Yabagi Yusuf Sani (YY Sani) is the national chairman of the Action Democratic Party (ADP); he’s also the party’s presidential candidate. In this interview with select journalists in Abuja, he speaks on a number of national issues including how he hopes to become the president of Nigeria come 2023. ADOYI M. ABA was there.
What is your major selling point in this contest?
My major selling point is the can do spirit. This is because we have an economy that is yearning for a champion; you don’t need to do much to change the fortune of Nigeria for the better because God has blessed us fabulously. You can start from the natural resources – agriculture, solid minerals, oil and gas, human capital, the size of the land, population and the fact that we don’t suffer many natural disasters like in other climes.
Nigeria is a ripe fruit waiting to be harvested. I have the knowledge. There is nothing as dangerous as giving power to someone who doesn’t have the knowledge. In our own context in Nigeria today, we need somebody who has the knowledge of how the most important sector of our economy operates. Whether we want to believe it or not, the oil and gas sector today plays a very dominant role in our international and domestic economies. How we play in the global economy, how we engage in our domestic economy, the oil and gas sector plays a dominant role. I am privileged to have the opportunity to work as a staff and as a consultant in that industry.
I have worked in areas that are the key segments of that sector. Perhaps, if Nigeria had had a leader that had the kind of knowledge that I have, we would not be where we are today at all. There is no reason we are where we are today because you can trace the issue of banditry, unemployment and the issue of restiveness and the issue of Nigeria as a leader regardless of how you look at it to poor leadership.
If you look at it from a political point, social point, and economic point, Nigeria is a leader because if you go by population, Nigeria is about the fifth largest country in the world and even by projection, people project that after China and India, Nigeria is going to be the third largest country. That is when you look at the fact that the next frontier in terms of economic development is Africa because today almost 40 per cent of natural resources globally are deposited here in Africa and when you talk about the African continent, of course, you are talking Nigeria. That is why I said if we had a leader that had the knowledge of what to do with that God-given sector of the economy we would not be where we are today. We are number six in the world, when you talk about those that are exploring crude oil and gas. In fact, we are number three when you look at gas in the world today.
There is an energy transition globally today because of efforts being made to go away from fossil fuel to other sources due to climate change. Nigeria occupies a choice of place because we are a gas country. This means that you don’t have to do too much as a leader of this country. People need you because you have what they are looking for. Even if you are looking for cheap labour which is what other countries are benefiting from, Nigeria has it in abundance. We have a young dynamic population that are intelligent and have the skills and when you look at the fourth industrial revolution, which is powered by ICT, you can see what Nigerians are doing in that sector. All that you need is a leader that can bring all these things together. I have mentioned energy transition, climate change and ICT. These are the narratives globally today and I have the knowledge of how to bring these things together.
What exactly is responsible for oil theft and how will your government arrest the situation?
Like I said, I have had the opportunity of being asked to do a study of how we can stop oil theft. I was asked to do a study on the metering infrastructure in the oil and gas industry; upstream, midstream, and downstream. When you talk about the metering infrastructure, you are talking about how you can control and monitor the sector because if I have meters that will tell you what you are producing per day, if I know what I am exporting, I will know how much should come into the coffers. I realised that this is a sector that is not metered the way it should be. But it deliberate, meaning that information coming from that sector is not reliable for anything. You can’t use it to project, you can’t use it to know anything about your country in terms of the value of what you are getting from the most important sector of your economy and you don’t have the knowledge that in the upstream you have the lion share in terms of the joint venture that we normally enter into with the international oil companies (IOCs) because you are least informed.
The IOCs have information in their systems; they have this online metering information in their systems. Their headquarters that is thousands of kilometres away are more informed than you in the most important sector of your economy. Traders, partners are the ones making policies for you. You can see how we turn things upside down. The pyramid has been turned on its head; that is why it is crumbling.
So, crude oil theft is happening because we are irresponsible and because we are corrupt and because we don’t like this country as Nigerians. And we have people that have taken advantage of the situation as operators in the industry. We are so irresponsible that we have not been able to, as a policy of the government, say okay we are going to measure production from the well heads to the terminals. We don’t even have a place where we measure production. What is happening crudely, deliberately and criminally is that when oil comes out of the well heads they are not metered, it is estimate that is being made, it is also not metered at the terminals. The only time it is metered is when it is going into the ship. So, oil theft is induced; it is embedded in our system of operation. This is because how do you know what you produce? So, if they tell you they have stolen 200 barrels in a day it is a lie because they don’t know, it is an estimate. I challenge any one of them to tell us that they know. They don’t know because they don’t have a way of knowing. Not only did I do the metering, I also participated in the audit not once, not twice.
You know, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) is not a Nigerian company per say. The agency is the collaboration between the European countries or the international community and countries that have extractive industries. The Europeans came together and said we can’t just allow developing countries that have minerals to continue in the way they are going because they are being short-changed. So, they came together and brought about NEITI and any country that wants to be a signatory can come and sign. Fortunately, for us, Obasanjo was there as the president, so he signed. That is how you have NEITI here. That is why they carry out studies every year, they investigate how much you produce, how much is in the federation account and how much has gone to the LGAs and what have they done with it. That is what NEITI is supposed to be. You know they do three audits – financial, physical and processes audits. The physical audit is supposed to tell you how much in terms of the volume you are producing. So, how do you know the volume if you don’t have meters; it is a guess work.
What is the solution?
The solution is very simple. I have told you here that those you are doing business with have meters with their own systems. They send information to their headquarters thousands of kilometres away. They laugh at you because they know that you don’t know what you are doing. This is to the extent that NNPC does not know what is happening at the terminals in the Niger Delta. This is to the extent that the financial regulatory agencies that are supervising the industry have no knowledge about what is happening. This is the situation we are in, in this internet age where if somebody is selling garri he has a way of knowing how much he has sold even if he is far away. But look at the nation, the headquarters here claim they don’t know what is happening. The Accountant General of the Federation does not have a way of monitoring what has been produced today and he is supposed to be the owner of the funds on behalf of the country. The Central Bank of Nigeria that is the banker of the country does not have a system to even monitor what has been exported. My administration from day one knows what to do to stop oil theft because I have the knowledge. I have put that knowledge at the disposal of the government, but they don’t want to talk about it.
You are both the national chairman and presidential candidate of Action Democratic Party (ADP) and still the chairman of the Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC). Why are you holding on to three positions at the national level?
Tell me, which of the three political parties today that is not in crises because you have the national chairman here and presidential candidate there. What has torn PDP apart? Tinubu has a lot of issues with his campaign council simply because the party chairman has his idea of what the campaign council should be which is different from the candidate’s idea. I can tell this because I am the chairman of IPAC, I know what other parties are going through. ADC has even sacked their presidential candidate because of problems between the national chairman and the presidential candidate. Look at the history, when Chief Obafemi Awolwo, Aminu Kano and Nnamdi Azikiwe formed political parties they were the national chairmen and presidential candidates of those parties. They knew that if you separate these powers, you will be in for crises. If you look at developed democracies like Britain, the Prime Minister is also the leader of the party. So, I have given you practical examples of what has happened, we are not asking other parties to do the same thing, we know what we are doing and it is working for us. If you want stability at the highest level of your party, don’t separate those two offices.
What is your stand on the issue of restructuring and state police?
There is nothing wrong with restructuring; it is the politicisation of restructuring that makes it look bad. Otherwise, when you look at our Constitution, it is a living document. We have what is called the legislative exclusive list and the concurrent list. So, the work of the National Assembly is to constantly examine these lists and say okay at the time these things were made the dynamics were different. Are there changes that we now recommend to be taken from the exclusive list to the concurrent list or from the concurrent list back to the exclusive list? That is their work. They don’t need to create this commotion that we have because it’s just for political reasons. The National Assembly has the mandate of the people to amend the Constitution in line with the yearnings of their constituencies. This is my attitude; I look at it from the constitutional point of view because we are a constitutional democracy.
Do you believe in state police?
I believe in state police and restructuring. We already have a living document on it. It’s already embedded in our Constitution. If as an executive I feel that what we have in any of these lists is not working for me, as a president I will come out and say change this one, take this one and put it there and then subject it to your scrutiny or debate and come up with what you think is the solution. If I am getting my way, I will issue an Executive Order in areas that I feel are stumbling blocks.
Again, what I want you to understand is that when they say governors are not in charge, functionally the commissioners of police in every state are responsible to the Inspector General, but administratively, they are responsible to the governors of their various states. In a situation where a governor wants to do something he can always call on the commissioner of police in his state. If the situation is beyond the CP he can refer the matter to the IGP.
