Minister of National Planning Dr. Abubakar Olanrewaju Sulaiman, who replaced Bolaji Abdullahi as minister from Kwara State, hails from the same Ilorin West Local Government as the former minister. In this interview, the former University of Abuja lecturer explains why he said the state cannot afford to be in opposition. Excerpts:

What are those things the government has done for Kwara State under the Transformation Agenda?

The transformation agenda of Mr. President has some components and it falls within the framework of vision 202020. It is a visionary policy or plan. And a component of the agenda includes things as infrastructure, health system, education, energy, etc.

We want to know what government is doing with particular reference to Kwara State...

Energy is one of the key components of the agenda. The Federal Government has done its own by privatizing the sector. It is now left for each state to key into that, for instance, Kano has keyed into it. When you go to Kano from the Airport, you see electricity everywhere but some state governments are not doing that. The same thing goes for education. Most Nigerians perhaps do not know how much government is spending on basic education, how much government is spending on UBEC (Universal Basic Education Commission)? How much comes to Kwara State Government? You and I know that when that money comes and the counterpart fund goes into it, we know how that money is being disbursed, who collects the contract, how much the contractor pays.

The same thing applies to tertiary institutions through TETfund. College of Education Ilorin, Oro, Kwara State University, you can go and find out. Oro itself was allocated about N300million last month under TETfund as intervention. When the money comes, how the money goes perhaps, we wouldn't know because it is a counterpart funding disbursement. The same thing goes for Kwara State University. In line with its own commitment, government is trying to fix education.

The point I am trying to make is where we are some years ago before this government came into power is not where we are today. In terms of transformation, government has done well in fixing both the health system, in fixing education, power and our environment but the State government has refused to take that advantage to leverage on what government has done.

The question now is for you to take up the state government.

Most people do not know that our state government here in Kwara collects N200million monthly from SURE-P and the question is where does the money go?

What is your assessment of democracy in Nigeria with reference to Kwara State?

That we are where we are today is a big achievement and that credit goes to the Nigerian people, Nigerian government and Nigerian journalists. Coming to Kwara State in particular, the state, as we all know in the last 15 years, has experienced different romances. We have romanced with APP, PDP and now we are romancing with APC . It is quite unfortunate. It’s politics but I want to believe that any state especially a state like Kwara that refuses to join the mainstream politics is vulnerable to suffering. If Kano does, Kano has enough IGR to play with, Lagos has abundant resources to play with, if Rivers State is doing that, perhaps they have something to fall back on. But for Kwara State to decide to be in opposition for no reason because of one man is quite unfortunate.

I want to say this not just because I am a minister. I want to say this because of the nature of my calling as a political analyst that it would pay us no good to be in opposition because we are likely to lose. Secondly, this is democracy and in democracy, individuals are at liberty to decide where to go. But what obtains in Kwara now doesn't look like democracy. It looks more like autocracy, more like dictatorship which will not pay us.

A situation whereby an individual decides who would be the governor, decides who would be the House of Representatives members, or senators, that is not democracy. So what obtains in Kwara is not democracy. We are moving from democracy that we all fought for to a dictatorial system. We must fight it by developing a conscious political culture by asking questions from our governors, from the political class on why certain things are being done the way they are being done.

For the last three and half years, I have not seen any concrete development in Kwara State, I have not seen any new idea, or initiative and because of our rigid posture, out of the selfish interest of an individual, what ought to have come to us at the federal level is not coming because somebody must be there to do it. It is all about interest. You can't fight a government and still believe the government will patronize you. Government would do her own by ensuring that what's your due gets to you. In the last one month in government, I have seen what we have lost. In the last one month, I have discovered that most donor agencies that come to Nigeria, Kwara is not part of their consideration because we don't have anybody here.

You said that Kwara is not considered in many aids coming to Nigeria, how do you intend to address this?

Kwara State has not been so much a beneficiary of most of this assistance. One thing we have to do which I am coming up with is to develop what I called, "Nigeria Aids Policy". Nigeria Aids Policy just like when you are talking of Nigeria Foreign Policy or Nigeria Environmental Policy that is there to coordinate the activities of various multinational organisations, it is a policy that would set conditions for the various donors that want to assist Nigeria technically, it is a policy that tends to bridge the gap between what the various donors intend to do and what they are really doing and in doing that therefore, we are trying to strengthen our monitoring and evaluation in the ministry to ensure that when a donor agency intends to spend N2bn in a state, we want to see that, that N2bn projected is spent in that state. There is need for coordination, there is need for evaluation, there is need for us to ensure that the implication we have today is no longer there again. And in line with my own bias, I want to see Kwara benefitting.

As a Kwara person, I want to ensure that there is equity; there is justice in the distribution of aids to the various states in the country.

Many Nigerians believe the President has failed in terms of providing security for the people, what is your reaction to this?

The challenges we are facing today in area of security, let us make it abundantly clear that it is not a new phenomenon. It is a build up that started some years back, it is a metamorphosis. I keep on saying this that we are where we are not on account of the failure of Mr. President but on account of our inability as a people, as law enforcement agencies to identify what constitutes threat to our life, to identify what are the imminent threat, to identify what are likely to be perceived threat.

Now people started to blame President Goodluck Jonathan.

I think it is unfair as a scholar in the area of peace and strategy. Our failure as a people, as security agencies, is our inability to discover or detect what are the perceived threats, what are the imminent threats and what are the potential threats.

How do you intend to get the people of Kwara to support the president since the APC is in government at the state level?

Kwaran people gave President Jonathan about 120, 000 signatories. What we had yesterday was about one point something millions from the North Central. But forget about signature issue, the issue is between you and I. As a Kwaran before I became Minister, I know how many Kwarans besieged my house for assistance. I know how many people that would dress corporately asking for just N500. We see poverty everywhere in Kwara. It is not a matter of signatories. It is a matter of how do we take Kwara away from this level of poverty. Our dependence on certain people, how do we stop it? How do we stop the capital flow from Kwara? How do we ensure that our political class who are more parasitic in siphoning our resources, how do we stop them? It is not about Jonathan, Jonathan is not a Kwaran, he is a Nigerian and he is out to fix Kwara for us. I keep on telling people that if you don't know, President Jonathan is a man that has large heart, everybody knows Dr. Sulaiman as a major critic of policies as a political analyst, everybody knows me as a champion of the downtrodden masses, everybody knows me as a unionist. Jonathan did not just appoint Professor Attahiru Jega, a one-time ASUU chairman, as INEC chairman, he appointed me as a Minister. He meant well for this country and because he means well for this country, anybody that tends to give the semblance of a saboteur, he doesn't want them.