Benue under Ortom a monumental failure

Comrade Abba Patrick Moro is a lecturer and former Minister of Interior. In this interview with OMEIZA AJAYI, the one-time unionist, local government administrator and influential member of the PDP ex-Ministers’ Forum speaks on his experiences since leaving office saying nothing has changed despite the promise of “change” by the APC administration. He also says the PDP has no automatic ticket for the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar. Excerpts:

Some followers of the PDP feel you are being persecuted rather than prosecuted for serving under Jonathan?

Well, again, I was not surprised because, you know while I was in office, one of my lowest points was the tragedy that accompanied the Nigerian Immigration Service NIS recruitment exercise and unfortunately for me, mischief makers had manufactured lies and stories and planted them in the minds of Nigerians and so, as far as they were concerned, I was guilty.

I am happy that the matter is in court now and I am very hopeful that Nigerians will get to know the truth because I did not set out for the exercise to fail, I did not set out to make money out of that exercise. I honestly cancelled the previous exercise that was criticised by Nigerians as irregular and as an exercise that was anchored on extortion of money from poor Nigerians I cancelled the exercise and I promised Nigerians that I was going to enthrone a more transparent and cost-effective arrangement for that recruitment exercise which I did. But unfortunately, certain elements within the system plotted for it not to succeed and I did not know about it and so the result of that exercise did not meet expectations. Having said that, I want to leave it as one of those marks that I have to live with for some time. But I look at the whole scenario and what is going on especially the relationship between the government and the PDP now and even my own sense of history of African leadership and politics, I am sure that nobody expected anything less. The only thing that was in the minds of majority of us was the fact that, Nigerians had expected that we had grown beyond the politics of persecution; the realm of politics of persecution and that we were on the trajectory of enduring democracy but unfortunately I think from what is happening, that is not exactly what is going on now because you know, people say yes, if you want to deal with the pervasive problems of Nigeria, then you have to deal with the people who apparently have been assumed to have contributed to these problems. But I think what many people are asking for, is some level of transparency, some level of fairness, because the problems that Nigerians face today did not start from yesterday, it did not start from the enthronement of government of the PDP. No. It is an age-long set of problems that ordinarily should be tackled headlong and let me tell you, my own perception of problem and solution is not punishment. You have identified the problems, stop them from reoccurring.

Abba Patrick Moro

Do you regret serving under Jonathan?

Looking back today, if I have the opportunity serving under Jonathan, I will serve again.

Nigerians hurting under Buhari

Honestly,   I do know that when it rains, it does not fall on just one person. The people of Nigeria are hurting under this government. No matter what you want to say about the PDP government and administration in Nigeria, if you ask anybody about my antecedents, I advocate against corruption, I advocate against impunity. And so, if anybody is in PDP, or he is in APC, and he is corrupt, the person should answer for it because I do know that as a student of political history, that the greatest obstacle to national development is corruption. So, that is why, to some extent, I give kudos to the present president for confronting corruption headlong. I may not agree with some of the methods and the rest of them and characters involved but the truth about it is that, corruption is a problem that every responsible leader must fight for a better tomorrow. I was part of the Jonathan administration that left a very buoyant economy in this country. Whether you like it or not, under Jonathan, the Nigerian economy became the strongest in Africa. You cannot take it away from him. It became the 26th strongest economy in the world. Under Jonathan, basic food ingredients and materials in the market were moderate in their prices. Today, by the exigencies of time and market forces and some of the negative policies that have been introduced by the current administration, everything has gone haywire and the economy is in bad shape.

The issue of who becomes the presidential candidate of your party could cause more problems especially as some people are reportedly rooting for former vice president, Atiku Abubakar…

For every competitive phase of political development, there will be tension. For every competition where there are many aspirants and in which only one person can be elected at a time, there will be tension and it is so in all political parties. As we talk now, the APC has not been able to hold a convention since they came to power because they are afraid of a possible implosion.

The PDP is a broad base political party that accommodates all shades of interest and persons. You would recall that the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar with due respect was a founding father of the party and for inexplicable reasons left the party to another party and came back, and went back and is back now. But as a political party, we are a voluntary organization and we will always welcome anybody who goes and comes back but I can assure you that members of the PDP will not automatically give out the party’s ticket to any person, not the least, somebody who just rejoined the party, everybody will compete for the ticket and party members will be allowed to participate in the process of picking their leaders.

Your former colleague, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi who is now the APC spokesman, last year launched a book, ‘On a Platter of Gold’ in which he said Jonathan was not exactly corrupt but that his weakness was his failure to act on allegations of corruption against people in his administration. How true is this?

One of the greatest wonders, by looking back, I have discovered is Bolaji Abdullahi. Each time I read about his comments about Jonathan and the administration of Jonathan, I kept wondering whether it is the same Bolaji Abdullahi who was in the cabinet with us because Bolaji Abdullahi appeared to me at a certain point as the golden boy of that cabinet. He was in sports, he was in youth development, as a matter of fact, Bolaji Abdullahi was one of the few ministers who supervised two ministries. I do not know about his interactions with Jonathan but I know about my interactions with Jonathan and I know that Jonathan as a president of this country was very passionate about Nigeria and moving Nigeria in the right direction.

.How do you compare the various allegations of corruption under the APC administration, to what we experienced under PDP?

Well, I want to think that the time for serious comparison is not here. The APC government is still on the throne, it is still on seat and working. So, I believe very sincerely that President Buhari and leaders of APC were elected for a tenure of four years. I will reserve my comments.

A day of reckoning coming for APCs “Angels”

But let me say, if you are talking about corruption, corruption in Nigeria is an endemic problem; an albatross to our development process. Everybody knows about this, and so, those who are claiming that they are angels now should know that the day of reckoning will come when everybody will give account of himself.

So, we will be making propositions, budget propositions and the rest of them and people are watching. If you have budgeted N1trn for power for instance, if at the end of your tenure – that is the point I am making, if at the end of your tenure, electricity supply and distribution still remain as epileptic as it has ever been, then somebody is going to ask you questions. Where has the N1trn gone to? That’s the point I am making.

But I can tell you that nobody can wish away the fact that, right now, in Nigeria, government officials have perpetrated one level of corruption or the other. There is no doubt about that and so I am not sure that officials of government at this recent time now can completely exonerate themselves from the endemic corruption that Nigeria is witnessing because Nigerians know and the allegations are very obvious that corruption is still here with us.

Your state governor was in Jonathan’s administration and he has been the governor in the state close to 3 years now, what has been your experience when you look at the state generally?

Looking at Benue state under Gov. Samuel Ortom, I can say, without prejudice to immodesty, that since the creation of Benue state, that administration has been one of the most monumental failures that we have ever had. Benue state at this moment is tilting towards complete collapse. Benue state under Samuel Ortom quite frankly, and I am not talking politics here, has completely failed the people.

As I am talking to you now, very many Benue public servants have not been paid for upwards of 12 months. Some sectors have not been paid for upward of seven months and that is the least.

As I am talking to you now, Benue people have kept the records of all the money that have accrued to Benue under this present administration and they have come to the conclusion that Benue state does not have any business with poverty and non-payment of salaries.

And when you look at it from the perspective of even infrastructural development, it is most saddening to note that up till this moment that I am talking to you, the government in Benue state cannot boast that they have constructed or executed any meaningful project and recently, I have had cause to challenge the Governor of Benue state to invite the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria like other states to come to his state. President Buhari was recently in Ebonyi state commissioning projects. We have asked that… in those days, the vice president was acting president then, I have asked the governor of my state, Benue to invite the vice president – acting president to come to Benue state to commission one project two years after. And so, it becomes sad when we realise that salaries of workers are not paid. As I am talking to you now, it is on record that Benue state government has taken a loan of over N70 billion since assuming office. Two, three tranches of bailout funds have been dished out to Benue state government to the tune of over N20 billion; the Paris/London Club refunds part of it;   Benue state is entitled to statutory allocation from the federation account; no matter how small, we also generate internal revenue.

The Benue state government keeps complaining about ghost workers, unverified level of Benue workers and I begin to wonder, three years into an administration, you are still verifying the number of workers that you have on your payroll. Three years after, you are still talking about ghost workers, so, who are these ghost workers and which officials are paying them? And so, on very good authority, there is every indication that the governor is crying actually about a wolf that exists because salary vouchers are padded, month in month out.

Won’t people be saying that you are criticising the governor because you are interested in becoming the governor of the state in 2019?

Well, I don’t see anything that is bad about wanting to become governor. I don’t also see anything that is bad about criticising the governor because I want him to know what he is doing wrong and to make corrections. But the point is this, I am not going to contest the governorship of Benue state tomorrow. I am criticising the governor on issues that are there for everybody to see. We have asked consistently. How much is the wage bill of Benue state, up till this moment, the governor of Benue state has not been able to tell Benue people and Nigerians how much the wage bill of Benue state is.

I have consistently asked the governor, as at the time you took over from Gabriel Suswan what was the salary bill of Benue state? What is the current bill of salaries of Benue state? Now, we need to know this, but everything is shrouded in secrecy, nobody knows and you are saying you have taken loans, you have taken allocations from federation account, you have taken bailouts, you have taken Paris/London club refunds, we have internally generated revenue, don’t we as a people have a right to know how much you are owing workers? Where are the workers? How much have you generated in all its entirety as income for Benue state since you assumed office? How much is the wage bill? Why are you not paying salaries? What have you done with our money? Other states, especially Kano, publish virtually every month, the income and expenditure profile of the state.

We are asking, if you say we are criticising for the sake of criticising, please, you that know the A and the B, tell us, so that we can stop criticising you, so that we can stop complaining, we are complaining because we are hurting.

Those of us who are a little above average in Benue state are bearing the brunt. Every day, people come to ask for money to even feed. Every day, parents of children in schools come to ask for school fees. Every day, people die of common ailments because they cannot afford hospital bills.

As I am talking to you now, a sizeable number of Benue people cannot afford two square meals in a day; that is the truth. So, are we going to keep quiet when obviously we know that monies are accrued to the state government?

On the issue of security, the anti-grazing bill or law, has he done well there?

Let me tell you, because if I say now, you will say I criticise Ortom because I want to be governor. Quite frankly, I would love to be governor of Benue state but I am not contesting to take over from Ortom. That’s the truth!

Of course, when the immigration issue came up, they said I was raising money to go and contest for the governorship. I didn’t do that. Now, I am talking, complaining about Benue people who are hurting, they say I am criticising Ortom because I want to be governor of Benue state. No!

Let me tell you that the anti-grazing law is good. I was one of those persons who insisted that the bill must be passed by the House of Assembly and that the governor must assent to it to become law because at a point, the Fulani herdsmen were mowing down our people with reckless abandon and nobody rose in defence of our people and at a certain point the government of Benue state through its proxy, the chairman of Agatu local government signed an agreement with the Fulani herdsmen, paving way for them to graze their cattle in certain parts of Benue state, specifically Agatu local government and we rose against it. I rose against it and I insisted that it was a betrayal of the people.

Now, the governor for the first listened to our cries and the cries of the people and decided to provide the solution by enacting the anti-open grazing law in Benue state. But if you look at the whole scenario, you would think that, that law was not well thought out because there is no gainsaying that the Fulanis and the farmers have lived together for a long time, the activities appeared not to have impeded the activities of others but in recent times, it has become obvious that the activities of Fulani herdsmen have become a bit of a problem to the ordinary farmer in Benue state. So, the agitations for some level of control became imperative. But in trying to provide for the farmers in Benue state, in trying to control the activities of Fulani herdsmen as they affect the lives of the ordinary person, some thoughts should have been given to also the life of Fulani herdsmen because they have lived in Benue, for some of them, they don’t have another home. You say ranching, yes, we agree, to control. One, some enabling environment should have been provided for ranching, that’s number one. Two, sufficient time should have been given for ranching or ranches to be built because you don’t wake up from the wrong side of the bed and say look, stop open grazing, go and put your cows in ranches. Where are the ranches? I am not asking government to provide the ranches but I am saying, if rearing cattle is one business that the Fulani man does, and the atmosphere or condition is no longer favourable towards doing it, if the Fulani man is given six months, given one year, he cannot build ranches to control the cows, then he would also be thinking of alternative business; he could sell off the cows and go into another business or he could build ranches. As it is now, the timeline between the passage of the bill and the assent to the bill to make it law in Benue state and the time that was given to Fulanis to either put their cows in ranches or be penalised was not enough and I think that that time has made implementation of the law a bit difficult.

I know you will be happy for your party to take over the state in 2019, how strong and how acceptable is PDP in Benue state now?

Benue is a PDP state. Benue state is predominantly a PDP state. There is no doubt about that. Even the governor himself. Everybody that is in APC virtually…Majority of the people in APC now are PDP people. So, Benue state has always been a PDP state and I think that the people at the helms of PDP in Benue state made some fundamental errors which allowed the opposition party – APC to come to power in Benue state.

But let me also tell you that the PDP in Benue state at the time of election in 2015 was very vulnerable because PDP had been in power in Benue state for 16 years. And so, when the APC came with the mantra of change, there was excitement in the air because the ordinary meaning of change was that things were going to get better.

But you had ‘transformation’ and it is not any different from ‘change’…

Yes, we had transformation that had lasted like I said for 16 years and so, people may be seeing motion without movement. It was obvious that people ordinarily were seeking some level of alternative for change. Let’s see whether something better can happen and so they embraced the change message of the APC. Unfortunately for our people, they didn’t realise that there would be always a difference between the message and the messenger. And so, today the messengers have disappointed the people because they have not brought the change that people were looking for. Very many persons in APC who left PDP for APC are coming back home. Very many people who have never been party members before but who have now become excited because of happenings around Benue state and Nigeria are also joining the PDP. On Sunday, on the 12th of November last year, I personally witnessed the movement of APC members, former caretaker chairman, former advisers to the governor, former assistants to the governor and new members come to join the PDP. We have been going to other local governments to bring in our brothers who have seen the light.

People now leaving the ruling party for the opposition

Nigerians should note one very interesting thing in the politics of Nigeria today. In the past, it is used to be that people decamp or leave the party that has lost election or that is in opposition to the party that is ruling. But here we are today, people are moving in their droves from the ruling party to the party in opposition and last time I said look, it is interesting the way politics plays out in Nigeria because here we are, people leaving the comfort zone of government and the corridors of power and moving to the opposition party. It is real! So, I can assure you that the PDP is properly repositioning in Benue state to give APC government and APC party a run for their money in Benue state.