Second Republic member of the House of Representatives, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, has advised those calling for the break up of Nigeria to perish the idea, as it will be difficult for the country to break. In this interview with VINCENT KALU, he said dismembering the country will involve war and bloodletting.
Nigeria is facing so many challenges, especially security that has put her on edge, how do we overcome them and put the country back on track?
Challenges are part and parcel of human existence. If you believe that you will come into life and go through life without any challenges, minor or major, then you are not realistic. Nations, like individuals, do have challenges, so Nigeria is not an exception. However, a lot of the problems that are afflicting groups of human beings, not just individuals, whether they are communities, whether they are states or whether they countries, most of them have to do with leadership.
If you have leaders who have foresight, who are sincere to themselves and fundamentally believe in the project of the nation you have, which is about nation building, added with perseverance, then you make a success.
But if you believe that somehow that life has handed over everything on a platter of gold, then you have a lot of problems because sooner than later the reality will catch up with you and you will find out that in life, nothing goes entirely free.
When you add this to the burgeoning youth unemployment and the frightening national debt, are you not afraid for the country?
I’m afraid and it is part and parcel of human existence; we are afraid of uncertainty. A situation whereby security situations are so fragile and people have to be afraid whenever they are travelling as they leave family members, friends and loved ones in a very precarious situation, yes, it’s human nature, you are bound to be worried. But the question is, are we the first? No, we are not the first. Are we the last? We are not the last. There have been nations that had gone through what we are going through, but I have no doubt in my mind that with goodwill and good leadership we will overcome these challenges. I haven’t lost hope in this country. I’m certainly concerned about the high debt profile, which we have, but I don’t want to jump upfront to say the debt was because of bad economic management by the present regime or the previous one.
All I’m saying is that the reality today is that we are heavily indebted. We have in economic terms what we call, GDP to debt ratio. Many countries have similar or even worse situation. Some of the biggest economies in the world, particularly, the US, has a massive debt level, which cannot be overcome within a short period of time, but coming out of that debt level depends on the capacity and competence of the people running the country or the economy, and depends also to a large extent on who is running other aspects of the nation’s existence. For example, you may have a very comfortable economic situation over a certain period of time, and matter gets worse, you find out that the economy affects security; it affects communal harmony and other accompanying vices. It is not just one area you can say that let us handle this one and everything like magic would begin to work excellently. No, it is not like that.
That is why we should, especially, in a developing country, have everything under focus – the economy, yes, it should continue to do well; security, yes, connected with the economy, involving the problem of unemployment, especially youths, which can lead to revolution and things like that.
As far as I’m concerned, leadership is key, and it is not just a leadership that is competent in one area; it has to be versatile enough to make the economy strong and also make sure that security is easy to manage and also make sure it has a pass mark in handling inter-communal crises.
President Buhari has just assembled his team, do you see them taking Nigeria out of the economic woods?
They didn’t get us into the woods, so to be honest, it will be difficult to say that they will take us out of the woods. In a nation of about 200 million people, you just have about 45 people including the president and his deputy; they cannot wave a wand and somehow take us out of recession or take us to the Promised Land. That doesn’t happen and it cannot happen.
Let me sound a word of caution: one, elections, especially in a democracy, has a lot of consequences. Once you have agreed that you are going into a democratic election, you should be prepared to accept the outcome. Outcome could be good or could be disastrous, and whatever it is, there have been elections and we have to accept the consequences. I don’t know most of his cabinet members, but the few I know are not necessarily my idea of what a serious cabinet should be. I also believe that even those I know are competent in some areas are not in areas that the nation can derive maximum benefits from them.
Whatever you say, you have to listen to the man who is elected, except people like Atiku who said he didn’t win the election. Buhari won the election, whether based on ethnic consideration, religious consideration, it doesn’t matter, but the fact remains, he won the election, and we have to bear with the consequences.
Next time around, when we have the opportunity to elect, we should do our homework and make sure that we elect the people who are popular and at the same those who have the necessary competence and the courage to bring out the best out of the country. There is no doubt that he won the election, but it is a fact that there is a lot of grumbling around the country following his appointments. Some people feel short-changed and you cannot ask them not to complain.
You were critical of President Buhari’s cabinet in his first term, has your position changed this time around?
Those who came through the gate to come and serve the country or to serve Mr President and who I condemned specifically, some of them are still around. Some of the people I condemned and I said their appointments were inappropriate, some of them are still in the cabinet; some of them are still holding portfolios.
I didn’t challenge those appointments because I wanted an appointment as some turned to interpret it. I had a reputation of doing the same thing during the Shagari administration in the Second Republic.
So, the issue now is that the country cannot afford the old way, and at the same time, I don’t believe that I have a solution to the problem. The point is that we should learn to live with the consequences of democratic choice; that you didn’t vote this or you didn’t expect this is an afterthought, because once the choice has been made you have to live with the consequences for four years, even if you are not happy with him. That is what a democrat should expect, even when I didn’t like the composition of his government, I never called for his overthrow or revolution.
So people should do their homework and let him and others continue to govern; from presidency to state and down to local government chairman, this thing called democracy is so important and there is some nobility about it that you cannot simply ignore, and it is that nobility, which I consider very important and it is also important that we understand it. We also understand that people have a right to have their say and at the same time those who have been elected have their right to have their way. We have to be very careful with what we do before we throw the country into a valley.
Recently, the Northern Coalition Group accused the Yoruba of supporting Sowore to overthrow Buhari. What is you view on this?
Whoever that is saying that is saying nonsense. I don’t believe that Sowore has that kind of support even from his village to make the claim he attempted to make. The people who are claiming to be young northerners or what, I don’t know about them. A lot of what we hear is nothing but political opportunism. When people are unrepresented and they have no political base, anytime there is money to be made or anytime there is some political development, they issue press statement. We know those who are behind them and most of them have not even won a ward election in their political lives. Of course, you people, the media are the problem.
It is a very unfortunate development that some people who are nothing come out to make very volatile statement about some ethnic groups without evidence to go by and that is irresponsible. However, it is correct that the Yoruba who are being accused by this faceless group has benefited from this Buhari government more than any other group, but they are making noise to perpetuate their leading position over and above other groups in the country and that cannot be forever. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes you lose by winning.
How have the Yoruba benefited more than other groups in the Buhari administration, they have less ministers than even the Northwest?
Can you tell me how many ministers they have at the beginning of the Buhari administration? They were the Minster of Finance; they had the Ministry of Communication; they had the Ministry of Health; they had the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, which is three ministries rolled into one because I grew up in this country when there were ministries of Works, Power and Housing.
You can see they had seven ministries, compared to the number of votes they gave Buhari in 2015 and 2019. Look at the voting population between the Southwest and the Northwest you are comparing. As I’m talking to you, Kano State has been giving Buhari from 2003 he joined politics till now not less than 1.2 million votes. How many votes is Lagos giving him, as Kano and Lagos have almost the same population, forget about the noise of Lagos having 20 million people. Let’s look at the fact, let’s look at the figure.
People should take what their choice has granted them, and I don’t believe that only people of certain character and of identity get everything they want, and what they don’t want they reject it. Now, look at their performances, one was involved in certificate scandal and look at Fowler of FIRS, he is also in scandal too. We have to be careful with what we say.
In his first term, Buhari knew he shortchanged the North; you are talking of three zones. Even those he appointed, he appointed them as second-rate ministers, that is ministers of state. Now that there seems to be a reversal, some people are saying that he has been unfair.
Look at the performance, also. Can you tell me the performance of Fashola as a minister? This is a man who has been handed a silver spoon. He has never won any election. Tinubu picked him as his chief of staff and from then on, he was promoted and became Lagos State governor twice, and when he left he had to become an enemy of Tinubu because he has to deal with other people.
In terms of what he did as Minister of Power, the situation is worse now. As I’m speaking with you we have no power for three days, and I’m living in the elite part of Kano.
He has started again, two days ago, he said he was going to deliver one million houses, where is the money? When you are burdened by debt, you can’t pay your debt and you say you are going to build one million houses.
When he was made the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, he said he was going to solve the problem of electricity in six months, but four years passed, have you seen any improvement? No. We have to be careful with what we say and rely on facts. Of course, people like Fashola are not ashamed to lie. Lying has been their stock-in-trade and they will continue to lie to Nigerians so long as it suits them; they don’t think about integrity. Let those who are opposed to me bring their facts. I’m not a member of any political party. I’m not taken by what some people say; I know they have disappointed this country.
The International Crisis Group says Nigeria has fulfilled almost all the indices of a failed nation, and some people say since the country is not working, that it should be broken and every group to his place and enjoy peace. What is your position on this?
So long as it is done democratically. Unfortunately also, it is easy to put a nation together than to break it. Breaking it invariably entails war, whether high-density war or low-density war, and I’m not prepared for war. I was alive when the Nigerian civil war was fought. I don’t want to see bloodshed in the name of either breaking Nigeria or saving Nigeria. I believe there is way in between. Breaking Nigeria involves violence and I’m not a violent person.
But the proponents say the East Africa Federation broke into separate nations -Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania without war; Czechoslovak broke into Czech and Slovakia peacefully, everybody to his own group
The East African Federation they are talking about was done under colonial government, and it was not done by the natives, but by the British. Before the advent of the Soviet Union, Czech and Slovakia were not the same country. If you were there, you would know that there is a division between them.
So for convenience, Russia decided to impose a new federation called Czechoslovakia, where the Czech and Slovak became one country, but at the end of the day when that element of force was over following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the two countries parted.
Talking about Yugoslavia, which was also an enforced federation, when the people decided that they were not going to live together, they parted. Do you know how many lives it cost? Kosovo is still neither there nor here. So, if anybody is telling you that Nigeria can be broken peacefully, he is welcome.
After all, Fashola has been trying to create as an economy, of course, the part of the Southwest leading to Benin Republic and Togo with federal money to create a new country, Oduduwa Republic. Lets see how it will be.
Last time they invited another group to declare the Independent State of Biafra, but they contributed to smash Biafra, and they want to contribute to bring it up again to help actualise Oduduwa Republic, let’s see what happens.
The same proponents also argue that Britain that brought us together is also moving away from European Union
Forget about them. If you are fundamentally dishonest and discernable you are free to go and tell lies. Unfortunately, history is not read that way and it will not also go that way. If you have the opportunity to tell your own story you can go and say A, B or C. The fact remains that people who are claiming to have vested interest and the wealth they claim to have in the Southwest, let the war start. I’m not a violent person and I don’t believe that people should take us for a ride.
Those who are making a lot of noise are cowards who don’t want to sit down and go through the laborious process of solving a problem; they believe in speaking big grammar to get their way, let’s see how they get their way. Now that Buhari has won and constituted his cabinet, they are shouting that everything has gone to the North, when they had everything they kept their mouth shut. What are they talking about?