By Jide Ajani & Anthonia Onwuka

…’Ignore Obasanjo at your own peril’, Says bid for president not foreclosed
This week, Bola Ahmed Tinubu would turn 60 years. This is the second part of the interview which began last week. In this concluding part, Tinubu dwells on the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria, DAWN, the allegation by the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and President Goodluck Jonathan, that the party Tinubu leads operates like an extension of his family, his fears about the turn of events in the country and why he thinks President Jonathan may be losing it.

He also talks about Olusegun Obasanjo and concludes that if you ignore or underestimate his capacity for deception, you do so at your own peril. Presidential ambition? Read what he has to say about that. Excerpts:

Let us work on the hypothesis that the conference can not hold.  What can the opposition do and how can they salvage the situation because even your political party, the Action Congress of Nigeria, AC N,  is not seen as a political party.  In fact, let’s hit the nail on the head, the word in the street is that AC N is a Tinubu show, a one man show. So, is this the party that would set things right? They asked. The President hit on this last week.

They are ignorant and they don’t know anything about constitution and democracy in their country.  What they are working towards is a one party state because they are not honest.  Power is not served a la carte.  They enjoy power in perpetuity and they are shameless about it; and they don’t even care about the Human Development Index. They feed us with lies on statistics and Nigeria’s economic development.  They claim to have a growth of 8%, for God’s sake, where is the evidence of that in the army of unemployed in the country.

If that growth is true and real, how many jobs have we created?  Where is the growth coming from?  Where is the agricultural sector, manufacturing.  Capital flight is the order of the day.  Where is the one man show?

They talk about internal democracy?
It is because they don’t have ideas.  Good ideas build a nation.  If they can not see other leaders in our party then it means they are blind.  Because Bola Tinubu is vocal so it is one-man show.  You talk about Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, and because you can’t arm-twist them you say that one, too, is Buhari’s show.

After the removal of subsidy, they told lied to us that inflation has just gone up by 2%, they conveniently forgot the ‘0’ behind the ‘2’ (that’s 20% inflation).  We told them they forgot the ‘0’; that inflation has become 20%; we asked them which calculation that was.  They think all Nigerians are gullible.  Whose markets did they measure?  These people are not honest? If it was a real one man show, during the elections, how many people were they running up and down to talk to and beg.

Just before the elections, there was this upbeat feeling about the possible alliance between AC N and CPC.  People have said all manner of things but sitting with you now, please tell us, what single thin can you point at which made the alliance fail?

I won’t want to rehash things and inflame passion but every effort was made to make that alliance work.  We have symbols that we designed; we had compromises that we had made; I know how many times we held meetings but there was no flexibility on their part.

But that is exactly what the CPC people also said: that you and your AC N chose not to be flexible?
How can I not be flexible.  You came into this office with your two legs. Now I want you to be flexible; let me amputate your two legs and, without a wheel chair, let me see how you would get home. (laughter)

This Development Agenda for Western Nigeria, DAWN, appears sensible but while you were governor of Lagos State, with the six under the umbrella of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, why didn’t such an engagement come on board?

We tried as much as possible to do that but don’t forget that Olusegun Obasanjo was there – very tactical and deceptive man.  He’s one of the most strategic individuals you can ever meet; a very strategic man in thinking.

The same Obasanjo that you took on?
Oh yes!  Give him credit for that.  If you underestimate Obasanjo, it is at your own peril because he has the character, strategy and will to destabilize you and you are gone to the bush, you are gone to the rubbles. Very deceitful.  Obasanjo didn’t see us in AD as a political party but as enemies that he must destabilize and he did.

We were just evolving after the first election but the second one he robbed us of victory and now that we have recovered after some six years.  It is now our responsibility to create a new beginning, learn from the mistakes of the past, plan for the future and put our region on the path of growth.  It is about service to the people.  We have relied so much on oil.

I governed this state and there were times when the revenue that came in were so small.  There was a month we came home with N400m, N200m net and we had salaries running into billions and all of that.  And when you go back and look at our potential – everybody talks about the nation’s potentials but when are we going to turn the potentials into real growth.

* Tinubu

Look at it this way: start a feeding nutrition programme for our children in the school with our fertile land.  It takes leadership to think and perform.  We have started urban renewal in Lagos and we had a strategy to carry that through and the same can happen in the south west.

With good financing, we can reach the skies. Let’s say we give every child in school one or two eggs every day in the region; you would not lay that egg, it would be from poultry farms, imagine how many poultries we would have, how many individuals that would be employed, the chicken feed business would thrive and that is job creation to grow a healthy population.

Add half a loaf of bread to that per day:  Can you imagine the number of bakeries that would spring up (and you don’t need a sophisticated bakery to do that); jobs would be created, nutritional value is created; we have land for growing of pineapple and oranges and you give just a cup per day to pupils, I tell you, you would not see those urchins on the streets again.  You can complain of child abuse but have you created the economic environment that would stop that.

Look at what I’ve said now, do you know the chain and the exponential lucrative development of the economy.  Imagine a rail network in the region, the haulage business would make more sense because you would be saving lives by removing those tankers from our roads, damage to the roads would be reduced – the fabrication business of our fathers, baba Jos, baba Zaria, the foundry business.  Do you know how much forex would be saved?

But there is a missing leg in the picture, Ondo State of Labour Party, LP.  You have been accused of trying to capture the state.  How would you discuss Ondo State within this picture of DAWN?

We’ll say come into the poll, we’ll work together.  Let’s have a common philosophy but if not we have a right to contest any election.

But Governor Mimiko has said a development agenda for the region should transcend party lines?
He is right to say that – at least he had a representation at the launch of the programme.  His representative spoke.  You need to buy-in, but that does not stop us from contesting an election against you if you are not in our political party.

Olusegun Obasanjo

Okay why were the old brigade Afenifere elders left out of the arrangement.  For, how would you feel, 20 years from now when some younger elements set out an agenda like this and you, still alive are left out.  Was it a communication gap?
That was an economic environment for a vision.  You don’t know whether they had a buying in.

Were they consulted or involved?
You don’t know.

That is why I am asking?
I pray to be alive and in good health in 20 years time and I believe I should stay home then and may be consulted.  We should not play into the hands of the tyranny of dead ideas; we expect our children to be better than us.  The idea that my daughter would not do certain things better than I have done has never worked well.

I could appreciate you working with your iPad here, I’ve seen you do that now and I appreciate it, compared to the old approach of picking the keys one by one.  The moment you think they can not do it better, you have failed.  The success of a leader is in the ability to create better leaders, mentor people.

Look at what Governor Fashola of Lagos is doing now from where we stopped.  He didn’t discard BRT, he built on it and he is doing better, younger, more energetic. Don’t read political meanings into pictures that do not exist.

A-s-h-i-w-a-j-u let us leave these rationalisations out.  You know them more than I do; acknowledging them would not have hurt the DAWN programme.

Yes we acknowledged them.

Okay we move on?
Let me tell you, today for instance, I was at the Awolowo Lecture, so what else.  People are welcome to make positive contributions.  The younger people at the lecture were brilliant. Agbaje was so brilliant; so were the other younger people.  You want the people who can expend their energy.  We will be unfair to them if we bring them to come and start struggling with the ideas of today because that would be more or less saying that they have failed.

Your views on the sanctity of the judiciary are well known but then last year there was this crisis between the Chief Justice and the President of the Court of Appeal.  Would you say that event has made you to re-assess the basis of your confidence in the judiciary?

Well, yes, for now.  I have doubts.

But the same judiciary gave your judgment at the Code of Conduct Tribunal and the governorship petitions which AC N won?

Yes, you’re right.  But that is one or two out of how many?  But you know what is happening in the country now.  I thought the CCT would be partisan but it gave me hope.  I was ready for the worst.

I knew if there was justice I would win and if they became partisan my appeal was prepared and my small suite case was ready so if they say detain him.  But that doesn’t mean the judiciary is not being contaminated.  I am shocked with Salami’s case.  I am shocked about the shamelessness of it that tyrants are prevailing and winning and it has a virile effect – it is affecting the bar now, spreading, affecting politics.

If you can obtain a call log without a court order and use it in a speculative, hypothetical manner to lie against Salami, he was exonerated.  Between 2005 and 2007, there were elections over-turned and of all the cases Salami participated in either as a member of the panel or as chairman then you pick two cases, the one for Osun and Ekiti – he presided on Ekiti.  Those people who did those things are alive.  One former governor should be criminlaised because he tendered a false document in court.

MTN testified that the call log was not obtained from them and they used this on oath.  After 18months another panel was set up to review the judgment on Ekiti.  Is that not a shame? How can you now single out Salami against whom you didn’t establish a case of corruption and you’re sending the message that ‘you rule against us we deal with you’.  That is what they are telling judges.

They went to Sokoto, they said the  matter leaked.  A panel sat and concluded that it was not true and that there was even no judgment to be leaked.  And when you review this, there was not even a petition to that effect about a supposedly leaked judgment.

President Jonathan

Then you move to promote the man out of relevance and he cried out.  If another former PDP governor says Salami should be removed and then things start working in that direction then there is problem in this country.  One panel after the other kept exonerating him and I think suspension must have a terminal date.

Courage is lacking, honesty is lacking.  This is an amputation of the judiciary and no one is safe and that is why I would say I am bereaved when judiciary is lacking because once your right is taken from you then you are no more a human being and you are not different from a dog or a goat; and the judiciary is the only place where your rights can be guaranteed.  When the judges are no longer feeling secure on their jobs, then we are in peril.

Now you have a president…?
(Cuts in) If you say fish rots from the head then you are correct.

Why I want to drag Mr. President into this because his party, the PDP, is the ruling party in the country.  How would you situate President Jonathan just before he became President looking for votes, immediately after he became President and now?

I am afraid now; very afraid.  My fear is more because of a Jonathan that I am seeing now, compared to the Jonathan that went about the country begging for votes and a Jonathan that I am seeing now in power.

What are those things that send these fears to you?
Even the case of Justice Salami is an example. The way Nigeria is going rabidly in a very sectional manner is another pointer. The way his administration can not even stand the heat on any criticism is another.  The way state of emergency is being declared is another.  Is it backed by any law? The way soldiers are being deployed to terminate innocent harmless protests in the country.

You wrote a letter to President Jonathan recently about his breach of the social contract, what informed that letter?  Or was it a carry over from the meeting you had with him before the election?

It’s on behalf of the people and that is what is expected of me. We had this discussion and we agreed that we were going to come back so that we can set out our idea.  We didn’t want him to fail because we didn’t want Nigeria to fail; we don’t want our people to suffer because the partisan electoral campaigns were already over and this was a time to begin to build the country.  Electioneering was over so it was a time to build the nation but what we are seeing is different.  With more social unrests no one is safe.

Look at me in the face and tell me Jide if your responsibilities have not increased. If people have not be coming to you for favours tell me. Just some 48 hours ago, somebody got my number, called me and said he needed N50,000 to foot hospital bill.  He challenged me if I wanted to verify, that the ward if ‘F’, that the money can be paid straight to the hospital and not him directly just to show that he is being honest.

You are 60 this month, what Nigeria of the future would you want to see and how can contributions be made for a Nigeria of your dream?

First of all I would say I thank God that I am like this at 60 and still very energetic, despite the machinations of some people that I was struck by a strange illness….

I was coming to that:  How did that come about?
That is the way that people’s mind works.  Their minds are paralysed and not mine, paralysis of the brain. Seriously, I am grateful to God and people around me but I am disappointed that at 60, I’m not fulfilled politically about my country.
I am angry that my country after 51years of independence is like an invalid baby in an incubator.  I’m angry that those who do not have are far much more than the few who are rich.  There is desperation on the faces of our people and there is hunger, despondency and hopelessness.

But in the middle of that I see a challenge and I’m ready to give it all as I’ve done before. There is no condition you can use to threaten me now:  I’ve been in detention before; I’ve been charged for treason; faced life or death sentence because Nigeria then the judiciary flourished more than now because the judgment that said government must return Ojukwu’s house was a bold judgment, different from what we have now. I returned from exile to vote for constitutional democracy. I want devolution of powers.

You don’t blackmail the states by saying they don’t know how to manage resources, meanwhile you have a Jonathan who walked through the crucible from deputy governor to governor so what is happening now?  Ali Baba and the forty thieves is better than the salad of corruption that has now enveloped the country from the centre, that is staring us in the face.

You don’t have the discipline of fiscal federalism, there must be one – that is why I’m sad. You don’t have electoral reforms, there must be.  The electoral reform recommendations were discarded, cherry picking and deceiving Nigerians. What is wrong with us as a people.  Is it because they want to stay in power forever?

There is this talk about your presidential ambition; that it is a burning desire?
That ambition is hanging in the air, floating like a balloon. There is no crime in having ambition and if anybody and everybody has a right to go for it, I am included in that everybody. If they asked Jonathan that question some seven years ago, how would he have answered? If the Almighty says so and the situation provides itself, why not because I know I can do it better.