The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Dr. Adewole Adebayo, has said terrorism should attract the harshest punishment, declaring that, if elected president, he would make tackling insecurity a top priority from his first day in office. Adebayo, who spoke during an interview with The AUTHORITY on his recently unveiled presidential blueprint, said insecurity was not a “herculean task” and blamed the persistence of terrorism, kidnapping and other violent crimes on alleged complicity within government and failures in the management of the country’s resources. He also vowed to tackle corruption around petrol subsidy removal. Excerpts:
Q: Following the presentation of your blueprint a few days ago, you talked about a farewell to poverty and insecurity. Let’s start with poverty. How does your blueprint address the issue?
Adebayo: What we are saying is “a farewell” because people should understand from the beginning that ours is not a plan on how to manage poverty, but how to abolish it. Some people get confused about the radical nature of our plans, and they try to compare our plans with those of others. The difference is that other people’s plans are about managing poverty; ours is about eradicating it.
It is a constitutional obligation. The Constitution says that the security and welfare of Nigerians shall be the primary purpose of government. The indicators of poverty are there: food, housing, medical care, education and full employment. Anyone who is reasonably engaged in any meaningful activity should be able to afford food sustainably without having to pray over it or scratch their head over it.
If you can find me anybody who can easily afford food for himself or herself and their family, has reasonable housing with basic amenities such as electricity, water and ventilation, has access to free and qualitative medical care, has access to free and qualitative education for their children, and is gainfully employed, how can poverty have anything to do with that person? I don’t think it can.
Q: Many analysts have pointed out that poverty in Nigeria is almost directly linked to the cost of petroleum in the country, which is basic for everybody….
Adebayo: That is a very weak analysis. Poverty in Nigeria is linked to the wastage of government resources, the wastage of public resources and priorities by government, endemic corruption that is becoming cultural, injustice, and a perversion of the purpose of government, which is to serve the people.
The government becomes an army of occupation because even Nigerians would not serve a god that behaves this way. Imagine if you imposed a religion in Nigeria where the god of that religion says: where you need food, don’t pray to me; where you need housing, it’s none of my business; where you are not well, don’t tell me; where you are looking for employment, it’s none of my business; and how to educate your children is none of my business.
When Nigerians follow that religion, they will say this god is not for me. Why would they follow a government that behaves that way?
The reason why the resources of the country are submitted to a group of people called government is that they are supposed to use those resources to take care of us.
Why would the Gwari submit all their ancestral land to government for a minister to be allocated land if that government will not secure them, take care of their children, provide housing or protect them?
The Gwari are entitled to say: leave our land. We were feeding ourselves before you came. I don’t want a federal secretariat; I want to farm there.
Why would Nigerians surrender all the oil? It would be like Kuwait. Why would they surrender it to you if you cannot protect them?
Why would you be wearing a uniform and carrying a gun if you cannot protect me? I can’t carry a gun. You can only use the gun to come and occupy my house. But when somebody wants to kill me, that gun is not available. Why then should I not carry my own?
Q: With the persistent argument about subsidy removal and its effects, how would you do things differently?
Adebayo: A scholarship will not make you a doctor. What will make you a doctor is admission to medical school, with professors, specialists and clinicians teaching you.
If you can’t afford the fee for that school, then you may need a scholarship. But the school has to exist, with teachers and other operators present, with the laboratory and everything else.
The same thing applies to energy. For you to make petrol or any fuel available to your people and affordable, you first have to make it available.
When you make it available, then you make it affordable. But you don’t make it available; you kill the refineries. You steal the crude, including the 445,000 barrels allocated for domestic consumption. You now create a subsidy account where you import the product and pay the money to yourself. You cannot say that if you remove that subsidy, government will have more money to attend to other things. So I say no.
Don’t focus on subsidy. Focus on production of petroleum products and their affordability. At the beginning, we had only one refinery in Port Harcourt. Then, after the Civil War, we created the NNPC and built a second refinery in Port Harcourt. When we built the second one, we said it would be for export so that we could make additional money. Then we built Warri, then we built Kaduna.
We built Kaduna and said, look, we’ll pipe crude from Escravos to Kaduna. But in case something happens and we can’t produce, Kaduna can take external crude; not only our light crude, we also have high-sulphur crude.
Then we created the Petroleum Pipelines Marketing Company, PPMC, and built depots all over Nigeria to pipe these products across the country, so that almost every state had a depot. When you came to load and take products to the filling station, the journey was short.
Because of the distances, we started paying petroleum equalisation. The subsidy did not come until they started importing because the refineries were producing for us at cost.
When they started killing the refineries, we had importation. It is the difference between the landing cost and the sale or pump price that is called subsidy. But what were they doing? They would import smaller quantities and exaggerate the quantities. At times, they would not import at all. If you had somebody in government, they would give you papers and tell you to claim non-existent vessels and all of that. So now they are claiming that because the money for subsidy was rising — from about N400 billion under Jonathan to N1.2 trillion, N1.25 trillion and N1.3 trillion — they had to remove it. I said no.
Four years ago, I told them no. All the so-called experts came and started talking. The Finance Minister and all the people who don’t understand anything, or who are in criminal conspiracy against the people, were on television talking nonsense. I told them: this same Buhari who said we couldn’t afford subsidy at N1.3 trillion had illegally taken N33.7 trillion out of the economy through Ways and Means.
If the N33.7 trillion that Buhari took through Ways and did not sink the economy, how would N1.3 trillion sink it? I told them again: you gave about 25 companies N8 trillion in tax waivers. If N8 trillion in tax waivers doesn’t kill you, how will N1.3 trillion kill you?
At that time, they were also stealing up to 1.7 million barrels of crude oil every day. Now they have reduced it to about 900,000 barrels, which is twice our local consumption.
If we stopped them from stealing crude and applied it to local consumption, we would have no discussion. Even if we gave the fuel away for free, government would lose nothing because right now it gains nothing from what is being stolen.
Q: So, in summary, what will you do about subsidy — remove it or return it?
Adebayo: Subsidy is a trap. What I am going to do is deal with the issue of fuel supply in Nigeria and local production of petroleum products.
I already told you that they take trillions of naira and billions of dollars for turnaround maintenance of the refineries.
Journalists follow them around when they say the refinery will soon work. Sometimes I have the feeling that journalists may be part of these politicians without knowing it.
You follow somebody to a refinery and they tell you, “I am the chairman of NNPC,” “I am the Minister of State,” and so on. You follow Mele Kyari and they say, “Yes, the refinery is going to work now.”
One of the companies involved is Daewoo. If Daewoo collects money from Nigeria to do turnaround maintenance of a refinery and does not do it, each of its executives would go to prison in Korea.
Forget about Nigeria. Just complain to the Korean government that Daewoo Corporation came here, took our money to do turnaround maintenance and didn’t do it. They would refund the money and go to jail.
So the refineries can work. They don’t want them to work. That is the problem. That is why government has not complained that the money spent on turnaround maintenance was lost or that the contractor ran away. These are well-known corporations. Daewoo Corporation has more money than the whole Nigerian government. They can’t run anywhere.
In other words, subsidy will remain, but you will tackle local production. When there is nothing to subsidise anymore, I have already told you that you will buy fuel at N200 per litre. It won’t be because I am subsidising it. It will be because it is affordable.
There is no difference between petrol and rice. If you produce sufficient bags of rice, the rice seller will be begging you to come and buy. If you don’t produce enough, politicians will put a picture of Tinubu on a half-bag of rice and ask you to clap and sing. Government creates artificial scarcity. In the same way, you won’t need a senator to give your daughter a letter to go and study medicine. If they create medical schools, medical schools will be begging you.
Q: Let’s come to insecurity. Are you one of those who believe government is complicit in the insecurity in the country?
Adebayo: I know. Who doesn’t believe that?Belief is a religion. You believe in Jesus; you believe in God. This one I know. And they know that I know, and I say that all the time.
There are three classes of people involved in insecurity within government.
First, there are those who have their own agenda to traumatise certain Nigerians. There is internal colonialism in Nigeria. Some groups want to dominate other groups. They want to scatter you. If there are resources in your area, they want them. They don’t like your way of life.
Second, there are those who are doing it for business, especially mining. Anywhere they see resources, they hire people. Sometimes they take people from the community and turn them into militants and troublemakers. It is similar to what Niger Delta governors used to do to extort oil companies. There was a clear case of pollution injustice in the Niger Delta, but some people criminalised it and caused confusion.
Thirdly, there are those in government who cannot kill anybody or hurt anybody, but they need the money. They are feeding from it. They may not want to kidnap you, but they know that every time you are kidnapped, they make money. They are the ones who will say, “We have seen the kidnapper. The kidnapper wants N400 million.” They will take the money. The kidnapper gets N40,000 or N400,000.
That’s why you see the kidnappers when they are caught. It is one small boy taken from his village, kept in the bush and told, “We will catch some people. Just tie rope on them and give them food.”
When you go and bust them, after they have collected enough money and safely kept it, they. Will say ‘I’ve kidnapped only twice. I have N150,000 worth of payment. The money is there.’ The person will look unfed.
That is the person terrorising Nigeria that we are looking for — the person who supposedly carries a whole general. Is this unfed person the one terrorising Nigeria? That is the system. So if you like, continue to follow them and pretend you don’t know. You cannot compete with government. Try and block this road now and see. You can’t compete with government. You can only cooperate with government.
Q: Some people describe tackling insecurity as a herculean task. Do you agree?
Adebayo: It is not a herculean task.
The issue is that you are asking the rat to stop the stealing of fish. What will the rat eat?
What is the use of a cat if it cannot catch a mouse? Why are you in government if you cannot stop terrorists?
From my first day in office, terrorism becomes a crime punishable by bullets on your forehead. Which forest is Nigeria? There’s no forest anywhere. Nigerian government found Nnamdi Kanu in Nairobi. They found him in London. With all the British army. They didn’t fear the British government. They went inside the heart of London and grabbed somebody and said, bring him to Nigeria.
Igboho ran away. Where did the government look for him? Who can the government look for? That we don’t find you.
