Dr Doyin Okupe is the Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs. In this interview speaks on the Chibok girls abduction saga, the removal and threat of removal of some governors, among other issues. Excerpts:
You served in the Olusegun Obasanjo’s government and you are now in Jonathan’s. What are you looking for?
Working for President Jonathan was not a straight affair. There were national issues that predated it. I took sides in the succession of the late president Umar Yar’adua matter, like my usual self. I was vociferous, made my position public as the matter raged on; I continued to defend without having met him. The hostility continued even after he was sworn in. I have a natural passion for defending what I consider true and just. I met him after about a year by happenstance. Subsequently, I got a call from the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Pius Anyim, and when I went to see him, he told me the president would like me to work with him and that was it.
As an insider, could you assure the global public that the Chibok girls will be found?
The much assurance is that of an insider. What I know as an insider is that, from the government president’s perspective, there is an overriding commitment to following through with every effort possible to get the girls back. It has nothing to do with global or local pressure; it’s a matter of national integrity and commitment of government to its responsibility. I don’t see this president or his government resting on its oars until the fulfillment of this very strong drive. But above all things, the priority is also the safety of the children.
Is President Goodluck Jonathan truly clueless or are his aides?
This is a wonderful question. It is a concept contrived, not just by the opponents but also by very powerful stakeholders who feel aggrieved by the continued existence of Jonathan’s presidency in the history of Nigerian politics. There is no fallacy or disinformation that is greater than this preposterous, indefensible falsehood which was propagated through the powerful media manipulation of the opposition. Unfortunately, the idea was allowed to sink by the failure of government information machinery from the very onset.
The Jonathan administration has been maintaining a healthy economic stability and indices, reforming our dead rail system, totally transforming our agric sector to the extent that our food import bills have been reduced by almost two-thirds from about N16 trillion per annum to just about N650 billion, the rehabilitation of virtually all our aviation infrastructure and also the repair and rehabilitation of major economics arterial roads nationwide, doubling of our power generating capacity and unbundling the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), which was not achievable for over five years, the establishment of the first mortgage refinancing corporation funded by government to the tune of over N50 billion and which will allow ordinary Nigerians to have access to long term funds to facilities with which they can own their own individual homes. The establishment of a new industrial policy which has the potential of revolutionising our manufacturing capabilities to the extent that the world acclaimed finance consultants, Mckinsey Institute, now project independently that Nigeria will be among the first 20 economies in the world by 2030.
If all these achievements are products of cluelessness of a president and his administration, then it may mean that the sun no longer has power to lighten our days.
Where is President Jonathan on his Transformation Agenda train?
Transformation Agenda is what separates Jonathan from all our previous leaders. The president had the leadership of the country thrusted on him by the unfortunate demise of Yar’adua. Fortunately for him, that afforded him a reasonable time not to just jump into governance but rather to take time off to prepare a road map for transforming the country. There are various sectors on the agenda and these include power, agric, economy, infrastructure, housing, transport, road infrastructure, unemployment and security.
When you look at the sectors, I can say with all certainty that most of the milestones set in the agenda have already been achieved or are in the latter stages of their full actualisation.
Most Nigerians and the opposition believe the government is behind raging impeachments and threats of impeachment in some states. How true is this?
We are in a democracy and this administration has exercised extreme political liberation. There was a time in this country when the All Progressives Congress (APC) bestrode the country, going from state to state trying to woo serving Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) serving governors into their fold. Their successes were not only orchestrated but gleefully celebrated. The PDP and the government of Jonathan didn’t do anything towards stopping them because it is a free country. We believe they were marketing their product which they have a right to do: the APC is a political contraption put together on the base of hate. It is only love that binds; hatred never binds anything together. Besides this, the APC state machineries have internal contradictions which made the chief executives to take political decisions not in sync which their followership and stakeholders.
For example, in Adamawa, how come a state governor, a two-term chief executive and political head will allow a situation where his legislative arm will be made up of assembly men, who are in overwhelming majority against his own party affiliation?
In Nasarawa, from day one, the governor was sitting on a keg of gunpowder and owed his existence as chief executive to the generosity and grace of his assembly men, who were largely PDP members. Under such circumstances, a chief executive cannot afford to tow a hard line of opposition and rub it in the nose of his assembly men. Look at Edo, Oyo and Imo states and you will see that in all these places, the governors, by their own making, have alienated themselves from their political bases.
In spite of all these, they continue to do unconstitutional things and directly opposite to the interest of the stakeholders in their states. Their continued existence as governors remains essentially precarious. From all the above, you will see that Shakespeare’s famous statement “Dear brothers, the fault is in us not in our stars” is very true in these cases.
The APC leadership should examine itself, the make up of their party, the political indignation and ill dispensation of their governors to correct whatever anomalies exist rather than blame their misfortune on Jonathan.
The president does not need to remove any APC state governor from office in order to win the 2015 election if he wants to contest. The result of Ekiti election has provided a profound lesson that media noisemaking and political grandstanding in the absence of sound judgement and quality performance will not sustain or guarantee an electoral reform.
I want to say categorically that we have no hand whatsoever in the misfortune of these politically inept APC governors. Is President Jonathan, for instance, the cause of the rift between Governor Ibikunle Amosun and Chief Olusegun Osoba in Ogun state or the struggle for power between Senator Femi Lanlehin and Governor Abiola Ajimobi?
Do you think President Jonathan stands any chance, if he decides to run in 2015?
When Jonathan declares his intention or otherwise, the battle line will be clearly drawn out. If he decides not to run, the PDP is too overwhelming to be subdued by a budding political platform like APC, which is yet to overcome its own internal problems. If President Jonathan decides to seek re-election in 2015, the sheer weight of evidence of his performance, which I will admit, we have not successfully and adequately propagated, will reduce any opposition from any contender from any party to a mere political Lilliputian. In other words, it would be more or less a no contest. I believe the opposition recognises the fact that is why a lot of moves and evil designs are being executed either to discourage or to misrepresent the president in the eye of the populace or even frustrate him outright. But we believe that, as long as God liveth, all these evil plans will never succeed
Source: Tribune
