I knew Buhari would not do well as president –Yakasai

By Desmond Mgboh

Elder statesman, Tanko Yakasai has lauded the steps taken by President Bola Tinubu to retrieve the economy from total collapse while confessing  that he never expected former President Muhammad Buhari to do well. The Second Republic politician spoke on the ongoing demolition of properties by the government of Kano State among other national issues.

A few days ago, we crossed the first one month of Tinubu as Nigeria’s President. You have been one of his key promoters. What is your assessment of his performance so far?

From all indications, not only me but most Nigerians seem to be happy with the new administration and the way it has been handling things. I think everybody is assured that the major problem of the country would be tackled under Tinubu Presidency. I believe that he is committed and that the difference between him and others, especially the past administration is that he is a politician. He also has a plan; he is not just in power by chance. He has a plan and he is now in the position to implement his plan. I am happy with the way he is handling issues so far. It is certainly reassuring to everybody in the country.

The excruciating hardship occasioned by the removal of the fuel subsidy; is it one of the things that Nigerians are happy about by your fair assessment?

It is too early to decide what the attitude of Nigerians is to the removal of the subsidy. You should honestly look at it from its benefits to the nation. The subsidy was originally intended to benefit the common man. But in the end, it was not the common man that was benefitting from the subsidy.  Other people were. Very rich people were benefitting from the subsidy and defrauding Nigeria. With the removal of the subsidy, the money that was intended for the common man and which other people were benefitting from would now be available for the Federal Government to tackle other pressing problems affecting the common man- developmental issues and constructions among others.

Critics fault the timing of the removal of the subsidy saying it ought to have been simultaneously implemented with the introduction of palliatives, including salary increase for civil servants. Do you think the policy would have done better if it had been approached differently?

No! You don’t run government on that basis, on a basis where you push in several things at a go. You plan. You take your time to implement whatever policies you have in mind. Tinubu has just taken over. Allow him time to see the problems and plan on how to tackle them. I believe that the palliatives are coming and it would soon be delivered to Nigerians.

This government has just appointed its Service Chiefs. What is your assessment of the officers that are appointed to these positions?

Well, I don’t know them in person or know much about their backgrounds as officers. They are from different sectors of the security agencies and I have no quarrel with the selection of any of them. Certainly, you need to change your style in order to address your own challenges and this I think is what this government has done. Every government has its own style. Let’s give them time to see what is new they are bringing to the table in the fight against the numerous security challenges facing the country.

The recent dissolution of the boards of government agencies has been described as far –reaching. It affected so many people. How do you see the dissolution despite the fact that both governments are from the same political party?

It is always the case when a new democratic government comes to power. There is always this kind of change. The political appointees were appointed by the previous administration to help implement their policies and programmes. And when a new government comes on board, it also gets new hands that will help implement its programmes and policies. That is normal in many democracies. The outgone administration implemented its own programmes, which are different from the programmes of the Tinubu administration. It is only fair to expect that he selects his own team. This is what is happening all over the world, not just with Tinubu’s administration.

Recently, the DSS arrested Bawa and Emefele, former helmsman at EFCC and the CBN. These persons have been in their custody for days without being charged to court. You have been a promoter of the rule of law. How do you see the fact that they have not been arraigned in court?

My position is that they should be arraigned before a court and be given the opportunity to defend themselves. That is the only fair thing to do in this case. I am not quarreling over the fact that people are arrested for allegedly committing an offence but such people should and must be promptly brought before a court.

But that has not happened in the case of these two gentlemen?

No, it is too early, yes too early to comment or to come to conclusion. How many days have they stayed in detention? If you arrest somebody, you should be allowed to investigate, prepare and also be able to present a very credible charge against them. And I guess that this is what they are doing. You can’t arrest somebody today and tomorrow you take him to court. You must prepare your case.

How long should that be before they appear in court going by our law?

It is up to them, it depends on the nature of the problems they are accused of committing and the time that is required to get all the evidence ready for their appearance in court. I want them to work out their own modality of how to tackle that problem, but let nobody rush them. I don’t want anybody to rush them. Just give them time to know the nature of the problems and decide on their own, what step is best for them to take. Let people who are accused of one crime or the other be taken to court and the court would decide their fate.

Now is a good time to assess the Buhari administration having completed its eight years of two term tenure. How do you describe the performance of the last administration?

Well, you shouldn’t be asking me this question because you already know my position. I expected nothing different and at the end, they did not act away from my expectation.  You have interviewed me in the past and I had told you that I do not expect any miracle from the Buhari administration. Now that he has completed his tenure, it is up to the people who supported him to come up and tell us what his achievements were. I didn’t, right from the beginning think that he was going to succeed. I knew he would not do well.

Some people have been rumoring that he has gone on exile abroad. Could this be true?

I don’t know. You know that I was never close to him and therefore I am not in a position to know the reason (s)for his trip to London. But my speculation is that he has gone to attend to personal needs, maybe health issues. By the time he was the President, he hadn’t the full opportunity to go UK to attend to his health and now, that he is no longer the President, he might have gone there to address his health. I am only speculating. The truth is that I have no idea as to what is responsible for his trip to London.

There has been a call for Tinubu to quickly investigate some, if not all the Ministers and key players of the Buhari administration. So that Nigerians would know what happened and why it happened. Do you think that this is the way to go at the moment?

I am a victim of probe. Don’t rush probe.  It has achieved anything good. If you press a new government to probe, you might be pressing them to rush into something that they were not prepared to do, that they didn’t have the necessary information to do. Let’s give them time. I will like to appeal to Nigerians not to push the administration to begin to do things wrongly. Let us give them time to look at the issues.

What if the time you are asking means an opportunity for the accused to wipe out documents and take away the files. Wouldn’t too much time undermine the investigating process?

I think that you are being pessimistic. I do not think that whatever time that is allowed would undermine investigation. I am an optimist. I believe they would certainly do a very good job when they decide to if they decide to. I don’t really want people to push the government to arrest people indiscriminately. It happened to me. I was arrested and later there was no strong ground against me. Not me alone, some others were equally arrested and found to be innocent. From my experience, I will prefer that we give the new government enough time to see what the real problem is and see what is the best solution to solving the problem. Rushing to arrest people left, right and center- I don’t like it. It has never solved a problem. If you remember, Murtala came and went about arresting people and you cannot point at one issue that he had solved. He came on board and started arresting people. The same with Buhari, he came and arrested so many people and today, you cannot point at one major thing that all his arrests had solved.

Back home to the politics of Kano State. How will you assess the last one month of politics in the state bearing in mind the new administration?

Politics in the state has been a two way thing and today, we essentially have two political groups contesting for power in the state. The group led by Kwankwaso and the other group led by then former Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. This is how the politics of the state has been. This group will come, they do their own and after sometime,  they go. And another group will take the stage. So I think again we shall have to wait and see how Abba is going to tackle the problems of the state. We have the pro- Kwankwaso group and we have the pro-Ganduje group and each of the two groups, to my mind, have not articulated the problems relative to the issues in Kano State that need to be tackled. I will wait to see which area Abba is going to concentrate on and which are the main problems that he is going to solve? And then I will see if he is taking the correct trajectory to solving those problems. And then I will be able to assess him correctly.

The Abba administration has embarked on demolition of structures and properties wrongfully allocated as he said or sited on disapproved areas. What do you feel about the demolition going on in the state?

To be honest, I didn’t like it. I don’t like it.  When you come to power, you look at issues and then you work out your own programme. If in the process, it requires you to demolish some buildings, then you do it. But demolishing for the sake of demolition is an opportunity for people to deal with their opponents, whether justly or unjustly. I don’t like it.

There is also the concern that Kano appears to have two governors- namely the elected governor, Abba and his principal, Kwankwaso. How do you see this affecting the process of governance in the state?

I don’t think it is a case of two governors as you put it. That is not true. Abba has been an aide to Kwankwaso. He is well familiar with the policies and intentions of Kwankwaso himself and from the look of things, he would like to build on what Kwankwaso had started but was not able to complete and  probably try to complete what  Kwankwaso had started. This is the way I look at it. I don’t rush to offer my view in this kind of issue. I will like to see how far they will go, which are the problems that they are tackling. Are they tackling the problems correctly or are they not?

But a few have also raised issues against Kwankwaso’s prominence in the administration. Would you encourage him to take the back seat and allow Abba to clearly take the front seat?

I prefer godfathers to allow their pupils, who come to power to apply their methods because the mandate is to them, not to anybody. This is what I expect, that Abba should articulate his own programmes and should be allowed to do that and also to implement it for the benefit of the entire people of Kano State. My advice to Abba is to articulate his own programme, consult Kwankwaso a lot but to bear in mind that the mandate is his own.

Recently, Kwankwaso hinted that they might review the case of the deposed Emir. Do you think that it is possible, and in the best interest of the people to reinstate a deposed Emir?

I don’t know what really Kwankwaso intends to do in future. But I don’t like any new administration that comes to power in Kano to start by deposing people that are appointed by its predecessor. Because what that will lead us to is that whenever a supporter of that government comes to power, he too will do likewise. That would go a long way to affect the progress and development of Kano State. In the end, it will not be policies that would be driven by programmes, but policies driven by vendetta.

But why do you think that elders in the state are a bit silent in the face of so many things that are happening in the state of late? Is it because they are not comfortable with the out-gone government or they are okay with the situation?

Generally, elders in Kano always refrain from making public comments. In most cases, they prefer to talk to the new administration in private. They will then use opportunity to tell them where they are going right or where they are going wrong. I like that approach. It is better than going public to criticize or comment against or for the new government.