…Says with Ganduje as chairman, party lacks rectitude to fight corruption
From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hon Yekini Nabena, has expressed disappointment over the calibre of ministers President Bola Tinubu assembled, the shameful state of the ruling party becoming a rehabilitation camp for corrupt politicians, and how the performance of former President Muhammadu Buhari has vindicated his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan.
He also assessed the future and fortune of the ruling party under the leadership of former governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, and challenged the authorities concerned to tell Nigerians who is taking charge of the 450,000 barrels of crude oil allocated to the three moribund refineries originally meant to cater for the landing cost of imported refined petroleum products. He spoke in an interview with Sunday Sun.
What do you think of the calibre of ministers President Tinubu has assembled?
I want to put on record that I am still a member of APC till tomorrow, but as a member of the party, I will tell you that I am disappointed with the calibre of persons President Tinubu assembled. President Tinubu has always boasted about the quality of persons he assembled as the governor of Lagos State. And you can truly see how they have been nurtured to become influential leaders. But as far as the capacity of the people he assembled as ministers are concerned, he got it completely wrong. Yes, I know he has no choice because he cannot wish them away since they worked for his victory in their various states, especially the governors. The fact that politics has become the only business they know how to do, he cannot shut them out because they want to perpetually be in the corridors of power. I have always said that Lagos State cannot be the same as the whole country because some of his political allies are equally powerful persons in their states. At the national level, there are desperate politicians that don’t want to leave the corridors of power. What I thought Asiwaju would have done was to massage their influence by telling them to nominate persons that can do the work as compensation to them for what they did to ensure he won the election. It is disappointing seeing him nominate mostly past governors. People are angry that he went for former governors. Some of them are governors that failed in their states. Almost 90 per cent of the governors Tinubu appointed minister failed their people in the state. They have nothing to offer at the federal level. What will even anger Nigerians more is that these failed governors are coming with the same crop of persons they worked with in their states to the national level. I have the feeling that the circle of failure will continue at the federal level because the governors are coming with the same mentality of doing things. Another fear is that they are coming with the same in-charge mentality and if they don’t strike a balance, there will be a conflict of interest very soon. It is certainly going to take some time for those governors that were hitherto lords in their states to adjust from being the king of the jungle in their states to the reality that they will be taking orders from a superior authority now. Most of them are supposed to be in jail, but they have been appointed ministers. How do you justify that? Many of them did not give an account of the funds given to them as governors. Most of the former governors appointed ministers are supposed to be in jail. They cannot even show what they used the funds given to them to do as state governors. Many of them, especially from the northern part of the country collected money from the CBN as agricultural loans to subsidise fertilizer and other farming implements, but they have nothing to show for the loans because they did not give to the farmers that the money was originally meant for. They gave all manners of flimsy excuses including the one that flood ravaged the farms. Yet, these are the same crop of party leaders that President Tinubu has assembled as his ministers. My concern is that I don’t even know the magic Tinubu will perform with these sets of human beings. Yes, Asiwaju has shown that he is ready to work, but how is he going to perform with people that are an authority unto themselves as former executive officers in the states they are coming from? Will they be loyal to him or will they start to hatch plan B to run down the government? If he had brought fresh people be sure they will give him their maximum best, but not these old brigades that will come with the same set of people, including the contractors they used as governors. So, we should not expect the best brain to do the work. Asiwaju has confirmed that politicians are recycled products by giving Nigerians a set of bad politicians that did not mean well for their states. We need fresh people that will help the president not destroyers like the crop of people he has assembled. Mr President thinks he is doing them a favour by helping him to win his election, but they will be the ones to destroy him. Since they don’t want to leave the corridors of power, they will soon start plotting the next political move. Some of them will be so aggrieved with the release of the portfolios for the ministers. They will feel short-changed, yet they will not step aside, but will remain inside to foment trouble and frustrate the government.
Did the dropping of the three ministerial nominees come to you as a surprise?
I blame the presidency because before nominating them, they would have done due diligence. As a new government, we expect that whoever is in charge should have done better than this. Whether they hinged the reason for their dropping on security or whatever report, what it means is a failure on the part of the government just as we have seen lapses in many other things they have done so far. It was a very wrong signal they have sent to show that nobody is in charge, or that there is no think-tank in the present administration. They would have done background checks, but the situation has given out them that the president did not put a final touch into many things. He may not be in charge. It is even more worrisome, reading a report where Umar Ganduje was claiming that he removed and replaced the nominees from Kano. How can he wield such powers if we actually have a government working very well? Mr President must wake up, take charge of his government and know the kind of people he will work with. He is already dining with devils in the former governors he nominated. I don’t know the kind of long spoon he is going to use to dine with them because they will soon form another cabal against him. The most painful thing is that we have all the time for due diligence. When he promised Nigerians to roll out his ministers two weeks after his inauguration, we thought that he was very ready, but they took several weeks and even surprised many Nigerians when we saw lapses and the calibre of persons nominated.
Why is your party always going through one leadership crisis after another?
I have said it previously that the foundation APC built in the last elective convention was fundamentally very faulty. The whole national officers were appointed not elected. There was no election, but selection and PDP members that are in their houses, unprepared and not ready for the positions were appointed. The problem started with the removal of Adams Oshiomhole by some governors through his ward and even went to procure court judgment against him, and ever since then, nothing has actually worked. Yes, we are really concerned about the leadership crisis. Oshiomhole came and left, Mai Mala Buni, there was even a period the former governor of Niger State took charge. Some strong forces brought in Abdullahi Adamu from nowhere and were disappointed when they did not get the ticket. They went for Ganduje, a man facing a crisis in Kano, but what is he going to tell the opposition? He is somebody we know his antecedent in Kano. With Ganduje on the saddle as APC chairman, can the party boldly claim to be sincere in fighting corruption? APC has become a party for all manners of people facing one corruption charge or the other. According to Oshiomhole, it has become a rehabilitation home for fraudulent, corrupt politicians facing corruption charges. Adamu Abdullahi was facing a corruption charge before his appointment. It is becoming obvious that the EFCC is no longer working because being an APC chairman does not give the person immunity for trial. Corruption cases against any chairman must continue. People must finish their corruption cases before we consider them for appointment. The party agreed to refund the money of those that bought forms for the leadership position, but the Adamu-led leadership refused. Nobody is talking about the financial recklessness under his administration. Nobody rendered an account of how they expended the over N30 billion generated through the sale of nomination forms. Why should they leave other members of the NWC or do they want to claim that only the ones that left the party handled the expenses? I commend Salihu Lukman for being a strong man. He was talking from outside and maintained his stand as a member of the party’s leadership. As a man of integrity, he stepped aside when he could not change the system.
Do you also think that Ganduje will go down like other APC chairmen?
It is a case of either he goes down or the party will go down. One of these will happen very soon, especially when he tries to resist those that appointed him. That is where the crisis will start. He will be answerable to the few that installed him. Very soon he will soon want to annex areas that do not concern him and the crisis which will ensue will engulf him. Go and mark it, there is certainly going to be an implosion in the APC and it is inevitable because the right things are not done. They said that Ganduje was elected unopposed and I ask how? They should not tell us he is elected because it is not true. Did he buy form, which convention, and who elected him? He should stop parading himself as an elected chairman because he is not one; he is only operating in the capacity of acting chairman. The party’s constitution is very clear
Are you aware that Nigerians are angry with your party, the APC, because of the pains they are going through?
I also feel the pain as a Nigerian too. Forget the fact that I am an APC member. Let me tell you that there is nobody that is not feeling the pain of what we are going through. As an accountant, I don’t know the accounting system and formula Tinubu will apply to solve this economic problem. I can tell you that the rich are even the ones feeling the pain more than the poor because many of them are training their children abroad, mostly in London. They face difficulties changing the naira to pounds. Since Tinubu took over, I have not made a dime as income. It is my farm that has been sustaining me. Most big men with long convoys have all reduced them. Everybody is calculating now because foodstuff and other items have all shot up. The two powerful means of life, petroleum, and foreign currency are out of reach of many now. All these things are happening because we are not telling ourselves the truth and the truth is that there is no subsidy anywhere. It is just a cartel feeding fat on the country. There are 450,000 barrels of crude oil allocated to the Nigeria refineries every day, and since the three refineries in Kaduna, Warri, and Port Harcourt are not working, the questions we must ask should be who is selling the products, who is taking custody of the money and where are they remitting it to? The proceeds from the sale of that product are meant to augment the subsidy by way of taking care of the landing cost of the refined products. I can engage the NNPCL boss in a debate to prove that there is no subsidy payment anywhere. If we have a serious government, somebody should have been arrested by now. There is a whole lot of deception about a commissioned refinery. That is the refinery they have planned to sell crude oil to and buy refined products to stock for sale to Nigerians. The refinery will operate like cement only involved in re-bagging the product. Forget the whole noise about his cement industries. How do you justify the fact that the same owner of the refinery also has a license to import fuel at the same time? The whole problem of the dollar crisis in the country revolves around the foreign currency deployed into the refinery. There is no plan to put our three refineries into use. They are probing former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, but let them have the courage to tell us the beneficiaries of the missing dollars and just like the Dasukigate during Goodluck Jonathan era when some people were named as beneficiaries, they should be bold enough to release the names of those involved in dollar racketeering with Emefiele.
What will you tell Tinubu if you meet him one on one?
I will tell him to resist the temptation of concentrating on the second term and focus on landmark legacy projects. If he does well, Nigerians will voluntarily vote for him. Many APC governors lost their states and even senatorial tickets because they did not perform well. I will tell him that he has already started wrongly by bringing the past governors as ministers that may fail the country as they failed the people of their states. And if he is thinking they can deliver him in 2027, he has got it all wrong. I will tell him not to dissipate energy complaining about past administration because it is assumed that he should know that it is his responsibility to fix it. We won’t entertain excuses from him over why he cannot fix Nigeria. We are tired of those complaints. We want action to fix any faulty area.
What will former president Buhari be remembered for?
History will remember him comparing what the current administration of Tinubu will do just as his regime has vindicated former President Goodluck as a saint. Goodluck wanted to increase the pump price by only N5, but we all mobilised into the streets of Lagos against it. APC promised Nigerians heaven and earth, but gave little. We all saw Goodluck administration as a bad one, including me, when Buhari took charge, but what did we see at the end of the regime? Buhari government gave credibility to Goodluck’s government. Since nothing is necessarily good or bad except by comparison, it will take the achievement of this government to rate the performance of Buhari accurately.
What do you make of the slip from the Senate President over the payment of tokens to the senators?
What has Akpabio done wrong? What he said was not new to anybody. Why did Nigerians complain when more serious incidents happened under Ahmad Lawan? We should even commend Akpabio for what he did. He has alerted members of their senatorial district that their representative should give them part of the money as palliative.
What is your take on the recent warning by Bayelsa professionals to President Tinubu not to interfere in the state’s November 11 governorship election?
That group is an anonymous one. They don’t exist in the first place. If such a body exists, they ought to know that people’s votes determine electoral victory now. Abuja vote will not count and APC Bayelsa is not banking on the Abuja vote. We have learnt our lessons in several states where people banked on Abuja to win an election without success. In fact, why I am not worried about Bayelsa election is that the incumbent governor could not maximise the opportunity given to him in an election he did not win. He totally failed the people after God gave him the opportunity to prove himself. His greatest undoing was the exposure by former Governor Nyesom Wike on the volume of funds they received from the Federal Government. He got such money, but there is no development in the state to show for it. To worsen his case, he lied that constructing one road in Bayelsa can build three bridges in Rivers State. He forgot that Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta states have the same type of terrain and topology. If Wike can construct those flyovers, why should our governor continue to lie about the fund he got? The money would have turned around such a small state like Bayelsa. He has continued to hide under religion to deceive Bayelsans that we have a government of prosperity. But do you blame a governor whose passion is marrying more and more wives? He has no hiding place because he has nothing to show for his first tenure in office.
How true is the speculation that President Tinubu has promised APC candidate, Timipre Sylva to deliver the state to him?
President Tinubu cannot deliver Bayelsa because he has a lot of issues to contend with. Bayelsa election is the least of his concern because he is currently confronted with bigger issues affecting the entire country and by extension Africa. I urge them to go and prepare for the election.
What is giving you the confidence that APC will win Bayelsa when the state chapter of the party is not united?
I won’t deceive anybody to pretend that APC Bayelsa is united. We have our internal problems. Yes, we don’t take anybody for granted, we need everybody because the voting system has changed and every vote matters, but the situation where very few persons like the David Lyon camp felt that they are in charge is not fair. It used to be three factions, but now the Heineken Lopobiri faction has been taken care of with his confirmation as minister. Abuja people are the ones always causing the problem. And somebody like David Lyon forgot that we won the election for him despite the opposition from Abuja-based politicians like the Heineken faction. Our problem is everybody wanting to get something at the same time. If APC can win in 2019 without the Heineken faction, who says we cannot win in November without the Lyon faction? I have a strong conviction that the party can go into the election as a united family before the election. We have been appealing to everybody to put their differences behind us. It is the victory of the party that can ensure that the state will accommodate all these boys. If Lyon decides to sabotage the party from winning the election, it is his boys that will suffer more. He ought to understand that it is only APC victory that can guarantee the accommodation of his boys. If we decide to pull down the party, it is our followers that will suffer it. That interest must override our selfish interests.
What are your fears for APC winning the Bayelsa governorship election?
If we must tell ourselves the truth, leaders of the party abandoning the members will certainly witch-hunt APC during the election. There has been a serious gap between the people at the centre and those at home since after the misfortune of the 2019 governorship election. There was no conscious effort to bridge the communication gap between the leaders of the party in the state at the national stage and party members in the state. The party members felt so used and abandoned after the 2019 election. The gap is a very big problem for the party because party members never enjoyed any benefit of joining the party which is the essence of democracy. The leaders of the party never touched the people. They were marginalised by the PDP government to the point of being run out of the state, but we were not there for them. However, many of the party members still standing strong despite the situation gave me the conviction that there is still hope for the party. I also believe strongly that the gap could be bridged before the election. What it means is that the party leaders have so much work to do.