2019: Buhari has 12 million votes kept for him —Ettah

The National Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) South-South, Honourable Hillard Etta, in this interview with Senior Deputy Editor, TAIWO AMODU, chided critics of President Muhammadu Buhari, noting that the President Buhari deserves accolades for his achievements in office. He also speaks on the special statements from retired Generals asking the president not to run for a second term.

 

THERE have been special statements from retired Generals, asking President Muhammadu Buhari not to run for 2019 general elections. The duo passed a damning verdict on the APC-led administration. What is your take?

Well, first of all, I am in consonance with the position of my party and the position of this government. So, I will start by thanking former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and General Ibrahim Babangida for their patriotic duty of writing letters and I will further go on to say, especially to Chief Obasanjo that I also share the sentiment of the Information Minister, who alluded to the fact that the former president may have been too busy to look dispassionately at what this government is doing.

It was a clarion call on him to take time out from his very busy schedule to properly look at what this government is doing. We know he is a world statesman. I dare to say that if he were to look, he would have a different perspective and a different perception of both president Muhammadu Buhari and the government of APC.

Now, I am the first to admit, that a lot of work has been done and a lot of work needs to be done. I am not one to deny, from the situation in the country, that things are very difficult but I think that we are just experiencing these difficulties because this is the period of time for change. Let me also say that everybody, including us at the hierarchy of the party, is enveloped in this hardship. Nobody has escaped it. So it isn’t as if we are speaking from outside it. No, we are all in it together but I assure you, with the economic policies that have been put in place, both in agriculture, the real economy, the diversification of the Nigerian economy, solid minerals and the attention that we are paying to human capital, in no distant future, Nigerians will begin  to see the harvest of this policies and I dare to say that Nigeria will be the better for it.

 

If you say Obasanjo was too busy with international engagements to notice the achievements of Buhari administration, would you say the same thing of General Babangida?

Even when I thought about the statement of General Babangida, it has become unclear even to us, whether what he wrote and what he would do and write again, we aren’t sure of where he stands and that’s why I am concentrating on the one who wrote and stood by his letter. For General Babangida, we have to be very clear, whether he wrote it at all.

 

He has admitted that he wrote the statement.

He has admitted? But at a time he also denied, so I don’t know. With IBB you never can know where to stand.

 

The two letters can be taken as an indictment of APC and Buhari for lack of fidelity to its electoral promises?

If I have to do an analysis of the letter, I would have to do a holistic analysis, including the writer, his moral standing and his participation in the system he so much wants to destroy. So, I cannot do all of those analysis in this interview. Time has a way of telling. Let me tell you, with all due respect to Chief Obasanjo, he was president for eight years.  The Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the Goodluck Jonathan presidency were an extension of his presidency because he cannot deny that he foisted them on the nation. So, if he couldn’t dislocate that system in 16 years, the system that he is complaining so much about, I cannot be too sure that a man that is closer to 80 will now have not just the opportunity but the strength and the capacity to now dislodge this system. So, if you interrogate all of these in the letter—all the former president has written, you come to the conclusion that they are not very complimentary to the former president. But you see, we are very dichotomised and divided country and so we all look at issues from the prism of ethnic jingoists, ethnic champions and the like, because if we were to look at issues from a patriotic standpoint,  you will see through the revisionism, the opportunism of some of these letter writers.

 

The APC keeps pleading for patience from Nigerians. But Nigerians are disdainful of this and continue to argue that the government itself started on a wrong footing: The president took a long period before forming his cabinet and the fact that one cannot pinpoint its economic team. What is your reaction to these views?

Look, that’s why I am saying and I still insist that Nigerians don’t look at issues from a patriotic standpoint and perspective. If you ask me, I will quarrel with the pace but I won’t quarrel with the policies. The policies have exited us from recession. Let me remind you that there are countries that fell into recession at the same time with Nigeria, countries that have less population but are producing more oil. In fact, most of the countries that fell into this same recession like Nigeria were all oil-producing countries; some of them are yet to exit recession.

Now, the late formation of cabinet didn’t take us out of recession, or incoherent economic team like you claimed didn’t take us out of recession. Let us get these things straight. The next thing they will tell you is that, ‘oh, he is a Fulani man.’ They will bring ethnic coloration profiling to now give you the reason why the economic is where it is. If you want to dissect the economy and analyse it properly, let us do it dispassionately without profiling people, without hate in our minds. If you do so, you come to the conclusion that it is only the policies of this government that has made the exit of Nigeria from recession possible. It is the policies of this government that has made it possible for us to almost exit the importation of rice. It didn’t just happen by chance; it is the policies of this government that has debilitated the capacity of Boko Haram to hoist its flag on any part of Nigeria. It is the policies of this government that has taken back from those who stole from our public till! It didn’t happen by chance, by incoherence. So, the earlier we look at Nigeria as Nigerians and stop this them and us arising from the defeat at an election, the better for us. Election is an event; it will come and go but Nigeria will remain. Buhari isn’t going to be the president of Nigeria forever. Every time you hear them talk about the economy, talk about Nigeria, you will see hate dripping from the defeat of 2015.

 

If you say a country has been in the rot for 16 years, are you comfortable with a president that insists on doing things at his own pace?

Let me tell you something, the president isn’t an angel. If you want an angel, you have to go to heaven. The president is a human being who can also make mistakes. I am not one to support the president if he says it must be at his pace. It cannot be at its pace. It has to be at the pace that Nigerians want. So, if you look at the president as a supporter, I am an ardent supporter of the president but my perspective of the president isn’t that of an angel, or a perfectionist. He isn’t and he cannot be. Perfection is found only in divinity. As far as we are dealing with human beings and in human society, you cannot have perfection. But if you juxtapose what this president has done with what had happened in Nigeria in the 16 years before the advent of this government, you will come to the conclusion that it isn’t business as usual. Again, I can only plead with Nigerians that change isn’t a miracle, it takes time to come and there are so many people who are complaining about change simply because they don’t have access again to cheap and easy money.

So, these are issues that must be interrogated by patriotic Nigerians—not ethnic warlords, not religious jingoists, those who have absolutely nothing to offer apart from the fact that they belong to a particular group or religious sect but they want to divide us so that they will have personal gains. I am a Christian but I am disappointed with the clergy in Nigeria. Because when it was time for them to stand up for Nigerians against the corrupt elite that were using our resources for themselves they didn’t. They stand up only when it is a Moslem that is in power. I never saw any pastor who stood up and said to Jonathan, you cannot open our till to thieves. I never saw one and it was a great disappointment for some of us.

 

But the likes of the Catholic priest, Rev. Father Ejike Mbaka did.

Yes, I agree but it was just a very few exceptions. The generality, preponderance of the Church never said anything. Instead of that they made themselves available as vessels of corruption.

 

Are you not bothered that after the gory killings in Borno, Adamawa and Benue, it is just now that President Buhari is moving around to see things for himself?

Look, let me tell you, the president has his own style.

 

Are you convinced that his style is good enough for Nigerians?

When what happened in Benue happened, the president didn’t visit those areas but he set up a presidential committee led by the vice-president to proffer solutions. Much as I will welcome the visit of Mr. President to those flashpoints, yes, it will calm the people, it will show solidarity, it will help their psychology; it doesn’t help resolve the issues. What the president did was to set up a committee led by the vice-president to find solutions to the issues that must be dealt with. And these issues have been with us for as long as Nigeria. It didn’t start only today and I know that the last government set aside N100 billion that hasn’t been accounted for till today to settle this herdsmen and farmers’ imbroglio. Nobody is talking about that and that’s a question for another day. What I am saying is that this president is faithful to his promises and he has set up this committee, I tell you, the recommendations of that committee will be implemented and I believe that because of the depth in the composition of that committee, sustainable solutions will be found to the problem. So, I don’t want us to think that because Mr. President is now going to these places, he has no sympathy or never empathised with them. If he didn’t then, he wouldn’t have set up a committee to look for solutions.

 

The people of Benue and their governor, Samuel Ortom, aren’t happy with the president and this is an APC state. As a national officer, does it bother you that this is happening close to an election year?

Let me tell you now: the APC government isn’t a “family affair government” like we used to have before when things were swept under the carpet. We are progressives, we speak our minds. My perspective may be different from Ortom’s perspective but he should be allowed to also speak his minds. When we have spoken all our minds, then we will do an aggregate of the things that we have spoken and we will find solutions to them.  Why must we all speak as if we are robotic?

 

If you look at the developments in Taraba, Nasarawa and Benue, with the people at the receiving end of rampaging Fulani herdsmen’s attacks, are you convinced that there will be an easy ride for APC in the Middle Belt?

We aren’t in a position to say elections are easy, we also cannot say that leadership is easy. It is a difficult call but I will tell you this and I want you to take it to the bank; President Buhari will win in 2019. That will not make challenges in the Nigerian system disappear, but it will provide him with the platform to continue to find solutions to those problems. And if you want me to do the analysis of how he will win the election, I will do it and you will see that regardless of manipulation and the shenanigans of the opposition, President Buhari will continue as president in 2019.

 

Please, do the analysis?

First of all, let me tell you that Buhari is the only one that has 12 million votes kept for him.

 

Where?

In Nigeria.  It has expanded but let us even leave it at 12 million votes. Now there is no single state, especially in the South-South and South-East that will not give Buhari 25 per cent or even more to win the presidential election. Remember that Buhari, from 2019 to 2023, will have only four years and the South will take over. The South will not support any man who is coming to do eight years and deny it the opportunity of also occupying the presidency of Nigeria.

So when you come to where I come from, the South-South, Buhari will win overwhelmingly, not just because four years is shorter than eight years, but because of what he has done in my place. Buhari has done something that no president has done for the people of South-South. Positions that were seen to be out of the reach of South-South, he has given it to us. This is the first time that any president has appointed a South-South person as head of service. So the infrastructural development in my area, railway, when even our brother was president of Nigeria we never enjoyed those things. Do you want us to abandon the man who hasn’t abandoned us? So when you put this together with the 12 million votes, there is nobody, whether in the coalition or the PDP, whatever they call themselves. Let all of them even come together, Buhari will continue as president in 2019.