PDP ticket: Atiku, Tambuwal, Saraki, others don’t scare me – Hayatu-Deen

Ahead of next year’s presidential election, an aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a former managing director and chief executive of FSB International Bank, Alhaji Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, in this interview with select journalists speaks on the nation’s security situation and boasts that he isn’t scared of the so-called big guys as he seeks to get the party’s ticket. ABDULRAHMAN ZAKARIYAU was there.

The spate of killing and kidnapping is at its peak in Nigeria, why do you think the insecurity persists?

Much of the globe is actually in flames as we speak. The kind of dastardly acts that we see is unprecedented in our history; that is number one as a background.

Number two; the problem of security did not begin today. It has a very deep history arising from the fact that for a very long period, for as long as I can remember, we saw it coming as far back as 40 years ago. This is because of the large size of the population of our people who are below the age of 30 or 25 who have been completely disenfranchised either in terms of getting an education or lack of jobs. This has been accumulating over time.

Number three; I think that the charter between the leaders and the followers, the social charter, has broken down and, therefore, several youths who have been pushed to the wall have decided to take the laws into their hands and as a result what they cannot achieve through the front door, they will use the back door to extract or extort out of the people and it has become a whole industry in itself over these years.

So, imagine a young man who actually cannot boast of having N20,000 in one month, suddenly getting an opportunity to make N10 million because he has been involved in kidnapping people for ransom and the more they do this, the more they get incentivised to even do more. The capacity of the law enforcement agencies and the Nigerian military to cope with the problems has been challenged again for a variety of reasons.

Number one; they are not able to understand and deal with this thing because it is an unconventional warfare where you have defined elements along defined borders. These people are all around, all over the terrain. And I think that since we de-mobilised after the civil war we have never re-built or increased the size of the military because we live in relatively peaceful times.

How do you think all these can be addressed so that Nigeria can be safe?

Extraordinary times require extraordinary solutions. We need to beef up the size of our military, re-train and re-arm them, and provide them with all the motivational tools that they need so that they can fight this battle successfully.

They should invest heavily in intelligence assets; all these things are very important and it will take time to develop these kinds of capabilities.

There is also a need for Nigerians to support the security agencies and the federal government in this battle; we need to give them a lot of encouragement. The executive branch of the government needs to do everything possible to give security agencies everything that they need to fight this.

What I would say is that this is a national emergency. And understanding and dealing with these issues are not exclusively preserved for those men and women of the armed forces or the police. The entire spectrum of our society needs to be brought into this.

So, to address this, I will declare a national emergency, bring in all the stakeholders ranging from youths, traditional rulers, the media, the academia, people who are specialised in national security issues, retired military brass, retired police brass, retired intelligence officers because these are not people working from the moon; they live amongst us.

So, it is important that in deliberating on these issues and crafting lasting solutions to bring all shades of opinion from all aspects of the society in dealing with these issues, to come up with a short-term plan, a medium-term plan and a long-term plan. All these I will do to ensure that Nigeria is safe for all.

As we approach the 2023 general elections, there are agitations on zoning within the PDP; what is your position on this?

First and foremost, this nation has approximately 210 million people. And the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is very clear as to who is eligible to vote and to be voted for.

The Constitution is clear and the electoral laws of the land are very clear, as amended recently, that anybody among these 210 million people who is eligible is free to vote for who they like and is free to contest for any office they want. We are governed hereby by the Constitution which regulates our conduct and our behaviour and the relationship between all the various tiers of the government.

Also, I am not aware that there was a referendum to whatever was put out there for the Nigerian public to vote on zoning. As far as I am concerned, zoning is a matter of convenience for certain leaders of any party to discuss and agree amongst themselves. It is not in the Constitution that everybody is bound by.

If I can recall, this started in 1998, going back to 1992, 1993 when Abiola won the election and that election was cancelled. There was a major commotion in this country and the country was in a grave crisis and, therefore, some wise people who considered it important to bring about peace and stability in the country decided among themselves, based on their wisdom, to say that to appease the South-western part of the country whose son was denied a mandate decided to say that the presidency would go to the South-west.

As far as I am concerned, the issues that face this country are real, deep, and profound. What is more important to me is that this person has what it takes in terms of his personality, his character; he is knowledgeable about the issues of this country, structural and operational issues. Is he aware of what is happening around this world and does he have the energy and imagination and the commitment to develop the country to the yearnings of the Nigerian people?

It should a person that can guarantee security so that when people travel they can feel safe and secure. And when they are on the highways they feel it is a journey that is worthwhile and they can reach their destinations safely. Also that their kids as much as possible are going to have a very high quality of education and that when a child or a woman or an old person is ill they get catered for. That you can have social safety nets in terms of pension for people who have worked their lives out and that they can live a life of retirement in contentment. These are what matter to me.

That we have a country that is respected within the sub-region, the region and around the world; that we can create a globally competitive economy.

I am afraid the media makes so much out of zoning debate and they churn out a lot of this commotion and those issues that affect us daily and this has put us in that deep hole. I have seen a lot of people who are from my zone and my tribe that have not done any better for me. Sometimes you find somebody who is from another place even doing better for you. It is not a yardstick that you are either Igbo or Yoruba or Hausa or Ibibio, whatever you are, that it is guaranteed that because you are electing your tribesman things will be better. If you are not careful you will be thrown into a pit.

So, I feel that very informed and enlightened people like you should step up to the place and raised those far more important and strategic issues by x-raying the kind of candidates that are standing for elections instead of promoting the agitation for zoning.

What motivates you to join the presidential race?

My motivations are very clear; I did not go into the race lightly; I have taught about it very carefully, I am different because I have a very unique resume.

Considering the likes of Atiku, Tamuwal, Saraki and other aspirants in the race for the PDP ticket, what makes you think you stand a chance?

Let me tell you what my chances are; I did not go into this thing just like that. I thought about it very carefully; I am different; I am going in there because I think I have a very unique resume.

I am not your classic politician. Like I said earlier I bring a very unique resume. I am a technocrat; all my life I have gotten things done. So, I operated in the corporate sector, in the major institutions at the level of chief executive officer and I understand a few issues.

I understand why certain nations succeed and why others fail. I also understand what it takes for nations and states to become great success stories. I understand institutions and change management and I have been a turnaround manager of institutions that were basket cases. I was given the responsibility to turn them around and make them extremely successful. Even though organisations are all the same, you just need to adapt.

Nigeria is currently in a serious and grievous trouble and what it requires is to re-build all of our institutions from the ground up. I can do that. I know what it takes to build teams around you – a first class team of people who can deliver on the mandate that the Nigerian people bestow upon us.

I have character, I have integrity, and I have the plight of the teeming masses of our people flowing through my veins. I am an economist by training and most of the issues that we are facing today across a variety of parameters, fundamentally if you assess them, are at the root of them is an economic problem. So, as an economist who understands both theoretical and applied economics, and having had the experience of dealing with a wide variety of issues around this subject, I think I have a good understanding of what we need to do in order to fix this country.

But besides that, I have also been going in and out of the government, not as a government employee, but I have been a presidential adviser to three presidents.

I was the chairman of the committee on the economy during President Muhammadu Buhari’s transition and we put together a useful transition report for him on finance and the economy. I was chairman, technical committee on privatisation under the late President Umaru Musa Yar’aAua. I was on the national honours award committee and so on. I was the chairman of the Nigerian economic summit group which is Nigeria’s foremost economic think-tank.

So, I think with this kind of resume, I can challenge former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; immediate past President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki; the Sokoto state governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, and other presidential aspirants for the PDP ticket. So, I welcome the challenge with determination and hope.

Recently, you and other aspirants met on how to produce a consensus PDP presidential candidate; what was the outcome of the meeting?

Yes, it is true that five of us met a few days ago. Quietly, we have been discussing among ourselves, but we decided to form this group.

First and foremost, our concerns bother more on the future of the country and the common threats that we regard as points of unity for the country in order to bring Nigerians together. The second major issue is that as we move towards the elections, how can we ensure that we have an election that is free and fair?

The third thing is that we should try to remove any differences amongst ourselves, while individuals are to go about in pursuit of our respective agendas, but we should conduct this with honour and decency.

Also, it behoves on us, given the current crisis of insecurity we are facing, not to compound the problem, but to rise and deal with this in the manner that we can have a successful election.

You talk about consensus, yes, the field is very large, but we will allow natural forces to play out themselves rather than deciding on any particular prescriptive formula, so to speak.

If there are jobs for the millions of hardworking Nigerian youth these problems will not exist and the economy will be better; what are your plans concerning this?

The plight of the youth who constitute about 83 million Nigerians today are within that youth border of 30 and below and the numbers are actually growing and growing very rapidly simply because the rate of population growth is a lot higher than the rate of our economic growth. So, it is climbing at an accelerated rate and these people in that age bracket are expanding.

What am I going to do about it? The way to handle it in my view is to reconstruct the foundation of the economy. This can be done by creating massive public works programmes in this country in order to create a pipeline for the employment of the youth.

I will also give a lot of room to the private sector across various industries. I will provide them with incentives so that in the respective sectors and clusters we are able to build a critical mass and generate very high levels of output to a point where over a period of four years, we should actually move from about 3.5% annual rate of economic growth to about 9 to 10%.

So, it is my view that once you are able to build economic growth roads to where they are, you will be able to absolve a lot of youth to have meaningful lives to become very active social and economic agents.