See Ismaila Isa Funtua
Alhaji Ismaila Isa Funtua is the chairman of Bullet International, a construction outfit based in Abuja, and publisher of Democrats Newspaper. In this interview with ARISE TV in Abuja, Funtua says the country’s elite are largely responsible for the poor s
They said you are a very good friend of the president; when was the last time you spoke to him? Well, I believe you aren’t at liberty to interview me on Buhari.
But I have to ask you because you are a good friend! You know whatever you say Nigerians will not believe you. The only thing they believe is when they see him and even when they see him they would say he looks like this and he looks like that.
But they are entitled to their opinions? Absolutely. I am glad you said so and in the history of Nigeria how many presidents do take leave at some point and allow their deputies to deputise legally. We have such problem in the country and this isn’t the first time he has done so. He went on his holiday and he went to do check-up. He is a human being; he isn’t a super human being and all the talks by people about it, I cannot understand.
Well, they have a history to refer to because it happened to President Yar’adua seven years ago, so do you think it is a deja vu moment?
Yes, it happened to Yar’adua. Did Yar’adua ever appoint an acting president? Did you know when he left the country? Do you know where he was? That is the difference and people have seen President Buhari with his wife, people have seen President Buhari with Governor Amosun, people have seen President Buhari with Danjuma, so what is all these noise about?
The state of the nation right now; Nigeria seems to be in a free fall; Naira is hitting new lows, the economy is sinking and yet they refer to this as Africa’s biggest economy. What do you think about this?
I am not an economist but at the same time I am not stupid. I go around the world, I know what is happening. There is a worldwide recession which everyone knows as much as I do and what do you expect out of Nigeria? This is a country where we are dependent on one single commodity for our foreign
exchange. The CBN can’t under any circumstance print dollar and flood the market with dollar; it is illegal, it isn’t our currency, we have to earn it. There was a time when we were selling crude oil at $140 a barrel, did we save? The answer is capital no! Even if the federal government wants to save the governors won’t allow them save. They created what they call governor’s forum and they won’t allow the president do what he is supposed to do with the money.
So they didn’t save, they just spent?
They just spent and they spend on what? Don’t ask me that.
And the other thing, Mallam, you know the story very well; $15 billion disappeared in tenders for oil. No sign of product returned back to the country. How did $15 billion disappear?
I wouldn’t know how it disappeared because I am not their respective bankers who have been helping them possibly to take the monies out of the country. But other Nigerians I would like to see, who have the report of who stole what without bringing nothing; such people should be behind bars.
But why are they not, Mallam, why are they not in jail?
I am not in a position to say why because I am not the government.
If it were you… They would know where they are, the money would be back, every dime would be returned to Nigeria. Their assets would be sold and they would go to prison for a very long time.
Because when you hear that $15 billion has disappeared when the country is floating just $1 billion bond, what is that?
That is what I am telling you, if you know the inner workings of government and you know that when this current government came in what people should ask the current government to tell them is when you came in what did you meet in the treasury in terms of real liquid cash; foreign and local? What commitment do you have on the table? Did you have money to pay salaries for three, four months when you came in? Maybe the answer may be no and the price of what we are depending on crashed to a very low level; from over a hundred to less than fifty. So your earnings have gone down, the country didn’t save all the monies they were earning and we reached a situation for the first time in the history of Nigeria where states couldn’t pay workers their salaries.
Do you think in this country that people got priorities wrong?
I may like to believe so because where is the money? What did we use it for? Where did we save it? How did we spend the money?
Does it disappoint you to know that this is Africa’s largest economy, this is the engine of the continent and yet it has been so disappointing time and again?
You know sometimes you have to be disappointed in order to rearrange your life.
You are going to be disappointed for 50 years?
I can’t talk about 50 years because during those 50 years there were good and bad times, but we were supposed to learn lessons, which we didn’t learn and I hope now we would learn it for the last time.
We keep saying we hope we learn it but are we not seeing signs?
You are an African like me, you come from Kenya and Kenya is no different from Nigeria. We are not holding our leaders accountable all along and why are we not holding our leaders accountable? Who pays tax in this country? We aren’t doing our social responsibility so if we aren’t really honouring our social responsibility our strength to fight our leaders is very limited and today if everybody would pay his dues to a large extent we won’t be crying so much even at the state level, the local government level they couldn’t pay salaries and when people are talking in this country of restructuring I am always amazed. What do they mean by restructuring? I am a Nigerian they shouldn’t turn us to educated illiterates. They should come out and tell us restructure what from what level to what level? Now we have three tiers of government, local government was the third tear but now it is only on paper
because governors have turned local government like their own personal estates, the monies of local and federal account goes into their pockets, they spend it the way and manner they want.
Isn’t that illegal? It is illegal.
But yet Nigerians are one of the most outspoken Africans and you don’t want to hold your leaders accountable?
In that case, our brothers and sisters in the rural areas, you cannot blame them, we should blame people like me and you who know what is happening, the amount of money that is been given every month which is published in all the national dailies in a form of advert by Minister of Finance and we are not asking our governors in our own respective states; “governor you are claiming to build this structure at N1 billion or N2 billion while we know the cost of this is N500 million’ where is the balance of the money. What did you do with it? “We are the ones to lead but we don’t want to lead.
And why don’t we want to, what is the reason?
We don’t want to lead because generally the average Nigerian elite is comfortable, so as such he doesn’t want to go on the street to lead people to demand for their rights in a responsible manner.
So they don’t want to rock the boat?
You can say so!
And when will the boat be rocked? I believe Nigerians should learn from civilised societies. They are free to air their views in a responsible manner without destroying what they have because whatever they destroy belongs to them and it has to be rebuilt one day with their own money again so they are slowing down development.
When President Buhari was a leader in this country under the military rule, he was feared, for lack of better words, everything seemed to be in order, people didn’t steal, this man was feared. But this time around people are disappointed that he isn’t cracking the weep like he did the first time around.
There is a wide difference, that time he was a military leader but now he
is a civilian leader. That time he was leading by decree now he is leading by constitution so they can’t do things unconstitutional. If Nigeria is to progress we must have two good things; first you must have a good judiciary and secondly you must have a good police, once you don’t have a good police who will enforce the law and you don’t have judiciary that will interpret and implement the law as it is then you have a problem.
Speaking of the judiciary, Hon. Justice Walter Onnogben’s name has just been submitted to the Senate as Chief Justice of Nigeria, what are your thoughts about him?
He is the most senior person in the Supreme Court so he should be confirmed as the chief justice of the country.
That’s all you have to say? You won’t say he is qualified, he is great, he would be a great addition?
What do you mean by that? I don’t understand you!
Will he make a great Chief Justice, Alhaji?
He has been judge from lower courts to the Supreme Court and his record speaks for him, I can’t speak for him.
Is this country moving in the right direction?
I would like to believe so, but there must be an adjustment here and there.
And where is here and there? When people talk of government, government alone can’t do everything without us. If I know you are a thief and you have stolen billions and you are sitting on it, we are all Nigerians we know ourselves, we know what everybody has to a large extent and we are not saying this person is dishonest and he has taken our properties. How do we want government to know everything?
But you know the people that have stolen, you do know people who steal money, buy private planes, buy all types of properties and nothing is done to them.
When you asked a question at the beginning about $15 billion and the report is there, all what Nigerians need to do, instead of demonstrating over nothing, they should demonstrate and ask or they should call on the government to prosecute those people and collect their money because the money belongs to them and not the government. What is the government about? The people!
You are also a good friend of President Buhari, aren’t you?
Please, I am here in my personal capacity to be interviewed.
So talking about the press council decree, please, tells us more about this?
You want me to tell you or remind you of the painful period we went through? There was a Press Council decree and up till now we are in court with the government right from Abacha era which has put a lot of us in trouble particularly myself, uncle Sam Amuka, Ray Ekpo and later we brought in Nduka Obaigbena into the show. Three of us took them to court because the Press Council decree is such that you can’t print these papers and circulate it without sending 10 copies in advance, they have to read and okay it before you circulate it, which we said over our dead bodies. We went to court but some of us almost paid with our lives.
How long did that go on, sir? It went on for a very long time but up till now the decree is on the ground, it is still in effect but the problem is it has to be abolished, may be, by act of
When you talk about Nigeria sometimes, we the elites should be blamed for what is happening on our country for not rising up to make sure it is being addressed and for our needs we are living above our means. Our needs are higher than our income. Why should we live as a nation where ordinary tooth pick we are importing into the country and that tooth pick is being imported with dollar
the National Assembly or whatever. Even last week we were talking with the Minister of Information and he was asking me, NPAN that we should withdraw that case. We can’t withdraw that case, if they want that case to die they should just kill that legislation by themselves and then the association will withdraw that case from the court. We won the first round in court and we are still there.
Tell us, how long have you been fighting this?
From 1995, which is about 20 years, but the law is still there.
Does it require printers, publishers to send those copies before they print?
No, because we are in court the court has stopped everything and since it has been stopped by the court it is up to the government now if they want the Press Council to function they should cancel the law legally and then the proof writers should withdraw the case from the court.
In your opinion, Alhaji, what is keeping them from doing so?
They don’t even remember this and the only thing they remember about this is because the Press Council isn’t functioning and the Press Council can’t function under that kind of law because you will go to jail if that Press Council is allowed to operate with that law that is on ground. So the government should abolish the law so that our members can join the Press Council and if they continue as long as the law is there, the Press Council will be boycotted by the association.
You talked about Sani Abacha moments ago and I can’t help but think that’s 20 years plus ago. Has Nigeria come a long way since then in your opinion in development, freedom, has it progressed?
There is a lot of development here and there but the development supposed to be more. The development can’t be compared to the amount of money that has been taken out of the treasury, especially by the state governments. The governors are emperors in their own states, the only thing is that they aren’t controlling is the oxygen people are breathing.
Some ex-governors, who were imprisoned overseas, come back home and become heroes, how does that work?
I don’t know what you are talking about.
James Ibori! Well, I am not here to discuss James Ibori.
You can comment. You are a Nigerian, it is a free country.
Comment in what way? Assuming you say Ibori has gone to prison for money laundering or whatever you call it, is Ibori the only one that is supposed to go to prison?
No, there are plenty more. So, why Ibori alone?
Because he was the only one that was caught and the others haven’t been caught.
Are you saying that because they are caught they are all in court? They were granted bail.
That is the difference between Nigerian court and English court, Ibori was jailed in the UK
He was jailed in the UK but why don’t you wait till the case is finished?
He comes back and he was welcomed, what case? He is a hero here, he can run for President.
I can’t speak for Ibori, I can’t speak for the people who gave him hero’s welcome. That is his own community; maybe he has done something for his own community. Others, they stole but I am sure that they would be stoned by their own communities.
Alhaji, you said you travel a lot, when you arrive at a foreign country and you say you are Nigerian what reaction do you get?
Do I need to tell everyone I am a Nigerian when I arrive?
I think that green passport gives it away
I am proud of it and I would continue to be proud of it.
Are you proud of what your country men have done in the name of Nigeria?
I am not proud of what some of my country men did and they didn’t do it in the name if Nigeria, they did it in their own name but they happened to be Nigerians.
Looking forward, are you hopeful for the future of this nation?
I am very hopeful. I will give you a simple example; the previous year, few weeks ago about two and a half week ago there was Daily Trust lecture where the Minister of Finance indicated that when they came in, the recurrent expenditure that was N909 billion that the following year they came in they brought it down to N306 billion, just a quarter of what has been spent on recurrent because 90 percent of that budget went for recurrent and only 10 percent for capital and there is no way any country can develop like that. I expected the Minister of Finance to come out and tell Nigerians more about this kind of thing; this is how your money is being wasted and this is how your money is being saved. How can you spend 90 percent of the national budget on recurrent expenditure and that don’t include the states and local governments, that is only the national government.
What is the one thing you would say that is the most positive thing about Nigeria and Nigerians?
We are very resilient; we weather the storm under whatever situation. When you talk about Nigeria sometimes, we the elites should be blamed for what is happening on our country for not rising up to make sure it is being addressed and for our needs we are living above our means. Our needs are higher than our income. Why should we live as a nation where ordinary tooth pick we are importing into the country and that tooth pick is being imported with dollar. I was laughing and nearly hit my head on the bed when I was reading one guy’s tweet that I was being given dollar and I was making $1 billion every week and I said I wish they were giving me, I need it. So you can see how the country was run, everything we bring in and even the people who are travelling nobody is saying you should restrict people from travelling but what are they travelling for? Where for example you take British airways from here to London to go and come back and if it is first class that is 11, 000 US dollars, business class a minimum of 8,000 US dollars. All the people travelling what are they travelling for? You go to the airport; Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano airport and what have you and see the number of people travelling and I believe three quarter of the number of people travelling isn’t adding anything to the economic development of this country but the money they are taking out belongs to the nation.
There was a Press Council decree and up till now we are in court with the government right from Abacha era which has put a lot of us in trouble particularly myself, uncle Sam Amuka, Ray Ekpo and later we brought in Nduka Obaigbena into the show. Three of us took them to court because the Press Council decree is such that you can’t print these papers and circulate it without sending 10 copies in advance, they have to read and okay it before you circulate it, which we said over our dead bodies. We went to court but some of us almost paid with our lives… It went on for a very long time but up till now the decree is on the ground, it is still in effect but the problem is it has to be abolished, may be, by act of the National Assembly or whatever