Exclusive Interview: I'm Not Opposed To Muslim- Muslim Ticket--Buhari
TheCable: Why should Nigerians prefer you to any other
candidate in the presidential race?
Buhari: We need to stabilise the system. And the beauty of
democracy is competition. I honestly welcome the
competition. I have tried to be elected president three times
and I failed three times, and I ended up in the Supreme
Court three times. I try to explain to those who are
interested why I have been ending up in the Supreme Court.
Not because I was hoping that the court would change the
decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) announcing that it was the PDP that won, but I wanted
to get it on the record that when we are trying to stabilise
this system, these are part of the difficulties. We provided
evidences at the tribunals. There are people who try really
to see that the system stabilises, to make sure it reaches
credible and international standards. That is a role I have
been trying to play all along.
TheCable: So what qualities stand you out from other
candidates?
Buhari: That is an unfair question. I would not like to blow
my own trumpet. But I think Nigerians are the judges. The
only thing I would say is that I have been a governor. To
begin with my career as a military man, from lieutenant
colonel, that is one pip, in charge of 36 people, to a general
commanding a division… I am proud to say that I am the
only officer in the Nigeria army that commanded three out
of the four divisions then in the Nigeria army: the second
division in Ibadan, the third armoured division in Jos and
the fourth division in Lagos, which was moved to Enugu and
renamed 82 division. I commanded three divisions out of
the four. And then I became command-in-chief, as short as it
was, for 20 months. And politically, I was governor of the
northeast, which is now six states, comprising Yobe, Borno,
Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba. From there, when
Gen. Murtala Muhammed was assassinated [in 1976], and
there were additional states in the country and I was moved
to Lagos, I was sworn in as member of the Supreme Military
Council under Obasanjo’s government and then made
federal commissioner of petroleum and chairman of the
Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). And from
there I went to the War College in the US, came back and
became head of state. And I ended up in jail for three and a
quarter years (general laughter). After that, I went home and
I decided to join partisan politics in April 2002. So anything a
Nigerian politician wants to be, I have been, although in
khaki. So I have been attempting since 2003 to go back in
civil dress and play partisan politics.
TheCable: A lot of people are saying the problems of
Nigeria are so many now, more than what you met in
1983 as military head of state. If you were elected
president, what would you do differently from President
Jonathan on power supply, for instance? How can we
tackle this problem?
Buhari: It cannot be done overnight. The hearings conducted
by the National Assembly on NEPA or Power Holding
Company of Nigeria, of blessed memory, pension fund and
petroleum industry show the extreme mismanagement of
what Nigeria stands for… because if you remove petroleum
industry, if you remove the organisation of pension funds
and power, Nigeria will collapse. I refer you to my
declaration that in 1999 when the PDP came, power
generation was hovering between 3,000 and 4,000
megawatts. It is now hovering between that number again
after $20 billion had been spent. This is what the hearings
exposed. And nobody has been punished. What happened
to the $20 billion? What happened to pension funds? What
happened to another $20 billion exposed by a former
governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria [Lamido Sanusi]? All
these things the PDP governments between 1999 and now
have not been able to explain to Nigerians. And the
remarkable thing about Nigeria is that: because having been
a minister, governor and head of state, you do not go to any
parastatal or any ministry without meeting financial
instructions and administrative instructions, but Nigerians
have the audacity at each level to cast that away and keep
doing what they like. And no one is being punished.
TheCable: Would you like to dig up the report before we
move forward?
Buhari: If you try to do that, the state will immediately
collapse because a lot of the institutions have been
compromised. With whom are you going to work? My own
belief now is that you just have to draw a line and move
forward. But since cases are in the court no matter what,
you have to allow the judiciary to do its job. We can hurry
them up a bit, but we must allow the judiciary because it is
not a profession you can take over their duties. It is the third
arm of government. We can come as the military as we did
and remove some parts of the constitution, but most of the
constitution have to remain and again it is the judiciary that
will have to interpret what remains. But in a democratic
setting, you cannot do what the National Assembly and the
Judiciary are empowered by law to do. It is impossible. And
look again, when our soldiers started giving interviews to the
foreign press that they were being sent to the war front
[against Boko Haram] with obsolete weapons, the National
Assembly attempted to call the service chiefs and show them
the budgets they have been approving over the years for
arms and ammunition and for military hardware and
software. Where is the money? Have you heard of the
hearing again?
TheCable: What do you think they are doing wrong in
the power sector?
Buhari: If you could recall, after 1983 elections, NEPA
virtually collapsed. But when we came in 1984-1985, we had
the late Lukman, an engineer. He was in Plateau when I was
working as GOC 2 Armoured Division. I got to know him. He
was an extremely truly hardworking engineer of great
integrity. I put him in charge of NEPA. If you could recall, I
did the tour of NEPA installations and some industries. And
we ordered some spare parts mostly of the thermal station
and we were using the military C130 aircraft to bring spare
parts. By the time we were removed in August 1985,
blackout in Lagos had been forgotten because the thermal
station had been made functional. Lagos was the home of
industries. Industries were given priority because of
employment. If you close the factories, as they have done
now, there will be no goods and services. Power is the most
important thing for our sustained development. But
unfortunately, the PDP government has failed to understand
or accept that. Hence money, billions of dollars, goes down
the drain. If from 1999 till now, in my own perception,
Kainji, Jebba, Shiroro had been repaired and brought to
optimal usage, and we do the thermal stations… it is a
question of changing spare parts because the gas is there.
The studies of Nigerian petroleum, the studies of 1970s
when I became minister of petroleum, showed that Nigeria
was a petroleum country in name; mostly it is a gas country.
In the east of the Niger, the gas reserve there was fantastic.
That was why LNG project was initiated. You cannot initiate
LNG except you have a 30-year reserve to back you up. But
this means nothing to the PDP government. It is not a
priority. That’s why we find ourselves where we are.
candidate in the presidential race?
Buhari: We need to stabilise the system. And the beauty of
democracy is competition. I honestly welcome the
competition. I have tried to be elected president three times
and I failed three times, and I ended up in the Supreme
Court three times. I try to explain to those who are
interested why I have been ending up in the Supreme Court.
Not because I was hoping that the court would change the
decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) announcing that it was the PDP that won, but I wanted
to get it on the record that when we are trying to stabilise
this system, these are part of the difficulties. We provided
evidences at the tribunals. There are people who try really
to see that the system stabilises, to make sure it reaches
credible and international standards. That is a role I have
been trying to play all along.
TheCable: So what qualities stand you out from other
candidates?
Buhari: That is an unfair question. I would not like to blow
my own trumpet. But I think Nigerians are the judges. The
only thing I would say is that I have been a governor. To
begin with my career as a military man, from lieutenant
colonel, that is one pip, in charge of 36 people, to a general
commanding a division… I am proud to say that I am the
only officer in the Nigeria army that commanded three out
of the four divisions then in the Nigeria army: the second
division in Ibadan, the third armoured division in Jos and
the fourth division in Lagos, which was moved to Enugu and
renamed 82 division. I commanded three divisions out of
the four. And then I became command-in-chief, as short as it
was, for 20 months. And politically, I was governor of the
northeast, which is now six states, comprising Yobe, Borno,
Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba. From there, when
Gen. Murtala Muhammed was assassinated [in 1976], and
there were additional states in the country and I was moved
to Lagos, I was sworn in as member of the Supreme Military
Council under Obasanjo’s government and then made
federal commissioner of petroleum and chairman of the
Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). And from
there I went to the War College in the US, came back and
became head of state. And I ended up in jail for three and a
quarter years (general laughter). After that, I went home and
I decided to join partisan politics in April 2002. So anything a
Nigerian politician wants to be, I have been, although in
khaki. So I have been attempting since 2003 to go back in
civil dress and play partisan politics.
TheCable: A lot of people are saying the problems of
Nigeria are so many now, more than what you met in
1983 as military head of state. If you were elected
president, what would you do differently from President
Jonathan on power supply, for instance? How can we
tackle this problem?
Buhari: It cannot be done overnight. The hearings conducted
by the National Assembly on NEPA or Power Holding
Company of Nigeria, of blessed memory, pension fund and
petroleum industry show the extreme mismanagement of
what Nigeria stands for… because if you remove petroleum
industry, if you remove the organisation of pension funds
and power, Nigeria will collapse. I refer you to my
declaration that in 1999 when the PDP came, power
generation was hovering between 3,000 and 4,000
megawatts. It is now hovering between that number again
after $20 billion had been spent. This is what the hearings
exposed. And nobody has been punished. What happened
to the $20 billion? What happened to pension funds? What
happened to another $20 billion exposed by a former
governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria [Lamido Sanusi]? All
these things the PDP governments between 1999 and now
have not been able to explain to Nigerians. And the
remarkable thing about Nigeria is that: because having been
a minister, governor and head of state, you do not go to any
parastatal or any ministry without meeting financial
instructions and administrative instructions, but Nigerians
have the audacity at each level to cast that away and keep
doing what they like. And no one is being punished.
TheCable: Would you like to dig up the report before we
move forward?
Buhari: If you try to do that, the state will immediately
collapse because a lot of the institutions have been
compromised. With whom are you going to work? My own
belief now is that you just have to draw a line and move
forward. But since cases are in the court no matter what,
you have to allow the judiciary to do its job. We can hurry
them up a bit, but we must allow the judiciary because it is
not a profession you can take over their duties. It is the third
arm of government. We can come as the military as we did
and remove some parts of the constitution, but most of the
constitution have to remain and again it is the judiciary that
will have to interpret what remains. But in a democratic
setting, you cannot do what the National Assembly and the
Judiciary are empowered by law to do. It is impossible. And
look again, when our soldiers started giving interviews to the
foreign press that they were being sent to the war front
[against Boko Haram] with obsolete weapons, the National
Assembly attempted to call the service chiefs and show them
the budgets they have been approving over the years for
arms and ammunition and for military hardware and
software. Where is the money? Have you heard of the
hearing again?
TheCable: What do you think they are doing wrong in
the power sector?
Buhari: If you could recall, after 1983 elections, NEPA
virtually collapsed. But when we came in 1984-1985, we had
the late Lukman, an engineer. He was in Plateau when I was
working as GOC 2 Armoured Division. I got to know him. He
was an extremely truly hardworking engineer of great
integrity. I put him in charge of NEPA. If you could recall, I
did the tour of NEPA installations and some industries. And
we ordered some spare parts mostly of the thermal station
and we were using the military C130 aircraft to bring spare
parts. By the time we were removed in August 1985,
blackout in Lagos had been forgotten because the thermal
station had been made functional. Lagos was the home of
industries. Industries were given priority because of
employment. If you close the factories, as they have done
now, there will be no goods and services. Power is the most
important thing for our sustained development. But
unfortunately, the PDP government has failed to understand
or accept that. Hence money, billions of dollars, goes down
the drain. If from 1999 till now, in my own perception,
Kainji, Jebba, Shiroro had been repaired and brought to
optimal usage, and we do the thermal stations… it is a
question of changing spare parts because the gas is there.
The studies of Nigerian petroleum, the studies of 1970s
when I became minister of petroleum, showed that Nigeria
was a petroleum country in name; mostly it is a gas country.
In the east of the Niger, the gas reserve there was fantastic.
That was why LNG project was initiated. You cannot initiate
LNG except you have a 30-year reserve to back you up. But
this means nothing to the PDP government. It is not a
priority. That’s why we find ourselves where we are.
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