By Sunday Ani
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and former Secretary General of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Chief Frank kokori, has warned the Federal Government to shelve the planned removal of subsidy on petroleum products any time soon, describing it as a suicide mission.
In this interview, the former labour leader spoke on various issues including the direct primaries controversy.
Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari, declined to give assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill sent to him by the National Assembly. One of the reasons he gave for his action was that it would deny political parties the right to choose their candidates for general elections. Most Nigerians did not agree with Mr. President’s reasons; where do you stand on this?
In fact, I don’t agree with those who disagree with the president because I listened to his interview with the Channels Television on Wednesday, January 5, and he was very clear when they asked him that question. He said if they give other options like direct, indirect or consensus for primary elections, that would be more democratic and he would sign it. He said point blank that he would sign it immediately, and for me, that is okay. He was very categorical and I don’t want to go on sentiments and emotions. The President will sign it.
The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) as well as the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) is of the view that Nigeria is not yet ripe for direct primary. Do you agree with them?
Actually, we are not yet ready for it because we don’t have voters’ register that is accurate all over the country. All the political parties don’t have accurate voters’ registers and that is why any time they do direct primaries, they get it wrong. It happened to Buhari in 2019; the votes he got during the direct primaries were more than what he got in the real election, and that is what happens to many other people. It also happened to Andy Uba in the last governorship election in Anambra State. They just write results because they do that at the ward levels. So, because nobody supervises them, they just write rubbish as a result. I am a politician; so I always attend every primary election, starting from my ward primaries to the state level. I attended primaries from ward, to local government and state levels during the days of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), so I know what primaries mean. In 2015, it was indirect primaries that produced Buhari; so I was even laughing when the Channels TV presenters were talking about direct primaries. Buhari did not enter with direct primaries in 2015; he entered with indirect primaries. It was in 2019 that he used that direct primary; that is the position. So, what if he has now said he would sign the bill if other choices are included? There is no problem there and people should not be splitting hairs over nothing. Let us watch him. He will sign it because there is so much in the electoral act and it will be good for the whole country. It will bring about a transparent election, which is actually the bulwark of democracy. Nigerians have never had a transparent election. Most of the elections are rigged, especially in rural areas. Elections are freer and fairer in Lagos and Abuja metropolitan areas and most of the state capitals. After these areas, elections are crooked and rigged; that is the tradition in Nigeria.
Do you think the introduction of electronic voting and transmission of election results as being canvassed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will bring about a semblance of free and fair elections in 2023?
Yes, that will ensure 80 percent free and fair election results in 2023.
What do you think about the planned removal of subsidy on petroleum products and its attendant increase in the fuel pump price?
Well, the free market economists may support that but I am a liberal economist and democrat and I know that I am from a third world country; a very primitive and corrupt country. I also know that the type of government and the transparency we practise is just about 25 percent of what happens in Western Europe and America. So, it will be suicidal for any government at this time to be talking about the removal of subsidy. And I made it clear to the Nigeria Labour Congress recently in Ilorin at the Institute of Labour Studies that it is their job to protect Nigerians. They should be the tribune of the people. How can anybody think about that with the present economic situation of the country when people are dying of hunger and starvation; what kind of country is this? I have always said that Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and I blame the government for it. All the governments from Tafawa Balewa, Yakubu Gowon, Obasanjo, Shagari, Babangida, Abacha down to Goodluck Jonathan and currently, President Buhari, have all not fought corruption the way it should be fought. How can you have a country where some people are multi-billionaires in dollars; hard currencies, and some other people can’t even find a roof over their heads in Lagos and Abuja? How can you say you have a government where you find a family of six squatting in one shanty roof and finding it difficult to feed and then you have the guts to tell people you want to remove subsidies? Is that how it is done in other parts of the world? You compare Nigeria to Sweden, Finland, America, Holland, France or Germany; you are just talking rubbish. You can’t manage the economy and you say you want to remove subsidies. Let them remove the subsidy and let us see what Nigerians will do. But, I have said that it will be suicidal for anybody to even contemplate that. They should think of how to improve the economy and not remove subsidies, and they should further think of how to block all the leakages from the economy. How can you import fuel; a finished product? Is that not a shame? They destroyed the refineries and now they have the guts to tell Nigerians that they don’t have brains. The government destroyed the refineries because they could not fix them. I told them a long time ago that we have the finest kerosene in the world from the Warri Refinery, when it was still producing fuel (PMS) and kerosene (DPK). You destroyed that; you destroyed Kaduna Refinery and you are now telling people you import fuel and you subsidize; subsidize what? I am watching the civil society; I depend on the civil society, the labour movement and the Nigerian media because everybody has his own turn. I have done my own part, so let them play their own part. They must protect the people, especially the helpless ones. Is it the market women or Okada riders who will help the people? The civil society must help the people. That is the way we live and that is the training I have. So, it is a stupid economic move for any government to say it wants to remove subsidy. It is a stupid economic advice. It is a wishful thinking kind of economics; free, unlimited, laissez faire Western economic theory, but we are not ripe for that. The current fuel pump price is about N165 and they want to increase it to N300 per litre; do they want to kill the people?
Now that the Federal Government has finally proclaimed that bandits are terrorists as earlier ruled by a Federal High in Abuja in November last year; how do you see the war against terrorism, going forward?
The Nigerian military have tried but they have not done their best. They are part of the corruption we have in this government, especially their commanders. How can you be fighting a ragtag army of Boko Haram and you tell us they have superior weapons? Which superior weapons? All the time that the army captured the Boko Haram terrorists, did you not see the recovered weapons they displayed on television? Can you compare those weapons with the ones used by the Nigerian army? They are ragtag bandits, thieves and rogues, and for over 10 years, the government can’t deal with them. Ordinary small herders will kill people and the police can’t capture them. They will abduct 300 children and be roaming the Sahara and the security agents can’t locate them. The Northern states, after you crossed Abuja and Niger, are all Sahel savanna regions. So, where do the bandits go with all the 200 motorcycles that we are told, yet, the military and all its intelligence can’t capture them, or see where they are and they will keep the children for three, six months? I am not impressed; they should do better. A lot of them are fifth columnists and corrupt. The society is so corrupt; and I have always said that corruption is what is killing Nigeria; it is everywhere. All this war against subsidy and every other thing is based on corruption. The judiciary is not spared. We have some bad eggs in the judiciary and the police and when those two institutions are bad, what do you expect from the country? The police as an institution in Nigeria are one of the worst in the world; the good ones are just about 25 percent. In the judiciary, the judges are letting everybody down; the good ones are just about 40 percent, the rest are corrupt and they know that. So, when you have a small case that ought to last for one year, it will drag for five to 10 years.
So, you think it is corruption, not lack of political will that has dragged the terrorism war for this long?
If there was a good government, the war would have ended a long time ago. A good government should have a good judiciary; a good government should be able to discipline the judiciary. And when I say a good government, it is the executive, the legislature and the judiciary; that is the government. So, when I say the government, it does not mean it is only Buhari; what about the state governments? I don’t think Buhari himself is stealing money or hiding something, but most of the people around him are thieves and he doesn’t care; he allows them to steal. He came to meet the bad system on ground and he was supposed to deal with it. That is the grouse I have with former President Olusegun Obasanjo; we were all in prison. So, when we came out, we thought he would take the bull by the horns and restructure the country; but he did not do that. He sat down, and at the last minute when he knew he had only about nine months, he set up a national conference because of his third term ambition; was that not what Jonathan did? Some people don’t think and now they said Jonathan should come back; come back to do what? Who will vote for him?
Talking about former President Goodluck Jonathan, the clamour for him to come back is gradually gaining traction in some quarters. There are also insinuations in some quarters that President Buhari is even buying into that idea; what is your take?
Jonathan will be a fool to think of coming back. They will disgrace him because he won’t even win the primary. He is only coming to meet the tricksters in the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). They will just deceive him, take his money and go away; he won’t even win any primary. What has he got to offer? This is a young man who was given all the opportunities in this world, and he could not do anything; is it now that he will do something? He is just deceiving himself. He can deceive himself but he can’t deceive the civilized Nigerians; people who know what they are doing. He can’t deceive the media; the real media, not the sycophant media. Can he deceive the patriotic, nationalistic Nigerians? Can Obasanjo deceive anybody again? Obasanjo was given the opportunity to restructure Nigeria and put Nigeria on a developmental pedestal to make Nigeria a first world country within 10 years but he blew it off. And now, he is coming to say that he is an elder statesman; going around the whole world. We have been very unfortunate. The man we now have hope on has been there and doesn’t even care about anything. Yes, Buhari is a good man and that’s why we voted for him but how can you be a good man when everybody around you is doing the wrong thing and you allow them. We need real justice and equity. If you can’t account for your wealth, you should suffer for it; that is how countries grow. You can’t account for any wealth; why should you be a billionaire overnight, from where? We should know how you became a billionaire. Aliko Dangote became a billionaire because, maybe, he had so much government patronage. Nobody can hold him responsible that he is corrupt.
He was given undue advantage by every government in this country and we know them; all of them who are business billionaires. They were given undue advantages which other people don’t get, so they have become billionaires. In a good country, they treat everybody equally and that is the country we dreamt of. It is a pity that we may go to our graves without actually getting the Nigeria of our dream.
Seven months after Malami revealed that many highly placed Nigerians and businessmen were involved in financing terrorism in Nigeria; none of them has been named or charged to court. What is your view on that?
That is why I am saying that the fight against terrorism in Nigeria is not 100 percent sincere. I think Senator Ali Ndume has said the same thing. Who are the people already convicted? Herdsmen kill people every day and you can’t convict them. Even if you see them killing and you alert the police, they will not respond. So, what are we talking about? And you tell me they come with sophisticated weapons; which sophisticated weapon? Our security agents have more sophisticated weapons than the bandits and Boko Haram; they are just talking rubbish. Do they have airplanes? Do they have bombers? What do they have? I can only talk; I can’t go to the field but I cry every day, especially when I see people suffering. When my people are sad, I am sad; but when they are happy, I am also happy. Nigerians are sad. Nigerians are suffering, disillusioned, so I am disillusioned. When we were making those sacrifices for Nigeria, we thought Nigeria would be a better country. At that time, we went round the world on training and we saw what was happening in the whole world. As a young man, I got practical experience from the East and the West of the world. I was exposed to the cold war, the socialist, communist and the social democratic East and the capitalist West; I was exposed to all of them and I had a good education. We wanted a good country but it is a shame that today, if you are not related to a person in government – a governor, a senator, a president, a House of Representatives member, a minister; there is nothing for you. You can’t even get a job. So, that is the sorry situation of our country.
The APC government came to power with much promise and Nigerians had high expectations, but less than 18 months before its expiration, Nigerians have become more disillusioned and disenchanted with the government than they were in 2015. Do you think that going by the government’s performance indices, that Nigerians will be willing to vote for the APC in 2023?
You know I am a chieftain of the APC. I was a member of the Board of Trustees of the APC in Delta State but up till today, I have not been inaugurated. So, the APC is seven years old without a board of trustees. The APC is lucky because the PDP is nothing. PDP has such a bad record in this country that people will not like to go back to Egypt; so that is how lucky the APC is, and the smaller parties cannot do anything because they are too small, powerless and financially bankrupt. So, the APC will still come to power because they have everything. All the machinery is there; so they are still better than the PDP. I am a victim of even the APC because I was oppressed. In PDP, you can be oppressed, and we thought that the APC will not oppress people. But APC oppresses its people; so if you are not in the caucus or in the cabal, you can’t enjoy anything in the APC. But, they are lucky that they don’t have any strong rivals. So, they will still come to power in 2023.