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00:01:04APC governors versus wiki to ob versus
00:01:07soludo 2027 political
00:01:10dramas at
00:01:16President Bola Ahmed Chinubu is in Paris for
00:01:19vacation and join dinner with
00:01:23President Immanuel Macron of France while
00:01:26back home in Nigeria the polity. is over
00:01:30eating, this past week, the fire came
00:01:34from three different
00:01:36of directions, all pointing to one
00:01:39thing, namely that
00:01:412027 has arrived, four months
00:01:45early, dear Nigerians, you can't
00:01:49of miss all of this stuff that is going on, 2027
00:01:54of has arrived four months early, let's start with the
00:01:57APC governor versus wiki, the... chicken comes
00:02:00home to roost, the APC
00:02:04governors, 31
00:02:05of them had a meeting in Abuja at this past
00:02:09week and declared what
00:02:12only can be called
00:02:15in a political war against one of President Bola
00:02:19of Ahmed Stinobu's most priced
00:02:22of asset in 2023 post, that is the FCT
00:02:25minister Yesum wiki, that's what it was, it
00:02:29was a... declaration of war openly,
00:02:33what was their grouss? it's about weekend
00:02:36so-called rainbow coalition by
00:02:40which is trying
00:02:41of to organize his own people and then for the
00:02:44president, and to be honest, the governors
00:02:48do have point, you can't deny
00:02:51that, because
00:02:54of in of a normal democracy, what you cannot do is to
00:02:58plant one
00:02:59of foot, inside the president's living room,
00:03:03his party,
00:03:05in enjoying and dispensing federal power, and
00:03:09plant the other foods in your own old
00:03:12party, faction of it, funding it and
00:03:16picking fights against APC governors
00:03:20of in their own
00:03:21of state, nobody will normally tororates
00:03:25that kind of shinanigan, but of course we have seen an
00:03:29indulgence. over the last two three years it is
00:03:32unprecedented, it is
00:03:34of absorbed and it is clearly
00:03:38unsustainable, if something like this
00:03:42persis as it has, you know that down the road something
00:03:45must give. now
00:03:48of who created this monster, this kind of a
00:03:53in in situation where you have a wick, having one leg in and one leg out, is the
00:03:57APC and the president, both
00:03:59of them, have tolerated this thing for too
00:04:02long, they watched, we can detron
00:04:07of a sitting governor Sinfubara
00:04:09of in River state, watch him install
00:04:12his own governatural candidate in both APC and
00:04:16PDP in the state, did
00:04:20nothing, or did we hear them make any public or
00:04:23briefing on tape just like they have done
00:04:26now, they did not, they kept quiet.
00:04:30so much so that today the governor of river state
00:04:34who is not getting
00:04:35of second time
00:04:36of since fubara is genuflecting for wik
00:04:38again ming before the man who imated
00:04:42in we are told in this reconciliation they
00:04:46made
00:04:46of up but
00:04:47of hey
00:04:48of this is a conquest
00:04:50Jesus Fubara of is a conquered political subject and we should
00:04:54not pretend about that yet
00:04:57fubara is in APC Fubara is now one
00:05:01of those 31 APC
00:05:04Jesus governors, so the real damage now is not even
00:05:07what wik is doing as it was, but
00:05:11that is f has become public, that's the real
00:05:15damage, it's a mess, the APC governors have
00:05:18openly questioned
00:05:20president 2027
00:05:24strategy, can they see it? that's what they're doing, they are
00:05:28questioning the president's political strategy.
00:05:31now when the president returns from Paris on his
00:05:35vacation, he will have to answer one question, he will
00:05:39have to at least uh confront those governors and address those
00:05:43governors deal with the issue and the question is is weaky
00:05:46an asset or inliability for the president
00:05:50in the 2027 election? now the Europan people
00:05:54say it means that is the
00:05:58monkey that we eventually kill itself, so
00:06:02it's going to be very exciting as we see how the
00:06:05governors and wiki and the president sort the
00:06:09matter out. second point, revers
00:06:13Soludo is this where jealousy
00:06:16starts? so now we move to number
00:06:20of states, the golden state of
00:06:22southeast, we are governor Charles Suludo's
00:06:26government as reignited another
00:06:30kind of drama, clearly, and it's an old
00:06:34battle that has happened again few weeks
00:06:38ago, up until last week, alleging that one
00:06:42of his predecessors, that is Mr. Peter OB.
00:06:45Peter OB is the presidential candidate the
00:06:49NDC and the government of Anambra is saying that
00:06:53to be left behind foreign loans and buried debts
00:06:57while claiming to have saved money. now the
00:07:00intent clearly is to diminish obese
00:07:03preeminence in southwest politics especially
00:07:07since 2022 or is going to making
00:07:10attendance as a table
00:07:13loyalist and supporter in the 2027 presidential
00:07:17election, is that what this is all about? let's be
00:07:21clear about what is happening here, this is not about
00:07:25auditing what happened uh a previous
00:07:28government, this is about who owns the
00:07:32soul, the political soul the
00:07:35southeast as we head to
00:07:382027 elections and beyond
00:07:402027. and the attacks from the government
00:07:44that suludo has, they are not sticking, but
00:07:48perhaps, and there are those who say this, that we
00:07:51understand why soludo and his government is attacking
00:07:54obi, are we seen a jealous
00:07:57suludo? several observers are saying that,
00:08:01observers, especially from number of state,
00:08:05now soludo is a professor, think
00:08:09even a world renown economist,
00:08:59his
00:09:00now government so starts when to reel out figures about foreign
00:09:04loans and stories around that against
00:09:08ob, people must ask is that
00:09:11governance? or is it something else is
00:09:15so trying to demarket ob and make himself more
00:09:18federal government friendly or is he playing a
00:09:22game for a vp ticket beyond
00:09:252027? now those are the kinds of
00:09:28questions that we have to be asked until the
00:09:32number state government proves to us that
00:09:36obey government
00:09:38or be and his government in the pass in
00:09:39the number state is actually responsible for those those those foring
00:09:43laws and not the federal government, which is what
00:09:46obes team has managed to show us that
00:09:50many of those loans that the Anambasy government have spoken
00:09:54about, we are actually incurred by the federal government for the
00:09:58benefit the people of anambra state, but as still stand
00:10:02today, the Anamba state fight against ob
00:10:06is one that soludo cannot win, and so it's
00:10:10best that somebody tells him that. cannot fight
00:10:14this st credibility with press
00:10:17statements, god help us in Nigeria, because
00:10:21Nigeria will prevail, and there you have.
00:10:37have eminent nigerian who has been a professor of
00:10:41communication here in the united states uh the author
00:10:45of 14 books and uh by the time you go to all the books
00:10:49and the people that he has produced uh it is very clear
00:10:52you know what is status and place is. national discourse, i like to work
00:10:56on
00:12:09time on Inside Sources, I'd like to ask you, um, what is
00:12:12your uh view about the future the country, uh,
00:12:16so if you look at where Nigeria is today, where do you think the the the country
00:12:20is headed to, because many of us believe that Nigeria how to have a great
00:12:23future, Nigeria, definitely has a great future
00:12:27because we have for the first
00:12:30time uh informed
00:12:33personalities, invested personalities,
00:12:37those who understand international economics and those who uh
00:12:41dedicated to some degree staring the ship the
00:12:44nation, so I believe that Nigeria has a
00:12:48bright future actually, and I have some
00:12:51reasons for that, maybe please, please, because uh, for many
00:12:55people that is not very obvious, yeah, a challenges, if you're
00:12:59looking from outside, you have boardside view, you
00:13:03probably perceive better, and because you move in and out the
00:13:06country, you see changes perhaps better than those who
00:13:10are the inside, so those are on the inside may not see
00:13:14what we see in terms of in terms the
00:13:18economic development the country, in terms of even the
00:13:21perceptions that people have outside the count. the
00:13:25country, which of course influences attraction of
00:13:29capital, attraction of personnel, attraction of,
00:13:32mean
00:13:33so many things even our kids raised here, now they can
00:13:37raise their heads up and say, i want to go for 30
00:13:40december, i'm going to nigeria, it's attractive to them
00:13:44because psychologically it is really
00:13:47uplifting to our kids born here to identify
00:13:51with africa, with Nigeria especially and with
00:13:55Afrrop, oh my god, yeah, that's another story,
00:13:58you know,
00:13:59but but in terms of our politics and governance, there's still a lot of uh way to
00:14:02go, don't you think, of course, of course,
00:14:06before we make a turn
00:14:09downwards, we have to get up right, and we are
00:14:13moving up little by little, yeah, I'm a country where
00:14:17everybody perceives that the country is on the way
00:14:20down, and on the other
00:14:24hand
00:14:24we perceive. Nigeria on the way up, so
00:14:28how so 1960 we had the you
00:14:31know independence, and the structure
00:14:34of of Nigeria as it was set up then was not for
00:14:38Nigeria to actually develop and liberate
00:14:41itself, you have competing forces, you have
00:14:45ethnic nationalities within Nigeria that are promised that were
00:14:48promised you know that they will control the rest, and
00:14:52once you have that as you're starting. point,
00:14:56then you cannot cohesively work together to develop the place,
00:15:00so by chance now we have a good leader
00:15:04from my perspective, okay, I'm not looking at the personality at this
00:15:08point, even though yes personality may may play some roles, look at all the
00:15:12rulers the world, all the leaders the world, tell me who is like
00:15:15Christ among them, none, none,
00:15:19no, as matter of fact, you you can measure your
00:15:22acceptance by by how
00:15:26people hate the truth, Christ preached
00:15:30for three years and the Roman authority said, heck,
00:15:34let's get rid of this guy, okay, so I'm sorry that...
00:15:42so
00:15:42so so we need people who are not necessarily
00:15:45saints but who have an understanding and
00:15:48passion to lead the people forward,
00:15:52difficult as it may be, they will cause you out.
00:15:55Nigerians don't like it when you are
00:15:59trying ease things for them, and when you do that
00:16:03you have to go down the trenches first to make them feel the paint.
00:16:08they have to feel pain, no pain, no gain, look, you want subsidy to
00:16:12continue forever, and somebody was was blunt enough,
00:16:16was bold enough to actually say that during his inauguration
00:16:20without that being on the speech, he knew what he was doing,
00:16:23because if if the speed have gotten out and that was
00:16:26written, influences will come from
00:16:30all over the place to prevent it from to prevent it from happening, but
00:16:34it was a thing that was necessary.
00:16:38Okay, but it has
00:16:38been atended by lot of suffering about the people, inflation is
00:16:42still is still uh,
00:16:44you know uh, very high, you know, uh, the the level
00:16:48of poverty in the country has increased, prof, lot of pain, number
00:16:52one, the population in the country has increased, people are coming from the sahel
00:16:55all over the place, so population of those in poverty will
00:16:59definitely rise, no doubt about that, that's number one, number
00:17:03two, let me liken the Nigerian situation to
00:17:07to to this. scenario: okay, someone is about
00:17:10drowning in the river, okay, okay, as small
00:17:14as the river may be, and then you who
00:17:18is comfortable about life, and you are asking
00:17:21this person, oh, can you rescue yourself, do some
00:17:25breast strokes, oh, he should be backstroke, heck, this guy is
00:17:29drowning, jump in it and do whatever it takes even if you're going to
00:17:33grab him by the troath and inconvenience him, so you say we,
00:17:37the suffering, there must be suffering because we have misruled ourselves for
00:17:41how long, for too long, and now somebody comes in to change the
00:17:45thing and you think is going to be all well and dandy, it's going to
00:17:49be easy, do you think the sleeps? i don't think so,
00:17:53because i think that man has a desire in his heart
00:17:57to better is the lot of his own people, his country, yeah,
00:18:01the politics is dire though, it's very dire,
00:18:04you know, mean and why, why i concede you know that... uh
00:18:07presidentubu uh is visionary, no doubt,
00:18:11I am worried about two things specifically, besides the question of
00:18:15uh poverty and corruption, which you can set aside, I'm worried about the fact that number
00:18:19one is government hasn't shown lot of
00:18:23empathy, why you are asking the country people to
00:18:26uh tighten their bells and everything, you guys are living large, that's number one,
00:18:30the number two, I haven't seen an efficient organization of his government,
00:18:34there's a lot of disorganization going on, I was in the... for eight years so I can
00:18:38understand how the government is properly set up, there's a lot of
00:18:42you know uh coordination uh problems in considered by you know
00:18:45uh some of his
00:18:47uh aids i mean uh Mr B who I know that uh I don't know
00:18:51whether you okay
00:18:54he was on yeah and he considered some the fact that
00:18:58you know he needed an enforcer so so those are the problems that I
00:19:02see he hasn't organized his government properly the way he did in
00:19:06lagos state and and then there's a bit of lack of
00:19:10disconnection with the with the pain the people, that's my view, your
00:19:14comment, good, you've identified two important areas
00:19:17and he is not a messiah, and if
00:19:21he is the messiah is doesn't possess
00:19:25all the abilities that you expect a mesa to
00:19:29possess, especially a country as
00:19:32divers and pulling apart as Nigeria
00:19:36is, so I understand that yes, there may be
00:19:40need for better organization, better
00:19:43sequencing of events and monitoring of events and setting
00:19:47up this committee and that committee, and we like to talk a lot nigeria, we
00:19:51committee ourselves to death in analysis, paralysis
00:19:55is our problem, so so I will consid that, but if
00:19:59I have to rate this man and his government from what we are
00:20:03seeing, is laying foundation in the mod where
00:20:06people were... expecting him to laid foundations on diamonds and polls
00:20:10and stuff, so that's why you experience what you're experiencing.
00:20:14nigerians in particular are very, very difficult
00:20:18electorate, very, very difficult people. why?
00:20:22200 plus ethnic nationalities, what do you expect? and
00:20:26we have this expectation that you
00:20:29know, it should come into my bedroom and to my
00:20:33house and straighten everything up, all right?
00:20:37Now let's take it from very, very small
00:20:41point where the government is creating
00:20:44roads, we're borrowing money, but we borrow
00:20:48money commentary to - gdp is not even is not we're not
00:20:52even owing that much if you if you analyze it for those who know
00:20:56economics yeah so you you have a
00:20:59good uh coastal road and nigerians are
00:21:02there pulling it
00:21:05down they are removing the iron they are
00:21:09removing the the the solar they are
00:21:12removing look it's our house so
00:21:16if it's going to have to educate nigerians it will
00:21:20cost lot of money, I interacted with intellectuals
00:21:24in Nigeria, professors and all, as as well meaning
00:21:28as they may might have been, when I spoke with them, I
00:21:31could see the the the lack of understanding, the lack
00:21:35of governance, the expectation that oh, the drowning guy can
00:21:39lift himself up, or he should be you know picked up without any damage
00:21:43to his body, you shouldn't have any issues, that's the problem
00:21:47we have, we can see what this administration is doing, I'm not
00:21:50benefiting away from the administration, but
00:21:54I can tell you from what had happened
00:21:58in the past in terms of infrastructure, the train, I take the train
00:22:01from Legos
00:22:02from Lagos Airport to to Mobola G Johnson and to
00:22:06to to Ibadon straight, and I was even telling Nigerians, my
00:22:10friends that take the train, they said that train, now
00:22:14they on the train and they say, I took the train, this my kids all
00:22:18came to Nigeria, they came for getting. last year and they took the train,
00:22:22they had a nice time and so now it's back and
00:22:26forth, back and forth, why are we so
00:22:28pessimistic?
00:22:32let's let's move on because it's interesting because your views
00:22:35you know - is quite a a bread
00:22:38of fresh hair you know from coming from the diaspora
00:22:42community, lot the dominant uh perspective you
00:22:46know from the diaspora with you for 17.
00:22:50very very negative uh so so I mean so what you are
00:22:54saying I'm sure
00:22:55you know that doesn't they not we are not realistic that's
00:22:59why you know you you you left
00:23:02Nigeria and you you left your village and you think your
00:23:06villages New York City and then you are comparing don't
00:23:09forget that we were colonized okay
00:23:13and that colonized mind is still our our
00:23:17problem so and you think that it's in
00:23:201960 to now that we should be like China
00:23:24and all the fundamentals and all there, the ethnicities are
00:23:28fighting against each other, they are pulling down. I'll give you an example and then
00:23:32we can move to something else. I read the
00:23:36posting of investigative
00:23:39journalist who said that the particular year some
00:23:43Nigerians imported
00:23:46supposedly oil, okay
00:23:49to Nigeria. there and the all the papers were signed by
00:23:53the by by the port authority and all and they presented the papers to the
00:23:57government that's refined for yes refined yeah refined
00:24:01pms and whatever
00:24:02and and they got a lot of money from that for for subsidy yeah
00:24:06yeah the problem was that they did not import anything to nigeria
00:24:10they
00:24:11saw the the the the ship that was proportedly
00:24:15at legal port was actually in the netherlands somewhere well
00:24:19in the books and then they collect they
00:24:23collected money for it, now apart from that,
00:24:26you know, I see people write about the foreign exchange, oh, when so
00:24:30so was there, dollar was this to this, you did not know that we were
00:24:34also subsidizing dollars, people was, we were not informed in Nigeria, that's
00:24:38why we were just as we were subsidizing
00:24:41fuel importation, we were subsidizing the dollar, let let the
00:24:45economist explain that to you, but the issue that I
00:24:49have. is that so why is
00:24:53it that the people, the common people are the one holding the
00:24:57short end the stick, because so we say talk a lot about
00:25:01subsidy uh and it makes sense to say that hey come on we have
00:25:05to block this uh leakage but we don't see accountability if
00:25:08if it indeed was a scam where are the where are the corporates we don't see
00:25:12accountability the corruption is still persisting you know uh
00:25:16the the people in the government are living large why is it that is only the comp
00:25:20man that is suffering, everywhere in the world, the coverman is
00:25:24always owning the end the short end the stick, let's
00:25:27establish that premise, okay, even in this country, but let's go back to Nigeria, let
00:25:31me be a little kind, all right, you have
00:25:35a structure in place in Nigeria, the
00:25:39governor is not responsible to anybody,
00:25:43allocation comes from Abuja, the governor does whatever he likes,
00:25:47give you an example of my the governor of of a of
00:25:50your state, it was able to organize the local government
00:25:54chairman and chair women,
00:25:57to to agree to go against the the
00:26:01the judgment of... the supreme court regarding allocation
00:26:05of money to local governments and they signed the paper
00:26:09and read this in the papers that they gave their authority back
00:26:13to the governor to adjudicate, so money is coming from
00:26:17the federal and the supreme court has has judged that it
00:26:21should go directly to local governments and the local government should receive them
00:26:25say no we love our governor so much let's give it to the governor we are
00:26:28expect we are expecting perfection in the system that is
00:26:32so corrupt and we are not able to address
00:26:36them, we have intellectuals who analyze issues
00:26:39and all, but there is no action. do you know how long we've been talking about state
00:26:43police, we've been talking about
00:26:45economic,
00:26:49what do we call it? restructuring, restructuring, both economic and
00:26:52political, we we paid people for conferences, we produce
00:26:56papers that if you if you publish the books they will
00:27:00fill this room here and never get. "now you are holding this
00:27:03current administration, oh, the government is corrupt,
00:27:07we are all corrupt, we are corrupt, we don't want changes,
00:27:11if if a group of people in Nigeria say to you that they are born to
00:27:15rule, what do you expect? so the others are now going to put
00:27:19up a front to resist them, so how how you going to govern? and
00:27:23then you have another group that came third in the in the
00:27:26last election, they never believe that they lost the election, so the third
00:27:30person is still claiming that he was..." election and is people are
00:27:34believing that and we in the Eurouba area
00:27:38also allow so many others to come
00:27:42into our sphere which is okay because we're practicing
00:27:45federalism but
00:27:46we do not know who is who who is coming we are
00:27:50cosmopolitan people to the point of
00:27:53stupidity i'm very sorry your grandfather our great
00:27:57great grandparents fought for the land that we occupy and then
00:28:00we just let it go because say we are cosmopolitan, we are this and that,
00:28:04no, that is not evolution, that is
00:28:07regression, if look, look, let's learn
00:28:11from what this country is doing, america
00:28:15is everywhere in the world, yeah, for what
00:28:18reason, economic emancipation
00:28:21of our own people, they don't mind to and to
00:28:25keep control, to keep control, okay, so
00:28:28that's the nation together acting as one, in
00:28:32Nigeria, if this group is going this way, that group is going the other
00:28:36way, how are you going to, so you are lucky even
00:28:40if you get anything done in Nigeria, how did I get to
00:28:44this country sir? I was with NET, I thought, I told
00:28:48you I thought the Uni lag, and I have lot of
00:28:51friends, had lot of friends, still have them
00:28:54even the the the head of channels, the on was
00:28:58once, yeah, our chairman, yeah, it was once a
00:29:02student of... mine as young as i was then because when he came
00:29:05in uh contemporaries age that's right
00:29:09that's right
00:29:10so what what what
00:29:14what what do you think we should be doing at this point don't let us
00:29:18even talk too much about
00:29:19it what should we be doing when i was at net
00:29:23with all the opportunities to work elsewhere i
00:29:27joined net with the masters in public relations i was
00:29:30doing the i was writing a and is the Nigerian exchange,
00:29:34no, external telecommunications before we joined with
00:29:38Nipos to
00:29:39make nitel, okay, so a good job as as it were
00:29:43then, yeah, that was very, yes, and you will think, oh,
00:29:47you know, he got made, he has master's degree and is in the corporate affairs of
00:29:51net, it wasn't six months before
00:29:54people started coming in from the north, and they were
00:29:58putting them above those of us who had college degree.
00:30:03I don't want to mention, I still remember their names, I have them in my memory that I'm here to
00:30:07be to publish because I left Nigeria based because of that because
00:30:11talking of this, you're the early 80s, yes, I, I came to this country in
00:30:141985, so you graduated in
00:30:171980 in Nigeria, 1982, Master's
00:30:21degree University of Lagus, where you also taught for some time, that's
00:30:25right, before you went to net, that's right, okay, and you're telling us the reason why you
00:30:29left the country, that's right, please go ahead, so so... "i was
00:30:33i was doing all the work
00:30:36for the corporate affairs department, the pr section of
00:30:40it, published the the the newspaper,
00:30:44okay, okay, maccom news or something we used to call
00:30:47it, and wrote speeches for all the
00:30:51officials when they went out and media work and
00:30:54everything like that, i was practice in my craft, it was
00:30:58fantastic and then..."