By Gift Olivia Samuel, The Sight News
With just about five months until Nigeria’s 2023 general election, Political Parties and their Presidential Candidates are getting ready to test their popularity in the polls, where over 96 million Nigerians are expected to vote, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Nigeria, which is the giant of Africa, is currently bedeviled by several issues ranging from crime and terrorism to corruption, unemployment, poor human capital development, inconsistent economic policies and many others, and to tackle these numerous challenges, all the Presidential candidates are preaching the message of hope to Nigerians.
One of the candidates in the race is the Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, who in this interview, clearly stated that there will be no corrupt person in his government.
Prince Adebayo, who noted that there is nothing corrupt about Nigeria except its government, said the government’s duty is to fight corruption inside the government and his government, will be free from corrupt officials.
He further disclosed that his government will also tackle insecurity, poverty and improve the civil service to perform optimally.
>>>See excerpts below>>>
Why have you chosen to run for the office of the President of Nigeria?
What I am doing is my citizens’ duty. I have located a vacuum in leadership and I have realized that Nigeria has a lot of leadership materials. Nigeria is like a square hole that needs to be filled and you have 20 round pegs and 20,000 square pegs, and no matter how you try, the 20 round pegs will always come back and none of the 20,000 square pegs will make it inside that hole and that’s what we are trying to do away with.
The unity we are looking for and couldn’t find, Boko Haram and Bandits have found it for us as they take anybody—both the rich and poor. In terms of this, people will now come to the conclusion that maybe we should just take a collectivist approach to these issues and realize that anyone of us who has a solution should be assisted to take the role of leadership so that we can solve our problems. So, that’s basically what we are doing.
What’s the burning desire that informed your decision to run for President?
If you ask anybody that wants to take over from this government to raise their hands, I will be the first to raise my hand. If you put in a good government, it will be full of stars. Half of the problem of this government is the government itself. Merely taking them out of the government, 50 per cent of the problem will be solved because they are infighting, self-sabotaging and grabbing money left, right and centre, and working against one another.
Secondly, the major problems that Nigerians are facing, if you notice over time, Nigerians have lowered their standards from —trying to be Giants of Africa, have the best job and live in the best houses to— just wanting to feed and stay alive. Under our leadership, we should be able to solve that problem easily.
In Nigeria, we can defeat Boko Haram any time. A government that says I want to defeat Boko Haram now, they will do it, but they see it as an opportunity to make money. If the Police want to defeat kidnappers and bandits, they will do it. So, I think we can do that.
When it comes to the area of poverty, taking somebody out of poverty is one of the easiest things to do in a country like this. If you take 20 random boys and 20 random girls from the unemployment market and register them for tailoring, give them three years, they won’t be poor again. Pick a child from an orphanage and you will see how quickly poverty can disappear. Poverty is not structural in Nigeria, no! It is a program of the government that they need the people to be poor. It is not a mistake, it is a program. Government has taken all the land and you cannot farm and get a house without government permission. We can kick poverty out in the life of one administration.
Nature and everything wants you to succeed in Nigeria but we need a government that is willing. I look forward to the opportunity to do the work, I am angling for it.
How do you intend to tackle corruption as Nigeria’s President?
I have started tackling corruption now even before I come in, by saving my campaign from corruption because, if you start taking money of these big men, and they start to dictate who will be the Director General of your campaign, and they allow you to come and use their media houses to promote their interest, then they carry you to London to go and hold meetings with strange people and all that, so, from that moment you are beginning to lose control of your campaign.
Buhari lost charge of his government because he was not even in charge of his own campaign.
Secondly, you won’t be so stuck with the names of people and start shouting that you belong to nobody and you belong to everybody because you have become confused as to how to satisfy them. You won’t get stuck if you can’t form government because the factions that supported you are fighting for the juiciest positions that you couldn’t form government for a long time. By the time you form a government, you want to make sure that thieves don’t come inside your government.
The duty of the government, contrary to what Nigerians say, is not to fight corruption in the country, that’s the duty of the police; the government’s duty is to fight corruption inside the government. If there is a corrupt person on your street, that’s not my business; you can report him to the police but inside my government, there will be no corrupt person
When there is no corrupt person inside my government, I want to see how we are going to survive from corruption from outside. If you want to defraud the Central Bank there is no corruption there, how will it get there? If you want to do corruption in the military, there is no corrupt person in my security apparatus. So, it is the corruption inside the government that the government should face and not corruption in the country.
There is nothing corrupt about Nigeria, except that we are having a corrupt government.
Doesn’t corruption in the government spill out into the country?
It spills out, but if you want to solve it, you must go inside the government to solve it. It is a slap on the face of commonsense for a Corrupt Inspector General of Police to tell people ‘Don’t be corrupt’, when the Policeman on the street knows that my IG has eaten my allowance,the lunch money that was supposed to be given to me for standing on the road, I don’t have it, that’s why I am begging for money on the streets and the man is now telling me not to collect bribe when he is building five houses and four hotels.
So, a government that is fighting corruption will not mention the word ‘corruption’ throughout. You will just see that a minister is asked to resign because N50,000 is missing from the Ministry, that’s how you fight corruption.
Simple things, the Minister goes on a mission, spends four days and claims he spends five days and collects estacode for an extra day, he loses his job. Simple things like that. Everyday we publish the list of people who come to the Villa and what they came to discuss, we will issue the list to the State House Correspondents with a summary.
I have told my Vice President that before we go for election, we will declare our assets and not wait to win before declaring. When you are fighting corruption, you have to point the gun to your own head and not the head of another person.
Governments have given promises and failed to keep them, are you going to be different from them?
I’m different because I don’t give promises.
Isn’t it wrong not to give promises?
No! I give plans and not promise, I am not God. Somebody can say I’ll build houses for everybody, that’s a promise. The politicians have gotten relaxed over time and the media have gotten lazy over time that when you give promises, they don’t ask you what the cost implication is and where will the money come from? If I say I’m going to do this and that, they are things for which I have positioned money and I can see the money where it is, there is nothing difficult there. A government is not run on promises, ordinary empty talk which may or may not come to pass, but on plans and those plans can be fulfilled when money has been laid down for it.
Usually, you should exceed your plan because a good person plans conservatively and then you can exceed the plan. There is nothing magical about that, it is because they don’t know how to plan and so, they just say things and forget about it.
How will you tackle the issue of insecurity?
We need effective policing and justice to maintain law and order and all the issues of security are put under law and order. Justice is the easiest thing to do in government. Having a just society doesn’t cost much. Then, the police will become the friend of the people in six months, it doesn’t cost extra money. So, you will know in our administration that things are turning in the country, where people in the community will soon go to the Police station to hold their meetings and be comfortable with that, and the Policeman is not really interested in what he is going to get from members of the public.
Any government that cannot stop Policemen from collecting N20 is not a government because the Police is the representative of the government and if a government is helpless and corrupt then there is no government there. Based on the behavior of the Policemen, you will know whether there is a government or not.
It is not difficult to solve the problem of security but the people in the country both good and bad must be aware that a new government has been set up. We have enough soldiers to chase Boko Haram out of both Nigeria and as far as West and Central Africa. Nigerian Police and security services have enough expertise to stop the kidnapping of human beings, so that’s not hard. It’s just that everybody is making money from criminality and they are accepting that criminality as normal.
What will you do to improve the Civil Service?
What we will do is to expand the public service by creating value so that they can work. We need to do proper administration. You make a profit center out of every public servant. So, if you are a revenue collecting agency, if you are in Customs, Police, wherever you are, we will know what we are gaining from your service.
Government gains when talents work in the government. The way this government is treating the civil servants and looking at them as a burden, they are not a burden, their service is important. Civil servants can actually be useful and in our time, we will make sure we put in more people. If you have a proper government, civil service is important.
Do you have confidence in INEC and the Electoral Law?
I have confidence in them. Of course, there are still areas of concern but I have confidence in them that if they want it to work, it will work. I want it to work, INEC wants it to work but I hope the Police want it to work and I also hope that these Parties who are afraid of losing elections will make it work. I also hope the media will make it work by highlighting unfair advantages and risks. We are further equipped to make it work.
What are you doing to sensitize Nigerians on the need to collect their PVCs?
For us, Charity begins at home and we have started talking to our own Party members. We are a very lawful Party and we don’t want to be accused of campaigning ahead of time, that is why we are not doing all these 10 million-man marches. We will try our best and see that we make efforts.
