From Desmond Mgboh, Kano
Former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, is typically blunt and unapologetic in his analysis of the dynamics of politics and power in Nigeria.
In this interview, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs commented on the forthcoming presidential elections while commending the INEC for its firmness and steadfastnes, as well as President Buhari for not taking side with any of the candidates or parties.
He also criticized the Islamization and Christianization of democracy by some of the presidential candidates, saying, however, that the electorate will not be moved by their antics. He also commented on the Central Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefelie-DSS saga, the endorsement of Peter Obi by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as well as the threat by G-5 governors to exit the PDP. Excerpt:
As an elder statesman and nationalist, we would like to have your thoughts on the forthcoming general elections, especially your assessment of the preparations by the candidates?
Well, I am talking as Sule Lamido and as an individual and based on the way I look at things. I think so far the preparations leading to the elections appear hopeful because I have seen the kind of commitment the Chairman of the INEC, Prof Yakubu (Mahmood) has against all pressures. He has been very firm and steadfast and has been consistent in what he said he would do in the elections and to that extent, I commend him. I hope he sustains this kind of position and refuses to be intimidated by anybody. And secondly, I am impressed by the President (Buhari), based on his utterances and campaign so far. Because ideally, people would think that if you go to him, he would say pick my own candidate. But he has now assumed the position of the father of the nation, a leader of the nation, and he has been saying that when you go to vote, vote for your conscience, vote for the best. He has been saying, go and use your own judgment and choose what is best for Nigeria and I think that this is very comforting and assuring. He would not say vote for APC or vote Mr A or B. He is now talking like the father of the nation, whose concern is now about the country rather than the individual. He is more concerned about the process being transparent because he said that he wants to leave a legacy of honesty in the process and I think that by his outing so far , I am now convinced that he means it.
Still around the election, what is your assessment of the four major presidential candidates – Obi, Kwankwaso, Atiku and Bola Tinubu?
I think that this is not a very fair question because I belong to a political party, a political tendency and when it comes to the issue of politics, I will stand by own party. I don’t mind whether it is right or wrong, but naturally, I will stand by my party and by my candidate. I believe my candidate has the experience, he has the political profile, and he has the knowledge. And he is coming from a background which is very, very overwhelming to other candidates. I don’t mean to get them diminished or to undermine the others, but I mean that all of them compared to Atiku are a shade below. I think that from my own judgment and being a party man, I think that Atiku has a better prospect of leading Nigeria and also of winning the election. I see him as someone who understands the chemistry of the Nigeria nation – the culture and the ways things are done in the country. He is certainly ahead of them.
Sir, I also want you to talk about the harsh and confrontational languages emerging from the camps of Atiku and Tinubu in the recent days. How do you rate the quality of campaign process?
No matter what you may wish, when it comes to election, people tend to pick up anything, more so if you know you are losing. When people are losing elections, they become very panicky and they can grab at anybody and anything. I hope that no matter the candidates – be him that of APC, PDP, Labour Party or NNPP – I hope that they would bring some kind of restrain to bear in the mode of their communication to their electorate, on how they say what they want to say. They should use languages which are very, very courteous, languages which are befitting of the status of the office they are trying to uphold. I mean that there should be a benchmark; there should be a red flag, no matter the desperation, no matter the temptations and no matter the feeling of failure. They should put Nigeria first in the language and in their political campaigns.
Some experts are of the view that the forthcoming presidential election has the tendency of running into a run-off. Do you also nurse that view?
I don’t think so. Not because I am PDP, but because I am able to understand the Nigeria political terrain and I can assess its political environment. I don’t think that we are going to have a run-off presidential elections. Atiku is going to win the race in the first run. There will be no second run in this elections or second ballot.
But why do you think so? Let’s look at Atiku’s strength on the basis of region to region, he doesn’t seem to …?
You see, you should look at the quality of the other people who are speaking, the other candidates who are in the race. They don’t talk about issues. They talk more about emotional sentiments. You go to a Church, for instance, and turn it into your own constituency. But luckily, people like the former running mate of Buhari, Pastor Bakare are bringing this issue to the fore. They say don’t do that , that it is wrong. Now, APC using some Mallams, and again , you could see some local Mallams challenging them, saying please don’t islamize democracy. Democracy is not Islam because democracy is governed by the Nigerian Constitution. Not by the Holy book. Whether it is Muslim or Christian or whatever, you should stand on issues, they insisted. Don’t use your enhanced standing in the society, your emotional sentiments and your capitalist interest to propagate what you know is wrong. So, why those at the top are trying to advocate in terms of the monetary benefit they derive from it, the people on the ground, and their local Mallams, are saying we would vote for what is right and we would vote according to the dictates of our own conscience. They are saying that we would listen to you according to Islam but when it comes to voting, we know what Islam said about voting. It is something we can understand, it is something we can analyze and something we can interpret. And so, no matter what you say, we have been through it as Nigerians during Buhari administration. All the blackmail using religion and this time around, we will do what is right because we will not listen to you as we have not seen the benefits of governance in the last eight years. Nigerians, on both sides, be them Christians or Muslims are becoming more and more enlightened because they are now more concerned about issues that affect their own wellbeing rather than emotions about religion.
Somebody like Tinubu had a special meeting with the Muslim clerics…?
Each candidate is free to use any mechanism he thinks will make him win the elections. But the point is that the people he is talking to have the ability to understand issues and more so, when you talk about a party like APC , which came to power on very specific promises and none of them is being accomplished – you talk of SEC , security, economy and corruption. And Nigerians are saying no to them because they have seen the kind of scam they are; in Central Bank, they are hearing and seeing what happened to a former Accountant General of the Federation, they are seeing a lot of things happening. They are looking at APC as they are saying we have got money, saying it publicly , saying “We have got money and, therefore, we are going to use it”. You could see Tinubu’s daughter coming to Kano and saying I came with money. And it was shown. While they say all that, Nigerians are also very discerning. They know those who are there for themselves and those who are there for the country. I have total respect and trust for the Nigerian electorate that they would do the right thing.
You mean that they would not allow religion to influence their votes?
Let anybody apply it. It has been applied before. If you are talking about “your own”, it was said before when they said that Jonathan is “not your own”. In 2015, it was said that Jonathan is not your own, he is a Southerner. Security problem was Jonathan. Poverty was Jonathan, everything was Jonathan. But then, afterward, our own, a northerner has been there for eight years, what has been the benefit of his stay there for the North? These are realities. I am very honest. What has been the benefit of the Buhari administration to average Northerners? In fact, to me, if there is anybody who has done more for Islam, it is Jonathan. I mean it. I have my own problem with Jonathan; I have my own problem with him. But when you are talking realistically and honestly, there is nobody who has done more for Islam in the last 20 years more than Jonathan. Because Jonathan was the first person who came and said yes there are many out-of-school children, who are also Nigerians, who are suffering, and going by the system of almajiri schools, how do we modernize it? And he opened the discussion and they came with a number of programmes and he built a number of schools in the North. And it was specifically for Islam. And secondly he said on education, the South has got so many universities, but in the North, they have very few. And so if the people in the North are not going to invest in education, I will get the government to invest and, therefore, I will put a university in each state of the North and he put up universities across the North. So, if there is anybody who has done more for the North in terms of Western education, it is Jonathan. And he should be celebrated. So, whatever lie you present, the people can now compare and contrast what the APC is doing and what PDP did for Nigeria and then come to a conclusion that if there is any friendly party to the North, that is PDP. If you talk of Islam, PDP was for Islam. We have a whole programme for Islam. The Quoranic schools… Buhari came and he didn’t continue with it? Did he? He even tried to truncate it. The universities now in the North, which was brought about under Jonathan, the people are now benefitting from them. So, I think in terms of leadership performance and commitment to the people of the country, working for the Nigerian people, Jonathan is the best for Nigerians.
Let me take you back to something you have just mentioned in passing, the controversy surrounding the Central Bank Governor , Emefiele, his policies including attempts by the DSS to take him in. How do you see all of these?
I don’t know, but I think that we are becoming a lawless society; we are becoming a country where there are no laws, rules or regulations. For instance, there is an allegation against Emefiele by the highest security body, which is the DSS, and they went to court and the court said sorry because we would get permission from the President because of the post he is holding. Now, you are talking about an issue which is in the court of law, the courts which are very independent and now they are saying that we are waiting for permission from the President whether he would be picked or not. That says a lot. It is very frightening, I mean a situation whereby a Nigeria court would have to wait for the President to give them authority to pick somebody. It is frightening. Number two, so much has been said about the CBN and Emefiele on even this issue of the new currency. The Ministry of Finance is not involved in the redesigned currency, the Minister said she did not know about it, the National Assembly said they too did not know about it. But the President said he knew about it and he was briefed. Now, an issue of the change of Nigeria’s currency, which has far reaching consequences, ideally, should not have been handled by the CBN alone. Ideally, the President should have assembled experts on the economy and say this is my team, discuss with them. He should have said yes I agree with the idea in principle, but look at the far reaching consequences of the policy, look at the effects. I mean there are a number of things he needs to hear from other people who are equally well versed in this sector before acceding to the implementation. Well, Emefiele would come with his own team , brief the President and the same for the other team and after then, there will be discussions and there they would look at all the issues before they say fine, this one is good or not. Emefiele went alone, alone and briefed the President and he said go ahead. To me, it is very frightening. Because no matter how vast Buhari is, he does not have the monopoly of knowledge of all the sectors and that is why he needs people to advise him. But he never called anybody. He never formed any team to discuss this issue from the Central Bank in terms of the ramifications of the policy. He just said he briefed me. This issue is more than briefing! It is more than briefing giving the weight of the policy involved. And right now, we don’t know where we are. The new money is not sufficient in circulation; there are number of allegations, the time limit and the limit about withdrawals. In my local government area, Birnin Kudu, for instance, there are only two bank headquarters. All the villagers who buy, sell and operate in the local foodstuff markets there , how would they do the business? How would they exchange money for their goods? You can see that there are issues which have to be looked into. There are number of peculiarities, which defined each environment and you must try and get the aggregates.
Going back to where we started… this allegation that the CBN governor is supportive of terrorism. Isn’t it looking rather strange in nature?
No, I don’t think that I will go into that because it is an allegation made by very, very top security outfit of the country, the DSS. I don’t think that if you looked at the agency as a profession, if you looked at the way it is staffed, I don’t think somebody would come and say this without any strong reason for saying so. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. It is just for the people to go and invite him, bring this fact to the fore and let him respond. That is all. They are allegations. They are simply allegations. And they are supposed to be investigated and you say fine. Go to the office, and they would say Mr. Governor, these are our findings. If he is able to defend himself, the case is closed because they are all working for the President. All the agencies in the country, including the President are working for the President. It means that they are supporting him to do his own job.
But the President is silent on the issue. He is supposed to be the final arbitrator, but he is silent. Could this be the best he could go to address the saga?
I am not the President. If I am the one I know what to do. That is his own choice, but obviously people would begin to wonder is that the right thing for him to do? I mean the silence? Nigerians are wondering is this the best he could do? Is he right in being so quiet on this issue, which is very fundamental and very serious? More so, because this is the person who originally, was also condemned by the President, was considered as somebody who was guilty on a number of issues, because he had said that Emefiele was issuing foreign currencies, dollars, on ordinary pieces of paper. Didn’t he say so? So, as far as he was concerned, Emefiele has no character and Emefiele has no integrity. Because these are things he was doing for Jonathan, issuing money without any particular concern about its consequences, this is what he said about Jonathan. But now after getting into office, he has now found a partner in Emefiele, a partner in the very person he once condemned as having no character, as having no integrity and as having worked with Jonathan to destroy Nigeria. He now found him to be a good collaborator, a good partner.
Very recently, former President Olusegun Obasanjo endorsed Peter Obi of the Labour Party. I do know that he is not the best friend of Atiku Abubakar. But how do you see Obasanjo’s support for another party having, himself, been made by the PDP?
Well, let me say something clear. I believe in Baba. I trust him up till now. I believe in him and I know his passion for Nigeria and I know what he stands for in Nigeria and I know that he is also human. He is also a human being. He cannot be absorbed of human iniquities or human failures. He is a human being like any of us. He cannot be 100 per cent right all the time. In other words, he makes mistakes like human beings, but this mistake is so fundamental because it is about the choice of the Nigeria President. More so, if you look at his own history , how he came to be Nigeria president. He was made by PDP. That is why I said that he was a PDP invention. Whatever he was today, the monopoly he has in the political space, the image he has in the world was all PDP owned. PDP made him what he is. So, if the PDP people are failure, he is part of that failure. If all of us are not doing the right thing, it also affects him because he led us and he is our leader. They say in Islam that the prayer becomes spoilt from the Imam. As a leader of the country, what he has done is simply self castigating because he does not believe in his own party, a party which made him. How does he renounce all those things that he had enjoyed from the party? So, he made an error in that act… It is a very serious error of calculation. Number two, having been what he has been in life, Baba should be beyond personal vendetta. He should have grown beyond personal feeling of injury. Because God has blessed him and God has given Obasanjo everything. And, therefore, whatever might be his shortcoming should be taken in his own strides because he is a leader. And so the issue of endorsing Peter Obi, to me, is utterly immoral because you don’t simply renounce your own background, your own person and hold something which is not there on top of you. I feel that PDP honoured you and PDP dignified you. Minus PDP, remove PDP honour on him, he would be former President , former military general or maybe former convict, but the PDP found him out and he was pardoned and all of that, and I think it is this fear, for the past 25 years, he has been the only person standing in Nigeria, monopolizing the entire political space. Put anybody there, he is OBJ’s creation. Yar’Adua, Jonathan, they are all ObJ’s creation. Even Buhari- you know in the Army when you are junior, you are junior forever. And so, he has the authority over Buhari. He has the authority over these three Presidents and, therefore, he can say anything and he can abuse them and get away with it. Now for the first time, Tinubu and Atiku emerged. All of these have a history of taking him and engaging him head on and they all survived. There is nothing he had not done to Tinubu, to fight him, but Tinubu survived him. There is nothing that he has not done to Atiku to fight him, but Atiku survived him. So with these characters emerging with either of them becoming the next president, it means that they are going to share the same political space with Obasanjo which he earlier on had monopolized and that is creating a lot of fears in him. It makes him jittery. Because the monopoly he has over the political space would now be shared and he may even be eclipsed by either of them. So, his endorsement of Peter Obi is purely…it is not altruistic.
You are saying that he is properly afraid that he would lose some of the space he has been enjoying?
Yes, it is very obvious. Look, he is a human being. That fear ! That fear is what is pushing him to do the ephemeral – to endorse somebody whom you think you can weaken. But again how does endorsing Peter Obi make him Nigeria’s president? So, he is free to endorse Peter Obi , but it is a miscalculation, he did the wrong thing and it is not a kind of…, now when you allow your own personal feeling to dictate your emotions , you begin to pursue the ephemeral. Then there is a problem, it means that there is no lesson that Nigerians are going to learn from him and in any case in the last 25 years, anybody who is somebody in the PDP was OBJ’s imposition. He imposed them. He imposed Atiku. In 1999, PDP was Adamu Ciroma, Abubakar Rimi or Prof Aminu as running mate , he imposed Atiku single-handedly and we accepted. Alright, when he was leaving office, on the eve of the convention, on Friday morning, he called us for a meeting all the governors and asked us to vote for Yar’Adua. Yar’Adua had not bought the nomination form of party and had not gone for the process or anything. At the eve of the convention, he said we should all step down and we obeyed him. He brought in Gemade, we obeyed him. He brought Amodu Ali, we obeyed him. He brought almost everybody you can think of. He brought in Eweremu . In fact, anybody who was somebody in PDP was Obasanjo’s imposition. Now, if in 2019 he found Atiku worthy enough that he has forgiven him, and was supporting Atiku in 2019, I wondered what has transpired between 2019 and 2022, which made him change his mind. Because he called me, said Sule support Atiku. I ran for President in Port Harcourt. I lost and when Atiku became the presidential candidate, I was ambivalent. But it was Obasanjo that called me and said support Atiku , and I said yes sir. He gave order and I obeyed. This is the only order that I have failed to obey. The order on Peter Obi. All my life , he gave me orders and I obeyed. So, I wondered that thing which Atiku had done in the last two years which made him changed his mind against him. Again, it is because of this total control and monopoly and visibility in Nigeria , that is what makes him feel that this is not luck. But it is pure luck. He is now trying to engage his luck in a race and if you engage your luck in a race, by the time you overtake your luck, you will be running alone. So, for the first time OBJ is engaging his luck in a race, and he overtaking his luck and his luck is there panting and utterly waiting while he is there running. And that is why nobody is heeding his call. Nobody!
I used to know you as somebody who has political differences with Atiku. The question is at what point did you change and become an apostle of Atiku?
I am not an apostle of Atiku. I am an apostle of PDP. In the build up to the primaries, while the issue of North and South or rotation is very germane and very important, ultimately it is the Nigerian people that are going to say that this is what we want. Nigerian people don’t go by your own zoning process in their elections. It may have some kind of influence, but somehow, it is the Nigeria constitution which says that Nigerians are free to choose the candidate of their own choice, not based on zoning. In the process of the build up to the primaries, yes there should be justice yes, there should be fairness. I agree. But then again, there should be what I called a reasonable self interest to win the election. Now, we had before the convention about nine candidates, five of which were from the South. I went to Baba on Wednesday,14 hours to the convention, I said Baba I am here with you and you are my leader, guide me. Whom do we vote for? He said look Sule , there must be a power shift. That was the first thing he said. He said that power must come to the South for the sake of fairness and justice and I said I agree. Because we need a society which is fair and which is very just so that all Nigerians would have a feeling of belonging that they are equal in this country. And said now, who do you want from the South ? Let me know him. In the Southwest where you are coming from your son Fayose is running. Is he the one you want? In the South , the person we are gunning for , all of us, Obi is very close to me as my son-in-law, because his father in-law is very close to me. We worked together in Lagos. Obi has left the PDP. In the South-south are Udom and Wike. Who do you want? He did not answer. Is it Wike , we will go for him, is it Fayose, we will go for him. Anybody? So, it means that of all the PDP candidates from the South, there is none he can trust. He knew Nigeria, he knew that by their standing , by their own profile, there is no way they can rule Nigeria. This is what I think and there is no choice on that.
Let’s talk about the face-off between Wike and Atiku. Up till now we don’t have a clear signal. What would be the implication if these five governors eventually leave the PDP?
I have made my view about these five governors known. They are wise enough and they would also make up their minds about where to go and I think that they are going to PDP. It is as simple as that. Where they come from , either as a zone or a state, they do not have the influence to sway things. Take, for instance, Makinde. He is now behaving as the leader of the West. Isn’t it . But look at the history of the West which produced people like Awolowo, Akintola, Fatayi Williams, the Bola Iges, and look at their political history, I don’t think that Makinde in his own right mind would now say that he is now the leader of the Southwest as to give order on who to vote for. That is my feeling. Remove the office, he is nothing significant. People should not confuse holding that office and the aura and the profile as something personal to them. It is owned by the PDP. If he says that he alone owes the West and he is going to fight his own political party, I don’t think that it is a right calculation. Take the Governor of Abia and Enugu, look at the history of the region and the people of worth that it has produced – you know them – Zik , Okparas, Asikas, the Mbadiwes, Nwobodo, the Nwodos and so on and you think the governor of Enugu or Abia would now give orders to the Eastern people, the Igbo to vote Mr A outside their own political party. To me, I don’t think that this is feasible because history negates this kind of thing. Again, remove the office they are occupying , can they talk the way they are talking. The same thing if you go to the South-south, even in Rivers! The Isongs, the Briggs and all the these big families and names, the Odilis, then Ameachis and I don’t think Wike because he is now a governor can now appropriate the direction of the way would go in Rivers.
You are saying that they are no threat?
They are coming back, they are going to be back to PDP. They are going to face the reality of things … to me something is going to emerge that would force them to know that they don’t have the authority to give orders to their people to vote against PDP.