Special Adviser to the President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina, speaks on the lingering fuel subsidy matter and the fight against corruption by the president’s administration, among other issues, in this interview on Channels TV ‘Politics Today’, monitored by Deborah Onyofufeke

Ironically, this government is still talking about subsidies seven and a half years down the line. Isn’t it?

It is a phase the country must pass through and has passed through and that phase is coming to an end. We have heard the minister of finance reiterate that subsidy payment will come to an end by June because that date was not just picked haphazardly, that date was not just picked from the blues, it had been planned when the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) kicked in. There was an 18-month window also opened for subsidy removal and that will come by June this year. It’s a way Nigeria must go. I have not seen any of the major contenders for the presidency that has said they will retain fuel subsidies.

I mean it does look to me that fuel subsidy is like a devil in the mix and the question I ask is how it has come to stay for seven and half years in the life of this government and in the first place it will stay for eight years and this government will not remove it. This government ends in May and it will leave in June. That means for eight years of this government, subsidies existed

Yes because you need to balance between economic sense and social sense. Removing fuel subsidies makes a lot of economic sense but does it make all the social sense? And you know that President Buhari is somebody that looks at the social sense of whatever he will do that’s why he has not beaten the bullet on the removal of fuel subsidies over the years.

So, anybody that is thinking of removing it is probably not thinking of the social sense.

No. The time has just come for it to go.

What then happened, was it that the president did not think that subsidy was right before he got into office?

Yes. In the beginning, his position was what was subsidy? But over the years, it became evident that the country was bleeding, the economy was bleeding, and there was a lot of haemorrhage which needed to be stopped the time came and that time is now.

You realise that subsidy may be fraudulent

Well, that was the argument. I remember there was a time Professor Tam David West, God rest his soul, who was a former oil minister used to say that there was nothing called a subsidy. The president also many times challenged the people, to educate me, what is subsidy he was an oil minister before too but then, over time, it became evident that the country was haemorrhaging and something needed to be done.

Let me quote your principal the president when he said I do not understand the Nigerian economy over the issue of subsidy. He asked the question, who is subsidizing who? He went further to say if anyone is saying his subsidising, he is a fraud. That was what the president said in 2015

Yes. That was the position and as I told you, even Prof Tam David West also held that position.

So, Prof Tam David West didn’t know enough to say that?

No. He was an oil minister, so he knows enough but as of then, things had mutated over the years between the time he was an oil minister, between the time Prof David West was an oil Minister, and now. Now it has become very evident.

If the President, who was a former Minister of Petroleum and who is still the Minister of Petroleum and perhaps the longest-serving Minister of Petroleum in the history of this country, said at some point that fuel subsidy is a fraud, can one say that fraud has existed and sort of a corruption that this government has been unable to fight?

The truth that nobody can deny is that fraud has stayed for so long.

Why is it difficult for the government that said it wants to fight it?

I told you, economic sense and social sense.

Does it make sense to Nigerians?

Yes. Economic sense and social sense. You know that each time there is an effort to fight the fraud in the subsidy regime you have to contend with Labour, you have to contend with the people.

Even when it is fraudulent?

That is the social sense of it.

The point I am making is that I don’t know if you are seeing it and I am asking if these are the words of President Buhari before he got into office. It is fraudulent

You are quoting 2015 there

He has been a Minister of Petroleum before then

I remember an interview he granted in London in 2016, he said the same thing he believed it was all fraud and he is still right even now that it is fraudulent.

So, you are buttressing my point Mr Adesina. The point I am making is that if you say you have a rat in this room right now, and you say you are a master of killing rats and seven and half years you are not able to kill the rat in this room, does it put a question mark on the ability for you to get the work done?

Permit my language, it is said that when a fly perches, on a very sensitive part of your body and you want to take sledge hammer to kill that fly, you have to be careful. The fly may go away and you end up crushing that sensitive part of your body. So, the government needed to weigh its options carefully.

So politically, the government couldn’t remove it?

It was the social consequences of it that the president was mindful of.

This takes me to the question of if the subsidy is ongoing and yet there are few queues on the roads in Bayelsa, some parts of Delta, in parts of North Kano and fuel is selling at almost double the official pump price, you see a lot of queues in Abuja and Lagos causing unending traffic lock jam. So, if the subsidy is still ongoing and yet we are still in this, it doesn’t make sense

That’s why the entire country has come to the realisation that that regimen must change.

Does it resonate with what prof said about the handling of the economy under the Buhari government?

No. I wouldn’t want to weigh in on that at all because one thing I have observed about economists is that they go in different directions.

He said they are bad managers of the economy under this government

That’s his opinion, he has a right to it but economists always go in a different direction.

I remember I watched the documentary of President Buhari, it does look like those who have said good things about him, even him as the president, seem to have uttered some words of frustration about how much love and passion he has for this country but the result perhaps has not been commensurate with the performance

Not exactly because you wouldn’t expect the president to praise himself. There is a saying that when people praise you, it sounds sweet but when you praise yourself it stinks. So, President Buhari should not praise himself.

The question I am asking and perhaps if you could link them up is that when you said you are going to remove subsidy it’s fraudulent but you kept it for eight years, you said you are going to fix the economy, the economist that left here said there has been a colossal failure under this government, you said you are going to fight corruption and I just asked you a few questions on corruption now, you said it is difficult to do that. How then would you rate if you have been unable to do all of these things, based on what your critics are saying and what is evident to Nigerians, how then will you rate yourself as a government?

You know I am a part of this government.

That’s why I am asking you

Then I shouldn’t be doing the rating. Outsiders should be doing the rating.

Would you say that your government has done well?

It’s the same question I have answered and you have asked me in another way.

Yes, because you have not answered it quite well. At some point, you should lead by example and be able to set yourself if you did well

I’m repeating that other people should judge the government, and other people should judge the administration.

And those who have criticised this government have been a failure, what do you say to them?

They have a right to their opinion.
No. That is your typical answer

That typical answer remains true now, tomorrow, and forever.

That?

People will always have a right to their opinion.

The opinion that this government is a failure?

It does not make that opinion right.

But you said that all of those things that your government wanted to achieve they have been unable to achieve it.
No government has been able to achieve all that it wanted to achieve. I have never seen that government in the world. Even President Biden recently admitted that not everything that they wanted to achieve has been achieved.

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Let’s look at the three points that your principal said he wanted to tackle. Corruption?

The order is SEA. Security, Economy, Anti-corruption.

From one to t10, how would you rate yourself in security?

I think there’s a simplistic way to look at it. The thing is that where we were in 2015 when this government came and where are we today? It’s better that way. In 2015, you and I, every Nigerian were running helter-skelter because insecurity especially insurgency was at the very door of every state of every city. Is it the same today? No. It has been beaten back a lot. There is a huge difference between where we were in 2015 and where we are today. Ask people in the hotbed areas of insecurity particularly insurgency in Borno, Yobe, In Adamawa. Ask them they will tell you that there is a huge difference between 2015 and now. That’s security. The economy, going to 60 years, Nigeria has paid lip service to diversifying the economy but it never got done as we speak, Nigeria has diversified its economy.

How?

Look at our GDP, oil which use to account for 70, 80 per cent of GDP, accounts for less than 10 per cent now. Other things like agriculture, services, and ICT contribute more to the GDP than even oil. It shows you that the Nigerian economy has been diversified.

But what have we to show for it even though it’s diversified?

It’s the beginning. The important thing is that the Nigerian economy is not mono again. We use to have a mono-economy that was only dependent on oil.

Let me ask you this question because you were on this side some years back as a journalist, now sitting on the other side might be difficult taking a leaf but truthfully, what legacy would you say your principal Muhammadu Buhari, is going to be leaving behind?

One he met a country that was in tatters and we weren’t sure if we will still be together in one week, in one month, or two months. Today he has held the country together and the ambiance of security that you have can’t be compared to what existed in 2015. He kept Nigeria together and things are looking up, things are getting better.

Even when somebody like President Obasanjo said we are moving from fry pan to fire.

President Obasanjo has a right to his opinion, we know his opinion, and we respect him as a person but we don’t agree with his opinion.

Even when he rendered his opinion to the president to win his election against the sitting president at the time in 2015. His opinion is his opinion but he helped the cause of your principal at that time

He served his interest then but later in the cause of the administration may be some interests that he had were not realised so he moved to another side. Remember that he was against the president coming in 2019, the president won with a wider margin in 2019.

Do you think there is something that the president could have done that has not been able to achieve?

It will always happen in every sphere of life.

For example in areas of appointments, his critics have said he was nepotistic, in the areas of uniting Nigeria, heavy criticism

That will always subsist in this country. There will always be nepotism in this country but one thing that I can assure you about president Buhari is that what the constitution recommends in terms of federal character, the president is very scrupulous about it. If the constitution provides that every geo-political zone must be represented in this appointment, he is very cynical about it. If the constitution says that there must be a minister in each state in the country, he is very cynical about it but there are other appointments that are subject to the presidential prerogative. Then he can do those.

Did you ever regret taking this job?

No. I came to serve a man I have admired since he was a military leader.

So, this was a dream job for you?

I had always said before I came into government that I am not a government person, I will never serve any government in Nigeria except the one headed by Muhammad Buhari. So when he came in and I was invited to serve him, I was very happy.

And you will never do that again?

No. I mean not in this capacity. This kind of assignment I have done, you do it once in a lifetime.