As the Nigerian general elections draw nearer, Major General Sam Momah, a two term minister and first Commandant of the Nigerian War College, examines the preparedness of INEC, the quality of the on-going political campaigns, the effect of Boko Haram and how these should influence the voting pattern. He spoke to Paul Ukpabio in Abuja
AS a senior citizen of this country, what is your opinion about the preparedness of INEC with regards to this coming general election?
First and foremost, I doff my hat for Professor Attahiri Jega, for his courage in registering APC as a political party. It is the most defining political development in our political history since the amalgamation. That has brought Nigerian politics to the fore, and given the country, that international recognition. That is because when it was just one big party and a splinter of so many smaller parties, PDP used to have its way and the PDP didn’t bother to develop itself. But now that it is two big political parties, I believe that Nigerian politics has now come of age. And as from now, we will expect something better. I believe that INEC is ready to have a free and fair election. But whether the players will play to the rule is disturbing some of us.
But INEC in a way contributed to the problems?
Definitely, INEC has its problems. They even tell us that INEC materials arrived in bits and pieces from abroad. INEC is still talking about having enough generators to run the centres. And of course, Jega told us some months ago that he has no problem with funding, but right now, we know that INEC has funding problems because recently, they could not pay the staff who are to run the registration centres. That is why some days back, when the electorates went there; they were not seeing the officials because they were not being paid. This is quite unfortunate because we had four years to prepare for this election, so why should we now be importing these cards in piece meal? I don’t understand. But we still believe that INEC is ready and the election should take place. INEC has told us that they have registered 52 million Nigerians. We expected that they will register 100million people out of the 170 million Nigerians. Any attempt to rig the election, will have dire consequences. The first and second republic ran into problems because of the rigging of election. Once election is rigged, the country goes into turmoil and any rigging of this particular election, is going to be worse because of the circumstances of the situation. It is my hope that nobody tries to rig this election.
Are you optimistic that Nigerians are ready to vote?
I believe that Nigerians are ready to vote. They have been sensitized enough. To my mind, this election is the most crucial event Nigerians has ever faced since the amalgamation of 1914 because this election is important for many reasons. We have had the first 100 years as a nation; we know how Nigerians fared, very poorly. Now 2015, we are entering into the second 100 years of our existence as a nation. So this election is crucial, it will determine what happens to Nigeria in the next 100 years. There is need for Nigerians to take it seriously and vote the right person. I believe that there is need for change. Boko Haram is a menace; we never had it so bad, for a country to have some other persons hoisting their flag in the territories of this country, is un-heard of. Therefore, we need somebody who will deal with Boko Haram instantly and expeditiously. Secondly, the price of fuel coming down at this time, is a divine arrangement or blessing to give Nigerians the idea that if a government that has been there for 16 years has not improved their situation, now that the oil money is no more there, it calls for concern and a re-think because definitely, someone who couldn’t manage you during the boom era, will definitely not be able to manage you during the burst era! So, it is important for us to see the hand writing on the wall, and vote for change. Of course, we have tried a political party for 16 years without major change, so, we must give another political party a chance so that there will be competition between the parties. If we don’t effect this change, some analysts foresee Boko Haram over-running Nigeria in two years’ time, apart from other internal crisis. And it will happen. We can’t gamble with that kind of thing. That will fulfill the prediction of the United State of America about the country breaking up. So, this change must take place to avoid Nigeria disintegrating. It is ridiculous for a sitting president to tell us to re-elect him, so that he can defeat Boko Haram. Then why is he the president, because as president, he already has all the powers to defeat Boko Haram, he doesn’t need to wait for re-election to do so. If he has in the last few months collected back more than half of the territories that Boko Haram has got, he wouldn’t need to campaign. We would have voted for him! But he didn’t and now that election is here, his people are junketing about the place raising petty issues and leaving the real issues that should be discussed aside. It is unfortunate. We need a change.
As one time Principal Staff Officer to General Buhari, what have you got to say about the controversial missing certificate of the General?
Honestly, the certificate issue is very embarrassing to some of us because, here we are talking about the survival of Nigeria. We know that Nigeria is at the brink of collapse, and here we are, with one of our best Generals, who trained in the best institutions in Europe and America, even in the US War College, which by all standards is a Post-Graduate institution, and you are talking about school certificate. I find it ridiculous and unbelievable; how our political class and political parties could be so petty and mundane at this particular crucial time. It is unnecessary to go that low because we must win at all cost.
They should realise that they are denigrating the image of Nigeria and not just General Buhari. That is one of your best generals and you are denigrating him; what should outsiders think of us! We must be careful of what we do, and not take it that far. The point of change that the nation has now reached is natural. It is the point that we must reach, to effect a change. And if they don’t want that change and they continue with blackmailing and denigration, then that will be unfortunate. The campaign should be issue-based, not on petty personal things. So, the certificate issue should not be entertained by Nigerians. We should concentrate on choosing the best candidate come February 14, 2015.
How do you rate the two major contenders in the forthcoming presidential elections?
Jonathan has tried his best. I doff my hat for him for holding the constitutional conference; he has given the women affirmative 35% gender equality, he has tried to tinker with agriculture, the cassava bread issue, which has now virtually died, and now he is trying to bring up a rice issue. I know he voted about 100 billion naira to revive the textile industry. But the point is that when you have a president that says stealing is not corruption, treats corruption with kids gloves, then most of that money released, just disappears. There is no system that will progress if there is no accountability. Jonathan has tried, but he has left the core issues which are security. If you cannot secure the lives of Nigerians, then I do not see why you are there as the Commander-in-Chief of the country! You are keeping some of us sleepless. Right now, we have a country where kidnapping is the order of the day, a country where unemployment is off the roof, about 80 million Nigerians unemployed, we have a country that God has blessed with petroleum, but we are importing oil and refineries are left unutilised. We have a country where the index of growth, which is power, virtually non-existent. Nigeria is 187 out of 189 on the global index, so we are almost the last in the list of countries in terms of availability of power. We generate less than 4000 megawatts of electricity for 170 million people; while South Africans are 50million people and they generate about 40,000 megawatts of electricity. The president has not dealt with the core issues that would have made Nigeria what it ought to be. We know what our foreign reserve was when he came in. It was 48 billion dollars, now we know what it is. Naira is going down the drain with about N200 to the dollar; our money is almost getting valueless. So, when you ask me to compare the two, I think that we do not have a comparison to make.
How convinced are you that General Buhari can perform better than Jonathan when he becomes the president of Nigeria?
Everybody has antecedents; I have worked under Buhari as his Principal Staff Officer when he was a GOC. We know him as incorruptible, we know him as being a man of Spartan life, one who is disciplined. We know him as a man of his words; his word is bond, so he can be trusted. He has been patriotic, he is an achiever, one that you give a task to do, and he gets it done. To us in the army, we know that there is no doubt that General Buhari is vying to become the president of Nigeria virtually for only patriotic reasons. I was privileged to visit him in Daura when I went there to attend an event; I was amazed to find out that Buhari has only a bungalow! There were no luxury leather chairs there but simple wooden chairs. He lives a Spartan life because he does not believe in tampering with money that is not his. I think we have a Mandela in him and a Julius Nyerere in him. Nigerians should better realise the quality of leadership that Buhari intends to bring to them, to regain Nigeria’s image abroad. Having seen Nigeria in those good old days and now seeing Nigeria degenerate, to what it is now, a country where graduates come out ten years after, no jobs, no plans for the jobs because the facilities are not there, and the environment to create such jobs is not in place. Someone like Buhari believes that, the situation should be corrected.
How about the insinuations that Buhari is a religious fanatic?
That I must say is absolute rubbish. That shows the level of ignorance among some Nigerians. That is because, in Nigerian Army, there is no way you can climb up to become a general if you are a religious fanatic. The troops are made up of people from various tribes and ethnic groupings. To be an effective commander, you have to be seen as being neutral. So, in the army we do not tolerate such. The troops are made up of Christians, Muslims and other religions, and you have to command them.
What can you say about the quality of the election campaigns?
The campaigns have been very poor in quality. It has been very disgraceful because they have not been issue-based. It has been praise-singing and mud-slinging. The issue should be about the candidates telling us what they want to do in the next four years and how they intend to implement their programmes. The campaigns have not been what it should be. It has been more of a jamboree. Even a debate at this time does not make sense because people have trivialised the election issues to the point of asking for certificate of a general in the Nigerian Army. So, you can imagine what a debate will look like. Why are they not telling us how they are going to deal with Boko Haram? Obama became re-elected based on two issues. They asked him, ‘if you are elected, what will you do about Obama Bin Laden,’ and he replied, ‘I will kill him.’ Journalists were shocked that Obama could be that brutal and blunt. When he became president, he quietly planned and killed Osama Bin Laden. Based on that, he was re-elected. Americans like someone keeping his words. Again during Storm Katrina, it was towards the election, Obama left his campaign preparation to go and look after the people that were affected by the storm. He used his incumbent opportunity to prove that he is a caring person. That is what I expected the incumbent Nigerian president to have done. All the displaced persons should have been taken care of and Boko Haram crushed. If he had done that, he wouldn’t need to campaign, people would vote for him. So, these issues are clear and straight forward. We can’t go on this way, we need a change. We are toying with something that can spell disaster if we fail to effect a change now: May God forbid such disaster upon us.
The militants in the creek are threatening war if the election does not go in favour of the incumbent president; what do you have to say about this?
Well, I am not surprise that this is coming up because for long or too long we have treated militants and all sorts of law-breakers in this country with kid’s gloves. We have even talked of negotiating with Boko Haram; people who do not just shoot but also slit throats! They have been killing people like goats. It is hard to believe that the government spends N24b annually on the militants for them to guard our pipelines, yet they do not guard the pipelines. They break it and scoop oil, making us to lose about $1m everyday minimum! So, if an individual now goes to buy a war ship, you can imagine what is on ground! A war ship is never switched off; it is always on 24 hours of the day. It is a task to maintain and expensive to run. And that is what an individual has. We have given them too much latitude and too much money. It has come to a point where we must assert our sovereignty as a people, because the country belongs to every one of us. They buy war ships, build universities abroad, they are so wealthy. This impunity must stop else Nigeria will go down the drain. It’s unfortunate that many Nigerians do not know that Nigeria is sinking! It must be prevented. When people make such statements, you can imagine the state of madness that we are in.
