Good GDP figures, foreign reserves growth useless to Nigerians battling hunger –Yabagi, ADP National chairman

•State police fastest way to disintegrate Nigeria

National Chairman of the Action Development Party (ADP), Alhaji Sani Yusuf Yabagi, has said that, the fact that, almost all the northern governors belong to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), does not translate to victory for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election.

He noted that it happened in 2015, when Goodluck Jonathan was in power, and his governors voted against him in the re-election bid.

In this interview with Sunday Sun, the presidential candidate of the ADP in the 2023 election also kicked against the establishment of state police, stating that giving governors the power of coercion and force will lead to the breakup of the country.

He also pointed out that Nigeria can’t have a president that cannot go to certain countries, and attend certain important meetings

How can you describe the processes leading to the emergence of candidates from various different political parties for the 2027 elections?

We have a constitutional democracy, which means the emergence of candidates for elections is governed by rules and regulations, and also constitutional provisions. I will, of course, say that everybody emerged, in most cases through the established rules and regulations. I can’t say in all cases.

I can’t say that every candidate emerged in line with the laid-down procedures, rules and regulations governing the process.

During the party primaries, some candidates emerged in line with the rules and regulations, while some did not. But don’t ask me which ones did not.

What should be the campaign messages and issues for campaign?

The issues are so obvious to every Nigerian, and even to those who are not living in this country. Number one issue is that of the economy because all the other things are effects of the fact that our economy is not working the way it should work.

The economy is not working for the people. What we have today is like a power point-driven economy, where you talk about macroeconomic figures by the IMF, and those institutions that talk about GDP; talk about foreign reserves, and talk about things, which are macroeconomic issues.

But when you talk about the fiscal policy of the government, it’s not in line with what it should be.

The issues should be how Nigerians are faring – especially the issues of insecurity, poverty and how they are living today. Are they better off than they were before the advent of this government? The issue that should dominate this campaign should not be promises, should not be just empty agendas, but it should be how you are going to address our exchange rates? How will it impact the strength of Naira? Indirectly, I’m talking about productivity. How more productive can this economy become so that our Naira can become strong?

When we talk about inflation, what fuels it is the exchange rate because a lot of our production is still based on inputs from outside, where you need dollars, raw materials, machinery, in some cases even services, which you have to pay in dollars.

When you talk about revenue, how do we generate revenue to run this economy? In our own particular situation, the only product where we have comparative advantage is the oil and gas sector. So, how are we running that sector of the economy? There is the issue of crude oil theft, the issue of how the entire governance of that sector is handled. Do we know how much we are producing in terms of crude oil and gas? Do we know how much we are exporting? Are we able to address the issue of leakages in that sector?

When you talk about issues that affect the wealth of the people of this country, you have to take the oil and gas sector into consideration because it dominates the economy by way of revenue to the extent that even our own budget is based on the price of crude oil. That tells you that the sector is also something we cannot just ignore and run it the way we are running it now.

What should dominate this campaign, like I said, are squarely on the issues of how we run the economy of this country. Are we able to block the loopholes, the leakages that we have in this economy? Because this economy is bleeding, and we have not seen deliberate efforts by the government to block those loopholes.

If you cannot have enough revenue to run the economy, you continue to battle the issue of insecurity. If you have to fight insecurity, the first thing you need to do is to fight unemployment. You need to ensure that your security agencies are well equipped and funded. Then you can now talk about the issue of corruption, which again, we need to tackle. Revenue generation and corruption are issues that we must tackle.

If you want to address the issue of insecurity, which has become a very dangerous phenomenon for Nigeria, in terms of how it affects every citizen of this country today, you need money.

Definitely, you need to have enough revenue to make people become active, productive. Terrorist industry is growing because we are not able to create opportunities in the formal sector of the economy for Nigerians. That’s why people are going underground; the underground economy is becoming more and more lucrative.

So the issues are not whether somebody has a certificate or doesn’t have a certificate, but whether the date of birth is correct or not correct. I think what is critical to an average Nigerian is how he is able to feed himself; how he is able to live his welfare and security.

The APC, Tinubu’s presidential campaign council and the Presidency are praising the president for fulfilling his campaign promises. How do you react to this?

Of course, you will not hear them saying anything different from what they are saying because they would not like to be honest if they feel that that honesty will not earn them votes.

Don’t forget, the 2027 election is already on the way; the campaigns are already on the way. So you can’t take what the APC people are saying as the truth or the fact of the situation. No, it’s not.

They know themselves. They know that the only things they can talk about are those things that Nigerians cannot decipher, like the GDP is growing at a faster rate. What does that mean to an average man on the street? Oh our GDP is now growing at a rate of 4.4 per cent or something like that. How does it affect the common man? It has not changed him a lot. Oh, our foreign reserve has increased by so much. Okay, yes, but how does it affect the ordinary citizen? How much is he paying for petrol? How much is he paying for transportation? How much is he paying for food? Is he able to pay the school fees for his children? Is he able to take care of himself health-wise?

That’s why I told you that this has become a power point-economy, where you just go to bring out statistics that are not relevant to the realities of life that average citizens are battling with.

Of course, it’s easier for APC people to be telling you that Bola Tinubu is sending billions or trillions to states. But why can’t we see it on the ground? What has happened? How has it transformed the life of Nigerians? Why is insecurity getting worse? Why are people becoming poorer? Why are they becoming angrier with the government? If, truly and sincerely, the money is getting to where it should get to, and some people are not stealing it with impunity, you would have seen that in the lives of the masses.

The masses would have shown that by the fact that they would have become happier and people would not be killed like chickens, as people are being slaughtered today. They are taken on by bandits, which we all know. And the cause of banditry is poverty. That’s the number one cause. The second cause is corruption because the officials who are supposed to protect our borders are not doing their job; they claim that the border is too wide. What is too wide? In today’s technology, you can sit in your room and police the entire world if you want to, not only Nigerian borders.

They have technology today. You have drones. You have all these maps, technology that you can use to police what is happening in your borders. How much does it take? So, until someone becomes serious we can’t make progress.

Some political pundits argue that Tinubu has already won the election, judging from registered members of each political party. According to INEC, ADC has 1.2 million members, PDP has 2.4, NDC, 700,000, while APC has 12.9 million. What is your take on this?

Far, far, far from that. I’ve witnessed situations in most cases where people who belong to one party will vote for another candidate. Do you know what they call rice and beans? Okay! For instance, for the presidency, all of them, the 12 million may vote for somebody else. But when it comes to governorship, they’ll vote maybe their party because that is closer to them. When it comes to the presidency, they vote according to their sentiments, or the situation, the way they read it.

It doesn’t mean that somebody who’s an APC member will go and vote for APC. Not in this country. Yes, he may vote APC, maybe, when he’s voting for a chairman of his local government, or councillor, perhaps. But in some cases, even the governorship he may not vote for the APC. People don’t get carried away by those bogus numbers.

Some northern leaders are kicking against Tinubu’s re-election. According to them, the region gave him the highest votes that made him president, but he has given them the short end of the stick. Do you think that will come to stand when almost all the northern governors belong to APC?

Like I said before, politics is about, if you like, 90 or 99 per cent sentiment, especially in a developing country like Nigeria, where you have so much ignorance and poverty, which clouds the sense of judgement of people. What drives them mostly is sentiment.

The fact that all the northern governors belong to the ruling party does not translate to victory for APC. We have seen it happen when Goodluck Jonathan was in power. You know, it happened. Even his governors voted against him.

What the northern people are saying is perhaps maybe what would happen. They may turn their back on Bola Ahmed Tinubu because he has not demonstrated the kind of reciprocation that he should have done by appreciating what they did, by way of improving the lots of the north.

When you look at the contracts that have been issued out; you look at big, big projects that have been run by the government all in the South West, by and large. You look at even the government itself; the structure of government; the choicest positions are populated largely by the Yoruba from the South West. So, northerners are not blind to some of these things, they know.

They know that the entire economy is in the hands of the Yoruba. You take it from the Minister of Finance, to the Governor of Central Bank, to NIRS; you take it to Customs, Accountant General of the Federation, or whatever you want to talk about. Everybody is a Yoruba man. The Minister of Petroleum Resources himself is a Yoruba man, which is the president himself. The GMD of NNPC is a Yoruba man, although they say he’s from Kwara.

When you confront the president’s people they will tell you that Buhari did the same, but two wrongs cannot make a right. If Buhari did it, it might be because of his military background, but you are talking of a democrat, who should know better, and deepen the root of our democracy, not to uproot it.

The opposition parties are trying to coalesce and present a common front to challenge Tinubu and defeat him. Do you see the coalition working?

The train has left the station a long time ago. They can’t work. They don’t intend to work. In any case, they don’t even want to work together.

That’s why I’ve always said that most of them are pretenders because if they really wanted to work together, why did they disband the coalition in ADC?

What happened? Why couldn’t they all stay in that party and fight Tinubu?

If truly and sincerely they are after removing Tinubu from office democratically, is it not about the number that you are looking for?

You already have a platform; all of you were meeting there, saying that you have come together to rescue Nigeria, but they didn’t know that they were just fooling themselves, thinking that they were fooling Nigerians.

Otherwise, would they leave ADC to go and enter NDC that didn’t exist then? They quickly went and created that one, and then some ran into other parties, and they said it’s a coalition. Which kind of stupid coalition is that one?

This is not a parliamentary system that you can say we can now come together to form a government after you have won. This is why I don’t take them seriously because they are not serious.

Some citizens say they want to be sure of the academic certificates of their leaders. Some want INEC to disqualify Tinubu over his NYSC certificate. Atiku wants the FBI to release Tinubu’s files. What do you think of all this?

Well, I’m not stopping anybody from challenging Tinubu now if you have a valid case; if you have a case that you can prove against him, as far as his credibility is concerned, definitely we want to have a credible president.

We want somebody that people can look up to as their role model, both in character and in his actions and things like that. Of course, as an opposition, nothing stops a person from going to court to say this man is not fit to be our president.

But when you are talking about performance, as a president, that may not be the yardstick really, but if you are talking about morality, credibility and role model and how Nigerians are seen by outsiders, then of course, you can investigate such areas so that you can say that this one has integrity, and can stand anywhere as the president of Nigeria.

You can’t have a president that cannot go to certain countries, attend certain important meetings, like the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), which is not something to be proud of.

What’s your position on the state police that the government is trying to put in place to counter the insecurity in the country?

Honestly, it’s a distraction. It’s the way by which the governors are trying to make themselves to become tin gods; become emperors in their states. I don’t see how that will show anything about insecurity because the structure you have today is that the governor is the chief security officer of the state, isn’t it? And the commissioner of police, administratively, is under the governor; but operationally under the Inspector General of Police. So what is it? The only thing they want to do now is to use it for oppression.

Look at the responsibilities that are given to the governors that you are talking about. Look at it from the area of elections into local government councils; can you see the nonsense they have done with that? How they have bastardised the whole thing. They have made it to become a coronation; they just put whoever they want there, whether it’s their house boy, driver or gardener, they just put him there against the person that the people may like to vote or govern them.

Look at what they have done with that constitutional right given to them to conduct elections. You can also see what they have done with the so-called joint account. They denied the local government structure, the money to develop.

And now, you want to add state police. You have given them political power; you have given them financial power, now you want to give them the power of coercion, which is the power of the force.

Then, you cannot even think of having freedom or justice in your state. State police is the fastest way to disintegrate this country if truth must be told. Those who are promoting it are not really lovers of this country; if they were, all they needed to do was to see how they could improve and make the community policing and things like that to become more effective because a loose country like Nigeria, where people have restiveness; regional restiveness and sometimes you even have restiveness within the states, and now you want to add or give the force of coercion to people that have not proved that they are worth to be given such rights or privileges by constitution.

All you need to do is to take a look at what they have done to the local government election; what they have done to what they call joint account in spite of the Supreme Court decision that this money belongs to the third tier of government and should get directly to the councils. But they don’t obey the Supreme Court. They still hijack the local government funds.

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