Buhari Is Running A One-man Government – Tanko Yakasai

Elder statesman and former political adviser to ex-President Shehu Shagari, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, has berated President Mu­hammadu Buhari for running a one-man government.

He was one of the delegates to the last National Conference convoked by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

In this interview, he spoke about the President, the National Confab report and the anti-graft campaign of the present administration.

Excerpts:

There is anxiety in the polity as to whether or not this present administra­tion of President Muhammadu Buhari will implement the recommendations of the Confab. What is your position on this?

I don’t see any reason why they should not implement it. The conference was held, and a lot of money was spent on it, and the recommenda­tions were far reaching and qualitative. If you go through the CVs of the members, it is by far a gath­ering of who is who in Nigeria. I don’t think any government has succeeded in gathering the cali­ber of people in that conference. The confab dealt with certain issues which nobody ever thought of before. An example of this is the issue of dedicat­ing 5% of oil revenue to the development of solid mineral resources as an alternative source of gen­erating revenue. It has never been thought of in this country before. If we do that for a number of years, we will be able to develop another source of reve­nue, rather than depending on oil as a single source of revenue. If we are going to really develop, we have to diversify the economy. You cannot talk of development without money. Today, the price of oil is going down. I don’t think it can go back to 100-and-something dollar per barrel. So, the soon­er we look for an alternative source of revenue, the better for this country. There were so many inno­vations the conference recommended which were never thought of by any person or government be­fore. So, I don’t see why the government should have problem adopting the recommendations of the report and send it to the National Assembly for consideration.

But don’t you think it casts some doubts on the intention of the past ad­ministration for its failure to implement the recommendations before its exit out of power?

It couldn’t have implemented it. When a recom­mendation like that is made, you need to consti­tute a committee of experts to make adjustment and come up with a white paper before the report is submitted to the National Assembly. There was no time to review that recommendation. Mark you, the administration did not expect that it will not come back. May be, they were thinking that when they come back, they would do all the things that were required. As a matter of fact, a committee was set up to draw up a white paper. I believe, as of now, the white paper should be available.

A chieftain of Afenifere who was a del­egate to the conference said in a recent interview that Buhari may not implement the recommendation of the confab be­cause of the interest of the North. What is your take on this?

What is the interest of the North? I don’t see anything which is against the interest of the North in the recommendation. In any case, Buhari is the President of Nigeria and not the president of the North. He has to do whatever needs to be done to promote unity of the country.

According to him, the present structure of the country gives more advantages to the North in terms of sharing of national resources because the region has more local governments and states than the South. And as such, he may not want to tamper with that structure. Do you have any disagreement with that?

The confab did not recommend a change to that effect. What the recommendation says is that from now, there should be no more local governments. Local government will no longer attract revenue al­location from the federation account.

If the government heeds the recom­mendation relating to the development of solid minerals, do you see the possibility of the country going back to the era of re­gionalism and resource control?

The constitution is very clear about the owner­ship of mineral resources. Whether solid or not solid, control of resources is vested in the centre.

And do you think the centre has fairly managed the country’s resources given the revelations of massive looting, that are just coming out of the investigations by the present government?

The revenue allocation formula is still the same. And I can’t see President Buhari changing that formula. Even the National Assembly cannot do it without the recommendation from Revenue Mo­bilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RM­FAC). That formula is still intact and Buhari or any­body cannot change it by his whims and caprices.

Has the centre effectively managed the resources for the benefit of the entire peo­ple of this country?

The revenue is divided among the federal, states and local governments. Anybody who is not pleased with the arrangement can propose a change. From what is happening now, I think everybody is benefitting from it. It is not the centre that is ma­nipulating it. Every tier of government is taking its own share of the national resources according to responsibilities assigned to it by the constitution of the country. Revenue allocation is not just done at will. There are criteria that are considered as the ba­sis for allocation of revenue. And those criteria are determined on the basis of responsibilities allotted to each tier of government. Defence of the coun­try, control of the Central Bank of Nigeria, armed forces, the police and so on are under the control of the Federal Government. These are responsibilities that are exclusive to the Federal Government and you have to provide funds necessary to maintain those services. That is the reason it is being given the portion of revenue assigned to it. Unless we remove some of these services from one tier of government to the other, the need for readjusting revenue sharing formula will not arise.

There have been so many revelations about the massive looting that took place under the past government. How would you react to some of these issues?

These are campaigns. Till today, we have not seen anybody tried for stealing, we haven’t heard of any amount stolen by any individual. To my mind, we should have forgotten about these campaigns since elections are over. If there is anybody who stole money, he should be arrested and charged to court for trial. To be honest, I was disappoint­ed when I heard President Buhari talk about that. These are campaigns. When you are elected as president, you already have powder to try anybody found wanting. You don’t need to go to the press to say some Nigerians stole money. Your duty is to arrest those Nigerians, charge them to court and let the court decide. I agree with the position of Na­tional Peace Committee that whatever he is going to do, he should remember that this is not a mili­tary regime but a democratic setting and it should be done in accordance with democratic norms be­cause everybody is presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. So, due process should be followed in whatever he is doing. As long as due process is followed, there is no problem. But I am not happy about these smear campaigns that are now being touted even after the election. There is no point go­ing to the press to make noise about corrupt people. All he needs to do is to arrest them and charge them to court. If Attorney-General is not there, Director of prosecution is there. He can handle the situation in the absence of Attorney-General.

What is your reaction to the Presiden­tial Advisory Committee on Corruption that was recently constituted by Buhari?

I have no quarrel with it except that it does not reflect the federal character. It was lopsided. There are only few Northerners there.

Corruption is not a North or South af­fair. Why are you saying that?

This is the reason any institution that will deal with corruption should be national in character. It should not be one-sided.

Are you aware that a professor from the Bayero University, Kano, is a member of the committee?

Count the number of people there.

It is just a seven-man committee.

(Cuts in)…And how many are from the North? Go and study it.

What nature of anti-corruption war are you expecting to see now that a commit­tee has been set up?

I don’t know but the committee’s duty is to ad­vise the president ,on the method to adopt in fight­ing corruption.

It appears you don’t believe there is need for government to look into the past on how the affairs of the nation have been managed by the successive administra­tions. Do you?

Let me tell you the truth, when I read in the newspapers that somebody in the presidency said the government would only look into the five years of former President Goodluck Jonathan, I dismissed it as a selective justice. To me, if any­body wants to honestly fight corruption in Nigeria, it should start his investigation from 1975 during Murtala/Obasanjo military administration to date. That is the beginning of impunity and corruption in Nigeria. For the first time in our history, the leading figures in the administration became multi-billion­aires after leaving office. And they are still being given accolades in the country. Heads of govern­ment and their immediate subordinates became super rich and they are still there and everybody is worshiping them. So, if anybody wants to honestly fight corruption, it should start from 1975. Gowon is administration was investigated, Shagari admin­istration was investigated. Why are other regimes not investigated? Why was Murtala/Obasanjo ad­ministration not investigated? Is it because Buhari was part of it? Why was Babangida’s administra­tion not investigated? Let us start investigation from 1975 till date, if we want to be honest about it. If we want to be selective, then we are not being honest about it.

And do you think this government has the luxury of time to go that far?

Already, they have appointed a committee. They don’t have to start it and finish it. If they start, somebody else can continue from where ever they stop. It happened in Argentina, it happened in Chili. They didn’t consider it a waste of time to do it in Chilie. They didn’t consider it a waste of time in Argentina. Why should we in Nigeria consider it a waste of time to do it? As long as you allow some people to get away with stealing and looting of public treasury and limit yourself to a few indi­viduals, then you are not killing corruption. You are only showing that some people are untouchable, while others can be subjected to any form of ha­rassment. So, let anti-corruption war be a holistic exercise, starting from 1975.

How do you also see the intention of government appealing for cooperation of the international community for repatria­tion of the looted funds?

I welcome their support for us to do that, but don’t let them limit themselves to a particular pe­riod of time. The international community should themselves to help us to recover all the looted funds from 1975 to date. We know people who are super rich and who made their money not because they have been in business to become what they are. There are lots of oligarchs and compradors who stole our money to become what they are. Let the international community help us get their own citi­zens who came and collaborated with Nigerians to loot our treasury to submit their loots. Let them also bring our money back. Both the giver and the tak­ers are guilty. So, the foreign collaborators should also be made to bring back their share of the loots.

Do you think the government has the political will to bring those super rich to book?

They shouldn’t have promised, if they knew they don’t have the political will. Promise is a cov­enant. If you don’t have the intention of doing it, don’t promise it.

What is your assessment of direction of this new government?

Buhari promised three main agenda during elec­tion campaign. One, he promised to fight Boko Haram insurgency and guarantee safety of every Nigeria. Two, he promised to fight corruption, recover the looted funds and return the wealth of our nation back to us. Three, he promised to create jobs for millions of Nigerians, graduates and none graduates. These are the three cardinal promises he made as his own agenda. He cannot solve all the problems of Nigeria, but if he can solve these three, he will take this country forward. So, I am wait­ing to see at the end of his four-year tenure; if I am alive, how far he has gone about that.

Then, I will be able to judge his administration whether it is successful or not. Even if I am no more alive, these should be the yardstick for Nige­rians to judge how successful the administration is.

In a couple of days, this administration will mark its first 100 days in office. What is your assessment of the pace of work of this government?

To be honest, I have not seen anything. If a government had worked for three months without appointing Secretary to the Government, without Chief of Staff, without an Attorney-General, then who is doing what? Of course, Buhari is the head of government but no ministers. To me, we are nei­ther here nor there.

Part of the reasons he gave for not ap­pointing minister is to save cost. Isn’t it ex­pedient to reduce the cost of governance to save cost at this period of economic downturn?

In that case, you are saying that there is no need for ministers. The constitution says you must ap­point ministers at least one from each state. You cannot abandon the provision of the constitution just like that. You have to comply with the provi­sions of the constitution. How much will appoint­ment of minister take from the national coffers? The ministers cannot take up to one percent from the Federal Government revenue.

And they are the ones that will supervise political decisions the president will take. Ministers are the representatives of the government in the ministries. They are the ones in charge of implementation of the programmes of the government.

This is the reason the constitution allows the President to appoint whosoever he wishes as Min­ister, Advisers, Permanent Secretaries and whatever to help him actualize his programmes. No matter your age, there is a limit to what anyone can do alone. No single human being can run government alone.

Are you saying the style of this present government is an aberration?

It is. I don’t want to appear critical of Buhari’s government. But If you have read my autobiogra­phy, I you get the reasons why Dongoyaro, Sani Abacha, Ibrahim Babangida took over government from Buhari. Their main complaint was that there was no consultation and that members of the Su­preme Military Council were not being consulted on major policy issues. Today, the same thing is happening. God told Prophet Muhammed, ‘you must consult people.’ To be honest, I am not im­pressed with Buhari working alone.