National Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Betta Edu, speaks on the preparedness of the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to lead Nigeria out of its numerous challenges amid discontentment by opposition political parties over the outcome of February 25 presidential/national assembly elections. She also talks about the naira redesign policy of the Federal Government, in this interview on Arise TV Saturday ‘Morning Show’, monitored by David Lawani

What will your party focus on now that the candidate in the February 25 presidential election, Senator Bola Tinubu, has emerged as president-elect?

I want to first congratulate Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian women. We are happy and grateful to them. Majority of his (Asiwaju’s) votes, from INEC data, were from Nigerian women and the president-elect is going to run a people-centred grassroots-focused government, which has a lot of contributions from the youths and women. He made it clear in his acceptance speech that there are many low-hanging fruits; things that affect young people: their education which he is going to give prominent attention to, and students’ loans, which he mentioned again. Many young people who are supposed to be in school are unable to go to school because they cannot afford it. He is going to fix the economy, and those are the quick things that he hopes to do. He will fix the health sector. He will capitalise on it to win the love and hearts of Nigerians. Of course, you know very well the situation in which the election took place- a situation Nigerians could not gain access to their monies. The cashless policy, which was poorly planned and implemented, was not going down well with the majority of the people, and the president-elect spoke very strongly against it saying the timing was wrong. The duration given to the people was short and it was a pain to the people. It was completely wrong and not okay by him. Even though the cashless policy was acceptable by the people, the timing was not just right. The president-elect has been vindicated by the Supreme Court judgement of last Friday, but what is most important is gaining the love of Nigerians.

The president-elect has promised to set up a committee to reconcile the various groups who are against him, how far have they gone?

The reconciliation work has started. He has consulted widely. Since he became president-elect he has been working on reconciliation at different levels, and every single day he has interacted with different people and reached out to more people to reconcile factions. He is not just going to be a president of APC, but a Nigerian president. He was voted in by Nigerians and wants to win that trust. Of course, if you look at the results from last week’s election, it is very clear that only one president has the national spread, even in states where he didn’t win, he had a very close battle. You could see his numbers, he national spread, unlike others who led in one region or the other. He has a national spread and he is accepted by all 36 states in all the religions. For this, he will build on it with the low-hanging fruits. He will fix the economy, education sector, and health sector. He will fix the agricultural sector and other quick wins which we can improve on which President Muhammadu Buhari has done to ensure Nigerians are back on track. They are in love with him and truly in the next four years Nigerians will beg him to run for the second term. I can bet on this.

How do you reconcile the impression when you said the president-elect is trying to reconcile different factions yet the Director of Publicity and Information, Dele Alake, is going after opposition groups?

If you have listened to the APC as a party, the spokesperson of the campaign council and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed, have the role to speak on behalf of the party. What we are calling for is peace and love for Nigeria. If you know Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as a person, he is never vindictive. He embraces everyone. Of course, you know his relationship with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, even with his Excellency Peter Obi. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu will bring everyone to the table. He will run an inclusive and all-encompassing government. Since he became president-elect, he has continued to set the tone for reconciliation. Remember, this is the only nation that we have and the only ship that we have. Anything that will sink it Asiwaju Tinubu will not stand for it. I will want to clearly state from what I have seen in the last five days, he has been on reconciliation and he has put together a committee to go actively to work on reconciliation in his house and in dealing with different key stakeholders and communities. It has been about peace and Nigeria, and that is what he stands for. We need to clearly understand his position and that of APC as a party. That Nigeria will continue to work together peacefully to move Nigeria to greater heights, and we will all be happy that this happens.

How will Tinubu handle the issue of the ‘japa’ syndrome in the healthcare sector, considering that is your area?

Again, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in his action plan for Nigeria has been very clear about the health sector as one of the sectors he would give prominence. He has assured Nigerians that he would achieve universal health coverage for them. It means that many people will have access to quality healthcare services in Nigeria. On the ‘japa’ syndrome, which is a situation where Nigerians of various fields, especially doctors and nurses, who are migrating other countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of them, seeking greener pastures, Asiwaju Tinubu has been able to state clearly that he would provide the enabling environment that would attract brain gain and medical tourism to Nigeria. He stated clearly in his action plan that he was going to have zonal and specialist centres across the country. First, he would make the environment where the doctors are doing their consultancy comfortable because that is one of the reasons why they are going abroad. The second point is their pay and remuneration, we would take steps to make them happy that they are working in Nigeria? So, we will give them the opportunity and the right incentive that will bring them back to Nigeria. We have consultants everywhere in Nigeria. When we leave Nigeria for most of these countries, the doctors there most times are Nigerians. Nigeria has the highest population of doctors in the UK, and of course the World Health Organisation (WHO) puts the doctor: patient ratio at 1:600 standard. In Nigeria, it is 1:4900 patients, and this has to change. We want to be able to attract all these doctors to come back and work in our specialist hospitals and give that same care to Nigerians, the sub-region, Africa, and indeed other nations of the world. We want them to come to Nigeria and give that same quality healthcare and receive the best prices that they can afford. Of course, health insurance is another way that more people will be covered. Pregnant women and children will equally be covered free of charge. These are plans that Asiwaju has stated clearly in his action plan that he will be doing. He talked about medical manufacturing where he said most of the essential drugs and vaccines that are used in Nigeria are being imported to Nigeria. He said he will build them so that they can produce drugs that will serve our people for quality medicines attested for their potentialities. For this Asiwaju is all out to ensure that Nigerians get the best of health care.

Will the president-elect trust the Nigerian health sector for his medical needs, people have calculated the number of times that he was abroad for medical reasons?

Whether he will use the health care system in Nigeria or not, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has been very dependent on the Nigeria health system even as governor, and presently he has been dependent on the health system for any challenge that comes his way, and few times will he leave the country to go and attend to his health outside. Throughout the campaigns, I am sure you know, he was here in Nigeria, he went through all the states. He is fit and strong and able. He wants to bring medical tourism to Nigeria and he will lead by example.

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So, you are giving assurances that his health needs will be taken care of in Nigeria?

Definitely.

Although President Muhammadu Buhari said that it was his administration’s performance that gave Asiwaju Bola Tinubu his victory, we have seen Asiwaju divorcing himself from all that happened in the Buhari administration, isn’t that contradictory?

First and foremost, we must give President Muhammadu Buhari credit for the things he did during his almost eight years in office. There were some very landmarks that he achieved in terms of capital projects- give it to him, he has done greatly well. Of course, he had a very strong impact. However, there were areas he (Buhari) didn’t perform as much as was expected by Nigerians. There were some unpopular policies just as the cashless policy that was put on the table just a few hours before the election which brought setbacks for us as a party and a nation. These are all issues we have to look into. What we are saying first as APC is that President Muhammadu Buhari did well in some sectors. He did well in terms of security. When he first came to office, some places in Nigeria were taken control of by all sorts of names with their flags flying everywhere. But today, we have a Nigeria that we can go about our duties. I remember when I went to do my health outreach and one-million-man march in Borno State, they said look madam women leader, in the last four to five years ago, you cannot do this here; you can’t even come on here; you can’t even land in that airport where you arrived in because the airport was not functional. They will shoot your plane down. All of these things are things of the past. We went all around Nigeria and we didn’t have any attack or kinds of stuff like that- that shows you that security has improved from what we met in 2015. So, you must give him (Buhari) credit for the things he did right, and for the ones he didn’t do to the extent that we are affected, that is what the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the Jagaban is going to improve on. Tinubu has a track record in Lagos because he did so well. He told Nigerians that if he could do this in Lagos which is even like a mini country, he would be able to do even much better in Nigeria. We had campaigned on both angles and we are glad we won.

Was the February 25 presidential election/national assembly election, especially in Cross River State, a referendum on how Governor Ben Ayade took a traditional PDP state to an APC state? Do we expect something similar in the March 11 governorship/house of assembly election?

For the next election on Saturday, APC in Cross River State will win the governorship election. As Dr Betta Edu, I won my unit, ward and through teamwork, we won our local government area. I guess you know that all other senatorial seats in Cross River State were won by APC. I also want to put this on the fore that the House of Representatives seats were won by the APC, except in the northern senatorial district where the PDP won. APC won in central and southern districts. We keenly lost in the northern part of the state and when you see the difference between the APC and the Labour Party that won the state, it was by a little margin and that was because of the northern senatorial district. The results from there were quite different, and for some reason, they voted that way. Some persons felt they were not consulted and carried along, it was just that senatorial district. But definitely in the March 11 election, our candidate Senator Bassey Otu is very popular. He has full support on the ground and the support of Cross Riverians, and we are very sure he is going to win. Remember the Labour Party won the election yet PDP came third in the election. So, PDP is basically out of the picture. We are going to the next election and Labour Party doesn’t have a candidate. Governor Ben Ayade has done so well as a governor, he industrialised the state. He set up several small and medium-scale industries across the state. Sometimes beyond what you have done for your people, the personal relationship at the grassroots might be due to a lack of communication at that level. It is what the state is presently working on in the northern senatorial district, and we are very positive that APC will still clinch the governorship ticket of that state. For PDP, we are not worried about them because they are not a threat to us. For LP, we are discussing with them and working hand in hand with them because they do not have a governorship candidate. They will work with us in APC, and we will achieve victory for Senator Otu, and by the grace of God, we will come out victorious. But for the rest of the state, we won our election. APC won out rightly. It was just in the northern senatorial part that we had challenges.