In this interview with JOHN ALECHENU, former
Joint House Leader of the defunct Peoples
Redemption Party and Chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, as well as a member of the
Defence Committee in the Second Republic, Dr.
Junaid Mohammed, speaks about the Buhari
administration’s anti-corruption war, the arms
probe and other national issues. Excerpts:

Critics of the President Muhammadu Buhari-
led administration have latched on to the
recent arrest of former Army Chief, Azubuike
Ihejerika, to accuse it of partiality. What is
your take?

If Nigerians can remember, I said recently week;
when one of the four service chiefs, who are being
investigated, namely: General Azubuike Ihejirika
was arrested by the DSS. I said while the arrest of
Ihejirika was a very positive development, it was
none the less, inadequate. It was partial and
certainly sends a very wrong message. One,
Ihejirika took over power from somebody called
Lt. General (Abdulrahman) Dambazau. If Ihejirika
was guilty; it stands to reason that Dambazau is
equally guilty because Ihejirika took over from
him. In any case, information coming out from the
investigation panel set up to probe arms deals
indicates clearly that Dambazau has a case to
answer. In addition, Dambazau is today falsely
being made to represent Kano in the government
by Buhari, which is very unfair and unjust because
this man was not born in Kano. He is today
Minister of Interior and in addition to which, he is
Minister in-Charge of Police Affairs. Under the
British norms of Public Administration and
Management, if you are under investigation, you
are normally asked to step aside. Dambazzau has
not be asked to step aside, which means he is
being allowed to interfere with the investigations
by the EFCC which is in fact, a police organisation.
Another person who I also understand has been
indicted and should be arrested like Ihejirika is Lt.
Gen. Kenneth Minimah. Minimah was not given
that job on merit, he was given that position on
purely tribal consideration and in appointing him
as Chief of Army Staff, several of his colleagues
who are better tested and more refined and in
fact, better recommended were not only shoved
aside, they were also prematurely retired. He
should also be arrested like Ihejirika. After
Minimah, we now have Buratai. Buratai is an
interesting case not because he is not guilty but
because Buratai and the circumstances
surrounding his appointment and the scandal he
is now enmeshed in; are typical of the disastrous
sense of judgement of General Muhammadu
Buhari and the way he stubbornly refuses to
admit when he makes a mistake.

Since you’ve brought in the alleged scandal
involving Buratai, what do you make of the
whole thing?

It is now clear beyond any reasonable doubt -like
we see in the media – that Buratai was the
Director of Procurement at Defence
Headquarters. There can never be any reason why
other chiefs of Army Staff who are involved in
malfeasance and grand crimes in procurement
should be arrested and taken to court while
Buratai is allowed to remain scot-free. Secondly,
his position as Chief of Army Staff is something
nobody can explain; only Buhari can explain. It
has now been discovered that this man is filthy
rich like his cohorts. Thirdly, that he has property
in Dubai among other places and that while the
Army tries to cover one of their own, their Chief of
Army Staff; by saying that he acquired these
through the savings of his family- I don’t know
what his family was earning, what about what he
acquired when he became Chief of Army Staff?
How does Buhari explain that? Nigerians deserve
an answer and the answer must come quick
because Nigerians cannot be taken for a ride by
either Buhari or any army officer. The days when
Nigerian Army officers can tell lies and get away
with it or pretend to be messiahs in Nigeria is now
gone. Every soldier must prove himself to be clean
before we take them to be clean. We do not take
anybody from Buhari to be clean simply because
he says he is clean or his public relations men
who are paid to say so, say he is clean, that day is
gone and gone forever.

There has been this talk about a cabal
hijacking the Presidency, a charge the
Presidency has denied. We will like your
thoughts on this?

Let me say straight away that whether one calls it
a cabal or a mafia or some kind of cult or
whatever, there is a group of people who are
wielding power within the Presidency under
Buhari. Whatever you say it is; it is and a lot
worse. First, the most influential person in the
Presidency today is one Mamman Daura whom as
you know, is a nephew of the President. His father
was Buhari’s elder brother. In addition, Mamman
Daura was the one who single handedly brought
up Abba Kyari, the current Chief of Staff to the
President. In fact, Abba Kyari knows Mamman
Daura more than he knows his own father. Next,
the Personal Assistant to Buhari himself is the son
of Mamman Daura, next is what they call SCOP,
State Chief of Protocol, and is also a son-in-law to
Mamman Daura because he is married to
Mamman Daura’s daughter. Next, the Minister
they unilaterally chose, against the interest of the
party and against the wishes of Sokoto people,
happens to be the daughter of the younger sister
of Mamman Daura’s wife. Both of them are
daughters of Sultan Dasuki, who was sacked by
General Abacha. We have the Aide De Camp to
Buhari himself, Colonel Abubakar. He is married
to the granddaughter of one of Buhari’s elder
sisters. Next we have the woman who represents
Kaduna in the Federal Executive Council, she is a
cousin to Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai. It
is well known that el-Rufai is one of the closest
governors to Muhammadu Buhari. Next, we have
the Minister for the Federal Capital Territory. The
Minister of the FCT is the man called Musa Bello,
who used to be the Managing Director of the
Northern Nigeria Development Corporation,
which used to be the biggest holding company
that belonged to all the northern states. His only
qualification to be FCT minister is the fact that his
father has been Buhari’s friend over the years.
Now, there is a young man called Sabiu Yusuf,
nicknamed Tunde – probably because of late
General Tunde Idiagbon. He is another PA to
President Buhari. He is also a grandson of another
sister of Buhari. This is enough to prove to you
that this is shamelessly the worst form of
nepotism in the history of government in Nigeria.
In fact, in the history of Africa, let me make bold
to assert that I have never seen any level of
nepotism that has equalled or surpassed this in
my entire life – I am now in my 67th year. Another
thing I also want you to know is that, Amina
Zakari, who was and still a national commissioner
in the Independent National Electoral Commission
representing the entire seven states in the North-
West. It is being claimed that Buhari knows
nothing about her appointment (before he
became President), it is a lie. When President
Goodluck Jonathan was re-organising the INEC
and he was bringing in Prof. Attahiru Jega, he
reached out to Buhari and asked Buhari to
nominate somebody from the North-West so that
that person would be a national commissioner. Of
all the people in the North-West, Buhari decided
to nominate his own niece, the daughter of his
elder sister- Amina Zakari. She has been there;
when Jega left, Buhari was determined to make
her chairman, it was because of the massive
backlash that he dropped the idea like hot
potatoes. As we are talking today, that woman is a
national commissioner which means she is one of
the principal election umpires. Throughout my
reading of history, political science and social
sciences generally, I have never heard of any
dictator or any tyrant under any system of
government whether totalitarian or fascist,
appointing his own niece to conduct elections in
which he was either a party or going to be a party
to; Buhari has done that. The immediate younger
brother to Amina Zakari is currently the Minister
for Water Resources representing Jigawa State in
the same Buhari government. In addition, even
though they are from Kazaure, Kazaure is
contiguous to Daura. The eldest sister of both of
them is now the Commissioner for Education in
the All Progressives Congress government in
Jigawa State. If this is not nepotism, then I don’t
know what is nepotism and anybody who has the
guts, the brutal arrogance to appoint these
relations not bothering about public opinion,
about the sense of justice, about competence,
then you can see that he has a very serious
question to answer. There are two mysterious
cases.

Which cases are you referring to?

The case of the Governor of the Central Bank,
Godwin Emeifele and the Minister of State for
Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu. It was Buhari
himself who said that he knew when the governor
of the CBN picked a piece of paper and gave an
instruction that N14bn should be withdrawn from
the CBN and that money was withdrawn. That was
nearly a year ago and up till today, Buhari is still
retaining Emefiele as CBN governor. The Buhari I
know is an economic illiterate and anybody who
knows anything about currency movement and
foreign exchange and fluctuations knows that the
Naira has been effectively devalued. It was the
same Buhari who boasted that the Naira would
never be devalued under him for as long as he
remains President and even threatened the
governor of the CBN that he was going to sack him
if he devalued the Naira. He (CBN governor) is still
there. In the case of Kachikwu, he is the mystery
man in the cabinet. No one can actually tell you
who nominated and brought in Kachikwu. We
knew that he was friends with Abba Kyari when
they both worked in Mobil but none of them had
the influence to bring him in and make him
Minister of Petroleum Resources. Forget the
nonsense about him being the junior minister
because he is the senior and junior minister in
addition to being the Managing Director of the
NNPC (until recently when he was replaced. This
again confirms the arrogance of President Buhari
in putting two positions together; one purely civil
service and technocratic position which is the
Group Managing Director of the NNPC and the
other one which is purely political- a minister.

What is wrong with the President merging
these portfolios in the light of the
administration’s desire to cut the cost of
running government…?

Since this man became minister, there has been
nothing good coming out of the oil industry rather
than confusion, crisis and corruption. That again
is an indication of the decadence we have in this
government. People who are being accused and
arrested for corruption as it should be, we are
also aware that some of these cases that the DSS
is getting involved in are shady because they have
no experience whatsoever in prosecution. That is
why from the famous case of Farouk Lawal, a
former member of the House of Representatives
who was involved in getting money and putting it
under his cap and what have you which was
captured on camera. They arrested that man; it
was a clear cut case long before Buhari became
President. Till today, the DSS has not been able to
prosecute Farouk Lawan. He is still sitting at
home; his house is about 200 metres from my
house. That shows you that when you hear that
the DSS is arresting somebody for corruption, it is
clearly political and maybe there is money or
corruption involved. We also know that there are
people from within the DSS from the very top who
are even threatening that they will soon arrest the
Chairman of the EFCC and the National Security
Adviser.

These are serious allegations. Why would they
want to do that?

The main reason is these people have refused to
cooperate with them: Mamman Daura, Abba Kyari
and the DG DSS, who is also part of the Daura
cabal they want to take over the anti-corruption
war so that it will be under their hand and they
can cut deals and render the anti-corruption war
useless. I know who they propose to take over, it
didn’t work. I think Buhari resisted- which is
miracle. They are now proposing somebody. The
person who they proposed was a retired DIG, he,
myself and Magu (current EFCC boss) had worked
in Port Harcourt during my years in OMPADEC.
Now they are thinking of a retired Commissioner
of Police. The only qualification they are looking
for is someone who can be controlled by them.
This is the situation we find ourselves.
In the light of what you have said, what would
you say has changed in government?
I will put it this way, we have exchanged one
thoroughly corrupt government for one that
pretends to be honest and is doing an honest job
while in reality, it is business as usual.

…But for the first time, alleged malfeasance in
the purchase of weapons is being
investigated. Is this not progress?

Recently, an interim report was submitted to
President Buhari. The report had to do with the
on-going investigation of the Nigerian Army which
is the primary consumer of the money that was
used to prosecute the war on Boko Haram and of
course, the Niger Delta insurgency. I have been
reliably informed that the report even though
partial, has already indicted the following: General
Ihejirika and the current Chief of Army Staff,
Buratai. What was strange about the report was
the fact that it was silent about General
Dambazzau who was Army Chief before all of
these people. The report was silent about his own
role which goes to confirm that the Mafia or the
cabal in the Presidency consisting of the Chief of
Staff, DG DSS and of course, their godfather,
Mamman Daura, have an interest in making sure
that by hook or by crook, General Dambazau is
protected even though he was supposed to come
first. For some reason, the Buhari administration
which prides itself with its anti-corruption war has
decided that the report is not going to be
published because he has been persuaded by the
three that publishing the report will embarrass
the government. This is very strange and at best
laughable because Buhari’s first administration in
1984 got into a lot of trouble with the media
because of Decree 2 which makes it a crime to
embarrass any public office holder. That made
Buhari and his administration back then very
unpopular. These characters in the Presidency,
the cabal or the mafia or whatever you call them,
are determined to make Buhari make the same
mistake again. For Buhari to ask a report not to be
published because some people in his
government will be embarrassed is a very strange
manifestation of the Buhari we knew and is likely
to cause a lot of problems. In the case of
Dambazau, it is clear that the years 2007-2010 are
critical (to the arms probe) because these were
the years when he was supposed to be in charge
but again, he is being protected by the DG DSS
and co. Nigerians demand that the interim report
be made public and that there should be no
sacred cows. In any case, anything they try to hide
will be made public in due course because
nothing remains permanently secret in Nigeria,
Buhari himself knows that. Others who have been
in that position also know that. In addition to what
was contained in the report as it concerns
uniformed persons, we are reliably informed that
some permanent secretaries, civilians and civil
servants have been implicated and it is important
for the report to be made public for Nigerians to
decide who can be trusted. When crimes are
committed, it is not only soldiers that are
implicated, without the collusion of Permanent
Secretaries and others within the civilian
administration. Nigerians are watching and
watching carefully and demand that these things
be made public.

Is the cabal, like you said, not working to
protect the interest of the President?

No. According to very reliable sources, the cabal
in fact has a problem with the National Security
Adviser and the Chairman of the EFCC. The
problem the cabal has with the NSA is not the
same they have with the acting Chairman of the
EFCC. The problem they have with the NSA has to
do with what the office of the NSA and the security
establishment generally determined was going to
be a danger to the President himself. They found
that the contractors supplying aviation fuel to the
Presidential fleet were actually appointed -they
are cronies to Jonathan Goodluck and his wife,
Patience. And the security services felt that
retaining them under the new dispensation would
be dangerous, unhealthy and poses a direct
danger to the President, members of his family
and other members of the government. They
made the determination and submitted a report to
the President through the NSA recommending
that a new supplier be sourced to supply fuel for
the Presidential fleet. Buhari agreed with their
recommendations and signed off on it. He agreed
with the new contractors to supply after it was
done in the process of implementation, Mamman
Daura was claimed to have said the former
supplier was his friend therefore nobody can take
the contract away from them. All efforts to explain
the implications to him failed. He raised issues
first; with the NSA then with the President but he
did not get his way. That was when he raised the
issue with the DG DSS on what to do with the NSA.
It is noteworthy that when Obasanjo was
President, all the service chiefs including the
Inspector General of Police and the DG DSS were
reporting to Obasanjo through the NSA. That was
how the system worked and no bloody civilian
ever got involved with security matters. If
Nigerians hear that there is a threat by a civilian to
arrest the NSA, they should know the reason why.
Nigerians should not underestimate the danger
posed by the cabal because if Nigerians are not
careful, the cabal will inadvertently bring down the
government or destroy Buhari’s reputation.

[url]punchng.com/nepotism-buharis-govt-worst-nigerias-history-junaid-mohammed/[/url]

Janaid was critical of Jonathan's administration especially in the area of appointments.l was surprise why he has been silent all this while. Thank God he has found his voice.

Onahsundaymark:
Janaid was critical of Jonathan's administration especially in the area of appointments.l was surprise why he has been silent all this while. Thank God he has found his voice.

The man dies in him who keeps quiet in the face of tyranny

God come and help Nigeria

I was a Buhari supporter too, but we have never had it this bad.

Naira has been turned to Zimbabwe dollars

Petrol is out of reach of the common man

Nigerian athletes begging for funds on the internet.

Chai! This is what we have reduced to

As if. Buhari cares, after all he warned us not To call his ministers corrupt