The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in this interview with (THE PUNCH), says the Federal Government will tell Nigerians the truth and not how they take it
A lot of Nigerians are wondering if the Change Begins
With Me Campaign is about stealing because just after it was launched, two men-
Mr. Akin Fadeyi and Omo Bazuaye- said the concept was stolen from them. What do
you say to that?
It
is unfortunate that some Nigerians don’t believe in industry, honesty,
integrity and hard work. But they should realise that there is no shortcut to
success except by being honest and straightforward. This is the case with these
two young men because I will show you evidence that proves that by October 14,
2015, the entire thematic production of Change Begins With Me had been
completed. And by October 31, the theme songs had been completed. Fadeyi was
sent to me by Simon Kolawole (a former Editor of THISDAY Newspaper) in December
or January and when he came, we compared (our works). However, this is a
campaign that will last the entire administration.
So, I said to him, ‘if and when we need
contents and your contents match our own, we will contact you’. And that was
why I told him, we can’t even take your material because we are not changing
our theme -Change Begins With Me- because everything we have done is on that
and yours is Not In My Country; and he went away. The next time we heard from
him was in June 2016, when he wrote a letter to request for partnership. We did
not make a secret of this campaign. As soon as I became minister; I told the
whole world what I was going to do. I will read this out to you. The
correspondence was dated October 14, 2015 and was sent at 3.04pm on that day.
Some
Nigerians are incredible people. Fadeyi came in January. We thank God for
technology. As soon as I became minister, I called a meeting of all the directors
to say that I was going to launch this campaign and after that, I received
proposals from more than 20 people, including Jimi Johnson. And to all of them,
I had just one message- wait for me to launch my campaign, if your material
matches our own, we will call you.
In
December, I came to Lagos to seek the support of Don Jazzy, Sunny Ade, Kwam 1,
Tiwa Savage, P Square, all of them. I met them at the Southern Sun and told
them that they could produce a theme song for me. So how can anybody now wake
up and say this was his idea? Honestly, it is just inspiration from God and I
worked with a team of more than five people. We invited Brian from
CENTERSPREAD. All the time I was telling the world that I was going to launch
the campaign, why didn’t anybody say it was their idea?
But some Nigerians have questioned the timing of the
campaign, describing it as diversionary and that it appears as if the
government is pushing its change agenda on the people after it failed to keep
its promise. What do you say to that?
Isn’t
what I have sent to you now an answer to that? If by October 2015, I had
completed this project, can it now be seen as an afterthought? By October 2015,
even before I was confirmed as minister, it had been my idea to launch the
campaign and I had completed work on it.
Why
would anyone say it was an afterthought? Two, why had it not been launched
before now? When you take an idea to the government, you must also make budget
provision for it. We (ministers) came in November last year and the budget was
not passed until April, so I had to wait. And also, there is no better time
than now to launch this campaign. Let’s face it, what is this programme about? .
What
are we demanding of any of you? Are we asking you to pay more tax? We are
asking you to be diligent at your work; we are asking you to be more patriotic;
we are asking you to buy made-in-Nigeria products; we are asking you as a Danfo
driver not to take ‘paraga’ (local liquor) before driving: we are asking the
patent medicine store owner not to sell substandard drugs; we are asking the
customs officer not to undervalue on the job. So what are we asking of you that
is a burden? It is actually in time of adversity like this that you
launch this kind of programme. It is quite possible for the price of oil per
barrel to rise to $100 tomorrow, then everybody will forget about recession and
we will become wasteful in our spending again. Then we will start to import
champagne and refuse to invest in infrastructure. And corruption will be rife
again and we will return to this situation. So is there any better time than at
a time of adversity to run this campaign?
But don’t you think the campaign will be difficult to
sell to people who are hungry or have not been paid salaries for six months?
Where should they get food to eat and survive?
Okay,
we are asking somebody who has not been paid for six months to be diligent, but
we are also asking his boss not to embezzle his workers’ entitlements. We are
also asking the customs officer to ensure that revenues are collected
adequately; that is the best way the man who has not been paid salary can get
his money. Are we now saying because he has not been paid his salary, then
stealing and corruption should go on? Or that people should continue to
vandalise our pipelines? Listen, why is it that the man has not been paid his
salary? Corruption! Vandalism! .
We
are losing one million barrels of crude oil daily, you know how much that
translates to in naira? And we are campaigning that people should be patriotic
and not destroy infrastructure. We are appealing to you to please buy
made-in-Nigeria goods so that there can be more jobs and you think that because
the man has not been paid, he should go on the rampage. It is a very
comprehensive campaign that is not aimed at the unpaid worker alone; the aim is
to address the issue from the top to the bottom.
Nigerians are saying the government has not fulfilled
its part of the change that was promised them, yet, it is asking them to do
their own part.
Even
if we did not launch this campaign, is it not right for people to be honest? Is
it not right for people to be upright? Okay, because the government has not
been able to deliver on its campaign promises, is it right for people to be
selling substandard drugs and be killing citizens? Is it right to be breaking
pipelines and putting everybody in darkness? .
I
don’t see the logic in it. And why is it that the government has been unable to
deliver on its promises? It begs repetition. It is simply because of these same
ills we are trying to correct. We inherited an economy that was defective, that
was 60 per cent dependent on oil and oil related products. We inherited an
economy that was driven by consumption. Even when they kept saying that there
was growth, what kind of growth was it? Yes, there would be growth as long as
petrol dollars come in and people buy things. But did that translate into
employment? Did it translate into more factories?
But Nigerians are saying that the blame game should
have ended by now and that this government should get down to serious work and
justify why it got majority of people’s votes.
Who
is involved in blame game?
Is it not embarrassing how this government keeps
blaming the Peoples Democratic Party for the country’s woes when it was voted
in to fix the problems?
Blame
game! Listen, is it blame game to say that we are losing one million barrels of
crude a day, is that blame game? Is it blame game to say that we over relied on
oil and failed to diversify the economy? I am not even talking about stealing.
We are talking about the facts on ground, that our economy had been defective
for a long time, not during (former President Goodluck) Jonathan’s time alone.
We have always made that very clear, that this problem was waiting to happen
because past administrations refused to invest in infrastructure.
They
did not leave cushion for us. That is not blame game. And what have we done
since we came in? We stopped the bleeding by introducing the Treasury Single
Account; that is one. Two, we have ensured that money is spent on essential
things alone. In the whole of 2015, only N18bn was spent on roads, but N65bn on
estacode and travels.
We
have reversed that. This year alone, we have spent N70bn on roads but
unfortunately, we met over N400bn debt. That is not blame game. Look, why are
the Jews reminding you of the holocaust after 70 years? It is not blame game
and we should understand this. You can’t tell us to wish away the past. Do you
have a magic wand to say that the economy should be running smoothly? We are
not even blaming Jonathan or whoever; we are saying this is what we met and
this is what we are doing. And now, you are saying why have you not delivered
on your promises? Is it our fault that the price of crude oil crashed from $100
to $28? Did we blame Jonathan for that?
All over the world, people hold parties responsible for
promises made during electioneering, so this government should even commend
Nigerians for their fortitude thus far.
We
always do that. But let me give you an illustration. You promised your son that
you would buy him a bicycle. All of a sudden, you lose your job. What do you
do? You explain to him, ‘Son, I promised you a bicycle but this is what
happened. I am working hard to get another job and I will still buy you a
bicycle.’
There
is no difference between running a government and running a family. I will tell
you what recession is. It is very simple: a driver with one wife, earning
N60,000 was living in a bedroom flat. Then his salary was increased to N100,000
a month. And his wife said, let us be saving money and buy land. He said no.
He
married another wife and they moved from their one bedroomed flat to a
two-bedroomed flat and also moved their children to a private school from
public schools and started living the life. All of a sudden, his employer said
he was closing down the factory and could only pay him N40,000 a month now.
What will he do? He will have to return to a one bedroomed flat, move his
children back to a public school, and the second wife he married will have to
go. It is a recession.
But beyond the fall in oil prices, it appears that this
government was ill prepared for governance as your party-the All Progressives
Congress- has said openly it had no idea of how bad the situation was. Isn’t
that where due diligence and the need for shadow cabinets come in? Who should
we blame for that?
I
was a member of the transition committee of this government and it is shocking
to see how soon you all forget what happened. Where were you when we were crying
that five days to the handover date, we had not received any handover notes?
You published it then. You are asking me this question now. How prepared were
we? .
How
can you be prepared when nobody gives you a handover note? You are going to buy
a house and you are not allowed to enter until the day you pay, then you get
there and see the leakages and all of that. We did not even know that the
government owed N67bn in fertiliser alone; we didn’t know because we had no
access to the figures. We did not know that Nigerian government was not paying
up its Joint Venture to the oil companies. We didn’t know that government owed
over N400bn to contractors; it was when we came in that we realised that
contractors had not been paid for 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. When oil was
selling at $100 a barrel, government did not pay contractors. We have to pay
them now.
We
owe Julius Berger over N70bn, so when we gave the company N13bn to start work,
their official just laughed and said it was just to service the interest. You
see, we will not shy away from telling Nigerians the truth; it is not important
how you want to take it. But that is the honest truth. And we always say, take
us as if it is your small family unit and tell us how you are going to react.
But Nigerians are saying that there appears to be no
direction or concrete plan by this government to get us out of recession, which
is really the problem.
Do
you understand what recession is? It simply means that for two consecutive
quarters, you record negative figures. Japan has been in recession for 60
years. Why our recession is biting more is because there is no reserve to fall
on.
When
the money was there, there was no investment in infrastructure. You can imagine
if there had been rail lines, the cost of transportation would have been
cheaper. The cost of transporting produce would be cheaper. Crude oil
transportation would be cheaper. When we had the money to do this, we did not
do so.
That
is why the situation is biting hard. Eleven oil producing countries that suffered
the same shock as Nigeria did have gone into recession; six more are preparing
to do so. Saudi Arabia entered the crisis with over $600bn in reserve; we
entered the crash with over 170 million people and less than $30bn in reserve.
Nigerians must know these figures. But what are we doing? We were not surprised
that there was going to be recession, in fact, the Minister of Finance said it,
and so we know what it is. What are we producing? Where are the factories?
Where is the power? How can you make your factories work when people are
sabotaging pipelines and cutting off electricity supply? When you are losing
one million barrels of crude a day, 1,000MW of electricity per day, and the
source of gas is being cut every day, how do you want to survive? But what we
are doing is very clear as I explained to you.
One,
we have not only introduced the TSA, we have introduced fiscal discipline. We
have been able to weed out over 33,000 ghost workers; we have reduced monthly
payments from N165bn a month to about N159bn. We have been able to achieve
significant reduction in tours and travels; and these are some of the
things you can do while also concentrating on diversifying to areas like
agriculture, culture and industry. If you read the result of the second quarter,
there were improvements in agriculture, solid minerals and growth in
investments. We are very confident we are going to get out of this recession
because we are taking fiscal measures.
Immediately
this government came into power, there was significant improvement in power
supply and then the Niger Delta Avengers came in.
Even the TSA this government has implemented, a lot of
people feel that it has been causing more damage than good on the economy and
that it should have been a gradual process because of its adverse effects on
banks, which are now struggling to survive.
Do
banks in other parts of the world depend on government deposits? When I was
younger, I knew what banks did. That is what we have to correct. If all a bank
can survive on is for the government to give it N10bn, keeps it and gives the
government five per cent, 10 per cent, and then loan the same money out to
people at 23, 24 per cent, do you think that is what banking is all about? I
don’t think so. Again, why did the government have to implement the TSA? It
realised that there was no way it could know where its money really was.
Generating agencies like Nigerian Customs Service, Federal Inland Revenue
Service, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, and others, were keeping
money elsewhere and when government needed money, it had to go and borrow when
its money was lying idle somewhere. You are now saying that we should take the
money back there; that doesn’t make sense.
Do you think this government has the luxury of delaying
some of the things it promised the citizens because it is almost two years now
that it came to power?
Do
you think the government is delaying anything? I’ve given you facts and
figures. I’ve told you that the economy was dependent on a single product and
that product suffered a serious crash. And I have asked you as a person if you
made a promise to your wife and kids, based on your income, to take them on
vacation to Dubai and your salary drops from N100,000 to N20,000 can you still
keep that promise immediately? .
Would
your wife divorce you on account of that? Can she accuse you of delaying it?
And that is why we have to be open. What we need to do now is to look at what
is essential, which is why we are diversifying and looking for other sources of
income. And we are not the type of government that would pass the buck to the
next generation; we could do so. But no, we came with a rescue mission and we
are going to rescue this country by the grace of God.
Senator Shehu Sani recently said that he hoped that by
the time that would happen, all of us would not have died.
Comments
are very free. I have been on the outside and now I’m inside and I understand
the situation. Any of them who comments, we just laugh at them because they
have little understanding of the enormity of the problems government is
confronted with. How many of them understand what sacrifices our soldiers are
making, not just in the North-East? Do they know how much it costs to maintain
the military? I don’t join issues with people; they comment from their own
perspectives. But clearly, this government is people-oriented and the only
reason why we are here is because of the people.
How can majority of Nigerians, especially in the
South-East and South-South, be patriotic when appointments are skewed in favour
of the Northern region?
It
is balanced and I will prove it to you.
Will you say it is balanced if out of 17 security
agencies, 14 are headed by northerners?
Do
you know your problem, you do not take a holistic view of a situation; you take
a small view of it. We have made about 260 appointments and I will tell you
that even for the South-East that seems to have the least, it is because people
forget that it has five states while the North-West has seven states.
So
when you break it down, it is equal number of appointees for each state and I
will give you the figures. People only try to whip up religious and ethnic
sentiments but the facts are there.
In
North-West, there have been 51 appointments; North-Central, 46; North-East, 45;
South-East, 41; South-West, 45; and South-South, 45. Meanwhile, North-West has
seven states, South-East, five states. If 41 appointments are made from the
South-East and you divide by five, it is roughly eight per state. If you divide
45 in the South-West by the six states there, you get less than eight. If you
divide North-West that has 51 by seven, you get just about seven. So what are
we saying?
Which
of the agitations were not there before, militancy, cattle rustling, Boko Haram
insurgency?
Some Nigerians have accused the APC of using the PDP
script after the Edo governorship election was postponed. Is it true that the
election was postponed to save the APC from an imminent defeat in Edo?
It
is not the same thing (with the postponement of the 2015 general elections). If
the election was held at the time or two years ago, the APC would still have
won. I have no reason to doubt that there were security challenges and I think
we can have elections when a nation exists.
What about nepotism in this government, which Dr.
Junaid Mohammed even described as the worst in Nigeria’s history?
I
have just given you the breakdown of the appointees. Are you saying the
President has relations also in the South-East and the South-West? Or in the
North-Central? If he has relations, it would be in the North-West. He might
have friends across Nigeria. I am from Kwara State and I am not his relation.
Audu Ogbeh (Minister of Agriculture) is not his relation. He has 36 ministers;
he could only pick one from Katsina State. It is not as if there are five
appointments and all five are from Katsina. There are some appointments that
might be from the President’s state and they are not even his appointees.
Why did this government use and dump the Bring Back Our
Girls campaign group? The APC supported the group before it came to government
but now prevents it from protesting peacefully.
This
government has the same objective with the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign group
and we will work with it. If there is any communication gap, we are going to
ensure that it is restored, but clearly, we have not abandoned them and we are
not dumping them. This is not a case of use and dump.
President Buhari may have integrity and other virtues
but former President Olusegun Obasanjo said he could not vouch for him in the
area of managing the economy. Is that not reflective of our economic situation
now?
That
is Obasanjo’s opinion and he is entitled to it. Like I said, I have worked with
President Buhari and he does not micromanage any ministry. Yes, the President
will have an influence on the economic direction of a country, but I think he
has largely left this matter in the hands on those who know best and he has
never imposed his own economic world view on us.
When will this government cut down on the size of the
Presidential Air Fleet?
If
I remember, your paper carried the story and also said that a committee has
been set up. Aircraft is not like buying a car or selling a car and there are
lots of implications attached to the sale of aircraft, how many hours has it
flown? What is its maintenance record? And so on.
And these things have not been concluded after one year
in office?
The
point is that this government is doing something along that line. And it is
important to note that this government has not bought a single new aircraft; it
is the ones it met that it is maintaining.
Why does this government like to demarket Nigeria?
On
the contrary, I think when investors know that you have a President, who wants
to stamp out corruption; it encourages them to trust more. I heard a lot of
funny things being said that the President has been demarketing Nigeria. Who
does not know the situation in Nigeria? How many people have lost contracts
because we are Nigerians before now? The truth must be said; this is the time
that Nigerians are better respected; this is when our green passport is
starting to have value. Before now, we were all just crooks, 419 people
(fraudsters) and drug smugglers.
But
today, you can see that because the President has integrity and is respected
all over the world, you can see the reference given to him whenever he travels
and that is what is percolating down. I have been to China and other places and
I can see that it is not what it used to be before.
Even though this government said it has not started
probing former President Goodluck Jonathan, but it seems to have been chasing
his wife, relations and associates around. Is this government sincere?
I
don’t know your definition of sincerity but if I, as the President, say I want
to know what happened to the money that was allocated to fight Boko Haram and
you say you gave this man out of it, I would investigate him. I have still not
deviated. If he now says out of that money, he gave to the aide of the former President,
I would also question him. But in this particular case, it was the aide of the
former President that the money was traced to and he was being investigated,
until the former President’s wife (Patience) said the money belonged to her.
So
because she said the money belonged to her, we must hands off? I don’t see the
logic. And the accounts were said to have been opened in the names of house
helps and stewards and so on. The government did not set out to investigate the
woman, but she is saying that the money belonged to her. In law, the fellow who
bought a stolen good is as guilty as the one who stole it. So you want the
government not to investigate it. So how can you accuse us of insincerity? So
if money is found on another person, all you have to say is that it belongs to
Jonathan, therefore, we cannot probe him. I don’t see the logic.
In less than three years time, there will be another
presidential election and the APC could be voted out, considering the situation
in the country. How does that make you feel?
If
our intention was to secure eight years without working for the people and
laying a foundation for a better tomorrow, then we would be the most
unfortunate government to come to power. We have come to government to bring
that change.
That
change will come and people will judge us by our commitment and honesty and by
the time they start seeing the results of our efforts, I have no doubt that all
the pessimists would be proven wrong. Then again, a government cannot achieve
everything in 15 months but you are already judging us as if we have been there
for three years.
Nobody
is even giving us credit for being able to keep the ship of the state afloat.
In Venezuela, which has a similar story like ours and has one of the world’s
largest deposits of oil reserve, their leaders squandered all the money. Today,
people are queuing up to buy soaps there. We are not saying people should start
singing our praise for no reason, no, we are aware of the enormity of the
challenges but we are up to the task.
Source:The
Punch
Tags
Society