[caption id="attachment_88894" align="alignright" width="560"] Junaid Mohammed[/caption] Dr. Junaid Mohammed, Second Republic Lawmaker representing Kano, died on Thursday, 18 February, 2021 at the age of 73. That was after a brief illness which his son, Suleiman, said lasted for three days. Below is an interview he granted TheNEWS in 2015 when General Muhammad Buhari won the election and he was to be sworn as President. What Buhari Should Do-Junaid Muhammed On 29 May 2015, the day all eyes in the world will focus on Nigeria, approaches, notable Nigerians have continued to set agenda for General Muhammadu Buhari,the president-elect, the man whose shoulder will bear the responsibility of fixing a country which has been battered for 16 years. Among these Nigerians is Junaid Salik Muhammed. His philosophy of politics is based on social conscience: that there would be a government not based on the selfish interest of the very few but on the maxim of Social Contract which provides means for the common man to live comfortably. Born in the tiny community of Sankin in the old city of Kano, now in Dala Local Government Area, Muhammed, after his primary and post-primary education in Kano, left the shores of Nigeria in 1969 for the Soviet Union, where he obtained M.D. First Class Honours in Surgery, Internal Medicine Gynecology, Hygiene and Public Health at Kharkov State University. He also had his Post Graduate Certificate at London University Institute of Neurology, with specialization on Nervous Diseases in 1978. Apart from serving as a lecturer in Neurology at The Royal University of Hong Kong in 1979, Junaid worked in different capacities as both medical practitioner and an academic at different institutes and organizations in the old Soviet Union. In the Nigerian political landscape, Muhammed is not a small fry. As a prominent member of the Second Republic House of Representatives, young Muhammed was a founding member of the defunct Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, in 1979 on which platform he was elected into the House in the first and second segments of the Second Republic. From 1979 to 1984, he was the National Director, Research and Party Education of the PRP, during which period he also doubled as the Kano State Secretary of the party. Throughout the Second Republic government, he was the PRP Chief Whip and Parliamentary Party Leader. From 1980 to 1984, Muhammed also served as the Deputy National Secretary-General of PRP, reputed as one of the best opposition parties ever in West Africa. At the inception of the House in 1979, Muhammed was nominated as the House Chairman, Foreign Relations Sub-committee on International Organisations, International Economic Relations, and Socialist Block. He was made a substantive chairman of the Committee in 1980, a position he held until when the military struck in 1984. One of the vocal voices in the Second Republic legislative arm, Muhammed was member: House Committee on Selection; Finance and Appropriation Committee; Committee on Health; Committee on Science and Technology; Joint Committee on Intelligence and National Security. [caption id="attachment_23870" align="aligncenter" width="225"] •Dr. Junaid Mohammed[/caption] Brought up under the tutelage of a father who was a chieftain of Northern Element Progressive Union, NEPU, Muhammed, like his late father, belongs in the school of thought of the late Malam Aminu Kano. Muhammed was the national leader of the defunct Peoples Salvation Party, PSP, in the last dispensation. During General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s military regime, Muhammed at one time, served as Chairman, National Orientation Agency, NOA, and Commissioner, Business and Commercial Transactions of Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission OMPADEC. It was his late friend, Senator Uche Chukwumerije who was then Minister of Information who persuaded him to serve as chairman of NOA, during Babangida’s government. In fact, Muhammed was badly hit by the death of Chukwumerije, an incident which almost made this interview impossible, but for the persistence of our correspondent. Muhammed and Chukwumerije are long-term close friends, “he is like a brother to me; and I mourn him bitterly,” he told our correspondent. Muhammed also served briefly in ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Think-Tank— Independent Policy Group, IPG. He said: “The first head of the IPG was Prof. Dotun Philips who was succeeded by the Professor Bade Onimode. In the course of my service at the Think-Tank as Policy Advisor on Poverty Alleviation, I found out that Obasanjo had changed. He was becoming rude, though not to me. He was becoming crooked in financial matters. When I realized that Obasanjo was too far gone and his government was a disaster in waiting, I resigned and came back home to Kano.” On how Buhari can redeem Nigeria, Muhammed who accused Service Chiefs of looting Nigeria blind in the pretence of fighting Boko Haram, advocated a total purge of the Nigerian Army and other Forces, insisting that General Buhari must investigate, prosecute and jail corrupt politicians and public office holders. Muhammed also told MADUABUCHI NMERIBEH that in the next dispensation when APC will hold sway, Nigeria needs one or two strong opposition parties; but not the PDP, a party he wishes a final burial. By 29 May, General Muhammadu Buhari will take the mantle as the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. What do you think should be his agenda to build a better Nigeria? Well, I am not sure how realistic that is. You understand that I cannot sit in the comfort of my own room and dictate to General Buhari the enormous responsibility of being the Chief Executive of this country, and to tell him what and what should be his agenda. But I am a citizen of this country, and I have certain rights. Also, General Buhari’s administration is going to be my government, your government and the government of every Nigerian. And to the extent that a citizen will have the right in a democracy to tell our leaders what we think are the priorities of government and the business of governance, I will try. But I am not guaranteeing you that what I tell you will be essentially Buhari’s own agenda or the agenda of his party and all those who are part of his inner circle. But, as a citizen, I mean, I will try my best. The question itself is loaded. Because, when you are talking about the programmes of an in-coming government, you are talking of not just about one issue, you are talking about clustered issues. One, the President himself has to identify and find out the important areas of public administration, public management, resource orientation and so on and so forth. Number two, what he as a person and as a politician has done in terms of thinking through the programmes together with his own party; together with his own think-tanks; and together with other people who are his own advisers—known or unknown. Thirdly, there is also the overriding reality of the government! Nobody who is outside the government can tell you he knows everything that is in there. And very many politicians, in fact, the majority of the politicians, in spite of their promises, in spite of their goodwill, find out that what they have promised the people, what their party has promised the country, and the world is vastly different from the reality which hit them in their new days in office. And that is very important. So, I am not in government, but I can only guess, having been there some time in the past, that a lot of the promises made by Buhari may not be translatable in the manner he wishes them to be translatable, simply because, one: the economic profile and the resource situation in the country are going to be vastly different from what he had known or had imagined when he came into politics. Number two: Buhari must have known, as a former Oil Minister himself, that the bulk of our Foreign Exchange earnings is dependent on oil and that the oil situation from the beginning of the campaigns sometime last year to date, is totally different from what is then and what it is now. At the time Buhari started his campaign at about six months ago or thereabout, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $120, but today it is still hovering around $50, $55! And nobody can guarantee that it will stabilize at that price, even though certain powers—especially, the United States of America and the big oil companies—which are mostly Europeans and Americans; and of course, the Saudi Arabia errand boys of the United States, have determined to stabilize the price of crude oil at around $50 and $55. This is simply because it suits their own national interest and it suits their own national economies to have the oil price not fall below $50, $55. Now, if you are talking about the price of a commodity which was $120 per barrel about six months ago and it is now $50 or thereabout, you can see there is a huge difference in terms of the stark economic realities, and in revenue profiling which you have to confront yourself with when you find yourself in government—that is number one. Number two, it has since become a cliché, even among rogues and scoundrels who are now in government (and I thank God that they are leaving), that corruption is the number one problem of Nigeria. Now, Buhari has had a reputation for being seen and perceived to be a very honest person and honest in fighting corruption. But from the time Buhari, got elected to date, the level or the perception of corruption within Nigeria and about Nigeria by the international community and our trading partners has got a lot worse. In fact, what we now see is worse than what everybody and anybody could have imagined. Now the trillions that are being spoken about and being spent on election campaigns are nothing but a national disgrace and an international scandal. A nation with our own resource base cannot justify spending that amount of money at the national level simply to pick an individual or maintain an individual as the President of this country. That is an issue. Besides, we had first thought that corruption was only one problem or part of the major problems of nation building—but we are now beginning to realize that in everything that we do or we don’t do, corruption rears its ugly head! And this means that if you are now going to fight corruption, you must be prepared to fight a hydra-headed monster whose tentacles have spread into every singular activity you are going to have to confront yourself with during the period you are in government. And that is not an easy task, it is going to be a very tough task for Buhari. In addition, on the issue of corruption, many of the people who claim to be soul-mates of Buhari, in terms of commitment to fighting corruption are themselves very corrupt! So, Buhari will have to be very careful because you don’t know who is actually with you in spirit and who is with you only in the way they verbalize that corruption is the problem. In fact, there are many within the party, APC; and in particular, within the PDP who believe that the whole talk about corruption is nothing but a waste of time. That is, they believe that corruption is a way of life for Nigerians, that it is nothing but kola, you know; and therefore, we need not bother ourselves, that it is our own way of doing business! That is a very dangerous thing because unless corruption is tackled, there is nothing that is going to happen about Nigeria’s development. What they were talking, what we are talking now, will be what we are going to talk about in the next 20, 30 and 50 years—unless corruption is tackled. It has to be confronted and we have to prevail on it before we can even begin to talk about any other problem. Then, of course, as an issue, in terms of where we are as a developing country, we know and history, political science and political economics have taught us in normal, certain terms that no country can develop, unless it develops its infrastructure. In simple terms, issues like highways, dams, ports and wharfs, airports, waterways, water, communications, airways and above all, electric power are absolutely vital and absolutely indispensable to any nation’s development. And I give you a simple example, most of the develop countries in the world today have exhausted more than 60 per cent of their potentials for electrical development. In the case of Nigeria which is an African country and in the case of the whole of Africa, we have only exploited one per cent of our potentials for electric power development, which goes to prove that the potentials here are enormous, but the need for investment for these potentials to translate into reality is massive. And there has to be a very determined leadership that can make it happen. [caption id="attachment_88894" align="alignright" width="560"] Junaid Mohammed[/caption] Finally, and I have been saying this for the past 30 years, that for Nigeria to develop, and for Nigeria to prevail on all or any of her problems, there has to be what I have always regarded as elite political consensus. The elite have to be serious, they have to be sincere, and they have to be committed. Take any country in the world today where development, I mean meaningful development has happened: I give you recent ones—the Peoples Republic of China, India, these are all civilizations which have been hamstrung by poverty, by illiteracy, by hunger. For a period of five to seven millennia, there was never a year which China did not have a major famine in the country, but from the Chinese revolution of 1949 to date, there has never been a major famine in China and that is a huge achievement. In addition, within a period of 30 years, from 1980s to 2010, China has succeeded in taking out of poverty over 350 million people; people whose means of livelihood could be measured in what they were able to earn and spend within one Dollar a day. Now these people are approaching middle-class and some of them are already in middle-class—this is a huge achievement. And if you look at a country like India, their achievements in terms of fighting poverty and development are modest, but it is still huge, given the fact that you are talking about a country with the population of 1.1 billion people. Another country like Brazil has developed. It has its own problems, but it is among the countries moving forward in terms of development. Then, look at some of the smaller countries, Cuba since the revolution of 1959 has been a great country and has maintained a good standard of living in spite of their poverty. It has maintained a standard of education and medical services at par with the northern European countries, particularly. Today, the life expectancy in Cuba is about the same thing with the life expectancy in Sweden, Norway and some of those developed countries. It is also about the same thing with life expectancy in America. In fact, there are people in America whose life expectancy is much less than that of the Cubans in spite of their enormous resources; and of course, efficient imposition of economic brocade on the country (America) itself. So, for us to even begin to imagine that we can move somewhere, the Nigerian elite, the political class and other members of the Nigerian project—whether they are business men, professionals, whether they are politicians or non-politicians, whether investors or business men, we must have to sit down and face our problems squarely and accept these: A: the nature of the problem. B: the way we are going to have to go about solving the problem or overcoming the problem. You see, this is not an easy question to answer; because number one, I am not Buhari; and two, he has lots of problems to solve—I mean, lots of overhangs which he has to confront himself. But one thing I can say, however, is that capitalism, as known throughout history, has only succeeded in developing a certain group of people or a certain class. And capitalism has never succeeded in defeating poverty; and those who imagine that our problems lies in blindly following the dictates of the IMF and World Bank and of course, some other dictates by the western countries who are all themselves very capitalistic, are making a very serious mistake. And we have seen the lies we have been getting from the likes of the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and others about capitalism. Capitalism has not solved the problems of the West. Remember the economic melt-down which came in 2008—it is an indication that capitalism no matter how advanced, is not a reliable factor in guaranteeing people’s development. And as long as you have capitalism, certain greedy class will always continue to snatch or seize the potentials for the development of the country; and it is a very very serious problem to imagine that by following capitalist dictates of the IMF, the World Bank, the US Treasury and the World Trade Organization—that through what they dictate we are going to be developed, that will be unrealistic, because none of the countries that I mentioned blindly followed the dictates of these institutions that are all situated in Washington D.C., but they succeeded. We have to find our own way of doing things; and we don’t have to follow blindly what these people are dictating because they are dictating their own interest, they are not dictating our own interest. We have to be very careful about it. 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. [caption id="attachment_23871" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Junaid Mohammed[/caption] 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. Still on security, what is your take on the sack of the Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba by President Goodluck Jonathan? I welcome it. It is one of the nicest news I have heard from Aso Rock since the last election, frankly speaking. I understand this Suleiman Abba of a fellow comes from somewhere in Jigawa, and his family lives here, not very far from Rumfa College. I don’t like the look of him, I don’t like his incompetence and I believe he is a rogue. The only thing I heard about him is that he used to be ADC to Sani Abacha’s wife. As far as I am concerned, Abacha’s wife and President Jonathan’s wife or any other person, even Buhari’s wife, have no position in the Nigerian constitution. So, you can see that there is something funny; elevating such a person to the rank of Inspector-General of Police on the only qualification that he was an ADC to a woman whose constitutional position is totally alien to our constitution will tell you that there was a mago mago there. You can also agree with me that this PDP government, and in fact, the previous PDP governments have the reputation of making top police and military appointments on the basis of forthcoming election. Whenever there is an election, definitely, they will cook up their records, go to the Police Service Commission and say these are the people we want because they want these people to come and do their dirty political job. That is the problem with the Armed Forces and it is about becoming the problem of the Police. All the Inspector-Generals of Police appointed by the late Umar Musa Yar’Adua, by even Obasanjo himself, through to Yar’Adua and now this fellow, Goodluck Jonathan, were appointed basically because of election and they pumped out money for these individuals and the money never permeated to the suffering policeman on the road. That is why they always collect N20 on the road. There is no way you can stop that unless you take care of the welfare of policemen and also make self esteem part of their training. So, I am absolutely happy over the sack of that fellow. And for the first time that I can think of, I say hurray and congratulations to Goodluck Jonathan. I hope he will do the same thing to all the Service Chiefs, all the GOCs, all the Brigade Commanders in the Army and all the other formations. It is not a joke, we have to start from somewhere, and starting from such a corrupt scoundrel like Suleiman Abba is a very big beginning. This is a man who took cops to the National Assembly complex and they were tear gassing principal members of the National Assembly, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate President. He should not only be sacked, but he should be sent to jail. Ethnicity and religion are major factors militating against national unity. What do you think General Buhari should do to tackle this menace? First, we are not the only country in the world that has multiplicity of tribes, ethnicities, religions, and so on and so forth. What your call a problem is not a problem. The only problem is that these phenomena are politicized. If I am what I am-I am a Fulani- and because I am a Fulani man, that becomes a single political issue about my identity, then there is no way we can solve this problem. I have always said this, that the only way to tackle corruption is to make sure that the laws are applied correctly and without fear or favour. And it is the same thing with ethnicity. If you look at it critically, you will observe that for us to move forward, the issue of ethnicity should be reduced, if not eliminated, as the single determining factor or one of the primary factors of appointments and other considerations in governance. And if you want to tackle it, you start from punishing people who make hate-speeches in order to derive political advantage. I have been to Ghana and I still have a daughter in Ghana. Ghana has as much of its own complications as we have. Ghana has a population of 22 million, which is about the population of Katsina, Kaduna, Kano and Jigawa. But I have seen how Ghanaians have been able to manage their own affairs in the face of ethnicity and religious differences. In the case of Nigeria, once we have a leadership which is up and doing, once we have a political class and an economic class which is determined and which has faith in the country, these factors will be greatly reduced. I am not saying that it is going to disappear, but after a while, I can tell you that with good leadership in place, those factors will no longer threaten the very existence of this country. After all, Ghana became independent under Kwame Nkrumah in 1957 and Nigeria became independent in 1960. Actually, some other component parts of Nigeria like the old West and the old East, had their own local government arrangement in the same year with Ghana. In Ghana today, the problem of ethnicity and religious differences are far less serious than they are in Nigeria. There must be a reason. And the answer has to do with the way the political class has been able to handle it. Nkrumah saw the problem and he handled it well. That is why, in spite of the existence of military coups and what have you, Ghana is still a much united society than Nigeria is today, in terms of the way they handled their own ethnic configurations and religious difference. It will become a major problem for us if we fail to handle it. Besides, corruption is a major factor that is encouraging and fitting into these ethnic problems, because people believe you can go and make absolutely tendentious and irresponsible statements and get away with it simply because you are abusing other people. You can see the likes of Femi Fani-Kayode, Reuben Abati, Doyin Okupe, and even Chidoka, the Minister of Aviation, making absolutely tendentious and irresponsible statements about other ethnic groups—blaming everything on others, and not on themselves or the man who appointed them. With this kind of attitude, we have a very long way to go. Until the likes of them are investigated, prosecuted and jailed, we are not going anywhere. Let me tell you, to jail them, we don’t need new laws. There are already existing laws for that issue. But again, we need a serious national consensus of the political class and those elites in our society are supposed to come together and help the government proffer solutions on the best way to handle the issue. With all these issues at stake, how do you think the composition of General Buhari’s cabinet should look like for him to get a better result? Again, I have to be very modest here. I have not been too close to the leadership of the APC or, for that matter, to some of the people who are now behind the thinking that goes into some of the considerations of the formation of Buhari’s administration. But one thing I know, Nigerians are going to give Buhari a honeymoon period. The better the cabinet, the better the quality of the appointments he makes, the longer the honeymoon period will be for him and for his party and for the government which he is going to lead. If, however, he listens to the professional politicians in the APC or some of the opportunists around him or around some of his friends or whatever, the honeymoon will be very short and Nigerians will start shouting. Already, the APC itself is a very interesting formation because there are quite a number of people in the APC who are progressives. But there are some people who are worse than fascists in terms of their reactionary approach. Now, to weigh the APC into a single party formation with a coherent ideology, with a worldview which is in tune with progress, which also considers the whole of Nigeria as its constituency, whether people voted for them or did not vote for them, is a very important consideration. And I hope, I sincerely hope, that General Buhari will be persuaded by factors and challenges which surround him and that he will appoint into the cabinet people who are going to be good performers when in government. Because performing in campaigns, political rallies and affairs of the political party is different from performing when you are in government. It is therefore very important for General Buhari to understand the difference because some people are very good at one, but not good at the other but some can also combine and be good in the two. Besides, whether people came from the APC or came from other professional considerations, accountability must be the watchword. If anybody in APC feels that he has the divine right to be given some important appointment, some high profile appointment, that will be the beginning of the failure of General Buhari’s administration and the party itself. And it is going to be a major tragedy and a major smear on General Buhari’s reputation. Are you not worried over the mass defection of members of the PDP to the APC as a result of the party’s victory in the 2015 polls? There are two ways I can answer this question. If you ask me as a man who hated and still hate PDP as a party, and who will like to see PDP destroyed forever and ever, I will tell you that I am not worried because anytime people leave PDP, PDP becomes weaker and I think the weaker the PDP is, the better for our national integration and a healthier politics that will emerge eventually along the line. But if you ask me, is it healthy to have this kind of mercenary manifestation of politics whereby everybody wants to be with the winning party and anybody who loses election on the platform of his party will now decamp to the winning party or if an individual wins election, people find reasons to defect to the party based on that individual, that is a dangerous development. But let me assure you that it is a transient and a very temporary development. The weakness of the PDP is in the best interest of democracy in Nigeria and I am happy about that. So,I don’t mind about defection now, because some of these people who are now defecting to the APC will also defect themselves out of APC very soon. I will like to see a two or a three party formation in Nigeria, but which excludes the PDP as a party. PDP must be destroyed by whatever means necessary because it serves no good purpose. They have wasted 16 years of the life of this country and they have done nothing. But for some of the achievements of Olusegun Obasanjo in terms of debt recovery and what he did in telecommunications, we would have been in a bigger mess. Although Obasanjo has disassociated himself from the PDP, he was never the kind of a person you can associate with the PDP. He saw the PDP as an instrument he could use to achieve his own aim, whether good or bad. But as far as I am concerned, PDP serves no good purpose, it must be destroyed, so that at least, we can have a sane political profile and a level playing field that allows people who take politics seriously and who are serious about national development to step in. PDP is a disgrace and I don’t believe it should be described as a party. It is not a party. They are a bunch of bandits who are out to steal. If you ask anybody in PDP what they believe in, they cannot tell you anything reasonable. They will only tell you that they believe in power. In other words, they believe in power to steal, power to get into office in order to loot the national treasury and that is what they have been doing. So, PDP should not have existed in the first place because political parties are based on certain key ideological principles, on certain key world views, and those who are in the party must have something in common, not just to be in government and steal government money. Therefore, I have no sympathy for PDP whatsoever, but I will like to see the emergence of another party that is right or centre that will serve the purpose of vibrant opposition in this country. And in fact, the APC itself will have to look further to the left if it will survive. The way it is now, the PDP and the APC are nothing but two-sides of the same coin. Nigerians will not accept this for long. There must be a clear-cut delineation of ideology in either APC or PDP. And I believe the only way the APC in particular can survive is to determine that it is a left or centre political party and not the kind of thing we had in the Action Group and UPN which was nothing but fascist or capitalist parties enveloped in socialist slogan. Slogan alone will not do. I want to know where the APC stands in matters that are so vital to the politics of this country. What is the role of government in managing national economy? What is our relationship with IMF and the World Bank? Are we to continue to be dealt with and treated as if we are still under a colonial power? No. These are very important issues that need to be tackled. The APC will have to make this decision and if it has not made this decision, that means the party remains one side of a coin from PDP and Nigerians are not going to accept that. Recently, a group of northern women farmers urged General Buhari to create the office of the First Lady. What is your advice to General Buhari on this issue, having been aware that such office is not recognized in Nigeria’s Constitution? I have read on the pages of the newspapers that General Buhari is not going to recognize the office of the First Lady. I don’t believe in that office and I believe that no matter how good his wife or any other woman is, there is no need creating what we don’t have in the Constitution. If they want to have the office of the First Lady, they should go and amend the Constitution and make that office of the First Lady engraved in the Constitution so that expenditure of the office of the First Lady will be a charge on the treasury and the money that is being spent by the so called office of the First Lady is appropriated the way every other money is appropriated. This is because under our laws, money that is not appropriated cannot be spent. So, as far as I am concerned, there is no need for the office of the First Lady. I don’t believe in it and I have never believed in it. Are you satisfied with the manner Prof Attahiru Jega’s INEC conducted the 2015 general elections? No. I am not satisfied with it. What are your disappointments? First and foremost, I don’t believe an election can be regarded free, fair and credible only because the party I respect and I like won the election, no. In looking for a decent electoral system, I think the process is more important than winning. I believe that Jega was only lucky and INEC was only lucky when due to the stupidity of the National Security Adviser and the Service Chiefs, they forced and blackmailed INEC into postponing the election by six weeks. If the election had been held then, it would have been a total disaster because clearly INEC was not prepared. Even with the six weeks addition they got, the exercise was still a mess. The technology was not mastered. Those who were to operate it said they were not taught how to operate it. It was clear and it is an open secret, it was on interviews, it is not something I invented—that is number one. Number two, Jega was the man who conducted the election in 2011 and everybody knew that that election was not credible, except, of course, his pay-masters or managers in the West who would say that everything he did was correct. Everybody knew that the election of 2011 was a sham and a complete farce and this one of 2015 came about because he was lucky, because some people in their plan to rig the election and in their desperation to stop the Buhari momentum decided to force a postponement of the election which was partly the saving grace for INEC. As far as I am concerned, Jega is not a manager, he is not an independent umpire and I do not have confidence in his abilities and I am not saying anything new. I have been saying this since 2010 and I have told him to his face and there have been witnesses, including a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, who witnessed my face-to-face challenge to Jega here in Kano, at Mambayya House, where Jega used to be a Director. So, I don’t believe simply because a party I like, a party I support won an election, that election must declared free and fair, no. We are on the way, but we are not there, we are not there at all. But as far as I am concerned, PDP serves no good purpose, it must be destroyed, so that at least, we can have a sane political profile and a level playing field that allows people who take politics seriously and who are serious about national development to step in. PDP is a disgrace and I don’t believe it should be described as a party. -First published on this platform on 5 May, 2015.