In this interview, he bares his mind on President Muhammadu Buhari’s assets declaration, the pardon granted dismissed soldiers, as well as sundry issues.
Honourable Akandehari
Q: How would you describe President Muhammadu Buhari’s 100 days in office?
One hundred days is not enough to assess somebody, but it just tells us what to expect. Let us look at what he has done so far and the prospects for the future. I would say that he has really tried in his own little way on security and others.
But the number of people Boko Haram sect has killed in the last 100 days has surpassed that of former President Goodluck Jonathan. He summoned all the service chiefs the way Jonathan used to do. However, we cannot give him 100 percent pass because he only continued from where former President Jonathan stopped.
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Also, he has tried to bail out some states, where the governors are owing the workers salaries and nobody has come out to deny receiving the money. He has tried on that too. He is trying to re-engineer the polity as it relates to development. Now, we are enjoying electricity all over the country.
Q: How about his public declaration of assets?
On asset declaration, I would say that President Buhari has not been fair to the people. He came out to tell Nigerians during the campaign that he is very poor and that he didn’t have much money. I would like to say that there is no serving or former President of Nigeria that is poor.
He is looking at it from the monetary aspect, which is not the case. Weighing someone whether he is rich or poor depends on his or her asset. Somebody who has several cars, has N30 Million in his bank account, can we say that such a person is poor? The answer is no. It is a political gimmick; he used it and he was successful with it and I give him kudos for that.
Still on asset declaration, I want to say that Lagos state leads and others follow. Every elected political office holder in Lagos has declared his or her asset including our governor and if President Buhari is just declaring his own now, I would say that Lagos state leads while others follow.
However, it is a step in the right direction because once the president humbled himself to declare his asset as the number one citizen of the country, it means every political office holder should also declare his or her assets.
Q: Can we talk about Buhari’s fight against corruption?
I have a little reservation on that because we are giving too much power to the president on this. He has the power to push it to the national assembly and initiate investigation, but he should not do it in a military fiat; this is a democratic dispensation.
He should not also use favouritism by probing some people and shielding others, if he does that, then the whole exercise is faulty. If the process is not open to us, then he would know that it is not right.
He has to do it in the fairest manner where people would not point accusing fingers at him that he is probing PDP members while protecting APC members. Every former public office holder should be probed if we mean business.
Q: Buhari has been accused of being biased in his appointments. How do you react?
He doesn’t have any excuse having about 31 appointees with 24 from the North, three from the South-west, one from the South-south; there is no basis for that. Now, who is the less privileged?
We are the less privileged. People have said that Buhari is coming to do the bidding of the north and this is coming to pass. Look at the report of the constitutional conference organised by former President Jonathan; the northerners said that he should discard it and he has done so.
He is my president, I believe that God chose him at this particular time. God knows why He brought him now, so I am not going to castigate him. Also, I would not plead with him because it is our right. If you want to carry everybody along and you don’t want to use sectional or regional sentiment, you have to give everybody equal right of participation.
Where that is not happening is an aberration. Does it mean that we don’t have any brilliant people in the South-west? Does it mean that Niger-Delta cannot be represented or the South-east does not have people that can represent them? That is a very short-coming and I want to discountenance myself from any southerner that will favour such a decision.
Q: How will you describe the last three months of the Lagos state government; both the executive and legislative?
We have been wonderful, the records are there; go and look at what this 8th Assembly in Lagos State has done within a short period of time in comparison with what the 5th, 6th and 7th assemblies in the state.
We might not have passed any law, the motions we passed have been very brilliant, motions are elements of law. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode is a dogged fighter and he is very intelligent.
Watch him, some people thought he would not perform, but he has been performing. He told officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) not to arrest anybody or seize vehicles anyhow and he is doing the bidding of the people. If you want to put more punishments on the people, then what kind of government are you?
Q: The federal government recently pardoned about 3,200 out of the 5,000 soldiers dismissed by the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan for dereliction of duty. Is it a step in the right direction?
That has a political undertone, they just want to prove that what former President Jonathan did was wrong and that he should now do what some people want.
These are the people that were found wanting because they evaded their duty posts in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgents in the north and we say they should be forgiven. If the judgment has not been fair, then it is okay. But it is political to say that one party is better than the other and you jettison the law in the process.
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That is not fair. I remember that President Buhari made a statement during the conference of the Nigerian Bar Association in Abuja that we should not protect criminality. But what they have done is to protect criminality. Who is now indulging in criminality? Is it the lawyers or the executive? I would tag it executive lawlessness.
Q: Don’t you think their pardon was due to the statement by former chief of defence staff, Alex Badeh, that the Nigerian Army does not have enough weapons?
I said if it is based on injustice, equity and fairness, then it is okay. But if it is based on a political point, then it is a very wrong signal. Also, for the fact that President Buhari said that lawyers should not protect criminals, somebody who escaped his duty post and exposed the people to the insurgents has committed a treasonable offence, if the president is now using his power to set them free, so be it.
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