BY BLESSING OLAIFA
Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) chieftain Senator Shehu Sani spoke with Assistant Editor BLESSING OLAIFA in Abuja on national security, border closure, zoning and the challenges facing the Buhari administratiion.
HOW can the economy be repositioned? How can insecurity be better tackled?
First of all, I will say that the country is been troubled, troubled from the security side and economic side. It is clearly evident that we are yet to get it right as far as restoring order and peace in the country is concerned. Killings, kidnappings and banditry in the Northwestern part of Nigeria have continued to destabilise communities, villages and created thousands of internally displaced persons, orphans and widows.
It has also affected the economic life of the northern part of Nigeria in the sense that many farmers could not go to their farms. Katsina State is under the siege of bandits and kidnappers. Kaduna State is under the siege of bandits and kidnappers. Niger State is under the siege of kidnappers and bandits. Many villages are now empty and many people are migrating to towns and cities.
As we speak today, thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in Kaduna State. They are now living in towns in Igabi and Birni-Gwari local governments. In Niger State, the border between Kaduna and Niger states, most of the villages have been evacuated and they have constituted themselves to IDPs in bigger towns and cities.
Now, in the Northeastern part of Nigeria, we have heard the technical defeat of Boko Haram, but that is not the case on the ground. They still have the capacity to launch attacks, kill people, unleach mayhem and violence. And we have tarried for so long that a local terror group has now affiliated itself with an international terror organization, which now compounds our problems. And I am also concerned that the nations of the world that supposed to support and assist Nigeria to tackle the problems of insurgency have also not been able to do that.
Unfortunately, security matters appear to be one aspect of governance that pumping billions of naira and dollars have not also delivered results. People are living in fear and apprehension with their lives. Kidnappers are slowly coming into Abuja and it is becoming a major problem.
On the economy, unfortunately for a country like ours, with all our security apparatus, the Police, Army, Navy, Air Force, Immigration Service, Civil Defence, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency etc, we are unable to secure our borders until we shut them down. Whatever are the economic advantages of shutting down the border, you have to understand two things, we cannot shut down this border forever, and secondly, we are still signatories to ECOWAS Protocols and African Free Trade Zones Agreements. And it is a contradiction for us to sign and at the same time behave like the way we do. So, I will say from the security sides, those are the problems we are having.
What about the economy?
On the economic side, in the area of power, unfortunately, despite billions being pumped into power, we are still unable to have steady power supply or electricity in our homes and also to power our industries.
That is a major issue. And it is clear that there is no clear economic direction that we can say this country is heading. The inauguration of the Economic Team, which has the membership of Bismack Rawane and Prof. Charles Soludo, it is a positive thing. But, it is something that ought to have been done right from 2015 and by now, we would have had a direction. Our refineries are not working, we are unable to deliver power to our homes and we have collected and signed loans from Chinese Banks and we are unable to pay our counterpart funding and most of this projects have stopped and we are still signing for more contracts and more loans.
Our debt stockpiles have skyrocketed from what it was in 2015 to what it is now. So, our budgets continued to rise, while people are being extorted by all forms of taxes. So, I think it is time that the President, it is not too late for him to sit down and decides what does he want his legacy to be. On the areas of rule of law, there is a climate of fear, a regime of fear in the air where people are arrested and charged and the government has also acquired a reputation for disobedience to court orders and violations of rules of law.
A school of thought has argued that the current Service Chiefs have stayed too long and there is urgent need to bring fresh ideas and initiatives by overhauling the security architecture. Do you agree with this line of argument?
Well, you see, if we are achieving results, people will not even want the Service Chiefs to go. That is like you are having a player who has been scoring goals. So, even if he is supposed to retire, people would not mind. But, you reach a point whereby people are still being killed and displaced and money is pumped and the result is very poor, it is hoped that if changes are effected, there will be results.
All the Service Chiefs are men of integrity that have performed well in their chosen career, but there are times you have service fatigue and it is not an act of dislike for them. However, the fact remains that we don’t have to set the precedent for violating the law, so the best thing is that when people are due, there should be respect for that law. And that gives an opportunity for new ideas and new initiatives and new path in terms of the way things are going to be. They have laid the foundation and they have been able to go far and the next thing is for us to achieve results.
In case Mr President keeps them, are there things that should be done differently to achieve the desired results regarding these security challenges in the North?
You see, the northern governors need to wake up and set their priorities right. We are still burying our heads in the sand. The Southwestern governors have come with a clear direction on what they are going to do. The operations they want to launch, the same thing with the Southeastern governors. But, in case of the North, the approach has been in peace meal and there is no coordinated action in terms of addressing this issue. With the thousands of retired Army Officers and security personnel we have, the North supposed to have held a regional conference where ideas would be obtained and crystallised into a working document strategy, which all stakeholders key into to address this problem.
It has reached such a hopeless level that governors are resorting to Marabouts, hunters, and medicine men to tackle the problems of banditry and insurgency. And that is a major issue. So, the way out in the North is that there is the need to have a Northern Regional Security Conference where stakeholders, the Army, the Police, DSS, both retired and serving can come out with a strategy to address the problems from security perspective.
Secondly, there should be an economic road map for Northern Nigeria, where the issue of poverty can be addressed and extremism can also be addressed. And that document should be implemented by all the states in the North because the security challenges are of different kinds. The Northeast is facing ISIS and Boko Haram terrorists and in the Northwest, we have bandits who are in their hundreds of thousands moving with AK 47 and in the Northcentral part of Nigeria, you have Tiv/Jukun crisis, and ethnic and religious problems. So, we need to have a unique regional security architecture to tackle this security problem.
It is not proper that Northern governors are being called for a meeting and they are sending their deputies and SSGs to come over to stay in Kaduna for 30 minutes or one hour and fly back to Abuja. This approach will not solve our problems. That is the point. We need to address the problem of security, address the problems of education, address the problem of religious extremism in Northern Nigeria and then, address the problems of inter-communal and inter-ethnic relationships as they exist in the Northern part of Nigeria.
These are fundamental issues that we need to meet to tackle them. The North should appoint a retired Colonel or a retired General to head a security team, which would be funded by Northern states to complement the efforts of the government to work together with the government and harmonize positions and strategies. So, I believe this is what we should work on.
Now, what I am going to add to this is that kidnapping in Northern Nigeria has moved beyond isolated cases of criminality. It has become a way of life and an economy for thousands of people that are perpetrating this act. The perpetrators of this act are now even controlling territories in the Northern part of Nigeria. And they have become an authority, to themselves that governors can only have peace in their states if they sit down and negotiate with them.
There is a difference between negotiating with an insurgent that have a certain religious or political agenda compared with a bandit whose driving force is crime and criminality, killing and kidnapping. But, we have reached such a level that an authority of the state can sit down to talk with a bandit as the only way to have peace…It is such a point that our people not only are impoverished by banditry and kidnapping, they are even now sold as slaves to some countries in West African sub-region. The north has never had it so bad in the history of Nigeria.
Is it not about time Mr President orders the review of this border closure, and address some of the problems it is creating like soaring food prices?
You see, we live in an inter-dependent world. You can not close down your border forever. No matter how long you close down this border and you have company that produces rice, if those rice cannot favourably compete with the rice of countries from the other parts of the world, the day you open your border, the very day your own industries that you are protecting will crash . Rather than close the border, I think what we need is an effective Immigration and Customs Service that will protect and man the borders.
That makes it possible to protect our economy and still respects international agreements, which we have signed. But for now, we are simply passing a vote of no confidence on our security agencies that they cannot man our borders. Algeria is twice the size of Nigeria, Sudan is twice the size of Nigeria, and other countries within the continent are still having open and tight borders. Libya is at war, but you cannot just go into Libya without the remnants of authorities there knowing that you are coming into their country. So if such can happen, I believe we can be able to kill two birds with one stone.
What is your take on Professor Ango Abdullahi’s declaration that there is nothing wrong for the north to hold on to power beyond 2023?
Well, first of all, Professor Ango is my uncle, and my leader and my teacher and I have a lot of respect for him. But, my position on this is that President Muhammadu Buhari came to power with the support of the South. It would be logical enough that we understand the diversities of Nigeria, and the need to always balance our own personal interests and agenda with the need to sustain the unity, peace and orderliness of the country.
The concept of rotation of power is simply to give every section of the country the opportunity and ability to feel that yes, we are equal stakeholders in the enterprise called Nigeria. If one part of the country now continue to dominate the political sphere, they can take the mantle of leadership, but they will not be able to have the peace to preside over the affairs of the country forever. It is possible for the North to produce the President in 2023 on these conditions, which I am going to give. Number one, is the disunity of the South. Number two is the lack of coordination in the major political parties, and then, number three, it simply has to do with the unpreparedness of the southern political leaders to take over the mantle. If such things happened, then, the predictions will come to pass.
But for now, I think it is ideal that we respect the principles of rotation of power between the North and the South. If we do that then, we will be fine. But, the Northern political elite are selling the idea that there should be no rotation of power. But, what are the Southern political elite doing? If they do not do anything, then certainly, the Northern political establishments are going to have their way.
A lot of meetings are going on in the North today, and I can tell you that they are gaining traction. And part of the reasons for some of them who told me was that they believe that this government has served more people in the South than it has served people in the North. So, that is the argument, which many of them have given and you see sometimes, words have life. If a prominent Northerner who is well respected now averred that we are not going to respect the principle of rotation of power and the North will continue to have it forever, if you do not have a strong counter-argument on that, it will settle in the minds of the people. So, as far as I am concerned, there is the need for Northern and Southern leaders, traditional rulers, religious leaders, and politicians to come together and discuss Nigeria. Where do we head from here?
Governance is such a serious business that you should not leave it to politicians alone to decide. I think it is ideal. For instance, what stops the leaders of Afenifere, and Ohaneze visiting Ango Abdullahi in his house in Zaria and discuss with him? What stops the leaders from the North moving to Chief E.K Clark house in Abuja or down there in the Southsouth to discuss with him? These are issues that I believe we should resolve. But, we should understand that, if one part of the country is not prepared to rotate power to another part of the country, we are simply setting a road map to chaos and crisis in Nigeria. That is my view.
