Apart from being the National Chairman of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party, Mr. Tope Fasua is also a presidential aspirant on the platform of the party. In this interview with TOSIN OBAJEMU, he highlights the ills in the present political structure, challenging Nigerians to pick up the gauntlet and be directly involved in the political transformation system.
Excerpts:
What are the highlights of ANRP manifesto?
It is a heavy document. We have prepared our manifesto around critical issues like youth empowerment and mainstreaming of the youths, people living with disabilities, and our women. We have also made it a top priority that government must be run with the efficiency that one would run a business and that the people should be seen as customers of government and so be treated with that much respect and reverence. We also addressed the matter of justice in society and of course the burning issue of restructuring, with our focus being on economic restructuring. We believe that we need to put money in the hands of Nigerian youths for work done, so as to reduce the anger in the land. These are some of the highlights.
Who are the sponsors of the party?
All members of ANRP are sponsors of the party. We were established right from the beginning on the idea that all must contribute. They say politics is expensive even though the endemic thievery is what makes it ‘uber expensive’ in our clime. Therefore, we have done a lot to ensure we stretch every Naira we get. We convened a National Convention and managed to invite people from all over the country under N17 million. It wasn’t easy though and many people were inconvenienced. But that is a project that one other party intends to spend N6 billion on, and has asked state governors to pay their ‘dues’ of N250 million each. State governors earn less than N20million per annum. So what that party-the ruling party-is saying is that the state governors should dip hands into their treasuries and pay up. Taxpayers’ monies and pension funds, are being used freely and illegally to fund parties. Our challenge is that impunity has gone on for too long in our country, to the extent that the ordinary citizens no longer know what is right and what is wrong. Many people join us and are surprised that they have to pay a token due of N5,000 yearly. Some resist, saying this is Nigeria and that is not done. We agree that this is Nigeria. But we are more interested in what Nigeria is meant to be. So we gave godfathers a wide berth from the beginning and have kept a clean slate. No scandals. No one can trace one naira of dirty money into our system.
Is the ANRP involved in the ongoing coalition talks among some political parties?
We are open to coalitions but it is not our priority. As I would always say, coalitions and mergers are akin to the Mergers and Acquisitions we see in the corporate world, even if not as well-structured. If any political party wants to merge with us in ANRP, we would ask what they are bringing to then table. What are their assets? The assets of a political party – aside
from what will show if they publish their accounts – include things like membership, structure, ideology, goodwill, and culture. Many organisations don’t have these assets and some of them know and would be rushing to get relevance by combining or coalescing with other political parties who do, just to gain legitimacy or relevance. Now is the time for parties to work on what they have, so that it is easy to reach an agreement easily when the time comes. Of course, as in an M&A transactions, parties that are too weak should be swallowed. We are extremely careful how we spoke ourselves with other parties so as not to become tainted. We have put in too much work to mess things up. Many of the parties are busy chasing godfathers around. We, on our part, have given effect to crowdfunding and are growing our goodwill everywhere. We just concluded our congresses in 32 states and will rapidly move on and do our LG congresses in those states, None of the other ones have bothered to take the trouble. We are really not on they same level at all. We are by now even bigger, better structured and have more goodwill than some of the very old parties. Even, the PDP and the APC have no verifiable membership registers.
You have declared to run for President. Is this not prejudicial to what is said to be a common agreement among the parties that the Presidency is still being zoned to the North?
Common agreement among the parties? Which parties? ANRP was formed in 2016. I recall this issue being an item when President Jonathan wanted to contest in 2011. They said he should leave it for a northerner. Therefore, that agreement is something they did in APC and PDP. That is their own rotation. In ANRP, our first focus usually is on competence and ideas. Then we balance things out later. My declaration is a clarion call to my people within the party that we should step out. They shouldn’t expect to wait till 2023 before trying their hands in the political autobahn (a kind of federal-controlled access highway system in Germany). We are not bureaucrats and paper pushers. All of us who stepped out, risking business, life and limb, to become EXCOs at every level are authorised by our current Constitution, to contest for offices in the general elections, even without having to go on leave, much less resign. And I have explained many times, that even historically, that is how it works. When politics started in Nigeria, the founders of the parties were also the ones who contested for and occupied public offices. Many of our people are shockingly naive. They expect that we wait, that we continue to administer the party with our own money, while we look for total strangers who have not helped us one day, to contest for elections. The elections – even though it’s your money you will spend – is like the cherry on the sundae. It is grossly naive for people to think the long-suffering exco members will become disinterested and continue to spend their money and their time building the party for cynics to come and hijack. It won’t happen. So in ANRP, the space is still open to anyone from anywhere so long as your ideas are solid. We are actually looking forward to our own international presidential debate, just like we did in Ekiti.
What is your assessment of the performance of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in the last three years?
A disappointment, simple. We had great hopes in him, and if it was just about his illness or old age, we would have forgiven him. But we saw cynicism and disdain for the people of this country in open display. The man first went to sleep for six months and I wondered personally what came over him. Nothing was being done, only that he went around the world defaming Nigerians and saying Ministers were noisemakers. In the first place, Buhari showed shaky level of integrity when he came in. He had promised open declaration of his assets, which would have really set the pace in our anti-corruption war, but he failed. All we heard were stories of how he had done the same in 1976! Once he shunned the people on this matter, the governors also swore that they had nothing to declare. Buhari eventually did something but anyone who wanted to see it must go through Freedom of Information Act. Only that when you did, you were stonewalled as they tell you the president has not authorised the release of his asset list. The governors took that loss and made the most of it; they had a meeting and informed Nigerians that they would not declare any asset whatsoever. That was where Buhari lost the anti-corruption war.
He would progress on from there and mismanage the Foreign Exchange problem. He was so full of himself and while his own children were in universities abroad, he stopped selling dollars to those whose legitimate children school abroad and asked them to withdraw their children from school. Such selfishness and refusal to lead by example. Such arrogance. This is why people lost faith in the man. The result was a deepening of the recession. Companies were laying off staff, those who employed could not pay. Inflation went up to 20% in the books of the Bureau for Statistics but a lot higher in reality. Life became extremely hard and there was no plan for anybody but those who were close to government and had the power simply took the little that there was. There is no way he should be beating his chest by now. The Naira devalued from N199 to N305 officially and today, we are budgeting less than we used to because the naira is more worthless. Buhari should be ashamed of himself. He shouldn’t also set store on the sheer luck of crude oil price increase.
Then what is your view of the National Assembly too?
The National Assembly is part of the problem. A major part of the impunity that has befallen this country. The issue is what work do they do? They push papers around all day, wear flamboyant attires, display their ill-gotten wealth to the poor people, live above their means, talk tough and extort government agencies, and they believe we should respect them. How relevant are they to the progress and development of Nigeria? Do we as a people need to be making laws constantly all year round? How many laws do we need? The laws that are on ground, are they being followed by the same people who made them? Are they not a joke? And do we need to pay over N120billion plus a lot extra just to make those laws yearly? This is a reduction from what used to be; but the senators and House of Representatives members are a lot more vicious today.
Buhari allowed them to grow wings and ride roughshod on the people. We have heard about sundry illegal allowances that they pay themselves. Shehu Sani revealed some. These allowances are not authorised by the Salaries and Wages Commission or Revenue Mobilization Agency. They just create it and award it to themselves to feel happy. They also have this habit of comparing themselves to appointees in the executive arm. They say, if so-and-so appointed by the president can drive so-and-so vehicles, we must also have the same or better models, tha after all, we were elected by the people. You see that? The focus is on ego and the self. Not the people.
The other day we saw how Congressmen in the USA were sleeping in their offices because they could not afford to rent a place in Washington. For some, it was just more efficient and for others, they have imbibed discipline. They said they cannot be paying mortgage in the states where their families live – where they represent – and also rent or own houses in Washington DC. But here, the cavemen that rule us at all levels see themselves as lords of the manor. They own houses everywhere which they hardly use – including in Washington DC. You can see where our economic model is messed up. America can buy this country 100 times over but instead of us using our money for citizen development, a few people take it all and send the money in every unproductive direction. Judgment is coming to them.
What is your recipe on economic recovery for Nigeria?
I could write a book on this. First is for us to know that this economy is dying today and that we have no business planning for 1.6% GDP growth when we should be thinking of 20% growth. How can you have 1.6% growth, alongside 13% inflation (luckily down from over 20%), and lending rates at 30% effectively in the banks! That is the recipe for economic pulverisation and that is what has been happening. Therefore, when you look at it this way, you begin to think of how to achieve 20% growth. I would recommend something like stabilising inflation between 10% and 15%, because high growth drives inflation. However, we have so much space for economic development and not only growth in Nigeria. We have space for employment creation by focusing on the basic stuff that we are leaving undone. It is then top-heaviness in everything that kills us. It is the fact that a few greedy people just want to take it all. A lot of them are mentally unbalanced, that is why they believe that this is the way to go.
So if we say let us focus on the basics, to feed ourselves, to ensure our own security, to tidy up after ourselves, to clothe ourselves and to house ourselves, and the government hankers down on these, a new vista will open. We can deploy our youthful energy to this. We can create a programme that rallies our efforts in these areas. Over 2 million jobs can be created in the environmental and security sector alone. The problem is that our few big men would rather want to steal all the money. We need first to invest in our human resources before some of these huge infrastructure things that they build just to steal money. We need to make our people comfortable to an extent. We need to rescue our people from malnutrition before running to town to rub shoulders with financial market people and feeling we have arrived. We need to lift the humanity of our people. It took Bill Gates coming here to draw our attention to this. The truism there cannot be negotiated.
If we create those two to three million light jobs by focusing on post-secondary unemployment, we would have automatically created a new class of spenders and will be under less pressure to increase minimum wage. We would have also created those people who will necessarily patronise made-in-Nigeria goods. Government cannot continue to deceive itself and the people by believing that the private sector will create all the jobs. No way. The private sector is in the business of making money but a responsible government will know that if it has 50million youth walking around aimlessly, it must create things for them to do.
You don’t stick your own children in CBN and NNPC and tell the children of the youths to ‘go and create something on your own’.
I would also be proposing that we upturn our development focus. The next phase of growth for Nigeria is at the very local level. Why don’t we reduce the percentage of the commonwealth that goes to Federal, to 25%, and give states 35%, but conserve 40% for the local governments so as to relieve the total neglect that they are facing? Such monies must be jointly administered by all tiers because the state governors are only interested in emasculating the LGs.
QUOTE
In the first place, Buhari showed shaky level of integrity when he came in. He had promised open declaration of his assets, which would have really set the pace in our anti-corruption war, but he failed. All we heard were stories of how he had done the same in 1976!
