ALHAJI Tanko Yakasai is a former Special Adviser on National Assembly to former president, Alhaji Shehu Shagari. He speaks with KOLA OYELERE on the letter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to President Muhammad Buhari and why APC and Buhari did not prepare well to govern the country, among other issues.
WHAT is your view on recent letter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to President Muhammadu Buhari, advising the former not to seek re-election in 2019?
The allegations Chief Olusegun Obasanjo made were the submissions of the generality of Nigerians, though some Nigerians are of the belief that President Buhari has delivered. However, there are some areas Chief Obasanjo was not being fair to the incumbent president in his allegations. But by and large, his letter was the submission and opinion held by most Nigerians and I also believe is the opinion of the international community.
As an elder statesman, how would you react to Obasanjo’s view that the way forward is the formation of a coalition to wrestle power from President Buhari and APC?
What he said was that a new movement should come forth. I am, therefore, concerned by that ‘new movement,’ because he did not spell it out. In my own opinion or what I understand from such statement is calling for anti-democratic elements to be given a chance to tamper with democratic process, which will be against the interest of the country. In any ramification, our previous experience has revealed that military intervention has never been successful in Nigeria and we must avoid it. So, for a person like Chief Obasanjo to come out with a statement that is not in a clear term or too ambiguous to comprehend is a very dangerous.
Another point I would like to make is that it is wrong for Chief Obasanjo to arrogate to himself the right to install and remove Nigerian leader or president. It is a very dangerous in any country for an individual to do such to an authority.
Do you believe that the North has other capable personalities apart from the incumbent president who can run the country come 2019?
Certainly, there are many capable people in the North. As the Southern part of the country has a large number of capable hands to rule the country, so also does the North have many competent people to govern the country if given an opportunity to do so. The quality of leadership depends on competence, capacity, vision and these abound both in the North and South of the country. There are no two ways about that.
However, the unfortunate thing in the country is that numerous people who are qualified for the job are not the one shouldered with the responsibility. This is happening not only at the central or state government, but as well as at local government level. This is the tragedy in Nigeria and this was brought about by military intervention.
Before the first military coup, leaders like the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, JS Tarka, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Aminu Kano, all these personalities emerged through the process. However, most of leaders that are ruling this country emerged because they have financial wherewithal and lack the process which past leaders passed through before they became forces to be reckoned with. What brought about this is the destruction of the political system in the country.
The political parties we have today are not real political parties. Political parties are supposed to be a training ground for a leadership, grooming the right leaders from the local to the national level. Also, they are to be platforms whereby candidates will be given programmes for implementation, by way of manifesto. But nowadays, we do not have that anymore. The political parties we have nowadays are groups of people, who hire a good English teachers or journalists or political scientists and give them money to write manifestoes for them, without any leadership of such parties having an input in such manifestoes.
Such occurrence happened during the regime of former military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida. The manifestoes of the two political parties, the defunct National Republican Convention and Social Democratic Party manifestoes were written by academics and forced on politicians without their inputs. The party leaders would have used their experiences in writing the manifestoes themselves. These documents would also have been based on the needs of people in the society, as well on the possibilities of the problem of the political parties may likely encounter in the future on how to implement its programmes, how to generate funds to maintain the programmes.
Let me give you an example, if a politician promises to build a road for people and he does not know how many miles the road is, he does not know how many cultvets will be built nor how many bridges he will construct, what will happen to such promise? These are the elements that will constitute how much the road will cost and not knowing where to get funds to execute the project.
Do you share the opinion of some people that the main challenge of the Federal Government and Buhari’s administration is the so-called cabal that surrounds him and what is the way forward?
I think if you can remember, I said it over two years ago, that the president himself did not prepare to rule this country and I also mentioned it that the party-APC, which was a mere amalgamation of political associations, was equally not ready to govern the country because they do not have programmes. In fact, by the time they were elected, they did not have any serious programme. They were only picking things from here and there to survive. They were making time that if the price of crude oil goes up. Otherwise all the progress the country had made was not through their effort and most of the major programmes and projects that have either been executed or ongoing they inherited from former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. Some of these projects were started many years ago, but were only trying to finish them and they are not of their own making. Therefore, in a nutshell, both Buhari and his party, APC, have not performed. That is the truth of the matter and there can be no two ways about that.
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