APC won’t back restructuring that will redraw Nigeria’s map —National Publicity Secretary

National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi was a guest of The Platform, a public affairs programme of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), where he fielded a number of questions on issues relating to governance and internal crisis rocking the party. Group Politics Editor, TAIWO ADISA, who was on the panel, presents the excerpts:

IT has been said that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration inherited serious challenges in the political, economic and governance spheres. Two years on, it will be nice to start and ask you what is your assessment of the administration, in spite of the challenges it inherited?

I think if we take on board all the difficulties that we have encountered in the last two years and the state of the economy, I believe very strongly that the government has done very well. The APC government at the centre has done very well. The APC governments across the 24 states of the federation have done very well. The work is not done. The work of government is not done in two years, which means that there is still a lot to achieve and as long as there are still real issues of difficulties that citizens are experiencing, then our work is not done. But we are working at it. Our governments are working at it day and night and I believe that significant progress has been made in various sectors.

Let’s look at the Boko Haram insurgency. Recently, the Acting President had to give another order to the Chief of Defence Staff and the Service Chiefs to go back to the theatre of operation. How do you see that and the relapse. Is it because they were not in that area or rather they left the area initially that there was a resurgence of insurgency?

I think we sometimes maybe tend to underestimate the nature of the challenges that we face with the Boko Haram insurgency and it’s the same with all terrorist activities world over. When the issue happened in University of Maiduguri where some of the lecturers were abducted and all of that, the opposition PDP said APC has celebrated too soon; that the victory we declared over Boko Haram was a propaganda. My own interpretation is that the victory that we’ve celebrated is not propaganda. It is real. What happened recently is what you call resurgence which I think only demonstrates the resilience of the kind of challenge we are dealing with. Al-Queda happened in 2000, 2001.But how many years did it take before Bin Laden was killed? And up till this day, the problem is still there. That is to tell you that the nature of the problem we are dealing with is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

But be that as it may, it’s important for us not forget that any country’s claim to nationhood is its capacity to preserve its territorial integrity.  Boko Haram successfully violated Nigeria’s territorial integrity in 2014, going to 2015. At a point, more than 50,000 square kilometers of Nigeria’s territory was effectively in the hands of Boko Haram. They had their flags planted on Nigeria’s soil and declared Boko Haram caliphate.

Today under the APC government, what is the size of the Nigerian territory in the hands of Boko Haram? Zero. So, Boko Haram is still able to carry out some of these sporadic hit-and-run attacks, but they are no longer capable of holding territories within the Nigerian space and that is a major victory that everyone has to acknowledge.

At the point that this government was coming on board, how many Chibok girls were kidnapped, how many of the Chibok girls have been rescued? Today we are talking about how is left to be rescued, not how many has been rescued. That is an achievement that we are proud of. Some people say government bribed Boko Haram, government paid Boko Haram. Whether government bribed Boko Haram or whatever, the point is that people’s children have been returned to their parents. That is quite significant. So, for us, the progress that the Buhari Administration, the APC government has made in curtailing Boko Haram insurgency is quite significant and it’s an achievement we are very proud of.

The battle is not won and that is why the Acting President has said you (military chiefs) have to go back and pay more attention to this. That also means that we are aware that the battle is not over.

Stemming corruption, are you winning?

I believe so. Why will I say that? You see, sometimes, the fight against corruption is at various levels. But I believe that the fundamental fight that needs to happen is our heads, more than any other thing. Why do I say so? A couple of years ago, before APC came into power, nobody was talking about corruption. It’s like it has been normalized, why because everybody was the game. So there is nothing abnormal about it anymore. The level of impunity – we didn’t realise it at the time. But now the revelations are coming forward. I read in the newspapers that one Minister forfeited a house of $37 million and the level of recovery that has been made from people who were supposed to protect this country, the military and all that, we didn’t know that it was happening. So, today, the most important achievement that I will say in the war against corruption is that every single day you wake up in this country, people are talking about corruption, which means that Nigerians have not accepted it as a way of life. You open the newspapers, you turn the radio, you look at the television, people are having conversations. So, the fact that we have rejected it as a way of life is significant.

So, what APC government has done more than any other government you can talk about, whether in terms of loot recovery, in terms of prosecution, is that we have escalated conversation about corruption to the centre stage and that is quite significant.

Some people are still saying the fight against corruption is targeted at the opposition?

It’s natural. If I don’t have access to the kitchen, you can’t accuse me of stealing the meat from the pot. If the opposition party was in government for the period that they had been in government and you are looking at things that happened during that period, it’s natural that it is people on that side that will be affected. Four years down the line, eight years down the line or how long it takes, if another political party comes into power and they want to look at this period, it’s what people like us have done in this period that they will be looking at. So, it’s only natural.

I think if you want to confuse a situation, you say it’s targeted at opposition. But what I keep saying is can anybody point at one person who is being prosecuted for corruption but simply because that person has joined APC, that case has been dropped? If you are able to find one example, then we begin to pay attention to that kind of argument.

During the 2015 electioneering campaign, one of the agenda of the party was devolution of powers. Now, a lot of people interpret devolution of powers to mean the same thing with restructuring or as an element of restructuring. Is it that you were not clear with what you meant by devolution of powers in your party’s agenda?

We are clear with what we mean by restructuring. In fact, I think one significant thing that will distinguish APC from other political parties is the position we have taken on the issue restructuring, what you call true federalism or devolution as you want to call it. If you take that out of our party, then you have a different kind of political party. That’s what we believe in and what we stand for.

But if you look at our manifesto, the issue related to restructuring or true federalism as you call it, appear only in three places. If you put together, they are not more than five, six lines. Now, what that means is that it is therefore subjected to definition, to interpretation. We now need to articulate it into a body of principles that are also implementable and that is why we have set up a committee to do that.

Now, people keep asking, what does APC’s notion of federalism or restructuring mean. I start by saying what it does not mean. Since this conversation about restructuring started, people have been giving it different meanings. There are some people who’s definition of restructuring is regionalisation; that instead of the current 36 states structure, let’s have six regions. That’s some people’s definition of restructuring. But that is not APC’s notion of restructuring. Some people are even saying let’s have loose unions with a weak centre. That’s not APC’s notion of restructuring. APC’s notion of restructuring is anchored on one principle, which is devolution of powers. There are 68 items currently on the Exclusive Legislative List. APC’s notion of restructuring is taking some of these items from the exclusive list and transferring them to the concurrent list, so that the lower tiers of government – the state and the Local Government can legislate on those that are currently exclusive preserve of the Federal Government.

So, the idea is restructuring governance and bringing governance closer to the people, so that the people can feel it and achieve more results. Of course, in consonance with that or corresponding when you take those responsibilities and give some of them to the States and some to the local governments, it also means that the resources will follow and that’s where you say you cannot have devolution without talking about fiscal federalism. It means that most of the resources kept at the centre at the moment will go to the states, whether you talk of state policing, whether you talk of control of local prisons and what not. So, that is APC’s notion of restructuring.

Any kind of restructuring that will require redrawing the maps of Nigeria, that is not what APC promised, without prejudice to those who think that is what should happen. But I think the conversation about the kind of federalism we should have or the kind of federal structure should have is not going to end now.

Since the beginning of this administration, people have seen less interaction between the party and the National Assembly. The caucus actually, I remember it’s only once that the Chairman had met with the House and the Senate caucus. Why is there silence between the party and the caucus?

It’s only once that the party leadership the Senate and the House caucus have met openly to the knowledge of the general public. But they are constantly meeting and we are constantly having conversations about various issues. I agree with you that maybe we could have closer interactions than we’ve had. It started with the Governors. Now we have regular monthly meeting with APC Governors. When they come for Economic Council meeting, they come to the party and we all meet. We have expanded that and the leadership of the National Assembly will also be part of that meeting. We are having regular monthly meetings now.

Still talking about meetings, the APC top leadership is being accused of being reluctant of calling National Executive Committee meeting and also the Board of Trustees which is affecting the running of the party. What do you say about that?

We have challenges I must say. Nobody envisaged that it will take this long to put all these in place. No matter how we try to look at it, we have real issues. Initially, it was issue of funding. Don’t forget President Buhari said he was not going to use government money to fund the party. So, initially it was the challenge of funding. How do we raise money? Running of party is expensive. How are we going to raise money to organise all these meetings? We have to rely on membership dues. It’s easy with the National Assembly because we can capture them and say bring your membership dues. You can capture the Ministers and say bring your membership dues. But for members across the country, it’s more difficult harvesting these dues. So, that’s been the challenge but then we’ve made progress. Then the President’s health situation happened. We have to be sensitive to that. We can’t be holding national rallies when our President, the leader of the party is in the situation that he’s in. But we are glad that he’s recovering and hopefully will come back soon.

But you can see we’ve started the process. About two Saturdays ago, we did the state congresses to fill vacant positions at various levels. That’s the journey that we’ve started that we believe will ultimately lead us to our national convention The congresses we had across the states were non-elective congresses. They were mainly to replace those who were holding party positions and who died, those who took appointments or those who left the party, to fill those vacant positions. Then it’s also to elect three delegates per local government that will come to the non-elective convention when the date is fixed.

The congresses have raised some dusts in some states like Kaduna and some other states. What is the party doing to calm down the tension?

We will deal with these issues. But it is politics. If it is politics, it has to be messy. So, all these issues will come up, but we will deal with them. But I know as journalists, we are more interested in where there are crisis. But out of 36 states, we have issues in a couple of States that are not even up to 5. So that is more than 85 per cent success. So, where there are issues, we will acknowledge these issues and we will deal with them.

Still on the party, there are plans to review party primary system at some point and this we understand was to eliminate the impact of money in politics and in the emergence candidates. How far has APC gone in that?

I know there is this electoral reform that was done. But more importantly at the party level, we have conducted our constitutional review committee chaired by the National Legal Adviser of the party. They have turned in their report and we are studying it now. So, when we have our NEC meeting and have our national convention, this will hopefully be one of the agenda that party will ratify. We will look at the constitutional amendment proposals that are made.

But the idea is not just about lessening the impact of money in party politics; that is quite significant. But it’s also to see how we can achieve greater equity, greater representation, not only of people across the country but also gender. So, that’s quite significant to us. We believe it’s an opportunity to address some of these issues. It’s still early, but we believe that by the time we approach the national convention, some of these issues would be very clear.

When do you expect the national convention?

Hopefully soon. I cannot tell you a date but hopefully soon.

In 2017 or early 2018?

We believe it should be 2017.

Apart from crisis related to the congresses, the party also has pockets of crises all across so many states, both in the South and the North. How are you handling those crises?

Let me mention one, Kogi. We received a delegation from Kogi, those who are on the other side of the governor. Kogi has been a bit of a challenge for us and the reason it’s been such a challenge is because both sides are maintaining a very hard line position. But we are hoping that with these conversations that we are having with them, we will make people see the need to soften their position and find a common ground.

The Committee we set up, chaired by former Minister of Information, Prince Tony Momoh, has turned in its report. We have looked at it and its part of what we are going to look into at the next NWC meeting. But Kogi has been a challenge for us and we believe very strongly that as long as we focus on it, we are going to get to the bottom of it. As I said, up till yesterday, the issue of Kogi was on our plate and I believe we will find a solution.

You also have to understand that some of these things can generate tensions and all that. But in politics, it is natural because when it comes to resource allocation, power allocation, who gets what after an election, there will be issues. When you are fighting for election, everybody will come together, you fight until you win or until you lose as the case may be. But when you win, that is when everybody is beginning to ask himself, ‘so, what is in this for me.’

Is it the allocation of positions that led to the crisis in Kaduna right now?

Most possibly. We’ve also received delegation from Kaduna. The members of the National Assembly came in the aftermath of the congress that was held where there was a bit of disturbance there and some people were attacked and the party came out very strongly. Our position was very strong. We condemned the violence that attended that process and we said we will investigate and anyone that is found culpable will face the appropriate sanction.

We want to keep everybody in the party. But I wish it was easy saying you are right, you are wrong. When you are trying hard to keep everybody in the party, then it is difficult to apportion the kind of blame that either party will want you to allocate to their opponent. So, it takes longer to find solution to this problem. But I believe very strongly that we will find solution to them very soon.

PDP the leading opposition party is coming from internal crisis after fourteen months. Do you feel threatened?

Not at all. We are actually happy that PDP is coming back and we know that it’s important for a democratic government to have a strong opposition. So, we are happy that PDP is overcoming its problems. So, we don’t feel threatened. We only want PDP to play its part as an opposition that puts Nigeria first and we will play our part as government in power putting Nigeria first. I think that is it. But as long as continue to think that the responsibility they have as an opposition party is to continue to heckle government, to continue to undercut government where even government should be commended, then we will have duty to continue to remind Nigerians that that party played a role in leading us where we are today. But there is no point going back to the past.

When you say it’s the policy of APC to keep everybody together and not allow your members to go elsewhere, what do you make of some of your very notable members who are accusing APC now of lack of internal democracy.

Well, unless I know what exactly they are complaining about, it’s difficult for me to…

Timi Frank, for example, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and to a certain extent, I understand even the Senate President…

I think they are different issues. I’ve not read the statement made by the former Vice President. He is definitely a senior member of our party. He must know what he is talking about. People like that don’t just talk loosely. So, he must know what he is talking about. Timi Frank, as you know, his issues happened before I joined the party. I think he has issues with the executive of the party. So, he will continue say the kind of things he is saying.

The Senate President, I read this interview and it was a bit over interpreted. What the Senate President was said in the context of trying to defend himself. People accused him of wearing PDP underwear. They say we see you are in APC but your underwear appears to look more like an umbrella and he said I am APC body and spirit. But I understand why people can be saying this. It’s because there is a lot of work that we need to do at the party level. I’ve told the chairman several times that we need to refocus the party and if we are meeting regularly and people are seeing us all the time meeting, then they won’t be saying somebody’s body is somewhere, his spirit is elsewhere. That’s what he said.

So, interpretatively, he is saying the party chairman is not doing enough in terms of leadership.

That’s what he is saying. He’s saying we are not doing enough, that we need to do more than we are doing. But I think some our colleagues just said APC lacks focus.

Talking about internal democracy, the Osun West Senatorial by-election, is a good example of what happened and APC lost the election, don’t you think it’s as a result of internal democracy issues?

I agree with you that it was a very difficult issue for us. But I believe that it’s also a learning process. We’ve learnt our lessons from what happened and we can only hope to do better next time.

At the beginning of this administration, we were used to hearing that APC was not ready for governance, PDP is not ready for opposition. More than two years now, are you really giving governance and looking at the other party, are they giving you the kind of opposition that you need in a democracy

Well, I can only talk about what we are doing and what we need to do, some of which I’ve mentioned. When people say APC is not ready for governance, I don’t know what exactly they mean. I think people are looking at some of the teething problems we had taking off and that’s why they said we were are not ready for governance. But we must not forget that when you have a political party – look at what is happening in US now. How many months after Donald Trump has been elected President. How many of the Ministers that he wanted to appoint have been appointed? So, it is the nature of democracy. It is untidy. It is sluggish. But mankind has not been able to invent a better form of government.

So, I think when we had this issue with the National Assembly leadership, they said these people are not ready for government. But I’ve just called your attention to something. When President Obasanjo came in in 1999, how many party chairmen did PDP have within the first five years? How many Senate Presidents? How many Speakers? So, these are issues that parties will continue to grapple with. In our own case, it’s more difficult because we are grappling with becoming a party in government; we are also grappling with the recession in the economy and peoples’ expectations. Our manifesto was quite ambitious. So, people expected that we will deliver all those things immediately.