I learnt that it is a sin to be honest in Nigeria’ By Yinka Ajayi Prof. Bola Akinterinwa is a former Director General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA). In this interview, he bares his mind on President Muhammadu Buhari’s trips abroad which critics say are too many, among other issues . Excerpts: How do you describe the state of Nigeria under President Buhari? We are in a transition period, transition from uncertainty to certainty. As it is now, the situation of the nation requires every hand to be on deck. We are in a situation where media professionals need to ask themselves if they are truly monitoring political governance, because the media, as the fourth estate of the realm, is supposed to monitor political governance to make government accountable to the people. But to what extent are media practitioners doing this? It is also a moment for the academia to come up with analysis on the challenges confronting the country.
If I may use the words of Prof. Jerry Gana, he said, “When you are a director, you ought to direct well; if you are a chairman, chair well. So whatever position you find yourself, you man it well”. The source of our economic survival is dwindling and what are our leaders doing about that? We talk about our mono-cultural economy by being oil dependent. Presently, a dollar is exchanging for N350 in the black market. And we are import dependent. Security wise, we have the new threat from the Niger Delta militants who said if the head of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, is not released, they will make the country ungovernable, this making the situation worse. Boko Harram is still there. While the government is trying to deal decisively with corruption, other problems are emerging. Even with the corruption battle that the government is fighting, new cases are emerging daily! This means that corruption is deeply rooted in the system. The state of the nation is that we are engaged in the process of war on corruption. And, it is just a battle. In other words, the battle is the physical dimension where we take arms to fight and criticise ourselves. But the war is more encompassing than that.
And the war has to be total and will include new policies, new philosophies as well as new attitudinal dispositions. In this case, the battle cannot have a selective enemy, the enemy must be total in scope and the battle must be fought with all available means. But analysts say the war against corruption is targeting former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration alone? Akinterinwa Akinterinwa The government must start the battle from somewhere. And government has started with the cases it has chosen. The cases are multi-directional. As they are making inquiries, they unearth more issues and they are tackling them. Nobody can say it is selective or not. But the issue is that it has to be selective in order to begin somewhere. So, if they decided to deal with what they now tagged; “Dasukigate”, it cannot be said to be selective. Because what prompted it was the issue of Boko Haram. They wanted insurgency in the North-East to come to an end within a time frame, before they discovered that it wouldn’t have come to an end because there were no sophisticated arms. Soldiers refused to fight with poor equipment because the insurgents were better equipped. The military disciplinary committee looked into it, they were tried and were sentenced to death. It was the soldiers complaint that brought about the investigation of the arms deal. So, there is no selective approach to it. The issue that led to Dasukigate is a purely security matter and Boko Haram-related. It was in the course of investigation that they discovered that money was approved, withdrawn and then wondered why was it not used to acquire the arms. It is not scientifically tenable for anyone to talk about being selective on security inquiry on arms deal. At the end of the day, the questions will be asked on why insurgency started. Do you see Buhari as some source of inspiration? I am yet to convince myself that he means well.
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