SAIDA SAIRU: Former president Umaru Musa Yaradua someone who a lot of people even outside Nigeria had acclaimed to be a committed leader, someone who we all know had tried as much as possible to reposition his country in the 3 years he was president, and someone who a lot of political parties would love to have in their camp passed on. As chairman Nigeria Governors Forum what legacy, in terms of policy that former president Yaradua had in his time. What policies would you want the federal government to continue on and see to fruition?
GOV. BUKOLA SARAKI: Even before you go into policy, I think of some of the things President Yaradua believed in – the issue of true democracy, opening what I call the political space, enabling the opposition parties to thrive in the political calculation. If you look at a lot of developing countries all over you find that ruling parties tend to suffocate opposition parties, and doesn’t allow them to thrive. I always go back to the governor of an opposition party, and he used to say at our governors meeting that “one of the things I can never forget President Yar’Adua about is that can you imagine a governor in an opposition fighting the godfather of a ruling party and I’m still alive and walking around and I can still run my government.” That just sums up the kind of political space, and it is that political space that is strengthening our democracy today. I believe that is one of the things that we should all learn from him and build on. The rule of law, the humility by which president Yar’adu carried out the way he governed and the way he interacted with the people. The policy of the importance of keeping one Nigeria, being able to dialogue and negotiate and listen – that it is not a sign of weakness. I remember as you all even remember the time of the Niger Delta problem, there were a lot of cries that ‘Oh just move in there and wipe the place out. People even at a time thought maybe it was weakness. Today now we are all better for it as a country, we’re all benefitting from it. You are either benefitting from the revenue coming to government, you are benefitting from peace, or you’re benefitting from unity of the country. Those are some of the achievement in those areas, and I think that more importantly is the stability it has done to our democracy. It has taken our democracy to another level by the fact that people can now whether you are in opposition, say how you feel. You can express yourself; you believe you have a fair hearing. I think that has truly helped us and I think Nigerians will never forget what President Yaradua stood for, and how he has served the country tremendously and we should all ensure that legacy lives on. I think that as a country that definitely that we were fortunate to have that kind of leader with that kind of style that he brought into governance
SAIDA SAIRU: Your Excellency lets move away from politics, government and things like that. It is no longer news that you have a passion for football, and now the world cup is about to kick off in about little over two weeks now on African soil. It’s an opportunity for African nations to go and shine to show that we can play football. Do you see the Super Eagles of Nigeria performing superbly? What do you expect?
GOV. BUKOLA SARAKI: I have to be careful what I say. All of us really want Super Eagles to do well. It’s a golden opportunity. The world cup is in Africa. Nigeria will be fifty this year. We are number one country in the continent in football. It’s all there for us. Nothing would be better than to see Nigeria in the finals or semi-finals. I think Cameroun has been in the quarter finals before. It will be good if we could go one step further, for Africa, for Nigeria. Based on that, we will give all the support. If you remember the qualifying, some of us said at that time there was need to review the technical capacity of the Super Eagles. If you followed the matches you could see that. I believe that with the coach we should not expect a lot of magic, but I believe that he has time to build a team and bring the team together. I believe that unlike before that when it was the coach that was under the spotlight about who would perform, I think now we have to look at the management of the Super Eagles. That is the area where I see that moving forward we need to look at. I think for now we should all be positive. Let’s wait till after the world cup to be able to do a post-mortem. I think that the challenge is an uphill task. There are some critical areas in the team that we are still lacking to be able, but you know in football, you can never say. We all pray and think and wish for the best. My best wishes are to the Super Eagles to do their best for Nigeria. It will be a good present for all of us in 2010.
BIODUN FAGBEMI: Your Excellency, on the issue of nationhood, come October first this year, Nigeria will clock fifty. In the hierarchical structure of developing nations of the world where do you think we can place our nation, and what are the challenges ahead of this nation?
GOV. BUKOLA SARAKI: Well I think as a nation, we are not one of those nations that tend to celebrate what we are good at, what our successes are. You tend to find out most of the things people talk about are the negative things about the country. Very few countries have survived after going through a civil war. Very few countries have survived after having so many military coups. There are very few countries that have survived with the number of different tribes that we have. Despite all this, despite all these challenges and also having natural resources. If you look at a lot of countries, having natural resources has not even been a good sign. It has been a bad omen. It has resulted in the countries even splitting up, going different ways. This is a country also where we have differences in religion. Despite all these challenges, we kind of stumble, and wobble, and at the end of the day we survive. I think that’s a good sign. Of course in 50 years we would have loved to have gone further than this, but I think we were held back by the lack of democracy. I think this democracy that has stabilized for 11 years, if we can continue along these lines, I am hopeful that by the year 2020 definitely with a stable democracy, with the quality of leadership it is definitely a matter of time. There are a lot of things we have to catch up with. If you look at the education sector it is not something that you can just turn the lights on and off. Many years still have to be invested in that and education is key in developing any society. I believe that as a country, we already have what it takes. If you look at the Asian tigers it gives you hope. Some of them you can see that in 10 years they went from being just there to being pacemakers. To me we have all the ingredients that can make us in the next 5 to 10 years really transformed. I think we are moving in the right direction, but we still need to have some sense of patriotism. What I call national interest. We don’t have that. It’s not that I’m saying that Nigeria is good. Even those that their countries are as bad as ours, they don’t stand in front of the world and say “ah my country is bad.” It’s just like in a family; you don’t go around saying that your child is bad. Even though sometimes you know that your child is bad but to the public – you say your child is good. That is the way we should look at our country as well. By saying your country is good doesn’t mean that you have been bought by government, or that you are now a sellout. Why should anybody come to your country? Why should anybody believe in your country? I’m sure when China was growing they had rules that people would not be proud of. I am sure newspapers would say which kind of country is this, we can’t talk, and we can not to do this. They’ve grown now and everybody is doing business with them. People who stood for democracy are going in and out. What I’m saying is that for this country we must not look backwards. We must look forward. That is always the problem – we are always looking backwards. These people are like this, they are like this. We’re always criticizing. We should be positive and look forward and I think in so doing the definitely the country will be better off for it. That is the future I see. I am optimistic that the future is bright. But we as a country, we must have what I will call national interest
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