Unless Government Tackles Unemployment, Insecurity Will Persist, Says Ibrahim

Mallam Isyaku Ibrahim is a first Republic politician, foundation member, and member, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before his defection to the defunct Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) after the 2011 general elections. In this interview with SAMSON EZEA, he spoke on the state of the nation and expressed regrets that Nigerian situation has continued to deteriorate with each passing administration.

DO you think the country has recorded the desired progress since independence?

No, I’m disappointed in the sense that this is not the country we dreamt of when we fought for independence. When we were growing up in this country, we had high hopes, because of the foundation laid by our founding fathers. Our founding fathers loved this country, they loved the people and they gave us the hope for a better Nigeria.

  Remember that I was a member of Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU). NEPU was a political party, which came out from the North to fight against certain practices, which were happening within our traditional institutions then, such as the Native Authority (NA), injustice, unfairness, lack of equity and inequality. So NEPU came out with this ideological platform that we had to fight against certain institutions that were not working for the development and progress of the people. So, it was this ideological foundation that all of us the younger people in NEPU had. We were not there because NEPU had money, but because it was a political party for the common man headed by our good leader, Malam Aminu Kano of the blessed memory and his colleagues.

  But today the situation is quite different. Politics is no longer about ideology and people’s welfare, but more of business and wealth amassment.

  But in my 56 years experience in politics, things have changed. People come into politics as a new line of business; they make money whether as civil servants or whatever. Now the ordinary man doesn’t matter to them, because they can use their money to buy votes. The ordinary Nigerian has been sidelined. We are just deceiving ourselves; because it is just temporary, there is no way we can build a nation, without the peoples’ genuine mandate.

  Conservatively, we have more than 10 million unemployed graduates working on our streets. The leaders do not seem keen on addressing this fundamental problem. We talk about security, how can we talk about security when we have ignored young unemployed graduate in our country? That is enough to pose a serious security risk. 

  If we don’t address these fundamental problems, there will be anarchy or revolution and the revolution does not give a damn about who is Isyaku Ibrahim, or who is Jonathan; it would just wipe us out, all these big buildings in Abuja, all the estates, the ordinary men would occupy those buildings. Unless we address these fundamental national issues we will have problem addressing our security issues. So, I call on the leadership of this country to make it its number one priority.

You have outlined your worry based on lack of ideology among the current political leadership in the country, can we zero it down to your former party the PDP that has always been in one form of leadership crisis or the other? 

  I’m not surprised at all. When we founded the PDP, the manifesto of the party was well articulated, very interesting, a caring manifesto for the people of Nigeria. Based on that, when people came out to vie for the President of Nigeria, I supported Dr. Alex Ekwueme because I believed he has worked with Alhaji Shehu Shagari, he understood what democracy was all about.

   I did not support General Olusegun Obasanjo because I believed he is an ex-military man, who does not understand democracy. But since we were in politics, we went to the party convention in Jos, Obasanjo was able to emerge as our presidential candidate. If I’m a true democrat, I have to respect the opinion of the majority. So, we all rallied round him and Nigerians trusted us, and gave our party a mandate in the election. When Obasanjo came in, he started dismantling the manifesto and structures of the party in connivance with some sycophants and power mongers in the party.

  When we went for the election of our National Chairman at the party convention in Abuja, there was my late good friend, Chief Sunday Awoniyi, who was contesting for the position of the PDP Chairman then, but Obasanjo came with somebody by the name Barnabas Gemade. They manipulated the election process in favour of Gemade at the convention. It was at the party’s convention at Eagles Square that we started experiencing what is called rigging in the party politics.

  Before then, I had confronted Obasanjo that I heard rumour that Chief Tony Anenih and Alhaji Ibrahim Bunu were going round with his choice candidate Gemade, he denied it. He said he didn’t know anything about it, but eventually Gemade emerged. But after the first convention, which Gemade presided over, not quite up to a week, Obasanjo wrote me a letter that he would like a few of us to meet and discuss over an issue. I then replied asking him in what capacity was he calling us for a meeting? That we just finished national convention, how can we now sit and start another meeting? Knowing the mentality of Obasanjo, any gathering where he is not the chairman, he never feels comfortable. 

  He just couldn’t understand in a convention where Gemade who he just brought in was the chairman, with he (Obasanjo) sitting by one side, that he was not comfortable with it.     

  Immediately, Obasanjo manipulated his way to emerge as the leader of the party, I gradually withdrew from the party, because I could not understand why a president of the country voted into office by Nigerians should be so concerned about becoming the leader of his party, instead of providing good governance for the country. 

  As time went on, I just got myself withdrawn from the PDP, because I knew that they were going to collapse. PDP is in a total mess. That is what we are experiencing, and we will never get anything good out of PDP, because they have cheated and impoverished Nigerians so much. 

But your friend, Chief Audu Ogbeh as a national chairman tried to instill some discipline in the party, don’t you think it was a good attempt?

  It was a good attempt, but what happened to him after? Obasanjo threw him out because I, Ogbeh, and a few others in the party shared the same opinion on political issues. Ogbeh is a radical person and Obasanjo was not comfortable with him. 

Given your position now, how do you then reflect on the letter written recently to President Jonathan by Obasanjo? 

  Please don’t give a wrong interpretation of democracy with treachery. The letter was nothing, but an act of treachery. Who brought Goodluck Jonathan? How did Jonathan emerge as the governor of Bayelsa? Can’t you journalists in Nigeria reveal all these facts? So I’m warning you that you should not compare the act of treachery with democracy.

  A democrat is a democrat and a traitor is a traitor. He brought Jonathan. I never knew there was somebody called Jonathan. It was Obasanjo who brought Jonathan, and he knew that millions of Nigerians didn’t know Jonathan then. But with his perpetual act of treachery, he managed to bring in Jonathan as the governor of Bayelsa State against the wishes of the people of the state either by default or otherwise.

  So, democracy is not an act of treachery. It is all about respect for the rule of law. Therefore, Obasanjo’s letter to his boy Jonathan is nothing because both of them have betrayed the trust of Nigerians.

  In the history of the military in the world, there has not been a general who is as rich as Obasanjo. So, as far as I’m concerned Jonathan is the son of Obasanjo.

Is your new party, All Progressives Congress (APC) different from the PDP you are criticising?

  I’m in APC from the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). I knew General Muhammad Buhari through his nephew, one of the famous journalists called Mamman Daura, who was one time Managing Editor of the New Nigerian Newspaper. He is my close friend. 

 I knew Buhari as a calm and basically honest person. When there was a military coup, I was the one who tagged his government, a military junta. When he left power I took my time to watch him carefully.

   When he wrote to me that he was going into politics, I encouraged him and made him to understand that the only best form of government is democracy. In my reply, I told him that at the moment, if PDP did not produce a good presidential candidate again, he should count on my vote, so in 2003, when Obasanjo emerged again as the PDP flag bearer I did not vote for him, I voted for Buhari.

   I have never voted for Obasanjo in any case. In 1999, I voted for Chief Olu Falae. I know Falae as a civilian and politician. So, that is how I came to join hands with Buhari because he is clean, decent and honest. Those were my attributes of the quality of a leader that I saw in our founding fathers who were not corrupt.   

   Besides, Buhari succeeded in leaving one legacy, that of discipline. Today in Nigeria, every month end we observe the environmental sanitation.

Some of your colleagues in the Second Republic still find it difficult to forgive General Buhari, who they alleged truncated the Second Republic. Why?

  If a group in the military institution decides to overthrow a constitutional government, it is not the decision of an individual, but of the military institution. That is why I referred to it as a military junta, because I was fighting against an institution for aborting a democratic government, not as an individual. So, some of them because they are very weak, they don’t even understand, they were politicians, they couldn’t understand the difference between the military institution and political institution. So, they said oh! Buhari jailed me for so, so number of years. Buhari alone did not jail anybody. They had Supreme Military Council  (SMC) and each of them was a participant in the decision.