Human rights lawyer, Tunji Abayomi, in this interview with Assistant Politics Editor, DANIEL KANU, makes case for the actions of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government, among other contending issues which include his next political move.
What is your next political move?
I will run for the governorship position of my state, Ondo, and I know I will make good things happen. My state needs a disciplined leader with high commitment, who at least can keep his eyes from public wealth; a person who is frugal in management of the little that is left by the bad ruler that is in power.
What is your take on some of the revelations of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration so far?
It is certainly shocking and perplexing because it gives you the impression that the government went mad and totally forgot that it’s responsible to the people and that it was its duty to safeguard their interest. It’s even more disturbing to see the level of abuse of office and constitutional breach, considering that no government is allowed to spend public money without approved budget by the representatives of the people.
The opposition say what is happening is simply targeted at ridiculing the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
But the point is this: if we are all united in fighting corruption with regards to public wealth and the management of our resources, who else is to be targeted? You can only target those who managed the resources and enquire whether the resources were managed in accordance with the rule of law and in the interest of the people. So to my mind, the shout of the opposition is not only unwarranted but useless. Is it their expectation because they are in the opposition, President Buhari should close his eyes to gross abuse of office and utter government recklessness. I think that will be pushing their luck too far. It is only those that are involved that are being called upon to answer question on their stewardship. If you have nothing to hide I do not think there is anything to fear.
Also, critics of the Buhari government are asking why those in the APC states are not being called upon for any probe.
The governments in those states have a right to probe the government before it. If you have done well, why should you be afraid of any probe? Certainly in probing PDP, the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government is opening itself to future probes. Basically, it is laying a different and appropriate framework for future government in terms of management of national resources. So, if there are states in which there is corruption, let them make a case to the government in power to do the doable and in the interest of the people to dutifully do the needful as part of their responsibility to the common good.
What is your take on the incidences of court orders that have been flagrantly disobeyed by the APC government?
That is not true. I dealt with that in my recent interview on TVC (Television Continental). I know that some of my colleagues like Femi Falana had spoken about disobedience of the order of court, but there is nothing like that. Their complaint is that the accused were re-arrested. As far as I know the law, if a man is released on bail for offence A, as soon as he steps out, he can be re-arrested for offence B. But he cannot be re-arrested for offence A. If you now take him to court for that offence B, as soon as he is released, he can again be re-arrested for offence C and take him to custody. I think the best way to avoid the embarrassing and continuous re-arrest is to avoid doing contrary to the law. So when you are talking of responsibility and human rights, I don’t think individual rights disdain the collective rights of the people in a state. The truth is that Buhari is on the right track and very soon the gains will be more visible.
Your party promised change during its campaigns. Reactions from the public are that the economy is harsh and people are losing their jobs.
Why will people not lose their jobs? And why will the economy not be harsh on the people if billions of dollars that were expected to be committed to growth and development is used anyhow. If millions of naira (public money) is distributed to push the political agenda of one single man, if millions (of naira) are spent outside the budget, if the budget is in itself meaningless in terms of execution, the harshness that will be faced is the harshness brought on this nation by the immediate past government. And Buhari has said it very clearly that there is simply no money. No money to do anything. In addition to that, we have to face the reality that we don’t have a whole lot of income in this country presently. The oil, our monolithic income source, is so embarrassingly down, even lower than our projected budget value. Things are going to be tough. The people must face the reality and prepare for it in order to rebuild this nation. I don’t think Buhari will deceive the people. He has not so far. He has opened the file. The file, until now, was marked top secret; but now it is marked top open. And he is saying the people have a right to know about their own affairs and how terribly the government that was supposed to protect them had in fact abused them.
I don’t know if you are concerned about the free fall of the naira. Each day, there is this free fall of the naira and the economy continues to go down. Economic experts are saying the government is not facing the reality of the economy to know what to do.
The reality of the economy will be based on, first of all, sufficient money to make money, sufficient money to increase national capacity. It will also be based on creating enabling environment for business interest to come to Nigeria and to thrive in Nigeria. All of that became absent towards the tail of the last government. The situation is even considerably worse than anticipated by the government. One of the top leaders of government told me that what they found are facts that are stranger than fiction. What the government is doing is first of all to find money. If you look at this country, productivity is extremely low. Industrial production is low, material production is low, consumer production is low. We have a large population that can engender big commerce. But the problem is that we don’t have appropriate policies and responsible leadership to push these good policies that create possibility for the happiness of the people to relieve them of their pains. Take a simple thing like education. Why should we send so many of our children to Britain? Nigerians have spent billions just to train their children in Britain because we don’t just have schools. So how do you want our children to be competitive in the world? To make the situation worse, when you send them there and they come back, they can’t find jobs. You spend so much money to train your children in the best universities in Britain; they come back to Nigeria and found no jobs. When a nation is in a position where it cannot employ its best children, that nation is in problem, deep problem. That is where Nigeria is today. What Buhari is doing is essentially in the midst of vast problems of national development, to find some ideals to hang on to in order to build something that will at least last.
Some critics say the government made so much noise in the cabinet it wanted to put together; but at the end, the ones that were selected to be ministers are old faces and majority of them were in the PDP.
Old faces that are given assignments to project new ideals. There is nothing wrong with that. I think we should wait to know whether the ideals will be new or old. I think Babatunde Fashola (Minister of Power, Works and Housing) is well rated in terms of performance. If we take Babachir D. Lawal (Secretary to Government of the Federation), he is a universal man.If we take Dr. Chris Ngige (Minister of Labour), he is a respected, committed man to the development of the people as demonstrated when he was governor. So I do not understand what people mean. I don’t think there is a philosophy that says that old people should be jettisoned for new ones. What we should be concerned about is whether we get result. That should be our focus. I can appreciate the position of Buhari to look for honest leaders, because this nation has long been polluted, so terribly polluted by corruption, that to find clean people is a herculean task. And he needed the time to look for them, so that the promises of democracy which he gave to the Nigerian nation will not have been defeated.
But the nomination of Rotimi Amaechi was heavily criticised.
The criticisms were largely political. And understandably, the same criticism that President Buhari is facing from PDP are largely political. Olisa Metuh, the publicity secretary of PDP, is detained because of N460 million or thereabouts of public money that was traced to his account. And members of the party are giving the government ultimatum. Isn’t that irresponsible? To my mind, if you are really a serious political party, what you should do is to insist that he shouldn’t have collected the money, especially money without budget as required by the constitution. Budget requires that the end for which money is to be approved must be approved by the National Assembly. Instead of understanding that, as a constitutional duty and responsibility, the President must call him to account, they are making noise. So all the noise against Amaechi, I don’t see anything unless you can bring concrete evidence, and if you have a problem you go to court.
The people are also worried that even if you go to court, there is corruption there. Instead of being the hope of the common man, it has become the hope of the rich.
Yes I agree. There is corruption in the judiciary. Judiciary needs to cleanse itself, especially the leaders in the judiciary. A lot of times, judges are corrupted by lawyers. At one instance, money was sent to a judge, and the judge said ‘no I can’t take this money because it is contrary to the ethics of my profession’. And he told his chief judge, and the chief judge said, ‘oh, you don’t want the money, please I want it, send it to me.’ The judiciary has lost its value largely; it has been subjected to influence peddling, money peddling etc. But that is largely the fault of leaders of government, particularly in the executive arm. If you are a governor and you are stealing public money, you will close your eyes to any other department doing it. But if you are not, the philosophy will go round. Under Buhari, people understand that you cannot just be collecting money merely because it is government money. Government money is the people’s money. And government is a trustee. And a trustee does not go outside its trust. He must live within it. And living within it entails that you spend money for the purpose it is approved by law; that is through the National Assembly. I think that is just how it is.
What will you say of the unrestrained defection of PDP members to the APC? People are saying within a short time, the APC will look more like the PDP.
I don’t believe so. When people move from one place to another, they live according to the philosophy of that place. If you leave House A, and you come to House B, in House B you may find out you have to wake up early in the morning, 6 am to sweep the floor. May be in House A you sweep the floor just once a week. So I believe that PDP’s coming is good, but it is not going to change anything. They will have to live by the philosophy of the objectives and ideals of the APC. It is when they fail to do that, that we can complain. But largely, I don’t even believe the problem is with regard to PDP or APC.
There are people in the PDP that stand for something, just as there are people in APC that don’t stand for anything. But I think it is important to have leaders who have sufficient personality character and sufficient commitment to high values to lead the people.
Where do you see APC taking Nigeria in the next four years?
APC is going to establish an appropriate framework for official government. It is going to teach Nigeria how public money is to be used, teach Nigeria the ideals of service and how service is to be discharged. It’s going to teach Nigeria that public service can be enhanced to a position of high level of intelligence. It’s going to make Nigerians see what their money can do for them, improve on employment, on utilities, etc., and to teach Nigeria the type of characters that they should elect to lead them.
What about the sweet promises of the APC such as power improvement, infrastructure development, free food for children in primary schools etc.?
I think the first thing that the government is doing, and I believe it is doing well, is to lay a solid foundation. A lot will change soon, but our people must learn to be a little patience for the realisation of their hope.
