How I Felt When Obasanjo Tore His PDP Card - Nigerian Tribune

You know of our Agriculture programme. Will I stop the programme that is helping so many Nigerians because somebody is blackmailing us, or because somebody is busy intimidating people?



I was surprised last night when the owner of Chisco, the company that runs transport business between Lagos and the South-East, told me that 18 of his luxury buses were burnt down in Lagos by youths of a rival political party because my billboard was close to his facility. Is it proper?  Is that the kind of people that want to take over the running of this country? Is this country going to be managed by people with that kind of background? And will I be intimidated when I mean well for Nigeria?

I feel that things must be done properly. And we are improving on all fronts.

Take the road infrastructure, when I took over, only about five, six thousand kilometers of roads were motorable. I mean roads owned by the Federal Government. Of course, you know that most of the major roads across the country are Federal Roads. Now we have added 20,000 kilometers of motorable roads. At least, now we can say we have about 25,000 kilometres of motorable roads in the country. And I believe that in the next four years, we will be able to complete the remaining 10,000kms and open new arteries.

Are you saying I should chicken out because some people are telling lies about the government?

I have given freedom to Nigerians. Before now, Nigerians don’t talk about voters’ cards. It is from 2011 that we brought that awareness, that a voter card owned by Nigerians must be the potent tool to be used and Nigerians must decide who governs them at all levels. And we tried to stop the old ways of manipulating and rigging elections at all levels, so that Nigerians become relevant in the voting process. But the way some people are saying it, it is as if they created it. Before 2011, who cared about voters’ cards? You go to a community, one big man has carried away the voters’ cards and other people would go about their businesses.  So many senior citizens told me that they never rested until 2011. So we have reformed the electoral process and freed Nigerians. We have now given Nigerians the power to decide who governs them and you want to say I should chicken out so that we go back to the old ways?

Look at the freedom Nigerians enjoy. You abuse the President and I smile. In some countries, you abuse the President, they deal with you.  In so many countries, including African countries, you cannot abuse the President and go to sleep with your two eyes closed. It is only in Nigeria that you can do that.

Well, but some people will say that your inaction in such instance is a sign of weakness

Well, people are abusing it. But sometimes if you want to move, the same people who say it is a weakness will come and beg and say Mr President, please, leave them. It is like this story of a man riding a horse with his son. If the two of them climb the horse, people will abuse them, ‘why should the two of you climb a horse. Do  you want to break the back of the horse? This man is a foolish man.’

Then the man would say let him ride the horse; let the boy trek and they would say, this man is a foolish man. He is the old man; the boy should be on the horse and he should trek. When the man carries the boy on top of the horse and they would say, which kind of man is this?

So, however you put it, people will have something to say.

But one thing people clamour for globally is freedom. The whole essence of democracy is freedom. If you have a democratic environment and people are not free, then it is pseudo-democracy and that is why I frown on intimidation.

If Jonathan is bad and PDP made a mistake to present Jonathan, the duty of a rival political party is to bring a credible candidate whose credentials are okay, that it can market freely and can beat Jonathan any day, any where. And the electorate will decide.  It is not by going to intimidate people. It is not by abusing Jonathan. Jonathan is not claiming that he is the best person in Nigeria. No, never.  I used to say that even in the University, I made a Second Class Upper. I didn’t make a First Class, but there are  so many First Class graduates in this country. I don’t have the best brain. I didn’t study a prestigious course. I am not a lawyer or a doctor; I am not an engineer.

So I cannot say I am the best. But if Jonathan must be changed, get a better material that you don’t need to intimidate people or tell lies to market. I have not seen anybody that has been presented among the 14 presidential candidates that can run the country better than me. If I have seen any, I would say yes. So if Jonathan is bad, give Nigerians a better alternative. It is not by blackmailing Jonathan. It is not by abusing people. That is no longer democracy. If we are practising democracy, then there must be freedom of choice, freedom of speech. If you take these ingredients out of any government, then it is not democracy it is pseudo-democracy, false democracy.

I am coming from a background of a government that stood by the rule of law. I came as vice-president to the late Yar’Adua who advocated the rule of law and I agreed. I cannot now say that since Yar’Adua is late, I would no longer believe in that philosophy of the rule of law. It is easy if you write something against me for me to ask my security agents to come and arrest you and throw you into a dungeon for 24 hours, so that you know that there is government. Yes, one can do it. But is that what you use power for?

Yes, if you write something we feel you should not have written we can caution you or take you before the law court, but we should not lock you up for one week in an underground dungeon.

It is costly, yes. I am the one receiving the flaks. But you need that for you to move the country forward. Nigeria is a country with a high degree of diversity in terms of language groups, in terms of tribal groups and in terms of religious groups. Within the two major religions, Christianity and Islam, you have major sects and all that. So when you are managing that kind of a country, when you are practising true democracy, you may be perceived as a weak person. But I told Nigerians the issue is not whether Jonathan is weak or not, the issue is that within these five years, including the one year I used to complete Yar’Adua’s tenure and the four years of my first tenure, what have I put on the table?

I used to tell people that human memories are short. In 2012, we experienced the biggest flood in this country. The biggest flood I witnessed was in 1969; that was the year I wrote my primary six examinations. It was before the Kainji Dam was completed. Since the completion of Kainji Dam, there was no such flood again. In my community, even in the place where I built my house, in those days, nobody would have built a house there, but since that time [1969] there was no flood again. In the 2012 flood in my compound that was sand-filled before the building, if you stand on the floor nobody would see your head. That was the extent of the flood. People thought we would have food crisis, we never had.  

That didn’t come by chance.  Because of the fall in oil prices, in a number of countries that depend on oil like we do, people are queuing up for essential commodities. Here, even though the value of the Naira has gone dow, because of the drop in oil prices, food prices are relatively stable.  These things don’t come by chance. By now we would have been queuing up to buy bread. And people would have been angrier with government. Because of our agric programme, we are producing much of our food requirements. We have been assisting farmers and encouraging them in various ways. Fertilizers are getting to the farmers; other agro input are getting to the farmers; real seedlings getting to the farmers; lots of financial assistance. These things don’t happen by chance. We mean well for this country. So I can’t succumb to any intimidation. It would be a failure on my own part. If you have something to offer your country, you will want to do it.

You said that none of the presidential candidates can do better than you in running this country. I am sure that includes General Buhari, your main challenger. How do you rate General Buhari?

I said that none of the candidates from their history, from what we know, can do better than me in terms of governing this country. General Buhari has governed this country before for 18 months. It would not be fair for me to comment on one individual, especially the number one contender. So, I will not want to rate him. But what I will like to say is that out of the 14 presidential candidates, none of them can do better than me in terms of running this country and I have listened to statements, speeches, interviews and  I have not seen any of them offering anything new.

I have not seen any of them saying that in agriculture, this is what the present government is doing, I want to do it this way. I want to do things this way and it is a better option. I have not heard any of them saying anything about Railways. Railway was dead in this country for over 30 years; I remember in those  days when Buhari was Head of State, I was doing my Master’s degree programme and there was this screaming headline in one of the national dailies,  ‘weeds overtake Rail lines!’ That was what we got.

But now we have rehabilitated 90 per cent of this old narrow gauge and we are adding the standard ones.  Even in the power sector, we have not reached where we want to go but you can see the progress we are making. Be it in education or aviation, name it, I have not seen any new idea from my opponents.

A lot of people have been presidents in this country before I came. I came on board and some states have degree-awarding institutions while 12 states had no degree-awarding institutions. I did not create those states but I felt it was not good. I opened 12 universities in the 12 states that had no federal universities, in addition to the one specialising in Maritime studies, the Maritime University, because we have the longest coastline. Apart from the Maritime Institution in Oron in Akwa Ibom State, we don’t really have an institution that can train the highest level of manpower in the maritime sector. So, we said we must have a university to take care of that.

Look at primary and secondary education. By our laws, it is not the responsibility of Federal Government, but I looked at the North, the rate of school dropouts is so high that some states had as high as 70 per cent. Some states had 40 to 50 per cent, some 30-something per cent while the rate in the South was about two per cent. The average in the North was about 35 per cent; that is from primary to the first three years of secondary school education. So, I said the Federal Government must assist. And there is no state we have not built at least five schools to assist. I also built the Almajiri schools, primary schools to assist the downtrodden, the children that are underprivileged, whose parents cannot cater for them. Nobody has done that before.

You said that none of the other presidential candidates has better ideas on governance than you. But General Buhari has been campaigning on two major fronts. He said he can fight insurgency better and he will fight corruption. How would you react to those two points he has been using to campaign?

You see, I laugh when I hear these things. To us Nigerians, the word corruption is very painful. When you tell Nigerians you want to fight corruption, people will be happy. It is like a dummy that you can use to deceive people. I don’t know how old you were when General Buhari was Head of State. He used the same corruption-fighting ploy to chase the politicians away. He said this country was too corrupt; he was going to deal with them and he took over. Some people were given 300 years imprisonment,200 years imprisonment.

But did that stop corruption? Even the report of Transparency International that has been analysing corruption from that time till date has not exonerated that government. And for 18 months, the country was going down; people were queuing up to buy essential commodities. I was doing my Master’s degree then as I said earlier. Some nights, I couldn’t even read, because I had to go and queue up to buy one tin of milk and one packet of sugar. If you didn’t queue up overnight, the items won’t get to you when they open the warehouse in the morning. By the time they open the store by 8 a.m., the items would have finished before it gets to your turn.  So if he had defeated that corruption then, it won’t be with us today.

To me, if somebody says he wants to fight corruption, you must tell me how you intend to fight corruption. Look at what we have done in the Agric sector. We stopped fertiliser corruption. We are going to make that cut across all sectors. The next sector we are going to is petroleum. That is a sector many people have raised all kinds of issues. We are doing quite a number of things in that sector, which I will not say because if you say it a number of people benefitting from the slease could create all kinds of scenarios and block it. If you take the Agric sector, for instance, the first thing a Minister of Agriculture would ask from the President is money to buy fertilisers. And at the end of the day, the fertilisers and agro inputs would not get to the farmers. Less than 10 per cent get to the farmers. We have cleaned up all that, using the electronic wallet.  

The corruption in that sector is gone. Look at the payroll system, in December where some departments of government couldn’t receive salaries. It was because people started to divert the money meant for salaries to pay other allowances and the system shut them off.  So we are building a system that, even if a person wants to steal, he will not be able to steal.  First, you must prevent stealing before you talk about enforcement. It is just like when you are in the Customs and they tell you to prevent smuggling, you enforce it also.  

All over the world, prevention is more potent than enforcement, because in enforcement, there are lots of limitations, because of our legal system. We operate a legal system that says it is better for nine criminals to get away with a crime than for one innocent man to be punished.  The concept of proving beyond reasonable doubt comes in.  How reasonable is that reasonable doubt.

So, if Buhari wants to reduce corruption, he will have to tell Nigerians how he plans to do that.

General Buhari was Head of State in a military government and when they set up tribunals, the tribunals did all it wanted to do, just like the one that ruled on the death of Ken Saro Wiwa. But we are in a democratic setting, where you must obey the law. Yes, you can disobey the law by locking up people for a very long time, but people will go to court and the courts will tell you what you are doing is wrong. You can only continue to disobey the law for as long as possible.  Even on the question of arresting and prosecuting people, we have done a lot. We have even arrested and prosecuted more people than the previous governments. Maybe, you will go and interview the chairman of EFCC. I used to tell him to talk to the press because the tendency is for Nigerians to think we are not fighting corruption.

Ibrahim Lamorde was Director of Operations at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) under Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. When I came on board as vice-president, Ribadu was removed, Lamorde was posted out and Farida was brought in.  When I took over, a number of people clamoured to bring Lamorde back, especially from the international community, the people who trained him.  They said they have trained him very well and that if we brought him back he was going to do well. So, luckily he had not been retired. I brought him back.  And I told him the whole world appears to believe in you, come and head EFCC. And he has been doing well. But because some people want to bring Jonathan down, the good works of Lamorde too must be brought down.

Don’t you think that the lull in the fight against corruption is as a result of the fact that during the administration of President Obasanjo we saw more trials and the media was very well used. But this is not so at this time. Would you also consider a change in strategy?

I agree with you that the media publicity helped to paint the picture that that government was fighting corruption. Society behaves in a particular way. So, by the time you arrest some people and show them on television, people are happy. If you are somebody who will play to the gallery, that is what you will do and that is what we don’t want to encourage. So a government that wants to take the populist option may not achieve much, but it would be celebrated.

Probably, we may have a kind of balance. We will not go to that extreme, because if you suffer from that you will not want to encourage it. I was a governor in Bayelsa State. I took over the governance of Bayelsa on the 12th December, 2005 when we had crisis in the state. During that time, we had a bit of unstable governance in the state and I was just paying salaries and I said contractors should wait.

That lasted till February 2006.  And by that time we had accumulated about ₦25 billion debt but the total income of the state was below ₦13 billion. In February as I arrived Abuja, I saw a headline ‘Bayelsa Gov in ₦50 billion whatever,’ I said what is this? I have not even awarded contracts. I started calling everywhere to make sure they correct the false allegation. In those days, if you don’t like a local government chairman, you wrote an anonymous petition to EFCC and the EFFC would, chain him and show him on television.

At the end of the day when they got into the matter nothing came out of it. Would you prefer such a situation? Those who arrested and disgraced you would not even come and apologise to you. So it gave a false impression that corruption was being fought but that extreme is not the best in the circumstance. Probably, we must do a little of letting the media know what we are doing, but we must select cases we are sure of. We do and not want expose innocent people and make innocent people look like ordinary thieves on television.

Because the day you announce that this person has stolen money, that impression is there forever. And on the internet, whenever you search through Google, you get that story despite the fact that that person was not even tried. So, there is no way the court can say the man did not steal any money. When you investigate the case, you just ask the man to go. No statement is issued to clear the man, that the man is not a thief. But in the media system, especially these days of social media, whatever goes in there is permanent.

So these are the issues. I believe we may begin to do things slightly differently, but not to that extreme. The emphasis is that all these areas where we have leakages have to be blocked so that nobody will steal money through payment of salaries. Nobody will steal money through award of contracts. That is why we have the Bureau of Public Procurement and, of course, this fertilizer issue.

In fact, arms and ammunition now are being procured from government to government. People say oh, because the Army is corrupt or because the government is corrupt, that is why we couldn't recover the Chibok girls. That is not so. Look at what is happening all over the world. People underrate terrorism. Now, with what we are doing with arms and ammunition, we are no longer procuring through direct contract. We are doing it government to government, because most of these companies that manufacture arms and ammunition have links with their home governments; these are not just businesses you just operate without control. So, we are going through the states to buy.

Despite the stories that America is not doing this or that, we are buying through the states. So, by the time we get over this Boko Haram debacle, which certainly we will get over, major procurements, would be through the governments so that this issue of corruption would be reduced. Assuming that people were padding contracts, by buying through the countries directly, you cannot do that. And that is what we are doing in major sectors and even with our procurement at the Federal Government level.

If we are buying things, we buy directly from the manufacturers. We don’t approve the payment through contractors. Except some manufacturers who don’t sell directly, that have agents either for your country or the sub-region, we get through those ones, so the prices are standard. Any addition would just be for logistics and so on. So these are the areas we are using to reduce corruption. If somebody tells you I will fight corruption, I have fought corruption before by arresting somebody and jailing somebody for 300 years, such is a big lie. Were those people really corrupt? Most of the people involved are South-Westerners that you know very well.  I don’t want to mention names. Were they really corrupt people that deserved 200 or 300 years jail terms?

Mr President, talking about elections, the INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, was before the Senate and he refused to confirm that the March 28 and April 11 dates for elections are sacrosanct, saying that it was the military that could confirm. As the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, do you assure Nigerians that those dates are sacrosanct? And are you not worried that Jega continues to pass the buck?

I appointed Jega. If I make any statement on INEC either negatively or positively, it will affect the whole process. As the sitting president, who appoints INEC leadership, I must be mindful and I cannot be dragged into making statements or utterances that are unguarded about a body set up by my government. INEC as an arm by government, just like any other agency of government, might have its limitations; that does not mean it has issues. As at that time, the military felt that we had security challenges that we must properly handle, otherwise; the elections would be inconclusive.

Even outside core security areas, in a place like Lagos, only 38 per cent of the registered voters had Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). By global standard, you will see that only 60 to 65 per cent of voters turn out to vote. So assuming that 38 per cent of Lagosians had PVCs; if 65 per cent of that 38 per cent turns out to vote, you will have only 30 per cent of the electorate in Lagos electing people for the public offices. If you write exams and you score 30 per cent; that is a failure. So, will you describe that kind of election where 30 per cent voted as a credible election? INEC had some issues; issues of PVCs, issues of card readers and all sorts. But then, the security people had their own issues.

You and I may not know what they know; they run intelligent services and they also know the thinking of this evil group called Boko Haram. Of course, you know that Gombe was attacked on 14th of February, which was supposed to be the day of the Presidential and National Assembly elections and I called the governor after we were able to repel the attack. He said when the insurgents came into the city they were chanting anti-election sentiments, which means that their real purpose of coming was to disrupt the elections.

I want to believe they were living somewhere in the forest and didn't know that elections were no longer holding; I also believe other groups would have gone to places like Bauchi, Damaturu and so on, and maybe those ones knew about the postponement. Therefore, when the military said that for security reasons, the election should be postponed, I expect Nigerians to know that, at least, these were serious people who had intelligence at their disposal; that it is because the military has been working that they can sleep.

So, some of the statements made about the military are quite unfortunate, very unfortunate. But I am quite pleased with the progress we have made within this period; and my conviction is that in two to three weeks time, what will happen in the North will make all Nigerians happy that the military made that suggestion and that, at least, INEC listened to them. I believe Boko Haram will be depleted to the level that even if we don’t rout them out completely, we would have overpowered them and reclaimed our territories.

You cannot claim that you have won a war against terrorism just like you cannot claim to have won a war against stealing; even in the house, someone can hide and take something. But we may be able to take over many of our territories, if not all, so that the insurgents will not have that kind of strength to come in their numbers to disrupt elections across so many states that will affect the overall result of maybe the presidential election. At least, the military will be able to do that. So, I am convinced that we will conduct the elections as scheduled.

You cannot blame the INEC chairman; it will be difficult and improper for him to say, ‘yes, elections must hold.’ He has to be careful, because he is not the Chief of Defence Staff or the Commander-in-Chief. I can say that and defend it, because I have the information about security that does not go to him. So, don’t blame him; he will be a bit careful. He will tell you that he is ready but he does not control all the aspects of the election; he does not control the security aspect.

So, there is hope for March 28 Sir?

Yes, of course. Those of you here, I hope you have your voter cards, because my commitment is that all Nigerians must vote. And I feel sad when people say that only this percentage has collected PVCs, and it sometimes makes me get angry, because I feel that we cannot practise democracy well if people who want to vote are prevented from voting. If you register and you get card and on that day you feel like not going to vote, it is your right. There is nowhere in the world that 100 per cent of resident voters vote, but the decision to vote or not should be that of the individual.

Nobody should be prevented from voting. Those willing and active voters should be able to vote and I want a situation whereby 100 per cent of registered Nigerians will have their voter cards, because that is democracy. Without that, you are not practising democracy and I don’t want anything that will have the symptoms of pseudo-democracy in Nigeria. We want something that will make the whole world see and know that we are practising total democracy; it is costly and easier for countries that are ruled by kings and queens. But if you are practising democracy, though it is costly and painful, it should be total.

Posted: at 22-02-2015 11:51 PM (10 years ago) | Gistmaniac

O boy, the 'tory' too long...

Posted: at 23-02-2015 12:06 AM (10 years ago) | Newbie

No be small thing ooo I tire for this long story. Mr GEJ, Obasanjo made u who u r today. 

Posted: at 23-02-2015 12:24 AM (10 years ago) | Upcoming

This long post looks like a fabrication

Posted: at 23-02-2015 03:01 AM (10 years ago) | Newbie

Yeeeeeeeh too long ( ele pami ooo)

Posted: at 23-02-2015 07:41 AM (10 years ago) | Newbie

What is ALL THIS STORY FOR

Posted: at 23-02-2015 10:38 AM (10 years ago) | Hero

If it's true you did all these, then your PR dept is zero.

Posted: at 23-02-2015 02:25 PM (10 years ago) | Upcoming

The pres. said he advocated for a single 7yrs tenure that will enable projects been finished befor elections forgetting he has been there for 6yrs, cluesless man APC pls change ur pres. candidate nd produce a vaible one to send this GEJ packing

Posted: at 23-02-2015 07:52 PM (10 years ago) | Newbie