How Buhari is Restructuring Nigeria

HIGHPOINTS

·       Financial Autonomy for LGs

·       Financial Autonomy for Judiciary

·       Passage of Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)

·       Aggressive Anti-Graft Campaign

·       Massive Infrastructure Development

Lanre Issa-Onilu is a house-hold name in Nigeria. As National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the National Working Committee of the party under the leadership of Comrade Adams Oshiomole, Lanre, as he is fondly called, acquitted himself as consummate public relations Czar and a loyal party man. For much of 2018-2019, with other party faithful, applying deft journalistic skills and inside knowledge of the party, he deflected the many criticisms that assailed the performance of the party. That was until the Oshiomole organisational machinery started running into turbulent weather.

In spite of that, as can be seen from this interview, Issa-Onilu remains a fiercely loyal party man. An accomplished journalist, Issa-Onilu who rose to the editor’s position at ThisDay newspaper, remains a fiercely loyal party man. Not someone to be easily caught on the wrong foot, he displays astute interviewing skills and logical reasoning, in responding to otherwise knotty questions.

In this interview, Issa-Onilu who runs a flourishing media consultancy, painstakingly defends the Muhammadu Buhari track record in such a manner that even those who disagree with him are likely to admire his presentation. Please read on:

You have not been very visible since the NWC of the APC where you served as National Publicity Secretary lapsed. Is this an indication of disenchantment with the party?

Not at all. I have not come out to say anything since the party’s National Working Committee was dissolved simply because I felt that we should allow the Caretaker Committee that was constituted following the dissolution of the NWC that I belonged to do their bit.  So, I felt for all of us who were in the NWC and many other people, party members of APC, all that we needed to do was to give maximum cooperation to the Caretaker Committee to do their job. I have no reason to be disenchanted with the party or anyone in the party. I am completely not disenchanted at all.

Are you satisfied with how the party is being run presently?

Whether I am satisfied with the way the party is being run? Well, we have to put that in context. The Caretaker Committee was put in place for certain reasons to achieve certain objectives. So, I need to now look at how well they have achieved those objectives for which they were set up. And I would say, for me, I have every reason to be satisfied because, since they came in, now we have had the Ward Congresses, we have had the Local Government Congresses and the State Congresses is slated for the 16^th of this month. So, so far, so good.  It has been smooth all the way. A lot of many big politicians have come into APC including two serving governors. That is huge. We are going to count all these along as part of their successes and the party is intact till today and we hope that whatever difference that may be will have to be resolved. I have absolute confidence in the ability of the current leadership to do their best and achieve the objectives for which they were set up.

What have you been doing?

What have I been doing? I have been doing exactly what I have always been doing. Ever before I got into political office or position, I have always been a media person for over three decades, precisely about 31 years. I have been a journalist. I left ThisDay as an Editor and ever since, I have been running my own communication consultancy firm. I am a communications specialist. That is all I do, that is where I find joy and earn a living.  That is where I labour and put my shift. So that is what I do. Even when I was in office as the National Publicity Secretary of APC, my office was running. I had my staff. So that is what I am doing

As a party insider, give us an assessment of the Federal Government, based on the three cardinal programmes of the Buhari Administration, namely, ending insecurity, fighting corruption and revamping the economy.

For us to assess the government of APC led by President Muhammadu Buhari, we need to consider all the factors therein. For instance, when discuss the issue of the economy, it would be recalled that since its independence, the country has relied solely on one single product which is oil. There were efforts in the past and the desires and the calls that were made for the economy to be diversified to fully realize all her potentials by harnessing all our resources and developing all aspects of businesses including mineral resources and agriculture. But we never did anything until this government came in. Today, we know that agriculture, more than ever before is doing very well, fantastically well. For me, assessing that effort I feel joy. I know that within the last six years (I do not have the statistics), several millions of Nigerians who have no business with agriculture, are now fully involved in agriculture and our GDP is reflecting that. So, we are having a lot of diversifications in terms of the revenue base and income that we are earning in terms of our export and balance of trade generally. The difference is clear and we are seeing evidence of that. In some basic food, we are exactly producing what we consume. We have seen the revolution in the rice production. And so today, Nigeria is now a major world rice producer where, for donkey years, we were ranking high among the consuming nations. Now, we are a producing nation. And we are producing rice which we eat for ourselves and hopefully, sooner than later, we are going to be exporting rice. Look at many other agricultural produce, we are doing well in that area too. There have been a lot of support system in granting facilities to farmers. The Anchor Borrowers programme by the CBN is there; the Bank of Agriculture is doing more than it has ever done before. And so all these, put together, we are having a country with an economy that is diversified and looking robust. We may not be recording a very fantastic result yet but we can all see the graph and it is looking upward and that is very encouraging. In mineral resources, a lot of legislative work has been done to ease the process of people to get involved in mineral resources and to ensure that we take full advantage of all that God has provided for us in this country. I am very positive that we would only be fair to the APC government and President Buhari by saying that this government has done well in terms of the economy. Unfortunately, what we met and the fact that the oil price, the product that we all rely on to generate income in this country, has not been that impressive since this government came in. At a point, it got to as low as $32 per barrel.  Even production has gone down considerably. Yet this government has been able to achieve a lot. It is unprecedented the level of infrastructure that is ongoing in this country, and you wonder where that money is coming from. The debt profile may be high and you wonder why did we take the loans in the past. All for consumption and we did not have anything to show for it. But now the difference is that every loan taken by this government is tied to a specific infrastructure. And you know that we need infrastructure to grow the economy. We need infrastructure to develop this country and for us to enable the citizens to be able to do their businesses and realize their potentials and contribute to the national economy. So, this is all that is going on now and we wonder why this has not started some 20 years ago. Nigeria would have gone far, but it is okay that this has started in the last six years and we have seen that the trajectory is positive and is upward.

Corruption

The fight against corruption, is one area that we have to commend this government, for doing a lot. This is because, fighting corruption does not necessarily mean how many people have gone to jail. That goes beyond the purview of the President. The much the President can do, he has done more than any other government before this present administration. Many governments including President Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan and even the ones that were military, deliberately sidestepped those things that would prevent or limit opportunity for corruption; for people to gain from the system. For instance, the issue of Single Treasury Account has been there forever and none of the previous governments had the courage to implement it. It took President Buhari to finally implement it. Before his action, some agencies had some hundreds of hidden accounts in several banks and they were engaged in all sorts of dealings and practically siphoned the funds without any checks and made it difficult for agencies responsible for fighting corruption to trace most of the accounts. Now that all government accounts pulled together into one single account, it is much easier now for government to monitor the accounts.  The issue of BVN was not started by this government. It has been there forever but previous administrations lacked the courage to put into effect until President Buhari came. With BVN now, it easy for agencies that are responsible for monitoring how government funds are used to be able to track and know who is doing what. So, all accounts are monitored and activities with banks and it is easy to raise a red flag as soon as suspicious transactions are noticed. The IPPIS for all federal government workers through which all workers that are under the belt of the federal government are paid salaries without the issue of ghost workers has been eliminated. Remember that over 25,000 were discovered within the federal civil service alone during the time of Kemi Adeosun as minister of finance. It takes courage, dedication and determination for a president to put all these in place.  All these, President Buhari has done. But the issue of actually prosecuting people who indulged in corrupt practices goes beyond the executive arm of government. It is squarely the responsibility of the judiciary. So, when the executive arm, through the agencies under it, does the investigations and arrest, the prosecution is the last thing they can do by taking them to court. And so, it is up to the judiciary arm to also key in to the federal government agenda of reducing corruption to the barest minimum by ensuring that cases of corruption, economic sabotage and financial malpractices are dealt with promptly and the rule of law is applied judiciously. What you have now is a case of   where political matters are given priority and within two, three or six months, they are disposed of. But you have corruption cases that last forever, some have lasted for more than six to seven and even up to 10 years. And many of these people continue to have access to more funds and occupying positions because you cannot ask the President or the APC government to start punishing people who are undergoing trial when no court has pronounced them guilty.  That will be extra judicial. But what the President needs to do whether you are APC or non APC member, is to ensure that you are taken to court. And many APC leaders who had issues in court, none of them has been removed from attending the courts. But it is up to the judiciary to do its own side. I would say that President Buhari has done commendably well in the fight against corruption and that is one other agenda he has scored very highly.

Infrastructure

There is no debate about his performance in infrastructure. In fact, that actually is the number one on his agenda and that is not debatable. Virtually every single area in the country has some massive federal government project either completed or ongoing. If not for the fact that there is not much fund as the previous governments had, it should have been even greater. But we can see. Look at the important projects, we call them legacy projects. Look at the Lagos-Ibadan express road, President Obasanjo put a signpost there claiming to be doing the road, same with Yar’Ardua. Jonathan wasted the country’s time and money and nothing was achieved. Now, that road is 80 per cent ready. Government started and completed the same Lagos-Ibadan-Abeokuta rail line, the first of its kind in the whole of West Africa. It is a success story. The Second Niger Bridge which is very important to the economy of that segment of the country; the South West, South East and the South-South. In fact, that is one project that is number one in the entire two term tenure of this president. The money that is going into that project alone is more than any money spent on any project anywhere in this country. And that is going to help the south east, the same region purportedly marginalized. We should have had this kind of opportunity 10 or 16 years ago, but they did not do anything until President Buhari arrived at the scene. See what has happened to the airports. Now we have airports that we can call international airport in the true sense of that. We have the Enugu Airport that has been transformed, you have Kano Airport, you have the Abuja Airport, and you have the Murtala Muhammed International airport that is almost completed. These are massive projects that will help the economy. You have federal roads and housing; you know in many states now you have thousands of housing units that have been built by the federal government to ease the burden that people encounter when it comes to shelter. So, you cannot fault this government on how it has responded to corruption. Its fight against corruption has been very sincere and is top of the notch. Secondly, you cannot fault this government on infrastructure. In fact, what is going on in very part of the country is unprecedented as well. The same goes for the Administration’s response to the economy; the blueprint that is being implemented. Then there is the social investment programme, that is taking care of the people in the true spirit of progressive political ideology that focuses on the poor. There are many policies focusing on the poor. For the first time in this country, we have a whole ministry called the “Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development”. That is a ministry created for the poor that is responding and trying to assist the people down the ladder to be able to live better lives. And then you have in that ministry a Minister who has been putting massive shifts, creating a paradigm shift from whatever we used to have, doing marvellously well and promoting this government. That is one of the highpoints of the performance of this government. So, we must commend the President for having people who are very responsive to the needs of this country and the mandate of their respective ministries and agencies one of them is the minister in charge of the humanitarian and disaster ministry. So, the president has done very well. The state of insecurity, we cannot run away from it, but we all know that this has been there and that they are progressively rising with the pressure and with the poverty that is prevailing in most parts of the world, especially because there is pressure on everybody. But the government is also responding very well. What it has invested in preparing the Nigerian military has never been done in the history of this country. Now we have a military that we all can be proud of and they are responding to the insecurity situation in a way that we are all proud of.  We are very confident that very soon, this also will be pushed completely aside and then we will be able to live in the country more without the kind of fear that is prevailing in our country as we speak.

We would like to have your comment on the view that if the Federal Government had succeeded in the three areas, the crime rate and separatist agitations would not have been as strident as they are today.

We will be too simplistic to link the current state of insecurity, the insurgency, separatist actions, directly to the performance or under performance of the President. There are many factors that are responsible and politics is one of it. And we know that certain people do not just like certain people in this country and that has been clearly stated. We also know that things were worse in the past and there wasn’t this kind of response. It cannot be because of economic pressure that all these are happening. Boko Haram had preceded this government. The issue of Biafra movement had preceded this government. It became aggravated because of the tribe of the President. The people who are agitating have stated that clearly that it is about the tribe of the President. And most people are waiting to see what it will look like when somebody from another tribe is the President of this country. This did not happen under Obasanjo, not the way it is. It did not happen under Jonathan. In fact, during Jonathan, South East was in power. So, it is not just down to poverty or the pressure from the economy that led to all these issues. For the South East, the issue of Bandits, you know that from what has happened in Libya and the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel are all linked to this. The proliferation of arms and ammunitions and people now have access to all of these. Again, you also wonder that whatever is the interest of the West in all these because the weapons are all coming from the West and there is no policy coming either from America or Europe that is being put in place to check the way arms are readily available to the people. I also see some form of conspiracy in all of these things. And so, there are many factors and like I said, it will be too simplistic to just say that it is because the President is not performing. We have evidence to say that this President has done better than any previous Presidents since democracy returned to Nigeria in 1999.  

Between a conference of all ethnic nationalities and legal and military handling of separatist leaders, which approach would you recommend to halt what looks like a looming national implosion?

I do not subscribe to any national conference. We have had series of national conferences in this country and I also do not subscribe to a wholesale approach to solving problem. It is never done anywhere in this world. Every single country of this world including those countries we refer to as saner climes have their challenges. These countries continue to grow and respond to the challenges and improve on their own standing, promoting peaceful coexistence, promoting economy, promoting politics, all these are not things that happen just in one day.  Progressively, countries grow and Nigeria is growing. What we had, even before the most recent national conference in 2014, compared to what we have today, there has been a lot of improvement between that time and now in terms of physical devolution of power that is going on. This same government has given autonomy to the local government when it comes to responsibility in terms of its finances. It has given autonomy to the Judiciary and, unlike before, the states now have a role to place in the issue of mineral resources. The Petroleum Industry Bill has just been passed and assented to by the President is also targeted at granting more powers and creating more roles and easing access to resources for communities that have these resources. So, these are issues around federalism and this are issues around restructuring. And restructuring, for me, is more about people having access, people having control and I can say that it is going on. Now, whether we like it or not, we are having regional security system, there is Amotekun in Yoruba land, and then there is Ebubeagu in the South-East. The South-South just met and they are going to put their own security apparatus in place as well. We do not need any conference. We just need to be sure of how we want to progress and the members of the National Assembly have such responsibility and every constituency in this country has representatives there. All you need to do is to put in place whatever you want and put it across to your representative. Many members of the senate and House of Representative have sponsored bills. You know, you sponsor bills to ask for what you think your people deserve and you seek the cooperation and understanding of your colleagues in the National Assembly. That is the way it is done anywhere in the world. The National Assembly itself is a conference already and that conference is an ongoing conference. It’s a constitutional body and is a body tasked with a responsibility of promoting good governance, of ensuring that every part of this country is represented. So we can push this continuously through legislation, we push this through negotiation, we can push this continuously through mutual respect, we can push this continuously by being ready to be good Nigerians.  And patriotism can also lead us to this.

Skewed appointments in the military high command and other strategic areas remain one major allegation against the Buhari administration. Do you support the view that there should be a deliberate effort to redress the situation as a way of bringing down the heat in the polity?

I completely disagree with this idea of skewed appointments. What is skewed appointments?  This is premised by understanding that this country is standing on the tripod of Igbo/Yoruba Hausa/Fulani. That is fallacious. This is a country that has over 300 or more ethnic groups and all of them are equal as far as I am concerned. I do not subscribe or support the tyranny of the majority because that is what this idea of the three major tribes represents. That is not acceptable in the democracy that; is not acceptable in the representative government, it is not done and the earlier we stop this nonsense of the three major tribes, the better. No. There is nothing like that. What we have in this county is for us to sit down and look at issues from the point of view of the merit; you know the capacity of people that are put in the position. If you look at this government, in the last six years and analyse appointments, I will tell you that the people of the North-East not the North-West, where the President comes from, had been most favoured.  I repeat that North-East and not the people of North-West where the President comes from. That is not where the president come from. It is the same thing that happened under Jonathan who is from South-South. Analyse the appointments under President Jonathan; it the people of the South-East that where favoured so that is the way these things works. So, for me we need to do better than we are currently doing. This is just sentimental; there is no skewed appointment. Even in the military, take it in the last 15 years the so called three major tribes have had their fair shares including the Igbos. But why are we just reducing these things to the three tribes? What happens to the Ebira man, the Ijaw man, the Tiv man, the Nupe man and other smaller tribes in the country? Who will speak for them?

Specifically, the South-East has been agitating against outright exclusion in major infrastructural projects (funded with foreign loans) or half-hearted treatment in sharing the national patrimony, under the Buhari administration.

Igbo has no right to cry marginalization under this present government. I have stated earlier that the single expensive project is the second Niger Bridge that is directly a South-East project. Enugu Airport, Port Harcourt-Enugu Road, several road projects are ongoing. The Sukkuk Bond which was shared equally into six and each geopolitical zone has same sum of the money as the other. So, you can cry marginalization without bringing out the facts. We all know that this game is not about marginalization. As I have said, the drum beat would certainly change after Buhari must have finished his second tenure and leave the office.

Though your party, the APC, is yet to make any pronouncement on how and where to produce its candidate for the 2023 presidential elections, the fact that the northern governors’ forum, with an APC majority has kicked against the insistence of the southern governors forum to produce the next president (that includes all south west states being controlled by the APC except one) signals a major rupture in the party. how do you think this should be addressed?

The northern governors never said power will not shift to the South or whether it will shift. No position was taken. The point that was made by the Northern governors is to the effect that nobody can blackmail or any one region can blackmail another region to take power. You take power by negotiation; you take power by discussing with the other party. So, you cannot just sit down and hold meeting and say we must have power. That is not written in our constitution. Anybody can stand up to say I want to be president and that is what the constitution says but on the understanding that we must all carry ourselves along; then we must sit down to discuss the necessity for certain actions to happen. That is what the northern governors have said. So, whether power will stay in the north or in the South, it is purely political and it will be handled politically.

AS a very successful journalist, we invite you to set the agenda for the Nigerian media as the country wades through the present crisis of national rebirth and renewal.

I am not happy with what the media has become. We have a media sector where we completely have lost the plot. The media is no longer setting any agenda. The media is actually promoting sectional, regional and tribal agenda and the media is actively involved in promoting violence in this country. We now have the media that have become the mouthpiece for banditry, for insurgency and for issues that divide this country. We do not have the media anymore that promotes good governance, we do not have developmental journalism anymore, our journalists have turned themselves to public relations; actually, quack public relations for officers, for religion, for political parties, for tribal groups for all the divides. The media is actually there championing it. When you read the kind of news that come out, then you will see that we have lost the plot. And I think it’s high time the media pulls itself out from this sad situation and then go back to the tenets of the profession and write what is good about this country, promote patriotic actions and promote good governance. The media call whoever has been charged with responsibility to question without any let or hindrance and without any attempt to champion the course of a particular section, or group or divide. That is what the media needs to do. This also goes to the heart of so much incompetence that is prevalent now in the media. I think the media has to do itself a favour by retraining a lot of the practitioners. Clearly, the standards have fallen and have fallen so embarrassingly.