Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Buhari, Femi
Adesina, was a guest on Radio Continental programme last week Friday
March 4th where he spoke on the recent power drop, fuel scarcity and the
dwindling hope of Nigerians in this administration.
In the interview, Femi asked Nigerians to be patient with Buhari as he
promised them change and that the change will not be magical. Read
excerpts after the cut...
Q:
Fulani herdsmen have on several occasions been accused of ransacking
places they pass through while they are herding their cattle. Nigerians
are wondering and asking why there seems to be a very loud silence on
the part of the federal government on the matter?
A: If anybody
says there is a loud silence, it means that person has not been
listening. At times, it is so very easy to say there has been silence,
when that is not the case, because on this issue, last week in a major
interview the President spoke on it. It was relayed on NTA for about two
days running. He spoke on the Fulani herdsmen issue and a statement
also came out from our office on the matter. So, if anybody says the
President is silent or has been silent on the issue, it baffles me. The
President spoke in an interview that was relayed on NTA and TVC, and he
said it is a perennial problem, and something would be done about it. He
talked about cattle grazing route, and he said between the federal
government and the state governors, this matter would be looked at and
tackled decisively. I also remember that Chief Audu Ogbe, the Agric
Minister, has also indicated that quite soon, problem of herdsmen and
farmers would be over in the country because they would do something
about getting feed from Brazil for cattle rearers.
Q: How does
the government intend to reach these herdsmen because they are not all
in a place at the same time; the President has spoken as you said, but
how do you get this information to filter across herdsmen so that they
are aware?
A: That is the reason the President said it is going to
be between the federal government and the state governors. The state
governors are closer to these herdsmen, through the state and local
governments, there is a way they would be reached. They are not spirits,
they are humans and they operate in environments where people can reach
them, and the President has said between the federal and the state
governments, something can be done. In the past, there were grazing
routes in the country, it is either we return to that, or there would be
something else, but I know the issue would be dealt with.
Q:
Nigerians are not happy about some things that we seem not to have
gotten right. One of it is the issue of power supply. Service has
deteriorated, yet people are made to cough out large sums of money
monthly as tariffs. What is government policy direction to ensure
constant and uninterrupted power supply? We seem to be hovering around
on this issue of 2,000 megawatt, sometimes 3,000, sometimes it comes
down to 1,000. We cannot over emphasize on the benefits of having
constant supply. Is there any intention to review the contracts that the
previous government entered?
A: On the issue of power, it seems
Nigerians are their own problems. You can recall about four weeks ago,
the power ministry came out to say that the megawatts we had was 5070,
which is an all-time high in 16 years. A few days after, some people
blew installations in Bayelsa, we lost about 1600 megawatts immediately.
After that, installation was blown in Delta and we lost another 1,000
megawatts. What would the government do in that kind of circumstance? If
the people who should be provided power are the ones sabotaging
installations, they can’t turn round to say government is not providing
power. Nigerians need to determine what they want. If South Africa has
about 50,000 megawatts, it is because their own people are not
sabotaging their installations, they are not going to blow up the lines.
If Nigerians continue to blow up and sabotage, then they can’t come
around to say that there is no power.
Q: Are you saying that
government is helpless in terms of protecting this vital infrastructure,
with the security agencies we have? Are we saying that we are helpless,
so if they keep on blowing the pipelines, we can’t do anything about
it?
A: Government is not helpless, and government should never be
helpless. A government that is worth its’ salt should never be
helpless, but there are so many things that the government can deploy
attention to, and when the attention is focused on securing installation
instead of what we can call other weightier matters of the law. It is
just a waste of time. We are wasting our time as a country, because
other countries don’t have that distraction, they don’t have to deploy
troops to monitor installations, because nobody would sabotage
installations since he knows the thing is for his own good. I think, in
this country we need to get to a point where we should realize that when
we do certain things, we are hurting ourselves and not the government.
Q: Now that we know the issue is there, what do we do to eliminate sabotage?
A: Government will do what it should do, but short of lining up
soldiers from Lagos to everywhere, in fact it can’t stop. We Yorubas
have a saying that you are never as smart as the person watching you,
because he would find a time when you are distracted, when you are not
alert and strike. That is what is happening. No matter the security that
you put round these installations that cover several hundreds or
thousands of kilometers, how do you monitor them and those who want to
sabotage would not find a place where they can attack?
Q: Shouldn’t the government have a counter plan to make sure that these people do not have their way?
A: The government is not omnipotent or omniscient. The government
cannot be everywhere at every time. That is the reason the onus is on
Nigeria to see these installations as their own. When you blow up
installations, who are you hurting? You are hurting the people and the
society. That is what we should realize. Last week in Qatar, the
president said vandalism is a disincentive to foreign investment,
because potential investors hear and read all these things, that
installations are sabotaged in Nigeria. So if investors refuse to come
because of that, who gets hurt? It is not the government, it is the
people. I think we need a lot more patriotism in that aspect.
Q: Is there no other source of getting power?
A: Don't forget that when the power ministry announced that we had 5070
megawatts recently, it also said that by December, another 2,000
megawatts would be added to it; giving us 7,070 megawatts. That brings a
lot of hope, but that hope is dampened, when few days after, they begin
to blow up installations, and you lose 3000 megawatts. Talking of
alternative sources, a lot is in process. Because every country the
president has visited, power has been an issue, and I know that a number
of people have come up with alternatives, what they can do to help
Nigeria, and talks are on-going. Very soon, I believe that those talks
would yield results.
Q: What is the panacea to end recurring fuel queues, especially with the issue of building new refineries?
A: Let me try to put in perspective the fuel supply situation in the
country. What caused the latest round of queues is that there is a
breach in supply, which came from two ends. One, from the importation
end and two, from the distribution end in the country. We have NNPC
bringing in 70 per cent of fuel used in the country and the other 30 per
cent is supposed to be provided by independent marketers. The
independent marketers are not really doing much because of the
differential in dollar rate currently. Before they can import, they
expect government to do something in terms of dollar differential; but
government is limited because we are not earning much dollar. The only
way Nigerian government gets dollar is through sale of crude oil, and we
know that price has gone continuously down, that is what caused the
breach in supply, because everything is imported. We are not refining
much most times; and added to that is the fact that Europe is in winter.
During winter, you cannot predict importation as in other seasons of
the year, because there are some parts of the world where the seas are
virtually frozen and ships can’t sail. A ship that you could predict
would arrive after 30 days during summer, would arrive at 40-45 days
because of the vagaries of the weather. This is another thing that
affected importation into the country. There is this third issue, which
is very important because it links to what we have said earlier. All
these ships that bring in fuel are insured internationally, and
international insurers are refusing to insure ships going to
Port-Harcourt and Warri because of the aggressiveness in the area. They
follow all these things, all these pipelines that are vandalised and all
of that, they follow. Therefore, those ships land in Lagos, and then
you transport fuel by road to those areas. All these are complexities
about our country that need to be looked at. I have said that Nigerians
themselves must decide to address these complexities.
Q: What is government’s policy on new refineries?
A: You would recall that Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, who is NNPC GMD and minister
of state for petroleum, has said that our existing refineries are not
better than scraps, and that already has foreshadowed the fact that
there would be a new policy for refineries.
Q: What is your answer
on the issue of stipend of N5, 000 to the vulnerables or graduates
because there seems to be contradiction. Is government paying because it
is included in the budget?
Q: There are two things we need to
isolate. There is this notion that government was meant to pay N5,000
for unemployed graduates. That was the popular notion and that was what
the President corrected, that instead of paying N5,000 to unemployed
graduates, he would rather provide infrastructure, he would rather give
them enabling environment to be useful than giving out dole to them.
But there is one that is already captured in the budget, it is called
the conditional cash transfer, which is going to be given to the poorest
of the poor.
Q: Nigerians are complaining about many things. Is the government aware?
