be billionaires, not to build houses with helicopter landing pad, and then go and bury their fathers and their mothers with billions of Naira. No.

There are people who believe that the Army is a career for them. They believe they can control themselves by being members of the Nigerian Army and that they have a contribution to make for a country and for themselves. I am absolutely certain that this can be done and it can be done within a very short period of time.

I believe also that whether Buhari likes it or not, the money that has been stolen in the name of security has to be recovered. Because billions, if not trillions of Naira has been stolen in the name of security. We will have to know where the monies are and who was doing it because it is not only from Sambo, the Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Barde has been importing military gear in his own personal name. This is not done in a civilized country, and how he came about doing it, we don’t know. Who gives him the certificate which can only be made available by the government? We will have to know. There are a lot of issues that are wrong with the Nigerian Armed Forces and they have to be rectified. And it is only by rectifying them that you can have a fighting Army that can confront Boko Haram or anybody, anywhere else. There is also the issue of our relationship with our neighbours. The Nigerian Army itself was the one barring us from any meaningful relationship with Chad, with Cameroon, with Niger Republic and other countries, because they know that if that is done, they will be forced to run the Nigerian Armed Forces the way other Armed Forces are being run. And in fact, we have advantages which we can bring to bear in the fight against terrorism which is now a global war. They didn’t want any cooperation because they wanted to be stealing the money with the full cooperation and advice from the National Security Adviser and his Special Assistant called Bello and others. We have to go into that and find out. There have been instances when helicopters were brought in from Eastern Europe. These helicopters might be the best in the world, but they are not meant for tropical countries like ours and those helicopters have taken off and crashed in Adamawa several times.

The NSA who is behind the order must be investigated and the money he stole must be brought back. There have been instances where a private plane was used to take money, cash, like common criminals, and as result of a tip off, the money was found in South Africa. I don’t know whether the South African government has returned the money or they have not returned the money. At least, if it is returned now, we are sure that the money will find itself back into the treasury. If it had been returned before, we don’t know where the money would have gone. And there are so many other instances whereby we now go and recruit mercenaries from South Africa. We bring them to Nigeria and we say they are here for training. I don’t know how a legitimate Army will now go and hire mercenaries and say they should come and fight for us. It is only a failed state like Sierra Leone in the past, like Liberia and a few other countries that were able to go and recruit mercenaries. And those mercenaries could not do anything. Nigeria had to go into Liberia and Sierra Leone and we lost over one battalion in fighting to bring democracy and stability to those countries.

So, you can see that we went and succeeded where a mercenary Army failed. Now, there is a tragedy and we are bringing or recruiting mercenary Army from a racist and apartheid regime to come and fight for us. I learnt that the negotiation was done by Sambo Dasuki and we are now being told that some $30 million has been paid. We don’t know how it was paid and who authorized the payment and on what basis. These are issues that have to be investigated. But if Buhari made a blank statement that ‘I am going to fight Boko Haram,’ without first, rooting that fight on getting a prepared Army that can confront the insurgents, then, I am sure, and with due respect to him as a retired General, that things may take longer than expected and it is not going to be a joke fighting some of these scoundrels who are Boko Haram. They are a terrible tragedy to Nigeria. They have done so much to soil the name of Nigeria as a country. There has been plenty of mischief by some people in government who imagine that they could play politics with this major national and international terrorist phenomenon. We lost face and so much respect in the international community. We have to do something to gain our respect and retrieve the lost respect, otherwise, we are finished in this country.