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• Why Atiku, Obi are no threat to Tinubu
• Over 80% of Buhari’s staff preferred Atiku in 2023
• There’s no guarantee that 2027 election won’t be rigged
From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Ntufam Hilliard Eta is a former interim acting National Chairman and National Vice Chairman (South South) of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He is currently the Chairman of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Governing Board.
Speaking to Sunday Sun in an exclusive interview, recently in Abuja, the Cross-River born politician, weighed in on myriads of issues, particularly the forthcoming 2027 presidential election. He dismissed any possibility that either the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) Atiku Abubakar, or that of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, might pose any form of threat to President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid.
He bluntly and brazenly criticised the escalating lack of internal democratic process in the nomination of the candidates of his party, disclosing that revolution is not only looming very large in the ruling party but warned that APC could crumble like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) very soon.
Have you forgiven your party, the APC?
That is a very unusual way to start this interview. What you would have asked is whether I am begrudging the APC? Since I ventured into politics at a very tender age, experience has taught me that in dealing with human beings, one is likely to come across their idiosyncrasies, extremisms, and tendencies. One is likely to encounter attrition, altercations, differences in opinion, in their worldview, and cosmology.
Anybody with such a basic understanding venturing into politics, they cannot have a situation to begrudge persons or organisation. Remember that it is free entry and free exit as guaranteed by the constitution; the over 200 million of us have the right of association and the right of free speech.
If anyone is no longer comfortable in their association, they are at liberty to discontinue. The reason I am in APC is that the founding fathers and the principles aligned with my idea of politics and approach to bring into governance, if given an opportunity to govern the people.
It will take more than what happened in 2020 to put a wedge between me and my ideas. Although those ideas are fading away, I still hold on to the truth that indeed what we created in 2013 was perhaps the most progressive platform that Nigerian political history has had to record.
Are you saying that APC treated you fairly?
I was not talking about being treated fairly. I was talking about my deep understanding of the issues of associating with other human beings and my ability to tolerate their excesses in pursuit of my ideals and ideas in politics. It is not a case of who is going to forgive whom.
My understanding of politics is different from the way others understand it. My understanding of politics allows me the liberty and the comfort of interpreting issues in the way God has given me the ability to interpret, and if others interpret politics as a score to settle, I do not.
I believe that as long as a political party is peopled by human beings, they cannot remove altercations, disagreements, and acrimony. But the ability to understand that the bigger picture is how you conduct yourself if you have government and the people, and the approach of governance you bring to bear if the people have given you their mandate. Every other thing falls in comparison, in faith and in importance.
Your flexibility in handling what happened then was commendable, but what do you tell those insinuating that the parastatal board appointment given to you is enough settlement?
I believe that I am qualified to be in any available position in Nigeria; I believe that I am intellectually layered enough to carry the requirements and the responsibilities of any office that God, in His infinite mercy, may find in the heart of the President or any other leader to so give me.
I do not think that the office of the chairman of the NYSC Board can be a settlement for me. I don’t even know what settlement means in this context. But if it means what is usually understood in the Nigerian political palace, then count me out. I believe that I have the capacity, the creativity, the presence of mind to get into any office and use the instrumentality of that office for the good of the Nigerian people.
The way you fought during the misunderstanding with the APC leadership shows you had a mission to achieve as the national chairman; what was that mission?
The mission was to bring about the presidency of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, no more, no less. I knew from that time that he was going to be, perhaps, the most consequential president that we will ever have. I knew that he was the transformational leader we have been waiting for.
I knew that with him, Nigeria would be in capable hands. I knew that what is happening today was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t know that it was going to happen this fast. I knew he was perhaps the most courageous President that we will ever have.
And today, three years later, I believe that those who are discernible, those who are pure of heart, will agree with me that all of my expectations have come to pass. That is why, because of Nigeria, I had to fight that battle. And as the Holy Book says, I fought a good fight.
Are you saying that this is the APC of your dream with what Nigerians are going through today?
No, no, no. But are you talking about the government or the APC? The government of today is beyond my dreams. I did not know that Nigerians coming from the pool that constituted the government would achieve what the president has achieved in three years. I cannot say the same thing about my party.
I cannot say that the ideal which my party was created is still abiding; I cannot say so of the platform and the predication on which it lives its life today. But, for the presidency and for the man who is presiding today, I believe that by the time he is done with Nigeria, the country will never be the same again.
With 13 years of APC existence under President Tinubu and late President Buhari, can you say that the ruling party has met the expectations of Nigerians?
Let me say that if you do a proper analysis of the presidents of Nigeria, you will discover that whereas you would give late President Muhammadu Buhari a very poor mark in economic management, he will get a little pass mark in the provision of infrastructure, especially roads and rails.
Obasanjo will also get a little pass mark in the provision of turbines, especially in the electricity sector.
But, from 1960 till date, none of them has fundamentally altered the course of Nigeria the way President Tinubu has done. For example, for decades, those who understood the challenges of the energy sector and the deficit that Nigeria was experiencing had always sought for the decentralisation of the energy sector.
Not one single president dared to decentralise power. This President did it a few months after he took over power. And when people say that he promised to give light to Nigeria, for me, that is the light that he has given to Nigeria.
We must ask the governors, the heads of some sub-national governments, whether they have switched on the light he has given. This is the first time in the history of Nigeria that states have the legal framework, supported by the constitution, to generate, transmit, and distribute light. If any state government has not done what it needs to do for its people, then the governor should be held responsible.
Another area he has done well is security. Nigeria’s security architecture has been a challenge that successive presidents have contended with since 2009. They contended with domestic violence, terrorism, and banditry; all of them have been presented with the idea of expanding and being creative in tackling our security and enabling a sustainable architecture.
It is only this president that deemed it fit, first, to establish the National Forest Guard to take charge of our forests after training. This same president has also endorsed state police law into the process in a manner that, if the various Assemblies, National and State, are through with it, will establish state police. This means that policing will be localised, and we know the benefits of localising police or policing.
Another one is the one he just did recently. For the first time, a wholesome enlargement of the military, the Nigeria army bases. I am very sure he will also do the same with the Air Force and the Navy. What that means is that for the first time in Nigeria, we have a President who is not afraid to take difficult decisions.
Remember that previously, there was no time four academic sessions went simultaneously, seamlessly, without a strike disrupting the programme and making a four-year course last five to seven years. This is the first time in the educational sector that indigent students have an opportunity to further without involving themselves in hook-ups and Yahoo.
President Tinubu has been fundamental in his impact on the sectors that are very dear to the Nigerian people. The infrastructural intervention in Nigeria is replicative of what happened in Yakubu Gowon’s era as president. Never have Nigerians and Nigeria seen this level of infrastructural intervention in this country. No government has ever been able to do this.
There are so many other things he has done too numerous to elaborate. But holistically, I still maintain that he is perhaps the most consequential President that has ever ascended that office in Nigeria. When he said he was aiming and dreaming of a one-trillion-dollar economy, even well educated Nigerians, out of their emotions and sentiments, questioned a dream on the media platforms, instead of adopting it as a Nigerian dream.
I ask, what is wrong with the president dreaming that this Nigeria should become a $1 trillion economy? If he says it is going to happen within a time frame, and it did not happen, is there anything wrong in dreaming?
But in which area has he failed to impress you?
I only enumerated a few areas because he equally did well in the stock exchange, growth rate, foreign reserve, and upsurge of foreign direct investment. However, there are certain other areas I disagree with Mr. President, which I would want him to turn his attention to. They may not be exhaustive.
For instance, our trade policy. We go to China to buy consumer goods we have the advantage of producing in this country, especially the ones we have produced previously. We import all manner of goods from China. What we have done is to take our jobs to China and create unemployment in Nigeria.
I want this very courageous government to look into this imbalance and see how local industries can be protected to return to where we were producing our batteries, ceramics, textiles, shoes, among others. Nigeria was producing those things before.
The Minister of Trade and Investment should help the President because one thing some of us who admire this president have seen is that he is almost running the government single-handedly, even though he has appointed people to help him. I want to appeal to the Minister of State in our Trade Industry to look at our trade regime and bring some reforms that will make Nigeria productive in the areas we have a comparative advantage.
There is no reason Nigeria should be importing biscuits, toothpicks, and toothpaste from China. There was a time Nigeria was self-sufficient in those things, and we cannot continue to export our jobs to China.
Secondly, there is price gouging that has not helped the reforms to trickle down to the people. The Nigerian middlemen are the ones causing high food inflation today. Nigeria government has invested a lot in CNG, which one would have expected would have brought down the cost of transportation. This has not happened. As long as the cost of transportation is high, the cost of food items will also be high.
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Again, importers are exploitative, and I disagree with the president when he left market forces to regulate the cost of the items. Market forces can only do so if it is perfect. This market is nowhere near perfect at all. It is about 70 to 75 per cent informal, unregulated, out of control of government, and almost impossible to use market forces to settle the issue of cost of goods, especially food items.
We must return to a regime where we force Nigerians to do certain things because if we don’t force them, they will not do it. We are a peculiar kind of people. Nigerians need a strong hand in that area. The other areas he should also shift his attention to should be health and education.
Government has done a lot in education, as I said earlier, but we must go beyond that and ensure that the products of tertiary institutions become employable. Anybody who has a different opinion is not being truthful to themselves. We must dialogue to review things. I am not an expert in the area, but something must be done to return our school system to imbue in our children the kind of depth and structure education used to give in the past.
In health, we have done the same things over and over again without achieving results. Albert Ensign thinks that it is madness to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. The Nigerian government has invested so much money in teaching hospitals and training doctors, yet our health institutions are consistently deteriorating.
The working environment is nothing to write home about, and I believe that the private sector should be heralded in because health is a big business. The government can do more in terms of health insurance, but in the provision of health itself, the private sector should be invited in to treat health as a business that it is.
Why is APC jittery over the 2027 presidential election despite the achievements you have enumerated?
If there any party that is not jittery, it should be the APC. Why would the APC be jittery? We have a presidential candidate who in 2023 had too many obstacles on his way, but he was able to win the election, let alone now. What obstacles do we have now?
Is it from Atiku, only talking about identity politics, or Peter Obi destroying himself every time he opens his mouth? What is it for the APC to be jittery about? Every time Obi opens his mouth, he destroys himself, letting people know that there is nothing about him.
The only thing Atiku is doing is identity politics, claiming that he is from the North. The people that will support Atiku are a small group of Fulanis in Nigeria. Not even all the Fulanis, because some of them are progressive. The Asawas, the Middle Belters, the Christians, and the non-indigenous people in the North will not support Atiku.
The 2027 presidential election is going to be an anti-climax. President Tinubu is going to win by a landslide. Take my region, for example; beyond the Igbo-speaking areas of the South-South, there is nobody from the zone who will not vote for Asiwaju, and we know the reason.
Obi and Atiku said they would not give us the Calabar Coastal Road. They said that they would concentrate on building other roads, yet we are the geese laying all the golden eggs. They said that they are going to cancel everything Asiwaju has done, including those things that are very important to us. We will stay with Asiwaju so that they will not cancel them.
When you said that Tinubu would win a landslide do you mean that Obi and Atiku are no threats?
Were they threats to the APC in 2023? People always forget this. There was no incumbent in 2023. Yes, it was an APC government, but there were people in Aso Rock Villa that did not want Asiwaju to be the president. I am not the kind of person who will hold the truth. Eighty per cent of people in that Villa wanted to return power to Atiku.
Asiwaju ran against his party, his government, Obi, and Atiku and still defeated all of them. Is it now that he is in power and recorded achievements that he will not win? In America, they use mid-term elections to determine the popularity of either the president or party in power. Why is ours different? Why should the media refuse to use the APC winning every election as a referendum on Asiwaju?
What was the result of the off-season elections in the country? Were Obi and Atiku not involved in the FCT elections held recently? The Labour Party (LP) won in FCT in the 2023 election, but why did they not win again? Are Nigerians foolish?
All politics is local, and there is no polling unit on social media. When the time comes, all those people writing nonsense on the internet will go back to their villages. Someone like Randy Peters is from my state. You will hear his result. He is a candidate of NDC in Ogoja, Yala, and we will see and hear after the election.
What is your take on the fear across Nigeria that APC may not allow free, fair, transparent elections next year?
That has always been the fear. In 2015, when APC contested against the incumbent, the opposition parties then were not afraid. It was so hot that then President Jonathan postponed the election for two weeks because he was afraid. I don’t know what is happening to the opposition parties today.
I know that every election in Nigeria, from 1960 till today, has always been rigged. We do not have the sophistication and technology to make it not be rigged. I cannot guarantee that the 2027 election will not be rigged. That would be utopian.
It has not happened in America, and till today, the Democrats still think that Kamala Harris won the last election, and Trump also believes he won in 2020. Wherever human beings conduct elections, there must be a little undermining of the processes. Nigeria is not going to be different.
Do you have fears about APC not winning the 2027 election?
No, I do not have fears, but I don’t know about others. Asiwaju is going to be re-elected. However, what could be my fear is the governors, whether in my party or not; it is the problem of Nigeria, not the presidency.
I will give you an example. The presidency takes about half of Nigeria’s common wealth while the governors and the local governments take the remaining half. Among all the things I earlier enumerated that the president has done, can you compare them in terms of investment which the states are doing?
Nigerians, led by the media, should not take their eyes off the federal ball, but should also wander their eyes to the state ball, because if they take their eyes off the state balls, 50 per cent of our commonwealth is routed in the gutters of Nigeria.
The governance at the state level, the subnational levels, is abysmally low in terms of corporate governance, best practices, competencies, and processes; we need to do something about the states. We need to begin to hold governors accountable to make them responsive to the needs of their people.
In some states in the North, a governor will bankroll WAEC registration for about 80 students, and will do an increment of five after eight years. By the time he leaves office, it will be 85 people that are going for WAEC, and it does not concern them, especially in the North. I must be very frank in naming the region.
Governance in the North is abysmally low, and one of the reasons Nigerians must pay attention to what is happening to the humongous amount of money going to the states. The states, through the instrumentality of Nigeria constitution, are responsible for the conduct of local elections. It’s only in a few instances, maybe the one Akwa-Ibom conducted under Mr Victor Attah, and the one El-Rufai conducted in Kaduna, almost every other one was a charade.
These are the people who, when they are contesting elections, want the best from the federal government and INEC. For instance, Peter Obi is looking for a free, fair, and proper election in 2027, yet he could not deliver to the local government people of Anambra State in eight years.
This is something that Nigerians should bother themselves with, not talking about the president, everybody. I would like to reiterate that the president controls only about 50 per cent of our commonwealth while the sub-nationals control the rest. Last month, they shared about N2.3 trillion, which means that the state and the local governments took over N1 trillion, yet people are not bothered.
Don’t you think some Nigerians may be surprised that you didn’t include the crisis rocking the APC in most states and even at the national level as a fallout of the primaries among your fears for the 2027 election?
I earlier said that a political party is populated by human beings, and you cannot expect that members will all be satisfied. But having said that, let me also reveal that I am one of those spearheading very serious reforms in terms of internal democratic practices of my party. I am not satisfied with the processes that throw up candidates for our party.
We have had 27 years of democracy, and the time has come for the governing party, which incidentally is mine, to think very seriously about internal democratic processes in such a way that let the electoral preference of the people matter and become the candidates of our party in such a way that middlemen, especially the governors, are alienated from the process.
As the ruling party, nothing stops us from deploying technology, like AI and ICT to ensure that the internal democratic processes of our party are responsive and reflective of a party in the 21st century.
Is Yilwatda the kind of APC national chairman a ruling party should have?
I have not properly evaluated our chairman. I don’t have any relationship with him; I have also not interacted with him, and it will be very unfair to judge him. I intend to have a very robust relationship with him because, as I earlier said, I am going to engage all the stakeholders in trying to find a way of reform.
We need to reform our party; what happened to the PDP will happen to us. Anybody who says that it is impossible is living in dreamland because it has happened before. Do you remember the time the PDP had as many governors and members of the National Assembly as we have today?
If it could happen to them, it can happen to us, especially if we are repeating the same mistakes that they made. One of the great mistakes they made was in not institutionalising a proper internal democratic process, and the same thing is plaguing us. We need these reforms.
Do you share the fears in some quarters that some APC governors may sabotage President Tinubu in next year’s election?
No, but there is no act to definitely read the mind of a person based on the construction of his face. Take it with a pinch of salt. But I have said earlier that the duo of Obi and Atiku are unfortunately not the kind of people to wrest power from Asiwaju, and Asiwaju is not Jonathan.
Why has it become difficult for you to contest for elective positions, probably legislature, governorship, despite your courage, charisma?
That is a tough question. I am not dead yet. I have not breathed my last, and I don’t think that it is going to come in a very short while. I am going to be here for a while, and you cannot say that it is completely closed for me. I understand people are concerned that a man with my vigour and intellectual equipment is found outside of an elective office.
Nevertheless, there are other areas they can contribute to national development, and very soon we will vigorously demand reforms in my party. We are going to demand very serious reforms in our party.
Some have asked me if it was fear or lack of financial resources. It hasn’t happened.
What has happened is that God is in charge of all of those things, and we are just pencils in His hands, and we don’t determine when. It is not within our capacity to determine.
