Mischief makers behind needless tension in the country – Ex-minister Nakande
Ibrahim Dasuki Nakande was a former Minister of State for Information and Communication. In this interview, the All Progressives Congress, (APC), chieftain speaks on the recent economic policies of the Federal Government and how mischief makers are creati
Do you Nigerians should still be worried about the status of President Buhari’s health?
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We have so many mischief makers. It is just as you keep hearing that as you fight corruption, corruption will fight back. There are a lot of people who felt hurt and short-changed from the last election but certainly it is mischief. Young boys have been put in houses with computers and they are creating a lot of unnecessary hype and tension in the country. When the President travelled, he transmitted a letter in line with the dictates of the constitution, the vice President assumed the position of the president as acting president. Even if the President was to return to the UK for further check-up, there will be no vacuum. So really, there is nothing to worry about.
The APC has received a lot of bashing based on the state of the economy. How do you feel about that?
People are bound to complain, especially given the circumstance of the birth of the APC itself. We had not stayed for long in terms of bonding before we went into the election. Thankfully, we won and of course so many things have not been in place to enable us hit the ground running. Our focus had always been on what we needed to do to ensure that the last PDP administration was ousted democratically from power. And then we came in again and found all manners of problems befallen the country–the recession was there, the insurgency especially Boko Haram was there, and then from nowhere we had the problems of the Niger-Delta resurfacing and again, the world recession added to the woes of the country in terms of its income and challenges. Nigerians again being what we are, started to complain that things are not working well. But I want to say that government at the federal level is doing its best. It identified one of the key critical components that is affecting the government which is corruption. It identified also a success factor for the administration to tackle and that is in the area of infrastructure and so far, so good, all these have been happening because of the principles which President Buhari had been pursuing. Look at the bane of civil servants for example, he ensured that in spite of the challenges of governance that we have between the states and the Federal Government and indeed local governments, all the states that had problems pertaining to their salaries were bailed out. This was to ensure that civil servants who had worked were paid as and when due. This is the problem of the states but he realised that they are Nigerians irrespective of political party affiliation.
But this is also a man Nigerians are beginning to say is surrounded by people of questionable characters that are shielding them?
That remains to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. On prima facie cases, there are issues regarding the Secretary to the Government of the Federation over whether he resigned or not from a particular company he was chairing before. From what we have seen in the Senate, they have written their report and forwarded it to government, the President had directed the Attorney General to investigate and I believe the Attorney General had advised the President accordingly and that is probably why the SGF is still in office. I do not subscribe to the fact that the President was shielding anybody who is working with him. As for the Chief of Staff, it is neither here nor there. I don’t think there has been any case except for rumours that people have been peddling especially with regards to the issue of the MTN fine. I don’t want to get into that because I haven’t seen the facts beyond reasonable doubt to say that they are involved in acts of corruption and that the President was shielding them.
The government has been trying to diversify the economy and placed a ban on some food products. Many say the ban came too soon and therefore, led to the present hardship. Are you comfortable with these policies?
I am very comfortable with the current policies. Most of the complaints are from the elites who have been used to doing business as usual in corrupt ways and they are the ones that have been feeding from the imported products. I travel a lot and each time I travel, I see even the rural farmers that are on the main road having a bumper harvests and I don’t see how people will say food is expensive. People are trying to satisfy their foreign tastes. There is nothing anybody can do about the fact that we are in recession and that this recession is hitting us in a bad way as a country. And if you say food is expensive, there are other reasons for that like the cost of transportation. Transport is a major cost element in pricing and the roads are yet to come. Take the issue of power for instance, once there is no power, there is no way we can develop so it is power that is bringing about the cost of diesel and diesel power most of the trucks that will deliver food and that accounts for the spiral rise in terms of pricing. But for people in their various communities were these foods are harvested, they are not complaining and one of the imported items that was banned is rice and we are seeing the result of that ban because of the abundance of the product in the country. Nigeria is a very big country and for some of these infrastructures, it will take time for us to deliver especially in power and infrastructure, we just needed to be patient.