|
As Chairman of ANPP’s Board of Trustees, Alhaji Gambo Magaji is supposed to be part of what he derisively calls the Government of National Unity(GNU) contraption, but he doesn’t give the government any quarter in his interviews since its inception. Here below, he dismissed the on-going probes in the power sector and FCT administration as well as the electoral reforms, including the general conduct of this administration as very slow.
It is close to one year that this government has been in power and we don’t seem to know the direction it is going. Well, you are not the only one who doesn’t understand the direction of this government; I believe most Nigerians are of the same opinion. This brings me to an article which I read yesterday, where it was comparing Nigeria with Qatar. It was talking about the Qatar Airline which is partly owned by government and private individuals. It was talking about the Chief executive of the airline who was in China where he unveiled the airline’s plans for the next 10 to 15 years. That it wants to make Qatar the commercial hub of the emirate; in fact taking over from Dubai. And throughout the briefing, the Chief executive was saying ‘’according to the vision of our leaders’’. The article was asking what are the visions of Nigerian rulers? The write-up ended by saying Nigerian rulers vision (reading the article), is only witch-hunting, land grab, health ministry scam, witch-hunting, treasury looters, scam, scam, scam. This is the only vision of our rulers. My heart bleeds for this country. And to be honest, some of us who happened to know what Nigeria was when we gained independence in 1960 and having seen what Nigerian was from 1960 to 1967, up till 1978 and up till when President Shehu Shagari took over, things were better off. But from the time we had the military coup from 1984, things started to go down. The worst actually happened from 1999 to date. In fact to be honest with you, from the time we discarded four – year development plans and embarked on the so-called rolling plans, the country has been rolling down. And it is a pity that the country also, unfortunately, ended up with a leadership that has little or no care for the generality of its citizens. I’ve said it before, particularly between 1999 to 2007; The first author or writer on government was the late Al-ghazali (may God bless him). The first article on governance is the protec-tion of lives and property. Any government which fails to do that, to Al-Ghazali and any serious-minded person, that government is a failure. That’s why, as far as I’m concerned, the government between 1999 to 2007, was a failure. Before we proceed, I want you to educate our readers on the difference between a four-year development plan and a rolling plan. Usually in a four-year development plan, you sit down and set targets for yourself within a given period of four years. You don’t do anything else but to continue to implement those projects that you have geared your-self to implement within that given period. In a rolling plan, you can start a project and it will continue ad infinitum, depending on the commitment of the leadership. In a rolling plan, you have no target. I am so surprised that you gave a somewhat scathing criticism of this government, which your party is part of. Is it not a contradiction, that you are part of a government and you are criticizing it? The issue is simple; the GNU contraption was done in a way that is not fully accepted by all or the generality of the membership of the party. The party decided to enter that contraption, thinking it was going to help this country. Unfortunately, either by omission or by commission, so many things went wrong. Even things that were agreed upon before the GNU, have not yet been met. As an opposition party, irrespective of whether we are in GNU or not, when some of us see that things are not going the way they should, our major interest will not be in GNU but in Nigeria and our teeming supporters. What we are doing is to ensure that this country survives. Because if the country fails to survive, none of us will be around. Whatever we are going to do is to ensure that Nigerians benefit, irrespective of political leanings. We have a moral obligation to voice out what is going wrong. By doing that, we are not criticizing the govern-ment, the government should take it as an advice. Because I can assure that any government that fails to listen to criticisms or advise, that government is doomed to fail. And we will not allow governments in this country to be failing ad infinitum. The time has come for the government and governed to make things work for the betterment of Nigeria. When you said that GNU idea was not acceptable to the generality of ANPP members, what do you actually mean? Give us an insight into what transpired within the party when the idea was mooted. The issue of GNU, unfortunately, came at a time when most of the membership of the party was not fully briefed on what was actually going on. It came at a time when majority of the members of the party were still reeling under the unbelievable results reeled out by INEC. The majority of party members were in a situation that they didn’t understand. So, when the GNU issue came up, to be honest with you there was no proper consultations, particularly at NEC level. And I can assure that there was no proper NEC meetings rightly placed to take that decision but the issue was haphazardly done. But the majority view was that we are not interested in having crisis in the party; the party have had many crises and we don’t want to continue to be having crisis. So, it was more or less like okay, since it has happened, let’s wait and see what will come out of it. But unfortunately, what has come out is nothing comparable to the bashing that the party is getting from its membership and from Nigerians who feel that ANPP has lost focus. What has been ANPP’s official reaction when it realized that GNU is not working as it should? When the issue of cooperation came, it was between the party and the presidency. And when the time comes for reaction, the party will definitely react. Is ANPP thinking of pulling out of GNU, since you said that some of the conditions under which your party entered the deal have not yet been met? The issue is, what is even left to pull back from? What are those terms that have not been fulfilled? There are issues of….part of them have been met but majority of them have not been met. We discussed about issues of electoral reform, which is on-going. But the way it is going is a source of concern to us because what happened in Kogi State bye-election or the local government election is not different from what we have been crying against. From the Court of Appeal judgment that was given in Kaduna last week, it is a source of concern to us. So, to me, if what is happening today will happen tomorrow, I don’t think there is any need for any of us to continue wasting our time, talking about all the issue raised. We also raised the issue of INEC, particularly the composition, constitutional issues were also raised and we agreed on them but from all intent and purposes, Nigerians are feeling that from what is happening now, there will be nothing new that will come out from the reform panel. This is the feeling of not just ANPP members but the generality of Nigerians. The leadership of the panel itself is under trial. Right now, there are petitions in the National Assembly and if what in the petitions are anything to go by, then I feel sorry for this country because the panel will also end up with nothing new. We also said we should revisit some of the hasty things that Obasanjo did. Well, some of them are being looked into but the pace is so slow and if we are to continue this way, perhaps we may wait for the next four years and these things may not come. So, our concern is the pace of all these things. If really the government is serious, it should act in such a way that things will be done in a manner that will give comfort to Nigerians that yes the government is serious and the government is doing its work. But the government has done so many things like reversing the privatization of some companies and there are on-gong probes in the National Assembly. Given all these, do you think it is slow? The issue is simple, the power sector probe is by the National Assembly and not from the executive. If the executive is serious, it should constitute a judicial commis-sion of enquiry to look at all the areas that we mentioned. Look into ministry of Defence; look into NNPC; look into BPE look into disbursements by the Central Bank, Ministry of Finance. Why can’t they institute a judicial commission of enquiry so that Nigerians are reassured that they are really fighting corruption. Don’t you think that the government is taking its time so that it can do a more thorough job? What is taking them up till now? We are now up to one year. Specifically, can you put a finger on an area where the government is not doing well and how you want it to perform? The issue of privatization. Apart from Ajaokuta, which other privatized company has been reversed? NITEL was reversed and reverted; why do you have to reverse and revert? It there any seriousness in this? How can a government reverse and revert? The system itself is not coordinated. Look at what is happening with NICON insurance. Look at how the EFCC issue was handled. There are ways of doing things by not unnecessarily creating tension of ruffling feathers. The EFCC issue is a simple matter that shouldn’t be allowed to degenerate into a situation where the government was boxed into a corner. It was done in such a nasty and clumsy way, and the gentleman, at the end of the day, was made to look like a saint. With the benefit of hindsight, will you say that Nigerians have had too much high expectations from President Umaru Musa Yar’adua? Nigerians were expecting positive changes because ma-jority of Nigerians knew that Obasanjo was ruling the coun-try in such a way that he was the only one enjoying himself, doing what he liked like a despot. So, Nigerians were expecting that now that we have a civilian as President, not a military-turned-civilian presi-dent, they expected things to look more democratic, a better future, speedy implementation of issues but albeit, even the budget was not signed until last week. So, the country is at a stand still. Disbursements to ministries are yet to be made. So, in essence, from the time he took over till date, nothing tangible has taken place. So, Nigerians are really not happy but unfortunately, there is a global shortage of food. The monthly release of some few tones of grains to states last month is nothing and it will have no effect at all. Govern-ment should come out with a clear programme to ensure that the suffering of Nigerians is reduced to the barest minimum.
Views: 1406
|
All sections 
