The transcript of President Mohammadu Buhari’s interview with Al Jazeera’s Martinne Dennis.
Martinne: What will you say about about parents who have kids abroad and cannot now afford to pay fees of their kids and that some will now have to pull their kids out…
Buhari: If the country cannot afford it, so be it.
Marinne: Your Children will continue their studies no doubt.
Buhari: Those who can afford it can still afford it. Nigeria can’t afford to allocate Forex for all those who have decided to train their children outside the country.
On The Budget:
Martinne: You presented your budget on time…but it’s being described as the worst presented budget ever…There was budget padding, there were duplications, miscalculations….a suggestion therefore that even within your own ranks there is corruption
PB: I don’t know that is corruption but basically you know that the provision of budgets is question of technocrats and I will like people to assess Nigeria and especially this govt on where we find ourself. When we came in we found out there were 42 ministries and we found out the economy cannot take all 42 ministries. We reduced it to 24…rambles on about the structure…We cannot assume that from permanent secretary downward are all 100% loyal to the new government.
Martinne: So you think there was an element of sabotage
Buhari: Certainly I think and we’re going to apply sanctions but while it is with national assembly I don’t want to talk more about it now
Martine: Let me ask you about a certain element in the budget..books in the vice presidents office for $25,000 a figure that outstrips the allication for book allowances for the national polytechnics. Can you comment on that because this is an element of the budget that is causing huge concern in Nigeria?
Buhari: I cannot comment on that until I find out the details
Martinne: Another issue that springs to mind is the allocation of funds for the improvement to the state house clinic…the clinic that serves you, the vice president and some other privilege people when of course as we know, the state of most Nigerian hospitals is lamentable and this is seen to be so unfair and not in keeping with the promises you made.
Buhari: We are going to revisit all observations that are serious enough to be reconsidered.
Martinne: Security votes are these funds that have got an opaque destination and ever country has them and from the look of things there is not a lot of money attached to them in your budget only about $50m but there are about 30 of these security votes…security votes are being describes as the most durable form of corruption in Nigeria….why don’t you just eliminate them?
Buhari: You know more about our budget than I do…that is very interesting..but don’t forget…We are fighting Boko Haram in the North East…We are fighting the militants in the South South that are busy sabotaging our installations which is affecting our relationship with investors. There is insecurity from the gulf of guinea which extends from Senegal to Angola..Nigeria has all these security problems..so this money is voted For security and I don’t mind if they go as far as they can to find out if the money is being used for security or is being shared in the pocket like the $2.1bn in the previous administration.
Martinne: Precisely precisely that was via security votes… $2.9m was secreted into personal funds by a former Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki
Buhari: That’s what I said…you know more about our budgets but I assure you that Dasuki is now in detention and all those that took that money from him instead of buying the military hardware and software are being arrested and interogated…if anybody dares us and do it while we are still there I think he would correctly predict where he is going to end up.
Martinne: As I’ve mentioned anti corruption was one of the the major pledges of your campaign presumably the thing that propelled you into the front of the minds of Nigerians…We’ve still not had any conviction though as you mentioned Mr Dasuki is in detention and the commission you set up to investigate fraud is busy it’s working very hard but there is not being one conviction yet..what can you say to the Nigerian population about your campaign against graft.
Buhari: The fact that people that are identified to take public funds without going through the normal system of getting public funds are being detained and they are being interogated…so that there will be successful convictions. If people are in a hurry, what have they been doing for the last 16 years? They didn’t know what was happen in the last 16 years??
Martinne: The security situation which you alluded to is obviously one of the greatest challenges you have in Nigeria today…I’m particularly interested in the Islamic Anti Terrorist Force that is being put together by Saudi Arabia….is Nigeria going to be part of this Islamic force?
Buhari: We are part of it because we have got terrorists in Nigeria which everybody knows whic claim that they are Islamic. So if there is an Islamic coalition to fight terrorism, Nigeria will be part of it because we are casualties of Islamic terrorism.
Martinne: So you suggest to King Salman Nigeria will be part of this coalition force
Buhari: Yes Yes
Buhari: That we mentioned under lake Chad basin commission a regional grouping comprising Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Benin and we dedicated a certain number of troops to be deployed in our own sub region and I don’t think we have to tell the press the details of that…
Martinne: So you think Nigeria’s security interests are best served by being part of this Islamic coalition against terrorism
Buhari: Certainly I have just told you…it is boko haram itself that has declared loyalty to ISIL. Now ISIL is basically based in Islamic countries…now if there are a coalition to fight terrorism why can’t Nigeria be part of it while those that are fighting in Nigeria as boko haram claim to be Muslims. .because what they are doing is anti Islamic.
Martinne: Indeed the reason I’m asking you this is because there are many in Nigeria, we know Nigeria is roughly evenly split between Muslims and Christians and Christians seem to be complaining and wondering whether president Buhari is taking the identity of Nigeria and turning it into an Islamic country which they object to?
Buhari: Why can’t those Christians who are complaining go and fight terrorism in Nigeria or fight the militants in the South? It’s Nigeria that matters not opinions of some religious bigots…
Martinne: So you don’t think it changes the..you’re not trying to change the religious identity of Nigeria
Buhari: How can I change the religious identity of Nigeria? No religion advocates hurting the innocent and just because the Muslims are the ones that claim to be boko haram and are killing innocent people whether in the church or in the mosque or in the market place, then I will just sit and look at them because I feel I am a Muslim. Islam is against injustice in any fom.
Martinne: Now security is such a big problem..you spoke to me almost exactly a year ago when you were presidential candidate..you then promised to Nigeria that you will defeat boko haram by the end of 2015. Clearly you haven’t, you’ve failed.
Buhari: I haven’t failed, I haven’t failed, I haven’t failed. When we came in, boko haram was completely in control of 14 local governments. Nigeria has 774 local governments. They hoist their flag and they call themselves..they name themselves a certain caliphate but now they are not in any local government and they have reverted to improvised devices blowing soft targets. Those are terrorism which will be extremely difficult to eliminate because it is technology…but they are not holding any local government in Nigeria now.
Martinne: So you’ve flushed them out of territory but they still have the capacity to kill, maim and instil terror in the population of the north east.
Buhari: Yes…Using technology Yes…but to organise attacks and overnight police posts, attack military institutions, they cannot do that now.
Martinne: What will you say to the people of Nigeria about the fight against boko haram…you’ve passed your deadline…your information minister Lai Mohammed suggested that Boko haram had been technically defeated…what are you now saying to the people of Nigeria..this is something that goes to the heart of your manifesto
Buhari: The people of Nigeria know better. They know better than you. They know that 14 local governments were being held…none are being held now. So the people of Nigeria especially the people in the north east know better.
Martinne: Let’s also look at another problem that seems to be emerging under your presidency…you’ve only been in power 9 months..but this problem in the south east of the country..we’re seeing the Indigenous People’s of Biafra IPOB..they are protesting peacefully for the most part on a regular basis and there has been video…I can show you some video that has been posted.
Buhari: NO THANK YOU
Martinne: This is footage I can’t personally verify but it looks like the security forces have gone in very heavy handedly shooting and there are reports of seven deaths. I am wondering how are you planning to deal with this issue of Biafra..you of course have first hand experience.
Buhari: Put a 30 month civil war at least 2 million Nigerians were killed and for somebody to wake up, maybe he wasn’t born when there was this fighting in Biafra and say he wants Biafra again, we have multi facet democratic system let them organise themselves and vote to have a state within a state..but to try and interfere with movement of troops with economy looking for Biafra after losing 2 million people, I think they are joking with Nigerian security and Nigeria will not tolerate it.
Martinne: Why don’t you invite them for talks?
Buhari: Why should we invite them?
Martinne: For the most part they appear to be young people as you say with no recollection of the war the 1967-70 war…but these are disaffected young men for the most part but young women as well who are protesting it would appear against reduced economic opportunity…government allocation to state governments within that region has been reduced by something like 50%. These people want jobs
Buhari: How much was oil costing? For the last 16 years it was costing from over $140 per barrel now to sometimes under 30. So the system of allocation has to correspondingly be reduced. So why shouldn’t it affect them if it’s affecting the whole of Nigeria? From where do we get the money to give them?
Martinne: Okay Mr president I think that our time is up and I have to thank you very much indeed for taking the time out to speak to me and for speaking to Al Jazeera. Thank you very much.
Buhari: Thank you very much
No comments:
Post a Comment