Prof. Ango Abdullahi, former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, is the spokesman of the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), a rabidly pronorthern group which did not only endorse President Muhammadu Buhari as its candidate during the March 28 election, but was also unsparing in its criticisms against former President Goodluck Jonathan. In this interview, the elder statesman revealed what the forum told Buhari during its last visit. Excerpts:
The Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) visited President Muhammadu Buhari recently. Beyond the advice that your chairman, Alhaji Maitama Sule gave him as was reported, on the need to be fair to all sections of the country, what did you discuss behind closed doors?
Well, actually this particular visit you are referring to, which Dan Masanin Kano (Alhaji Maitama Sule) led, was primarily to congratulate the President for his success in the last election and to also offer, as one would expect, prayers for successful tenure of office.
And thirdly, to assure him that on assumption of office, the Northern Elders’ Forum is ready at any given time to offer advice, whether solicited or unsolicited; so long as it is considered to be in the best interest of Nigeria or good governance, which we expect the Buhari-led administration to provide.
In the last six years, one of the issues that had bedevilled the North has been insecurity. Did you discuss that with the President?
No, actually as I told you, it was not a visit where discussions were held. As you have recalled, Maitama Sule said a general prayer and gave advice and so on. And he reminded everyone of us Nigerians, that the challenges ahead are enormous and they are many, especially security, which is particularly problematic here in the north, and other parts of the country.
So, we did not go into the nitty-gritty of details in terms of what the president needs to do. The only thing that we did was, a couple of days later, to send a short document in which we raised some fundamental issues concerning the challenges facing the country. And by implication, the challenges facing his young administration. Can you give an insight into the document? No I will not. Of course there is nothing secret about it. Buhari himself has talked about the serious areas that his administration will face; he was quick in mentioning security which you have talked about. He was emphatic about corruption. He was very clear that his administration will be slim and well populated with people of competence.
And these are the areas that we also mentioned in the short document that we gave the President or rather that we gave some of his assistants, hoping that it will eventually get to him. So, I think the ‘insight’ is already outside more or less. There were reports that this country is in serious crisis as we headed towards this change of baton between Jonathan to Buhari’s administration. In fact, somebody called me from one of the media houses, asking for my reaction on the intensification of the crisis.
Is it deliberately induced? He mentioned, for example, the fuel crisis and the power failure in many parts of Nigeria, especially where I’m here in Zaria. I have been out of the country but I understand that they have been without electricity continuously for five to six days. And this is what is happening in virtually every part of the country.
What was your answer to the question on whether the crisis was contrived or not?
People are raising the question of this apparent hostility that we read about in the newspapers; that Buhari is not cooperating, he complained that the government is not cooperating about handing over procedures and so on. There must be something acrimonious between the former and the new administration.
But I think the fault largely lies at the door step of the former government. Simple procedure demands that if an officer is leaving his desk, he prepares a handing over note whether he knows the person who is taking over from him or not. That handing over note will be on the table when the man arrives.
It is only when perhaps if he has questions to ask or raise, then he refers back to the person who prepared the handing over note. So, in this case, there was an initial intention that the two sides will work together so that the handing over will be smooth. But apparently, the former government doesn’t seem to give information because the new government requires nothing but information. It requires information more importantly than money because it requires to be told what the money is for.
Information is what the Buhari team requires and this is what is lacking as it is not forthcoming. The Jonathan administration said that they will hand over on May 28th, a day before swearing-in. Now, you don’t expect such notes to be ready, let alone make sense of them, a few hours before the next president will take over from you.
I think there is something deliberate about the behaviour of the past government. What I told the journalist this morning (Monday, May 25), is that what we have and have been living with, is a failed government. I don’t believe that Nigeria is a failed state, but the Jonathan administration was a failed government. Thank God, it is gone and another government that will make sense out of governance has taken over.
High cost of governance is being seen as one of the areas of waste that has been draining the nation’s resources. As a seasoned administrator, what do you advise the President to do in this regard? Do you subscribe to the suggestions that some ministries should be merged and that not every state must produce a minister?
Well, I have even more fundamental concerns than that, in terms of cost of governance. I have never subscribed to a presidential system of government and this is one of the greatest mistakes that this country had made. And it is paying dearly for it. The Murtala/ Obasanjo military regime foisted it on us; they insisted that the country should discuss nothing other than the presidential system of government. The presidential system, by its very nature, is a very expensive system of government.
It is usually cut out for countries that are first and foremost rich, compliant to law and order and there are very little chance for corrupt practice. My belief is that over 50 per cent of our economic and political crises over the last 30 years are because of the introduction of the presidential system of government.
The system, by its very nature, is corrupt and lacks accountability. Let me give you an example here of accountability. Who appoints our ministers? The president appoints them. On what basis does he appoint them? Who do they represent? They have no constituencies. And this is the difference between them and their counterparts in the parliamentary system. You will not be a minister under the parliamentary system until you are elected to a parliament. So, you have to be accountable to your constituency as well as to the parliament collectively; the prime minister can only nominate you as minister but you can be rejected by the parliament and so on. So, you see, there is no accountability with the ministers that we have had under the presidential system of government.
They have no responsibility to anyone except the person who appointed them. And that’s why we have this impunity that we have seen demonstrated in the last few years as exhibited by the ministers. There is stench of irresponsible corruption but the president did nothing because these are his boys and girls as the case may be. If a system does not lend itself to accountability as the presidential system that we operate in Nigeria, definitely it has basic problems. So, assuming that we are stuck with it, what else can we do?
What steps can Buhari take to reduce the high cost of governance?
Part of the cost of governance is of course corruption. A particular contract that should go for N100 million, the minister approves it for N500 million; obviously the country has been short-changed by N400 million. This is what has been happening to us. So, as long as the Buhari I know will plug the holes of stealing, the cost of governance will come down. Of course there are unnecessary structures in the system. You can take away a lot of fat and leave the meat there. And also, part of the cost of governance is unnecessary political patronage.
For example, Buhari has just gone through an election. I feel sorry for such an honest man that he is being surrounded by those people who say that they are the ones behind his success. And by implication, they are expecting a reward to compensate them for the support that they gave towards his success. But that does not add to reduction in cost; it increases cost because where you intend to make four or five appointments at federal or state level, you end up with so many ministers or commissioners simply because you want to satisfy certain political constituencies. So, these are the things that Buhari has to really be firm on but it is not going to be easy for him. He is likely to face rebellion from some of his party men.
Of course the cost of governance permeates all the three arms of government. I don’t worry so much with regards to the judiciary and the executive branch, obviously the president has spoken about that. But the National Assembly is another area of cost.
But the president can do virtually nothing about that because it is another arm of government entirely.
No, no, no! Why not!? Who decides the salaries and allowances of senators and members of the House of Representatives? Who decides the salaries of the president?
The National Wages Commission.
Exactly! It’s a commission which was created to serve the interest of Nigerians. And if that interest is not being served, certainly this has to be challenged. You have a governor who has been living free on taxpayers’ money. And after his tenure, he wants to take N200 million as pension! For 25 years, I was a staff of Ahmadu Bello University and I became the Vice Chancellor but my pension is less that N1 million. And my gratuity was also less than N1 million but a governor whom you can pick from the market; with due respect, earns more than a vice chancellor.
And you can’t find Vice Chancellors everywhere. The salaries of our senators are the highest in the world; higher than their counterparts in the United States. So, there must be something that we are doing wrong, in terms of the public service reward system.
Take another example of inequity and injustice. A councillor who is a school dropout, earns 20 times more than a primary school teacher. Mark you, the teacher is grappling with pupils from morning till afternoon and at the end of the month, the local government pays him between N10,000 and N15,000 per month.
When a councillor, who has nothing to do, who does not even have an office, at the end of the month takes the salary of 20 to 25 teachers. You see, there are so many things that are wrong that make governance in this country very costly and promote corruption.
Can Buhari tackle some of the things that you raised because of the federal nature of our country? Can Buhari actually dabble into states and local government issues?
I subscribe to a federal system of government. We should have a federation because of our diversity. Absolutely! But the fact that you are diverse and you operate a federal system doesn’t mean that the governors at these federal units should be irresponsibly wrong or avoidably expensive. It is the people who will insist that these changes must come. Buhari should just provide the leadership that will make sure that some of these false premises are removed. As long as they are not removed and as soon as possible, you don’t expect a stable federal system of government.
Some people say that Nigeria is on the verge of an energy crisis because of the shortage of petroleum resources and non availability of electricity. How can Buhari solve these twin problems of lack of power and fuel shortages?
We are not on a verge of an energy crisis; we are in an energy crisis. Fortunately, Buhari was there before. In fact, he was the architect of the good things that we have heard about the oil industry. He built most of the refineries. He constructed pipelines that will make the distribution of petroleum resources easily across the country, so that cost of transportation will be reduced and there will be uniform pricing which promotes even development across the country. So, he has been there and he succeeded in what he did. Now that he is here again and he is jumping into a similar crisis, he should be able to deal with it without any one of us telling him how to do it. In an interview that he gave some days ago, he said that he gets confused when people talk about subsidy.
What does it say? Subsidy for who and for what? The implication of the subsidy that government says it is paying for, is that we deserve to pay far more than what we are paying now. So, the government is being compassionate to say that it is paying for the difference between what we ought to pay and what we are paying. That’s why they are dipping their hands into the treasury in order to finance what we ought to pay. That is the simple meaning of subsidy. But there is no truth whatsoever in the claim because there are well researched documents about the relationship between a barrel of crude oil and the products that come out of it. The products that come out of that barrel of crude oil without being a chemist are petrol, gas and bitumen.
All these are high value products. From the analysis that one economist who worked with me at ABU Zaria did, he said after a few years of the Obasanjo administration, the cost of producing one litre of petrol, cannot exceed N25. Let’s put in all the other variables, the margin of profit, transportation and so on, it was his view that no Nigerian should pay more than N40 to N45 for one litre of petroleum. And recently, Tam David-West also spoke in the same vein. Please, one doesn’t want to hear this nonsense called subsidy because they are channels of stealing money. And let me take one more area that has nothing to do with politics or governance. It has to do with our spiritual life, which is Hajj.
In what way is the Hajj affected by subsidy?
Nigerians pay the highest price to go and worship God in Saudi Arabia, when you compare with their counterparts in Ghana and next door Niger. Even for religious trips we are being overcharged; Nigerians are being cheated. We did our own research and we are ready to argue this in the public.
Today, a pilgrim from Cameroon, flying from Douala to Jedda, his cost of Hajj, including about $1,000 BTA, is equivalent to N450,000. But our pilgrims are now being asked to pay between N700,000 and N800,000. The problem is corruption. Even on religious matters, people are being cheated.
So, something is wrong. This is not only happening to Muslim pilgrims but Christian pilgrims are being short-changed as well. I wish Buhari will set up a Task Force to look into this problem because if he does it before the next Hajj, he will discover the enormous cheating that is going on there. And since the pilgrims have not yet left and once he can establish the true cost of Hajj to our pilgrims, whether Muslims or Christians, they should be paid the difference of the money that they have already paid.
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