22 years of democracy: APC has stunted Nigeria’s growth —Sen. Umaru Tsauri, PDP National Secretary

As Nigeria attains 22 years of unbroken democratic governance, the National Secretary of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Umaru Tsauri, reviews the era in this interview by LEON USIGBE.

I want us to look at the last 22 years and do a general assessment of our democracy. Do you think the country is where it’s supposed to be in terms of development?

Well, democracy is the best system of government. In Nigeria, we’ve been practising democracy, but this is the longest.  For sure, there are some achievements and there are some lapses. I will begin with the the first 16 years of the PDP. You have to look at all facets. You look at infrastructure, empowerment, health, agriculture and the rest of it and even the education sector. If you look at it, you say comparatively, there is improvement, especially during the 16 years of the PDP government.

Let me give you example, in 1998, during the administration of Abdulsalami Abubakar, if you were given a loan to buy a car, you would not be able to repay it because then the least car you could buyer was N300,000. And salary then was N18,000. How can you equate N300,000 with N18,000 salary? But when Obasanjo came on board, Obasanjo was able to make the money.  In fact, it came to in  point that people were not talking of how to buy a car but where to park it. Right? So that’s human empowerment. Educationally, look at what happened. In fact, look at the universities. Look at what Goodluck Jonathan did with these almajiri schools. So, I feel like if you look at what happened, there was improvement in human life and the country itself.

But unfortunately, the last six years has given us a blow not in the stomach but on the face because everything has collapsed, whatever we did as PDP government. In fact, people are saying, why can’t we go back to where Buhari met us? Even in terms of electricity supply, people are saying let’s go back to 2015 when Buhari took over. It was much better. But generally, if you look at democracy in the whole country, it is much better than the military government because if there is no soldier in your village, you will know that there is government. But every society, no matter how small, there’s a politician there. So, now, people are sensitized, now, people know what to do, know what they are going to do, and know how to do it. That one is an achievement on the part of democracy in the last 22 years. So, I can say there’s achievement in whatever facet of life during the PDP government and their derailment  by the APC government, even the electoral process. If you compare the PDP government and the APC government, the comparison is there for you to judge. So, most of what we do now is to look at the people and give them the benefit of looking at what PDP did and what APC is doing, and then we throw it into the court of public judgement. The public decides. They can judge but generally, there’s improvement in democracy.

Now, you have spoken of 16 years of the PDP and six years of the APC. What would you have expected the APC to do on coming to power?

Government is a continuous process. Whether your party wins an election, or your party loses an election, the issue is when you take over government from opposition party, you continue from there. That’s why why we said we in the PDP, we are sorry. We apologized to Nigerians, because we made a mistake during our tenure and that mistake was we to allow the APC take over government. Let’s say Buhari was Goodluck Jonathan, do you think Buhari would hand over to Jonathan? He would not. If everybody would die in Nigeria, Buhari would not hand over.

But I’m telling you, Jonathan said his ambition was not worth the blood of a single person. We were labeled as people who brought insecurity in this country, people who brought economic hardship in this country. And some people, especially in the north, would tell you that when Buhari would take over government, you can come out of your house, park your car, leave the key there, you come tomorrow and get it. But they were propagating for change. So, we thought they would continue from where we left and improve where we made mistakes. The essence is  this the government came to make corrections, because they said ‘change.’ Okay, where we have a problem, they should correct it. They should improve from where we left if we were doing good. Right?

Now, when they come on board, the three-point agenda of Mr. President was security, economy and fighting corruption. Right? Which one? Which one of these three has been actualized?  Security, then we were talking about northeast. Today, there is no local government that is secured in this country. When you talk of economy, nobody, if not in Abuja will tell you the he is sure of three square meals a day. Right? When it comes to to fighting corruption, it is selective.  If you are not…you remember what Adams Oshiomhole said, the moment you APC, you are a saint, all your sins are forgiven. So, I don’t know.  I don’t know. What we expect was not exactly what happened. In fact, 100% did not happen. That’s out take. And I cannot see how I cannot see how they can make this improvement today.

Look at what they are doing now. They are going to obtain a loan. Get a loan and service loan. During our time, we requested for debt cancellation. Obasanjo was successful and he left the country 100 per cent intact. No loan, no debt, no nothing. What we expect them to do. The only thing is for Nigerians to look at it and decide on what is the best option for Nigeria and I believe that they will do it.

So, where then is the problem? Is it in the character of the president or his party? Why is it impossible for his administration to build on what he met on the ground for the sake of the country?

When you take over government for the sake of taking over government, you are not prepared, you are not ready, you can’t deliver. PDP is a political party with manifestos and with constitutional provisions. And we planned it, we did it and everybody saw it. But APC is not a political party. Different groups came together in order to push Jonathan out. They were not prepared. So, you can look at it. The president does not know what is happening in this country because he was not prepared. People were saying just push Jonathan out and Jonathan was pushed out. Today, those who worked to push Jonathan out are people who are apologising to him, even from the north. So, for sure, what we did or what we are doing, or what we’re trying to do is, as I said, we should throw it in court of public judgment for the the people to decide. Anybody worth life with his body I don’t think will vote for APC, if he is sincere. So, it is left for Nigerians to decide when the time comes, what to do, make comparisons, you know, where you can say somebody is black is because you can see white. Right? If somebody, it is big because you can see small. So, that’s comparison. Make  comparison between what PDP did in 16 years, or what APC has done in six years.

But the president gives the circumstances he met on assumption of office as militating factors.

That’s why I told you that he was not prepared. He was not prepared. He should not be making excuses. We don’t take excesses like this. We’re not pointing accusing fingers at Buhari. What we’re saying is when Buhari came on board, he came and he promised from May 2015 that he would defeat Boko Haram by December 2015. Is this a lie? Why is he telling people lies? If he knew the gravity of Boko Haram, he shouldn’t have made that statement. Look at what this guy, (Babatunde) Fashola, said. He said any serious government would fix power problem in a matter of six months. Today, look at what is happening. So, the issue is Buhari cannot be giving us excuses. There’s no excuse to what he’s saying. They came for change. They cannot change anything. They can’t. So, they should take the brunt of what they have done. We’re not saying do this or do that. We do advise. But if we advise, make sure you take your advice to where it will be useful. We advise a lot of times but what has happened? Everything normally fell on deaf ears. They don’t listen to anybody except those that will do their bidding. That’s what we are saying.

So, the government of APC was not ready to govern Nigeria. They only took over government with the intention of pushing Jonathan aside.

Now, looking at 22 years of Nigeria’s democracy, what can you pinpoint as the challenges of a more viable system?

It is the electoral process. You remember in 1999, our election was peaceful, successful. In 2003, there was some kind of, I will not say, discrepancy, but I think there was a little bit of improvement. In 2007, when (President Umaru Musa) Yar’Adua came on board, you remember, the first thing he said was there was discrepancy in the election. And who was going to ensure that he improved on it?

In 2011, you saw what happened.  The electoral process was clean. But when it came to 2015 you saw what happened? The worst was 2019.  If what happened in 2019 is going to happen in 2023, then there’s no need for elections.

As long as the president does not sign the Electoral (Amendment) Bill into law, then we are not being sincere to ourselves, we are not ready for democracy. So, we have no problem in Nigeria except the electoral process. Let’s change the system. The president should sign the Electoral Bill into law, and then see how we’re going to transmit electronically our results from polling units to the INEC headquarters. And you see, as I told you, anybody with life in his body will not vote for APC. So, the only problem we have in this country as far as democracy is concerned is the electoral process and this government is not ready for it. The APC government is not ready for electoral process.  If we continued with Goodluck Jonathan, the election would have been the best by now and Nigeria would be a better place to live when it comes to election.

With all the challenges the country’s democracy has, going forward, what do you going are the prospects?

Well, Nigeria has all what it takes to be a better place for democratic process. We have the men, we have  the powers, we have everything   Our people are very educated and they are  democrats and they want democracy. So, there is hope only if this present government is ready for democracy. As I said, we should by all means, try and make sure that our electoral process are improved upon. We should forget about what happened in 2019 and do the needful. We Electoral Bill into law and he would leave his name written on gold for doing that and then, Nigerians should know what to do. Our powers, our strength, our weapons, our voting cards…our voters card is our strength. Come 2023, Nigeria should do the right thing. Put those people who are very good in opposition back to the opposition and put those who know what is good in governance back to their position and we will see by May 2023, if PDP President is sworn in, we’ll give you seven months, you see how Nigeria is going to look like.

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