The Chairman, Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, Senator Shehu Sani which is also in a little bit of turmoil with his party (APC) which led to his suspension few days ago, talks about the failure of the All Progressives Congress to fulfill its campaign promises, President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic policies and Nigeria’s foreign policy in this interview with LEKE BAIYEWU

A former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, who is the current Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, said the current administration in the country is already going the way of the PDP and that President Buhari should retrace his steps. Do you agree with him?

The (Muhammadu) Sanusis, the (Charles) Soludos and others are liberal bourgeoisie economic thinkers whose solution to our economic problems is simply in tandem with the wishes of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other Western financial institutions. In their own thinking, if Buhari is not adopting the bourgeoisie, liberalised economic model hook, line, and sinker as was adopted right from the Olusegun Obasanjo administration to (the late) Umaru Yar’Adua and even Goodluck Jonathan, then he (Buhari) is wrong. For them, Buhari should privatise everything. He should remove subsidy on everything.

He should go borrowing and collect money from all sources to create jobs. He should allow free market to operate; and he should also appoint a minister of finance in the good books of the world financial institutions. And that Buhari should not be concerned with the ratings in the hearts and minds of Nigerians; he should be concerned about the ratings of Standard Afore, Ernst & Young, Peach, London Club, Paris Club, the World Bank and the IMF. Buhari should not be concerned about the social institutions in whatever he is going to do for as long as all those bourgeoisie capitalist reforms are implemented. That is when they (Sanusi and Soludo) will say we are moving forward economically. But the question we need to ask them is ‘where was their wisdom when, by the time they came into government, Nigeria was 90 per cent dependent on crude oil’; when they left power, the country is still 90 per cent dependent on crude oil. The difference between the good minister when oil was $140 (per barrel) and a bad minister, who is now in office, when it is less than $40, is all about the prices of oil.

If you look at it again, (the late President Umaru) Yar’Adua was a choice of Obasanjo while Jonathan was his vice-president. You can see the confraternity in the economic and political lever of the country. Nigerians are most times deceived when there are intra-class conflicts within the people who control the lever of power and economy. It is the same circle who continues to propagate and prescribe for the nation and implement on behalf of the people, economic policies that simply enrich a few and impoverish the masses. What they were talking about was reducing poverty and creating wealth, while all they did was creating a few businessmen. Who are the beneficiaries of their 16-year economic system? They were able to create a few rich people, who control the banking industry; who bought public firms and corporations; who control the insurance industry, shipping and the airlines. What they count as their achievement is the few people they empowered and enriched in the country, and not the people.

How much can the APC government criticise the PDP when a large number of those who drove the economy and governance in the past have found their ways into the current administration and some are even in the National Executive Council?

I am afraid; it is a contradiction in the polemics, dynamics and the tendencies of the change mantra. The very fact that most of the persons who joined the struggle for change were part and parcel of the system, their thinking, orientation and perspectives of change is not the same. Their objection to the PDP was not from an ideological point of view; it was from the fact that they were protesting against the politics of exclusion and marginalisation. Most of them did not disagree with the PDP based on views about the economy, the country or the future; their objection to the PDP had to do with the fact that they were outmanoeuvred within their own intra-class conflict. So, they joined the change train. For this, they now think that we have a change but they should also continue with that very exploitative and oppressive socio-economic system that preserves the privileges and interests of the political ruling class and oppresses the masses.

The APC, as a political party, is not a congregation of ideologies; it is a communist party. It is not a party that is defined by a certain political thinking, philosophy or ideological direction. It is a convergence of people with different tendencies, ideas and thinking, with one common aim to evict Jonathan and “to move the country forward.” But how to move this country forward is another thing.

Are we going to use an airplane to move it forward or are we going to use a car, a cart or are we going to climb a horse or donkey? Then, how are we going to move it forward? Is it by implementing liberal economic policy or which other economic direction?

The contradiction with the aftermath of change has to do with the fact that there is no harmonised and agreed direction we are going to follow. For example, Bola Tinubu came from the Action Congress of Nigeria. The ACN came from the Alliance for Democracy and the AD had a history of the National Democratic Coalition and the struggle against military dictatorship. Bukola Saraki, Atiku Abubakar and many others came from the PDP and they had been part of the economic fulcrum in the last 16 years. And you have a Buhari, who came from the All Nigeria Peoples Party and the Congress for Progressive Change; he became the presidential candidate of the APC and now President of Nigeria. If you look at his history, he is more of a leftist nationalist, who believes in state control of resources, who doesn’t believe in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank policies and whose thinking of an economic regeneration is internal. These are the arms that we have (in the APC).

What brought all these people together is that the system, for 16 years under the PDP, was not working. But if you look at the PDP elements in the APC today, what moved them from the PDP was the fact that they were marginalised, excluded and treated badly. Did they ever say that they were opposed to the corruption or economic policies and programmes of the PDP? They have never said that. What brought the ACN people into APC? They realised that the ACN remained a South-West party and for the party to be relevant politically, there was the need for some consensus and compromises to move to the centre (the Federal Government). If you look at Buhari, the party he headed was almost a one-man party. It revolved around his integrity and reputation as a person. When you have people who came from these different backgrounds and they have got to a point of ‘we are at the top of the mountain. How do we fly?’ That is where the issue comes from.

That means the APC is truly a congregation of strange bedfellows who have come only to take over power. - continue article @ http://www.exlinklodge.com/2016/12/sen-shehu-sani-admits-that-buhari.html

cc lalasticlala mynd44

The emergence of the dullard without any Good plan to offer is as a result of envy frm the particular set of Nig. saboteurs.

Now that they v enthroned him,they suffer the most while pretending..that is What We call:Zombiesm.


Truth Speaks*

.

Many people know but chose to support him based on religion/ethnicity. That's why some of us will never support him because we know Cassandra has nothing to offer

Buhari has no plan at all. He never planned to contest in the 2015 presidential election at all so you can't blame him.

This government have no plan for upcomng generation. they only have lieing team the likes of lia muhammed

every reasonable Nigeria knows Buhari doesn't. have an Economic team, only Zombies think otherwise

Are u all surprised? What else do u expect from a dullard that did not write wassce.