Why I’m supporting Buhari instead of Ribadu – el-Rufai
You are known to be a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Now, you are promoting General Buhari and Pastor Tunde Bakare of the CPC. Why is it so? Nobody was born into the PDP or any other political party. Politics is about one’s conviction, one’s ideology, and one’s decision on who to associate […]
You are known to be a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Now, you are promoting General Buhari and Pastor Tunde Bakare of the CPC. Why is it so?
Nobody was born into the PDP or any other political party. Politics is about one’s conviction, one’s ideology, and one’s decision on who to associate with based on shared ideology. It is true that I worked under the PDP-led federal government for eight years with President Olusegun Obasanjo. It is true I was in the PDP, but you will recall that we formed a pressure group to disapprove the late Yar’adua’s hold on to power. The pressures led to Jonathan becoming Acting President, and in 2010, after my return from exile, we came up with a reform programme for the PDP, because we believe many things were and still wrong with the PDP, but the party said it wasn’t ready for the reform and threw our programme out. After that, some of us left, depending on our ideologies. Former Speaker Aminu Masari left to the CPC. In Rivers, Abiye Sekibo joined the ACN. I decided to make a choice and contribute to the 2011 elections by identifying with General Buhari, despite my relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan and Malam Nuhu Ribadu. Of all the presidential candidates, none has the capacity to address Nigeria’s enormous security threats and corruption like General Muhammadu Buhari. I have been a friend of President Jonathan since he was deputy governor in Bayelsa state.
In the case of ACN’s candidate, Ribadu, we are not only friends but brothers. But in my opinion, he joined a party that doesn’t quite fit him. Malam Ibrahim Shekarau of the ANPP, I also know. By my assessment of their individual strengths and weaknesses, none of the three can manage Nigeria’s numerous challenges as much as Buhari will do, if voted into power. Credible leadership is not about friendship, it is about competence and commitments. Buhari has what it takes to stamp out corruption because his mere presence will instill discipline in every one. It is this kind of person we need in this country. He served with integrity as head of state, military governor and minister, he knows this country very well, he has the experience that we need to tackle insecurity, poverty, power, education, health and the rest. This is about patriotism and national sacrifice. It doesn’t make sense for the children of the minister of education to be in private schools and he claims to be trying to fix public schools. We need a man like Buhari who has the selflessness to lead this country to recovery and sustainable growth. Nigerians have suffered too much, we need positive change.
Some people may allege that you left the PDP because you were not given a political appointment in spite of the fact that you worked for Jonathan to become Acting President?
No, no, not at all. When the late Yar’adua became President, I went to him and told him I was going for studies. I needed a break after being in government for eight years. I actually told the late president to prevent a situation where there would be fight if I turned down an appointment, but then there was still fight between us when they raised all sort of allegations against me, which made me to leave the country. So, the issue is not about political appointment; it is about problems with the PDP as a system. We needed things to be in order, but that didn’t work.
Would you like to work with Buhari, if he is elected President?
(Laughs) Like I told you, I wanted rest, and as far as I know, I have not completed my rest away from public office.
Some persons may see you and others who defected from the PDP, especially given your closeness to Obasanjo, that you are in opposition parties, like the CPC in order to destroy it, as agents of the PDP.
What is your reaction to this?
Do I look like an agent of destabilisation? I worked for President Obasanjo in his two administrations. I finished my work; I went to school. A PDP government declared me wanted, saying I stole N32 billion. They said I gave my wife a plot of land, so I am a criminal. You really think I will come and look at that PDP government and be their agent? If I can do anything to destroy the PDP and its government I will do so, but I can’t. The only thing I have is my vote, my intellect and whatever reputation I have to support another party that will kick the PDP out. The PDP is a danger to Nigeria and Nigeria’s unity and stability, and it should be voted out. Maybe some are agents of destabilization. You can talk to them, but I am not one. Nasir el-Rufai is who you see. If I am going to fight you, I will send you a letter that I will fight you tomorrow. I don’t do things behind the scene. I am what you see. I don’t believe in what this administration has been doing and I hope that Nigerians would stand up and vote them out so that Nigeria will have a second chance.
What are your regrets for serving as the FCT minister?
As a rule, I don’t comment on any job that I have done, because once I do a job I move on. Human beings make mistakes. Nobody is perfect and I don’t comment on those that succeed me, just like throughout my four years as minister I never commented on those that came before me. If I saw a problem or a mistake, I corrected it and moved on. I don’t point fingers. But regarding my own tenure, I can tell you that there are three things that I should have done that I didn’t do or didn’t do enough, because I started too late and that is regretful. If I had done them differently, may be Abuja would have been better. The first is that I did not build houses for low and medium income earners directly as government. I thought that if we gave land to private developers they would build enough houses because I thought that the problem of Abuja was land scarcity problem. We gave out large parcels of land; we gave out about 3,000 hectares of land to private developers to build houses.Unfortunately, they are not for low and medium income earners. We only realised this gap in our last year in office when we started building social housing that low income people can buy or rent; so that is one. I wish I had known this earlier. If I had borrowed money from banks and built 10,000 houses every year I would have been happy. I didn’t even have to use money from the budget. I would have borrowed money from banks, build 10,000 houses; sell them and, you know I think we would have lowered rents and increased the housing stock, and may be, many low and medium income people would have had houses. That is one area that I think we could have done better. But it was simply a policy disconnect because I came from privatization, I came from the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), and I thought private sector should drive this. Government has no business building houses, so that is one. The second thing that I think I should have done more was investing in infrastructure in satellite towns. A satellite town district requires about N6 billion to build the entire infrastructure. A district in the city requires N30 billion, so for one district in the city, you can do five satellite town districts and it can take far more people because satellite towns have higher density. That is where the majority of the low income people are designed to live. Unfortunately, by the time I came to Abuja so many contracts had been given for satellite town districts that were ongoing. I didn’t award anymore. I just tried to complete them. I completed Jabi, I completed Utako, we had Udunya completed and Karmo advanced, and we were pushing hard to complete Gusapy and that took a lot of the money.
We did the infrastructure in Karu, Kubwa and Kuje and we also contracted infrastructure for Karshi, for Bwari and I think Gwagwalada and additional district. So, we did six satellite town districts. We should have done more because if we had opened the satellite towns the more, it would have given people the choice, whether to live in the expensive city or live in the cheaper satellite towns. That brings me to the third mistake, the third regret – the Abuja metro system. The idea behind Abuja is that the satellite towns, where it is expected that most of the low income people would live, would be connected to the city via fast trains so that if you live in Abaji you can get to work in Abuja in 30 minutes. Now, if you can get to Abuja in 30 minutes, and if there is a train every hour, why should you pay N1 million for rent in Maitama? You can live in Abaji, even if you can afford the high rent in Maitama, and commute. The master plan contains provision for a fast train, Abuja metro system. Unfortunately, we didn’t start work on it early enough. I signed the contract in March 2007, two months before we handed over, and the moment we handed over, Yar’adua stopped it. Up till now it is yet to start. If I had started it two or three years before, it would have gone to a point of no return. This is my regret. But I spent a lot of time detailing the design of the metro system and trying to get a soft loan from China, because the whole thing was $1.1billion in the first phase, and we just didn’t have the money to be able to fund it. We were negotiating with the Chinese. They are very slow. We didn’t conclude anything until March 2007 when we signed the contract. It was stopped and that is regretful, because I don’t think Abuja will ever function very well without a train system. Building all those roads, expanding the airport road, will not solve the problem. You need a metro system, a fast clean train system that will transport millions of people every day at very affordable price. I regret not having started that in my first year as minister of the FCT.
Your were head of a committee on textile import while you were minister. What is your stake on President Jonathan’s policy on industry, especially his new import policy of opening our borders to many goods?
You know, I headed the cabinet committee on textile smuggling because we felt that smuggling of cheap textiles, particularly from China and the Far East, was destroying our textile industry. We took the decision that whatever was seized should be burnt. We debated whether it should be given away to charity, but we realised that the best thing was to destroy and burn. We did a lot of that. But in addition, what we also did was to set up a fund of N200 billion to support our textile industry. This was to support, not only cotton farmers, but also the textile manufacturers. They were to borrow from that fund at very low interest rates to revamp their equipment. Unfortunately, we provided the fund and shortly after we left office, the government that succeeded ours reversed most of these things. It is one of the tragedies of Nigeria – that policies get reversed. The environment is unstable and even policies by the same party are reversed. We were succeeded by a PDP government that didn’t believe in what we were doing. I think it is unfortunate. I don’t think that in today’s world we can make progress by opening our borders to everything because other countries are doing their best to protect their own manufacturers. We have allowed our own manufacturers to compete with the Chinese that use very cheap labour. They don’t have electricity problem; our manufacturers generate power at N60 per kilowatt hour, while the Chinese get their power at less than N10 per kilowatt hour. All these things have contributed to the decline in our manufacturing base along with loss of jobs and so on. I think it is unfortunate, but the reality of government is that no current government can bind a future government, you can come and reverse anything, but when you reverse it, it should be based on national interest. I think that the administration that succeeded us did not do service to our manufacturers. Our young people need jobs in manufacturing sector. We can’t achieve this by opening our borders. We must do something; we must be selective and close our borders until we provide enough infrastructure and financial support for manufacturers to be competitive. Right now they are not competitive.