There is a disconnect between what govt says and what people feel and say —Onaiyekan

For decades now, the Archbishop of Abuja Diocese, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, has been a strong voice in the Nigerian sociopolitical scene. He was a key member of the Peace Committee that worked with the two major presidential contestants in the 2015 general election to ensure peace. In this interview, he x-rays the three years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, declaring that if President Buhari cannot control the murderers in form of herdsmen and others, he should quit the stage. He also speaks on the 2019 general election. Group Politics Editor, TAIWO ADISA and COLLINS NNABUIFE present excerpts.

What is your stake on the state of security in Nigeria?

You know the three major foci that this government outlined as what they intend to tackle were corruption, security and economy. We are not the only country in which these issues are relevant, so it is not as if it is anything unusual, it just happens that way. However, in the last few years, we have had a special problem in the area of corruption which is not new; it has been there for a long time. There is also a special problem with security, especially with Boko Haram, but not only them, we are now realizing there are others. As for the economy, every nation has that problem to handle, so no government can perform if it does not perform well in these areas.

The question now is how do you rate the performance of a government in these regards?  We have a situation that ought not to have arisen in the first place with regard to the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East. The fact that practically a large chunk of our nation was taken over by criminals is worrying.

So we had a situation that ought not to be as far as security is concerned, normally, what we have is that there are threats to the internal security of the nation; sometimes also, challenges arise from external security. But by the time that the 2015 general election took place, the situation we had was not normal at all because a whole chunk of our land was occupied particularly at the North East, occupied in the sense that normal activities could not go on there, government agencies could not perform, banks were shut down by the activities of armed insurgents and almost defeating our police and soldiers.

That was the situation when Jonathan left power; he left power but the security apparatus of Nigeria was the same, we didn’t have a new army or a new set of DSS. We are still dealing with the same people; the only difference was that we were expecting that President Buhari, being a soldier who had fought in the Nigerian civil war and had ruled Nigeria as a military dictator, was familiar with military affairs. We expected therefore that when we were calling him commander-in-chief of the armed forces, we were not talking about imagery or parables. We are talking in reality that this man should actually be commanding armed forces of Nigeria and therefore it should not be possible that any group of the military’s top brass will be able to deceive or mislead him. He should be able to understand what the military needs to get the job done. That was why many of us had a strong hope that he would be able to handle this matter better than Jonathan. The allegation then was that Jonathan was not properly informed of many of these things from the military point. The other, which was not really talked about, was that Buhari being a Muslim would have a better appeal and would be able to convince these insurgents to stop their madness. We thought that Buhari would be in a better position to talk to them and those of us who believe that insurgency is better handled through dialogue felt that Boko Haram and their allied groups would have a better partner in dialogue than if they were dealing with a Christian president. So we thought this could put Buhari in a better position, it appeared he made progress, because Boko Haram, as a fighting force occupying territories, was dislodged.

When the announcement was made that Boko Haram had been technically defeated, a lot of people had hopes that life would return to normalcy in those areas. Well, you can see that even as we talk now, you cannot say that life has returned to normalcy because the activities of the insurgents can be felt very much. They still go around harassing people, and secondly the massive military presence in that area shows that things are not yet in order.

What Nigerians don’t know is whether there has been any engagement between the government and the leadership of Boko Haram and if so, what negotiations are going on? If that doesn’t happen, the whole thing can never stop. Unfortunately, whatever has been done in this regard has been shrouded in secrecy.

Then there is another area of general insecurity in the land: armed robbery, kidnapping. There is a specific case of herdsmen. But now we see terrorists parading themselves as herdsmen, carrying out gruesome activities. The government has not been able to explain to us and yet government claims that it has no explanation. There are many people who claim they have an explanation which is often called conspiracy theories or rumours.

The situation on ground cannot be explained: that we live in a country where there is supposed to be democratic process, we have the National Assembly, they are there every day talking, we have a huge army, we have people very well trained and the government has been budgeting huge sums of money for defence; we don’t understand why our government cannot control this group of murderers.

When somebody at the level of retired General T.Y. Danjuma, not only suggested, but claimed bluntly that we are dealing with a sinister plot to attack people with the collusion and protection of the Nigerian security. If you say Nigerian security, you mean Nigerian government, then we are in serious problem.

If nothing is done to arrest this and the murderers are allowed to move around freely, it is either government is incapable, in which case it should please make way for somebody else, or it is unwilling, in which case Nigerians should open their eyes and realize that the government we have in place is not for their own interest. That the Vice President visited Benue State twice in a week and participated at the religious ceremony of the burial of the victims of the killings was good. One of the issues raised was that it appeared the government was not taking these atrocities seriously.

The government is doing its best but its best is not good enough. There is a sense of insecurity still very much around. Foreigners are aware; they are being very careful with issues that concern Nigeria, and when they visit Nigeria, they receive all kinds of advice on where to go and where not to.

Just recently, the Catholic Church held protest rallies all over the country. Is that a sign that the church is getting frustrated with the situation in the country?

One thing would normally trigger another thing. As you know, the Catholic Church is perhaps the best organized group; we are organized on the bases of dioceses and each diocese is headed by a bishop. All the bishops happened to be in Rome for a special meeting with the Pope. We were all in Rome, over 60 of us, when news reached us on April 24 of what had happened. Because we were all together, the impact was very strong and the news went round the whole world. It was a major news item on the Vatican radio.

Two days later, we met the Pope; he was the first person to mention it. He mentioned it and said he was praying for Nigeria that we got over this. He asked for the Bishop of Makurdi and I brought him to the Pope. The Pope embraced him and the bishop broke down in tears. It was under these conditions that we sat down and drafted our statement from Rome. The statement was very strong, stating clearly that we have lost confidence in this government and that what has happened should not have been allowed to happen.

It was at that occasion too that a decision was taken that when we got back home, on the day of the funeral every bishop all over the nation should organise a prayer supplication. We were to go out on the streets praying. The main focus was prayer for the nation. It also indicated that we are not happy with what is happening.

Many of the dioceses were able to go out with the permission of the security agencies with the exception of a few states where we had security authorities refusing the people from going out on the streets. A typical example was Niger State. Another different place was in Imo state, but that was complicated by some other matters. For whatever reason, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) planned a march on the same day, so it was going to be difficult to separate our own peaceful march from the rally of MASSOB.

Besides the state of security, how would you rate the human development capacity of this administration these past three years?

There seem to be a disconnect between what we hear in government official declaration and what we are hearing from the people on ground. If you follow the things they say they have done, you will have the feeling that Nigeria is actually in a wonderful situation. On several occasions, statistics are rolled out, we hear of various amounts of amount spent here and there. But who are the beneficiaries of all these? We cannot see them; the youths are still unemployed; the industries have not grown. A typical example is in the agricultural sector; we heard very wonderful things that the government is doing in agriculture and billions of naira spent to promote agriculture but who are those doing this? My farmers out there in Bwari Local Government Area and so on are still where they were many years ago. We are still looking for bags of fertilizer; we cannot find them. Who is getting them?

Another example is the school feeding program, and I ask myself is that the way forward? They give you figures of the number of children they have fed, and you ask yourself, who is feeding who, with how much? Of course when a minister or governor visits a school, they will prepare nice meals for the children so as impress the visitor who had come visiting. Even Professor Osinbajo sat down and ate a plate of rice when he visited to see how the program was going. He should send somebody else the next day and see what is happening. There is this disconnect between the plans and projects of the government and what the reality on ground is.

This is typically the Nigerian situation. Normally as Nigerians, we are a very brilliant set of people. We have wonderful ideas, and this is one of the things that endeared Nigerians to the APC. The APC came out with very brilliant write-ups. We are yet to see the implementation. Maybe there are those who are gaining. The worst of it is that you are not seeing signs that things are getting better.

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Just recently, the National Bureau of Statistics released its first quarter GDP growth and it said that the GDP grew by 1.9 per cent. The presidency released a statement to celebrate that. What is your take?

First there is the criterion used for judging and assessing those things which sometimes do not relate to reality. For example when you find the IMF and World Bank giving their assessment of the performance of the Nigerian economy following our GDP and those numbers, that’s one thing, but what does that have to do with the quality of life of the average Nigerian?

You can find a country with a GDP lesser than Nigeria’s, but the quality of life of those people would be better than Nigeria’s. The other suspicion is that somebody may be playing a game by not telling us the truth. If government does not tell us the truth, anything would be allowed to pass. Government agencies and spokespersons feel it is their duty to tell as many lies as they can to deceive the people.

Those who manage our economy should look more carefully and sincerely at the realities on ground and the economy will grow if efforts are made to improve the standard of living of the ordinary people. The economy should grow from bottom up.

Will you advice that the $320 million Abacha loot just returned by the Swiss Government be channelled towards a social investment scheme as announced by the Vice President?

Any loot that is retrieved was not budgeted for. It will be wise to invest it on something that is essential for the masses. But to just dump it into the usual pot means that the same looted fund could be looted again. There are many Nigerians who are suspicious that this is what is happening. Again, we are back to the culture of secrecy, so called confidentiality. Nigerians are not allowed to know what exactly is happening. I think it doesn’t require rocket science to be