By Henry Uche
Assessing the performance of President Tinubu’s one year in office, in a monitored interview on Channels TV, former governor of Bauchi State and former Aviation minister, Mr. Isa Yuguda, said the president has done extremely even as he berated some of his ministers. He spoke on various issues.
You said we should not blame Bola Tinubu government for all these troubles, who then do we blame? He was asked for the job, the buck stops on his table, why do you say we should exonerate him?
It’s a question of he struggled to get the job. There has to be a president in the country and he happened to be the president of the country. Like he said when he inherited the assets and the liabilities of the country, he called for a sober reflection and sitting down to define the way forward. It is like meeting the collapsed building, so president Tinubu already inherited a country that is debt- trapped.
Would you give your car to a mechanic that would do trial and error or seek medical services from a doctor that would do trial and error? He said he could get the job done in one year, what kind of excuses is he giving now?
I’m afraid he couldn’t have said he would do it in one year. Because the level of damage in Nigeria system makes it impossible for any human being in Nigeria to solve it in one or two days. I have a cocktail of programmes before me that I need to pursue with vigour, getting the best brands that can push forward these programmes, and I will get there. By the first quarter, this will be, by second quarter, this would be. And so far, I would strongly believe that the first one year, at least, going by the scale of what he found on the ground, he has done extremely well.
What do you define as well?
When I said ‘well’ it’s given what he inherited. Now if for instance, he never had a single kobo in the treasury,
(Cuts in) your Excellency, don’t you think that the nation is at a precipice and this government had plunged this country forward into the deep?
I took some time to explain the situation. Because this is a team, it is a rescue mission. It’s a rescue team.
But it doesn’t look like they are rescuing anyone. Look at the figures he met on ground. When this government came into power, food inflation was 24.82%. food inflation today is 40. 54%, inflation rate then was 22.41%. Now it’s 33.69%. At a time that he got into power, foreign reserve was $35 billion, now it is $32 billion, exchange rates was $1 to N461, now is in the region of $1 to N1500; interest rate when they got into office was 18%, now it’s 26.25%, all of these indices are in the negative and this is just one year, what are we going to see in the next two, three years?
Like I said, these are problems that were inherited, he inherited an economy where over N33 trillion was printed, and is offloaded into the economy, and this money is not productive money, it is hoarded money circulating to pursue foreign exchange dollar in the market; not only that, the Central Bank, very weak is no longer a regulator but an operator dishing out over N10 trillion, you start naming them one after the other. And for him to have been able to confront that with determination and at least bringing us where we are, you can see it’s a kudos to him. Any other person who met such situation, I don’t know how he was going to manage it. When you talk about interest rates, you know, interest rates are determined by the Central Bank’s monetary policy guidance. But the fact is that interest rates are also a function of demand and supply of money in the money market. I’d you have sufficient liquidity within the system. Banks then have to go looking for money to borrow at a high cost to maintain their positions. And this is a situation where you have the bulk of the monies in circulation are trapped in the banks. So, the monetary policy is in effect that they needed to mop up a lot of liquidity from the system and therefore, banks have little money in their savings.
Atiku’s rating of President Tinubu’s one year of ‘Trial and Error’, is that a good appellation for someone who said he has the capacity to fix Nigeria… should we hand over the destiny of over 200 million people to the hands of someone who will do trial and error?
Well, I’m afraid these political statements can be given different interpretations. Probably he’s just trying to…., but the reality is that there is no how you can say that our economy is on trial and error. This is not professional. This is not ethical. And of course, what the President found on the ground is what he is trying to fix. He cannot approach it by trial and error. There are standard ways of approaching all the problems that he’s confronted. Now look, as you were talking about exchange rate, at the time he came in, look at them trillions and trillions and trillions in circulation outside the banking vaults.
Has he been able to retrieve some of these monies?
It’s not a question of, I’m just explaining to you the circumstances of the free fall of the naira. So you can see that there was too much Naira and foreign exchange market was completely dry. So with this experience and of course, you don’t expect the Central Bank to come and bring in dollars from the Central bank vaults and intervene in the market, it is normally not done that way, unless the situations are so critical to do that. So, the money that should come ordinarily as free funds that will be sold into the market, unfortunately, I mean, they’re no longer there. And at the same time, there is pressure; everybody wants to take his money outside the country, all monies are being offloaded in the Bureau de changes. After receiving pension accounts, governors rush to the Bureau de change because that is what we were told.
But are all these working?
It’s working. If it not working, we would have been standstill because you can’t expect that when you don’t have the naira on the ground, I mean the dollar to sell and you say you will not give it a free hand you know, for people to buy and sell. That is what the government has to do. And of course, and there is no other way, they don’t have it; if they have had it, the Central Bank is dry, that’s the true situation in the country then, the vaults are dry. So what do you sell? They don’t have the dollar to sell. Did the country expect Tinubu to go and start digging somewhere and bring dollars to sell to the market?
But don’t he know all these before he asked for the job?
How would he know when he had not seen the balance sheet? I said he has received assets and the liabilities; at least, he has started doing something…
Can Nigeria trust the Renewed Hope agenda he has been promised?
Of course, why not? The problem is that there are conspiracies already here and there. Because we’re very much aware of the presence of IMF in the Ministry of Finance, and also the Central Bank. And yet they are watching the Minister of Finance and the debt management office of Nigeria, busy allowing borrowing. The Ministers are busy borrowing when we have already passed the threshold. What was the minister of finance doing there? So, all these problems put together, Nigerians who are seeing them and nobody within the Nigerian system and say, hey minister, what you’re doing, you have been misleading the president, stop what you’re doing. Nobody spoke until when Tinubu took over and the problem is still there, then you are now saying you cannot fix it. We saw the problem being created and nobody’s talking about it and now he has come to take over the problems that were there and he happened to be the person to solve it.
So, you said we should trust President Tinubu even though things are not looking well?
Things will look well because Rome was not built in a day. A child given birth would start crawling before he starts walking and then running. So, at least solo, solo, we will reach our destination.
Again, Atiku’s advice ….one of which said, Tinubu must be cautioned against any attempt to further pauperize the poor by introducing new taxes or increasing tax rates rather than provide clarity on the fuel subsidy regime, including the fiscal commitments and benefit from the fuel subsidy reform and the impact of these on the Federation account…….
I am not disagreeing but he has been part of the problem. Of course yes, he has been part of the problem. All these problems were there when they were in office. And of course what did they do?
I’m very much aware, a lot of ministers after Minister, year in year out, all these problems keep lingering. If they had the political will to solve the problem, they would have solved it. What did he do with the power? If they had invested $200 million in each of the states, at least they will generate 100 megawatts in each of their states. In two years and another two years, they would have fixed the problem. So it’s not a question of, all these things are not rocket science.
You were minister of Aviation, what problem did you solve in aviation?
Absolutely. I did a lot. In fact, I met an aviation industry whose laws were last drafted in 1964. What gave birth to an independent NCAA was the review of the laws that I did when I was in Aviation. And we got a status. That was an achievement for my own decision. In fact, all the airports that were not functioning, we returned them to normalcy; it would take me so long to continue enumerating some of my interventions. I’ve been floated in flag carrier for Nigeria.
But it failed
The system failed it. They went to Ikeja to….. So if you know the details, you will weep for Nigeria.
But why did we take that route of floating another national carrier, when a sitting minister said that effort was a fraud?
Well, like I said, I’ve told all ministers that came after me that they should not waste their time on floating, you know, a national carrier for the country because aviation is so sophisticated to the extent that it is not easy for you. You have a lot of alliances worldwide and the industry is highly competitive and the margins are too small.
We have the Ethiopian airline, Kenyan airline, Canadan airline, why can’t Nigeria have a national carrier?
Ethiopian airline started way back in 1947
We can start in one day, can’t we?
You start in one day but you have to get it right. We started in 1974 -Nigerian Airways along with Saudi Arabia. So, they have 800 aircrafts flying today. Nigeria airways is moribund.
Why is it difficult for us to sustain…?
Because of mismanagement, we are not ready to be honest. We are only ready to be corrupt and take my Nigeria’s money outside Nigeria and come back to continue working in Nigeria, that’s the situation with Nigeria. These are the stark realities, if people want to swallow the bitter pill and listen to what some of us are saying because at least we have some experience in government, the earlier the better but as long as we continue this way, you give somebody an assignment as a CEO, and he goes there and collapses that system, only to tell you that there are frauds here and there and nothing happens to him.
So this is a warning to a sitting minister, Keyamo, that we should not dare flag a national carrier
They should not waste their time on national carrier because for you to take taxpayers money, virgin Nigeria was floated without one single kobo of government money. Richard Branson co- investor brought in 51%, the remaining balance was sourced from the private placement, Nigeria capital market. And the offer was oversubscribed with over N7 billion then. The airline went on, Nigeria didn’t send a Kobo in setting up the airline. People are just talking. So, you can see that when he came on, the agreement was seven years and Lagos was the hub. All African passengers were brought into Lagos. And the same Richard Branson had Virgin America, Virgin India, Virgin Australia. All these things are perfectly working, but he came to Nigeria, they started sabotaging him.
Jimoh Ibrahim took it over..
Whatever, it’s parts of the sabotage, as if we don’t know, because that airline today would have created at least more than 2 million jobs for Nigerians. But we don’t want it to work. Nobody wants it to work. So, these are some of the things that when people are advised, they don’t listen. As a minister, I said, don’t bother yourself, you said no I’m going to do it.
I said don’t take government’s money and say you can float an airline; yes you can float the flag carrier, but the nation does not need to own an aircraft.
Ok, back to Atiku advice, do you agree with Atiku’ counsel?
Well, I think it’s not a question of agreeing. I want to strongly believe that these are some of the things that the President is presently working on and I don’t want to believe that the Tinubu that we know will not monitor and evaluate assignments he gives to people. And strongly I believe the budget is an instrument. It’s a matter of concern. And all other things being mentioned there, I think there are all issues in government and there’s no reason why you should not be monitoring and evaluating appropriate time and then making sure that things are going right. So, it’s not a new thing that the former vice president has said, it’s something that is normally in government you are always reviewing and evaluating and looking at your performance. And of course, if you have a budget that you don’t seem to be comfortable with, the Budget Office, on normal circumstances, has to ask them for review, and make sure that they monitor and evaluate the performance of the budget. And the President presently has so many structures in government that are responsible for those activities. So, all these advice the former vice president gave the president, they are just normal things. There are things that the President is already doing, and is part of him, for you to be successful. It has to be like the social investment programme. It’s a programme that is ready on, and he inherited and it is expected that at least he will also monitor and evaluate the performance, whether it is effective or not, whether it has really touched the lives of the poor, and so on and so forth. In the same manner, the budget like say, for instance, there are areas where the National Assembly are tinkering with the budget and probably that is where Mr. President can come in and see how he can redress those interventions which ordinarily would distort the system.
So, these advices are very good but is what like I’m saying he has already advised himself on, that I’m aware of, because I’ve been talking to some of his officials. So, it’s not something new.
But does he have the right hands to get the job done?
We have always known Tinubu back as governor of Lagos, having the capacity to put square pegs in square holes and is good in head hunting when it comes to personnel recruitment or manpower recruitment. I cannot see him getting it wrong because there are so many intelligent and well experienced Nigerians working with him
Do you think this is the best cabinet Nigeria could get?
Well, you cannot have it 100 percent. Because even as a governor, when I was a governor, I had commissioners, and of course, it depends. Sometimes, political exigencies make you accommodate some people.
(Cuts in) at the expense of the nation? Some people have credited Obasanjo and credited Jonathan for quality of calibre they had in their cabinet..
I agree with you but like I said, sometimes, mistakes are made. Some ministers are mistakes. Somehow political exigencies overruled the real objectives of recruiting the right person. So, I believe we are just starting. So I believe as we move on, things would get better. Obasanjo had about 66 ministers, if you’re not performing, he kicks you out. By the time he returned, only four of us made the second time. I was one of them. So you can see that Obasanjo had a wonderful way of evaluating and monitoring his team. But if you think about all these noise people are making about Mr. president losing focus, it is important for people to know that the president is the captain…
