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By Daniel Kanu
Chief Ralph Okey Nwosu, national chairman, African Democratic Congress (ADC), in this exclusive interview, speaks on the Tinubu presidency, the missteps on fuel subsidy removal, student loan act, Nnamdi Kanu’s saga, plan by his party to sponsor a gender bill for inclusion of more women into the National Assembly, and insecurity in the Southeast, among others. Excerpt:
President Bola Tinubu has been in office in the last one month and most Nigerians have different opinion in their assessment. For you, so far so what?
So far, so Jagaban (laughs). It’s a characteristic of the man, Tinubu, but let me start from the appointment of the Security Chiefs. I will say good quality men in uniform. The National Security Adviser, I will say: We wait and see, but generally as far as the appointments are concerned, I will say, yes, good quality minds. But I questioned some of the policies that have been put in place like the fuel subsidy withdrawal the first day he was sworn in as the president. I see it as a flawed policy implementation, but I see a lot of people saying it’s a wonderful thing to do, but time will tell. I can tell you that the result of the last one month on the people will prove it’s not wonderful. Come to think about it, can any government wake up overnight and increase whatever it is by 300 per cent? Any government that can wake up overnight and increase the price of whatever it is by 300 per cent…I think is wrong, its insanity. You can see the result of that pronouncement and how the price of fuel went up the roof, going to N600 in some places, that is 300 per cent increase. Fuel was less than N200 in official pump price, but you can see the cost now, and that was done without putting necessary things, safety measures in order. It has never been done in any part of the world and for a government that is in-charge of a place that until today has been described as the poverty capital of the world, not to mind that the price of one of the most essential commodities will go up by 300 per cent is beyond reason. So, where do you want the country to go to? From the poverty capital to the graveyard of the world? It doesn’t make sense. As leaders we must at all times be careful of even little details because the action affects somebody, some people somewhere. Look at how the policy is turning out to be already. Look at the hardship the ordinary Nigerians are facing now, real hardship and it is beyond reason. Nobody can explain that. Every day you hear that the palliatives will come, but the effect of what the people are going through within one-week is capable of killing one per cent of your population. I know that in China the government has a policy of a family, one child, but that is open, that is explanatory, maybe that will equally give room to abortions and so on. The government policy may give rise to increase in abortion rate in the country. So indirectly this government policy, maybe, is meant to reduce the population of the country within this last one month. If that is what they want to do it should be communicated. Also you expect that for a government that came in under the circumstance, at the point where Nigeria is at the moment, there is bound to be a lot of resourcefulness before dashing into implementation. The people have been suffering and when you are described as the poverty capital of the world it should mean that ordinarily the government that must come will immediately want to wash that away. It means you must try the policies that will positively affect the people, policies that will give the people empowerment. When your country is described as the poverty capital of the world, it is expected that any government coming in must be very sensitive in your policies and how you implement them. A good policy can be wrongly implemented and then you cause havoc in the system. You need to put policy or implement policy that will empower the people, a policy that will get the people to work. Another issue that I look at and I also question is the education loan, I mean the students’ loan. The students’ loan in a way is good, but it has to be well-packaged. One cannot be going to impress and then be making things that will backfire. It doesn’t make sense. We have a lot of quality technocrats in this country that can think things through before implementation. How do you tell 18-20 years’ old who truly needs a loan, who feels that oh my government is now coming out for me and then you ask the person to go and look for permanent secretaries to sign paper (as surety) before his country, before his father could do something for him or for her. That is wrong. Also the government needs to do something about security and make our security infrastructure to come alive, so that people will feel secured again. We know that a lot of corrupt people are hanging around and very soon you will begin to push in a lot of money into the system. If you are going to push in a lot of money, you start now to lock up the gaps where all of this corruption are coming in or taking place. When you plug those loopholes, you ensure that there is no room for corruption. For 18-year-old, 20-year-old person who is in school the government should have faith in their youth and not to tell the young man or woman that okay, it is not that we don’t trust you, but that you need to satisfy certain criteria before your father (country) can help you. No, it should not be so. So in a hurry to perform, to show goodness, I want to believe that the President Tinubu-led government has good intension, but the policy so far, its implementation is not good enough. I see a lot of people endorsing it, but it’s a question of few months or a matter of some months they will crumble. They say fuel is 500 and something naira, but even the people who are bringing in the fuel are already predicting that in another two months or so the price will go up to N700/800. Anyway, Tinubu is good in selecting quality minds to work, but I wish they will be allowed to work. The haste to do certain things may finally backfire not only on the president, but for the whole country. Imagine in less than a month we have this jump in the prices of goods resulting in a kind of inflation that we are witnessing today. The body language of Mr. President doesn’t seem to be listening to the ordinary people, but more to please the big businessmen. When we talk about, for instance, the fuel subsidy, you ask: how can you give that kind of money to just 18-20 persons while others are suffering? Is it the 18 to 20 persons that are suffering now or the masses? And assuming you want to deal with the corruption side of things government should know what to do. These are my few concerns.
What is your take on the politics of the National Assembly and your expectations from the lawmakers?
The National Assembly has never done a good job in Nigeria and that is why we have never been able to plug the gaps that bring about all this corruption that we are witnessing. Let me tell you something, what our party wants to do is that we want to sponsor bills so that the affirmative action that will put more women in the National Assembly will come alive. We will try and put more women at least 36 in the Senate and not less than 109 women in the House of Representatives. You may ask why? That is the only way the dynamics there at the National Assembly will change. With the all-men club that we have now you can see what is going on and on, the crude politics and all that it entails. You can see the huge sums of money being spent, billions of naira just because they want positions at the National Assembly level. It’s incredible that somebody contesting for a position like the Senate president can spend the type of money that will make you open your mouth in great shock. Let me tell you, I was in one of the big hotels in Abuja during the week when the race, the scramble for the leadership of the Senate was on and what I saw was unimaginable. You see a candidate running for the seat taking up not less than 500 rooms in a first-class hotel. The type of money moving around will leave you in great shock. I even heard that some newly elected senators collected…okay, let me just stop here, but the money that was moved around in that campaign was massive, and you will begin to wonder and ask: what is the mission in politics? For the majority of them, it is no longer for service. So, our party will pursue affirmative action that will put more women in the National Assembly and in other areas of politics. If you have more women there, this all-men club you call the National Assembly will take a better form, in shape and character.
How can you do this since members of your party are lacking in the National Assembly to provide the push?
That is why I said the party will sponsor a bill. A bill for affirmative action for women. One more Senator from every state, the 36 states in Nigeria plus Abuja, so we are going to have 37 women senators, exclusively for women. Automatically with this, their number in the Senate will go up, and with the other three women that won for the Senate, that will be good for the country. It will not also increase the cost of governance because with more women there they will be able to have the feminine influence and the poor leadership will be corrected. For me, if that is what we are able to achieve within the next four years it’s better than having any hope that this National Assembly will do anything different from others.
Do you think that the release of Nnamdi Kanu will douse tension in the Southeast giving the serious insecurity that is heightened by the day?
The instability in the Southeast, I think is not caused by the detention of Nnamdi Kanu. It is caused by the people in government both at the national and state levels. It is the corruption in the system that made us to have the kind of insecurity that we are having today. For me, frankly, Nnamdi Kanu has never been the aggressor in this, the Buhari government deliberately marked Nnamdi Kanu out so that whatever ominous agenda that some people have for the Southeast will happen. Nnamdi Kanu has never been the aggressor, therefore, any reasonable and responsible government the first thing they should do is to let the young man go. There is nothing wrong in people protesting about what they see as injustice. There is nothing wrong in people carrying any view they like. Until the military invaded his home you can see they were having their own idea about how things should be, but they never attacked the state (country) or attacked anybody. And people are entitled to freedom of speech.
Most Nigerians are yet to accept President Tinubu as their legitimate president. What is your view on this?
Let me put it this way. I wouldn’t say it’s illegitimate, it’s for the court to decide, but from what everybody seems to be saying, the whole of Nigerians, the international community, is that INEC did let the people down. The people found INEC conduct in the 2023 election to be wanting. You can say that the people lost confidence in INEC due to their poor conduct and perceived lack of credibility in the election, fraught with irregularities, abnormalities, name it.
