Ibrahim Bamidele Emokpaire, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is the chairman and convener of the Progressives Solidarity for Asiwaju. He contested for the position of the APC national chairmanship in 2018, before he eventually stepped down for Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. He was also the Secretary of the United Kingdom Chapter of the APC for four years. Before then, he served as the chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria, U.K., for a year. He holds a postgraduate degree in Management Science and Law.
He has been with the party since 2006, when the party was Action Congress (AC) before it metamorphosed to Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and now APC. He was a member of APC PCC 2022; he spoke with GBENGA ADERANTI on a wide range of issues. Excerpts:
How would you rate your party’s performance so far?
APC’s performance has been quite good and reasonable. As a party, APC is now the largest party in Africa. We have about 23 states right now, which is to the APC’s credit. We will soon have the 24th State. We are still counting. We believe very strongly that the party is growing stronger; this is purely as a result of the fact that the party is doing its best. It is getting stronger by the day. There is unity in the party, and the structures are firm, and now we have a president who has been a party man all his life. He has been able to galvanise the party to ensure that the party is not fractured. We believe that the party will continue to wax stronger as we go forward.
What notable achievements has your party made that have positively impacted the lives of Nigerians?
The party has had a positive impact on the lives of Nigerians. We have a president who came in with a Renewed Hope Agenda. He has been very focused on governance. From the day that he was sworn in, he hit the ground running. He saw the flaws that were in the economy and in the country altogether. At the time this new administration came in, the economy was more or less at the precipice, and the nation’s economy was almost collapsing. And it was a situation where we needed leadership, and this leadership came about through President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s boldness to tackle the long-running problems that have been facing this country for decades. All the past leaders failed to take bold decisions, starting from the time of President Obasanjo.
A lot of people ask, ‘Why did he announce the removal of the fuel subsidy right away?’ The fact remains that the fuel subsidy was already removed before he came into government. There was no fuel subsidy provision in the budget that he took over from his predecessor, so at the end of the day, he took on the immediate liability, and he had to announce it straight away to say, ‘Look, fuel subsidy is gone.’
A lot of things were put in place to ensure that the effects of fuel subsidy removal were cushioned.
We also saw the fact that when he removed the fuel subsidy, a lot of other things were put in place, like the government had to make provision for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). He ensured that some of these policies were rolled out very quickly to ensure that Nigerians do not suffer.
Again, the minimum wage was raised from N30,000 to N70,000 immediately. The students’ loans scheme was introduced and was granted to a lot of students; before then, a lot of parents could not train their children. Over 300,000 have benefited from the students’ loans. No government, no president has ever initiated this move.
We also saw policies like the declaration of a state of emergency on food insecurity to ensure that we have food security in the country, cushioning the effect of fuel subsidy removal, and inflation that occasioned the removal of fuel subsidy.
Other bold decisions like making sure that the floating of the naira took effect immediately to make sure it finds its real value. All along, the previous governments were subsidising the naira to the dollar.
A lot of Nigerians do not understand that the APC has taken a bold step to save our future generation. The children yet to be born are the ones who will benefit so much. Inflation is coming down. We are now having inflation at 22 per cent, and it is still coming down. A lot of harvests are coming out. The direction of the policy of this APC government is to ensure that we are in a position to export food and have a surplus of food for the citizenry.
Insecurity has been tackled severely, too, to ensure that people can now travel by road without worries about being kidnapped on the way. We have a reasonable improvement in security as of now.
We also have a situation where President Tinubu has been able to roll out some infrastructural development, including the Coastal highway. These are the gains of the removal of fuel subsidy. We have seen a big turnaround in everything we are doing.
President Tinubu is a leader who has also solved the problem of livestock with the creation of the Ministry of Livestock.
He also took a bold decision on the devolution of power by ensuring that power goes down to the people. The aviation sector is also being developed. Same in the internal affairs, a lot of things have been done in this place. These are impacting Nigerians very well. He has displayed true leadership.
By the time we get to the third year of this administration, Nigerians will begin to feel the true governance they expect from President Tinubu.
Many people are concerned that your party may soon implode due to the departure of figures like El-Rufai, Aregbesola, and Boss Mustapha. What is your perspective on this?
Now, El-Rufai is leaving the party; every Nigerian will see that he left the party because of personal interest. It is not about Nigeria. If you go to Kaduna today, he has not been a part of the APC. Leaving the party is a positive for us. We believe that the APC is more popular in Kaduna today than when El-Rufai was the governor of the state. We lost the 2023 presidential election in Kaduna when he was the governor. He needs to tell us what value he would have added if he had stayed behind. We are quite happy with the governor in Kaduna today; he is doing a fantastic job.
As for Aregbesola, he has long left the party before now; he was expelled from the party because of his anti-party activities. Aregbesola’s leaving will not change anything in Osun State.
As for Boss Mustapha, he was the SGF under Buhari; before then, why don’t you ask, what has Mustapha brought into the party? He was only appointed. We were all together in the ACN; he was our deputy chairman at one point. Even in Adamawa, he is a lightweight there; let him go and contest an election in Adamawa to prove a point. He has not played any role since he left the government; he just wants to find himself in government again.
When you look at the so-called coalition, you can see the exact situation with all of them. They formed this coalition only six months after President Tinubu came to power, so sometimes you really need to sit down and think, what is the focus of these people? They gather themselves not because of Nigeria, but because of their stomach.
Boss Mustapha, while speaking at a book launch, downplayed President Tinubu’s contributions to President Buhari’s victory in 2015. How do you respond to this?
Well, my simple response to this is that Boss Mustapha was never a CPC member. He was never a Buharist; he was only trying to play to the gallery and be mischievous. One thing that this coalition is doing is to blackmail President Tinubu; they roll out so many lies about the state of affairs in Nigeria, while ignoring all the positive indices that are being rolled out there by various authorities, national and international, who have unveiled the progress by the government of President Bola Tinubu.
Boss Mustapha was not in CPC, was never in ANPP, he was never in any alliance with President Buhari in the past, he was only fortunate to have been nominated as the SGF. His utterances show his level of political naivety.
He should have known that by the time President Buhari contested the first time, the second time and by the third time, his supporters were already getting wary, they were already losing faith in him, they never believed that he could win an election again because he had contested three times, no success, he couldn’t win the presidency. The so-called 12 million votes he was calculating were fallacious. By the time President Buhari contested the 2015 election, he had lost some of his supporters. CPC was only having one state in the entire country, not only that, he was contesting with an incumbent president, so he couldn’t have sat down and say I have so, so, and so votes. Already, they were demonising him, and they labelled him a fanatic. They were tying him up with negative things, internationally and locally. If the likes of President Tinubu had not come on board, who they know had lots of supporters all over the country, it would have been difficult for him to win that election. President Tinubu has built bridges all across the country, from the north to the south and all the rest of it. He was able to, first of all, secure his nomination as our candidate at the primaries. Where was Boss Mustapha at that time? I remember when I was in London, when the late President Buhari and President Tinubu would come to London to meet serious stakeholders before he was
endorsed by the international bodies. Where was Boss Mustapha?
Boss Mustapha is so naive; he needs to be schooled regarding how somebody helped somebody get into power and become a president. We now come to vote. When you calculate the number of votes that come in from every part of the country, again, that is how you will know how the late Buhari won the election. Even in the FCT here, the late President Buhari was defeated by Jonathan. I don’t understand what Boss Mustapha was calculating and how he came about it, and came up with such a reckless statement that now becomes a controversial issue of ingratitude, which should never have been. I can assure you that President Buhari will not be happy to hear Boss Mustapha making such statements at a book launch.
You, along with other support groups, campaigned vigorously for Tinubu during the 2023 election to ensure his victory. Some of these groups have since joined other parties. Are you not worried that this might negatively affect your party in the next election?
Yes, some groups have left out of frustration and capitulated. But for somebody like myself, who is the chairman of the Progressive Solidarity for Asiwaju, we had the entire 36 states covered with FCT. We also have our coordinators, and every one of our structures is still in place. I have never jumped from one party to the other since I came into the APC from ACN. I’m responsible for my followers, but I believe that a lot can be done better to manage all the support groups. I believe that there will be other talks and discussions across the country through the party with some support groups.
Support groups should have been co-opted into the government because they are the foot soldiers of President Bola Tinubu. They promote his policies; his achievements.
Among these support groups, we have technocrats, well-experienced individuals, and all that; these are strong loyalists of President Tinubu that will never falter, so there is a need to manage them, bring them on board, and let them be involved. I still look forward to such a development. I look forward to such a meeting.
It is important to mention that we were the ones that campaigned vigorously and asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to contest the election because for me personally, I have known him for long, I know he is a man of vision, someone who can turn this country around, make this country a better place all for our children and future generations. I know he has the stamina, the ability, and competent people around him.
I was one of the people, with my support group, Progressives Solidarity for Asiwaju, to ensure we dragged him out to contest. We were the second support group, apart from TSG, that had an office in Abuja to be able to have a rallying point for all our members across the country, and our group did very well; we were able to pull out votes where votes were not expected, so the people are still intact. We look forward to seeing where they will be able to fit in and get the work done at the next election. We would be waiting for the whistle and a meeting with the president himself, as well as the party, and other support groups.
Many people are discussing true federalism and regional governments. How do you think we can achieve this in Nigeria?
The fact remains that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu published a book on true federalism in 2007/2008, when he finished in Lagos as a governor. This is a president who knows the importance of having true federalism in Nigeria. This is one of the things he has quietly achieved so far. He is still restructuring Nigeria as we speak. President Tinubu has ensured that there is absolute autonomy given to local government because he knows that local governments are the ones that are closer to the people, and ensuring that the three tiers of government- the federal, the state, and the local government- work together to be able to deliver to the people true dividends of democracy.
He has also gone further to create regional ministries. The regional development ministries all across the six geopolitical zones, North-West, South-South, North-East, Southwest, as well as North-Central, all these six geopolitical zones now have regional commissions. It is an opportunity for each region to now look at themselves holistically and start developing their areas; they are the ones that will now tackle the issue of education, health, as well as the level of insecurity, and they will be able to liberate their people, based on the agitation they have been clamouring for. By the time this government has been in office, we will begin to see the impact of the regional development commission.
Other policies are yet to come up, based on some of the vision of the president for this country, for example, instead of going about with the issue of herdsmen parading all along the country, creating insecurity, and stirring up trouble in the country, the ministry of livestock will now handle that and be able to encourage, each sub- national or zone to create ranches in each of the states as well.
Do you believe your party can replicate the same success in the upcoming elections as it did in 2023?
In 2027, our party, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will be able to achieve more and have a better feat in the outcome of the election that is coming up. One, he will ensure that the INEC is properly funded; he will ensure that everything is in place for them to conduct elections very well. There will be no hurdles like the naira redesigning, hoarding the naira.
APC would surely come out victorious with a landslide victory at the next election.
