In the first part of our interview with the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bolaji Abdulahi, he spoke on how the party has lived up to its campaign promises to Nigerians. However, in this second and last part of the interview, he told our Managing Editor, IBANGA ISINE, the APC didn’t cause the recession and criticised government’s disobedience to valid court orders.
NE: As the minister of sports, there were certain decisions you took and they were not imposed on you. Now that you are no longer a minister and in the same party, would it be fair for you to criticize the policies you initiated?
No. It would be unfair. It would be wrong for me to do that and I have not done it. I take responsibility for everything I did as the minister. And I didn’t choose to leave, I was sacked. Have you forgotten? I did everything I did because I was convinced about those things and I wished those things were continued by those who came after me. But they didn’t. You cannot now say that if I had started a high-performance system and I now see people going in a different direction that I believe would not lead us to the same result or the result we envisaged, I have no right to say what they were doing was wrong because I used to be an occupant of that office. When I was saying what I said, I was making specific reference to myself. If you bring me in as an individual, I will tell you I can defend everything I did as the minister of sports till tomorrow. But if anybody is doing anything that is wrong now, if I feel inclined, I will say it.
NE: Let’s talk about the issue of internal democracy within your party. The APC has not organised its national convention, the same thing the PDP was criticised for. Why is it so difficult for your party to organise its convention?
It is difficult but not so difficult as you say. The party constitution provides for a mid-term convention and we ought to have done the convention and we had planned to do it by the ending of April. That was when we originally planned it. But it didn’t happen because we had challenges in funding. The second challenge was the situation with Mr. President. It is very important for him to be on the ground when we are holding the convention. As the leader of the party, it is important for him to be a part of the process. We were hoping he will be able to give us a specific date that would be good for him and we were waiting for that date to be communicated before he had to travel again for medical attention. Those are the challenges we have faced. It is not as if there are other fundamental reasons outside those ones I have mentioned. But we are finding a way around it and very soon, we will be able to announce the date for the convention. We have been meeting with the governors and we have been trying to find a way to circumvent some of the challenges that have made us not hold the convention. It is very important to us and it is even a constitutional requirement of our party and so we must do it.
NE: We have observed that some state chapters of your party are currently embroiled in crises because of alleged imposition of leadership. Can you speak on this?
You are talking about situations in the local chapters of the party that I am not able to fully understand. There are problems in the local chapters of the party. For instance, in Lagos, they said they have suspended their chairman. All over the country, things are happening. But for us as the national body, when we find reasons to go in to investigate and determine what has happened, we evaluate whatever situation alongside what the constitution of the party provides for. If we carry out the evaluation based on the constitution of the party and we find out that someone was unjustly treated, we will address the issue. We cannot sit in Abuja and impose things on the local chapters of our party. We are only concerned that the guidelines of the party are strictly followed whenever they are issues. We want to be sure that the Constitution of the party is not violated but we don’t involve ourselves in every local situation.
NE: During the 2015 election, your party had as its mantra “Change” and one of the things it promised was to stop impunity and disrespect to the rule of law. But the government has consistently violated court orders and refused to release persons granted bail by courts. Are you not worried about it?
I cannot comment on that but if there is a case of willful refusal to comply with the orders of the courts, that would be wrong. As a party, we will not support that. But an inability to comply is different from a refusal to comply.
NE: What makes inability to comply different from a refusal to comply?
Inability to comply means there are conditions that make it difficult for you to do something. Refusal means you can do it but you just refused to do it. Simple. But I am not able to determine what the situation is unless there are specific cases that I know and able to evaluate on merit. It would be wrong for any government to disobey court rulings whether it is APC or PDP. Do you get what I am saying? When a court gives a ruling, you either appeal that ruling or act in accordance with the law. There is no justification for anybody to disobey a court ruling.
NE: But Mr. President had on national television on December 30, 2015, openly told judges he would not release Sambo Dasuki and others?
I cannot speak on that because I don’t have any evidence he said that and I am not also saying you are wrong. But I don’t have evidence the president said that. And I don’t think President Buhari that I know will come out and say, ‘I will not obey a court order.’ Maybe the government had appealed the cases and that was why he could have said so but to say he openly said, ‘I will not obey a court order,’ I don’t think he said so. I don’t speak directly for him. I speak for the party. Maybe you will have to speak to Malam Garba Shehu or Femi Adesina to get a clearer picture about the issue.
NE: After two years as Nigeria’s ruling party, are you convinced the APC has lived up to its “Change” mantra when you consider the level of hardship and the number of people who have committed suicide in the country?
How can you say a thing like that? So, the reason people are committing suicide is because APC is in government? So, they have not been suicides in this country? I am a social scientist and the statement you just made is contrary to everything I know.
NE: But people are more prone to committing suicide when there is so much hardship and deprivation?
Are people not committing suicide in the UK? Are people not committing suicide in the US? Are people not committing suicide in countries that the index of development is the highest in the world? What is the suicide rate in Nigeria compared to these countries? Like I said, I am a social scientist and to reach that kind of conclusion I need to see evidence of cause and effect. I will not just sit down and make a conclusion that people are committing suicide because things are hard in the country. If I do that, I would be making a motor park argument. Is it that people are committing suicide because of the economic situation? I don’t know your background but as long as I can remember, we have repeatedly heard that the population of Nigerians living below the poverty line is 70 percent. They live on less than one dollar per day. Is it the APC that caused 70 percent of Nigerians to live below the poverty line or live below one dollar per day which is the classic definition of the poorest of the poor? When we want to make this kind of claim, we should be very careful.
NE: Are you saying the high cost of living presently experienced by the people and the recession do not bother you and your party?
Hang on a second. You’ve just said there is a recession. When there is recession all other things are affected. But I haven’t seen anybody unless you are saying so now. I have not seen anybody that says APC caused the recession because recession doesn’t just happen overnight. APC didn’t cause the price of crude to drop to $24 per barrel and when that happened in an economy that depends solely on what happens to the price of crude, the result is very clear. You can talk about the palliatives introduced and how the government responded to the recession. But as a matter of principle, you cannot say the APC caused the recession. A recession happened in the UK, it happened in the US. There are different kinds of recession. You have a structural recession, cyclical recession and there are different reasons recession happen. But when a recession happens, the government immediately moves to introduce certain measures to check it and that is what this government has done during the last two years. You can see that dollar is stabilizing and you can say oh, they are pumping forex into the market but they are doing something and Nigeria is climbing out of recession. When you have a recession, the direct consequence is it will affect everything including the quality life of the people and what they eat. It affects everything. But it will be unfair to blame a government that has been in power for only two years for recession. Since the last administration, we learnt government had started borrowing money to pay salaries. So, it didn’t happen overnight my brother. To now say the APC has caused everything, I mean… People who don’t know better can say that but for those of us who know the truth, we have a responsibility to educate people and tell them, look this is not the way it is. Things are happening…. Yes. As long as there are people who are hungry in this country and there is a government that told them to vote for it, then the government has to take responsibility for their welfare. The job of that government is not done until the country is free from hunger. To say because you are in power that is why people are hungry is a very unfair argument that cannot be defended either by facts, by reason or by logic.
