Frontline Politician and Leader of the Northern Elders Council, Alhaji
\nTanko Yakassai has said \u00a0President Mohammadu Buhari and the ruling All
\nProgressive Congress, APC, were never prepared to rule Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Yakassai, a former Aide to former President Shehu Shagari said rather than
\ngood governance and fulfillment of electoral promises by the APC, the
\nGovernment and the Party will continue with propaganda until the end of
\nits tenure.<\/p>\n
Read on from his Interview:<\/p>\n
Q:HOW would you assess the President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s performance so
\nfar? My assessment is the same as that of Nigerians in general that
\nPresident Muhammadu Buhari is lucky to have realised his life ambition to
\nbe become President of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
A:He was the military head of state and due to some misunderstanding he
\nhad with his colleagues, they removed him.<\/p>\n
His attempt to become civilian President three times was not successful,
\nbut before the last attempt, he declared that he would not run again.<\/p>\n
But because some of his supporters, who want to use his popularity to
\nbenefit themselves, they persuaded him to and he contested and won, even
\nthough with a slimmest majority in the history of presidential election in
\nNigeria.<\/p>\n
Now, it is the common experience from all Nigerians that the country is
\nmore difficult today than what it was this time last year. No doubt about
\nthat.<\/p>\n
In my opinion, Buhari has been nursing the ambition to come to power for a
\nvery long time, but I can inform you, from what has happened so far, that
\nit seems both his party and himself have no plan to run the government
\nwhen they eventual get the power.<\/p>\n
From my observation, the concentration was how to get the power at all
\ncourse, but they did not have plans of what to do with power.<\/p>\n
In addition, he was so unlucky that he came to power when the price of the
\ncrude oil was at a very low rate.<\/p>\n
As you know, oil is our main source of revenue and the result is that we
\nare getting less money to run the government.<\/p>\n
To that extend, we can say without any fear of contradiction that the
\nperformance of the government is far below expectation of Nigerians.<\/p>\n
There is lack of money in circulation, increase in the rate of
\nunemployment and industries are shutting down and our foreign reserve is
\ndwindling.<\/p>\n
So far, I don\u2019t think we are making progress. Nobody can point at any
\nproject being commissioned by this government since it took over.<\/p>\n
Appointment of key figures in government, which does not require
\nintervention of legislation, took the President three months to appoint
\nSecretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), his Chief of Staff
\nand the rest.<\/p>\n
All these people he appointed were his close friends. So, what stopped him
\nfrom making the appointment much earlier?<\/p>\n
Q:The President recently amended this year\u2019s Appropriation Bill he earlier
\nsubmitted to the National Assembly after so much controversy about it
\nbeing missing or altered through the backdoor. What is your take on this?<\/p>\n
A: It was a common knowledge that the budget was \u2018missing\u2019 and they
\nfinally got the adjusted version from the Presidency.<\/p>\n
But the whole issue got to tell you that the government is not really
\nready and prepared for governance. My concern is that two-third of the
\nmoney on the budget would be borrowed.<\/p>\n
Coming to look at the budget of about N6 trillion, where two-third of it
\nwould be borrowed, the reality of it all is that the budget is actually
\nabout N4 trillion.<\/p>\n
The National Assembly will surely consider it. But just like an analysis I
\nread recently, the economic sectors, like agriculture, water resources,
\npower, investment, etc. were given almost the same thing given to the
\nOffice of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), who only render service
\nand not generating income.<\/p>\n
If the economic sector that will generate income and employment would be
\ngiven equal allocation with the ONSA, I think something is wrong with that
\nbudget.<\/p>\n
Like the ministry of Information given N400 billion, the same allocation
\nwith Transportation, then something is wrong.<\/p>\n
I am the pioneer commissioner for Information in Kano and I know what I am
\nsaying. If you look at what this government has been doing, it is pure
\npropaganda all the way, particularly on anti-corruption war, without
\nanything concrete that will help bring food on the table.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think there will be anything difference from last year. By my
\ncalculation, the only time Nigeria can hope for better thing to come is by
\n2018, when the price of crude oil would hopefully have improved, and if
\nthere is no improvement by that time, there may not be anything different
\nin the country.<\/p>\n
Q: How would you rate Buhari\u2019s anti-corruption war?<\/p>\n
A:Let me tell you, the only person arrested by this government on
\ncorruption is Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd). Any other person arrested is
\nconnected to his office.<\/p>\n
Yes, some days ago, the minister of Information gave out figures of some
\nnames of former ministers, permanent secretaries and so on that will be
\narrested, but if you go through the list, these are people already accused
\nof corruption by previous governments of Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo,
\nUmaru Musa Yar\u2019Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, except former governor of Benue
\nState, Gabriel Suswam.<\/p>\n
If you look at the whole news about anti-corruption crusade, this
\ngovernment has arrested only one person, Suswam.<\/p>\n
For me, I am satisfied by the anti-corruption programme of the government,
\nbecause if it were like this before now, the country would have made a lot
\nof progress.<\/p>\n
I must praise the present government for fighting corruption, but let me
\nremind them that those people they are going to arraign are people already
\narrested by previous governments; nothing spectacular about it.<\/p>\n
I would like to say that throughout my political history, I have been
\ncommitted to fighting corruption. Go and check my antecedence in politics.<\/p>\n
So, I am in support of this government crusade against corruption and I
\nhope subsequent governments would do the same.<\/p>\n
But let me made this clear: The whole thing we are hearing are propaganda,
\nwhile in actual fact, little has been achieved.<\/p>\n
Q: Are you not disappointed and surprised by the manner the former NSA
\nshared the money meant for arms purchase, while insurgents continued to
\nkill several people in the Northeast?<\/p>\n
A: I promised not to discuss anything about this. You see, in this
\ncountry, I am one of the few who have seen all sides of government.<\/p>\n
I started as a member of opposition party for 15 years, then by sheer
\nprovidence, I was appointed as state commissioner during the Gen Yakubu
\nGowon regime.<\/p>\n
Later, I served in executive council of Kano State for eight years without
\npartisan politics. So, I have seen the inner working of the government.
\nThen during Alhaji Shehu Shagari administration, I served as special
\nassistant.<\/p>\n
Now, I wouldn\u2019t say I am impressed about Dasuki\u2019s case, but I still
\nbelieve fighting corruption alone would not bring food on the table of
\nNigerians. The government can fight corruption side by side other things
\nand still provide economic opportunities for the people.<\/p>\n
One of the cardinal promises of this government was to create job
\nopportunities, but till today, we have not seen anything. They promised to
\ngive 20 million youths N5, 000 every month; I hope they will do that this
\nyear.<\/p>\n
I would have preferred the Chinese approach. I will have preferred you
\nteach somebody how to fish, rather than to feed that person with fish.<\/p>\n
Q: Nigeria has been fighting insurgency and some soldiers even fled the
\ntheatre of war because there were not enough sophisticated weapons and
\nsomebody was accused of sharing money meant for that purpose?<\/p>\n
A: You ask this question before and I told you that my attitude is that I
\nwould like to have two sides of a story to have informed judgment.<\/p>\n
So far, we have been hearing the side of the government and we have not
\nheard from Dasuki and for one reason or the other, government seems to be
\nhasty to start his trial, not minding the opportunity he has to say his
\nside of the story.<\/p>\n
For me to start discussing objectively and honestly, I will like to hear
\nfrom him.<\/p>\n
Luckily, I read that the court has set another date for his trial. Then,
\nmaybe we would hear the other side of the story, because all we are
\nhearing is that money given to him to buy ammunition was shared to some
\npeople, companies and so on.<\/p>\n
Also, we are hearing that the former military heads too are being invited
\nto explain why money approved to buy military hardware was used for
\nsomething else.<\/p>\n
Whether they bought substandard weapons or they did not buy at all we
\ndon\u2019t know. So, this is why I say let us wait until Dasuki himself speaks
\nabout how much was given to him and how much was diverted.<\/p>\n
I believe nobody can make informed judgment on the whole issue for now,
\nbecause if somebody was given money to buy six new aircraft and he ended
\nup buying four or buying substandard ones or not buying at all, then all
\nof them are being charged at the same time.<\/p>\n
In the military, each arm has its own Tenders Board and government did not
\njust allocation, but based on their request. And in the military, nobody
\nbuys equipment for them.<\/p>\n
Let us know how much was given to each of the military arms and how much
\nwas left with Dasuki and until then, we would be able to make informed
\njudgment.<\/p>\n
Q: But many of those people mentioned have not denied collecting the money?<\/p>\n
You know wait, you can\u2019t just pick part of the money and begin to
\ngeneralise them. What about the rest of the money?<\/p>\n
Let us know the total amount of the money and what they they allocated
\nthem to.<\/p>\n
I am not defending Dasuki, but all I am saying is, don\u2019t let us be too
\nmuch in a hurry. In less than two months, we would know much about
\neverything.<\/p>\n
Even in Islam, we must listen to the accused and the complainant, and I
\nwill rather wait until that time before making my comment.
\nYou were known to be opposed to Jonathan until close to election. At what
\npoint did you change your mind?<\/p>\n
I and some other people started fighting Jonathan about his ambition to
\nrun for a second term in office, but later, others ran away and left me
\nalone.<\/p>\n
I went to court to fight him up to the time the Judge retired from the
\nservice after we completed all document and left with the judgment.<\/p>\n
What we were asking for was that the doctrine of necessity that brought
\nJonathan to power did not exist in our constitution.<\/p>\n
Also, our argument was to maintain zoning of the Presidency in Nigeria. We
\nwanted rotation for the North to complete the two term of Yar\u2019Adua the way
\nObasanjo did.<\/p>\n
The idea was to give every section of the country a sense of
\nresponsibility and everyone would understand that time would come when the
\npower would shift to them. We hoped that this would bring peace and unity
\nto the Nation.<\/p>\n
But when the whole thing went beyond my capacity, I had to give up to
\nsupport Jonathan to allow his zone to complete the circle, so that another
\nzone will come back.<\/p>\n
Q: Was that not because you benefited financially?<\/p>\n
A: No, not at all! It was a matter of constituency and
\ninstitutionalisation of zoning in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Look, today the southeast has never got it at all. So, zoning and
\nrotational system is to give stability in the country.<\/p>\n
If I wanted money, I would have joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
\nlong time ago.<\/p>\n
Q:But you have been sympathising with Jonathan before the election?<\/p>\n
A: Will anybody fight you if you decided to sympathise with Buhari?<\/p>\n
You are entitled and at liberty to sympathise with anybody you so wish. I
\nhave never been a member of PDP and at no point did I join them for
\nanything.<\/p>\n
But as a Nigerian, I am entitled to support anybody for my own reason and
\nI gave you my reason for supporting Jonathan.<\/p>\n
I did not even support him as an individual; I decided to support Jonathan
\nbecause of his (South-South) region, which I want to then to be President
\nfor eight years, so that we can settle with that zone, just like
\nSouthwest.<\/p>\n
Q: Were you aware the money collected by Chief Tony Anenih, out of which
\nyou were given some, was meant for arms?<\/p>\n
A: How could I have been aware? Even Anenih was not aware, because he used
\nthe money he collected based on the instruction of the former President.<\/p>\n
The total money he spent for the President, according to what he told the
\nEconomic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was over N400 million.
\nThat was before the election and when the time to collect the money came,
\nthe President directed the NSA to pay him N250 million, which he did not
\neven know where the money came from.<\/p>\n
He had no way of knowing where the money was coming from and he did not
\nknow how much you expected me to know.<\/p>\n
Q: Would you also join calls for Jonathan to answer questions about the
\ncorruption charges?<\/p>\n
A: We are running a democratic government and so far, the EFCC chairman
\nhad said there was no case against the former President.<\/p>\n
Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Frontline Politician and Leader of the Northern Elders Council, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai has said \u00a0President Mohammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, were never prepared to rule Nigeria.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n