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| Bola Tinubu |
What is your view on the development agenda of this administration visa-viz the recent resignation of the Minister for Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji?
Power sector is the one crippling the economy and we are yet to get out of it. For me, the man has overstayed his bidding. If I were him, I would have resigned the very moment Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a minister like him, was made the chairman of the committee set up by the President to supervise the sector. Ordinarily, one does not need to be an expert to be in charge of a ministry. But in his own case, he is an expert in that job. So, he shouldn’t have had the chairman he had. Therefore, if he had problem in managing the ministry, it was because of the situation he found himself. He had to contend with somebody who is in charge of finance, who is not an expert in power sector but is acting as the chairman of the committee saddled with the responsibility of implementing the policy of government on the power sector.
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| Basorun Olorunfunmi |
Do you also see this cabal to be too powerful for the government to tame?
The issue of cabal has not been established in this case. If he is claiming that he has stepped on some toes, let him name them.
You mean you don’t believe a cabal exists in the economy?
Of course, there are many cabals in the economy. Some days ago, General Ibrahim Babangida warned General Muhammadu Buhari to shut up his mouth otherwise, he would expose him because he was in charge of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). Who are the cabals you want to name again? All those top military bras are the leaders of the cabals. They are the ones dictating the direction of the economy. The agents who get patronage from them through oil subsidy are the small cabals.
With this cabal, what does the future hold for Nigeria?
The future is very bright because everything that has a beginning must certainly have an end. If there was an end of Sadam Hussein, there was an end of Moamar Gadhafi, why would there not be an end for those torturing the poor masses of this country? Certainly, there will be an end one day. The end may not necessarily be in form of military coup. But there will be an end one day. The people of this country will force that change on Nigeria. We don’t need one military man to tell us good morning fellow Nigerians only to get there and begin fresh accumulation of wealth. Through ballot, all those responsible for bad governance would be swept out of power. When it was going to happen to Marcus in the Philippines, it was a woman who led the protest. The whole people blocked the road and said, ‘kill us, we don’t want that man again.’ At the end of the day, there was a change. It might not be the same as it happened in Philippines, but that change will come one day.
What is your assessment of the present Peoples Democratic Party-led government at the centre?
PDP is an oppressive government. They have no plan to make Nigerians comfortable. Yet, they boast around that they would rule for 60 years. Recently, they announced that they would be paying salaries to party officials, starting with the national chairman. Why should they announce to be paying salary? Is PDP a Joint Stock Company? The salary announced is a smoke screen to create problem for other political parties. They want others to join them and be scrambling for position in order to earn salaries.
How was it during your tenure as the pioneer chairman of the PDP in Lagos State?
There was nobody earning salaries. Rather, we were spending our own resources because we were interested in the politics of that party then.
How then do you expect those serving at various levels of government to sustain themselves if they are not getting any form of compensation from the party?
They shouldn’t go and fix salaries and start announcing it. This is the first time I am hearing a political party announcing a salary scale for party officials. We have over 7, 000 wards in Nigeria. How are they going to pay those maintaining the party at the grassroots level? They only want to frighten and create confusion in other political parties. There are ways of looking after those managing political parties. We have leaders who donate money at local level to maintain political officials. At least, I can talk for myself. I was in the party on a voluntary choice. Nobody forced it on me. But when I found that the party was not meeting the aspiration for which I joined it, I withdrew.
By your assessment, how well has ACN-led government in Lagos State performed?
First and foremost, the party and the government are not the same. The party is the engine through which people get into offices. Even to be a councillor, you must belong to a political party. When you get there, you are now the chairman or councilor of everybody. Our governor, for instance, is governor of everybody. He is the governor of about 18 to 20 million people in Lagos State. Whether you are from the East or from the West, as long as you live in Lagos, our governor is your governor. I think for once we are enjoying good governance in Lagos State because information on any issue in the state is no longer scarce. The latest is the traffic law recently passed by the House of Assembly. When the law was passed, as if Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola knew that there would be controversy, he went all out to explain the law to the people. By now, if anybody says he does not understand the law, that person is deceiving himself. Apart from that, the governor always informs Lagosians every 100 days how far he has gone. Even with all the criticisms from different quarters, he has not reneged. Recently, he sent his team to the three senatorial districts in the state to brief the people on the progress he has made so far in the development agenda of his administration. We, in Ikorodu, met at the Town Hall where Alhaji Hamzat, Commissioner for Works and infrastructure, explained the position of government.
It was there we saw what the road from Mile 2 to Ikorodu Roundabout would look like. And everybody was happy to see the design pictorially. By the time we left, we had noticed contractors mobilising to site. That is governance. Fashola is doing everything to make sure that everybody feels the presence of government in all the districts. The governor is proving that he has young blood and energy to face enormous challenges of development in the state. But much as we are trying to develop, the Federal Government is failing us. They are defeating the Malthus theory. The population is outstripping the efforts we are making to develop. And there is the big brother in Abuja who does not know his left from right. Look at the Third Mainland Bridge. If we had been proactive enough, we would have got the 4th Mainland Bridge before it got to the stage of closing it down for four months. For me, asking the man (President Goodluck Jonathan) to resign is a long journey. He should redesign his strategy and make up his mind to serve Nigeria. In redesigning his strategy, he has to sit down because he was not prepared to be president. He must have seen a lot of things before he started asking his ministers to sign assessment form.
What is your take on the agitation for state police?
It is shameful that the President at his highest level is coming up with the argument that state police would make the state government misuse the instrument of security as they did in the case of State Independent Electoral Commissions. Have they also not been doing injustice? He used instrument of power to stop the strike in January. If he were not in charge of the army and the police, probably he would not have succeeded in doing that. It has become very necessary for us to have state police with the present security situation in the country. The new National Security Adviser is already raising alarm on the likelihood of uprising in 2015. May be, they will also remove him for that. But If I were him, I wouldn’t say it. Rather, I will advice the President on what to do. Of what use is that information to you and me? These are the type of people we put in position of authority. Jonathan said when he was the governor of Bayelsa State, he believed there must be state police. But now that he is the president, he has realized that there should be no state police. After 50 years of independence, Nigeria is ripe for state police.
During the era of regional government, the states and local governments had their police. Why should they now say there should not be state police? There can only be misuse of police if there is no law to control the power of the governor. For instance, there is LASTMA (Lagos State Traffic Management Agency) in Lagos. Are we using LASTMA to fight anybody now? Do you know how many employment opportunities it has created? In the same way, state police will take off all graduates we have on the streets. We need to upgrade the educational standard of the police to be able to meet the standard of the criminals. Majority of the criminals are made up of graduates who have left the university and their method of practice is far superior to that of the present police.
Some leaders of thought in the South West recently met at Ikene alleging that Yoruba race is being marginalized. Do you share in their views?
Those who feel they need to cry out are free to cry out.
What about the Yoruba Assembly that was recently held in Ibadan?
It is a good idea, but everybody has his or her own choice. Those of us who belong to political parties would have to be very careful in order not to say things that will be contradictory to the position of our party. Once you belong to a political party, you are bound by the position of that party. If you feel anything is injurious to your ethnic group, you complain to your party. Under what auspices can somebody sit down and summon all of us? Why should General Alani Akinrinade summon me to come to Ibadan? Is he more important than me in Nigeria? If he has any importance at all, it is due to his luck of being a retired General. Despite all I have said, it is not a bad idea. If they succeed, its success is for the future our children and grandchildren. So, I have nothing against what they are doing. But my question is: why should they go and bother that old woman? Mrs. Awolowo is no longer here. By physiology of human being, she is no longer here. They are just bothering her.
Is it possible for the Yoruba to get another leader in the mould of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo?
It is not easy to put somebody in the mould of Awolowo. But that is not to say that we don’t have a leader, who can put all the Yoruba together. Akinmoladun argued it successfully that leaders are made in the environment and circumstance of their time.
Who do you have in mind?
There are few things that are similar in some individuals. For instance, Bola Tinubu has some similarities with Chief Awolowo. Leaders emerge based on circumstances of their time. Bola Tinubu is operating in an environment, which has shot him up over other Yoruba elders or political leaders, because of his courage. He has courage and guts to face difficult circumstances.
He is always a determined person who can go to any length to pursue what he believes in. Based on these, you can compare him with Chief Awolowo. Pa Awolowo, in prison, got emissary asking him to withdraw all that he was saying against the authority and come out of prison to take position in government, he refused. Tinubu has not been confronted with that type of situation for anyone to say that he has failed. But in the circumstance he is operating now, he is working hard to let other ethnic rationalities know that we in the South West are people to be reckoned with. And that gives him an edge over other people.
But his leadership is confined within the ACN fold.
Yes, to an extent. But we are the party with the majority. If there are a thousand people in Yorubaland and you find 700 of them in ACN, is that not Yoruba? By the time Ondo State is in the kitty, may be it will rise to 75 per cent.
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