By Daniel Kanu

Associate Professor and the Head, Politics and International Relations Department, Lead City University, Ibadan, Tunde Oseni, in this interview with Sunday Sun speaks on the leadership challenge in the country, 2023 elections, insecurity, and the way out, among other national issues. Excerpt:

Let’s begin with the array of presidential aspirants that picked the nomination forms despite the perceived humongous amount. What is your take on the development?

I think the number of presidential aspirants is both good and bad for our democracy. It is good because nobody is restricting anyone from contesting and so anybody can exercise their franchise i.e. their right to vote and their right to be voted for, which is good for democracy. But it is bad because most of the individuals who are trying to get the job of a president are not aware or are not fit enough to know that the job of a president is not something that you can trivialize. Though, some people have argued that some of them are not contenders, but pretenders, trying to negotiate or trying to find a soft landing after this government must have left power. But if you look at the two major political parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), you will see that, I think in the PDP, 16 aspirants were cleared while in the APC we have about 24 or so, after Dr. Ngige and Malami backed out, but nevertheless, it is important for us to know that politicians will always want power, whether they are in power or out of power, the common denominator of political activities is power and so power cannot be separated from politics and because power and politics are knit, tied together, politicians don’t joke with power, whether they get it or not, they will accept to fight for it.

Some despite the huge amount they paid for the nomination and expression of interest form did not continue in their ambition …?

I think those who backed out from the race like the Minister of Labour and Employment (Dr. Chris Ngige) must have calculated that, of course, I got the form,  but if I gamble and I’m not likely to get the ticket, it’s like I am going to be jobless politically speaking, so they have to reason it that way and we don’t know and I am not sure yet if their party, APC, in particular, is going to refund them, after backing out, but if they are not refunding them it seems like N100 million is not really a big money to most of the aspirants because the rate at which they doled out the money and said that they are ready, even though, they know that some of them have little or no chance getting the ticket they still paid the hundred million naira. Those who could not pay directly claimed that some groups paid it for them, even though, that is by proxy, it is not possible for a group, an unknown group to pay a hundred million naira. So I think those that backed out must have calculated wisely and told themselves the truth that since they are not likely to get it, resigning at the same time will not be the best approach, it’s rather they settle on their job than leaving their job and gamble. But the amount of money they paid is actually outrageous. A hundred million naira may not be much to them, but it’s actually a huge amount of money to the majority of Nigerians and, of course, underlies again, the monetization of political activities in Nigeria. The implication, we can argue is that maybe an ordinary man cannot say I want to be president, but at least someone who is sufficiently knowledgeable to be a governor, or member of the House of Representatives or Senate will actually be discouraged from going into that contest just because the process has been monetized abnitio. The second point is; apart from the negative effect of monitisation, discouraging people with good intension, the second point is that how do they get the money? Is it by doing personal business or is it that these monies are just proceeds of corruption? Because the majority of them if not all of them are public servants. You are a minister you are a public servant, you are a Senator you are a public servant etc, so how did they get the money, that is another question that probably the EFCC and other anti-corruption bodies may want to look into. The transparency in terms of how these monies are actually gotten is an issue.

Related News

Insecurity has continued unabated despite claims by the government that they are on top of the situation?

The government knows that the insecurity is increasing, everybody knows including even the international community. In a country where there is a huge level of poverty and unemployment, of course, many individuals will be intensities, tempted to go into crime. Number two is that the government has lacked the capacity to deal with the security problem when it was still at the embryonic stage or rather they were just unwilling and unable at the same time to deal with the problem when it was still fresh and easy to nip in the bud. Now the problem has been left for a long time and it has become something that is largely intractable, therefore, there may be a need for new thinking by this government, or maybe a new government after this government will be able to deal with the problem because the thinking is that the present national government does not have the capacity or maybe the political will to deal with the issue. And when you look at it whether it is Southwest, Southeast, Northeast, South-South etc, nowhere is safe any longer. We regularly emphasize that of the North, but the reality is that even in the South, nobody is safe, so I think it is important for those who are even aspiring to become president to know that the job they are going to face there is not a job of I have N100 million, therefore, I can get power, vote for me. I think it is the job of someone who wants to make an impact and making that impact is going to be very challenging given the level of insecurity that we have now. Our institutions, particularly the military must be strengthened, poverty must be fought, unemployment must be tackled, the economy must be improved upon because all these things are interwoven and so it is a huge problem and it has to be tackled.

You just touched on the economy, but despite the promises of the government the economy has not improved. Some government spokespersons say it’s a global problem…?

Even though it is very easy to give that excuse such an excuse may not be a genuine one, because when other countries were doing fine was Nigeria doing fine at the same time? But if you look at post-COVID global economy, you will discover that many countries have been finding it very difficult to deal with problems of inflation, problems of unemployment, and problems of economic crisis generally as well as the energy crisis. If you go to the United States of America (USA), if you go to the United Kingdom (UK) and other developed countries they are having issues of energy crisis, inflation, and other macro-economic crisis, but the problem with the Nigerian situation is that when these problems came about, the problem met some other problems on the ground and then it was compounded. You have the problem of corruption, you have the problem of lack of an economic plan, you have the problem of lack of development plan because we used to have Development Plans even during the Gowon regime, 10 years, 15 years development plan etc, but we don’t have such things again. And when you don’t have such things by the time you now have a globally-induced economic crisis, what you are going to have is a case of double jeopardy and that is what has happened to the case of Nigeria. So whereas it is true and it is fair enough to say that some of this economic crises are due to the global impact of COVID-19 and energy crises across the globe, but the truth of the matter is that even before the COVID-19 pandemic and after what are the stimulus packages? What are the economic plans? And what are the sincere steps and policies being taken by the government transparently and accountably? Those things are lacking, and that is why people continue to complain.

As an academic and having critically studied the Nigerian situation, what is your greatest fear today if any?        

I think it is, how do we integrate the country. Now, we have the problem of security which is number one, we have the problem of the economy which can be worked upon by the government, but integration takes even more effort because it has to happen in the mind of the citizens and how do you integrate people when, of course, they don’t have security and they don’t have economic empowerment, you can see that all these things are interwoven. Therefore, for government to work on integration for development purposes, you must also work on the security situation as well as on the economic crisis we have at hand. It is sad that Nigerians are getting deeply divided by the day.