Dr. Abdujeleel Tafawa Balewa is the son of Nigeria’s first Prime Minister, Sir. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He is also a PDP member and one of those pushing for the second term of President Goodluck Jonathan. He recently spoke with journalists on state of the nation, why the President deserves second term, among other issues. Deputy Editor, Politics, Habib Aruna, was there. Excerpts:
You are the son of Nigeria Prime Minister in the First Republic, were you too young to appraise your father’s administration when he was in power?
Unfortunately I was taken out of Nigeria while I was only two years old.
What would you say about the state of insecurity in the North-East?
There is no river without a source. A lot of bad decisions, dry decisions, have gone into our politics. Whereas in the olden days, politicians told the people what they were going to do, I am going to build bridges, construct roads and all of that – all those ones have now gone overboard. Now, it is a case of which religion or ethnicity you represent and all of that. There are lots of educated young men in the North East that have not been able to have either job or employment. Programmes such as SURE-P, YOU WIN are however taking up on these unemployed youths and are now empowering them. But for a very long time, a lot of these politicians had access to these young people and were using them as political hooligans and just jettisoned them after election. These young men then internalised all they have helped perpetrated during election and that was why when the unrest first started, you could see that they were attacking government establishments and installations because those were the people who used and abandoned them. Unfortunately, this was related to the fact that they were not particularly educated and this was linked to the fact that they were fighting western education. That, of course, is not true because the question is: how many illiterates can man and time bombs? How many illiterates can have the military know-how to attack military formations? What this government is doing now is to continue to empower the youth because there is nobody that will have food in his stomach and be taking part in unrest. So when you think of it, you will see that this unrest have many factors to it. Many of our youths lack access to opportunities, jobs. The devil always finds jobs for idle hands. We need to start engaging these idle hands.
Prominent Northerners have been agitating for power shift in 2015, what is your position on this?
Democracy is about education. There is a shop in the US known as Syms. The motto is: an educated mind is our best customer. It is okay to agitate that power must shift to the North or to the South but it is the voters that is important here. If you are able to convince the citizenry and they agree with you, they will vote for you. In democracy, the position is not the traditional feudal system. It is not a God-given right whereby when you get there, you will stay there until you die. This is about politics. It is about trying to convince the citizenry on how best your programmes and thoughts are. Not everybody will be a Millionaire. Not everyone could be a billionaire either. But God has done it in a way that in this kind of democracy, everybody needs to work harder. Like the Latin says: When you work hard, you will get to the stars. And that is what this capitalist democracy preaches. It is not about right. What the constitution of PDP says is that if the party wins presidential election, other positions will be zoned to people of other geo-political zones. And constitutionally, President Goodluck Jonathan as a citizen of Nigeria has every right to run for a second term.
Against the background of his performance, does he deserve a second term and will you vote for him?
You can count on me. I will vote for him. There has never been any Nigerian President since Independence, until now, that has done so well in appointing women that constitute like half of our population to ministries and embassies across the world. Terrorism as many people seem not to notice often take a long time before it could be calmed down. Take a look at Iraq, Syria, the Philippines of old and even Ireland where you can say there was long ethnic crises and you would see that Nigeria’s case is improving. Of course, Nigeria is in dire need of peace and that is not only in the North East but also in the South. Today, Nigerian currency is getting stable and stronger and the foreign reserve is rising. I think the President should be given kudos. I will vote for him.
Recently, a group of Northern leaders stated it unequivocally that the presidency should return to the North by 2015?
In democracy, there is freedom of speech. It is expected of any regional political party or group to state what they want. There is nothing wrong with that. I mean there is nothing wrong with somebody standing up here in Lagos and insisting that the next governor of the state come from Ikeja. So, I really don’t see any reason why we should lay more emphasis on that.
So, you mean these agitations by northern leaders are their freedom of expression in democracy?
Absolutely.
And that the voters will be the ones to determine their fate in 2015?
The voters would be the ones to determine Nigeria’s fate in 2015.
So, since you will be supporting the President’s re-election in 2015, will you be advising the North to wait till 2019?
No, I won’t. In democracy, every election deserves to be fought with all vigour. And let the best person win. Somebody like me is a core northerner but at the same time, I have root in the South. It is high time we do away with this North and South dichotomy. If any man or woman who is qualified to contest wishes so, so be it. This is a Federal Republic. And it is high time we start seeing ourselves as a republic. When you go outside this country, they are not going to be referring to you as a northerner or southerner but as a Nigerian. So, why don’t we start seeing ourselves as Nigerians?
Still on 2015, how convinced are you that if election is to be conducted today, President Goodluck Jonathan will win and what are the indices you think will make him win?
As I was saying earlier, I will reiterate that it takes time to build what has collapsed. Our political system has collapsed very poorly in the past. President Jonathan and his government are trying to rebuild it. One of the sources of rancour in northern Nigeria before now was the issue of Almajiri, but today, the almajiri education has been repackaged in such a way that these children are exposed to both western and Islamic education. We have never had a situation like this where the President would be directly involved in negotiation with ASUU. For me, that is a handsome President. The SURE-P is there. The YOUWIN is there, and you will continue to see these gains accumulated and become bigger by 2015. Even though the gains are there now, somebody you love, there is nothing he would do that you will dislike. And that is the reason this President will win. If you look at the APC, this government has the wherewithal to stop it but did not. I mean, that is the beauty of our democracy. And APC is full of failed PDP politicians. Also, APC is a bunch of regional parties that still have these regional identities to themselves. The chances of them being able to metamorphose into clean party before 2015 are slim. And do we really need a party that has not really defined itself to come and lead this country into the right direction? I respect a lot of older gentlemen in the APC like Gen. Muhammdu Buhari (rtd) and Chief Bisi Akande. But you don’t rub into the mud something that you aspire to attain. Journalists’ writings and newspaper publications are read all over the world. They are there on the internet. What do you think others will think of us when you say the Nigerian President behaves like a kindergarten? What do you think they will think of us? They are fathers to us. They are people that are supposed to lead us. But what will you say when you have elder statesmen who are touting words that are indescribable? I really think we need to be guarded on what we say.
[DailyIndependent]
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