Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, in this encounter with Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, talks on activities of his Ministry, President Goodluck Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda and why the president should be re-elected to pilot the ship of Nigeria for another four years.
Ministry of Interior and President Goodluck Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda
The Transformation Agenda of President Jonathan is the vehicle through which he had enunciated his development plans for Nigeria. And I insist that for the first time in the history of this country, a government is driving the reconstruction of the country via an ideological platform. That is what the Transformation Agenda represents. In a nutshell, it simply means that we must do things differently from how they used to be done in the past – a trend that has left us where we are.
As a minister under his administration, I have taken deliberate steps to ensure that the Ministry of Interior and its parastatals key into the Transformation Agenda of Mr. President. And so when we came, one of the first things we embarked on was to change the mindset of the people that work in the ministry; to set an agenda in line with the Transformation Agenda. That means also making people believe that by doing things differently from how we had been doing it, we will be able to achieve results. That was the first task we embarked on. That is why we have been able to successfully implement certain development strategies that have yielded positive results.
We have virtually digitised all our transactions. We have automated the business and citizenship department of the ministry. We introduced the fire alert system in the Federal Fire Service. We introduced the National Fire Safety Code in the Federal Fire Service. In Immigration, we introduced a new visa regime essentially to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country because we laid down conditions where people can come in and do business in Nigeria with some windows of enablement. We introduced, for the first time in the life of this country, visa at point of entry. And I can tell you that that has been very successfully implemented. We have a brand new passport office in the Immigration Headquarters now. Since 1963 that the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) was established, we still wouldn’t have a passport office, a designated place where people could easily work into and obtain their passports. They had to go to the NIS and scout for the department of passport before you would locate it. And so, within three months, I insisted that the abandoned passport office project must be completed and I personally supervised it.
Less than six months upon my assumption of office, Mr. President graciously approved the arms squad segment of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). These were people who were charged with the responsibility of protecting critical national infrastructure, our oil pipelines and electricity cables with bare hands until now. But today, we have the full complement of an arms squad segment and over 1,000 of such personnel have trained to bear arms. Nigerian military and other security agencies have cooperated by donating some arms to this squad. So, we have the full complement of arms to protect the very persons that must protect our critical infrastructure. Today, we have a segment in the NSCDC which essentially has the responsibility of detecting and gathering intelligence for use by other security agencies and NSCDC.
Because of the unfolding terrorist scenario, NSCDC has the full complement of anti-terror unit within the security outfit and they have training along with other security agencies in this country and outside this country to counter-terrorism. We have a biological and chemical weapon unit in NSCDC, all in an attempt to restructure and reposition NSCDC to live up to its mandate of ensuring internal security of this country.
Our prisons, despite the challenges that we face in recent times resulting from attacks by armed bandits leading to the release of prisoners, are gradually coming to terms with the reality that it is the responsibility of the service to ensure the security of inmates. We are virtually rounding off many prisons facilities in the country. Only recently, Mr. President graciously approved the construction of additional prisons facilities because of the upsurge of crimes and criminality and the attendant to rein in perpetrators of such acts.
Transformation Agenda impacting on Nigerians?
Jonathan inherited from past administrations moribund social infrastructure. Our roads were impassable. Our hospitals, as they say, were mere consulting units. At a point, some of them were not even qualified to be consulting institutions. Our schools lacked direction. At a point, the standard of education was nose-diving at a very alarming rate. Our airports were eyesore. Our drive towards providing sustainable potable water for the people was non-existent. Our agriculture was nose-diving to a level that food insecurity threatened the nation.
But today, listening to the Minister of Water Resources enumerate the various abandoned projects in dams and boreholes that have been resuscitated by this administration and new ones that have been constructed, a solid foundation has been laid through the water supply roadmap for sustainable water supply for the people.
Today, our roads are wearing new looks. Abandoned road projects inherited by this administration have been taken up, resuscitated and completed. New construction works have been undertaken, many of them completed and more under construction and nearing completion. Our airports are wearing new looks, courtesy of the rehabilitation across the country.
Our agriculture has taken a new dimension for the better. And given the scenario of falling oil prices and the cry by Nigerians for a diversification of our economy, surely you can’t but give it to Mr. President that his team of economists certainly are working in the right direction with the improvement in our agriculture today and the setting up of various agricultural zones in the country.
If you go to the power sector, the various sectors have been unbundled and the private sector has been convinced into keying into the federal government’s drive to ensure steady power supply to drive our economy. Our education is taking a new dimension for the better. Several institutions, universities, polytechnics and infrastructure have been improved upon. Don’t forget that as it is under the watch of President Jonathan that 12 new universities were established. That means by implication that every state now has a federal university. And that definitely eases the burden of admission by our students. Libraries and other critical infrastructure have been provided for tertiary institutions.
With the creation and construction of Almajiri schools to complement the formal regular educational institutions, this country, in terms of education, is on the right path to regaining its past glory.
I therefore can conclude that through the instrumentality of the transformation agenda of Mr. President, a solid foundation for the reconstruction of Nigeria has been laid. What is required is the goodwill of the Nigerian people, the support of the Nigerian people, the cooperation of the Nigerian people to capitalise on this launch pad to development that the transformation agenda has provided.
Jonathan getting re-elected on March 28, 2015
I am very confident that Mr. President, come March 28, 2015, will be re-elected as the president of Nigeria, notwithstanding the rhetoric of the opposition, notwithstanding the false propaganda of the opposition, notwithstanding the enchantment that these rhetoric apparently create in some sections of the elite of this country. I still believe that the average Nigerian knows what is good for him or her.
Buhari getting support that may threaten Jonathan’s re-election
Nobody goes into election wishing to lose. I see All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari, as a challenger to the office of the presidency. But I do not see him and his campaign organisation and APC as capable of staging any major upset on the way of President Jonathan’s victory because this election is about issues and facts. This election is about record. Luckily, Buhari had ruled this country. Jonathan is the President of this country. So, these two candidates of the two main political parties have records on the basis of which to judge.
Even in the face of daunting insecurity in the country, even in the face of daunting challenges of distraction from the opposition, this government has remained focused, building on the very foundation that it has laid to take Nigeria to the next level of development against a former head of state whose records are records of a very tyrannical administration that was anchored on throwing people into jail on spurious charges for 200 to 300 years, even beyond the reasonable level of life expectancy of some of these people. It was an administration whose head authorised the killing of people on the basis of spurious charges, including women. That was an administration under the present candidate of the APC that had little respect for the rule of law; that had to suspend basic human rights protection in the constitution because, in his own words, those provisions wouldn’t allow him administer the state in a draconian way.
When these records are juxtaposed with the humane approach of a passionate, compassionate leader like President Jonathan, Nigerians should be wiser to choose between what is good for them against the desire of some angry politicians who find it difficult to live outside government; who have put themselves together as the main opposition whose main desire is to assume office and acquire power without necessarily appreciating the challenges that this country and many countries of the world are facing today. So when they talk about this government being unable to do this or do that, and they are thinking about the possible change that in their expectation that could bring a change in their lives, they forget that some of the factors responsible for some of the inadequacies of this present administration are the consequences of international occurrences over which no human being in Nigeria has control.
Essentially, I want to say that the international meltdown in economy, which resulted from the lowering price of crude oil that is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, is a factor over which no presidential candidate or a president has control. And so where is that magic wand that any government that seeks to replace this government will bring to bear in an international environment that has resulted in the economic meltdown resulting from the lowering oil prices to influence the direction of governance? So, if you look at it from that perspective, it means that the propaganda of the opposition is to capitalise on the challenges facing a nation to work on the sensibilities of Nigerians to believe that if they come to power they will correct the apparent failure or the purported failure of the administration.
If you look at the characters in the opposition party today, they are people who felt disaffected one way or another; people who were members of the PDP but who have lost the platform upon which they can access power and have aggregated in the political platform now to challenge the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The director-general of Buhari Campaign Organisation, for instance, is the governor of Rivers State elected on the platform of PDP who spent more than 80 per cent of the eight years of his governance on the platform of the PDP and the manifesto of the PDP. This was also a governor who was Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly for eight years on the platform of PDP.
If you move further North, Rabiu Kwankwoso that is most virulent in attacking President Jonathan today and the PDP was a governor on the platform of PDP, a Minister of Defence on the platform of PDP, and until recently a governor elected on the platform of PDP, using the platform and manifesto of PDP.
Senator Bukola Saraki, who is today attacking the PDP as a very bad party, was governor of Kwara State for eight years on the platform of PDP using the machinery and manifesto of PDP, and until recently a senator elected on the platform of PDP. We have Aminu Tambuwal, elected on the platform of PDP. We have Aminu Masari, the governorship candidate of APC in Katsina State now, who was elected Speaker of House of Representatives on PDP platform.
If you look at the 36 candidates that are now flying the flag of APC for the governorship election, about 18 of them are former members of the PDP who lost in the primaries of the PDP in the various states, including Benue, Katsina and Kano.
These are people who cannot turn around now and claim that they are saints while the PDP is the devil. They cannot say because they left PDP because they lost primary elections in PDP or got disaffected in PDP, therefore they have become the change agents that Nigeria needs.
Definitely, this is not the change that Nigeria needs, because if you take a cue from Lagos State, their slogan is change in Lagos State. Change from Governor Babatunde Fashola to who? Change in mere dramatis personae?
So if you look at it, Nigerians will get wiser by the day and know that these apostles of change are definitely not qualified to preach change because Nigerians know the true change that Nigeria needs. That true change can be clearly seen in President Jonathan through the monumental achievements he has recorded using the instrumentality of the Transformation Agenda. Nigerians cannot be deceived by those who do not mean well for the country, but are only interested in the acquisition of power. President Jonathan remains the best option at this point in time.
