Former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, in this interview, likened the All Progressives Congress, APC, leadership to Pharaoh’s.Lamido, who lamented that the APC has weaponized poverty against citizens, said hunger was now walking on the country’s streets on two feet. Excerpts;

answer from the people. Not somebody staying in Abuja and talking about Nigeria being very secure or safe. Second, on the economy, go to the market. Ask the ordinary bus driver, the ordinary folks roaming around the street. Ask them, are you happy with the money in your pocket? Is it able to give you what you think is adequate for your needs or not?

To me, that is the parameter of testing either the security or the economy of the country. It is not about me or you, people like you, people like me, you know, who should be talking for Nigeria. Go to ordinary folks. Talk to them. Do you feel safe? Do you feel secure? Are you happy with the government? And answers will be given. They should drive down, they will see poverty walking on its own two feet. You see it. You can see insecurity. Last week, somebody called Turji puts a levy of how many million on some villages in Zambara, only last week. So when you say security and the economy and the government, to me, it is all part of the deception of leadership in government.

What more can ordinary Nigerian citizens do to demand and get good governance from the current crop of leaders that we have?

You see, the APC government has made poverty a weapon. Poverty has been weaponized. And therefore, when you don’t have the basic needs, when you are very poor, when you are hungry, you become very unstable. And so they have been able to create a situation whereby Nigeria will rely on what they call handouts or palliatives.

The purpose of government is to create the kind of environment for Nigerians to be able to stand up and work and earn a living. But when you bring Nigeria into that kind of poverty and they rely on you for handouts, they have taken away their dignity, their self-esteem and even their capacity to be human beings again. To me, the way forward is for government to be humane, to have human empathy, to also respect people and believe in their dignity, not by getting them subordinated and therefore feeling obliged for their support, which is their own right. Doing otherwise is simply creating an environment whereby I will feel obliged to feel maybe subordinated or to feel, you know, happy that the government is working for me. You don’t induce a problem and say this is the cure and ask me to thank you. You don’t do that. Government has been able to induce, you know, poverty and difficulty and it is not great for Nigerians.

Because, you know, they have lost their self-esteem, their dignity, and their honour. And therefore, they now look to the government for succour and solace, which is very wrong. I think the first thing the Nigerian people who are not very hungry should do is to resist this issue of handout during the election. You get noodles for your own vote because you are very poor. Now, make some sacrifice.

Stand up for your rights. Stand up for yourself, for your dignity and your human essence. Second, the process should be able to also say we respect you as a Nigerian. Therefore, we believe in your dignity. We believe you have rights, you know. We should not manipulate or exploit you. It is something collective, you know. All of us must have that kind of human empathy, human feeling and human respect for one another. So that we will be able to create a very clean environment where issues can be properly addressed without any encumbrance from hunger or poverty. For now, the Nigerian poor are burdened by poverty, hunger and they cannot see very clearly. And when you have no focus, when your vision is impaired by this kind of problem, you don’t see very clearly. My worry is in 2027, what do we do to restore that culture of integrity, of sanity, and sincerity? So, you know, we look at the Nigerian situation and see how to save Nigeria? But by the way people are now being manipulated. The way they give out N50,000 monthly to people, I mean, you have taken away people’s sense of honour and dignity, and that is a big problem. It’s a very difficult thing to work under an environment where the leadership is so Pharaonic.

The current leadership is very Pharaonic. It has no human empathy. It is arrogant. It is patronising. It is condescending. To them, government is owned by them, we are now a government of the oligarchs like America. What we see in Nigeria is a government of the oligarchs. How we restore power to the people is now a problem because the oligarchs are now in charge.

•First aired on Arise TV