Claiming Atiku Is Corrupt Is Irrelevant –Agbakoba

Chief Olisa Agbakoba (SAN)

Chief Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), former president of the Nigerian Bar  Association (NBA) and leader of the Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM), in this exclusive interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI and CHIAMAKA OSUAGWU speaks on issues bordering on the 2019 presidential election. Excerpts:

President Muhammadu Buhari came into office with lots of optimism in May 2015. Three half years down the line, what do you think has changed, do you think he has lost the goodwill with which he came to office three years ago?

Completely, he has no goodwill left. All the euphoria that was felt, I didn’t feel it because I have always known his background. There was a huge euphoria of change that former president Goodluck Jonathan had not done well; that he presided over a highly corrupt government, and Buhari was the Mr. Clean, Mr. Integrity, and he will fix things. But that has not happened. On the contrary, Nigeria is broken politically, strategically, morally, and a completely bankrupt country. Poverty level has grown, 85 billion Nigerians are extremely poor, we have now become the poverty capital of the world.  So, the euphoria of 2015 is certainly not the euphoria of 2019, and that is why personally, I am unable to support his campaign to remain in office. To support the campaign to remain in office is for me is to look back at what he has done, the campaign promises on corruption, security, and the economy. These are the three big campaign issues, nothing have been fulfilled. In spite of all the monies borrowed, we are now pushing to over $30 billion borrowed money unaccountable, infrastructures all in pieces, corruption is rife. You remember the case of his SGF, Babachir Lawal; you also remember the case of Abdulrasheed  Maina and so on.  So, there is nothing that stands him out as qualified to continue.

But the presidency has always said the man is still as popular as ever in trying to defend him. What is your perspective on that?

That is what they will say. What you need to know is what is the street talk?. It is like Governor Ambode. Nobody likes him. You can say that you are popular, but people need to say to you that you are not.  So, the presidential aides will normally say ‘oh, this is an extremely popular President’. Even Buhari’s wife has criticised the primary election that the APC held, so that will tell you that even in the other room in his house, he doesn’t have support. Why would I be supporting a man whose own wife does not even support him? For me, he is history. I just hope that we can have a new president.

Restructuring is one of the key items in the manifesto of the party APC 2015. But three years down the line, nothing has been done.  Are you worried by this development?

That is partly why I feel dissatisfied because Nigeria has to be decentralised. I don’t like the word ‘restructure’ because it has so many emotional tags.  The North doesn’t like it, and if Nigeria is to be restructured (to borrow your term), then it would mean that we need to see somebody who is prepared to push it.  President Buhari wasn’t prepared to push decentralisation. Why I prefer to use the word decentralisation is to show that it is such a simple concept that it beggars belief while some people are afraid of it. All it means is that you look at the 98 items of power in the constitution, and you will find that 68 are given exclusively to the Federal Government. The other 30 are given to the federal government and the state government. When you interrogate those 98 items of power very well, you will find out that is where our problem is. One of the simplest examples I will cite is drivers licence. What do we need the federal government to issue the drivers licence for? We don’t need it. What do we need the federal government to issue a register of marriage? Such a local thing is a matter not even for the state, but for the local government. What do we need the federal government to issue a register of Births and Deaths? These are responsibilities for the local government. So, the federal government is over saddled with competencies that it can’t carry out.  Take for instance, you are the Political Editor . Why is your Editor not the Business Editor,  Sports  Editor,  Life Editor and so on? It won’t be efficient.  So, you’ve got to have a structure.  The Supreme Court Chief Justice of Nigeria said a few days ago that the Supreme Court is so clogged that it will take five years for cases to be heard. Whereas, all we need to do is to decentralise the Supreme Court. Why should we have one apex court dealing with everybody’s problem? Whereas in the United States of America where we have borrowed the presidential system, you have state supreme court. In America you have 50 states Supreme Court,  so matters exclusive to that state are dealt with by the Supreme Court. Only national issues go to the Supreme Court. This is why there was such a struggle over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh because they deal with critical national issues. But here, our Supreme Court deals with customary marriage, land disputes, banking, etc. The way the Supreme Court is inefficient, is the way the executive is inefficient. The way to go is to decentralise. So when Atiku talks about restructure, all he means is that he will take the constitution, and distribute some of the powers now in the hands of the president of Nigeria, to the state. And the state in turn, will also distribute it to the local government. In my house in the UK, it is inconceivable that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will have an interest in how the garbage in my house is removed. But here, the Governor of Lagos state is interested, and he brings Visionscape. What should be the work for the Apapa local government chairman? You can see how dirty and filthy the entire Apapa is, because everything has to go to Alausa.  If we can do that, that should be the fundamental engagement of anybody who becomes president to relay the political foundation of Nigeria, flatten it out, and make all the governors relevant. We have 774 local governments, 36 state governments, and one federal government. Only one works, which is the federal. The state government does not even control its Commissioner of Police. So, we need to rejig all of this. Unfortunately, President Buhari completely failed. He himself said he will not read the report of the 2014 Conference Report.

Still on the 2019 presidential election, you said that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s endorsement of Atiku Abubakar carries a lot of weight,  but some people have also made comments online, asking if Obasanjo can go to the north and tell them to vote for Atiku, especially with the fact that President Buhari have like a cult followership in that region. Do you share that view too?

Chief Olisa

I think it misses the point to say that President Buhari is as popular as he was in 2015 because he is not. When the PDP ran their presidential primaries, a lot of big Northerners were there; people like Kwankwaso, Lamido, Dankwambo, Tambuwal, Makarfi and others. In any case, President Buhari will not expect to win the North-West and become Nigeria’s president because he has taken part in four elections, this will be his fifth. The only time he won was when  (Bola) Tinubu made the foolish mistake of bringing him to the South. Now, what will happen is that we will send him back to the North. The North alone can’t make him president; he has to have national appeal. So, I can tell you for free that President Buhari is not going to win the North- Central. He is not going to win the South-West; he is not going to win the South-East and he is not going to win the South-South. So, I don’t know where his votes will come from. If it is going to come from the North-West, that is fine. There is no way he can discountenance the influence of Obasanjo, you will be doing so at your peril because he has a strong followership. Obasanjo has strong followership in the South-West, Afenifere is on his side because they all believe in restructuring. The South-East cultural, traditional systems are on the side of Atiku because he believes in restructuring.  The South- East has felt marginalised and excluded and he (Atiku) now comes and said I will bring you in.  I am not interested in whether he is a thief.  Jesus Christ cannot be the president of Nigeria.  Donald Trump is not an angel but he is the most effective president in a long time. In the United States now, unemployment rates are down, economy is booming and everything is working.  The fact that he has girlfriends and does all those bad things doesn’t mean that he is not effective.  Yes, Atiku may not be an angel but I am not interested in that. I am tired of having a bad government. It is almost like the Jonathan-Buhari thing. When people said they were tired of Jonathan and brought in Buhari, so the same way now, people are tired of Buhari, and it is my hope that Atiku, if he does win, will learn lessons and move forward to do the right thing.

There is this belief that president Buhari has made some in-roads into the South-east in the last three and half years. In fact, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said he has almost completed 69 projects in the region.  What is your perspective on this?

Where are the projects? Am I not from there? The problem is back to the media, particularly the television media. You sit in Lagos, you come and do interviews, and you do not go anywhere. They are talking about second Niger Bridge. It doesn’t exist. Even former president Jonathan used it for campaign, they will just go and till the ground, and then disappear. The East-West road is bad, the Abuja-Lokoja road is unbuilt, there is no electricity, infrastructure is collapsed, and there are no jobs. You can’t hide the fruits of success. Where are the fruits of success? The economy is battered. We have had a recession, we were thinking we were coming out, but we have slowed down again, and potentially we will fall into recession. The government has no clue what to do. You do not cure malaria over nine years. The revolutionary transformational agenda needed to develop Nigeria is to put down about N150 trillion, not N7 trillion that is the budget. You need to look for cash. If you look for cash, you will do what Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) did during the depression in America. You will engage in massive public works programmes, building things, and therefore restart the economy, and employ all those unemployed youths, and do public works, which is the way you begin to re-pick the economy. Then of course, you decentralise the political foundation, so that the states that are crushed and trapped will have a breath of fresh air. The Ondo-Osun belt has the world’s largest deposit of sulphur and bitumen, nobody has ever exploited it.  Everybody is looking at oil. In the North you have diamonds, uranium, gypsum you have all sorts of things, but nobody has exploited them. We are sitting on top of wealth, but everybody runs to Abuja at the end of the month to collect a pay cheque.  That has led us to complete bankruptcy.  Nigeria is a bankrupt state. Salaries are not paid across the country. About 29 states are technically insolvent. So, how can you therefore say that we have had a very successful tenure under President Buhari?  We have not.

Let us look at the performance of the government in the area of infrastructure, especially in Apapa, where you have your office and also the ports. We knew how the Lagos state government under former Governor Babatunde Fashola was criticising the Jonathan administration four years ago, and people thought they would give priority to this place where they are generating a lot of wealth, but it seems the situation have become worse with the same Fashola as Works Minister. Are you not worried by this?

The government has not done anything about infrastructure. Otherwise how will the government that generates about N2 trillion from Apapa let it be in this condition? The priorities are not right. Once they are in Abuja, for them, Abuja is the world. They don’t conceive of Nigeria as having 36 states. The national assembly is there, the Supreme Court is there, the executive is there, and that is their world. Anything else is not part of the equation. Apapa is not anywhere on the priority list of what needs to be done.

Should we believe that the 2019 presidential election is a contest between the PDP and the APC alone?

Unfortunately, it is, because you need two things in politics, which I call the heavy lifting. If I put something you cannot lift, then why try it? To be Nigerian president requires heavy lifting: money, structure, and to be honest, it is a worldwide phenomenon. In the UK, you have Conservatives and Labour yet there are many other parties there. In America, you have the Democrats and Republican. It is the pattern. To build a party is not a joke. But I think what is new in 2019 which has never happened before are the new political parties. It will be a great mistake to ignore them because they are pulling a lot of weights.  I personally will wish a fresh new party will go all the way because I am looking for a clean break but that is wishful thinking; I want to be a realist. Idealism, yes, many new parties are there. But pragmatically, it is a two-horse race. But where we come in because I as chair of the movement of new political parties we hopefully wish to support the candidate who we feel will achieve our agenda. First, decentralisation. Anybody who doesn’t do that, we will not support him.  Already, Buhari has said he is not doing that, so he is out. Second, economic development; third, infrastructure; fourth, massive downsizing of the federal government. I will implement vigorously the Oronsaye report. It is not fair that the federal government employees consume 80 percent of our resources. There are so many dead agencies that I would close up if I was the president.  I will close NTA, I will close the prisons, I will transfer the prisons to the state. Federal government hardly has ten prisoners, so why should the federal government have over 150 prisons? I will also close the Federal Road Safety, it is not necessary. I hope if Atiku wins, he will understand that every day in office requires the most drastic and urgent steps to be taken. Then you will begin to see money to put into development and education, infrastructure, health, employment, etc.   Everyday two government agencies will shut down until you have brought the number from three million to half a million. By doing that, there will be enough money to put in education, health etc. This N7 trillion you see as a budget, N6trillion will go into paying salaries, so how can we develop?

Based on our experience on the recently concluded election in Osun state, do you see INEC conducting a free, fair and credible election?

I would be very shocked that INEC would misbehave, and I do hope they don’t because what they do will very critical, and people are beginning to wonder what would happen. I just hope that INEC and the security forces would play a neutral, straightforward process driven role so that whoever emerges, whether Buhari or Atiku or any other person, Nigerians can agree that the process was free and fair.

What should we expect from the NIM?

We have a basket of demands. We are looking for somebody who will remodel for Nigeria, that would be a new constitution, and decentralising the power of the federal government, and making it smaller so that the cost of governance of the federal government will shrink, creating a new idea in the way government behaves.  There is also the need to collate all government wasting assets. We are a very wealthy people who do not understand how to harness our wealth. That is the type of president that we need to see. You will be shocked and start asking what it is that is new. Nothing is new except the thinking, and once that thinking is there, it will change the paradigm. If I was the president, I would have a massive programme for trade. Nigeria is a dumping ground where everybody feels that they can come here, and just dump. If you look at the Nigeria-China bilateral trade patterns, you will find that they are dumping things here.  The Trump example is what we should emulate. Trump was not a fool when he was always talking about fair trade.  I will use trade and fiscal policy to cool Nigeria down. I expect a good president to begin to show Nigerians that he can turn this thing around in six months. You make sure that you build consensus, so that in the north where there is a bit of fear about restructuring, you change the language, and you say that what you are trying to do is to limit your power as the president, and passing it to them.  Decentralise everything; let every part of Nigeria be important.



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