Date: 2015-08-02

There are diverse views on the performance of President Muhammadu Buhari since May 29 when he took over the reign of power. In an exclusive interview with Ahmed 'Lateef, in Ilorin, erstwhile Under-secretary of the United Nations, Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, bared his mind on his expectation of the president, state of the nation and other sundry issues.

The outcome of 2015 elections received commendation of stakeholders and the international community. How do you think we can improve on the successes recorded in previous elections?

I am chairman, Savannah Centre for Diplomacy Democracy and Development. And the idea is that you can't have development without peace; you can't have endurable peace without sustainable development.

During this last election, we set up the council of the wise of the savannah centre and former Chief Justice Lawal Uwais was chairman. We went to six geographical zones. We were in Sokoto and Kano for the NorthWest, Minna for the North central, Yola for NorthEast, Abeokuta and Lagos for the Southwest, Port-Harcourt for South South and Awka and Onitsha for the SouthEast.

We talked to the government political party leaders, INEC, traditional rulers and religious leaders. We interacted security agents, civil societies and the media. Because free and fair election is not the responsibility of INEC alone. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders, and so traditional rulers have a role to play, political parties have a role to play, INEC has a role to play, civil societies and the press have a role to play and security services have a role to play.

On the part of security, they have to be above board; they cannot intimidate, they cannot try to be partial. INEC must also have the capacity to conduct the election freely and fairly. They should experiment the PVCs and card readers, all card technologies should be mobilized to ensure free and fair elections.

Political parties have to discipline and educate their people so that violence will be minimum. So, everybody has a role to play and I think it is because everybody plays their role, more or less that contributed to this success.

But also for the international community, they were very strong especially the United States and the UK, because they kept helping the capacity of INEC and they gave them resources. In the case of the U, their Secretary of States came here (Nigeria) and met with President Jonathan and the then candidate Buhari, talked to them about accepting the result, conducting themselves and their followers well. So all these combinations is what made it possible to have the free and fair elections.

Do you predict an end to the Boko Haram onslaught in the North East?

Boko Haram thing did not start yesterday and it may not end immediately. But there are three dimensions on how to defeat Boko Haram.

The first is how to militarily degrade their capacity to kidnap, to terrorize and to confront our military. There has to be overwhelming force on the part of the government to face them and the degrade their capability.

The second is the regional aspect. You see, Boko Haram is no longer just a threat to Nigeria, it is a threat to the whole region. And so we have to mobilize the entire region to see this as a fight, not just to Nigeria, but of the whole region. So the President's visit to Niger, to Chad, and only last week to Cameroun and Benin is a step in the right direction.

With the multi-national task force, which I think it is about 8,500 troops, which will be authorized by the African Union and endorsed by the UN Security Councils a very important step so that they (Boko Haram insurgents) would see that there is nowhere to run. Before they would run into Cameroun or to Chad or to Niger, no hiding place.

On the third aspect, which is very important is that we must do everything possible so that the conditions that are attractive to these younger people to join Boko Haram, to be used by them, must be addressed. That is socio-economic condition of the North East, because otherwise if you have a pool of young unemployed people for example, it is easy to recruit them to go and do bad things. So it is the totality of these three dimensional efforts that can defeat Boko Haram.

But clearly, the leadership showed by Buhari is taken this extremely seriously for three reasons.

First, the insecurity of Nigeria is one of the reasons he campaigned on and one of the things they (people) gave him the mandate is to do something about insecurity in Nigeria, not just about Boko Haram but all these kidnappings and insecurity. So that is number one reason why a strong leader like him who came on the promise to do something about this and the mandate is very crucial.

The second is his background. He was a General Officer of one of Nigerian Army Divisions sitting in Jos. He has commanded the troops before, he has dealt with insurgency before. He has been Governor of what is now known as North East States before being a Minister and Head of States. With that background, his leadership gives one confidence that he understands the issues, he has the capacity and background to deal with it. And above all is the tremendous goodwill at home and abroad.

Your take on President Buhari's recent visit to the US?

I was in the United States myself. I spent many years there. They have never assembled that number of people for that calibre of people to meet with the visiting Head of States like they did for him (Buhari). In the office of the US President where he received foreign dignitaries, look at the line up, the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of States and the National Security Adviser, who left?

They take Nigeria seriously, they take this new government seriously, they take the issue they want to discuss with them seriously enough. And if you look at his agenda he (Buhari) showed up, in addition he had a private meeting (Breakfast) with Vice-President, he was given a lunch by the Secretary of States, he had people who came to see him where he was staying. It is very clear that they wanted to hear from him what was his agenda and how can they help, and he was quite clear what he wanted. First help, to defeat Boko Haram; second help to recover a lot of stolen property and to deal with corruption. Third, investment, not just in the oil sector but non-oil so that the economy will be better and unemployment of the youth will be something that will be seriously tackled.

Now the challenge is the followers. On our part and on the part of the Americas, but I think by all objective analysis, for domestic politics in this country, the signals are clear from America side- the willingness to cooperate, but ultimate it is up to us to follow up this very session. Because Americans, don't forget, also have many issues. Syria is there, Iraq is there, Afghanistan is there, the Middle-East is there. So it is not as if the only issue they have to deal with is ours. It is up to us to take the advantage. It is like window of opportunity.

How will you react to the impression that African leaders sold themselves out cheaply by obliging invitation by the western leaders?

Part of the world, the western world is very important. We are non-aligning nation. We will go to everywhere that we can get help in our National interest. So it is up to us to evaluate to what will be in our own best interest. And America today, with all the challenges they are having, still militarily the most powerful country, it has a biggest economy and so it is in our own interest to approach them and say okay, this is our challenges and these are our goals and objectives.

Because terrorist is not limited to Nigeria, it is a global phenomenon. And so if you help Nigeria in fighting terrorist, who knows their (terrorists) next target. They are targeting the western countries themselves. Look at youth unemployment, we couldn't help on this. Look at this migrant and the impact they are having across the desert and Mediterranean into western union.

As a scholar in international relations, they (western countries) are not inviting you because they love you, they are inviting you because they believe it is in their own interest to do so, and we decide it is also in our own interest to accept and take help wherever we can get it to address the problems and priorities of the country.

The US government was allegedly not forthcoming when ex-President Jonathan sought the help to rout Boko Haram. Don't you perceive bias now that Buhari was invited by President Barrack Obama?

Well, I don't know whether it is a bias. When there is a now government in a country like in our country too, it is a new opportunity to do some thing different from the way people used to do it before. So it is an opportunity for government to do things differently and it is also an opportunity for our partners to say okay this is fresh ideas, let us work with them, particularly in the areas of common interest.

So I think it would be unfair to say bias. It is just that any new beginning, a new government provides an opportunity to do things differently. But it must not be missed also because opportunities don't last for a longtime.

There is a Lee Law in the US, which prohibits sale of military hardware to the country where there human right abuses. Do you think this could be responsible for the reluctance of the US government not to assist Nigeria initially?

I think the way we should approach it is that we want this help. Look at the conditions they are making, it is easy to meet those conditions because this government has also said it will not tolerate.... there is an Amnesty International report here (on human right abuses), President Buhari said he was going to investigate it with a view to stopping the abuses.

So if he does and there is no reason to doubt it, then that obstacle to getting all the help will be removed. You see, if you continue human right abuse assuming that they are there, it is against your own people, you are violating their human rights. And by the way you also convert people who might want to suppose you because if government forces are perpetrating atrocities, they play to the hands of Boko Haram, they will say you see your people who are supposed to protect you, look at what they are doing.

If you observe human rights and professionalize the military that they do their work without human right abuses, you can only help in the fight against Boko Haram in view. Therefore, you are removing what is an obstacle. And I want to add, I have lived in America for many years, if they see you are making efforts, they will find a way.

Do you think dialogue with the sect is appropriate even now that government is also using force against them?

It depends on who you are dialoguing with because I think the failure of the previous attempts is that they were with wrong people. So you have to first of all make sure that there is possibility of dialogue and those who can deliver, who have command and control on the insurgents. But as long as they are killing people on our side, the priority is to smash them.

And the best way to dialogue with people is that you know in advance that they are at disadvantage. First way of dialogue is that you are convinced to them they can't win. The burden of prove is on the Boko Haram, not on the side of government for dialogue.

Recently, you advocated the setting up of an inter-ministerial council to coordinate Nigeria foreign policy... Cuts in..

It is about trade. I was arguing that if you look at our foreign policy is about diplomacy and policy. How about economic diplomacy where emphasis is on promoting trade and investment, and I was saying that we have not been very good at coordinating both the political aspect of foreign relations and economic and trade aspects. And I now say that there should be permanent inter-ministerial council, which will be formally headed by the President, but operationally may be run or chaired by Foreign Affairs Minister.

Because in some countries actually, they have one single one Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to emphasize that the two are link. Because what is the point of foreign policy, is to promote the security and welfare of the people. So you need to coordinate it. That was the point of my argument.

If you are invited to serve in the administration of President Mohammadu Buhari, would you honour the invitation?

That is hypothetical question, nobody has asked me. I would rather wait, I am sure we would cross that bridge when we get there. I have been privileged to serve Nigeria in many capacities. You just mentioned as Foreign Affairs, I was also Ambassador to the UN for unprecedented 10 years during which I served five Heads of State as ambassadors. And even before being Minister, I was Director-General of the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).

So I have served with about seven Nigerian Heads of State. Shehu Shagari appointed me as DG of NIIA, General Mohammadu Buhari (as Head of State) appointed me Minister, General Ibrahim Babangida appointed me as Ambassador in between (Ernest) Shonekan, (Abubakar) Abdulsalam and (Olusegun) Obasanjo. So, of course it is a great honour, we have over 170million people. So, if they ask, it is a big honour.

You were a member of the National Conference that was conducted last year and up till now the recommendations have not been implemented and besides some people believe the confab was a waste of time, how would you react to this?

First of all when you get 492 Nigerians of diverse backgrounds to sit down to talk about Nigerian problem and they spent five months to do so, I mean it would be unfortunate if the report they produced is dismissed as useless or not considered for implementation.

By the way, it was not cheap. They spent money on 492 people for five months. What should be done in my view is that the government should look at the report critically and the report’s recommendations are in three parts.

Part one, those recommendations that the executive can implement within their own authority, they don’t have to go to National Assembly. Then second category of recommendations are those things that require a change in our laws which require National Assembly and there is a small number of issues which require constitutional amendment which require both the National Assembly and the state assemblies. There is nothing stopping even Jonathan to implement those first sets of recommendations.

So it was unfortunate that he left without implementing any. So what the new administration, in my view, should do is to just look critically at these three sets of recommendations and it cannot be dismissed as useless because we have 20 committees including one that I chaired on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora all adopted by consensus.

We had 20 committees on almost all aspects of Nigeria- Economy, Foreign Affairs, the Security, Police, Transportation, Energy and Environment, obviously there must be recommendations that would help move this country forward. So the important thing is to look at them critically, and the new administration should see which ones are consistent with their own manifestos. You know they have a transition team who has looked at many aspects. So in the context their own recommendations and views, let them look at the National Conference report.

I, obviously, not because I was a member, I cannot say it was a waste of time, anywhere where Nigerians gathered to seriously discuss Nigerian problems, that should be encouraged. The problem was that some people felt Jonathan had hidden agenda. Of course he has not achieved any such hidden agenda. Somebody came with a hidden agenda but did he achieve it? No. People believe President Mohammadu.

Buhari's administration is slow, do you share this sentiment?

Nigerians are very impatient people. The man was elected March, sworn-in in March, it is over two months. And it is not the speed of the administration that matters, it is quality of the output and the man said he might be slow but steady.