T he minister of information, culture and tourism, Alhaji Lai Mohammed was before now the spokesman of the All Progressives Congress, APC. In this interview, he speaks on recent issues pertaining to affairs in the ruling party, the challenges before the administration among other things. Excerpts:

By Emmanuel Aziken

What is your reaction to the gale of defections from the APC? Was it an event you were expecting, or it took you by surprise?

I don’t think anybody who has been a close watcher or observer of this political landscape should be taken aback by the defections. I think that it even came so late, we shouldn’t be surprised. A Yoruba adage says, ‘If we build a house on spittle, the first fog will demolish it.’ The foundation for what you see today was laid the day the Senate President forced himself on the party as Senate President.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed 

That was the day the day the foundation for what you are witnessing today was laid because traditionally it is the party’s prerogative who becomes the presiding officers in the two houses. Here we were met with a fait accompli when Dr. Bukola Saraki, against the wishes of the party, did the unthinkable by aligning with the opposition and making them an offer they could not refuse.

From that day, we knew we had two problems. A Senate President who imposed himself on the party and to make it worse as insurance, he arranged for an opposition person to be Deputy Senate President and that makes it impossible for us to remove him. ‘If you remove me, you are going to have a PDP Senate President.’ I think from that day we had a problem.

I think this is not a surprise at all. Of course, you could see the behaviour of the National Assembly since then. We have a National Assembly in which we had a clear majority in both houses but which treated the Executive with contempt and who actually slowed down the work of government. In 2016, 2017 and 2018, our budgets were delayed. We can understand the 2015 budget because we came in, in the middle of the year. But 2016, 2017, the earliest we got our budgets was June. Key appointments, nominations, and confirmations for key organizations that could move the government forward like the CBN, like the NDIC, were delayed. Really, it couldn’t have been worse if the PDP had a majority in the National Assembly.

But it is claimed that the party caused it by refusing to zone the positions? Also, remember that your party caused the same thing against the PDP when you imposed Aminu Tambuwal as speaker against the desire of the party and as such you should have expected what happened?

It is not the same thing. In 2011, there were two aspirants from the PDP. Each of them knew that they needed the opposition to emerge. So the kind of horse-trading that took place in 2011 is normal in any democracy since the party did not succeed in getting one candidate. Now when they approached us, we looked at the offer, and we believed that the other party didn’t do as much. What we did in 2011 in helping him to come to power was a normal thing in democracy because once you don’t have an absolute majority, you would need the support of the other smaller parties. And in 2011 we were the biggest minority in the House of Representatives.

So does your government want Saraki removed or it is just a party affair?  

I think the Chairman of the party has spoken and he has asked him to resign.

PDP is harvesting people from your party, what are you also doing to poach their members?

I have just told you now that I have harvested even without any struggle.

Still, on Kwara some PDP members including the Deputy Chairman, former Deputy Governor Joel Ogundeji, former Speaker Babatunde Mohammed, and even a former Minister of National Planning, welcomed Saraki and said they are ready to work with him, what do you make of that?

What is the electoral value of those people? All politics is local; I watched them on television, many of them looked so terrified. They were even afraid they were being shown because these are the same people that have been talking to me. I don’t want to mention names. I laughed when I saw them because they were uncomfortable they were being televised.

We are very confident that we are going to win election in Kwara State because we have the numbers. Compare those people on television with the crowd that received me, the enthusiasm, the air of liberation.

What is your reaction to the allegations of selective implementation of the anti-corruption fight?

This allegation of the selective fight is not correct. The former governor of Plateau State who has been sentenced, was he not in ACN? You forget one thing that the executive is quite independent of the Judiciary, we can only prosecute, and we can’t convict anybody. It is left for the court to convict. So this thing about once you become a member of APC, you are free. Tell me one member of the APC whose prosecution has been stopped because he crossed over to APC. Those who have charges before the court, there is no way the executive can instruct the court to stop that case.

Police siege to the residence of the Senate President?

It was fake news; it didn’t happen. I called the IG, and the Police PRO went on television that it was not true. In this age of fake news, you could manipulate the picture in a manner that something that happened somewhere could be transported here.

What can you say this government has done to deserve re-election?

You see we have delivered all promises we made. We came in and we promised we were going to fight insecurity. At that time, the major threat to the corporate existence of Nigeria was the Boko Haram insurgency and despite what anybody says, we have decimated Boko Haram.

Today there is relative peace. We have been able to recover all territories and today no single inch of Nigerian territory is under the Boko Haram control. Yes, there have been suicide bombings, that is what terrorism is all about.

Look at the regularity it used to occur and now. It is all about intelligence gathering. Yes you would talk about herdsmen-farmer clashes, was it not something we inherited? The first farmers-herders’ clash was in 1947 even before Nigeria became independent but over the years we have been able to manage it.

What has aggravated the farmers-herders’ clash today is the government’s position, its stand on fighting corruption.

How?

We found out that in Benue State in particular that some people facing corruption charges are the ones that have armed Militia. Is it not interesting that Terkula that was arrested is actually a government appointee? And since his arrest, these killings have gone down. The suspects arrested for killing those priests were not Fulani herdsmen. They are militia men from Benue State.

Now we have politicians who are afraid that any re-election of Buhari, they would end up in jail and they are now fuelling this herdsmen crisis especially in Benue state.