•Going abroad to discuss insecurity makes Northern govs unserious
The leader of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), Jamilu Aliyu Charanchi, has chided some northern governors who recently went to the United States to discuss the security challenges in the region. In his view, the action portrayed them as unserious.
While describing the planned review of the 1999 Constitution review as a mere distraction, Charanchi dismissed the establishment of the state police, which he termed unworkable in Nigeria.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the CNG leader called on Nigerians to shun ethnic and religious differences and focus on getting leaders that can drive the country to its promised land.
Twelve state governors in the North were recently in the United States to discuss insecurity in the region. What is your reaction to this?
Those governors are funny and are not serious. They are moral and political liability to the north. It is unfortunate that while we were having another security meeting, involving other African countries being hosted by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA); the Deputy UN Secretary, Amina Mohammed left the United States to Nigeria to attend the meeting. That meeting constituted a lot of representations from West African countries to ensure border security and other security issues, which are the problems bedevilling the north.
I wonder what solution you are going to get from the US when you knew that banditry is an internal issue, which is expected to be resolved internally. This is the nature of the politicians we have in north and that is why we believe that they lack the political will to drive out this insecurity; we would be seeing more of this kind of funny things. Most of these politicians are using the insecurity as a conduit to enrich themselves. We have seen a situation where state governors move billions of naira from the state treasuries in the name of insecurity. We have seen where these state governors were doing something different from what was actually the main problem of insecurity in the region. Most of the politicians are there to enrich themselves.
These governors were on a trip just to see the United States of America, maybe some of them have not been there and they collected BTA to go there to do many other things. If they were doing it for the sake of the north or Nigeria, they should have stayed at home because this problem is internal and should be internally addressed.
The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu recently said that insecurity and killings have drastically reduced under the Tinubu’s administration. Do you agree?
We don’t know the indices that he used to arrive at that statement. If he said organised attacks like the Boko Haram used to do by bombing so many areas, detonating bombs here and there have been reduced, he is very correct. We have never witnessed such attacks since the emergence of this administration.
But when it comes to the issues of banditry and kidnapping in the north, especially in the rural areas, I doubt if anybody would say that it has reduced. We have seen so many places that had not witnessed banditry attack in the past, but today they are witnessing it. Go to Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Kaduna, Sokoto and other states, you will see how bandits are attacking communities day in day out. You will see how many villagers are fleeing from their villages. I read recently a BBC report, which says that over 150 villages from only two local governments in Katsina State have fled their areas. So, you can see how the attacks have been. But when it comes to coordinated attacks like Boko Haram detonating bombs in markets, mosques and other public places, we can agree with the NSA that it has reduced drastically, and nobody would say that the NSA is not telling the truth.
In order to tackle the insecurity in the country, the federal government is tinkering with the idea of establishing the state police. What is your position on this?
In the north, we have politicians; we don’t have leaders. There is a difference between a leader and a politician. A leader is someone who always cares about the next generation, while the politician thinks of securing the next election. They take election to be a do or die affair. Whatever they can do, whatever they can lay their hands on or take, in as much as it can lead to their winning the next election, it is settled. We have seen in many cases that even the federal police at different places and stages have been used to change the results of election and to suppress the people. We have seen where ballot boxes were being snatched using security agents. We have seen where polling units have been dismantled and voters terrorised by security agents.
How can a governor who cannot pay workers’ salaries pay salaries of additional workers? It is impossible. Somebody who is paying about N10, 000 as minimum wage in his state; someone who cannot afford to pay N35, 000 as minimum wage in his state; somebody who is always reducing the labour capacity in his state, how are you going to employ about 1,000 police personnel and expect that you pay them if not for a reason?
We should rather equip the present police we have. We should rather equip the present security organisations we have in every sector, give them the necessary training, and give them good welfare package and the logistics they require so that you can ask them to do what you want. For you to create another police, which you cannot maintain, I doubt if it will lead us to any meaningful outcome. It is unworkable
The National Assembly has set up a committee to review the Nigeria’s constitution, and the committee has called for memoranda from the public. What is your view on this?
There are so many lacunas in the constitution; there are also so many issues left unaddressed in the constitution. However, the National Assembly needs to understand that at this very time, Nigerians are not even looking for constitutional review. This is not a priority to Nigerians. Our major priority is on how to secure this nation and ensure economic and political stability and so many other things. Since they say they are doing it for the good of Nigeria, let them respect the memoranda that would be sent to them to address critical areas. Ours is still a fledgling democracy. The US has practised it over 200 years. We are still learning and the process will come with pains and other things.
Even at that, the NASS needs to first address the serious security challenges we have in this country. If you go to every state in this country, you will see queues at the petrol stations. This is one of the issues that the NASS should critically be addressed. There are so many issues to be addressed, this constitution review is a distraction; they are trying to distract Nigerians from their focus – the issue of insecurity, economic and political instability. This is shambolic, they just want to bring something to distract us and keep us busy from our focus.
Some agitators were recently arrested in Ibadan when they were seeking to create a Yoruba Nation. Some other people are also saying they want to secede from Nigeria. What do you make of all this?
All the challenges we are facing in this country – political crisis, economic crisis, social crisis, and family values that have collapsed, educational crisis, and security crisis are caused by leadership crisis. We don’t have leaders that have patriotism in their minds; leaders that have fear of God, leaders that will emulate the philosophies of the messengers of God; leaders that will emulate the philosophies of our founding fathers, who made the necessary sacrifices to ensure that this nation came into being.
We need leaders that will tell us in public what they would agree in public and what they would not agree in secret. We don’t need leaders that are going to amass wealth. We don’t want leaders that are not aware of why they were elected. We don’t need leaders that don’t have feeling of patriotism in their minds, they don’t even care about the people and they don’t even believe in the Nigeria project. So long as we are having this bad crop of leadership, we are going to witness so many agitations from different parts of this country.
In as much as we don’t have leaders that would govern with the philosophies of messengers of God; in as much as we don’t have leaders that believe in the oneness of Nigeria; in as much as we don’t have leaders that see themselves as servants to the people, and not the other way round; In as much as we don’t have leaders that will accept criticism and view it progressively, so many agitations will continue spring up. If care is not taken, it would get to a level that in one state, different people would be agitating for different countries or different countries in a region. Today, in the north, there are agitations. Some are saying we are Middle Belters and not northerners. The cause of these crises is the leadership. God richly blessed Nigeria, but our major challenge is leadership; we don’t have leaders in this country, we only have politicians. Like I told you earlier, a politician only thinks of how to secure the next election; he never cares about his people, he never cares about the future of the country. Leaders think of how to secure the future of the country, and how to activate patriotism in the minds of the younger ones. We don’t have leaders, which is the reason nothing is working in this country. When we had leaders, there was this forecast that the three countries that would compete in next generation were Nigeria, Brazil and India. Look at it today, India and Brazil have gone very far, but Nigeria is still where it was when the projection was made. When the Defence Industrial Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) was set up, such a project was established in Brazil. DICON has not made any progress, but go and see the level the one in Brazil has reached.
We need to have leaders. We should remove every religious difference if we want to make progress. Even the IPOB agitation is a question of leadership; all agitations we have is because we don’t have leaders. Nigerians should shun ethnic and religious colorations in their minds and focus on how to have leaders that can drive this country to Eldorado.
Recently, the spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) said Tinubu has abandoned the North and so the North won’t vote for him in 2027. He was immediately lambasted by Minister of Defence, also a Northerner. What is your take on that?
I have seen another statement from the NEF disassociating itself from the statement. They referred to the statement as a personal opinion. However, in as much as you are a leader, whatever information at your disposal, you need to verify it before reacting to it. You may react to that information negatively and at the end of the day you find yourself to blame. I had wanted Matawalle to verify whether it was genuine or not before reacting. Unfortunately after this reaction, it was found it was a personal view and not from NEF.