With controversial figures being bandied about the strength of out-of-school children in the country, the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that states, and not the Federal Government should be blamed for the issue. An estimated 20.2 million children are said to exist in Nigeria, a figure widely believed to be outrageous. The spokesperson of the presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu’s Campaign Council and Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo, in an interview with Arise Morning show monitored by LINUS ALEKE, speaks on a variety of issues

Other political parties have since started their campaign in line with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) timeline. When will your party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), officially start its campaign?

Two meetings have been conveyed towards working out an acceptable timetable to kick off our campaigns. I participated in the one that took place on Tuesday (last week), which was organised by the Director-General (D-G) of the campaign council, with some of the major directorates. I was, however, absent from the meeting that took place yesterday, but I got a report of the proceedings, which shows that it was also for the same purpose. What we are doing presently is looking at various possibilities and consulting various stakeholders. Don’t forget too that Mr. President is the chairman of the campaign council, and we have to consider the presidential itinerary. This is why I gave the example of starting and moving a sport utility car and starting and moving a 50-ton trailer. It is not the same procedure we take to manoeuvre both. Our party is very large, it is like starting a 50-ton trailer and manoeuvring it onto the highway. It is a much more complex process than these small parties running all over the place.

Virtually all your spokespersons I interviewed recently said that your campaign is centred on President Buhari’s record of achievements and that of Bola Tinubu in Lagos. All of you had also said that your manifesto is not ready yet, so, what are you basing your campaign on?

We are going to campaign on a mixture of three things; one, the record of APC in the last seven and half years, in proper context. The record of Tinubu as governor of Lagos State, the leadership he provided thereafter, and thirdly, his manifesto. The first two, we have in the last few weeks, but before Nigerians. So, it is not true that we have only been talking about mundane things like cycling and all that. You should know that between the three candidates, we have spoken more of records than any other candidate which is the truth. We have rolled out tons and tons of his achievements in Lagos State. We have put it before Nigerians, and of course, we have been talking about the records of Buhari’s government in that context. As to the manifesto, we have not officially started campaigns. The INEC timeline for the starting of campaigns by political parties is September 28, but we must not start campaigns on that day. I said before that in 2019 if we remember very well, we inaugurated our campaign council 50 days after the official date for the campaign started. The official date was November 8, 2018, but we didn’t inaugurate our campaign council till January 7, 2019, because we were conscious that we did not want to run out of breath. When we inaugurated our campaign council on January 7, 2019, it was a day-to-day activity, and that momentum swept us to victory. So, we have a better experience than these small parties running all over the place. But again, I will tell you about the manifesto. I know that the manifesto is ready, but because our candidate is one of the most inclusive candidates, he has given it to major stakeholders to look at it and make their input. I had made an input into that manifesto. The manifesto will be released on the day we are inaugurating our campaign council, and that is the tentative plan we have on the table. We discussed it about two days ago. I don’t want to start talking about the nitty-gritty of that manifesto, but on a general level, the manifesto addresses very fundamental issues that Nigerians want to hear about. I can tell you for free that Nigerians would not be disappointed. Don’t also quote me to say that we are just working on a new manifesto, Tinubu had always been ready to rule this country many years ago. He had always had a manifesto, but because of current issues across the world, and because of peculiar issues within Nigeria, as well as the macro-economic trends all over the world, he had to tinker with one or two things in that manifesto. But he will be letting the cat out of the bag. It is the candidate that should speak to Nigerians and speak to that document on the day we are inaugurating our campaign council.

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If we attempt to interrogate one of the tripods upon which your campaign is anchored, the latest report posits that Lagos is the second worst city to live in the world, next to Damascus and Syria. Are you saying that that is the Lagos your candidate has prevailed over, and the heritage he plans to bequeath the entire country if elected?

I looked at the report you quoted, and that report took statistics from over 170 countries. That statistics you talk about, go back and look at the indices that informed their verdict. They were looking at the 2020/2021 situation, regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. In that analysis, they looked at the swiftness with which certain economies opened up post-COVID-19 pandemic. In that report, they said Lagos was one of the cities that did not open up on time and, therefore, the report advised that it was not good to live in Lagos at that material time because restaurants and other facilities did not open on time due to COVID-19 protocols and measures put in place by the government to wrestle the pandemic. It was of course understandable because they have to be careful. The report was not based on indices of human development as you inferred. I want Nigerians to fact-check us on this. The report was squarely based on the post-COVID-19 pandemic opening of the economy. Again, in that analysis, Lagos was the only city in Nigeria that was polled; other cities were not within the standard of their measurability. Why was it that Awka, the capital of Anambra State, was not there, and one of the presidential candidates ruled over that state for eight years? Why is Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, not there? In South Africa, we have Cape Town and Johannesburg. In Egypt, we had Cairo. So, I want to let you know that even if it is the second worst city in the world, by any standard you are measuring, it is still credit that within Nigeria, Lagos State was the only city that came within some kind of measurability. Other cities in Nigeria did not come within that kind of measurability. They did not qualify to be measured with major cities in the world. As of August 2018, the Premium Times wrote a report based on the EIU, that Lagos was the third worst city to live in in the world, and if you will agree with me, as of 2018, we don’t have the COVID-19 pandemic. This can also be fact-checked by Nigerians. I think that report invalidates your argument that the report was COVID-19-centred. I am giving you a 2021 report and you are giving me a 2018 report. What you should look at in order not to mislead Nigerians is the movement of Lagos on that scale from 1999 to 2018. For instance, if you go back to 1999, what does the report say? I don’t also say that the report had started grading cities across the world at that time. So, what we should be looking at is the movement from where Lagos was to the point when the report came in 2018. Therefore, you cannot take a report out of context, we are not also saying that Lagos is now an el dorado. Our argument has always been that there has been an upward scale from where Lagos was in 1999 to the point Tinubu handed over, till this moment. For instance, will you argue that the heaps of refuse in Lagos in 1999 is the same heap of refuse we still have now? Will you say that the beach that was driving people out of their houses in Victoria Island in 1999 is persisting? So, look at the movement on that scale. Don’t take the report out of context in a particular year. But I want to tell you that it is better to quote the most recent report. The most recent, as of today, is the 2021 report.

How do you manage your responsibility as a spokesperson of the campaign council as well as minister of state for labour and employment? Don’t you think you are short-charging Nigerians, being that you draw your salary from the public pulse, and you are now working for a private person?

I have a responsibility towards my party. At the end of every month, they take a certain amount of money from my salary into the party, and that has been happening since 2019 when I was appointed a minister. So, I do have a responsibility towards my party. It also behoves me to jog my time very well to ensure that one does not interfere with the other. I have a responsibility to campaign for my party and to campaign on the records of the government, which I serve. For instance, if I leave here now, I am going straight to my office at the ministry to start work. I had been invited several times to come here, but I declined the invitation many times because official duties did not avail me of that opportunity to come. But today, I had to squeeze out time to honour the invitation before heading to the office. I don’t think that is a problem. In the past, ministers had served in campaign councils during the previous government, and nobody raised the issue. In 2014, the Minister of Special Duties under President Jonathan served as the deputy DG of the campaign council. So, I have a lot of historical facts to show that it has always happened, but I am not saying that because it has been happening. That is right, but I am saying that there is no constitutional or legal infraction in doing that.

Will the recent court ruling on the nomination of candidates for Osun State by the caretaker chairman of your party not affect the presidential candidate?

I am confident that the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court will overturn that judgment. I am confident about that. I will defend my party to the last. I think that certain factors have now made that judgment not to be trainable. You said that the court said everything that the caretaker committee chairman did, but the court never said so. The context of that judgement was restricted to the nomination of candidates in Osun State. So, it did not nullify every single thing that Mai Mala Buni did as the caretaker committee chairman of the APC. Then, again, we have to look at the time limit within which to challenge the nomination now. There is a constitutional timeline within which you must go to court. That timeline has elapsed, so I think we are on strong footing. We also have to look at the locus of anybody going to court. The law has changed slightly regarding the locus of those who can go to court to challenge the nomination of candidates. I am sure APC is safe. The party was two-in-one for me. As a spokesperson, I will also join the legal team behind the scene as a senior advocate to also help them push our case, but I am sure we are safe.

Still interrogating these records you want to base your campaign on, Nigeria currently has 20.2 million out-of-school children, the highest inflation rate in over 20 years, and the highest level of unemployment, at 33 per cent. The currency has also continued to fall, under the watch of this administration. Are these negative statistics your campaign selling points?

Your question touched on a wide range of issues, you spoke about out-of-school children, the inflationary rate, and the economy. But let us talk about the out-of-school children first. Primary and secondary school is not within the purview of the Federal Government. So, let us make that point when you roll out those statistics, you are invariably referring to the PDP, APGA, and of course the APC government in different states. So, let me educate you and Nigerians that it is not the burden of the Federal Government that children are out of school at the primary and secondary school levels. It is the responsibility of the states, and not that of the Federal Government. We only intervene sometimes in the area of funding, by way of support to the state government. All the state governments should take responsibility for this and should encourage students at that level to go to school. But what has the Federal Government done? That is the most important thing we should talk about. To encourage students to go to school, we came up with a programme called the school feeding programme, which the incumbent administration has implemented since 2015. The school feeding programme was done in conjunction with state governments. Why did we do it in conjunction with the state government? We collaborated with the states because we couldn’t go into those schools. After all, they were owned by state governments. That was how we encouraged a lot of children because many of them had to support their parents on the farms. They had nothing to eat at home. If they don’t go to the farm, they would not be able to eat. Because of the school feeding programme, there was an upsurge of students who went back to school. At the federal level, we had made some effort to support state governments to ensure that children went back to school. So, it is not the fault of Buhari that children are out of school; it is the responsibility of all tiers of government. Secondly, that also goes for employment. Yes, I agree that the numbers are not salutary. Pre-COVID-19 pandemic, it was 23 per cent; post-COVID, it rose to 34 per cent. That is not salutary. I agree, however, go and look at the figures by NBS and look at state-by-state unemployment. It is not that of the Federal Government alone. Some of the opposition states have the highest number of unemployed persons. It is the responsibility of the state and local government to employ people and not that of the Federal Government alone. What the Federal Government does is provide the enabling environment and policies that can make people get employment. What have we done in this regard? What we have done is to ensure that we shift focus from orthodox employment, where they give letters to people and say you have been employed, but you are on probation for six months. We have generated a lot of programmes to skill Nigerians. The N-power programme is there, where even graduates who did not get employment were brought into some kind of net to acquire some kind of skills so that they can be self-employed. If you look at the federal budget from 2017, we have a lot of components that talk about skill acquisition, both at the level of the ministry of labour and employment and its agencies, as well as the ministry of trade and investment. There was a lot of money pumped into skill acquisition programmes to ensure that Nigerians are skilled, to employ themselves.