Adewole Adebayo is the Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) at the last general elections. In this interview with KEHINDE OLATUNJI, he spoke about the economic hardship in the country and why the government needs to double its efforts in delivering dividends of democracy.
How will you assess President Bola Tinubu’s administration since he assumed office in May 2023?
I would say that President Tinubu’s administration is having a slow start, and they are not coordinating the government correctly. I think that they have an attitude of part-time workers; there is a lot of casualisation of the work. Imagine if you have firefighters getting to the scene of an ongoing fire accident and it is taking them like 10 minutes to get out of the car, open the door, exchange pleasantries, wear their boots slowly, and have no sense of urgency.
One will begin to wonder if they are firefighters because, by the time they are ready, a lot of damage would have been done. There are a lot of tasks ahead of the present administration and I think they should be serious enough. I think they can succeed, but they just need to start at a good time, but sincerely there is no sign of seriousness yet.
Will you blame government policies for the hardship Nigerians are currently going through?
Many of the problems we have now have been accumulating over the years, so he is the concept of what the Ondo people will call “agbale oja”, it is the person who sweeps the market that keeps the market clean. If you are the one in the market on Monday to keep the market clean, you inherit all the debris that had been left there. If the person who was there before you was not a good cleaner of the market, immediately you start duty you cannot be giving excuses. It has become your responsibility and if you are also lazy, the dirt that occurred during your own time added to the one that you met on the ground, makes the whole market become more of refuse than economic wares or commodities to sell. What we are saying is that anybody who comes into government in Nigeria today is meeting someone else’s homework, in addition to his own. So, anytime you are going to that office, you know that you are not just coming to do something new but you also have to solve the arrears, it’s like when you take over a company and they’re owing the workers two years’ arrears in salary. You are the management now and you cannot be telling them that you were not there when they weren’t being paid their salaries. When you were coming to take over the company, you knew that they had two years of arrears, imagine you now arguing with the workers saying ‘I wasn’t the one who owed you the money.
Many who are poor today are poor because when the government that was in place during the times of their grandparents failed to solve the poverty of their grandparents, their parents inherited that poverty and they inherited that poverty too, it becomes generational and you are the government of today, you must now try to solve the problems. That is why you should have a sense of urgency, and that is why the lack of a sense of urgency is a sign to me that the person who took over this job is not aware or doesn’t care, because if he is aware, he will know that he has to triple his level of work and be serious in every department. After all, problems abound, and the problems are increasing exponentially.
Are you saying that the old problems should be addressed first before thinking of new policies?
They are all piling in the same space. If you want to clear refuse, you don’t say you’re going to clear it according to the date of accumulation, you just clear everything that is in front of you. It means that your contemporary elsewhere who is only cleaning the dirt that has accumulated today is going to have an easier life than you who has to go and pack all the specks of dirt that have accumulated over the years. The difference is that you will need to work harder than the next person and when you go there, it is not a job where you will just go on a fashion parade, you just have to mark every corner.
It is like being a coach or captain of a football team that is four goals down, the moment you get on the field you wouldn’t have the same attitude as someone who is starting a fresh match at 0-0. You know that the first four goals that you score will only take you to 4-4 and if you are lamenting over the goals that you inherited, which is the 4-0, you won’t get anything done.
Many Nigerians believe that government policies on subsidy, and dollar floating added to the problems on ground.
I will not quarrel with him on those policies because when we were contesting, he said those were the policies he would implement. I said they were not good because they would make the people suffer, they would not necessarily give the benefits, and the problems you want to solve could otherwise be solved. But you saw how the votes went. So, having voted for the policies that you brought, that chapter is closed now. The way to now look at it is to see that there are certain omissions that he is making that are making it incomplete.
The government can make it easier but it’s quite a lot of hard work. They need to watch every metric. If they are not watching the metrics and manning every corner, it would be difficult to rein in the problem. Government is hard work and that is why all over the world, people who are in government do not wear big agbada because they can’t carry it as they have a heavy load on their heads and they age fast. They don’t have time for frivolities; they work all the time while looking for the best talents everywhere. They are always looking to get anybody who has something to offer because they want to succeed. But in Nigeria, the government is still seen as a privilege, status, reward, accommodation and a means to get benefits. So they don’t have enough people who can help them manage the position and solve the problems, but what they are eating there or hoping to eat there is making them territorial.
Recently there have been a lot of kidnappings and killings in the country, but APC said the agitation against insecurity has been politicised by the opposition. What will you say about this?
What I know is that people ought not to be kidnapped and if people are kidnapped, it is an anomaly. There is no politics involved in that, if the people are being kidnapped, the government is responsible because the government is in charge of preventing and apprehending. There is no insurance I can take against kidnapping. The government has no context, the government has a monopoly on violence, and the government is the only one that can issue three guns and give them to one person. If you see a policeman with five guns in his hands, you cannot ask him why he is carrying it because he works for the government, but if you see me with a big knife, you will say Prince, what are you doing with this knife?
There is no increase in the number of criminals in Nigeria and there is no increase in criminality, but what is happening is that there is a decrease in governance. The criminals are always there, but it’s just like in West Africa, you will always have malaria in your blood but if your immune system drops, the malaria will show. So, there are always criminals around, they can be going about their normal duties behaving like they are good people, if there is law enforcement, but once there is no law enforcement or the law enforcement level drops, they will show criminality. A taxi driver may be a criminal, but if he knows that if he does anything against the law, he will be caught, he will be doing his taxi driving and managing like that and dreaming of criminality in his head, but immediately he knows that he passed 17 checkpoints, and they are only asking him for N200 without checking anything, then he will start to imagine ‘even if I put somebody in my boot, they will not even know, so maybe I should try.’ Once he gets away with one, he will tell his colleagues ‘Look, I’ve made a fortune from this, I’ve made two years of taxi driving income in one day, so let’s do more.’
It is the job of the government to prevent all of these things. And don’t say ‘Oh, why me?” Why did you ask for the job? And it’s never too late, there is no shame in saying ‘You know what, I didn’t know this job is this bad, I’m out.’
Every Nigerian has a responsibility to assist President Tinubu to succeed, but the first way to start is by telling him the truth that things aren’t working and you are underperforming given your capacity. I know it’s not 30 years ago when you (President Tinubu) were in Lagos, but you worked harder in Lagos than you are working now. I know age has added to it, but coming with age is also coming with experience. Whatever you lose in the vitality of youth, you gain in experience, so you should be more experienced. He should pay more attention.
A president is as strong as the presidency. It is the people he has to hire to execute his presidency for him. I think that we owe that duty.
We should remind the government all the time. We shouldn’t wait for them to fail and then we start using that to campaign. My duty to the president is to make sure that if I see anything wrong, I will let him know, irrespective of if he is happy or not with the hope that he will get somebody on his team to go and pay attention to those things.
Also, to Nigerians, there is no mystery in government, when you are going to vote and decide who to vote for, you are talking about yourself whether you are voting for your safety or not, you are voting for your welfare or not. It’s not a chieftaincy or an ordinary position, where you will say “Oh I will give it to you”, you are saying “Who is going to lay me in bed? Who is going to watch over me when I’m sleeping? When my precious children are travelling on the road, who is going to ensure their security?
My unborn grandchildren, who is going to look after them?” These are the choices that we make on Election Day.
Of course, there is an element of competition but when it comes to the general welfare of Nigeria, and the economy of Nigeria, the evidence is clear and all of us are in the same economic situation. So, I think it is important for Nigerians to realise that we need to hold the feet of the government to fire and not get distracted by people accusing us of being an opposition or anything. If what you are saying is true, fair, accurate, and is said respectfully, without malice or mischief, you are doing a national service.
