Date: 2017-05-30

In this interview with Journalists in Ilorin, the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, spoke on several issues including controversy surrounding assent to the 2017 budget passed by the National Assembly, Kwara 50th anniversary, politics and 2019 governorship race. AHMED 'LATEEF attended the interview session and reports.

Kwara is 50, does it worth celebrating?

I have followed conversations in some forum since we have started talking about Kwara at 50, and I see some people arguing that there is nothing to celebrate and things like that. And I think the reason those people can say that there is nothing to celebrate is another evidence that when you stop teaching history, you forget the essence of you who you are.

So, when you forget the essence of who you are, you tend to concentrate on the immediate challenges that you have, you stop drawing the sense of worth from your pedigree and use that to determine or measure what you can be.

For those who are sufficiently knowledgeable about what this State represents, who have followed its creation, who have followed what Kwara meant when the world gathered in Nigeria to celebrate the Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977, who know the strategic significance of this State and the kind of human beings that this State has produced in almost all walks of life, would look at this moment as a great moment in our history and see that whatever it is done to celebrate this moment worth it.

How do I mean? The State is made up of people. It is not just the geographical physical space. When you look at how far Kwara has come, you look at two things. One, you look at physical/geographical space and the people. Has the geographical/physical space made progress? Has the people made progress from where they were?

I was talking to some people a couple of days ago. I just want to take one sector; academic and training related institutions. When you come to Ilorin and think of the academic and training related institutions, let's say you are not from Kwara, you are likely to think of University of Ilorin, Kwara State Polytechnic or more recently, Kwara State University or may be Al-Hikmah University, a remarkable project.

But Kwara is a home to so many other Universities that are just coming up. It is a home to Michael Imodu National Institute for Labour Studies, National Centre for Agricultural Mechanization, ARMTI and Aviation College. Now, this government is setting up the International Vocational Centre in Ajase-Ipo.

Take that alone, if you look at the concentration of these institutions, you will find out we have traveled from that state with only Kwara Tech and the University back in those days to a state where almost everything you want to learn can be learned from Kwara State. If you know what this means, you provide opportunity for the development of human resources. The place called Cambridge that hosts the Cambridge University, people don't even know now whether it is the University that gave the town its name or its town that gave the University its name.

Why would people go to Boston? There is nothing in Boston but the concentration of academic institutions in Boston alone; the MIT, the Boston University not to talk of the Almighty Harvard. The economy of the place is built around the institutions. And people look at our state and said there is nothing to celebrate. That is why sometime we tend to lose the sense of who we are.

Let's look at it, how many states had produced Supreme Court Judges, how many had produced President of Court of Appeal? Almost in every home in Kwara today, you find a lawyer. Do you know how many SANs are there in Kwara alone, who are not even from Kwara but made their existence, their brand identity as Senior Lawyers in Nigeria living in Kwara State. How many Accountants, Lawyers did we have in 1967? How many do we have now?

Most people forget that the entire media industry in Nigeria, especially the Newspaper Industry, go and read the history of Newspaper Development in Nigeria. It is built on the energy of Kwara/Kogi. The South -South and South East people were the ones building the media infrastructure, but the people working in those industries were Kwara/Kogi people.

Do you know the contribution of Kwara State to the development of the Northern region. The late Sunday Awoniyi was the Secretary to the late Sardauna of Sokoto. They engineered the development of the entire North. Not to talk of AGF Abdulrazaq from Kwara State, the first SAN in the whole of the North.

I look at all these and I tell myself, we are a blessed state. May be we could more than we have done, but the point is, this is where we are. We can only celebrate where we are and then move on. We have done half a century. How do we now begin to use what we have achieved in the last 50 years, the experiences, the successes and the failure, to now plan for the next 50 years so that generation to come can have a better existence than we have had. That's my take on Kwara at 50. For me, I think the government is too modest in celebrating this major achievement.

Some Kwarans are clamouring for the rename of the state. What is your take on this?

That is a legitimate aspiration, but for me, what is in the name? A rose called by any other name, still smells as beautiful. The fact that our State is called Kwara and the River that our State was named after had taken, is also part of our history. It is part of our historical experience. So, if for some reasons, River Niger dries up today, we will still call ourselves Nigeria.

We called Ilorin, Ilorin. From history I read, there used to be a stone they were using to sharp (farming tools). What am saying is that whether the stone is there or not, its presence and absence is still part of our history. So, for me, I don't mind if they want to change or they don't want to change it.

Considering commissioning of projects by some states created same period with Kwara, do you think we have done well?

I don't want to do any comparative analysis for obvious reasons. One, I don't think there is anything that says you should commission projects because you are celebrating 50th anniversary. If you don't commission today, you can commission tomorrow. If States like Lagos or Rivers chose the occasion of their 50th anniversary to commission projects, that is their decision and they must have reasons for wanting to do that.

Kwara may want to do differently. I recall a couple of weeks back. The Governor (Abdulfatah Ahmed) was all over the place laying one foundation, commissioning something and signing one Health Insurance bill into law and all that. These are things that he could have delayed if he wants to use it as part of this event. But he didn't do that because I don't think it matters whether he used this occasion to commission any project or not.

And again, I have been in the state in the last couple of days, but what I have seen is the deliberate attempt to play down the celebration. I hope that the views of those who were saying that there is nothing to celebrate did not influence that. Because that would be unfortunate. There is so much to celebrate. But I also know that giving the economic situation, Kwara cannot afford some frivolous spending. Kwara is neither Rivers nor Lagos. Every penny that Kwara has, it has to be deployed effectively on productive ventures. Because, if they celebrated in a very loud and expansive way, the way some people like me will want us to celebrate, people will still come out and say they are wasting Kwara money.

Now that they have decided to go very low key, our people are still saying they are not celebrating like Rivers or Lagos. But that is governance. If you are government, you have to expect that. No matter what you do, people will express such view. The Internally Generated Revenue in Lagos alone is more than an annual budget of the whole of Kwara State. And what they generate in a month, is almost more than the entire annual allocation of Kwara State. So, I can say there is no basis fo comparing. A Governor of Kwara State cannot behave like the Governor of Lagos State in terms of how he handles revenue.

Its been said that some cabals are working behind the scene to undermine the powers of the acting President on who is eligible to assent the 2017 budget passed by both chambers of the National Assembly. What can you say about that?

Has the acting President said he is not in a position to sign the budget? Has the National Assembly that sent the budget to the acting President expected him to keep it in his shelve until the President returns? So, what are talking about? People just create unnecessary stories.

Like the issue of letter that communicated to the National Assembly. They said they used the word "coordinator of government affairs or whatever". Whatever the intention of the letter, whether it was written deliberately that way to create some situations or whether it was a mistake, the Constitution did not ask the President to specify the role the acting President will play in his absence.

The Constitution says once he writes to the National Assembly that he would not be available for whatever reason, the Vice President automatically takes over as acting President. And we know this, but we chose to make debate things that are not necessary. It is the same thing with this issue of budget.

I think we still suffered a bit of trauma for what happened during the term of Yar'adua. But that was completely different situation. The late President Yar'adua did not hand over power properly to the Vice President at the time by communicating to the National Assembly. So, when the budget was ready, the Vice President at that time was not in a position to assent to the budget because it is not part of the power of the Vice President, to sign the budget.

So, there was a constitutional crisis, that they had to fly the budget to meet the President in Saudi Arabia. But that is not the situation we are in now, the President competently transferred power to the Vice President as acting President as specified by the Constitution. All functions that can be performed by the President can be performed by the acting President. All other thing is what Hausa people called "Siasa".

Despite spending just two years in office, some people have started campaigning for Buhari 2019 and some are also talking about Mega Party. As APC spokesman, do you have anything to say on that?

Politicians will continue to move and say things. That is our job; to move around, grand stand and to appear in Newspapers. That is part of what keep us going as politicians. But this behaviour does not always reflect reality. As far as I know, I cannot tell you if there is any Mega Party or not. Not to even talk of who is part of it or who is not part of it. I have not seen any single individual, who said he is part of it.

People canvassing for the President to contest. It is within his right to contest. The Constitution allows him to seek a second term. And those people asking him to contest, it is also within their right to express their opinions. That is the person that they want. For us as a party, nobody has violated any rules; nobody has done anything wrong as far as we are concerned.

There are laid down procedures by the Constitution, ditto Electoral Commission and the party. So, as long as any of these is not violated, people can say whatever they want to say.

APC will be two years in power on May 29. Can you say that it has been able to meet up with its campaign promises?

It is impossible to meet the expectations of Nigerians, as big as we are, as diverse as we are. In two years, he (President Buhari) has to be God himself to be able to meet that level of expectations in two years. And that is what President Buhari is talking about. That the kind of thing he saw, the kind of enthusiasm he experienced intimidated him. He wondered how he was going to justify this hope that people have in him.

But in spite of that, I recall that he promised essentially three things, and that is different from APC manifesto. Those three things will be derived from APC manifesto but that is not the APC manifesto. A party manifesto is never implemented. Government goes, government comes. It takes something out of the party's manifesto. Government doesn't finish implementing a party's manifesto. It is a philosophy and the grand norm of what a party represents.

So, what President Buhari did was to look at the party's manifesto and said am going to do three things. President Yar'adua had his 7-Points Agenda derived from the PDP manifesto. President Jonathan had Transformation Agenda derived from the PDP manifesto. So, President has his Three Points Agenda as it were. He said he would tackle corruption, insecurity especially Boko Haram that was threatening to take over the country at a time and create jobs especially for young people through mining and agriculture.

I think in years, he had done very well in those things if you are holding him to account based on those things that he promised. We may have other expectations that we can say have not been met. But if we are going to hold him account on those three things that he promised, I think he had done remarkably well.

On corruption war, if nothing else, I tell people, the fact that every single day, you open the Newspaper pages, you listen to Radio and watch Television, people are talking about corruption, it is an important progress. Because, it appeared in the past, we have accepted it as if it was a normal thing. Impunity had become a tradition.

But if anybody is stealing government money now, he had to go extra mile to cover up his tracks and hide the loot. Now, you don't even know whether your neighbour is a whistle blower. Everybody is watching you. So, the fact that we have created this social consciousness is a major progress. That is one. All the discoveries, all the revelations that I have come across, I think it is a kind of progress. We could have done a lot more. But that is what had happened and I think, he (Buhari) deserves a very strong pass mark for that.

On the issue of Boko Haram, many people tend to forget that at some points in this country, Boko Haram was actually occupying a large chunk of Nigerian territory. About 50 square kilometers that Boko Haram had its flags hoisted and called it Caliphate. That was a size of Belgium. By the time Mr President was making that promise, that was the situation we had in our hands.

Today, what is the size of Nigeria territory that is being held by Boko Haram as a Caliphate. It is zero. Even the dread Sambisa forest had been taken. The (Chibok) girls are being recovered. Whether they negotiated or paid for it, the point is that Nigeria is redeeming itself from one of the most historic embarrassment that a nation has had to go through.

So, I think the President deserves to be commended for this and we in the party are proud of what he has achieved. There are difficulties no doubt, but they tend to make us forget that some of the things he promised, he actually delivered. Yes, his situation of health has affected a couple of things because when you are not as strong as you should be, it can affect your performance one way or the other. But in terms of those specific things, I think he has done remarkably well and he deserves to be commended.

How true is this belief that APC is providing a shield for politicians undergoing trial for corruption in its fold especially with preponderance of defection into it from the opposition?

What does the available fact point at that people are being shielded? So, I think we need to find a clear definition for what is going on. People who are coming to APC have their reasons for coming to APC. But we made it clear that APC will not provide a safe haven for anyone who is trying to shield himself for whatever he is being accused of. I don't know any of these people who have decamped, who had corruption cases hanging on their neck and who after joining the APC, those corruption cases have been dropped.

You served during Jonathan and you are serving now, compare and contrast, and what is your ambition for 2019 in Kwara State?

I have been very reluctant to speak about this for two reasons. We have a political group headed by our leader, Dr Bukola Saraki, which is also part of a bigger political group that was started many years before us by the late Waziri of Ilorin, Dr Olusola Saraki. There is a tradition and that tradition is what has kept this group going for years.

This tradition is what has ensured that there is very limited rancour or acrimony in the way people pursue their individual aspirations. There are ways things are done, it is not free for all, especially within this political group that we belong to. I don't know what is happening in other groups. There is a proven and tested system of recruiting people into positions. It is never free for all as far as I know.

And I have been here now for close to 13 years. I know that this group that I belong to, is a group where you can come out and be making noises. You consult and you sit down with people. Don't forget I was a Sports Minister, in athletics, when you jump the gun, you are breaking the rules. So, I cannot come and say I don't have an ambition. I don't think there is any politician, who doesn't have an ambition. I'm a politician, so I have an ambition.

But I think, it is too early to come and begin to.. Though in some States, it is different, since they don't have the kind of system that we have. In Kwara State, we have a system for recruiting people into positions, and the leadership is sufficiently robust. The leadership is aware who is worth, who has contributed to the group, who has made sacrifices for the group.

It is not the noise you make today that will determine where you will be in the group. It is the contribution you have made and the services you have rendered that will determine where you go and what you get. That is why some of us, we have refused to deliberately join the fray. So, it is important for us to also realize that for God sake, we have a Governor who belongs to our group. We have the Governor of Kwara State today, who is a leading member of this group and he still has two years in his mandate. We must respect that.

We must respect the fact that he has job to do and we shouldn't be polluting the environment by making noises and distracting him, and making it appear as if we are in a hurry to rush him off the seat. That is not fair and it is not right. That is why I'm reluctant in engaging in conversation about 2019, because it is not the right thing to do.

There is agitation by opposition that the system you talked about has existed for long and it is time to dismantle it... (Cuts in)

Let them dismantle it. It is their business to dismantle it or are you asking me to dismantle my own house because you are not happy with it. We are waiting for them. They are the one who have job to do. They should ask whether they are capable of doing the job they assigned themselves. Our own is that we belong to a house and that house is standing, and we will not do anything to undermine our own house. So, if they think they have a duty to dismantle the house, let them assign themselves the task and find the equipment, whether it is bulldozer they need or it is caterpillar. Good luck to them.