The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) is one of the support groups who worked for President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in the recent presidential poll. It is the body that handles the media aspect of the support groups for the President. In this interview with TONY AKOWE, the Chairman of BMO, Niyi Akinsiju, speaks on the efforts of the President to leave behind a good legacy with regard to the nation’s development, among other issues of national interest.
What are your expectations from Buhari’s second term?
One of them is consolidation on the gains of the past four years. I appreciate how the President has steadied the ship of state which ran into a debilitating economic storm when oil price sharply dropped in 2014 and there was a vast reduction in oil production to as low as 600,000 barrels a day. Of course, we landed in a recession but we survived and came back in a timely manner. Not many economies in other jurisdictions survived that easily and took to growth the way the Nigerian economy had recorded. I give kudos to the administration for that.
What is certain is that we crashed into that recession because we are a mono product and external-dependent economy. Despite much mouthing on the need to diversify our economy by different administrations over the years, not much was achieved before 2015. However, it must be established here that we made it out of that recession because of the creative engineering of the federal government’s fiscal relationship with the sub-nationals; something we had never witnessed before now, and the first real efforts at diversifying our economy.
We have seen the federal government intervention in providing budget support to states and enhancing fiscal capabilities of the states through the Paris Club refunds. It takes a thinking government to adopt this option. Previous administrations had ignored all the advocacy for the refunds.
The first indicators of an economy in diversification started manifesting with the streaming of the anchor borrowers’ programme and the CBN restriction to accessing foreign exchange for the importation of items that can be produced in the country. Since then, we have seen increase in our foreign reserves, falling inflation rate, increasing gross domestic product by percentages, and a record consistent 28-month increase in the purchasing managers’ index. All these in spite of low crude oil price and production figures.
To a large extent, the economy has been steadied, though certain forces that were major beneficiaries of the old order have continued to heckle the system through organised and syndicated smuggling and refusal to pay back loans collected from deposit money banks. Thankfully, President Buhari has attended to that with the amendment to the AMCON Act. I understand there’s a stampede in the elite camp of loan defaulters who collectively owe us more than N5 trillion. As a nation, we are still on a journey and expect much momentum to be given our economy growth with emphasis on inclusiveness over the next four years.
A major aspect of our national life that has sustained headlines is security. It is as if our past just suddenly caught up with us at a time. The malaise of social miscreants across the country have become an affliction, providing a near unending recruits for criminality in the north while the depressing ratio of policemen to population made the country desperately under-policed. We are talking of a near one million square kilometre land mass. Again, thankfully, we are witnessing constructive engagements with the criminal elements. Records show that more than 3000 criminals were arrested in the first half of this year. This is even as we have continued to witness frontal attacks against the remnants of the Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgents by the Nigerian armed forces.
Going forward, I like to witness the total extirpation of the North East insurgents. I am confident that we will have a better secured environment in a short while because of measures the government is putting in place to enhance the capacity of the men and women responsible for securing our lives and properties.
A lot of Nigerians speak of the need for electoral reform, believing that what we have presently is below what it should be. What is your take on this?
The 2019 election has become a reference point in the anal of elections in Nigeria. The ruling party lost a number of states to the main opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) while the opposition also lost a number to the ruling party. These were achieved through the electoral process and election related court processes. Unlike under other administrations, the ruling party refused to intervene in the processes. So far, rulings by states election tribunals have shown that more of opposition candidates were in breach of electoral rules and processes. This then is a good reason for the overhaul of the electoral process through appropriate electoral reform. The President has already given his word on the digitalization of the electoral process by an amendment of the Electoral Act. But, as noted by the President, this will be done in consideration of safeguarding the electoral digitalisation process from becoming a challenge resulting from undermining the digital architecture of the process.
Beyond this, I believe Nigerians should be reoriented on the need to treat the electoral process as sacred. In a democracy, election is like the Holy Grail. It defines our being and aspirations. If we don’t get it right, we won’t get the developmental nexus of our nation right. So, as we talk of the digital process, we must also start talking to ourselves to eschew the seeming merchandising characterisation with which we play our politics.
What is your take on the P&ID controversy?
I won’t describe the Process & Industrial Development (P&ID) purported contract breach as a controversy, not at all. In my consideration, it is a well-orchestrated scam perpetrated by individuals who simply exploited the irresponsible culture of corruption and material acquisition by people in government. It is clear that the metropolitan capitals of capitalism with their local collaborators have seen a way to make Nigeria part with billions of dollars and they have mobilised themselves, from Wall Street based hedge fund managers to big time lawyers and lobbyists and close friends of America’s President Donald Trump, inclusive of big budget public and media relations firms, all are in a frenzy to eat out of the criminality perpetrated through the P&ID scam.
The Federal Government should resist this gathering of blue chip ‘419ners’ it is as simple as that. No cent should be given to these frauds. It is times like this that the nation must stand against the use of neo-colonial instrumentations to strip us of our resources. It is equivalent to the first set of adventurer Buccaneers that came looting the African continent by subterfuge.
The anti-corruption fight of the government has attracted criticism and allegations of selective prosecution. How would you rate the process so far?
The anti-corruption war is gaining momentum. It is expected that those that are being investigated or charged to courts will allege selective prosecution. That, to me, is an expression of deficit in morality. If you had not tainted your record in service, nobody will witch-hunt you. Besides, we have seen how former governors on the platform of the ruling APC and other state actors are also being arraigned before courts of law for corruption. What is obvious is that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and ICPC have shown capacity for independent actions. I believe this is what we as a people should encourage: the independence of institutions of state to act for and on behalf of the state.
The FBI recently released a list of Nigerians involved in internet fraud. What is your opinion on this?
Though the news of Nigerians on the FBI list is discomforting, like the President noted in a statement, the heists those Nigerians were arrested for do not represent the values the generality of Nigerians hold dear to heart. I like to affirmatively assert that this does not make a prevalent criminal jurisdiction. The extant statistics in the United States of America does not even count Nigeria or Nigerians in the top 20 criminal prevalent countries in the world. We still hold dear our socially conservative culture with emphasis on dignity, good neighbourliness and modesty.
Nigerians talk of a cabal within the Presidency…
Where is the cabal? That is the question I ask each time the issue of a cabal in the Presidency is raised. The truth is that President Buhari has shown character manifested in a strong will to deploy objective policies to address our national challenges pivoted on transparency, integrity and a declared proclivity to defend and advance the cause of the poor. These are some of the profound values that define the Buhari administration, and they are extension of what Nigerians had always known the President for. In essence, therefore, to have a cabal in place is to replace these values. So, the empirical reality does not lend credence to the conjecture of a cabal in government.
What agenda would you set for the new ministers?
The President has appropriately cut out the job schedule and expectations of Nigerians from the ministers, inclusive of clearly defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). I am of the strong belief that the ministers will deliver on their briefs. Truth is that a strong foundation had been laid over the past four years when the country survived a recession through application of commendable homegrown solutions. This has gifted us an economic direction that will be powered by diversification, backward integration and human capital development within the ambience of a Nigerian first outlook.
There is delay in the minimum wage implementation and this is causing tension in the civil service. How do you think the government should best address the issue to avoid unnecessary strike by workers?
It is a process that has to address degrees of application of the new minimum wage across the salary ladder. So, where the quantum of salary for grade levels one to four is agreed, the applicable percentage of increment for those on levels 5 to 16 is yet outstanding. The government had offered to commence payment of those on grade levels one to four but labour is insisting on the new pay reflecting on all the grade levels. I am hopeful this will soon be resolved.
The security situation in the country is giving many a cause for concern and the opposition is capitalising on this to accuse the government of inaction. What is your take on this?
No matter the frequency of cases of insecurity, low or high, it is always a matter of concern to the government. Cases of kidnappings on our highways and other forms of criminalities are without doubt worrisome. But the Federal Government, through the police and the Nigerian armed forces, is on top of the situation in a sustainable manner. The Nigerian Police detective corps is being regenerated with the training of more than 200 officer level ranks personnel in China. This is also as Mr President has given a direct order to the effect that a minimum of 10,000 Nigerians should be recruited into the police service annually. Besides, the police are now adapting and deploying technology in crime fighting. Soon, we will witness the first manifestation of community policing with the recruitment of 40,000 police constables that will be recruited and posted to their local government areas of origin.
Another controversial issue of public discourse in recent times is the Ruga settlement. Although the federal government has suspended it, Nigerians still believe the government is playing games with it…
Ruga is a creative solution to the troublesome herders-farmers clashes. It also seeks to facilitate increased production capacity of the nation’s livestock industry with attendant positive impacts on the sector’s value chain. I observed out cries against its implementation from certain parts of the country, which by the letters of the Ruga implementation template are not even considered as part of the Ruga implementation states. Except by voluntary acquiescence, no state in the South-South, South-East or South-West is on the Ruga schedule of implementation. We are already seeing states in the northern part of the country expressing their readiness, while a number of these have actually commenced implementation.
The issue of rotational presidency will definitely shape the 2023 elections. Many believe that after Buhari’s second term, the Presidency should return to the south. How practicable is this?
Rotational presidency is an agreement of convenience emplaced to enable equity. I always remind myself that it is not an iron-clad caveat to the constitutional provision regarding presidential election. As a politician I think it is a most welcome arrangement. But I am practical minded enough to know that there are lots of dynamics at play in its realisation. The significant factor in the rotational arrangement is continuous dialogue, an unending conversation across the political and geographical spectrum with objective at consensus.
There is crisis within the APC which seems to defile all solutions. Don’t you think this will affect the fortunes of the party ahead of 2023?
I don’t think there is a crisis-related issue within the APC. Fact is that there had not been a time the party had been this stable. Yes, there were a number of grumblings in the aftermath of the general election, but members have since realised that the party actually came out stronger from the 2019 elections in terms of the states we won and the National Assembly seats. The outcome of the primary election to elect the party’s flag bearer in Kogi State has manifestly shown the quality of leadership tending the party. You can compare the Kogi primary election with PDP’s where chaos was unleashed on delegates.
There is this allegation by the PDP that Buhari is killing the country with inaction…
Killing? PDP is purposefully deceitful. They know that they were an affliction on this country and merely left Nigeria in the throes of death. We can only thank God for Buhari’s salvage mission. I never stopped imagining the vortex we would have found ourselves as a country if Nigerians had not kicked that party out of power in 2015. Venezuela would have been better. Even now that President Buhari is providing focused and creative leadership by addressing the numerous challenges inherited from the 16 years PDP administration, many elements in the party, still smarting from losing both the 2015 and 2019 elections and by extension denied access to the nation’s ‘feeding bottle,’ have become desperate and resorted to criminal subterfuge to create outlooks of instability around the country. Of course, they have failed and will continue to fail.