Interview

What should be immediate priorities of Tinubu’s presidency —Kaka

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Ogun State, Senator Adegbenga Kaka, is a former deputy governor, two-time commissioner, acting state chairman of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). IN this interview with DARE ADEKANMBI, he speaks on what should be the immediate priorities of the incoming Bola Tinubu’s presidency in a bid to address Nigeria’s extant challenges.

The expectations of Nigerians from the new government are quite huge. Do you think they are misplaced?

Of course, yes, nothing is impossible with the Almighty God. As believers, we, Nigerians believe that once we pray to God and adjust ourselves to His ways, He is bound to answer our prayers. So no matter how huge the expectations of Nigerians may be, I believe that they are what we can meet up with.

But why do you think President Tinubu will meet the expectations of Nigerians?

Well, I am premising the optimism on the fact that the incoming president will strive towards attitudinal change in Nigeria. If you like, let people call it intangible, because they cannot qualify it. But sincerely speaking, we have lost a lot of ground to the way we have been conducting ourselves. The leaders have misled; the youths are disorientated and there is a need for a re-orientation. When you put that one apart, you can now come down to what the incoming president was able to do while he was a governor in Lagos State and a serving senator. We knew how turbulent it was then. And he discharged his duties creditably well. Now, the same to can happen, because when we talk of the provision of infrastructural facilities, he is likely to excel. And the infrastructure starts from the issue of transportation, be it air, water, road, and rail. I believe what is happening in Lagos could be replicated in other states of the federation with proper linkages in order to make workability easy for all of us. Then, you now talk of the economy as a whole. There is no doubt that to bring Lagos up in terms of having the highest Internally-generated revenues. And of course, it is actually the most viable state in the country unarguably. And I believe that we can replicate all the blueprints that made it possible to achieve such status. And in so doing, we are optimistic that he will be able to put the necessary blockage on all the leakages that we have within the oil industries. Thank God, a refinery is coming onboard, starting from Lagos State as well. So once we are able to have a competitive environment, the best will naturally come to the citizens. And in the course of it, more revenues will come to the federal government, state, and local governments. And at the end of the day, the president will be able to discharge his social responsibilities. These are the reasons why I pinned it on a positive note.

If you go to the area of education also, there is the fact that all private universities have been licensed. Yes, they are commercially oriented. Notwithstanding, having those universities in addition to the existing public varsities and other tertiary institutions will engender competition. And it is in the midst of a competition that you can get the best. There will be a healthy rivalry among them. And at the end of the day, we may be better off for it. Then, if you go to the health sector, except we want to fool ourselves, we all know how much we have been dissipating on medical tourism year in, year out. But what have been the results? Dying leaders will be flown abroad when the situation were already out of control. And within some months, they are back in body bags. We don’t want that, because we are tired of it. We want to conserve our foreign exchange. We want to stop medical tourism, so as we are encouraging private individuals to establish healthcare facilities, the existing ones will be strengthened under the incoming administration in such a way that we can reduce all these medical tourism to the barest minimum.

The biggest target is to bring all the sectors together to work in harmony with one another so that at the end of the day, we will all be better off for it. And because of employment opportunities, the government will also work on agriculture, because it is the source of food and a hungry man is an angry man. So if you want to quieten the citizenry, ensure that there is food for them and they’re a viable environment for them to operate. So with that one, any excess production, apart from generating employment opportunities, we can now talk of supplying of raw materials to various industries. And we must strive at all costs to ensure that value is added to our raw materials before they are exported. So we will stop exporting jobs that we are in need of to other countries. In most cases, you will find our men, our products in terms of human capital resources, now pursuing the job opportunities we have exported to foreign lands. They call it “Jappa”. But for how long will this continue? We just have to stop it and ensure that our best brains are brought back to the country once they acquire the knowledge they have gone to acquire in foreign countries. Let them bring home the experience and knowledge they have gathered in these foreign lands to develop their fatherland so that together, we can move the country forward.

But what are the immediate areas the incoming president should focus on?

Electricity: power generation and distribution. And the reason is not far-fetched, because of the multiplier effects on virtually everybody, whether at the micro or macro level. If you look at the amount being wasted on diesel and petrol, you will feel sorry for us. You will keep on wondering what will be the profits assuming that we are able to block the avenue of dissipating energy on diesel and petrol. I am involved and I know what it takes.

If we can do that, we will know how much we will be saving on a monthly basis. And then the pressure on the refineries and others will be minimised. So we are talking of a holistic approach to the whole thing. But first and foremost, electricity and power must be the first priority. Then, next is agriculture, and then, education. We need a review of our curricula that will make education not only to be productive, efficient, and effective but also functional, whereby as you are leaving school with a proper education, you will be an employer of labour. These are my expectations. I pray that the resources to do these will be available for the incoming president. And then, I believe that the Ajaokuta steel company should be the bedrock of our industrial take-off. The project has been sleeping in the slum for the past 35 years. We are praying for the incoming president to be able to energise it and make it productive for the much-needed industrial take-off.

Speaking on politics, what areas do you want the incoming administration to touch politically in terms of restructuring and true federalism?

The issues you mentioned are interrelated. Restructuring is big and all-embracing. It applies not only to the area of politics. We know that we started from the parliamentary system of government, which is more economical, accountable, and inclusive of people, whereby the decision-making is built up from the grassroots. The presidential system is not that very expensive, but unfortunately, we have been a bad copier. If in the wisdom of the generality of Nigerians, who have given the mandate to the new president, we want that restructuring to take place, so be it. And if the president on the other hand can find a way to successfully convince us to continue with the extant system, so be it. The major thing there is whether it is the presidential or parliamentary system we are practicing, we need attitudinal change, both in the private sector, public sector, and civil sector as there are a lot of changes begging for attention.

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