Desmond Mgboh, Kano
The Minister of Women Affairs during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Hayiya Aisha Ismail, has been lying low since that regime ended. However, she has kept herself busy with family issues.
In this interview, she talks about her days as minister, life after public service, Northern women and politics, Nigerian’s faulty leadership recruitment process, Buhari’s administration and the anti-graft war, rapping the National Assembly.
How has life been with you being out of power and leadership. What is happening? We have heard less and less from you?
Well, not much is happening with me. Somehow, I have had to work very hard in the days after my stewardship. I have been working hard to see that my children complete their education, and also get some of them married. Doing all these took a lot of my time. You can see that it is only now that I am trying to repair my house. I bought this house in 1995. So, I haven’t done much. I have been trying to make money too. I haven’t been successful at doing that, but I pray that this year, I would be able to breakthrough.
What has it been like now that you are out of government?
There is a difference between men in government and women in government. When men get into power, they find it very difficult it to get out of power and it is such a huge impact on them when they leave power. But for women in power, you know that we left so many things behind to come to power – children affairs, social affairs and even wedding affairs. Once you finish the public service or political appointment, you seamlessly go back into your social affairs. It depends on what you like. You can join politics at the women level if you like, you can try business. Leaving public service does not impact so much negatively on us (women). Honestly, I don’t think that since I left office, I have had instances to be unhappy about that. I find that I don’t miss being in office. I think that it was actually a relief. Because, being in government, I was working like an engine. You are working like an engine, stretched to your full capacity all the time. You just keep going. And when you stop, it is just like a break or relief. Yes, you get disoriented a little, but after sometime, you pick up where you stopped before taking up the public office and you just continue.
Are you saying that leaving public office has been a relief?
It was a relief for me honestly. Because after sometime, that is why I find it difficult to understand when people are fighting so hard to be in power. You can’t do it for so long, it tasks you. Unless you are not doing it correctly, unless you are serving yourself, it becomes a different issue. But if you are serving the people, after sometime, it becomes so tasking. You can’t sleep properly, you can’t socialize properly; so many things you would want to do are suspended. That is the reality of public service.
Are you, therefore, suggesting that in the light of these experiences, less women should take public position?
No, I will rather suggest that more women should go into government because they do not get disturbed like the men. It doesn’t become a matter of life and death for them like it is to the men in public office. In fact, I would recommend more women, because for them, they can do it and leave it with ease. Not like the men. There is no much tension in their lives. They can do it and get out and go and face other things and still live a very healthy life. Watch men that have been in public life. Watch them after two years of leaving office, they look so dilapidated and finished. Because, I think they get so attached to the power and the glory and they cannot think of any other life after power. But there is a limit to how long you can be in public life. And if only the men would recognize that, may be it would reduce the huge ego that exists among Nigerian elite, who are in position of power. You see it (power) as something that you would come and go, and you are conscious of going even while you are serving.
You worked with former President Olusegun Obasanjo. From your experience, speak a bit about him. Also, what are your high points in public service?
You see, the funny thing is that Nigerians have this way of elevating their leaders when they are in power and castigating their leaders when they are out of power. I think we have to start looking at everybody. What he has done well, we appreciate it and what he has done badly we make a point so that the next one does not do it. There were things that Obasanjo did that were good and there were things that he did that were not good. One of the things I think that Nigerians have not realized or given Obasanjo credit for is that Obasanjo got us 65 per cent of the Gulf of Guinea. Now, Gulf of Guinea is a seat of the biggest reserves of gas in the world. And we all know that with the climate change that is happening now, definitely the use of fossil fuel in technology is going to be reduced. We don’t have a choice and the consequence of not seeing this is so great on mankind. What is the next frontier? All the talks about electric cars and all that you could have that. But the next frontier is gas. And fortunately for Nigeria, we gained when fossil fuel is used for technology and we are going to gain when it becomes the turn of gas to come into use. It means that later industrialization and technology would revert to another source of life and that source is gas. He, Obasanjo, did good on so many grounds, but he later tried to spoil them by attempting to extend his tenure in office. But all leaders are like that and most of the time, the leaders are just a reflection of the people they lead.
If I get it right, you are saying that Obasanjo has not been accorded his due position in history by Nigerians?
I am even trying to say for others too. There are some leaders that are really bad and so we might have to try and weed and weed and weed to get some of the good points in them. When Abacha was in power, I was one of those people that were really out fighting the regime. I remember coming home crying, telling my mum that I might be arrested any day because we would go to Lagos and on tours fighting the regime. But even Abacha when you weed, you will find some good things that happened during his time. So, what I am saying is that our leaders reflect us. So, we have to try and appreciate some of the good things that they have done. You cannot get a totally bad leader unless he comes with a concept like Hitler – that is a different thing you know, somebody that came to eliminate other human beings. Leaders have some good points and certainly have some bad points. Let us appreciate the good point and then make sure we learn from the bad points and direct our future leaders not to repeat the bad points.
One of the problems Obasanjo left, beside the Third Term, is his huge ego. And all the presidents that have followed after him with the exception of maybe Umaru Yar-Adua (he died too early so we would never know) all of them have such a big, huge ego and I think that one of the main problems of leadership in Nigeria is the ego thing. You come to power and you think that you are the best and nobody is like you and you gather yourself a bunch of idiots and they keep telling you that you are the best and without you, there would be no Nigeria, the country Nigeria would crumble and all sorts of things. And the ego keeps getting inflated until you start thinking that you are Nigeria, that you are synonymous with Nigeria. That is a huge mistake. And then you start deviating, you stop working for the people and you start working for yourself. That has been our problem for long.
What then do you think is the solution? Some people have identified the fact that the process of political recruitment in Nigeria is faulty. Is it?
It is not only faulty, but it is a disaster. The way we recruit our leadership is a disaster. You allow people come and muscle you as the electorate and you do their bidding. Somebody comes to molest you with his money, he uses everything to molest you – money, thugs and criminals to harass you and you end up voting him and he has no allegiance to you as a people.
But he has paid for your votes….
Not only did he pay for it, he intimidated you into accepting him. So, at the end of the day, he doesn’t have allegiance to you. He also doesn’t fear you as the people he is serving, rather you fear him. So, every time he comes and intimidates you. I assure you that most of the people that get elected, one month after, the people that elected them do not even have access to them anymore. Even their campaign managers do not have access to them anymore. It is this bad in Nigeria!
What is the way forward?
Number one, the people have to start controlling their own power. Powerlessness breeds such kind of incapability, it breeds disability and it also stops you from thinking. We have to reclaim our power and for the people to do it, we have to start thinking and saying hey that man that is elected as my member, I am more qualified than him, I am more educated and I more focused than him and I love the people more than him. So, we start asking ourselves who loves more? Who would do what we want? We have to look at the process, we must reject the intimidation, reject the molestation and all that that comes with it. Number two, we have to screen and find the right people to do the job, not just anybody who has money or has access to privileges. And number three, we, as Nigerians, we have to start putting emphasis on ethics and values. No society survives without that. Just as leaders in Nigeria are totally immoral, we as the followers have become immoral too by accepting and promoting them and accepting them and promoting their immorality.
With all these your beautiful ideas, why are you not in politics, seeking power? Don’t you think that you would make an excellent material for a political office at whatever level?
As I said, we have developed a very bad structure. Go and do your research, any Nigerian that is good would have to be sidelined and this phenomenon started way back since the Obasanjo’s time. In 1998-99, what we did not get right was that all the good people just laid back, stayed back. At that time, there was this thing about not wanting to be in politics. Even our current president, there was a time I heard him say that all politicians were dirty, that all politicians were crooks. So, everybody that was a good material just shunned politics and stayed back and then the hooligans and the idiots and everything you can imagine just took off and then they made it a politics of money. In Nigeria, if you have money, you just pay for it and get the post.
All over Nigeria, that is what happens. And when they got power, they manipulated the power to serve them, they became so strong financially and for them, it became a matter of life and death. Try uprooting any bad leader in any part of Nigeria, it is a matter of life and death. And they have armed themselves with the money, with the thugs, with the arms and with everything. And that is why good people can’t be in politics. If you see a good person in political office in Nigeria, it is by accident. And you need to have money. And like now, I can try, but I don’t have money to even try.
Can you compare women in power in your time as minister and women in power now?
I would tell you what happened. The women in those days, we were very strong. During the fight against the Abacha regime, for instance, the women that partook in the struggle were very strong- so many of us, really focused women. Now, just like the recruitment, they keep picking the women who would serve the kind of structures they want. Number one, I remember that one of my fights when I was a minister was that I wanted the women to reject the title of women leader. Why should we have a woman leader? We should contest for the chairman of the party, for the secretary and for every position. It is not just to create something and say you are a woman leader. Josephine Anine was the Woman Leader of the PDP while I was a minister. For us to get a few of the things we got for women, she had to go about, go after them with her toothbrush.
(Cuts in…) I just want you to compare the quality of women in power in your time and women in power now?
You see after some time, like around 2007, the quality of women in power started depreciating, because they have to pick up women as I said, that would serve their structure. And even today, it is still the same thing. The women they bring on board are women who are interested in serving themselves as well. Not people like me or my kind. They want women that would say yes sir, yes sir. You have to follow, you have to be part of that system. And some of the qualities are diminishing. That is the reality. I remember when we first came to democracy, there was such excitement and we had to put in a lot of energy, but they edged out everybody. I know I am being harsh but tell me, what has been the input of the women ministers so far? When you take it throughout the administrations with the exception of maybe Ngozi Okonji-Iwuala or Oby Ezekwesili, I would put a question mark on because Ngozi did something that really upsets me. She took over US$12 billion of Nigerian money and gave it to World Bank, when we didn’t need to. We didn’t need to because the service had expired, the loan had expired. We borrowed 16 billion dollars, we paid them over 30 billion dollars. There was no need to pay. It had expired actually and there was a judgment in a British Court that you cannot take a loan and pay more than double of that loan and the person or institution still comes back to make claim on that loan. But she gave it. Back to the question, you can’t get the vibrancy that we had among women of those days. The women issue today in Nigeria is dead.
What is your take on the National Assembly in the light of some of the recent unsavoury allegations against them?
(Laughs) The National Assembly is the biggest disaster in the present democratic dispensation, to tell you the truth. Number one, since 1999 till date, have they been able to uplift Nigeria from where we were? I would tell you something: when I was a student, Nigeria’s position was like all the Third World countries, Asia, Latin America. All of us were ranked 20 per cent living below subsistence level. By today, 80 per cent of Nigerians are living below subsistence level. In those days, there was some semblance of access to health, access to education, and things like that. Today, our health sector has collapsed, our educational sector has collapsed. So tell me, what is the use of the National Assembly? The National Assembly does not check the Executive at all. They just service themselves there.
But they do not execute and therefore shouldn’t take the blame for the failure of the executive?
In democracy, you have three arms and all of them have to do their work. The Legislative branch is supposed to check the excesses of the executive branch, but the legislature does not do so in Nigeria. It is always fighting the executive for its own personal interests, fighting for even stupid things like protocol. They are busy making law for their salary and introducing things like “padding the budget” and all that. There is such a huge connivance between the legislature and the executive and the victims, of course, are the Nigerian people.
What is your submission on the administration of President Buhari and his leadership style?
I am an economic development planner. When Buhari was coming, he set out to address three issues: corruption, insecurity and the crumbled economy. Any professional would tell you that it is going to be so tedious to try and get Nigeria on track. We have really destroyed our economy in every facet of the word. Take the oil sector, for instance. The oil has not served Nigeria. It brought poverty to us. An oil producing country has no business being poor. But what did we do? We allowed Western countries to manipulate us so that it does not serve us. Do you know why? Till today we are still selling crude. I thought when Buhari came, one of things he would do first was to look at where they sabotaged the economy and put a stop to it. I can say comfortably that he has done well in terms of the war we are fighting, even though the war is bigger than Nigeria. That is what we have to understand. It is an international war being fought in Nigeria, by Nigerians. And there is such huge conspiracy. Can you imagine him asking them to give him weapons and they would refuse, knowing full well that it is not even our war? Number two, on the fight against corruption, the people that have amassed wealth would always work against anything that would bring an end to corruption. It is not so much about stopping it, but it is about stopping their being penalized. That is what we have in Nigeria today. So, in that fight against corruption, Buhari has done the best he could. He has tried. But I think in fighting the war (against insurgency) and against corruption, he has forgotten the economy. Now take it, the fight against corruption and the war against insurgency would not be won without a vibrant economy. That is the truth. The security of any nation is tied to the wellbeing of its people. When there is no wellbeing, then you are insecure without even an additional war being fought on your land. And Buhari has not linked it up and has not done very well here.
Although we have seen a number of newspaper trials since President Buhari came on board, however, the substance of the anti-graft war is actually low, in terms of the number of convictions and the number of people close to Buhari that are standing trial. What is your take on this?
Even the ones close to him or even the old ones, they have not been convicted. Do you know why? That is why I said to you that there are three tiers of government and everybody has to be on board. I assure you that the judiciary is not on board in fighting corruption, neither is the National Assembly. It is a war that has been left for the executive and the president. The executive arm is the only arm that is doing the corruption fight. Definitely the National Assembly is not fighting corruption because if they are fighting corruption, they could not have gone ahead to assign that kind of salary to themselves and shamelessly support thievery. Because their salary is thievery on Nigeria.