Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed is former Political Adviser to President Bola Tinubu. In this interview, he speaks on the issue of coalition, why those leading the coalition lack what it takes to defeat Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election. The former Spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), speaks on why he left Tinubu’s government, explains why coalition is not a northern affair, among other issues. JOY ANIGBOGU brings the excerpts:
You left as political adviser of President Bola Tinubu, you may have to share with us why he left the government. Also Keyamo says, there is no possibility that opposition politics may work again in the 2027 general elections, as it seemed to have worked in 2015, even if there are perspectives to that.
The first one. I’ve said so much about why I walked out. I’ll repeat basically what it was. I went in there to work, to help the country through the administration because I believed they saw something useful in what I could do. I didn’t get a chance to do it and I got a little bit tired of just sitting on my hands waiting for somebody to say, come and help. And I walked out.
They gave you newspapers to read. That’s basically it. You must have read the newspapers. That’s work too.
I read papers before I went into the villa to work. I have been part of the, I’ve been a public servant for 40 years. I know what work is. I know what it is to be in the presidency. I know what it is to be in the villa. And I know when you’re just sitting there doing nothing. And I’m not used to doing nothing.
There was a huge amount of work that I and a few other people would have done. But I’m not too sure that the administration is particularly interested in asking for advice from technocrats and public officers with some experience. The bottom line is that there really wasn’t much to do there. I just got tired of waiting for something useful to do.
You asked the second question. What is the nature of the challenges involved in the coalition? I think there are quite a few of them. Let’s look at the technical. For instance, you started by saying they have applied to INEC for registration. Well, I think that unless a miracle happens,
They forgot there are huge numbers of applications before them, before INEC, and INEC hasn’t registered any party for a long time. I don’t know how good it will look if INEC now singles out an application that has come because it has at the bottom of it names of very prominent politicians and it says, look, we have to prioritize this. INEC will put itself in a very difficult situation and Nigerians won’t be impressed.
So the option about registering entirely new parties so that everybody will feel he or she is on a level playing field is going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very challenging. And of course, other options. If they come really under pressure and they feel, oh look, we need to register this party for whatever reason. They have one, they can register like 20 parties that would include the new party that these big wigs involved in the coalition one. They can’t nitpick. They have to worry about the laws, the regulations regarding registration of parties.
The technical element about creating a new party is just simply to create a level playing field for everybody to feel comfortable. We’re not going into another party where we have to comply with certain requirements that we’re not comfortable with. We’re not going to somebody’s party where we’ll be treated more like tenants than shareholders. We’re not going to join PDP because PDP has been wrecked by ineptitude and indifference and incompetence and Wike has come in there and has polluted the PDP room. And we don’t trust each other. We don’t trust each other. This one goes in this direction, this one says let’s go this way and this one goes this way. And so they have massive, massive problems.
The option about registering a new party appears to be on the face of it the most attractive because it says okay let’s all go in there on our own. So you can get 50,000 100,000 people to go in and register to join the party but as soon as they get there they call us around the same old groups and persons that are there. I think the basic problem is that the wrong people are involved in designing an opposition to the APC and they shouldn’t be the people who should be doing this. There’s five, six, seven people who are faces of a new coalition. They attempt to cobble together something that can represent Nigeria. I hope that President Tinubu’s APC can be effectively challenged and the wrong people involved in this.
I like that you touched on trust because you’re leaning towards a narrative that is being spelled out by the chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), that’s Chief Ralph Nwosu, who is saying that this ADA is a fake, that it’s propaganda and that the coalition knows what it has decided to do and that will be unveiled soon. So is it that there’s now a parallel coalition that is also operating? Is it that this coalition already has factions involved before it has launched. What is the real position here? Because you seem to be leaning towards the idea that a registration of a new party may not be the most feasible way to go ahead. So does this mean that we are looking at an outlook of several, multiple coalitions emerging?
Let me be fair and say that I’m not involved at all, at any level in the coalition discussions, at all. I’m just an observer who is watching with a lot of worry that an opportunity to create a strong opposition to the ruling party is being messed up by people who insist that they have to be the face of that opposition. There are divisions between them and among them. I talked to some of them. They have some idea about what they are doing wrong. But the most important thing they are doing wrong is putting themselves forward. It’s a coalition of a few politicians who hope that they can arrive at some understanding and then open the door and say, ok, fellow Nigerians, we’ve agreed. This one will be this and this one will be that. And you can now come in. It’s the wrong way about it.
None of these people should lead or be seen in a position where they’re determining who should be in that coalition. They can work behind the scenes. What they need is a generational shift and a political shift away from who they are, what they’ve done, what they want to do. Different set of Nigerians who can give Nigerians hope: people who have become vice presidents and contested three times, people who have become governors and ministers, these are not the people who are saying, give us trust, trust us again to solve the problems that the APC is creating. This is the wrong thing. And it’s very difficult to convince politicians, but this particular type of politician, that Nigerians can see through you. They don’t have faith that you actually represent a future, a different future from this government. You just want to replace President Tinubu. And if you replace President Tinubu, why aren’t you putting forward your ideas yet? So that Nigerians can see, if you give us power, this is what we will do differently. If you give us power, this is what will be different. Who are the younger Nigerians who should be in this party? Where is the youth? Where is the energy? Where is the vision? Where is the concern that violence is destroying this country? Levels of poverty are destroying this country. They are missing the point. And they think politics is about them. It’s not. It’s about this country and about the people of this country. And there are millions and millions of Nigerians who desperately want to see a change. They don’t mind defeating the APC if they see credible Nigerians leading an opposition. But the people who are leading the attempts to create an alternative to APC, I’m not sure that they’re any better than APC itself. And that is what the big disappointment is. And the challenge is they don’t have the time, they don’t have the time to fix all these gaps that they have and they’re not willing to think outside the box and create a real genuine alternative. And what they are doing is just simply handing over 2027 to President Tinubu.
We remember all the lovely times we used to share you left us and you went to the government and since you were in government you didn’t bother to check on us.
I didn’t leave you.
No you left us, you went to the government.
I went to work for you.
When you went to government, you were quiet and a lot of injustices persisted.
I had to be.
When you were with the government, you were not talking while all of these injustices went on. But it’s convenient for you to come out and talk now.
Have you been in government?
No, I’ve not been in government. I don’t hope to be in government, actually.
That’s why you can ask that question. If you are a public servant, you are assigned to a role and you stick to it.
So, but because you left now, you are back to your normal self that I miss so much. God knows I miss you so much. And now you’re talking again.
Thank you.
What happened between you and this government and President Tinbu? I know you said they had no drive, it wasn’t the way you wanted to serve and all of that. I mean, I saw that in the papers. Was there anything that really happened that we should know where you lost it? Because before you were coming in, didn’t you envisage that this was going to happen?
I asked you if you had been in public service and you said no. There was a reason for it. You haven’t lost anything by not being there. But if you had been there, you would have understood. In the public service, they assign you a responsibility and you stay with that responsibility. And my job was to be an advisor to the president in the office of the vice president, not to speak for the government. Where I needed to speak on governance, on politics, on issues that I spoke to the people who appointed me. I didn’t get as many chances as possible to impact the way I saw it. I went in there with good faith. I believe that it is the responsible thing to do for Nigerians. If you are called up to do render service, fix Nigeria, the damage done by former President Buhari was immense. President Tinubu came in, jumped, pushed the country from the deep end, and we were in a big mess, and they said, we would like you to come in and help. I thought a lot about it and I felt it’s better to be part of the building team than to continue to criticize. I have no regrets at all for going to the government. I’m happy I did. And I’m happy that I walked out when I realized that perhaps the hopes I had that I would get a real chance to work with other people just isn’t there. Now, nothing happened. I got tired of sitting around waiting for an opportunity to be part of a building team. And I told them a number of times, I don’t think this is where I really belong. And they kept saying, well, be patient. Maybe we’ll fix things. But listen, I could also see that things were getting worse. Our security situation is getting a lot worse. I’m not sure that our management of the economy is as good as the government puts it out to be. Poverty levels are just far too high. There’s a lot of suffering, there’s a lot of pain, and there are things that we can do to mitigate that. If nothing else, talk to Nigerians. Explain to them why we’re suffering so much, why the cost of living is so high. Explain why we’re failing to deal with killers. Our towns and villages are flooding with the blood of people. Explain, if you can. If you can’t do it, then do something about the people that we’re entrusting to you to be responsible for our security. All those things weren’t there. So I walked out because I didn’t want to be part of an administration that won’t listen to me and won’t listen to Nigerians. I just simply thought they live in their own world So, I’m afraid I have no regrets. I spoke before I went into the administration. I couldn’t speak while I was there. I’m speaking now. And, you know, between me and you as friends, it really doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not when I say this or not. I know I’m speaking the minds and I’m making a point that millions and millions of Nigerians feel.
People have been asking. Why is it that it’s when a Southerner is in government that there’s this talk about coalition? We saw it in 2014, 2015. Now another Southerner is there now. Some people are saying, well, it’s only when a southerner is there that the talks about coalition come up, why is it so?
It is not true. Coalition is not a Northern affair. I have been part of a coalition with other politicians, Rotimi Amachi was there, and a lot of people from the southern part of the country were there. A lot of southerners who didn’t want to be second fiddle to the north. It is not any time that it is only when a southerner is there that there is talk about coalition. We formed a coalition in 2011, 2012 with the southerner, his name is President Tinubu. He gave us a bit of Nigeria and we formed the coalition and created the APC. It is not a new thing there has always been a coalition. Going back to the first Republic.