From DESMOND MGBOH
Retired Commissioner of Police, Abubakar Tsav, is not impressed with
the performance of the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration,
particularly its handling of the security challenges facing the country.
In this interview with Daily Sun, Tsav dismisses the call for
Jonathan’s resignation from office, coming from certain quarters, but
warns that he should not seek for a fresh mandate in 2015 to avoid
embarrassment.Excerpts:
Well, to me, he should not resign. I don’t think that it is the
solution to the problem. Rather than resign, when the time for the next
elections comes, he should quietly allow a more suitable and a more
capable hand to take over the affairs of the country.’’ As a very
informed security voice, we’ll like your appraisal of the security
situation in the light of the various killings and bomb blasts across
the country, largely perpetrated by the Boko Haram Sect? The situation
is very scary, the killings and blasts are continuing. Sometimes, just
when we think the killings are beginning to be controlled, that it is
subsiding, you wake up to realise that the situation is getting worse
and worse.
However, I think honestly that it should be the responsibility of
every Nigerian to think of a way out: let us not start blaming
ourselves. Let us not start blaming Northern leaders. Rather, let us
come together and forge a way forward and make sure we sustain peace in
this country. The other day I read in the papers where this man, Chief
Edwin Clark was blaming the former President, General Ibrahim Banbangida
and I felt very bad because a person who truly wants peace should not
say a thing like that.
He should rather be thinking of finding ways to ending the problem.
And they (people who talk like Clark) are making a mistake. The current
security problem is not a Northern problem. It is a national problem. It
rubs on everybody and every part of the country. Even if there is no
bomb blasts in the South, that does not mean the challenge does not
affect the South.
What is happening here in the North, ideally, should affect every
part of the country. I also heard this Asari Dokubo threatening that
there will be war. I, for one, I am very disappointed to hear that from a
person like that. This is because this issue, tragically, affects
everybody in the country and not a case of one man or a group against
the other. Nobody is safe. People no longer go to Churches; people no
longer go to Mosque.
They are all afraid. Everybody is afraid to go to public places. Must
we continue like this? How are we going to sustain our economy if we
continued like this? So, I want to appeal to all Nigerians, regardless
of political, ethnic and religious affiliation to come together for us
to find solutions to this problem. These people, who are causing these
problems, they are Nigerians: They live with us, they dine with us and
they are within the society and therefore, let us come out together and
find a way out. During the administration of the former president, late
Alhaji Umaru Yar ‘Adua, he brokered peace with the militants from
Nigeria Delta, and the peace is working today. Some of them have been
trained at home and abroad.
The Asari Dokubo that is talking is a beneficiary of that peace
arrangement because he was remanded in prison custody over acts of
terrorism and through that peace, they got him out of the prison and
unfortunately today, he is threatening war in this country. Why can’t we
extend the same thing to this Boko Haram people if that would end the
violence? But I must add that when situation like this presents itself,
there are a lot of people who are benefiting from it, including the
uniformed services because when there is insecurity, they get allowances
and some of them want to keep on getting these allowances. They want
the problem to continue so that their allowances would continue. I think
we should all come together and solve this problem regardless of our
affiliations.
The government must do more to end the spate of killings. Jonathan
must remember that when he took his oath of office, he promised that he
was going to ensure the wellbeing and security of Nigerians! Taking it
from here, there have been growing concerns that President Jonathan
should resign if he could no longer guarantee the security of Nigerians.
Do you share the same view? Well to me, he should not resign. I don’t
think that it is the solution to the problem.
Rather than resign, when the time for the next elections comes, he
should quietly allow a more suitable and a more capable hand to take
over the affairs of the country. This is because if he resigns now,
somebody else is going to take over and maybe, such a person may not be
any better …. But I do believe that Jonathan is being controlled, he is
like a puppet. Someone else is running the government for him. He allows
people like Chief Edwin Clark may be one of those running the
government for him.
I must add that the whole security problem in Nigeria is not being
helped by the level of corruption and injustice in the land. Corruption
is what is causing insecurity in this country. The President keeps
saying that he is going to fight corruption, he going to fight
corruption, but if you look very deeply as to what is happening in that
Aso Rock, it all amounts to corruption. Look at his wife, who was
appointed to the rank of a permanent secretary! She has not worked for a
very long time, yet she was appointed a permanent secretary.
She has not worked as a civil servant for a very long time, but they
selected and promoted her above other people and made her a permanent
secretary. It amounts to corruption! But the President has taken steps
to tackle the security challenges. He has sacked many heads of security
agencies, including his NSA, Minister of Defence and his Inspector
General of Police. Are these not sufficient policy actions? You see
there are many issues.
What is causing the problem in this country is corruption. Why can’t
they do anything about corruption? There are, as you know, a lot of
people who have charges of corruption on them and they are roaming the
streets unchecked. Why can’t the government do anything about these
corruption cases? We are not hearing anything about it: the police
pension scam, corruption in the National Assembly and so on. The moment
they start sentencing highly placed people, everything will go on well
again. Secondly, the police and the security agencies in the country are
under staffed.
There are several youth roaming about and the question is, why can’t
this government recruit and train them? I think that the removal of the
heads of the security agencies-police and NSA that you just mentioned
is scratching the surface. There are basic things that have not been
done and which ought to have been done. The issue of the oil subsidy
threw up very many negative things about the Minister of Petroleum. The
Minister was indicted. Did Jonathan replace her? No! She is still
there. The Aviation issue came up and the Minister of Aviation was
indicted. Did he change her? No! she is still there.
If he is sincere, why must he allow his wife to take a rank of a
permanent secretary when she is not qualified to be so appointed? Still
on security, has the appointment of the new National Security Adviser,
Alhaji Sambo Dasuki resulted in any significant improvement in tackling
the security challenge? Of course, the bombings and the killings of
Nigerians have not stopped, but the new Security Adviser has been taking
positive steps to change the situation. This is because he has been
able to visit Yobe, Maiduguri, Kano States and I think a number of
states in the North and has been able to talk to some of the leaders in
these states. This is a good step in the right direction.
He has seen them, he has spoken to them-he happens to come from this
area- they have listened to him and I think the next step would be to
talk to the Boko Haram people involved directly. But the former National
Security Adviser did not visit all these places. He sat there and was
just talking. He made a statement which was very bad when he went and
started blaming the government, and started blaming the Peoples
Democratic Party’s political system.
A National Security Officer should not have said such a thing in
public. This is because a security officer who knows his job should be
felt and not heard. He was supposed to have reduced everything in
writing and communicated same to the President and if the President
refused to act on it, he can now say okay, I resign. But to go for a
meeting of the South-South to say something like that is unfortunate.
To go the South South-people who are very troublesome, people who are
fighting for their right over their oil…. You are indirectly trying to
incite them. And we, if we have the crop of soldiers that we had
previously, maybe that would have led to a coup. It was a very careless
statement. Recently, the leadership of MOSOP in Ogoni land declared
their autonomy and nothing has happened. People said that government
should have reacted. What is your take on this? That is what the
security system should have done.
They should have cautioned them immediately. Going to declare this
thing autonomy, they are trying to incite another round of insurrection
in that area. Our security system should have foiled that statement,
invite them and deal with them. But to allow them to do what they did
and nobody was arrested and nobody was cautioned is very bad.
So, if tomorrow comes and another group decides to join them and
declare their own self- autonomy, then we are already gradually breaking
this country into pieces. It is unfortunate. Let me come back to the
issue of Dokubo…… Dokubo threatened in the papers that there would be
war. I expected the SSS to invite him and interrogate him because the
statement is very inflammatory. If they had invited him over his
comment, maybe that would send the signal to others not to make such
statement.
But nobody called him. Several groups and individuals in different
parts of the country are making the same statements or are acting out
the fact that they are tired of the Nigeria state as it is presently
composed. Where would all these lead us to? It would lead to greater
problems for all of us and if care is not taken it would dismember us.
The thing is that everybody is crying of injustice and corruption.
Let there be justice in the country. Let there be less corruption in
the country and let the security agencies put a stop to all these people
who are making all these negative noises, otherwise every section of
these country would start agitating for its own autonomy and one day, we
would wake up and find that we have several countries in one country.
Some critics have blamed the judiciary for the failure to punish corrupt
persons arguing that their pace and alleged lack of honesty are not
favorable to the dispensation of justice in the land.
What is your take on this ? As a matter of fact, the Nigeria
judiciary has not done well at all. But I will want you take note that
the new Chief Justice of the Federation has promised to deal with
corrupt judges. So, we are now waiting to see what she can do. But
having said this, I agree that the judiciary has contributed to our
problems in fighting corruption in the society. If they are honest and
they handled their cases the way they are supposed to handle them, in
line with their oath of office, things would have been very well.
That is why the people keep crying of injustice and corruption. But
how do think that the judiciary has failed Nigerians? Is it the speed in
which they dispatch the cases or is it that the rulings of the courts
are not just or is it in terms of the fact that the highly rich fellows
are never convicted? How? The way I look at it is that if we are blaming
the judiciary about the speed, we should also blame the lawyers.
It is the lawyers that prolong justice in court because they come
with arguments. They try to find ways of frustrating the cases. All they
want is for their clients to be free and therefore, employ all means to
delay the trials. Sometimes, they file a motion, motions that would
take years to be argued in court. So, if we are blaming the judiciary
for this challenge, we must also blame the lawyers and we must also
blame the police, because all of them contribute to delaying the
dispensation of justice in this country! What about these other
institutions that are mandated to get corrupt people and interests to
court- EFCC, ICPC and so on.
Have they performed well? No! I wouldn’t say that they have
discharged their own parts creditably well and the reason is that right
from inception of the EFCC, we were told, for instance, that all the
state governors then had pending criminal cases of corruption. But up
till this time, most of these governors have not been taken to court.
The only one of them who was charged and convicted was the case of the
former Edo governor, Mr. Lucky Igbinedion. But that was a deceit, the
plea bargain thing.
There are many of these former governors that they told us had
committed offences that are working as free men on the streets.
Recently, there are some of those who were indicted on account of the
power probe, nothing has happened. You see, it is the failure of these
anti corruption agencies that have made the country to go on the way it
is going. If the EFCC and the ICPC were doing their jobs very well, I
am very sure that everybody will take a cue from them. So, it appears
that the laws of this country are in favour of the rich.
The rich person never gets convicted, but the poor does. The ordinary
person who steals gets his hand cut or you send him to prison for a
year or so, but people who steal huge sums of money are roaming the
streets. In the last few days, a number of names that were dragged to
courts for their involvement in the fuel subsidy scam are being dropped.
What is your take? That is what I am saying. There is discrimination in
the handling of cases in this country. Somebody who is highly placed
and somebody who is rich enough to buy justice would always escape
justice.
That is what is happening. If today I, Abubakar Tsav, should commit
an offence, I know nobody will spare me. They would remand me in custody
perhaps until I die there. But people who are rich, you will never see
anything happening to them when they commit an offence. The wife of the
former president, Hajia Turai Yar Adua and the wife of the president,
Patience Jonathan, are fighting dirty over land allocation.
How do you see the whole drama? It is very sad! It is tragic!! It is
very sad because during the reign of Turai Yar Adua , Mrs. Patience
Jonathan was her right hand person . She was loyal to her. She showed
every loyalty to her. And this land in question was acquired during that
period. And now that God Almighty has taken away the husband of Turai
and Patience’s husband is now the president, she has gone on to take
over this land. This is not good at all.
We had expected that she should have encouraged and supported
Mrs.Yar’ Adua to complete her project, so that we would have continuity
in this project. She has started her own project and maybe by the time
she leaves office, her own project would become moribund. It is, indeed,
a shameful thing for them to start quarreling over land. But I also
blame the Minister of the Federal Capital. If Mrs. Yar ‘Adua had
acquired this land and you issued a C of O to her and she made payments
and she is not owing anything…. Then suddenly because a new president
has come, and the new president has made you a minister, and you want to
curry favour from him, then you went to revoke the land.
That is not good enough. That is why we don’t have leaders in the
North. We have office seekers in the North! A person who has conscience
would not have done a thing like that. He would have given her another
land, elsewhere. Or if it was very important to use the same land, you
should meet with the two ladies and told them the situation. This is
because the projects they want to do are important. That of Yar Adua is
important, the one Patience wanted to set up is maybe it is a money
spinning venture, I don’t know yet!
The Sun.
