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From Fred Itua, Abuja
The National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Basiru, has taken a swipe at the opposition, declaring that rejected ballot papers in some off-season elections are more popular than the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Basiru, who is also the Deputy Secretary of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council, In this interview with Daily Sun, defended President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms, dismissed concerns about the Rainbow Coalition led by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, addressed the President’s decision to skip some campaign events, and spoke on the state police bill.
You are at the centre of the party in power, and of the campaign as well. A lot has been happening, and people are wondering on what basis the President is seeking a second term when his first term has not delivered what he promised. What is your assessment?
I don’t know where you are coming from. Your assessment is very jaundiced. When he was campaigning, the President ran on the Renewed Hope agenda, which is predicated on re-engineering the economy of Nigeria. To that extent, he has succeeded. Before Mr President came in, Nigeria was at the brink of bankruptcy. Based on all available data, many states struggled to pay salaries and pensions. Almost all the states, except about three or four, could not meet their recurrent expenditure, not to talk of capital expenditure. The education sector had been bastardised by incessant strikes by staff in tertiary institutions. Major infrastructure had decayed, and you cannot talk of re-engineering the economy without addressing those deficits. Insecurity was at its height when the President took over. The macroeconomic situation was in a very bad state, and external reserves had been depleted to less than $30 billion.
What has happened since the administration came in?
The President removed the fuel subsidy and floated the Naira so that it could find its real value. He also removed the avenues of distortion and corruption within the system. Today, allocations to the states and local governments are in the region of N2 trillion per month. The inability to pay salaries and pensions has become a thing of the past, and the minimum wage has been increased. Macroeconomic stability has been brought to the country, and agencies and organisations that have assessed the economy say it has stabilised. In education, the ASUU strike has become a thing of the past. A four-year course, as the President promised, is now a four-year course. Our children now have a normalised academic calendar. To support the sector, NELFUND, which did not exist before, gives loans to pay school fees. It has benefited more than 1.6 million students in tertiary institutions, who also collect a N20,000 monthly stipend. You will recall that the best graduating student at LAUTECH said that, but for NELFUND, he would possibly not have completed his education. Bringing hope to the children of the vulnerable is one of the achievements of this administration. On support for the vulnerable, no fewer than 10 million Nigerians have benefited from the N75,000 conditional cash transfer. In health, we have at least six centres of excellence, one in each geopolitical zone. Dialysis is heavily subsidised to support patients with kidney problems, and many tertiary health centres have been upgraded all over the country. The President has also made tremendous achievements in vocational training and in support for youth in innovation and technology. On infrastructure, no fewer than 5,500 kilometres of roads have been constructed, some completed and others at various stages of completion. There are so many areas where Mr President has performed, and with a second term, we will do more. On the fundamentals, the states are now run in a truer federation, unlike before when resources and functions were over-concentrated at the federal level.
One of the President’s promises on insecurity was the establishment of state police. As of today, the National Assembly has passed the bill on state police, and the two-thirds support required from the states is also there, making state police a reality in Nigeria.
You said government is a continuum. That is an argument we have advanced everywhere. In 2015, the President we have today was the arrowhead of the campaign that brought in Buhari, and he was part of that government for eight years. He was the national leader of the party.
In what capacity was he in government? Was he a minister? Was he Chief of Staff? Was he head of a parastatal? He was not in government. But as I said, government is a continuum. We are not complaining about what happened. We are telling you the status quo of what was inherited from an APC government, which we have been able to change and improve upon. We are not saying the government of President Buhari did not have its own challenges, or that it did not make its own advancements in the governance of the country. But we are saying that this President promised to regenerate the economy. Yes, it was an APC government. But what has been done included the removal of the fuel subsidy, the floating of the Naira and massive investment in infrastructure, to build a $1 trillion economy.
You have listed so many good things, particularly on the macroeconomic side. How has that trickled down to the market? Some of us know how people talk and what they feel. These reforms, as lofty as they are, have not been reflected in the daily lives of Nigerians. I am not sure you are talking to Nigerians.
I am talking to Nigerians, and what you said is not true. The 1.6 million students who have collected loans to support their education, are they not Nigerians? The students who collect N20,000 every month, are they not Nigerians? The more than 10 million Nigerians who have collected the N75,000 conditional cash transfer, are they not Nigerians? Go to the market. As of today, inflation in September stands at 14.6 per cent, far better than August. In the past 16 months, you have seen a downward trend in inflation. The prices of consumer goods are coming down, and the gains of the macroeconomic interventions are beginning to filter through. You can go and verify in the market. Nigerians have always said times are hard, right from the 1970s. I remember a song along those lines from when we were growing up.
How do you assess the strength of the opposition, particularly the ADC and the NDC?
In all the by-elections held, the APC has won more than 80 per cent. The parties that even the APC lost to in those few instances, like APGA, are now with us at the national level. Accord is also with us at the national level. The NDC has not won anything since its formation. So why would we waste resources worrying about parties that are underperforming or not performing at all? Go and check the results. In Osun, the ADC polled barely 17,000 votes, while our party, even though we lost, polled over 444,000. Even the rejected votes in Osun were more than 20,000. That means the rejected ballot paper is more popular than the ADC in Osun. Is a pile of paper a political party?
The Rainbow Coalition is an aspect that party members have been unwilling to talk about. We have heard the position of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, and that of the FCT Minister, who is managing the affairs of the campaign. Has the party intervened to close the divide?
As far as the party is concerned, yes. As National Secretary, my position is that we want to deliver massively for President Bola Tinubu. Anybody who is interested in partnering with the party to deliver the President is a friend of the party. As for contests at other levels, let Nigerians decide who they want as governors, senators or members of the House of Representatives. But as the President has said, our position is that we will campaign for all our candidates: for President, governor, Senate, House of Representatives and State Assembly. The party is not worried. Wike is not asking us for many things. As National Secretary, I can tell you that Wike has not come to ask us for any support. He has not asked for financial resources or logistics, so I am not bothered about what he does. I am only happy that he is saying he supports the President and has agreed to be the President’s coordinator in Rivers State and the FCT.
Why are you not worried that whatever he may be doing in favour of the President could have adverse effects on your chances?
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I don’t know. I am not a clairvoyant, and I cannot stop somebody who wants to support the President from supporting him.
What about your candidates across the states? Why would they be affected by that?
Unless they were not popular before, we will mobilise for them.
There are claims that some APC governors are alleging that Wike is sponsoring and supporting PDP members in their states against them.
I don’t know of that, and the governors have not come to complain to me. I have not read of it either. What I know is this: in Rivers State and the FCT, Wike is the coordinator for President Tinubu. He said it publicly, and he has the responsibility to deliver those two for the President. The governors, too, have the responsibility to deliver for all the candidates of the APC in their states. They said it publicly, and they should work hard to deliver. So everybody’s responsibility is clear-cut, and there should be no problem about delivering, as a governor, for all the candidates of our party in your state. Those of us who do not have governors, like Osun, have also taken responsibility for campaigning for our governorship candidate.
Since you have mentioned Osun, there are claims that your governor made an attempt to join your party, but some leaders in Osun blocked it. Is that true, sir?
I am not aware. What I know is that Governor Adeleke is today the coordinator of President Tinubu’s campaign for the presidential election in Osun, and the President appointed him in that capacity.
The President said he will not attend campaigns in all the states.
He has not said that.
We read the speech. If you interpret what he said, it is that he will not be available for the governorship campaigns, which means he will not be present in all the places where there will be campaigns.
In law, you deal with concrete facts. What you have said is not different from what he said. You are not our strategist. If we want to take you on as a strategist, apply and we will consider it. We leave the strategy of the campaign to the Presidential Campaign Council. When it is necessary, the President will be in some states. When he is engaged, the Vice President is there. The Director-General of the campaign is there. The party chairman, who is also the chairman of the campaign, is there to stand in for him. And the law is clear. I am a lawyer. Section 5 of the Constitution allows the President to act either directly or through any person he appoints. If the Constitution gives him that power to govern, either by himself or through other people, how much more a campaign? I think it is more of a storm in a teacup.
But there is also perception and reality. His absence at those venues may convey a message that all is not well with the President in terms of health.
Please, my brother. Even I, who am much younger than the President, in my early 50s, will not be attending most of the campaign events, even as National Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the campaign council. Does that mean I am not healthy? So the reason for not attending a campaign cannot be laid on the ground of health alone. I have other responsibilities to perform, and Mr President also has the responsibility to govern. I am just telling you that the reason the President may not attend cannot be laid on alleged ill health. You saw him, loud and clear, recently. Does he sound like somebody who cannot campaign? No, he is very fit.
On state police, it is funny that we celebrate it as the answer to insecurity, but we have left out two components of that argument. One is uniform funding across the country. Some states, if you overburden them with wages, may not be able to sustain whatever arrangement they put in place for the police. The second is that some governors, even though they do not control the federal police, sometimes abuse that power. That has not been adequately addressed, because although there is a provision for a commission, its members will be approved by Houses of Assembly that are controlled by the governors.
I am an advocate of state police. As a senator, I sponsored a bill for state police in the 9th Senate, but it was defeated. So for me, your argument about whether states will have adequate resources to fund state police is a moot one. I told you that the resources available to the states now are adequate for them to meet their recurrent expenditure. The security and welfare of the people is the paramount purpose of government under the Constitution. Any state that says it cannot fulfil that primary obligation does not deserve to be called a state. On the possibility of abuse, all over the world there are challenges of abuse of power. That is why you have the writ of habeas corpus and the fundamental rights provisions of the Constitution. Section 46 allows anybody whose rights are infringed, or likely to be infringed, to approach a court of law. When you weigh the possibility of abuse of state police against the need to adequately protect life, limb and property, I think it is better that we allow state police. Most of the time, those who suffer abuse are the elite, and the elite have the resources to hire eminent advocates to pursue their grievances. That is my take.
