Jonathan must seize this moment – Yakasai

Tanko Yakasai was ex-president Shehu Shagari’s Adviser on National Assembly matters. He is a respected northerner and elder statesman. In this interview with Augustine Madu-West in Kano, he spoke on the just concluded April election which he described as not only transparent, but free, fair and credible. He condemned the mayhem that trailed the presidential election in some part of the northern states saying it is uncalled for even has he pressed the need for improved security in the country via the creation of job opportunities for the teeming jobless youth.

Excerpts:



•Yakasai



You have witnessed the three elections, the National Assembly, presidential and the governorship, so what is your general impression?

Well my impression particularly about the governorship election is not impressive based on what I saw when I went for accreditation in my ward, I found out that the turn out was very low as compared to the two previous elections and I also to radio Nigeria, Kaduna, their reporters from different parts of the North painted the same picture of low voters turnout, except in Zamfara where they reported huge turnout. This is an irony because the state Assembly and governorship elections are supposed to pull more crowds because they are closer to the electorate. I think this situation came about due to the crisis that happened last week and some people for that reason lost interest in the remaining parts of the election. Others may have stayed away because the outcome of the result of the last election was contrary to their expectations coupled with the possible fear of violence like the one that occurred last Monday. Definitely the turnout was low.

That violence was it the best response to the outcome of that election which General Buhari lost?

Well, people as you know have their own understanding of things, have their own approach. We use to contest and lose election in our days and what we do is that immediately the election is lost, we set up a committee to go round the affected areas gather evidence, we sit down, analyse the evidence and find out why we lost. If in the process we realise of our own action and inaction we acknowledged that, and prepare to make amends for the future and where we lost as a result of manipulation of results, we go to court. Election is such an important aspect of our life and as such we can not boycott, otherwise you will be given your opponent the change to take advantage. Well what can you do when people have taken a decision on how they want to approach issues? You have no choice in situations like that.

So far, international and local observers have adjudged the elections credible, free and fair, and transparent, in your own opinion was the election actually free and fair?

I think it is because the international observers and others were unanimous in their declaration that the election was free and credible, the allegations of rigging only came after election and after the counting and the complain was misdirected because it should have been at the spot where the alleged rigging or malpractices were perpetuated. For instance, how do you explain that people alleged that there were rigging in Imo, Enugu, Port Harcourt and yet people are reacting in Kano, in Sokoto. What have people of Kano got to do with it. For instance the party that was protesting did very well in Kano and in about 16 states in the North, so on what bases would their members protest? Here (Kano) they got 1.6 million votes. I would rather agree with the conclusion of the observers that the election was conducted credibly and was largely free and fair. Anybody who is not satisfied should go to the electoral acts and see what step he or she should take.

Before the context proper, General Mohammadu Buhari ruled out the possibility of challenging the outcome of the presidential election in court. He appears to have changed his mind with the decision to proceed to the court to challenge President Jonathan’s victory. How do you see this?

I have been a politician, and if you are one you will understand what is in a politician’s mind from what he did not say and not from what he has said. Buhari said he will not go to court, but his party may go to court, so the question is what is the difference between General Buhari and his party? So, we politicians are very clever people; we know how to manipulate things to give them different meanings. But I think they are going to court.

Goodluck Jonathan has emerged Nigerian President at least another four years beginning from May 29. What in your opinion should be in his priority list?

Well he should take in my opinion, the issue of job creation should be taken as one of his priorities; in fact any Nigerian President should see that as a challenge. To create job, you must address the issue of agriculture, resuscitating dormant industries that we have in this country and to resuscitate the industries you must address the issue of power that we have been talking about for so many years without any tangible achievement. I hope in the next 12 months, this country will witness a remarkable difference in terms of electricity, power generation and distribution so that our industries will be resuscitated and made viable once more. Most of the troubles we are having in this country, armed robbery, hooliganism, drug addiction and so on are due to lack of job. Most people who are gainfully employed cannot engage in such negative act. Job creation should be a priority, the issue of agricultural development and provision of power should be looked into for the resuscitation of our industrial set up. Again the issue of security, law and order, I know the government is trying and I know the issue of security is a very expensive project. We have over 150 million Nigerians and the number of policemen we have is nothing to write home about; I hope the President would see the need to improve upon this with intensify training of not only the police but officers and men in other security agencies and also voting sufficient money for properly equipping the security agencies with modern equipment, because modern policing requires highly sophisticated techniques that can handle any situation at any given time. In the recent riot in Kano, I saw security lapses. The rioters started from Kuruna Asebe and trekked, not on vehicles on foot to Sharada, which is some distance, say 10km and wrecked their havoc there burnt down Gali Na’Abba’s house and office of Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido and moved down to Gandu-Albasa where they burnt down two houses of Alhaji Bashir Tofa and also moved to the city where they also destroyed the house of Galadiman Kano, Alhaji Tijjani Hashim, set fire there and moved to the palace of Emir of Kano and caused destruction there. No single policemen challenged them, nobody stopped them. They took about three to four hours unleashing their havoc on innocent people and yet no police intervention. They would have torched my house but for the fact that my children were around and formed a vigilante group only God knows what would have happened. It was later some of my children talked to the Deputy Commissioner of Police who dispatched armed security men to my house.

Do you truly see this disturbance as political?

Whether you like it or not since it’s an event that happened after an election or following an election, it is political. Again most of the people attacked are politicians. You see, their enemies took advantage of the situation. They may have been nursing grudges and looking for an opportunity to do what they did to them. It is not due to the election per se, because here in Kano no party complained of rigging. All the parties accepted the result and therefore there was no justification for anybody to come out and protest let only unleashing terror on innocent citizens. Well, like I pointed out earlier, this situation was brought about by the desire to loot, which is a by-product of joblessness. There was protest in Egypt and people did not go to steal or loot; they rather safeguarded people’s property. Well, you can say the situation in Egypt virtually everybody in it seemed to be doing something tangible unlike here in Nigeria.

What about the area of anti-corruption campaign?

It has not been pursued with the kind of vigour Nigerians had expected. I wish to see more efforts being made. There are two snags in this campaign. One is that our legal system is such that if you have money you can hire the best lawyer in the world who will create some technicalities in the court to set you free. Look at the case of former Senate President Adulphus Wabara, the Iyabo Obasanjo, former Minister of Education Prof. Ozuji over the bribe issue. There are so many of them, they all escaped on technical grounds. There are a number of prominent people who are in court for the past four, five years nothing has happened. They are moving about freely without remorse enjoying their looted wealth. So, our legal system has been part of the problem in fighting corruption. I remember the EFCC chairman, Farida Waziri advocating the establishment of Financial Crime Tribunal, which would have gone a long way in dealing with the high level of corruption in the country but the National Assembly is nonchalant about this and I don’t know why.