VERY LENGTHY ARTICLE I MUST SAY BUT HE MAKES SOME VALID POINTS.
Jonathan contending with the most formidable
opposition since 1960’
•Lists the quick fixes Jonathan needs ahead of
polls
•‘How S/West will vote in 2015’
Mr Akin Osuntokun is not new on the nation’s
political terrain. He operated at the highest level
of government when he was Political Adviser to
former President OlusegunObasanjo. Before then,
he was the Managing Director of the News
Agency of Nigeria (NAN). In this interview,
Osuntokun diagnoses the polity, fielding questions
on the forthcoming elections and the contenders.
Excerpts:
The N21b donated to the PDP presidential
campaign has generated interest among a section
of the public with some people saying those who
donated the money committed illegality. Some
people in fact called it obscene while a group of
lawyers were reported as calling for the
prosecution of the PDP and some of the donors.
Should mere donation to a campaign generate
hues and hues?
With due respect, Nigerians tend to be sensational
even at the risk of sounding hypocritical, most of
the time. I was a director of a presidential
campaign like this in2002. I can tell you that just
paying like N1000 or N2000 per agent in all the
polling booths all over the country amounted to
about N10b. That is just paying them, all over the
country. When people hear that it is N21b, may
be it is generating reaction because it is PDP.
Everything the party does, they think it must be
discredited but, more importantly, I think I have
mentioned this fact once which is that there is a
lack of rigor and seriousness about the way
commentators and observers respond to issues.
They are given to cheap and careless talk. I
would have expected that there are relevant facts
that should be taken into consideration. One of
such is, what does the law permit?
And within the context of what we are talking
about, is that law even reasonable? Because I
was reading a while ago that the presidential
campaign donation should not exceed N1b. How
can that be possible when paying your agents is
a lot more than N1b? You are going to travel
around the country, charter planes and hire buses,
hotel expenses are there.
The logistics of going round the country for a
presidential campaign are enormous. May be
political editors should, through their writings,
speak to the minds of those who crafted the law,
it is an unrealistic law. It is not logical given
what is on ground. But, campaign finances, like in
the advanced democracies, you saw what
happened in the last presidential election in the
U.S., the money spent was well over 1b dollars
and their own Supreme Court was the one that
actually gave judgment and removed any ceiling
on the money spent on election.
The money spent during the last congressional
election in the US was well over 400m dollars.
Yes, it is good to limit the impact of money so
that it can be regularized in such a way that,
having taken into account what you need to
spend on logistics, you can now use that to
factor what the law should consider excessive
spending. I think Nigerians need to be educated
and counselled not to get carried away by figures
easily.
I think the source of the funds is also important
and that is what the critics are querying. You find
Jerry Gana and friends donating N5b, TundeAyeni,
an operator in the power sector, donating N2b,
and people are saying when these people
contribute this much to the campaign, the
chances are that they will have some influence on
government when the party wins the election at
the end of the day.
Was the government of America taken over by
those who contributed money especially the
Republicans? There is no logical correspondence
between the two. The fact that you put down
money does not mean you exert needless
influence over government activities. Obasanjo
said so in 1999 that ‘consider the money you
have donated as a wise investment but nothing
further’. Jerry Gana was able to mobilize N5b, all
well and good.
If you want to investigate it as an issue, go ahead
and do it, but why should you bother yourself if
some people among themselves decided to raise
a certain amount? In any case, don’t let us
overreach ourselves. The problems of elections in
Nigeria, if we were to give them priority,
donations made would not rank high. I think we
should be more concerned about credibility of
voting on the day of election so that every vote
would count, establishing a conducive
atmosphere.
Whatever the peg you put on donation is
ultimately irrelevant if you cannot attain the
standard of credibility that was achieved in Ekiti
and Osun states. I hope you know that it is on
record that the single most expensive application
form in the history of Nigeria was paid by General
Buhari. This is where the hypocrisy of some
people like Buhari begins to come in.
How can you say you stand for probity and you
find it in yourself to pay N27m? it would have
been credible of him to say, ‘look, if this is what I
need to pay to get this, I am not going to do it’.
If you want to live by example and image his
supporters are projecting him to be, then he has
no business paying N27m to get application form.
He went head telling stories that he got it from
bank a manager and so on, tell that to the
marines.
If they say the N27m application form was
intended to weed out unserious candidates, to the
best of my knowledge, none of the five applicants
stepped down on account of the application fee.
But I am saying here is a man who says he has
only one house, I don’t know whether it is true or
not, you are this and that. If he refuses to pay the
money, will APC disqualify him? I assumed and it
was proven at the primary that he was their most
formidable candidate, and I thought he would
have used that platform to insist that the right
thing must be done. He didn’t choose that path
What does that tell you about Nigerian politicians
generally?
Where this is significant is the gap between deed
and precept. He projects himself and he is being
projected as a cut apart. The man that has come
to fight indiscipline, corruption and so on and he
had not even started the race before exhibiting
contrary tendencies. This is my personal problem
with people like Buhari, they will say something
and not want to be judged by it regarding the
kind of statements made all over the place. I
must have mentioned it somewhere in my
writings.
He championed the destabilization and subversion
of Obasanjo government, because Obasanjo
probed PTF and he was invited to clarify issues
that did not bear out the reputation of integrity.
And he then exploited the issue of Sharia to
instigate division and incite regional rebellion
against Obasanjo. And here lies my fundamental
objection against his aspiration-that anybody
who uses the instrumentality of division and
polarizing the people of this country should not
be rewarded with the presidency of Nigeria.
He attained to political popularity by pandering to
the base sentiment of religious persecution. Until
a year ago, what was he saying about Book
Haram? He said when the Niger- Delta militants
did their own, they rehabilitated them, sent them
to schools abroad, this and that, but when it
came to Boko Haram in the North, they are
burning their houses and killing them (Boko
Haram sect), and for that, it is an injustice to the
North.
This was what this man said, just barely a year
ago. And Nigerians tend to have short attention
span and are given to wilful ignorance. Choose
that which they want to remember and choose
which to forget. The impression I have gathered
in some of my write ups on him is that some
people don’t want to know the truth; they care
less about putting their own candidate under
scrutiny. And, I say that is unfair.
If Jonathan is being put under 1000 megawatts
light, his language, body movements, everything
is scrutinized, every second of the day, it is only
fair for the opponent to be subjected to a
measure of scrutiny too.
In essence, Buhari is not under adequate scrutiny
Most certainly he has not. Look at his
antecedence. He has the dubious distinction of
heading a government that was the most
unbalanced and parochial in the history of
Nigeria. He was a Muslim from the North, the late
Idiagbon, his deputy at that time, was a Muslim
from the North also. You can see the trend of his
instinct. When he was the Chairman of PTF,
almost 70% of the expenditure of the PTF was
expended in one section of the country. He was
Chairman for five years. During those five years,
no single staff of PTF was tried for corruption, is
it realistic to assume that for those five years no
corrupt act was perpetrated at the agency? PTF
was perhaps the only agency on record that
handed over its mandate to just one consultant-
the Afri-projects
Some people may argue that as the boss who set
the rules and lived by example, people under him
were able to key into that?
Well they didn’t key into it and it was his duty
that he ensured they did.
When you say they did not, then you must have a
contrary view.
I am telling you that they didn’t key into and it is
unrealistic for you to assume that nobody was
corrupt in PTF. In any case, there are papers that
established sundry acts of corruption. The buck
stopped on his table which is what they are
saying about Jonathan. If your wife is unable to
deliver safely today, they will find a way of
attributing it to Jonathan; that is an exaggerated
way of saying he takes responsibility for
everything. You as the executive Chairman of
PTF, the buck stopped on your table on
everything done there. I think Nigerians need to
think more and beyond the superficial.
I thought that was in the past and the past
should be in the past
Oh I see! They belong to the past. Okay, what
Jonathan did yesterday should belong to the past
too, right?
He is an incumbent president, his case is
different.
So the standard of judging an incumbent
president should be different from somebody who
says he is better than him? Buhari has record. It
is the height of hypocrisy to say that you don’t
want to hold him to that record. The aspect of it
you think is convenient for you, you want to
trumpet it to high heavens, who is fooling who?
Even if you want to discountenance the past, the
act of him purchasing a form for N27m alone
speaks volumes of Buhari. Again, it is very unwise
politically for him to have done that. I think that
is where he should have started his anti-
corruption crusade. What we have in Buhari is the
character of a man so desperate and obsessed
with power. After he lost the election in 2011, he
said he was no longer going to contest again. A
year later, the story has changed
You worked closely with Obasanjo and in the
emergence of Jonathan as running mate to the
late Yar’Adua. I can’t find the connection between
the present Obasanjo’santagonism towards
somebody he is supposed to be guiding. What
went wrong?
I think it has one or two dimensions. Some
aspects of it are political. Some aspects are
genuine worries. No president is perfect. Like
Jonathan said and I often tell people that they
don’t have a full measure of the problems a
president gets confronted. On that seat, you are
going to get about 10 conflicting advices on one
issue. That alone puts you on the spot.
I am a supporter of Jonathan which means that I
don’t agree substantially with the position
Obasanjo has taken. It is not that I believe that
Jonathan is the best that has happened to
Nigeria, it is not that by any stretch of
imagination i think that he should not be
criticized. I have no objection to that. Mine is
this. If 90% of those who have access to the
media are publicly criticizing a man that you
cannot find any good thing to say about him, the
man cannot be totally bad. I took a deliberate
position to advocate for him, to put his case
forward, for the sake of balance.
In the past two, three weeks, I have been asking
myself, what really is the problem that critics
cannot see anything good in this man? I travelled
by road from Abuja to Lagos and saw evidence of
works all over, and yet, people are saying he has
done nothing. The railways is there. Go to
agriculture and see what he has done there. It
really worries me. Some of these things are so
contrary to logic. By temperament and training, I
believe in fairness and balance. People exaggerate
the short comings of the president, they are
grossly exaggerated.
Nigeria got the best rating from Transparent
International since, I think, they have been rating
Nigeria. This year, T.I said 37 countries are more
corrupt than Nigeria. Before, Nigeria used to be
either the most corrupt or the second or third.
What is it that they have seen that we are yet to
see? They are not partisan. They have no
obligation to be. They have more access to the
information they use to evaluate a country.
This is why I say people should pause and reflect.
A man has to speak for himself anyway. May be
they are not doing a lot of that. But, I see a lot of
intimidation, stampeding the president all over the
place. And, to be fair to Obasanjo anyway, he has
played that role to a higher and lesser degree
since he left as military head of state. So his
criticism of Jonathan, is to that extent, not
peculiar. But, at the end of the day, everybody
would answer for himself. And one thing I
appreciate him (baba) for is that, he has not in
any way tried to influence me against the position
that I take, not at all. Not once did he say or
imply ‘don’t support Jonathan’.
If you were president today, given the fact that
elections are two months away, what would you
be doing as quick fixes in order to tilt that
perception you said is fraudulent to positives to
assure the people that you are still the best man
for the job?
He should find a way of getting across to people
on his achievements. But there is a problem here
and this is where style obstructs actions. If only
people can be open to see objectively what he
has done, I just gave an instance that there is
nobody who drives from Abuja to Lagos and will
not be impressed whichever government was
responsible for the road works. I think his style,
gestures and symbols for instance matter.
Like the woman who died of Ebola, Dr.Adedevoh, I
don’t see why he should not extend substantial
goodwill gesture to her. Although the argument
was that you cannot give her national honour
post humorously, I thought he needed to have
done something spontaneously. To me, if you
name the National Hospital, Abuja after her, I
don’t think it is too much. This is why I said it is
about style. So, you ask, why has he not done it?
That is why I said it is a matter of style.
Then, there is an aspect of him which is, he just
believes in allowing processes and situations to
play themselves out even if it is at a cost to
himself. I think he has this attitude of saying,
‘Look, what is there? My conscience is clear, I
have done this right, if people believe it or not,
God is there’. But again, the opposition he has
now is the most formidable any government can
have since 1960. We have a significant segment
of the South- West which is propaganda powered,
plus the most entrenched interest in Nigeria, the
North.
If you have those two segments to contend with…
where it becomes double jeopardy is that by
nature, the president is a recessive personality.
And you know this 24 hour news cycle; what you
do now-in 30 minutes the news is all over the
world. So, whoever is in the spot light is under
public scrutiny 24 hours a day. It never used to
be like that. And as a media person, in our own
profession, how it is damaging is that, he no
longer has the luxury of time.
Before the global village era, If you receive a news
item in Vanguard, it doesn’t get to the public
until the following day, so that gives room for
damage control, but not any longer. These are
some of the problems he is contending with. And
it is like something that has acquired a
momentum of its own, negative news feeding
negative news. Its like anything you see or read
about government, you immediately push it to
your subconscious that it has to be negative.
People are not ready to give him the benefit of
the doubt. You assume the worst, almost
immediately. I give you an instance, there was
this controversy, I think, some months back about
a plane taking 9.12 million dollars to South Africa.
The interpretation by his adversaries and many
non-adversaries too was that there was some
kind of corruption involved-and that is because
people don’t want to give him any benefit of the
doubt but I did.
I was with my friends and I said to them that if a
president wants to steal money and take it out,
will it be 12m dollars that he will steal? But along
the line, we now found the reason, not because
they told us, but because it was the reality. They
had to go and purchase arms in the black market.
You cannot blame him for that because the
security operatives cannot afford to tell you that
‘this is what we want to do, here is the place we
are going to buy it from’.
Nigerians now know but the damage has been
done. Another one: Before the Governor of Central
Bank, Lamido Sanusi, left his position, he made
this allegation about 20 billion dollars missing. At
the time he left office, all parties to that
controversy, including himself, agreed that it was
only 11 billion dollars outstanding, but up till
today, if the London Times is writing about it,
everybody in Nigeria, it is 20 billion dollars
unaccounted for. I am not saying 11 billion
dollars excuses anybody, but this illustrates the
predisposition to exaggerate the man’s
shortcomings.
How about the issues of the economy and power
which have become a campaign issue?
You talk about the economy not doing well, what
parameters or yardsticks are you using to
measure it and relative to what in Nigeria? I am
not saying the economy of Nigeria is in good
shape but you also have to look at it objectively,
and relative to what? Is it any worse than before.
There will definitely be areas of improvement. The
government has adopted macro economy stability
model-like Obasanjo did.
In the short run, it is going to impact some level
of discomfort but, again, that is a policy debate. I
told someone that if you want to get an honest
assessment of the Nigerian economy, go to the
World Bank or IMF or the rating agencies. You
spoke about power, I am not happy about it too. I
think the problem is circular, that is when the
cause becomes the effect and the effect becomes
the cause. Another political problem I found is
that, people think he took the tenure that should
have gone to the Nort

A large amount of the hostility towards him
emanates from there. For instance, people would
tell you that he said he would only do one term.
But where is the evidence? At any rate If
Jonathan is from any of this majority group,
WAZOBIA, he will be less vulnerable to this kind
of political intimidation. And one of the reasons I
stand up for him is that I don’t like
intimidation….simply because he is from the
minority and they are not as cohesive as those of
us that come from the so – called majority
groups. He is from minority within minority within
minority.
Would you blame people when they criticize the
ruling party given what is happening in Ekiti State
where, with the collusion of the sitting governor,
seven members of the state House of Assembly
have upstaged 21 colleagues?
Can you mention any other PDP governor that has
done that? If one out of 22 governors did that,
why should you be generalizing it as PDP? You
did not ask a similar question about Fayemi who
was reported to have purchased two beds for
N50m, who built a mansion at over 3billion naira
with a yearly maintenance fee of N150m. and this
in a state that is the poorest in the country. I am
sure if it was a PDP governor, there would have
been protest marches all over the country.
Where do you see the Yoruba nation of the South-
West before and post – 2015?
I was reading my brother SegunAdeniyi recently
talking about the Buhari fever in the South- West.
Personally I don’t have a fever. And Ekiti and
Ondo states, I don’t think anybody can consider
them feverish for Buhari. In Oyo and Ogun
States, the APC is in the minority, even though it
is the government there. In Oyo state the
combination of Ladoja, Akala and residual PDP
constitute by far the majority.
As a matter of fact, APC has been a minority all
along, it is not just now. The case has just gotten
worse. At the beginning, if you added the votes of
those who split from PDP to the original PDP, if
you put all the votes together, APC would have
lost, and the same thing in Ogun State. The
situation in Ogun has gotten worse now because
Chief Osoba has taken his own faction out of the
APC.
So, when people write in the media, talking about
Buhari fever in the South- West, I just laugh.
These people in Oyo and Ogun states, they may
quarrel among themselves at the moment, but
they have to make one choice at the presidential
election, it will be between Jonathan and Buhari, I
don’t see any of them pitching its tent with
Buhari or APC. Effectively, the probability is that
Jonathan will win in those four states, Oyo, Ekiti,
Ogun and Ondo. There remains Lagos and Osun
states.
The case of Osun state is very interesting. The
kind of stuff we are hearing at the tribunal is that
the APC has some questions to answer, but let us
assume that Jonathan wins the percentage of
votes that Omisore won during the governorship
election in the state, add it to those four states.
In Lagos, there is an aspect of the Lagos voting
population that I would not want to refer to here
but in Lagos State, there is very high probability
that the PDP will surprise pundits. I hope you can
now see how the Buhari fever has been effectively
contained in the South West-the way and manner
Nigeria successfully contained the Ebola fever
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/12/buharis-claim-nationalism-suspect-osuntokun/

Sir

It is SW who are deceiving themselves that a leopard like Buhari has changed his skin colour because of greed for VP position

PDP man supporting PDP is all I see here. Ali Modu Sherif too said Borno people will cast their votes for Jonathan

For once I wish people address issues objectively instead of turning it into a PDP/APC mud fight.
He spoke about scrutiny, Buhari comparing treatment of Niger Delta militants and Boko Haram (advocating similar treatment, he was vocal 3days after post-election violence in 2011 after much criticism but needed not be called to speak up in favor of Boko Haram) and yet few people address or try to explain these issues. GEJs incompetence is common knowledge but I don't think he has been wholly incompetent. He has some accomplishments that others in his shoes would have blinded us with but also terrible failures. But Buhari is far from a white knight and it's false to portray him as such. He may make a good leader but he has worrying inconsistencies not least of which is the fact that he is an ethno-religious bigot

all we know is Buhari till Mikel win ballon d'or

Sylvarresta:
all we know is Buhari till Mikel win ballon d'or

It seems near impossible but you won't die if you don't comment. This thread wasn't meant for the likes of you. Scurry on along dude

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