Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo (SAN), the spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, in this interview with TAIWO AMODU, says the party presidential candidate, Senator Bola Tinubu, remains the man to beat amidst the raging controversy over the single faith ticket and the internal dissension within the party which he dismissed as non-existent, as well as what he regards as the Unique Selling Point (USP) of the APC candidate. Excerpts:
THE campaigns for elective offices will commence in September. People have observed that certain power blocs, who lost out in the race for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential ticket, have not been associating with the standard-bearer, Senator Bola Tinubu. What are the steps being taken to approach the general election as one political family?
The point is that campaign has not started, so this is the fallacy that many people commit, campaign structures have not been released. I think you should be patient to see the entire campaign structures released, when the whistle blows and campaign begins. There is nothing released yet; it is just myself and the Director General, Deputy DG of Communications for now which is the spokesperson. We will have many directorates, but this is just released ahead of time so that preliminary work will start. Other directorates will be released.
So, it is too early to say some of these aspirants are not with the candidate?
It is not too early or too late. We are all united in APC. We are not the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), like one of them admitted that the devil has entered and taken a seat inside the house. He has not just entered PDP; he has ordered beer and sipping it inside PDP house, so we are not like that. APC is very united and together. Tinubu is a unifier and with his wealth of experience, he knows how to bring people together under one umbrella. For now, the APC is focused and determined and waiting for the whistle to blow for the lion to come out from the jungle.
You just said the APC is united, I am sure you are aware there was a conference held recently at the Nicon Luxury Hotel in Abuja, where certain chieftains met under the umbrella of APC Northern Christians …
When we say APC is united, we are talking of key institutions, people holding key positions created either by party Constitution or by the Nigerian Constitution. So, you cannot say a party is disunited when just any member of the party, for example, we don’t have what they call in the constitution of APC Christian bloc. We don’t have it. So, if anybody organised themselves that they are Christians in the country, whereas, they don’t even represent all the members of that faith, where is that structure created within our constitution? Where is that structure created within the 1999 Constitution? If you say for example, governors are disagreeing, like they are doing in PDP, those are key structures created by the 1999 Constitution. Governors of the states form the structures of the party most of the time, the National Working Committee (NWC) members, and for example, the aspirants who contested for that position for the presidential ticket, these are recognised structures. For now, none of these in the APC are disagreeing, because if you want to go by that, all parties will be in perpetual crisis. If that is the case, what it means is that tomorrow, as a floor member of APC, I can gather 10 members in a hall and begin to get angry and they say APC is disunited. The right thing to say is that some members of the party may be uncomfortable with certain decisions that have been taken. I agree but not that APC is in crisis.
Are you saying a forum that has the likes of a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, former Speaker of House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara is not to be accorded recognition?
Are you saying that in the constitution of our party, there is a functioning body known as former SGFs? I am asking.
But there is no provision for a Progressives Governors Forum in the APC Constitution. How come the party statutory organs listen to them?
There is a provision for governors.
But, is there a provision for the Progressives Governors Forum in APC Constitution?
We are not even using progressives governors, I am not projecting them as anything, am I? I am only saying that the governors one by one as created by the constitution are all in support of Tinubu, not one disagreeing. So, that is an office created by the Constitution. I am not talking of the Progressives Governors Forum.
That forum, where we have the Babachir Lawal and Dogara doesn’t matter to you, despite their resolutions?
It is not tantamount to say that APC is in crisis. There are some members of the party that are uncomfortable with certain decision, not that APC is in crisis.
When you mention APC, there is the perceived trust deficit in terms of delivery of its promises. Seven years down the line, some people say your party has not actually met up with their expectations: power devolution, putting the refineries in good shape, turning around the economy from its mono-cultural status. This time, what would you be telling Nigerians?
I will be telling Nigerians that in the context of what we met, it is not an excuse; it is a fact. Excuse is when you now raise up issues that are non-existent to escape liability. But the fact of what we met on ground, issues we met, in the context of those issues, the administration has tried its very best and has surpassed expectations in those obstacles. For instance, whoever thought that there will be a repeat of Spanish Influenza of the 1919 that the world will be shut down, nobody.
I want to be as honest as possible in this interview. But we were faced with another pandemic after 100 years of human existence. Between 2012 and 2013, the GDP was reading six to seven percent 2014, 2015, it began to nosedive and Okonjo-Iweala towards the end of 2014 actually called a press conference and warned everybody, forecasted that we are heading for recession. We did not give that excuse, it was the PDP Minister of Finance. Why, because the Gross Domestic Product has plummeted to 2.3 percent. So, at the time they handed over to us, the GDP was reading 2.3 from 6 percent.
In other words, it was on a downward spiral and it was dropping so fast at that time. By the time we took over, the country just slipped into recession 6 months later and the battle to rescue the economy started. I repeat that these are not excuses because the PDP will call it excuses, they are not because they are facts that happened, excuses are when you just hide under none existence facts to justify failure or none performance. You are a journalists, between the two of us, you are neutral, so you can hold the ground between PDP and APC and so, you are in a position to judge on a neutral ground, whether what I am saying, the facts are correct or not in your own analysis. The World Bank predicted that we may be under recession for a longer period of time but because of some kind of financial ingenuity, we came out faster than we were predicted to be under recession and the World Bank actually said Nigeria came out of recession quicker than it was predicted. You can fact check. It means therefore that government must have done something right. But in the midst of all of these, government still designed programme of progress, one is infrastructural development. We went for the Sukuk fund to say look, we cannot tell Nigerians that because we went into recession, we didn’t do roads and bridges, we have to work. They went for the Sukuk fund and earmarked major roads in the six geo-political zones. These are special funds created. Second Niger Bridge was just a drawing on the board for 16 years. That bridge was actually designed and conceptualized by Shehu Shagari, that there is a need for second bridge because of the narrow Asaba-Onitsha bridge, because without the bridge, you will cut off the Eastern part from the rest of Nigeria. The only alternative is to pass through Enugu, Benue into the Middle Belt. So, they designed a special fund, removed it from the budgetary provision. So, we created a special fund and the bridge started. The argument now occurred that we are going to commission the bridge. We have completed the bridge, asphalt is on the bridge now and the argument is that the PDP started it but it doesn’t matter, government is continuous.
While this argument is going on, I just want to say two things to Nigerians. One, congratulations Nigerians, it is over, we have finished it. Second, President Muhammadu Buhari, will commission the bridge. These are the two comments we have to make in response.
In the midst of these problems, we started rail revolution. The fact that we went to China and they saw that we were credit worthy is a plus. It is not everybody that is in crisis, for example, that people will borrow money. If they see that you don’t have the capacity to pay back or the right environment, they won’t give you money. People underplay the fact that the nation is credit worthy. The fact that the nation is credit worthy and to say let us embark on this project Lagos-Kano rail project, Port-Harcourt to Maiduguri, Maiduguri to Kano, that is a plus, not a minus. United States is owing, United Kingdom is owing. There is no country in the world that wants development that can operate without borrowing, it is impossible, just like any billionaire businessman building industries, you must borrow. One, borrowing helps in reducing the cost of the project because if you don’t borrow and you want to embark on projects with your meager earning, as the year passes by, cost of the items go up, cost of construction will go up. So, the entire budget for making that project happen will eventually balloon three times if you want to go through the normal earnings. One of the advantages of borrowing is to keep the cost down, you can calculate the cost of your project in real time and can get all your equipment at once, finish at once and make your payment back. So, in all of these, there was also our agricultural revolution. The President said our stable food is rice, can we cut off importation of rice because Nigeria is a rice growing country but over the years has been neglected. The moment the President cuts off rice importation, we were able to go back to the land, we are not totally self-sufficient 100 percent but import has been reduced considerably. We have started exporting yam and all that. So, in terms of diversification, we have gotten to the volume that will actually balance trade but we are on the track already. With the fertilizer revolution with Morocco, we have gone back to the land. All the fertilizer plants have started running again. In the midst of all these, there was significant progress. After Covid-19, the entire world fell into financial crisis, not only Nigeria now. I mean the entire world and this started 2019, 2020 when the world shut down. After the Covid-19, when the world began to open up again, countries were struggling to stay afloat. If you take the statistics of the effort they have made to stay afloat between 2020 and now and the efforts we have made and that is the point I made at a public forum recently that we have done well, even more than most advanced countries. One, on keeping inflation down, two in borrowing, three in respect of our currency, as bad as it looks, we have done far better than most advanced countries.
Seven years down the line, none of the four refineries on ground are working at installed capacity. What would you be telling Nigerians on that?
There are very two simple answers to that and that is the advantage of my being in cabinet and being the spokesperson. I am in the cabinet. I can tell you that we have granted the approvals for these refineries to come back on stream. I remember I was the one that raised the concern on to how do we put these refineries back on stream. We have invited some of the best refineries builders in the world to come and put our refineries back to track. We have signed the agreement and I think you saw Timipre Sylva in one of those briefings after the Federal Executive Council meeting and that was last year and he told the world the approval we have granted. We have to search for the best, not all these Turn Around Maintenance that PDP gave to some of our friends here, I won’t mention names but we know them which made them billionaires. We refused to do that. We have given them a timeline to repair the refineries and we have refused to say we, the bureaucrats, we Nigerians will now come back to manage them. No, we have also done a management agreement with those companies to manage thereafter in terms of managing the infrastructure of the refineries.
I want you to assess the performance of the government in the security sector. How has APC fared?
There are challenges we met on ground and there are challenges that cropped up later. We met the Boko Haram problem, we have not solved it totally. Before we assumed office in 2014, they were almost entering Yobe, in fact they were almost marching on the Damaturu, the State capital; flights were suspended to Gombe, El- Kanemi Football Club of Maiduguri was playing matches in Bauchi, because people could not gather in one place in Maiduguri. Boko Haram hoisted their flags in 14 local government areas. When we came, it was not easy for us, the situation continued for sometime. It was not immediately that we tackled it but through careful planning and through diplomatic shuttle of the President to Chad, Niger and Cameroon, we were able to reduce their activities in the North East.
The farmers/herders crisis came to a peak between 2017 and 2020, it was hell for us, people and farmers were killed by herdsmen, maybe be Fulanis and others, it appeared intractable but the President talked about cattle colony and it was rejected before they came up with the National Livestock Transformation Plan where they now say okay, federal government, I will give you money, we are not coming to take lands in your States again, we will give you money, try and get them out, sort them out of the streets and get them into ranches and everybody agreed on ranching. But it was a deliberate plan and so right now, they have been reduced. These are the problems we inherited, even, during Obasanjo it was existing. The problem has not been totally resolved but we just want to continue in this trajectory of creating the peace along the farming trail of the Middle belt and especially in the North West. So, people will not deny me this facts. What I agreed that has cropped up and we have not solved but it is work in progress. The banditry in the North West and the kidnappings also in the North West are new challenges that have cropped up while we are solving the other ones. Now, just like we resolved the other ones but it took time, there is a careful plan the government is putting in place to tackle these problems because they are new problems they just cropped up.
There are three major contenders so far for the office of the president: Your principal, Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar of PDP and Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP). What would you say stands Tinubu out as his unique selling points as against others?
None of the candidates across the 14 political parties that are contesting for the office of the President can stand anywhere close to Tinubu in terms of performance and track record and this is verifiable. Asiwaju is the only reason why we don’t have one party State. If not for Asiwaju, perhaps Nigeria will be one-party State. By the time PDP wiped out all the States from the South of Nigeria almost parts of Nigeria and could not penetrate Lagos because of Tinubu’s resistance and the whole world stood up for Tinubu because he was the underdog. The world applauded Tinubu because he refused all federal forces and won. At that point, the PDP on a platform of gold wooed Tinubu to come over and for him not to go through any stress, it would have been easier and better for him to go over to PDP. There was no need for him go through that stress because he was looking at 2007, don’t forget that was the 2003 tsunami that happened and for anybody, he would have been afraid that he will not be able to produce a successor in Lagos State because they were coming for him. That was when PDP went to bring Obanikoro against Tinubu and he was backed by all the forces available. He refused to back down and won Lagos with unknown Fashola against a political heavyweight like Obanikoro with Bode George and the rest. Tinubu began to fight back from Lagos, the rest is history. But that singular act by Tinubu is why we have a very healthy democracy today of two strong competing parties today. PDP is a strong party, APC is a strong party. It is that singular act of a man that refused to give in. Let us give it to Tinubu, that is track record. The other candidate, once they find it hot in one party, they jump to the other. I am not abusing them, it is a fact. Tinubu has never, all he did was to change nomenclature and start building and continue to accommodate others. He will do, he will merge and begin to build his base. He has never abandoned any platform, he continues to metamorphose and continue to build. The other candidates, you want to compare their character and democratic credentials to this man? Obi jumped from APGA to PDP. Instead of him to build the platform Ojukwu left behind for him. Atiku’s is the worst ever. From PDP to AC, ACN back to PDP, PDP to APC, from APC back to PDP, all his search for selfishness. That alone stands Tinubu out, nobody comes close to him in the entire country, in terms of his character and democratic credential. At the time Atiku was selling out his principal, selling out the Yar’adua group, joining Abacha, he joined the United Nigeria Congress Party, he was about to be governor of Adamawa under Abacha. They were the ones endorsing Abacha for life succession before Abacha died when Tinubu was abroad selling “Agbado” and rice to raise money to support his movement back then. His ingenuity in Lagos is so well written, people may try to undermine it but they do it because of politics. In their bedrooms, they go and I know one of them called me and said oh boy, Tinubu tried o, let us face it. This is a man who woke up, before him, the two highlands were almost wiped out, the properties had gone down. At a point, I was afraid that you could buy property for N20 million or N10 million, especially on the shoreline. The hot property line of Nigeria became a desolate place. All the shoreline packed out. Tinubu looked and said our pride of Lagos Victoria Island will never go down. Before him, all the military administrators and Governors tried to contain the shore, the waves coming from the Bar Beach that were sweeping into Victoria Island cutting the road into two at a point. He did not just see the chance to contain the shore that other Governors see, he said no, I will build a city on this. It appeared like a madman dream. I will not only contain this water, inside this water, I will build a city. That he used one stone to kill 50 birds, create a new city, stopped the water, create a new elite city that all of us can be proud of, saved the buildings and all that. A man who can build this type of city on an ocean and somebody said Keyamo looks stupid campaigning for Tinubu. I am proud to look stupid campaigning for this type of man.
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