Action Democratic Party (ADP), National Chairman, Engr. Sani Yagbayi, says the nation’s budget does not add any value to the economy and that major political players are responsible for the declining democratic system of government in the country. BODE OLAGOKE brings excerpts.
It’s almost 20 years since Nigeria returned to democracy, what’s your assessment?
Coming from the military background, the fact that the democratic governance is taking route, because elections are taking place, winners are being declared, governance are being formed, and so, for that reason, I will like to believe that so far, what one easily notices is the way the players – the key actors are going about it. It is like a case-dealing, to meaning cable, a matter of live and death.
The way we are going about it is what I think is unfortunate because a situation where the three tiers of government are not engaged, they are virtually at each other’s throat and who suffers? Nigerians suffer. For instance, look at the Nigeria’s budget. The budget should have been out of the National Assembly long time ago, economy should have been performing. Why I am hinging it on the budget is that, what matters to the people really is the economy.
The key players in the economy need the budget to plan. They have to be able to forecast that, Okay, government has these plans, okay, we can key into that plan, granting the fact that our economy is still the public sector-driven. And for that reason, it is difficult for investors and people who are already in the market to progress. So, it is unfortunate that the leaders have left the issue of governance and are more on the issue of governance, which does not put food on the table for the masses.
We thank God that we are able to hold on to democracy for twenty years as you said without any interruption. It is an achievement, yes, but the question you asked is that, how much it has impacted on the people in terms of democracy we are talking about? Since democracy came in, do we have more roads, more hospitals, more schools, has our GDP grown at pace that it should, giving our potentials, giving the fundamental of this economy?
If you look at the value of naira which is the measure or determinant of productivity up of the economy, if anything, it has gone down, and by the day, it is going down. So, democracy has not really brought much to the people in terms of economy. I am talking in terms of deliverables, in terms on the economic impacts on the people.
You can talk of freedom, that yes, you have freedom of choice, but even that freedom of choice, is also to a very large extent of being hijacked by rigging. So, more often than not, you don’t find the wishes of the people expressed, allowed to take routes really, what happens is different from what people want.
What do you think successive administrations ought to have done to impact positively on our democracy?
Basically, the issue of rigging, fraud, and delegate system in our clime have been major problems. Delegate system is a fraudulent system, it is a system of fraud, it is a system of denying people their rights of choice. You abridged the people’s franchise by going to delegate system.
Delegate system is not the choice of the people in all cases because the few that are collected, put in a hotel, they are so disorientated from the masses they are representing and so, even when they come to cast their votes, or appoint somebody or select the person, some of them do not even know the person they are voting for.
All the noise is the amount of money given to them. The question is not who can do it but how much is he bringing. It is a mercantile kind of a thing, which is unfortunate. So, that’s why I am saying, yes, we have been able to wriggle ourselves out of military administration but democracy is not yet there as it is supposed to be.
ADP is one of the youngest political parties in the country, how much contribution has your party made to grow this democracy?
We have changed the face of democracy in Nigeria since we came on board because before we came new parties were registered. Apart from the APC, and merger during Attahiru Jega’s time, I can’t remember the number of parties that were registered until we put a lot of pressure on INEC, they had to register us.
When we were registered, it was like a bank because then, the political space had to be re-arranged. We are the fastest growing party in Nigeria, if you like you can say in Africa because today we have offices all the states. We have our structures, and we are growing stronger by the day because of the charade happening in both the PDP and APC as regards congresses.
So, we believe that the coming of ADP has been a saving grace, something has saved democracy in this country because everybody can see that democracy was facing immediate collapse in this country. Nigerians have rejected the PDP because of the stealing and corruption that were endemic in that administration.
Today, Nigerians have become dejected with the APC because what was sold to them was damage. Buhari is not what they thought they were told. It was like they just put Buhari there and then brought another person’s profile.
ADP has been prominently associated with merger claims, is it merging with the PDP?
The true position is that, we are like the beautiful bride, all these big parties you hear, all of them are approaching us. All these pressure groups that brought themselves together are approaching us and talking to us. We will always sit down and discuss because you don’t reject invitation, it is what is in the invitation you can reject.
We believe that Nigeria needs a positive change in the way we do things and till we change, we can’t get different things out. Nigerians are yearning for something fresh, something new, they are looking for a new vehicle, and they are looking for a new driver, so that the passengers can now be taken to their destinations safely.
Are you saying your party will be available for any merger?
Yes, there is no way in today’s modern ways of doing things that we won’t consider coalition. There is no dominance anymore; it is always collaboration.
But we are not going to collaborate at the expense of our identity. That is the only thing that we stand for. That has to be there. Our identity has to be there.
In 2019 general elections, what should Nigerians be looking for?
Nigerians should be looking for a pleasant surprise. Since God has helped us to put this party together it is the party of the moment. And we know the kind of person Nigerians are looking for will come and will emerge from this party. The person that will excite Nigerians, that Nigerians will now say, Oh yes! They can have relief now, something meaningful can happen.
We are months into 2018, do you think Nigerians will feel the impact of this year’s budget?
There are fundamental things about our budgeting system and until we wake up to these responsibilities, the budget system will remain just a political budget. It is not adding value to the economy, it is not based on the impacts of the economy, it is a political budget. That’s why we have all these problems. Until we can have an economic budget, something that addresses your needs, really focuses on how to improve the economy, how to grow our GDP, things like that, that is time-bound.
What we have today is, National Assembly sitting somewhere, they will do it. Okay, we are going on recess, we will come back, this budget will be attended to, this and that.
We deliberately made our budget a political budget ourselves by saying that the government can spend up to the limit of last year, who approved it? When you approve budget last year, was it expressly stated that it should be extended to this year? No! It wasn’t! It was 2017 budget you approved, it wasn’t 2018 budget. Until we remove what we deliberately introduced, the budget will irrelevant.
