Chief Bode Mustapha is a former member of the House of Representatives and erstwhile National Auditor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview, he speaks on his expectations from the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration. Excerpts:
A new administration headed by Muhammadu Buhari has been sworn in. What are your expectations from him?
Unfortunately, he has a very arduous task ahead of him.The country is practically in comatose, the country is at the precipice and from the figures that are being bandied in terms of what the economy is like, I do not envy the President at all. And this is coupled with the issue of fuel scarcity which has been on for about four weeks and has been crippling the economy, bringing it virtually totally to a standstill. Power is not being generated because there is no gas and Shiroro (Dam) is down. The price of petrol today is N300 per litre. Talk of kidnapping all over the place, Boko Haram; so he’s fighting too many battles at different ends.
The economy, security, power. If you don’t have a secured environment, your economy cannot thrive and without power, there is no industrialisation. The three components are interwoven. So, I believe that should be his three main focal areas. But another very crucial area of focus has to do with people who have looted this economy and the loots? If an ordinary man on the street steals N10,000 and is sentenced to one year imprisonment and people who steal millions or billions of Naira carry out what is called plea bargaining, to me, that plea bargaining itself is corruption.
So, I believe that he has to fight corruption head-on, go after the loots and the looters and create an environment whereby lawyers will not always be asking for stay of executions of this and that, and people who steal this country blind will be walking free while ordinary people who are just petty thieves are languishing in jail. We have just seen now that a former president in Israel is going to eight months imprisonment despite his age. So, what the hell? There should not be any sacred cow. If you dip your hand in the till, you should go down for it.
Some Nigerians are of the opinion that focusing on anti-corruption war alone may derail the Buhari government and may not bring much dividends. Do you share their sentiments?
To me, what I would advise is that if there is a need to strengthen the law that established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Commission (ICPC), so be it. If there is a need to make them really independent and not an appendage of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) because if you have a corrupt AGF who connives with looters, the prosecution will never see the light of the day.
Like you have an outgone Attorney-General of the Federation who has said you cannot prosecute unless you take permission from his office because it’s not up to N50 million or that kind of crap. If 20 people steal N50 million each, that’s N1 billion. It’s like splitting contracts. So, I believe that if these agencies are strengthened and they are made totally independent and concomitant with that, as we have election tribunals, let us have special tribunals and have a time frame within which all these cases must be disposed off.
Would it not amount to duplication of duties if special tribunals are set up to try corruption cases?
It’s not duplication of duties. Look at how many governors having EFCC cases on their neck. Look at how many people facing corruption charges levelled against them based on this fuel subsidy scam and they are walking the streets. Unless you take the bull by the horn and make sure that everybody realises that irrespective of who you are, if you commit an offence, you will pay for it; believe me, everybody will think twice. When we had the Oduah-gate thing, you had in Ghana a minister who just said within a particular period, she wanted to make $1 million. She has not even dipped her hand in the till and she got fired.
And here we had in Nigeria somebody, who it was established that those BMW cars had their prices inflated, they were not captured in the budget and she got off with a slap on the wrist. Nothing ever came out of it. So, what signal are you sending to other people? As long as you are close to the powers that be, you can do and undo. That shouldn’t be the way.
There have been agitations recently for the reduction in the cost of governance. Do you think Nigeria is spending so much on government?
Yes, it’s true Nigeria is spending so much on governance. I’ve always said it that this country needs either a parliamentary system of government or part-time legislature because the economy of this country cannot continue to sustain this cost of governance.
As a former lawmaker, do you think the nation’s bicameral legislature would be willing to accept part-time legislature?
I haven’t said they would be willing, I am only suggesting because you have to look for ways of cutting costs. What is Nigeria, for example, doing with the Godknows- what number of aircraft in the presidential fleet? It’s ridiculous. How many planes does the British Prime Minister have in his fleet? When he’s travelling, he’s flying British Airways, of course in first class.
So, what do you need the fleet for? Because it’s not just buying these aircraft, maintaining these aircraft, keeping them in the air; these things cost money and we take it for granted. But these costs add up. So much of banqueting in Aso Rock cost money. To me, it’s ridiculous. There must be a way of cutting cost in governance. I don’t see this economy being able to sustain this level of expenditure over the next five to 10 years.
The issue of unemployment has reached an alarming proportion in Nigeria. How do you think the Buhari administration can create more jobs for Nigerians?
Already there is a blueprint by Muhammadu Buhari, which the Vice President spoke about recently and I believe it is doable. You see, there is population implosion all over the world. The only difference is that in other climes, concerted effort is being made to create employment unlike here in Nigeria.
What is your view on the implementation of the confab report? Would you want the new administration to go ahead with it?
What is the confab report? How can you implement it? The confab had no constitutional backup. It wasn’t sovereign because there was a legislature in place. Maybe, if there is to be constitution amendment and that report is handed over to the next legislature at the national level and even at state level and they can see what can be taken out of that in amending the constitution; to me the whole of the confab was a charade and waste of money. It was just a total waste of Nigeria’s money – money that was not available. To achieve what? What has it achieved at the end of the day? It would gather dust somewhere. And I don’t think that at this point in time, the priority of the President is about confab report. There are more serious issues facing Nigeria as at today. I’ve talked about it – security, power, creation of employment.
Those are more serious issues than confab report. In which way has the confab report addressed the challenge of unemployment? What section of that report has tackled power? How much did they talk about in terms of security in that report? And what did that report have to say about the economy, the debt profile, revamping the economy, diversifying the economy? There should be some useful parts in that report that could be useful to government. But, to me, the amount of money that was wasted on that exercise was not worth it.
You have a confab of which 60 or 65 per cent of all the delegates were selected by government; that means they have gone in there for a government agenda. In spite of the successes of the 2015 general elections, some observers still feel that there is need for electoral reforms.
Do you think this should be pursued by the Buhari administration? I think the first thing first is to always have an independent umpire with the personality, mindset and honesty of purpose of Professor Attahiru Jega. I don’t know him as a person but I salute his courage.
And the best thing he has ever done to this country, and which even America applauded, is the issue of card readers. Many states are going to tribunal because there were more votes than accredited voters. That has come because of the use of card readers.
People said the card readers were failures; it’s not true. The first thing the card reader does is to ensure that the card you have brought is genuine card, belongs to you and is not cloned. The issue of fingerprint is secondary. When you come with a genuine card, once you put the card in, it shows the card is genuine, from the picture, they know it’s you. That is why they had the incident forms. Of course, we can still improve but we have really gone very far with Jega and I doff my hat for him.
Some people have suggested that the privatisation of refineries as well as deregulation of the downstream sector would go a long way in reducing the hardship usually faced by Nigerians over fuel supply. Do you support this idea?
It’s a two-edge sword. When the President was Minister of Petroleum, we had 20 states and he built 20 depots and there was no problem with fuel. But there are saboteurs within the system. It’s like power. The people who import diesel will never want us to have regular power supply, otherwise they are out of business.
The people who import generating sets will never want us to have regular power supply, the people who import inverters will never want us to have power. So, when you are dealing with this kind of cartel, it takes a person with strong will to take them head-on. And when you talk of fuel subsidy, to me, I believe that the President should take the bold step of removing it, and my reason is very simple.
Today, we are talking of buying fuel for N400 (per litre) and people are queuing to buy it; at N300, people are queuing to buy it. If petroleum product was selling for about $120 or $130 per barrel, now it’s $60 per barrel and you are telling me there is subsidy, then somebody is fooling somebody. We are not idiots in this country.
People are just collecting money in this country for the socalled subsidy. We have seen so many cases that are being prosecuted that people were just doctoring documents and they are walking free because they are paying lawyers millions of Naira. Professor Tam David-West used to be Minister of Petroleum and he did the calculations; there is nothing like subsidy.
It’s a scam. So, the first thing first is to take out the so-called subsidy. Let the government deal directly if they are to buy products. They can sell even some of our products abroad and resold to us if we don’t have the capacity here. It would always end up cheaper. And let our refineries function and allow more refineries.
Open it all. Dangote refinery is going to start in Lagos. But unless you quickly check and ensure that the pricing is right, he too can come on the market and undercut Nigerians and sell at high prices and he would say he used to buy it for so much. Nigeria is the only country that I know – and we are the sixth largest producer of oil in the world – where the price of petroleum product is this high. It’s abnormal and scandalous. So, I believe that once the President takes care of that and blocks as many loopholes as possible, the price will come down.
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