Deputy Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, retired General Muhammad Sani Saleh represents Kaduna Central Senatorial Zone of Kaduna State in the 7th Senate. In this interview with LEADERSHIP SUNDAY’s RUTH CHOJI, the Congress For Progressive Change (CPC) national lawmaker who speaks on several topical issues, holds that Nigeria is actually at war and urges government to use every power at its disposal to stop Boko Haram sect.
Kaduna is regarded as a PDP stronghold. How were you able to win the senatorial seat?
From my own perspective, Kaduna State has never been a PDP state. ANPP has always won Kaduna State. What always happens is thuggery. Take for example, a state where CPC won most of the seats of House of Assembly, two senatorial seats and many House of Representatives seats, is that a state that should lose the governorship?
All elections were held except in Kaduna state where they wanted to concentrate policemen. Violence was instigated earlier and then there was curfew; all these were done to rig the elections. Kaduna had never been a PDP stronghold.
The dreaded Boko Haram has vowed to continue its act of insurgency. What do you think could have led to this act of sustained terrorism in the nation?
You cannot place your finger on a single issue because Nigeria is a country that has a strong presence in the international community. So there is international politics and domestic politics. At the international level, you are competing for resources, for influence and so a lot of things happen in international relations.
That is why countries have international security services and other security apparatus to try to jettison or gain advantage over each other’s technological advances, economics and so on. In the course of that, there is espionage and counter-espionage. Countries go all out to destabilize each other.
This can be at the low level or at the point of warfare. So we must have this at the back of our mind in what is happening to our nation. Countries do this covertly; most times it is not openly. They pick out a country that is in their interest to either destabilize it or influence it to their advantage. They look for an indigenous dissent and find a clandestine way of fueling it.
Are you saying that is what is happening to Nigeria?
It is a possibility that must be investigated. Nigeria is aspiring for a seat in the Security Council and you should know that, we are not alone. Other countries too are interested in that same position. Nigeria says it wants to be one of the world’s most developed economies in 20-20-20. We do have the potential but is it in the interest of other people to let us get there?
For instance, if Nigeria succeeds in stabilizing the Iron and Steel Complex that we have been battling with all these years, what will be the effect on other nations? We are not only going to capture the West African market but it will badly affect the economy of the West and probably the United States.
So there are many reasons why so many countries have to make us continue to battle within ourselves. So I think that government must look beyond our local environment to find answer to the crises we are facing as a nation.
Apart from looking outside the nation for answer, what other advice would you give on ways out of the situation?
Looking beyond this shore is number one. Certainly we have our own internal crises but we have always had them. Every country has its own problems. India has so much commonality with Nigeria; it is large and populous like Nigeria and it is multi-religious and multi-ethnic just like Nigeria.
They are battling with corruption, poverty and all the ills that we have in Nigeria, yet they have been able to develop technologically and economically. India should be a case study for Nigeria. Yes poverty is a major problem everywhere, but how did other countries solve their problems? One of the ways is to make food available. Government must also make healthcare available for everyone and provide good, qualitative education.
You don’t have to take money and give people. It baffles me when people say that, government must provide housing for everyone. It is not government’s duty to build houses for everybody. Government is established to do things that people cannot do for themselves by way of infrastructure, health and education. No matter how rich you are, you cannot build a hospital for yourself alone; you cannot build a road that only you will pass.
No matter how rich you are, you cannot build a school that only you will attend. That is why government is set up to provide these services. Anybody can build a house for himself. People must stop diverting government. It is government responsibility to create an enabling environment for private sector to create housing. Government needs to examine our educational curriculum.
Today in Nigeria, we are producing educated people that do not fit our needs as a nation. Go to Kaduna Polytechnic for instance; half of the students are reading business administration while some are reading history and psychology. They are important courses, but in our economic development, where is the place for those things? We are a nation in search of technology and development; we need to be self-sufficient.
So we need more engineers, more scientists, but go to any of our universities, they are in the minority. Somebody will come to you, ‘I need a job ‘what did you read and the next thing you hear is ‘I have B.A in Islamic Studies, B.A in History, B.A in Psychology.
All these are important but in our current set up, where do we put them? We need more counseling in our schools to reorient our children on the need to pick good courses that will impact the nation at large. Every generation in Japan is targeted towards a particular purpose.
They had computer age where a particular generation was targeted for just that and they made a break through. There was a time India focused its attention on achieving green revolution and they achieved it. They made sure they achieved three cropping seasons in a year. So they embarked on building of dams, canals and massive irrigation system for irrigation farming.
They used the monsoon farming and other two. After that, they moved to the white revolution where they produce glass of milk for the children everyday to supplement the diet of children.
Here in Nigeria, we have the potentials of doing even better. We can produce from January to April, and from May to September and from October to December. If we can get our farming train for achieving even if it is just two training seasons at a time, we will multiply the food supply in this country and the income of farmers.
But when people come from the village for just four months, the tendencies are that, they will drift into the city for the remaining eight months because you can’t stay in your village for eight months.
Look at the legacy that Audu Bako left for Kano State. The irrigation system he introduced is still sustaining Kano State till date. It is only in Kano you find the place green anytime of the year. No government has emulated him since; all they are concerned with is dishing out contract upon contract. If you talk of school system, it starts and ends with award of contract for renovating schools.
The agitation for review of the sharing formula of the federal allocation is gaining momentum in the north. What is your take on this?
I think the revenue sharing formula is long overdue for a review. Personally, I will give my weight to that. The preponderance of our people live in the local governments. The infrastructure that affects their lives is in the local government. Primary health care, schools, feeder roads, water supply, waste system and so on.
There is no federal water, it is state water board. I will like to see how the state powers can be devolved to the local government while the federal government concerns itself with foreign policy and defense. That way, we will have more centers of economic activity. Now, the federal government has the monopoly of allocating these resources.
Are you advocating autonomy for local governments?
Yes. I am in support of that. We need dedicated people that will take care of the local government. It is happening in some places in the west, they have articulate people as local government chairmen and some of them run like states. Even in the south/south, some of them can survive without allocation from the local government. A local government like Aba can survive without subvention. Lagos recently said they can survive without federal government allocation.
The flip side of this agitation is that states must wake up to start creating wealth. The northern states have completely abdicated their economic planning. It doesn’t go beyond contract awards. It starts and ends with the commissioner of finance coming to Abuja for revenue allocation meeting and going back with a cheque which is then broken to contract A, contract C. States must overhaul their tax system and begin to create wealth.
Why is this violence peculiar to the north; do we blame it on government?
No, it is not peculiar to the north. At present, Boko Haram is the one reigning in the north. Before Boko Haram, we have had the OPC, the Egbesu and Niger/Delta militants. Long before the Boko Haram, we have had a large deployment of soldiers to the Niger/Delta. Up till today, no big man moves in the South-South without security. Is that the case in the north? What is happening in the north has not gotten to the level of what is happening in the east today.
Yes, we have a problem in the north but we have to look to be sure if it is an indigenous or external one. It started as a religious agitation for Sharia to be implemented in a particular side of the country. But see how quickly it spreads. It is like foreign policy, the interpretation of foreign policy is according to your means, which is your pocket or military size.
Take for instance our foreign policy, like the issues of terrorism we are talking about. We are just thinking of fighting Boko Haram only here. But America is fighting terrorism internationally. They see terrorism in everything, every country does. Because they are rich and have a country that is militarily rich, so they can interpret their policies in that large perspective.
But do you think that, our security is capable of handling this insurgency?
We have a big problem in Nigeria which is strategic thinking. Boko Haram insurgency is not a military problem. It is a national problem. Is it the armed forces that declared war on another nation or the nation? A nation declares war and when a nation declares war, it uses all national resources at its disposal to fight that war. They include diplomatic, military and economic.
This situation we are in now is called low conflict. It is a war; somebody has declared war on Nigeria, and so the country has to respond. Is the country responding with all its powers? Nigeria is overly dependent on military power to solve this problem and it is wrong. They have to use all the elements of its power.
It is the lack of not understanding these things that made people to be shouting when it was said that government earmark over nine hundred and something billion for security. People were shouting and somebody was asking – are we at war? Are we not at war? We are at war, who are the bombings against? Nigerians. Somebody is fighting Nigerians by bombing them; they have declared war. But because of lack of strategic thinking, the government could not reply these people who asked whether the country is at war. We are at war and all elements of national power must be used.
Every Nigerian must realize that we are at war and must contribute towards it by providing information and resources. I remember when we wanted to help South Africa during their apartheid, Nigerians sacrificed ten percent of their salaries and the money was gathered and sent to the war effort in South Africa. During the Second World War, women donated their trinkets, their bangles, ring and all like gold to be sold for the war.
Other irons were melted to produce weapons. But what is happening in Nigeria today? The only thing Nigerian citizens contribute to this war is criticism and disdain for government. Instead of looking and appreciating that, yes we are at war and government is trying its best. Let us cooperate with our government. No matter how bad we think our government is, this is not the time to fight them.
It is time for us to contribute to what government is doing by way of surveillance, passage of information, educating our people on security awareness, and by cooperating with the security agencies to overcome this challenge. After that we can go back to our criticizing the government.
Are you satisfied with the military action taken against the Boko Haram so far?
I am not satisfied because government has not used all the powers at its disposal. They are so over reliant on military powers. The Minister of Information does not see himself as part of this war; the Minister of Finance does not see herself as part of this war.
Even when monies were approved for defense services, it is delayed; they have to go and beg for it. Probably the National Assembly does not see itself as part of the war. The service chiefs have to come and start begging that they need this thing for security, which is not the way to fight the war.
Still on the military. Most people believe that the military has been politicized. How would you compare the military of today and what it was in your days?
The military has not been politicized; the average soldier is still doing his military duty. When I was in the military, I knew absolutely nothing about politics. In many cases, I didn’t even know who the governors of some states were. Of course I knew who the president is, but I had no impute into his election or selection. But the military as it is today can never be politicized.
The only way the military can be politicised is in the selection of the chief of army staff. It is only the president that has the prerogative to choose his chief of army staff. The brigade commander does not have time to interact with governors when he has over nine states under him. Thiers is to assist in times of internal or external security by the president, not the governors.
Coming back to your committee on foreign affairs, as the deputy chairman, how did the committee handle the face-off between Nigeria and South Africa?
In the face-off between South Africa and Nigeria, our foreign affairs was very proactive. They acted very promptly and we were very happy with what they did. We called the minister of foreign affairs committee who explained to us the genesis of the problem and gave us the analysis of what will happen and how we will respond as a nation.
So there was plan A, plan B and plan C. we have been very tolerant of our African brothers and the world at large. We have been victims of maltreatment, thinking that if we keep quiet, they will stop it. But they have taken our magnanimity for granted. So it is now time to show the world what we can do. For once, we want to turn and bite so they can know that we can bite too. If they bark at us, we will turn and bite them.
Still on foreign affairs, most foreign missions have been complaining of underfunding ,yet Nigeria just opened four new ones in Rwanda, Sri Lanka and two other countries. Do you think we need these now?
Nigeria is an international player and whether we like it or not, we must be represented everywhere we think we will have economic benefits. The aim is to know where you can have more benefit, how your country can assist these countries and if you remember, we have foreign aid corps who we sent to assist countries in need. Siri Lanka is a big route between the west, Asia and China. Every ship passes through Sri Lanka and India.
So that is an area where a lot of shipping takes place and we stand to get a lot of benefits because they produce commercial ships. They also have palm trees, rubber and also good technology. They also have good cottage industries and I think we can transfer these things here. It is not about how much you spent but how judiciously you use the little you have.
I think that is what the minister is concerned about. If the resources are not enough, then we have to down size the number of staff not the embassies themselves.
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