By Daniel Kanu
Dr Yunusa Tanko is former national chairman, National Conscience Party (NPC) and the party’s presidential standard bearer in the 2019 elections.
Tanko, now the chief spokesman of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign Council in this exclusive chat with Sunday Sun x-rayed the Tinubu Presidency, the challenge of insecurity, hardship in the land, State Police, the Oronsaye Report and many other issues. Excerpt:
The Tinubu-led APC government has been there close to nine months now. For you, so far, so what?
As far as we are concerned this administration is not ready for governance at all. They have not been able to put the right peg in the right hole, considering a lot of fundamental mistakes that they made and are still making. The removal of the fuel subsidy without preparing for it, I mean without preparing for necessary palliatives. You can see the issue of insecurity; you can see the issue of hunger and how hardship is ravaging the average Nigerian. Look at how they are bastardizing the economy and things are getting worse by the day. If they are ready for governance, they should have been better prepared, but you can see that they were just looking for power, capturing power is one thing, and your ability to use power meaningfully to lift the people’s lives up is another thing. It is not that there is a new political party that got power, but a continuation of where the former president (Buhari) stopped. Who is also a member of their party (APC).
If you look at the security challenge in the land, the APC is looking at the state police option. Do you think it will be a solution to tackle this insecurity?
A good solution should be the empowerment at the local government level. Our local government has been completely forgotten or perhaps, sidelined to irrelevance and so there is no economic empowerment to the local government. Take, for example, if the youth are engaged in a productive manner, they will not be involved in any social misconduct or malfeasance. This is because they will be gainfully employed and working to make their life meaningful. Then you cannot infiltrate them or use them to create violence. Poverty is ravaging them so they become susceptible and used as a tool to cause mayhem. Remember that when the people, the youth, especially are not meaningfully engaged, they become the devil’s property. We should be addressing first, how to engage our youth meaningfully, so that they can be productive. When you engage them they will have no time to cause trouble or be used to cause insecurity. Before you begin to consider the kinetic approval, you must solve the fundamental problem: creating jobs and engaging the people. Deal with the root cause before thinking about the situation. When the people are hungry even the people that you will engage as state police will themselves be committing atrocities. So, address the cause of insecurity first.
But on the subsidy removal, even your presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, said he would also have removed subsidy…?
(Cuts in) The error was in the haste. It was unnecessary. They were just playing to the gallery. If you want to remove what the people are benefitting from, you must give them an alternative. What alternative did they give? What preparation did they put in place to cushion the hard effect of subsidy removal? They should have known it will have an adverse effect and they should have prepared a shock absorber. They ought to have prepared for an alternative first. You should have ensured that the refineries, the modular refineries are working first before you remove subsidy. It should be a gradual process and with good planning for its removal. What are we producing? We are just consuming and that is not how it should be. You don’t just wake up overnight and you say fuel subsidy is gone without providing an alternative. You can see where such rascal pronouncement has kept the country. The hardship that Nigerians are going through now is unimaginable. Mr Peter Obi would have been interested in subsidizing production and not subsidizing consumption.
The Tinubu-led government is also looking at how the Oronsaye report can be implemented. How do you react to that because some opposition members say it’s a distraction?
You see these are some of the things that show you that they are not ready for governance. They couldn’t pay civil servants and they are looking for exit way. But the report is more about merging some of the ministries together to make them more effective. I don’t have problem with the Oronsaye report, they copied it from our document, but implementation is the most important thing. It is something that wants to avoid duplication of jobs. But if you know the mindset of this administration, they are simply looking for short cut of what they could not manage. Instead of finding solution and reducing the pain of Nigerians they are trying to add more to the pain. And if I may ask, which good example is the government showing, looking at the cabinet of Mr. President? You want to merge and cut down ministries, which is good, but what of your own large cabinet? You cannot be preaching something and be acting the opposite.
Is it true that your presidential candidate in 2023, Mr Peter Obi is planning to leave your party, Labour Party?
No. Not at all. He has made it very clear that he is not leaving the party. That is the prayer of APC that he leaves. The reason they are planting moles in the party to disorganize the party, but they will continue to fail.
What to do you see as the solution to Nigeria’s problems?
The first solution is cohesiveness. The illegitimacy issue hanging on will become a problem. Anything that affect trust is a serious matter, what they (APC) should have done is to seek for forgiveness from the Nigerian people because of how manipulative, through which they came into office. The late President Yar’Adua had the same problem of legitimacy, the process that brought him to power was flawed and he apologized to the Nigerian people and a lot of people forgave him and he started to move on. That was part of the reason he was one of the best presidents we have had. But in the case of this APC government, they knew that they were beaten at the polls, but through hook and crook and with impurity they are there and don’t care about how the people feel as long as they are in power. That is a wrong approach and it must be corrected. This government is simply insensitive.
When Tinubu was coming in as the president, there was this impression by most Nigerians that the country could never have it worse again than what they experienced under President Buhari, but today…?
(Cuts in) Most people were thinking that Tinubu was more of a politician than Buhari because of the way he handled some of his private things, they probably thought he could handle Nigeria better, but they find out that Nigeria is a different entity entirely. They think it’s all about having money, but still they are not communicating with the people. They are detached from the people. He should not continue to tell Nigerians lies. This government is based on lies. He (Tinubu) lies to Nigerians too much and so there is no trust. You promised the people that you were going to give them palliatives, but they are getting nothing, you promised them of salary increase and you are reneging from your promise shamelessly. They promised ASUU, they promised civil servants that they will implement wage increase, but all that has become a lie because they do not keep agreements, they do not keep to promises made, their word is not their bond.
But the government is blaming the organized labour for embarking on several strikers within his eight months in office?
What the president is doing is a threat to the people that he is governing. It is like saying: If you don’t move there, I will shoot you…, it is a threat and you cannot threaten the people that you are supposed to govern. Government is all about taking care of the people, their welfare, their safety and all of that. You take care of their collective interest, but once you decide that their collective interest does not matter, but your own decision then you are using a force and they will resist you.
President Tinubu has been accused of nepotism, just like President Buhari in his appointments. What is your take on the issue?
Of course, there is nepotism in the system he is running and he has even increased the tempo. It is like: if Buhari can do it, I can also do it, no, you don’t exhibit such in leadership. It must be all inclusive, you must carry everybody along, that is how governance is done. But if he chooses to continue with the old order, a lot of Nigerians will resist him. He cannot intimidate Nigerians.
The court verdict on Comrade Julius Abure as the national chairman of LP, what does that mean to you?
Well, in a way, that stamps the authority of leadership on Abure and there is no issue of Lamidi Apapa again and all that shenanigans. The issue of leadership has been laid to rest. Other issues can now be dealt with by the party. So for us, it’s just a confirmation of what we already know as the truth, that Abure is LP national chairman.
Some said that Lamidi Apapa was brought into the picture as a mole to disorganize the party. Do you agree to this?
As far as I am concerned, even if you accuse the party leadership of mismanagement, there are internal mechanisms to address such allegations. Yet it’s normal to have misunderstanding in political parties and like in that of LP there were committees that were put in place to look into the issue dispassionately. So, whether Apapa is a mole is no longer the issue. The court has given its verdict and we will abide by it. That issue has been laid to rest.