Why reappointment of Yakubu as INEC boss is a disservice to Nigeria - Babatope
Ebenezer Babatope, a former minister of Transport and member, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees, in this exclusive interview with INIOBONG IWOK, assesses the state of the nation, the worsening insecurity in the country, among other nationa
Nigeria just entered another recession, s e con d in five years; what is your take? I am not surprised about the recession, and I don’t want to apportion blames; economic downturn can happen to any government at any given time, given that we had been under the Coronavirus pandemic for a very long time this year which disrupted the economy. So, you can see what the President is facing, I don’t belong to the same party with him, but I can say that we must brace up to get ourselves out of the economic doldrums that we are in now.
But a lot of Nigerians have blamed his policies and governance style for this second recession. Don’t you think he should take the blame?
They did not invite Coronavirus to themselves but what I know is that if they had prepared themselves for this eventuality they would be able to avoid this thing. The Covid- 19 is here, we must rise up and vote these people and their party out, but I don’t trust this INEC chairman; they have appointed him again. Yes, I don’t trust him and I have never had confidence in him; I hope Nigerians would try and get themselves out of this. It was wrong to re-appoint him for that position; our bane in this country is the inability to elect those who can govern us well.
Insecurity is at its peak, it is scary now; we saw the killings in Borno penultimate Saturday. What is your take?
All of us are afraid; the insecurity is terrible but nothing can be done, because the person who is supposed to act seems not to know what to do.
But there are calls for him to sack the Service Chiefs; do you agree?
My problem with sacking people is that you are not sure that if you remove these people and bring new people into these positions you are going to have a bail out and it would end these things. We are not sure about those that would take their places and the security architecture, it is a fundamental issue, and they should bring solutions because now everybody is afraid. I am not absolving the President, what I am saying is everyone is afraid because of the security situation. I mean you can’t travel, or move freely. Look at the killing of farmers in Borno State when the government said it was 42 people that were killed, Boko Haram came out to say no, we
killed more than that. The President should come together with his governors and service chiefs and sit down to discuss and save this country. The danger is looming, everybody is afraid nobody is safe now. The president may have an excuse of not knowing that Coronavirus is coming, but he cannot run away from this. One of the duties of any government is to protect its citizens but Nigerians are not being protected and that is dangerous.
The PDP in the Southwest has recently been enmeshed in a crisis, power tussle between Ayo Fayose and Governor Makinde on who should be the leader of the party. Does this bother you?
Well, we are going to solve all these problems, but I don’t think there is a crisis that is up to a level that we would not be able to compete in elections. The issue between Ayo Fayose and Governor Seyi Makinde is purely a domestic matter in the PDP. Makinde is the PDP chieftain and leader; he holds the key to PDP affairs in the Southwest that was the situation when Fayose was in office as governor of Ekiti. Now all parties should agree that Makinde should be in charge of the party; but we would work to resolve all these issues ahead of the next election.
How do you react to recent insinuations that Fayose was planning to defect to the APC?
Well I don’t think Fayose would do that, I think they are just using that to damage his name. I don’t want to say more, but if he leaves he has a right to move to any party he wants to, but I know he would not want to do that.
What is your take on agitations for zoning of the presidency to the South in 2023, especially to the Southeast?
The PDP doesn’t have any problem with zoning at all. We would agree where the presidency should go to when the election comes, I can tell you it would be sorted then. It is true that the Southeast have not had a taste of the presidency but they should make it happen. The PDP at the centre knows what to do to take power legally from the APC whatever its does would influence the decision from the next presidential candidate would come from. What I know we are prepared to give what its take to get the next presidency.
We would decide that soon but what is important is that, there must be the interest of Nigerians at heart and PDP must put their house in order to defeat the APC because the party has taken us back .
What is your view on calls for restructuring and implementation of the report of the 2014 Goodluck Jonathan’s national conference?
We have had a definition of the country we are a federation for goodness sake and we cannot allow ourselves to be governed by the military people. The constitution we have now was written by the military we have to go back to when we started in 1960 we are wasting our time and postponing the evil day. The way forward for me is to restructure the country and go back to true federalism if you have to adjust some things, you do that. If the President is against it, good luck to him, but eventually when he is in retirement he would realise those who advised him were wrong.
Some people think the PDP is not playing the role of an opposition party effectively. How do you react to this?
People can say what they like, but they must know that the PDP is concerned about the oneness of the country, about the security of Nigerians and we cannot engage in reckless talk to destabilise the country. It is because we are offering purposeful position than engage in baseless talk.
What is important now is for them to conduct election where the people of Nigeria are free to choose their leader at will. If you leave the APC to continue like they are doing now; to manipulate elections they would get to a point they can’t do it again. The APC must make up their mind to give us a free and fair election; they have always manipulated the electoral system in their favour. My view is always that free and fair election is the way forward. But we must put ourselves together and believe in the country, remain united and we must appeal to Nigerians to stay calm. I wrote a book some years ago about election riggers in history, I said that no election rigger in history has ever succeeded and they would never succeed. I hope Nigerians would learn their lesson from there.
People can say what they like, but they must know that the PDP is concerned about the oneness of the country, about the security of Nigerians and we cannot engage in reckless talk to destabilise the country