Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, former
Minister of Sports and Deputy Director of Policy and Strategy of the
Buhari Campaign, is a man of many parts – scholar, journalist,
politician, shadow boxer and now a farmer. But he also said he is a
comedian when BIODUN OYELEYE met him for an exploration of issues around
the Nigerian social and political system. He did not disappoint as he
gave in-depth analysis of key sectors of the Nigerian economy and what
the Muhammadu Buhari government should do to meet the yearnings of
Nigerians. But he dismissed anyone with claims to knowing what is on the
President’s mind for, according to him, for now, ‘only President Buhari
knows what President Buhari is thinking.’ And there is a reason for
that.
What have you been doing since you left office?
Well I have been busy trying to build my businesses here and there. I
am a farmer so I need to build my farm and when the political process
started I got active in the process; I was Deputy Director of Policy and
Strategy of the Buhari Campaign, working with Dr, Kayode Fayemi of
Ekiti State. That has kept me busy. Generally, it’s been over two years
now that I left office, but I thank God.
Why is farming a major attraction to public office-holders in Nigeria, particularly after leaving office?
I think the reason is that when you are a public officer, you are not
supposed to run a business at the same time except if it is farming. So
those of us who even had some businesses before we went into public
office, those businesses suffer because we can no longer run them. But
the one you are allowed even by law to do as a public office is farming.
So it is easy even from that point of view. But personally for me I
believe it is the future of the Nigerian economy. The profile of farming
is increasing everyday. I see young people who introduce themselves to
me as farmers so that gives a lot of hope. I have a daughter here who
wants to study agriculture and sometimes I wonder why; but I am
encouraging her. I think it is the future of the Nigerian economy. I
have always loved to do it; I am the child of a farmer so maybe it has
always been in my DNA.
What do you see as major challenges for farmers in Nigeria?
I think it depends on the kind of farming you are doing. The
challenges of animal farming are different from those of crop farming.
I’ve done fish farming before. I have made money from it and lost a lot
of money to it. The challenges related to fish farming are peculiar and
different from other kinds of animal farming.
The fist challenge is the market. You could see that over the years
even at government level the focus has been to help farmers increase
production, giving high yield seed and fertiliser support to farmers and
in some cases irrigation support etc. That helps a lot but the
challenge for most farmers is after increased production, then what
happens?
So whenever there is a glut in the market, either for crop or animal
products, then you realise you don’t get value for the effort. So, the
number one challenge for anyone going into farming is to ask that
question and get it clearly: Where is my market? If you are able to sign
a purchase agreement before hand that is the best; otherwise you must
keep your eye on where to sell.
When you produce and y o u are happy but can’t sell that is a
problem. The second one is funding. There is so much noise about banks
giving credits to farmers at special rates and all that but you can’t
get the money. If you try to get it they tell you to go and bring your
grandmother’s front tooth and all that; its difficult so most people
would rather use their savings to do farming and that is a high risk.
But by and by so many people are making different things in agriculture
and they are making money.
I believe there is still so much money in the sector if we can
provide the right kind of support. That is why we should all be happy
that President Buhari is saying that one of the approaches to tacking
the big issue of youth unemployment is by exploring opportunities in the
agriculture and mining sectors.
But many young people still see agric as unattractive.
I think if the immediate past Minister of Agriculture didn’t achieve
anything at all, he was able to enhance the profile of farming with the
concept of value addition and agribusiness. And I’m telling you so many
young people are going into farming. I met a young guy recently, who has
a huge farm in Nasarawa, and there is another lady, Mosunmola who has
almost become iconic; she has a huge farm in Ogun state. I think the
redefinition of the practice as agribusiness has also helped. Many
people are leaving banks now to start business in agriculture. And it is
not all about farming; you can produce, be involved in processing,
marketing, transportation etc which are all part of the entire value
chain of the business. So many people are investing in it but there are a
lot of policy issues that need to be in place before it can really be
entrenched and taken seriously as a business.
What are the specific policy issues you believe should be tackled in the sector?
The issues are very clear and so much has been said on what to do to
turn around the agric sector. I think the most important thing is for
government to provide real access to credit. If government is able to
provide the framework, the Agric Development Bank needs to be
rejuvenated. The Bank of Industry (BoI) has done quite well over the
last couple of years but the BoI is not an agriculture bank. We need to
rebuild the agric bank and create platforms for specific portfolio of
loans to farmers. They exist theoretically but we need to make it really
available so that small farm holders can have access to micro credit
and do their farming. And people who want to process can have loans to
do it etc. An integrated package of loans to support the sector will
show that government really wants to create an industry with farming.
There is no way we can rebuild the North-East after the damage of
Boko Haram if we don’t do serious rethinking on our agricultural support
system because it is only through agriculture that we can rebuild the
North-East. The second policy area is in infrastructure, especially for
those who do crops. There is no reason why Nigerians cannot farm all
year round. Small scale irrigation systems have to be built. Other
countries have shown that even in the desert you can set up irrigation
system for farming. I think it is one area that should be considered.
But the most important is how do we build the agricultural market? There
are issues about the old marketing boards and people have said we don’t
need to go back down that road again; that it was a corrupt system.
It was not a corrupt system, rather it was the system that got
corrupted. So I am a believer in the need for us to look at it again;
and see how we can make it more efficient and find ways to remove the
corruption elements we might see around it. I think unless we are able
to create guaranteed markets which some countries are doing now, for
instance if you buy pineapple off the shelf in any supermarket in the
UK, chances are that it comes from Ghana because of the large support
the government there has given farmers. They have large cooperatives,
standard grading systems, inspection, customs and excise – all
integrated into one place so that farmers can benefit. Some people are
asking for guaranteed purchase from government but with the kind of
fiscal crises we are facing I don’t know ho feasible that is. But
whatever we do in the sector for now must focus on creating the market.
We are lucky we are a big country so we can consume our own produce. But
even at that the kind of market that exists in the African sub-region
alone is massive. So I think those are the key factors to look into.
Between paying subsidy on fuel marketers and farmers which would you say it the right way for Nigeria?
I’m sure you know the answer. The subsidy itself is not a bad thing
because countries use it to support social redistribution of wealth. But
what has happened in the subsidy regime in Nigeria is that it has
become a massive arena for corruption so much that whatever benefit
meant for the people has been overwhelmed by the corruption around.
Everybody who knows anything about the sector would tell you that it is a
massive racket. If you go across the River Niger here even in the best
of seasons people buy fuel not from the pump and not at control price.
So you wonder what has been subsidised. So my personal opinion is that
this is the best moment for government to do something about that,
especially given the resource crises that we are facing at the moment.
If we can liberalise the market to make it competitive and with
government regulation I think Nigerians will be fine with it. This is
because there is no point saying you are putting a tight lead on the
market and people cannot get the commodity. There are long queues
everywhere. You paralyse the economy for days, put government under
intense pressure and having to bring out money and throw it at marketers
and everybody will be doing abracadabra. Few people will be making
money and queues will just disappear to start another time. Removing
subsidy is politically contentious I must admit but this government has a
great opportunity to do it. So if government is able to do that
whatever savings we can make from that can go to not only agriculture
but also education, health etc. These are the real areas we ought to
subsidise. If you want to subsidise people then subsidise education,
health, agriculture.
Nigerians are wondering whether those in the think tank of
the APC didn’t consider the current scenario playing out in the party
all through the stages of your campaign and election preparations to
have provided possible solutions.
When people say crisis I wonder what they mean. You see, democracy is
by definition organised chaos; it is about contestation of ideas and
interests. Whenever you have interests colliding, you will have this
kind of situation; but it is not a crisis. Like I said during the
campaign that PDP needed to lose the last election to rediscover itself.
At that point PDP had become constipated on power and every other thing
and doctors will tell you that is a danger to the body. The first thing
they will tell you is to stay away from eating. So PDP needed to lose
that election to rediscover itself and I think even the most loyal PDP
member will agree with that; that they needed to rebuild, to recalibrate
after 16 years in power. Maybe they will be able to recalibrate, I
don’t know.
For APC, it is an agglomeration of parties united by the desire to
bring change to Nigeria; what people would like to call strange
bedfellows. But what you find is that APC needed the attraction for
power to evolve into a proper political party and luckily that is what
we are now. So what you are seeing is a process of becoming; it is not a
crisis.
When a child is growing up, learning to crawl, such a child will
crumble trying to get up from its seat. That is not a crisis but part of
the process of growing up. When a child tries to get up and falls the
parents won’t scream and say we are in trouble, this child is going to
die, because they know it is normal. Yes, the child may fall and
sometimes hit his head on the ground and there will be bleeding but he
will pick himself up again and walk eventually. So that is what we are
experiencing at the moment. But you will see that the party will find a
way around it and it would evolve.
PDP had been in power for 16 years, they had all these teething
problems as well so APC will not by pass this stage of growing; it will
go through this teething problem as well but come out of it stronger.
But some people are saying you are inadvertently giving the
opportunity for the PDP to rediscover itself by allowing a PDP man to
become the Deputy Senate President?
I don’t think like that. If PDP thinks that all it has to do to start
rediscovering itself is for a member to become the Deputy Senate
President then good luck to them. All I know is that getting out of
power gives the PDP an opportunity to rebuild. If they think that
becoming DSP is the kind of rebuilding they need to do, good luck to
them but I don’t think it translates into anything because the SP and
DSP and others are just principal officers of the National Assembly
elected among their peers. It doesn’t have any implication for the
larger political system. It is just National Assembly people electing
officers for themselves. But we have attached so much drama to it that
it appears that the whole country now depends on what happens in the
National Assembly contest.
Maybe because people think that it may affect considerations for bills, appointments and other power dynamics here and there.
I know one thing, at least I had been a minister and so I have gone
through screening at the Senate. I know that those things don’t have
implications for ministerial appointments. The President nominates his
ministers and sends the list to the National Assembly. Usually, it is
the President’s Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters that takes
the list to the Senate President. The President of the Senate is a
member of the APC and the President of the country is a member of the
APC. So how would that affect anything? Or are you now telling me that
because the DSP is a member of the PDP he can stop a bill in a Senate
presided over by an APC Senate President and where APC is still in the
majority? I think people are just exaggerating a passing situation.
Sometimes in politics you hear people saying things like because this
thing has happened it will permanently affect a situation or things will
never remain the same again. No, history doesn’t function that way. I
can’t remember who said that even the most cataclysmic event doesn’t
really change the course of history not to talk of minor events of
people appointing their principal officers changing the course of
history in Nigeria. If you want to be mischievous, yes you can begin to
focus on those negative things instead of the positive sides of it I
think it is a great opportunity for APC to be in power at this time and I
think President Buhari, given time, is capable of turning things around
for Nigeria. I think that Dr. Saraki as Senate President would be a
great asset to President Buhari in the course of rebuilding the country.
You have worked with the two of them though at different levels. What are the things you see that can make them work together?
Saraki is someone who understands only results; he drives himself
selflessly. He has a tunnel vision and a singular commitment to getting
results; so that helps. From what I have heard people say about
President Buhari and on the few occasions I have the opportunity to sit
in the same room and observe him either talk to people or grant an
interview, it was clear to me that he is a very perceptive leader; he is
highly experienced. You will be amazed at how much he knows about
Nigeria and what is happening now even though he has been out of power
for over 30 years. I have heard him discuss the oil industry before and
seriously I have heard so many people discuss the industry before but
only very few people can claim to know that sector more than the
President. I am not surprised he was a petroleum minister; that is not
enough, you can see that it is a sector that he has engaged in. He can
always focus on real issues.
Some people are against the provision of financial bailout
for states going though fiscal crisis now because they believe governors
have mismanaged their resources. What is your position?
Reading through the papers the domestic debts of the states run into
billions of naira while that of the Federal Government is into
trillions. So would you say that the Federal Government owes that much
because it has mismanaged resources? No doubt that one or to states have
mismanaged their resources but I think it will be unfair to say that
all states have mismanaged their resources and that is why they are in
this dire situation. At least I know for my state, Kwara. I’ve told
whoever cares to listen that I doubt if you can find many governors or
people who know how to manage public sector finance better than Governor
AbdulFatah Ahmed. Right from the time he was commissioner for finance
I’ve always known that. So if Kwara is finding itself in a financial
situation like this then it is definitely not because of financial
mismanagement; I can tell you that for sure because I know the person in
charge understands financial management better than many people. I
think we have found ourselves in a situation and I don’t think we should
be looking for whom to blame. And the governors, from what I read, are
not asking for bailout per se. One of the things they are asking for is
that let all remittances be made into the Federation Account as required
by the constitution. That is not too much to ask for. They are saying
let the Federal Government pay all the outstanding as a result of
federal projects that were executed by the various states. That too is
not too much to ask fort and if you look at the response of the
President they are saying the same thing. It is too simplistic to just
blame the governors. We should look at the source when things like this
happen. We have walked through this before. In 1983 when Buhari came on
board, unfortunately it was the same scenario that Nigeria was. It is
his destiny again to come some 33 years later and find the same
situation or even worse.
Do you see a Greece scenario coming up in Nigeria?
No. Nigeria will never get to that level. You see the Nigerian
economy is so robust and it lies on not only because we are an oil
producing country. The private sector in Nigeria is very strong; the
financial sector is still very strong. Last year when the Federal
Government did the rebasing of the GDP, that positioned us as still the
number one economy on the African continent. That counts for so much. I
think what happened was that we didn’t do some things right. When the
oil prices were going up, we ought to have prepared for the volatility.
But lack of preparedness exposed us to the shock when the prices climbed
down.
And that is the major reason that has caused this situation.
But we had a finance minister who is supposed to be one of the best in the world?
Well, I don’t want to be judgmental. I know Dr. Okonjo Iwealla. I
worked with her in the federal cabinet and I think she is very good at
what she does. I am not a financial expert so I cannot explain what
happened but I know that Okonjo-Iweala is very good at what she does;
but she didn’’t take the political decisions. She is a technical person.
She would not be the reason that the excess crude account would go down
by almost 70 per cent overnight. She couldn’t take such decisions.
I think like President Buhari said, the things that happened would
need to be investigated and in the next couple of months Nigerians will
know what really happened.
Have you spoken with former President Goodluck Jonathan since you were sacked as Minister of Sports?
No, I have not. And that is because I don’t think we need to discuss.
And now I don’t think we need to raise the issue again. It is over and
in the past. Please let’s move on.
People speak of cabals around Presidents. What is your understanding of this?
I don’t know if there are cabals as people call it but I know that it
is human nature that wherever there is power, people will gravitate
towards that. When they do, they are not doing that most of the times
for altruistic reasons. They are doing so for personal benefits or the
ability to be the source of authority or to be at the epicentre of
authority. So people tend to run a ring around the ultimate source of
authority in any system, hoping that they would be able to exercise
power in the process by surrogacy.
So I think it is natural and I don’t know if that is what you call
cabalism but I don’t think President Buhari is that kind of person that
can be… I think he is too selfassured and too clear-headed about what he
wants to do with Nigeria. And that is why; forget about all the noise
going around, if anyone tells you today that he knows exactly what
President Buhari is thinking about, that person is lying to you. It’s
only President Buhari that knows what President Buhari wants to do and
that is so for a reason.
He knows that ultimately he has to take responsibility for his
actions and so he can only trust himself for now. When he sets up a
government properly he will then begin to delegate some of the authority
that Nigerians have given him to some individuals. Even then he is
responsible for them because he knows that it was him Nigerians gave
their mandate.
So I don’t think for a president who has run to be president four
times and was able to get it at the fourth attempt I think more than any
other person he is aware of the enormity of the historical burden upon
him. I don’t think he would just mortgage that to a coupe of people who
have other agenda regardless of what you call them.
What is your picture of the Nigerian sports sector and the way out?
It is an important sector for Nigeria especially since you have a
huge population. Sports provide great opportunities for engaging young
people. The challenge that we have in the sector is fundamental in the
sense that as a country we have not been able to define the parameters
for success within the sector. What do we really expect? I said a couple
of weeks ago that Nigerians are too fixated on medals for the country.
Countries that have developed sports did not get to the level they have
achieved just because they want to win trophies.
What they have done is to build the system that allows young people
to participate in sports. The more young people you have playing sports,
the higher the chances you have for discovering real talents. Then
because you are not under pressure to win trophies overnight, you are
able to build a system that nurtures those athletes over the years. It
doesn’t happen overnight.
If you enrol an eight year old child in a sport it will probably take
you 10 years to get him to participate at the elite level. But here we
are; we don’t even have the basic structure for developing athletes. We
just gather athletes that we think can win, then miracles happen like
that of Chioma Ajunwa in 1996 and then we say we have arrived. No we
haven’t. When we won the AFCON in 2013 in South Africa and everybody was
celebrating that we had arrived, even though I was very proud of that
achievement but I knew that was not the destination. It took us about 19
years to win the AFCON after 1994 and I said then that God forbid that
it takes another 19 years again before we win it.
And I wasn’t being prophetic when I said that but look at it that we
didn’t even qualify for the next edition after that win. I knew what we
did; we gave everything the country needed to win that but I knew that
despite our victory we had to go back to work. We have to build the
entire system, if we are to win consistently. And we started along that
line before I left office and everything went back to zero. I think we
are even now in a more complicated situation than even before I got
there. Now a lot of things have been dismantled but I think it is not
impossible to fix. Whoever has the responsibility now I think there are
still people in that National Sports Commission that know what to be
done. It is one sector you cannot come to command and control.
But we need a serious reorientation. When we came back from London
Olympics I knew we had a lot to do. We are facing Brazil in 2016 and I
will be surprised if we win anything in Brazil 2016.
I don’t think we have done any work. Because the work we needed to do
was very clear and I set it out before the Federal Executive Council
when we came back from London that this is what other countries that are
winning medals are doing and unless we do the same thing we will
continue to have this sorry situation.
How much of those things we need to do have we done? Even if we did
all those things, they still do not guarantee that Brazil 2016 will
return medals. But one thing I was absolutely sure of is that if we did
those things if we don’t win medals in Brazil, then I can guarantee that
2020 Olympics, Nigeria will win medals and that was what we were
working towards. It is a long term thing. It is like educating a child.
If we want to revamp the education sector it will take us, given the
situation we have found ourselves where we have students who have
completed their secondary school but who cannot read. It will take us 10
years minimum of consistent, uninterrupted reform activities to get it
back on track.
Imagine you have the privilege to pick between Ministry of
Sports and Education to lead as minister, which would be your choice
now?
That is hypothetical because President doesn’t call people to choose.
I think in the context of where we have found ourselves today both
sectors are very important. The sports sector is very important in the
sense that apart from the public relations benefits that it has for
Nigeria, it is a huge market; only that we have not able to build it and
encourage funding to come into the system. When the sports sector is
fully developed, the Federal Government’s financial involvement will
actually be very minimal.
The private sector will be able to undertake the funding because they
also have values coming to them from the sector through their brands.
But because of the way we have managed the sector the appetite for
involvement by the private sector is very low. I don’t blame them
because they are in business to make profit. If you give them value,
they will buy it. I have also practised in the education sector in Kwara
and my experience shows that if Nigeria has one big problem today apart
from Boko Haram, the problem is in the education sector. I think it
will not be an exaggeration to say that the sector is in a mess. Nigeria
is one of the few countries in the world today where parents got better
education than their children.
It is not natural. So you find out that those who are getting
educated today are children of the elites; I am not talking of those who
are attending schools because we have more people attending schools
today than at any point in our history. In fact we are spending money on
education more than we have done at any point in our history. But the
question is what are we spending that money on, what are kind of result
are we expecting? Are we getting those results? As long as we have
10-year old in our primary schools who are not able to read, then we are
not meeting our primary objectives. The implication for society is very
huge and so o think the challenge before President Buhari in that
sector is massive and it requires a lot of all creative thinking, hands
on solutions. You cannot have quality secondary education if you don’t
have quality primary education.
That is why it is a long term endeavour. And you cannot have quality
primary education unless you have quality teaching. It is not about
classrooms and furniture though they are important. The big issue is the
quality of teaching and the quality of teachers. If you are not able to
improve on the two you cannot have quality primary education. And
unfortunately this is the area we have problems in this country. How do
we turn people who are currently in the teaching service into effective
teachers? How do we attract good, competent people to take on teaching
as a profession? What implications does it have for the colleges of
education where we produce our teachers?
What is that thing Nigerians don’t know about you?
What I think people will be surprised to know about me is that I like
to tell jokes a lot. I like to play a lot; I like to laugh a lot. I
think if I take a job in the stand-up comedy business, of course I will
need some years of training under Ali Baba, but I will do well. That is
what people don’t know. Most of the time people see this stern looking,
serious man; yes I am all those but when I am not working the place I
want to be is with my family and they will tell you that I am the
comedian of the house
Petr Cech has revealed that he almost joined Arsenal in 2002, but the move did not happen because of work permit issues.
Presenting
the cars, among which were 10 SUV cars to the beneficiaries, Iginla
challenged the well-to-do in the society to assist the less-privileged.
