Former deputy national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, speaks on the policies and programmes of President Bola Tinubu in his first year in office, advising him to set up a think tank to offer advice on the economy. He spoke with BOLA BADMUS and OLUSEGUN ILARA. Excerpts:
As the administration of President Bola Tinubu clocks its first year in office, what are your views on the general situation in the country? What is your assessment of the administration since May 29, 2023?
Fine, the man at the helm of affairs has spent one year out of four years. That’s like a quarter of four years that he has to spend. The problems are there. We can only tell him, people are still hungry and they are, therefore, angry. The security of this nation is wobbling due to economic and security factors; we are in a doldrums, confused, angry and wondering what did we do to be in this state. Did we deserve this as Nigerians?
So, what do you think Nigeria did in your opinion to be in the current situation?
People have forgotten that it was not Tinubu who was there for the last eight years, it is now nine years. Somebody was there and you cannot divorce them from this squalor, mess that the country is in. Unfortunately, they belong to the same party. Otherwise, the first thing he would have said, ‘Egbani e laja o, keere o! Now they are firing salvos at him as if it was Tinubu who was there since PDP left. That’s why i said I want to be fair like that Lady of Justice, who was blindfolded. If you go to any law court, the effigy you see outside is the blindfolded woman with a sword and a scale that once you come into the court, irrespective of your belief, your norm, your name, your tribe, there would be justice, fairness and equity. Now, I have told a lot of people that my full assessment of the current APC government will be one year from now. This first year, you can say, let us wait, we will do an appraisal and say the situation is getting worse by the hour. That should propel him to change some of their policies. They say there’s hunger in the land and they are talking and giving palliatives. If there’s a human being in your household, he doesn’t work and everyday you give him food to eat, are you liberating him? Are you helping him? Teach them how to fish, so that they can feed themselves. But what is going on now? They started for the first time in my life, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs. Humanitarian! And she (the minister) carried cash physically. She said no to the South; that the South is okay. So where is the data she used to distribute all the money? She should be singing a lot of music now with the Economic and Financial crimes Commission (EFCC). Look at the money she collected within the period she served in that office. For me like I said, my assessment is between zero and 10 now, I’m not ready. It’s our nation, let’s see what they will come up with but I would tell you my areas of major concern. You can see the nation has started to show that all economic indices are bad. What’s the value of the naira? It has become valueless; production is nil. Who are the people still getting so much money? It is the banks and their managing directors. The humongous amount of money they have calls for a major concern. Now, Cardoso is there as CBN governor; they don’t hear anything from the minister of finance and economic planning. Have you heard him speak? It’s the governor of the Central Bank we hear talking every time. Go to anywhere in the world, the governor of the Central Bank is to be seen and not to be heard, so I don’t know why it’s the reverse here.
You are familiar with the president’s political background. How do you rate Tinubu before his coming into office vis-a-vis his performance so far as president of the country?
First, in my mind, this nation belongs to all and we must love it. Therefore, the first responsibility of any government is the protection of lives and property of the people. Who is safe now? Terrorists and bandits are everywhere; they’re ravaging by the hour, while the police are running after them. Boko Haram are still there; people are still being killed. We made certain suggestions that, yes, we copied the American system. We have copied it, security-wise, you don’t need to use soldiers. Why should soldiers be totting guns on fellow citizens? What you need to do is to establish State Police. We’ve been talking about it, recommended it in the review of the constitution. They would add value to the national police. The national police will be equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), like they have in America. They have local government police and state police, why are you just saying State Police due to our level of financial status because the people who would be in the State Police would be from that state or they live there. They must understand the culture of the people, the language, the do’s and don’ts of the people. People can then sleep well. If there is any robbery, you can easily grab those involved. But right now, what is the population of the federal police? Can they effectively man the country? They cannot, because of shortage of hands. They post people all over the whole place. You take one man from Sokoto to go and serve in another place, he doesn’t speak the language of the people, he doesn’t understand their environment, these are serious issues. So, security, we have to revisit the present concept. It’s not working.
But, Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun recently kicked against the establishment of the state police, saying that state governors would use them for ulterior motives.
How can that be? He is not in government. It is not so, we are not going to ask Egbetokun what does he feel? And then when he tells you, no, I don’t want it, then we follow him. He will retire someday, from there, go back to his village or come and live in Lagos. I am not deriding national police. They would still be there but to complement this concept of protection of lives and properties of the citizens. As number one job for the government, are they able to do that now? They can’t so, why the suggestion that the politicians would use them? In the community, yes, people belong to different political groups, ‘amorawa, tijakadi ko o.’ When something happens here, they grab you. Where were you? Were you sleeping or were you part and parcel of that? You should know what happens in various villages now, in various local governments. We know ourselves and if you are there to make sure that we sleep well at night, fine and well. Egbetokun will soon leave and join us. I’m a general, retired. He will soon join us and see that what he is saying is not the right answer for this kind of stuff.
Did you expect the country to be the way it is now under Tinubu based on what you know about him? What were your expectations when he came into office because his admirers said he delivered in Lagos when he was governor and that he would replicate the record at the federal level?
Delivered in Lagos? We have told them that Lagos is not Abuja; that in Abuja in 30 minutes, you will meet Hausa/Fulani man. You will meet the Benin man; you will meet the Tiv man. You will meet Kogi people, you will meet some people from the South-East, the Igbos, you will meet the Calabar people, Akwa ibom people, then the Yoruba people and people from Middle-Belt states in just 30 minutes and they have come for solutions to certain problems. You see how different it is from here? You are talking about the nation and you have to relate and listen to their problems and resolve them because you are number one. That’s why we have said that that seat and the powers that the Constitution gave to Abuja is too much, you should devolve power to the states. Let the governors take up some of the responsibilities. All the resources they get right now, everything goes to Abuja and they give every local government allocation at the end of month. Those are areas we need to revisit; those are areas of concern. The day he was being sworn in, he told the whole the country that ‘I am removing fuel subsidy.’ Remember, after some time, certain people came in to say that there had never been fuel subsidy. So who is telling the truth? I have said I want to give him at least one year more before I make my assessment. I have another important observation, no president has ever existed in this country without putting an economic team in place. I saw the photoshoot of the economic team we have. 90 percent of those members are the operators. They are the same people, the beneficiaries of economic policies. Why is it that only the managing directors of banks, chairman of banks and who are humongous wealthy are in the team? How much money in dollars were they allocating to those banks and to how many people? This is because in the past, they allocated dollars for those in the industries and in production. For those who are doing BTA, you know when you’re traveling you have to do with certain amount of money. It is also for those who want to procure machines and spare parts from abroad. What happened? See all the bank managers, stupendously wealthy, what did they do? So when I saw a photo shoot, I said these are the practitioners. I want to advise that the academia, professors, established knowledgeable people in economics, representing each zone of this country should also be members. He (Tinubu) can decide to hold meetings with those people separately because theoretically, they will come with their separate ideas, They teach economics; they know all about it. And then, by the time he sits down with those who are practitioners, he is tooled up. How do you think Baba Obafemi Awolowo did all this in the Western Region? All the brain didn’t come from Baba, he had two groups – the non-politicians, the academia, authorities in various fields, who would write papers, who would discuss with him, who would do this and that. And then, whatever suggestions they had, Baba would carry it to the other level. How do we marry this to that? You can’t do that alone. I saw the people in the picture. We’ve been crying about the economic situation, the indices are not healthy. These are the people who are physically there, in the bank, in their offices. Let’s get some others, and he doesn’t need to announce them to the public. The meetings should be such that every one would be free to say his mind, so that they will tell some home truth. Once he knows and learns about this, and he faces the practitioners, you marry those ideas together. That’s the way Baba Awolowo did this, and Awolowo ran the whole Western Region in those days very well, that is what I saw as a lapse in the present arrangement.
So, since he came to office, a year ago, in what areas do you think he has done well to deserve commendation?
All the economic indices are very, heart- retching. The inflation rates, interest rates, talk of any part of it, nothing is working. The hunger and the anger are growing. My observations of what I have seen in the last one year is not a total creation of him, of his policies. He’s struggling, like somebody who cannot swim when you throw him inside water. He’s struggling so, let him see all those areas we are talking about. Since he doesn’t want to let us know what exactly he met here, I say, hold on. Let us see the next one year. That’s what I am doing now, it’s not time for a blame game.
As a human being when you get to a new place, a new job, you have to understudy, listen to people, you listen to opinions and by the time you work on all those ones, you are ready. Half time is when you would know whether he has succeeded or not. This is just an observatory period for him.
The PDP is trying to reorganise its house, settle the crisis within its fold. And amid that, we saw Obi, who was in PDP before, going to meet Atiku Abubakar, so, what is the state of PDP right now?
We have a major, major disagreement. I have spoken as a life member of the BOT. The Board of Trustees members are the custodians of all our rules, all our legal properties and so, we have a very strong stake. There is no organization in the world that does not have problems, your ability to meet, to sit down and resolve the matter is key, it’s not about fighting. To debate, to discuss and find a solution will be a measure of your acceptability by the public. This is because those of us who are card carrying members of the party, We are not as many as the electorate. They are watching us and looking at us. How are we performing? Can they trust us? We have this problem. And I have sent a message to the chairman of the Board of Trustees. The elders must come in now to resolve this crisis, it’s a fundamental issue and the way we are keeping quiet as if all is well is not okay. Obi can hold the meeting from now till eternity. The constitution of the party, fashioned out by the founding fathers, states emphatically, there are six top positions and they then divided Nigeria into six geopolitical zones. So whether you are a majority tribe or a minority tribe, your time will come. And that guarantees unity because if you are in a society where only the stronger tribes will always be in charge and you, your small tribe are just to be onlookers, can you be happy? Why would you participate? So in a situation where the majority tribes have their way, they have their say while the minorities are to be onlookers, there can never be peace. That was why Papa Alex Ekweme pulled together all these experienced politicians in 1998, and say let us redefine how we manage this country so that the issue of military incursion would be a thing of the past. They divided Nigeria into six geopolitical zones, you know it’s not in our main constitution, and also mapped out six top positions in the land. So each zone would go home with three top positions and after eight years, whatever is in the North comes to the South, whatever is in the South goes to the North. That guarantees oneness, sincerity and loyalty, because you know that some day, it will be your turn because we are zoning, we are also rotating.
You met in Lagos recently trying to settle quarrel amongst the leaders, elders and members, how far, and has the committee from the national been set up?
Not yet. But you know election is not tomorrow. We are still meeting, we are still meeting. We will set it up and people will come and sit together and prepare ourselves. That’s why I said it’s a four – year programme. We still have enough time to prepare. Let us sort out those issues at the top, but here we have reached out to ourselves. Now, we had a meeting also in Ibadan and we have an election in Ondo coming. It’s still the issue of pulling yourselves together. A divided house will always remain a defeated house. So if Obi wants to come back, fine and good. Southwest is a major zone, Lagos is the most populated state in this country. Electorally, it’s the largest electoral state in the country. If all goes well here, working on justice, fairness, you will see us come back. Now, the meeting they are doing, I hope that they would come up with something sensible. The Board of Trustees (BoT) that should handle the mediation of this crisis, I sent a word to the BoT chairman that we must remain the elders in the party. Take the result of Obi in the election, add it to that of Atiku, and that of Kwankwaso, who should be in the Villa? The party constitution is clear about principle of equity and fairness, and this is the groundnum, and you want to push it aside.
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