"Nigerians Made a Huge Mistake Electing Buhari In 2015" – Segun Sowunmi

Segun Sowunmi, spokesman of the Atiku Campaign Organisation in an interview in Abuja speaks on the recent developments in the polity and why he thinks Nigerians will vote Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general elections. Excerpts:

Few weeks to the 2019 presidential elections, our military are being attacked by insurgents who seem to have reenergized and there are fears that the elections may be postponed. Are you not worried by this development?

Nothing is more depressing and needing more caution in commenting on than security and the challenges of managing the country from the security standpoint. The reason is that in one breath, the PDP and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar are very conscious that we do not want the security situation to be politicised like the APC did in the build-up to 2015. Also, we do not want to overheat the polity by comments that can make things worse like the APC did in the build-up to the 2015 elections. We do not want to politicise the disaster that is before our eyes in the security situation and yet we cannot escape talking about the issue because they are extremely important. For every human being that dies, especially those who are pushed forward to come and engage and fight the radicalised elements that are causing trouble in the country now, the soldier that died was somebody’s father, somebody’s husband, somebody’s friend and somebody’s relative. Now, when a political party like APC goes out of its way supposedly to go and bring a retired General in the Army whom ordinary does not have any credential to put on the table as to why they should relinquish the country to him other than his military preparedness over the years, yet he comes into power, clearly messes up the economy, divides the country, makes himself unavailable to communicate and talk with the people and relate with the citizens regularly, embark on a comprehensive de-marketing of his own country by his comments everywhere and to crown it all, his failure ridiculously even at securing the country, you know that Nigeria made a huge mistake and they must get out of it. Now, what are the challenges and how do we see it? The first thing is that is it not the same Nigerian Army of just yesterday with a lot of accolades from doing work in the sub-region ECOWAS, stabilising Liberia getting them out of the civil war, stabilising Sierra Leone, working very well with the United Nations to keep the peace all over. Is it the same Nigeria now that is not able to fight an insurgency? Definitely, something is not adding up. The first is that those who are supposed to manage the troops, some of them have overstayed their usefulness; some of them have reached and surpassed their retirement ages. The condition of the Armed Forces stipulates that when you reach your retirement age, you go while some other people have been prepared waiting to take over that responsibility. The relationship between the top echelons of the Armed Forces is not even as smooth as it should be. How can troops be advancing into a territory without air cover?. Why was the Air force not providing them air cover? What is the relationship between the DSS which is supposed to be a security organisation that gets information with the Army? Why are they unable to provide and gather intelligence and act like a security hub when they share same? What is President Buhari, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces doing about it? How is it that he is only able to react 72 hours after the entire international media has gone agog about the killings of the soldiers? Look, we must do a comprehensive audit of the entire security architecture of the country. We must know whether we have enough men, materials, we must look at their condition of service, we must insist that as a nation, the most important responsibility that a leader has is to secure the lives of people and everything must be given to achieve that. We can share experiences with nations that have dealt with insurgency. There are other nations in the world that we can buy weapons from. We must do everything humanly possible to first of all, be a responsible parents to Nigerians and then, a big brother to our neighbours. We must look at our borders and demand from our neighbours that we are not going to tolerate a situation where infiltration of people and arms from our borders is now the reason why Nigerians are going to be slaughtered the way it is happening now. Honestly, we should thank President Buhari for all the services that he has rendered for this nation. He has rendered some excellent services in the past but if age or sickness has robbed him of this vitality, then there is no reason for us to continue to insist that Nigerian, both the economy, security and general well-being of the country will tolerate another four years of a leader that seems to be unaware of everything around him.

If elected, what will Atiku bring to the table in terms of addressing some of the security challenges we are facing?

Atiku Abubakar is bringing to the table a lot of experience. It is part of the reason why he is saying we should grow the economy. He believes if we grow the economy, we will be able to get more Nigerians to be able to do things that are more meaningful with their lives and maybe they will not even be available like we know that an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. We are also saying that we will look at the borders, security architecture, how we gather intelligence and we will do everything humanly possible, including using the best available technology today to secure Nigeria. We will demand from our neighbours a responsible way of doing things. If America is insisting that it wants to make sure its country is protected by keeping out immigrants, is it Nigeria now that will now be allowing people to be coming into the country freely to come and be killing Nigerians? That is not acceptable and that is the reason why Atiku is talking about restructuring the country so that every part of Nigeria can explain to us how they want to run the country. This country belongs to all Nigerians and the ideas of all Nigerians must be accommodated in the things of the future. Under the Atiku presidency, we are going to do a robust social security system for our gallant soldiers that allows them to know that the nation loves them, is ready to fund them and will give them the kind of support that can make their work and sacrifices worthwhile.

There has been argument in the past couple of weeks whether corruption has worsened now compared to how it was under PDP. What is your perspective on this?

There is no debate about it. There is clear evidence that corruption has worsened under this government. Everywhere you turn and look, you will see that things have gotten really worse. From the NNPC, to the Presidency itself, to government officials the story has been worse. The only thing they have been doing is generally deceiving themselves, claiming that they are fighting corruption when in the real sense of the word, they are not able to get any reasonable level of convictions. People don’t behave well by themselves. It is punishment that compels them to behave well. If you are fighting corruption and people are corrupt around you, then it is meaningless. Look at the issue of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano over the dollar bribery saga, the Buhari that we know will never allow Ganduje within a kilometer of him. But what do we see? The president is busy taking pictures with him. When you do that, what further endorsement do you need for corruption? I have not said Governor Ganduje is guilty but the allegations ought to be investigated. What about the allegations made against the APC national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole? APC members by their own mouth made a lot claims about how he took bribes during the primary. How can you say you are the czar of anti-corruption war yet all these are going on around you? The Administration of Criminal Justice that PDP passed which is what they are using, have they been able to improve on it? What have they done to shorten the time it takes from arrest to conviction? Almost everywhere you turn in Nigeria, what you see is that they have explained away our money and they have dragged us into debt. So, they have failed abysmally. They have no right to mention the word ‘anti-corruption’ as part of what they are doing. In fact, they had better look for something else to campaign with for there is no evidence that they have done even the minimum like other people did in the past. Was it not in this country that the Obasanjo/Atiku presidency removed an Inspector-General of Police because of corruption? Was it not in this country that Governors, Ministers and top party leaders of PDP were removed and people were sent to jail because of corruption? What have they done in their anti-corruption war? We created EFCC, ICPC, Due Process Office and other agencies aimed at fighting corruption. What have they done? What we see is the annoying use of power to make opponents of government to be harassed under trumped up charges whereas the people around them are just robbing the state blind. Nigerians will have the opportunity very soon to go to the polls and go and vote. Nigerians should vote for a government that will create jobs, they should vote for a government that will expand the economy, they should vote for a government that will unite Nigerians, they should vote for a government that will secure the country, they should vote for a country that is sincere about restructuring the country and give us the necessary administrative procedure that can make the organs of the country to grow fast. Atiku will do all these. Atiku will give Nigerians better life. Nigerians have a duty if they want all these. There is a duty for any man who wants to partake in prosperity. The duty for him is first to believe and to work for it. In the Bible, when the Prophet said by this time tomorrow, a price of flour will be sold cheaply in the land, those who didn’t believe didn’t partake of it. But those who believed and worked for it found out that was exactly what happened.

The Buhari administration promised a lot in 2015 but now they are pretending not to remember making those promises. They promised that they will not pay subsidy and will reduce the price of petroleum but they made it worse. They promised change but the change they brought has been from positive to negative. They promise to defeat Booko Haram but now it is worse. They are promise to give us a country where every Nigerian will be proud of but Nigeria is now the poverty capital of the world. They promise to make the country more cohesive but we are more divided than ever. So, Nigerians must make sure that they do not reinforce failure. They must make sure that they kick them out at the ballot. Nigerians have a right to be in a hurry. All the nations around us are beginning to do well. Therefore anybody we put in the presidency who is not doing the right thing should go after his term has expired. If the national assembly fails to impeach a leader that is not doing well, Nigerians have a responsibility to vote such a government out.