Ever since you came to office, the issue of
security has been your priority. What is the
present security situation?

One of the decisions we took soon after we came
into office was to change the service chiefs and
we overhauled the infantry. We mandated the
military chiefs to change the infantry, re-train
them, equip them with adequate weapons and
put trained and qualified commanders for the
soldiers. The three states of Yobe, Borno and
Adamawa know the successes being recorded
now. They can attest to that. And the other
parts of the country, too, are coming back to
normal life. Places like Kano, where business was
crippled has started to pick up. And along the
Damaturu – Maiduguri road, up to Lake Chad,
security has improved. So the people around the
flash points know that success is being recorded.
But despite this success, suicide bombers have
continued to strike.

Do you think this renewed
effort will also end the suicide incidences?

Boko Haram members have pledged their
allegiance to ISIS - an insurgent group from the
Middle East, with enough money and its
members were brainwashed into killing innocent
people, including Al-Shabab around Somalia,
and Al-Qa’eda from Yemen, plus the ISIS itself
around Syria and Iraq. If you can recall, ISIS
even went to mosques in Saudi Arabia and killed
people on about three to five occasions not to
talk of doing same in Nigeria. So, the biggest
problem here is how they brainwashed young
people, including young girls, who go to
mosques, churches, markets, motor parks and
detonate bombs, kill themselves and other
civilians. How we are going to overcome this is
going back to the traditional security apparatus
- community leaders, neighbours, district heads,
emirs, who should begin to identify new faces in
their localities and asked them where they come
from and what brought them. They can identify
them in either markets, or any other place. This
is what will help us in that regard so that those
planning to undertake suicide missions could be
identified and they would be dealt with
appropriately.

Since you came into office, you have been
receiving intelligence reports about this Boko
Haram crisis. Did you receive any information
about the whereabouts of kidnapped Chibok
girls?

They have scattered them, and are being
guarded at dispersed locations. Most of the girls
are Christians and were forced to embrace
Islam. And the sect’s cruel leaders have married
some of the girls, obviously against their wish.
Others have been left to practice their religion
but their condition could hardly be ascertained.
Both ground and air security personnel in the
Sambisa forest could spot where the girls are,
but since the insurgents have also kidnapped
housewives and other women, no one could say
whether they mixed them or how they dispersed
them. But efforts are being intensified and as
people know, the three neighbouring
governments of Cameroon, Chad, and Niger are
helping us since these suicide bombers are now
going to their areas and detonating the bombs
in mosques and other places.

Since you came into office, the anti-corruption
crusade has been on the media. But are there
some stolen monies which your government was
able to recover?

The biggest area of stealing of Nigeria’s funds
was through NNPC which is the apex oil selling
corporation. That was why we dissolved their
board and brought someone who knows the oil
sector very well, but who is not from NNPC and
entrusted him with the leadership of the NNPC.
And instead of the 8 major departments, four
were liquidated and four continue to exist. This
is because, for the past 10 years, the crude oil
stealing has been going on using some vessels. By
law, their owners, captains and where they are
taking the crude must be known. So the method
for the crude oil stealing was that those involved
shipped the crude through smaller vessels and
then transfer the crude to the larger vessels at
distant location in the ocean, before they head
to other countries. Some of them carry the crude
but later change the destination. So our new
approach is to get support from European
countries, the US and China. Those doing the
bunkering, you need to know the amount first
and the banks they deposit the monies, etc.
These are the things we are doing presently. And
you know, those developed countries are strict
on evidences and you have to show the evidences
of such cases before they can assist you. If you
recall, during the military regimes, such people
were arrested, thoroughly interrogated and
arraigned before the courts with evidences. But
that is impossible now. It is democracy and even
the foreign countries, where the monies are
being taken to, practice democracy. The
companies involved in buying the crude and the
banks that kept the monies would be identified
so that we would determine whether they are
Nigerians or not; whether the stolen crude and
its quantity was actually taken from here, sold
with the Nigerian name and how what accrued to
Nigeria was diverted. So, the situation is a
complex one, but we are getting support from
governments of those countries, including their
security agencies. When we get the relevant
documents, we would bring them (culprits) back
to our courts and try them. We would then show
the evidence to the world that the crude oil they
traded was actually stolen or shipped with
Nigerian name but later changed the papers
and took away the money, instead of depositing
them into the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Recently, you said that within weeks, Nigerians
would witness the prosecution of such looters in
the courts. When are you precisely going to
prosecute them?

Actually, we are at the verge of doing that. I
have just explained the difficulties involved. In
the past, around 1984, the process we
underwent to recover the stolen monies was
different from the one we are adopting now. It
was a military regime at that time, but now,
ideologies of the countries involved is that until
you are proved guilty, you remain innocent. And
that is what we have been trying to establish:
the actual identity of the people, where they
took the crude to, did they really pay back the
money to the CBN or to the pocket of some
individuals, was the entire crude shipped or part
of it. This is not an easy thing and we have
never realised its complexity until recently when
some foreign countries agreed to support our
course.

Nigerians have been eagerly awaiting the
formation of your cabinet. You once disclosed
that your cabinet would be revealed in
September and we are in September. When will
president Buhari tell Nigerians the names of his
cabinet members?

I said within this month. Therefore, I still have
three weeks. As such, hold back your question
until after three weeks, when September ends
without me doing that. And you know too well
that their names have to be submitted to the
Nigerian Senate and the appointees will pass
through the Senate’s screening before they
become eligible to hold the ministerial offices.

A lot of people assume that the long time you
spent without forming this cabinet was due to
some level of due-diligence on the people you
want to bring in. Have you finished that
process?

The process is difficult to finish. So, we would
continue the screening to come up with people
that deserve to hold the positions. This is
because, what I see daily in terms of the
damage inflicted on Nigeria in the last 10 years
is enormous. Only God knows its magnitude.

Are there names that you earlier lined up for
the appointments but you later discovered their
complicity and then you changed your mind?

There are people that deserve to hold the
position because of their knowledge in either
financial issues, or oil sector or even in
governance. But you discover that in one way or
the other, and whether they knew it or not, they
were dragged to such unwholesome practices.
Bringing such people will be tantamount to
leaving your doors open when you have gone to
rest in your apartment. Putting such people in
either financial, petrol or works ministry would
be dangerous because behind the scene, some
people control a person. They would be dictating
to them with a threat to award them contracts.
This is the most frightening thing that Nigerians
must understand. You need to get people who
held similar post before or tried to maintain
accountability.

There are appointments you made recently and
a section of the country alleged that you tilt
your appointments to only one part of the
country. What will you say about this allegation?

This is the nature of Nigerian politics. If they
will do justice to me, as an elected Nigerian
president, let them look at the Constitution a
Nigerian president works with, there are people
who will closely work with me that don’t need to
be taken to the Senate. If I select people whom
I know quite well in my political party, whom we
came all the way right from the APP, CPC and
APC, and have remained together in good or
bad situation, the people I have confidence in
and I can trust them with any post, will that
amount to anything wrong? I have been with
them throughout our trying times, what then is
the reward of such dedication and suffering?
They did not defect because of positions, they
did not involve themselves in the pursuit of
personal gains, and they accepted their fate
throughout our trying moments. What is wrong if
I make you the secretary (of the federal
government) because I have confidence that
things will go normal?

Lastly, people appreciate the improvement in
electricity. What is the secret President
Muhammadu Buhari adopted?

There is nothing strange, except that I said
those who bought the electricity companies and
the workers must work accordingly. From 1999 to
present, Nigeria’s money, totalling $20 billion,
not Nigerian naira, but US dollars was spent on
Nigeria’s electricity. So the companies involved in
whatever way, we have been begging them to
come back and work because there may be a
time when the push comes to shove on how such
monies were spent, the companies must execute
the project or refund to Nigeria her money.

http://dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/buhari-how-i-chose-my-recent-appointees/110053.html

Nice speech!