Chief Robert Usman Audu, an aspirant in the last Kogi State governorship election and a retired federal permanent secretary at the State House, Abuja, spoke with Kassim Omomia and Alex Emeje on the state of the nation, especially insurgency, 2003 elections and ‘Pantami’. Excerpts.

You alluded to the anomaly going on in Kaduna State over the minimum wage that led to the downsizing of workers, and reduction from N30,000 to N18,000 by the Kaduna Governor and possibly some of his colleagues. Are the governors not violating the law?

It is an unfortunate development that after 35 years that you have put in your energy working for your country and you are retired from the office, nobody considers your input or the years you have put to work.
It is supposed to be a covenant between government and labour.

But it is either the labour is being bribed, or they are being threatened because they are not covering or protecting the workers as it is supposed to be. Even before the governors lay off workers, are their entitlements not supposed to be arranged and packaged for them so that as they are going home after the sack, they should have something to lay on? After all, where do they derive the power to sack? It is an invitation to anarchy, because it is supposed to be an issue of discussion between the two parties.
The issue is not limited to Kaduna State alone, but all the governors in the entire country. Right now, judicial workers nationwide are on strike and the president signed Executive Order 10 putting the judiciary on first line charge.

Don’t you think governors are Nigeria’s problem?

They are not helping matters. Why should the governors decide what goes to the Council after the Federal Government has paid money from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) to the different tiers of government? They capitalise on the local, state joint account to take what belongs to the council, and this has reduced many councils to pawns in the hands of the states. The treasuries of all the councils are in the hands of the states, and the governors do as they wish. If you are elected to govern your state, say Ekiti, Abia, Kaduna, Sokoto, govern your state. But why this unholy alliance against other states, in the name of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF?

But there is room for freedom of association…?

Yes, there is room for freedom of association, but not this unholy alliance where councils are deprived of what belongs to them by brazenly refusing the councils to enjoy autonomy.

Are you therefore asking the president to proscribe the NGF?

The President and the National Assembly are the ones protecting the state governors. But if the proscription is too harsh the President should think of less penalty.

Let us look at the insecurity in the land. No part of the country is safe. What is your advice for the president?
The insecurity in the land, to be candid, did not start with this regime. It was even there before the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, left. Probably we did not take advantage of technology to decisively deal with the problem. When the Chibok girls were kidnapped, we should have explored the advantage of the technology then to tackle the challenge. That should have served as an advantage for us then, but we did not do that and day-by-day the situation was getting worse, and now we are at the worst level with the news of deaths being announced daily.

The way people fly in and out of Nigeria of recent was not like that before. I grew up to know the local Fulani as opposed to the foreign ones we are seeing now. If there was a problem between the local Fulani and the natives, the matter will be amicably and peacefully resolved, but recently in my village, a foreign Fulani killed somebody and flew into the bush. He disappeared, and up till now, he has not been seen. If the local Fulani committed and offence, they would apologise, and that settles the matter there. But with the foreign herdsmen, the situation is different.

Is the problem not because of our porous borders?

It has nothing to do with borders. Borders or not, there are many channels through which the Fulani can travel. Recently, in Ankpa local government in Kogi State, three Fulani, all of them were on one commercial motorcycle, the one you call Okada and like that. They are everywhere. You cannot restrict them.

How will you evaluate our democratic journey from 1999 till date, especially from the position of the two major political parties, All-Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP)?

I am happy you went back to 1999. Remember that we had a long military era which impacted so much on our psyche. From there, we began with the parliamentary system of government, and after some time, we navigated to the presidential system of government. We later had two political parties midwifed by former President Ibrahim Babangida, where you either belong to the right or to the left, but now we have multi-party system.

227 pregnant cows arrive Ekiti to boost dairy farm, target 10,000 litres of milk daily

All these show how unserious we are. Former President Obasanjo was there with all the opportunity to have ended the security challenges but did nothing. Now, President Muhammadu Buhari is in the saddle. Though Obasanjo was confronted with the Niger Delta crisis, after he left, the late Shehu Umar Yar’Adua was able to douse the tension.

The general perception is that with President Buhari as the one leading under the All-People’s Congress (APC), the man should have been able to combat the monster, but unfortunately, he has failed.
I have been following the Minister of Foreign Affairs very lately, and his position on the death of Chadian President. Idris Derby’s death shows that Nigeria is in deep problem because Derby was a fighter who fought for his people, but Nigeria is not so. An emir advised President Buhari to seek the assistance of retired generals to confront the insurgents, but I do not know how far he has gone.

What is wrong with the leadership problem here?
Is it really leadership problem? There are many Nigerians out there holding leadership positions. Former President Obasanjo advised us to go and ask questions; to find out how somebody is doing something and getting results and the other one is not getting the same result. Make sure you succeed, instead of watching and looking. We should stop hating ourselves and hating cows and encouraging those that can do it. Vacate the seats for them. The Chinese in Zamfara State are the ones that know where the goldmines are, and they are tapping them.
I want you to do a documentary on coal in Ankpa in Kogi State and see where they are being exported to, and for what reason. Why has South Africa overtaken us in industrialisation and despite the whopping amount spent by Obasanjo, we have no light in Nigeria.

2023 is coming again and the North would have completed their eight years. Can the presidency go to the South-East now?
The North has dominated power from 1996 till it became clear to them that the North alone cannot continue to dominate power. That was what led to the late Abiola’s support as against Bashiru Tofa, but it is only Abiola that can explain why his election was annulled.
General Sani Abacha created six geo-political zones with five vice presidents to create a sense of belonging and be close to the government, but people don’t understand it.
The South-East can have it, but they need self-examination among themselves and proper networking among other tribes. You need to talk to other tribes and see how you can assess your acceptability.

Again, on insecurity, don’t these cows roaming about have owners?
You and I consume beef, but in other countries, they are not allowed to move on the roads. In Karu here in the FCT, there is a place where cows are well fed. In other places, you have green field grown to feed cows. Feeding cows is a big and serious job. Government shall think of feeding cows exclusive of where people are living. In that way, there will be peace.
I was a director in the Export Department in the Federal Ministry of Trade and Industry where we agreed that cassava export was good, and we discussed and took the matter to the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC). Cassava become very scarce that period in this country because we exported to the countries that needed them.

PDP has thrown its zoning arrangement to all the zones in 2023, how do you see it?

It is very good. North and South under PDP have done it. In the 2023, the North-East that has never had it had a chance under the PDP. If they win the primary, they will rule, and then it will be the turn of the South-East to rule. In that case, you will have stability. We should realize that the North-East and South-East have been marginalised since 1999 when we started democracy.

On the controversial resignation of the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isah Patami, over his alleged romance with insurgents, what is your position, at least for the image of his principal and the country?
As you asked this question, it reminds me of Kemi Adeosun, the former Minister of Finance. Is it because Kemi has no person to speak for her? Kemi did not know anything about this country until her father brought her from the United Kingdom. She did not know anything about NYSC. People helped her in the registration, and she became a victim of circumstance. For me, Isah Patami, should go without delay in the interest of the country, our president and his own image.