49interview
I still feel very confident because of the mess the PDP left. I am also confident because of the exposure of the serious corruption cases that are coming out. I think it would be absolutely difficult for the PDP as a political party to come back INSIDEPOLITICS
He has a jeep that consumes N10, 000 fuel a day. They have over N3billion outstanding death gratuities to be paid. They lost 9,500 people last year. The president approved 6,500 for recruitment. They are undermanned and underfunded and they don’t have communication gadgets and can’t even track criminals. They are not trained and are not motivated. They have no arms. If you go to Zamfara, you would see between 50 and 100 bandits going with 20 or 30 AK47 rifles, while the DPO doesn’t have up to 30 policemen who have two or three AK47 rifles. How would he confront them? So, we have to reinvigorate and restructure the Nigeria Police. The aircraft have been bought, they can be used for internal security too because in those areas, we need to have aerial bombardment before the bandits take over the area. Therefore, the remaining $500 million from the $1billion should be expended on the police and the DSS for real internal security. I appeal to Mr. President to forget his military background and look at the police. The army is competently equipped because all our neighbours are not our antagonists, many of the nations around us will not attack us. Our real threat right now is internal security and we need to put more money there, the army has enough for now. Internal security must be taken care of seriously.
DT: What is your take on President Trump’s comments on President Buhari?
I was surprised because Trump is such a person you cannot predict. There must be some synergy, some likeness between the two of them. It appears he is impressed with what Buhari is doing. He commented on the fight against corruption, he is a very blunt person and is undiplomatic. If he thinks that Buhari is not good enough, he would have shown it. He even twitted about his meeting Buhari.
DT: Do you think that it is an endorsement for Buhari to go for a second term?
It has nothing to do with that. Buhari is coming for second term in Nigeria not in America. It is for us, but every leader wants to continue to finish his tenure because he started something. He knows that at the end of his eight years he would go. I think that when we elected Buhari, we knew that there was a possibility that he would do eight years. There was no formal agreement that he would do only four years.
DT: It was widely reported that at a time he said he wanted only one term
I have been with Buhari for the past 40 years, and all these political days I am with him. I have never heard him uttering this four year whatever it is. Some people are saying he should do the Mandela option, but the truth is that Mandela came for only one purpose and it was to unite South Africa. If he was not on the saddle, there would have been real killings between the blacks and the whites. That was the main reason, he didn’t speak about economic growth or anything else, he was there to unite South Africa and he did it very well. Buhari inherited a very serious economic situation. The price of oil had crashed to only $40 from $120 dollars, corruption was so devastatingly high, Boko Haram was the ruling party of Nigeria with its flags. Insecurity was so high, our public image internationally was down. So that was the situation in Nigeria but he picked the challenge and everybody knew that it wasn’t a four-year programme. It may be even a 20-year programme. And luckily you can see that Buhari has never failed to pay salaries. He was even helping states which had never been done under Obasanjo or Jonathan. They never gave states loans to pay their salaries or support their budgets, but despite the fact that the major earner of our foreign exchange which is oil was down by about almost 60-70 percent, Buhari has been supporting other tiers of government. Again, Jonathan knew about some innovations but didn’t have the guts to implement them. Look at the Single Treasury Account (TSA) and the BVN (Bank Verification Number), he couldn’t implement them because he was surrounded by thieves who wouldn’t like it. But Buhari came and is implementing them.
DT: How far have you gone reaching out to his supporters?
Ibrahim: The support groups were almost 198 which worked for him in 2015. However, in 2016, I realized that these groups were disappearing and becoming frustrated. So, I managed to tell the president that we needed to get them together, unite them and see where they could be beneficial and we started communicating. The 198 different groups are now communicating and relating with us.
DT: Are you not worried about the purported gang up of other political parties that want to defeat Buhari next year?
Politics is always like that, we always face challenging situations. I still feel very confident because of the mess the PDP left. I am also confident because of the exposure of the serious corruption cases that are coming out. I think it would be absolutely difficult for the PDP as a political party to come back. As you can see they are trying to change name, and trying to merge with some others. They know that they cannot market the PDP at all and that is natural because they know as PDP, it would be very difficult to defeat Buhari but the leopard cannot change its colour. What is going on is not a surprise to me and I am not frightened.
DT: You have been to the Senate four times, are you coming back next year?
Personally, I feel I should retire. I have gone four times but you know how politics is. I have that feeling that after doing it four times, perhaps someone else should come out of sheer reasonableness. I wanted to go and let someone try his luck but if there is insistence, then... The world is like a stage, you do what you can and I have done my best. People think that you are here making money, social media can give you nightmares because that is where people just post anything and at my age I cannot withstand some of these things. In politics, you must pray for Allah to guide you.