Alhaji Sadiq Ibrahim Masalla is the deputy national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). In a chat with MUHAMMAD TANKO SHITTU, the politician explains his positions on the Biafara agitation, saying Nigeria cannot afford another civil war, while also giving a pass mark to the Muhammadu Buhari administration
It has been six months now that the present administration is into leadership, what are your assessments of the trend of governance and politics so far?
The trend of governance and politics taking it from the layman’s point of view, one can say that there has been positive change that the general public have been envisaging, the change in the polity which we are witnessing and thanking God for that.
Coming from the opposition that is to say you and your party are satisfied with the level of governance by this administration?
Yes, so far but I will rather personally say that I am 100%, satisfied with how the government is going on now, but the most disturbing is the advent of a kind of disturbance that is trying to come, that is the Biafaran agitation. And I say the agitation is just a mirage because I did not look at it as a mere politicking, there is serious implication on the real actors, those actors do not know the far reaching implication of what they are doing.
The Igbo man has to accept being in opposition, the opposition which they find themselves is in advent, in the first instance they do not envisaged it but they found themselves into it , so they have to now realize that it is a fact and not looking for a kind of political asylum in the sense of running Biafara to agitate for whatever they want is wrong.
They also know that right from the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914, till date they are the sole beneficiaries of it, I said so because if you go any part of the country, one will come to discover that the Igbo man has the monopoly of the markets, the economic activities in any state of Nigeria is dominated by an Igbo man. If other Nigerians do not envy them and or developed hatred on them, then they should not start acting on negative way, it is counteractive, that will degenerate into very bad situation which we will not be happy with.
But sir, one of their points for agitation is that they are being marginalised and don’t you think that they are raising fundamental issue as citizens of Nigeria?
Looking at, if anybody says he is being marginalized in Nigeria he is just being selfish, the constitutional provision is that each state of the federation should bring at least one minister and that has been done, even they who did not voted for this government have benefited, they are having five Ministers occupying strategic ministries, what else do they want?
But what they are saying is that besides the compulsory ministerial positions, there were others that ought to be appointed into?
If we are to be sincere to ourselves, each region of the country have its own agitations and if one looked at all the appointments made so far by the government are done on merits.
The political elites of the Igbo, the South East governors have met and discarded the agitations; can we then say it about the Igbos in general?
To me if the Igbo leadership do not endorsed the agitation, from where are these guys sourcing their monies to that, that is to tell you that there are powerful people behind it. Radio Biafara cannot just go on the air is on the satellite and it takes millions.
These agitation of Biafara, have led to series of demonstrations, to the extent that even the military have made comments over it, do you then see it as threat to the peace of the country?
Yes, it a great threat to peace, of course it is even a kind of treasonable felony, so the government should not just look at it and treat the issues with kids gloves, it has far reaching implication and the action is the type which no responsible government would accept a government within a government.
So if some youths would be misled, the Government should find out who the brains behind it, it has to take very serious actions on this, our lackluster attitude in the last administration is what culminated into the Boko Haram that we are now facing, so we should affords to have another civil war in Nigeria.
Nigerians have voted for change and are now saying there are still long queues in the filling stations do you still see the government doing what it was voted for?
Nigerians have to be patience with the government. When we are talking about change, it means all of us must change our attitudes; it is all about collective attitudinal change. And we must accept the fact that we are changing from the negative to positive perspective, they should know that what we have today is not a kind of Father Christmas government, it is a very serious government that is accountable.
One issue of concern to this government is the insecurity situation in the North East, though inherited; do you think the government is getting it right?
There are some degrees of seriousness, genuine commitment and peace is gradually coming. But the truth of the matter is how did the insurgents gets all the arms at their disposal, it is a very serious issue if someone can even import armored vehicles and so on and so forth, where are our security agencies, this also has to be address to the later.
