A former chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Kaduna State and erstwhile vice chairman of the organisation in the 19 northern states, Reverend Joseph Hayab, speaks with Northern Bureau Chief, MUHAMMAD SABIU, on the sundry issues affecting the North and Nigeria as a whole.
What do you make of the recent protest against hardship in the country?
In the first place, let’s not call the protesters aggrieved youths but aggrieved Nigerians. Definitely, the youth were not alone; they had people behind them. Who supported them? But the reality today in Nigeria is that there is pain. The reality today in Nigeria is that we are still struggling to find our feet when it comes to good governance. The reality of Nigeria today is that you find someone who could not afford food in the morning but in the evening, he has become a millionaire. The question is where did he get the money from? Corruption has become our way of life. And unfortunately, the youth are watching all these things. The pains Nigerians are passing through are unbearable. The protest could have been a success if those behind it had come out to clearly state their reasons.
If you want to embark on an agitation such as this, it is important you let people understand your mission. For example, let the people understand that you are protesting because of hunger, fuel scarcity or insecurity. But there was so much confusion before, during and after the protest. In some quarters, we heard some of the protesters saying it was all about regime change. Some were calling for military intervention while others were calling on Russia to come and rescue them. This had never happened before, protesters waving a foreign country’s flag.
But let us not deceive ourselves, there is so much division in the country now that if you want regime change, it would not work. Whoever is our president, his kinsmen or region will not fold their arms and watch power slip away from them. That would not happen. So, why are we fooling ourselves? Why are we wasting our time? To me, the recent protest was not aimed at addressing the multiple problems facing our country. The protesters could have picked one of the multiple challenges to address. If they had done that, I would have gladly supported them. So, those who think the protest would bring about regime change, I think they have seen the reality now. The only way to change the government is to wait for the next general election in 2027. As far as I am concerned, hoodlums and bad eggs hijacked the recent protest. Look at the number of arrests made by the security agencies.
It doesn’t matter whether you like President Tinubu or not, he won his election and he is the president. What Nigerians need to do is to support him. We have a civic duty to tell him to do the right thing. If you aim to bring down his government, it means you want something else. We should learn to support our leaders. The president needs our support in terms of advice and what have you.
If you look at the whole thing, you cannot point to a specific thing the protesters wanted to achieve. For example, if Kenyans said Ruto must go, they had their reasons. I was in Kenya when the Kenyans were protesting. Those who organised the Kenya protest also didn’t look at certain things before they went ahead. So, we must be strategic. We must know what we want and how to go about it, not just doing protest for the sake of it. But who were really behind the protest? They did not come out on the streets with Nigerians. We did not see any one of them on the street with the young protesters. But the government has seen what happened and it is now left for them to correct some of the issues raised by the protesters before the next elections if they want to remain in power.
What areas of our national life would you say need urgent intervention?
The problem of Nigeria is not that we are poor. The problem is basically corruption. You see, we are not poor in all ramifications. Corruption and lack of sincerity are the reasons why we are where we are today. Whether we say it or not, the majority of the people are angry. When your friend who could hardly afford a meal yesterday suddenly becomes a millionaire just because of government appointment, something is definitely wrong. That is what is happening today in our country. Today, we have teeming youths who are jobless. What kind of country do we want to bequeath to our children and those yet unborn? People get rich by doing business in other countries but in Nigeria, people get rich through mere government appointment. If you were appointed and you did not get rich, you would be mocked and tagged a fool.
So, Nigerians are angry because there are so many things that are going wrong. Unfortunately, the government is not carrying the people along. Do they even have the people at heart? I don’t think they do. Most of the policies so far introduced by the government are anti-people. They don’t care about the people. They don’t care what the people feel. They have been blinded by greed and sentiment. If the president could come out and say enough is enough, we are going to live by example; we are going to provide electricity, Nigerians should not pay for light without seeing light, Nigerians can now buy affordable petrol, the people will be happy and they will support him. But look at the cosmetic measures they are taking in trying to solve the problems facing us. When the government came up with the idea of palliatives, I said it was another way of syphoning public funds. So many things are happening which are not right. You set up committees and spend millions on the committee members even before they start their assignment. So, people are watching and they are angry. If you say [former President Muhammadu] Buhari didn’t deliver dividends of democracy, things have even changed for the worse within the last 12 months. If you say people that surrounded Buhari were a problem or they stole money, what is happening now is worse. A minister was accused of syphoning millions of naira in her ministry, but up to today, we have not heard anything. Nobody has been indicted so far. Nobody has been prosecuted. That is why if we, religious leaders, try to calm the people, they will ask us: Are you not watching? Are you not seeing these things? For us to tell people to calm down is becoming a problem. The people in government should understand that the rest of us are watching.
Another worrying aspect is that criminals are allowed to go free; nobody is ever prosecuted except those who have nobody behind them. Nigeria is like a banana republic. It is like nobody is in charge. That is why you hear of a cabal controlling the man in charge. I feel that it is not too late for those in power to correct all these things. In today’s Nigeria, looters of the treasury are allowed to go punished. I want to advise the authorities to take proactive measures to prosecute wrongdoers. Leadership should be about the people; it should be about provision of services that will make the people happy. If this is the case, those who want to agitate or mobilise against the leadership will be afraid to do so. You see, those who organised the hardship protest understood that there was disconnect between the government and the people and nothing that was said against the government was a lie.
Some public commentators have claimed that with the way things are going in the country, there would soon come a time when the people will no longer listen to religious leaders? What is your take on this?
That time has already come. Our voices as religious leaders have started fading. The people have started to challenge us. They are asking us where the righteousness, humanity, justice and truth that we preach are. They are saying that the government is doing wrong things and religious leaders are turning their faces away. But let me say here that the government is not being fair to religious leaders by not carrying us along in decision making. It is not only when the decisions they have taken become unpopular that they should be approaching us. I have kicked against some policies and pronouncements of the government in the past. If I see fire again, I will still speak out. Whether I say it or not, the people have started to get fed up with religious leaders. That is the truth. Why? Because some of the people are beginning to think that we have been bought.
I think the time has come for us to understand the civilisation of protest. I believe the people should be able to express their feelings about government activities but how to go about it is very crucial. For example, the organisers may decide to occupy just the National Assembly. They don’t need to cover the entire country. For one week, nobody will enter or leave the National Assembly. Let’s see whether the government will not act. They could also occupy the Villa for one week; Nobody leaves the Villa. Let us see if the president will not do something. But a situation where the whole country is shut down completely is dangerous.
I am a Southern Kaduna man. Let me put some sentiments here. In the last few years, every day, we talked of killings in Southern Kaduna. At least for several months now, we have not cried. You want me to participate in a protest and allow criminals to kill my people? I am not going to do that. Say whatever you like. I have heard people say that we have been bought. Sorry, but I want to say that I have not seen any money. Maybe it has missed road. So, people must exercise caution. We can organise civilised protests and make our voices heard without resorting to violence.
Let us look at the issue of fuel subsidy, the removal of which has been attributed to the country’s worsened economic woes. Would you say the government should restore fuel subsidy?
Did the government stop paying subsidy? Look, the government is not honest and because it is not honest, it is pushing the people to be angry. At inception, this government made us believe that it removed fuel subsidy, but there are insinuations that it is still paying the subsidy. Within a short time, the government had increased the pump price of petrol more than three times. Sometimes the government doesn’t listen to what people are saying. I think the government should stop playing politics and face reality. The cost of petrol today is quite alarming. The purported removal of fuel subsidy has affected many lives negatively. They told us that the refineries would be revived but, unfortunately, refineries have remained comatose despite the millions spent on their turnaround maintenance. When will the four refineries work? The subsidy removal policy was not clearly spelt out. That is why Nigerians do not trust the government. When you don’t get genuine information from the government, how do you trust them? The government needs to be honest as far as the issue of subsidy is concerned. That is how successive governments have told their lies. How can we be paying billions of naira to refinery workers when our refineries are not working? This is the reality today. They have turned the oil industry into a cash cow for the benefit of only a few people. Something must be done to end the sufferings of Nigerians.
What is your view on the ding-dong between Dangote refinery and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd?
Those who have been following Dangote’s activities will agree with me that Dangote is a cool-headed man. All these years, we had never heard him complain. Something must have gone wrong somewhere. I think the NNPC and the government need to be honest here. Let them open up and tell Nigerians what exactly the problem is. But I feel that someone somewhere is not happy with Dangote. The man is from the North but he built the refinery in the South. I want to say that he is not a tribalist but a Nigerian who believes in Nigeria. Dangote needs to be protected, in all honesty. Whether we like it or not, there are many Nigerians who don’t have investments in the country. I think it is good for us to have an investor like Dangote. Why should some people sabotage the efforts of this man to create jobs for Nigerians? We want to see more people building more refineries. There should be a thorough investigation into this lacuna. The claim that our refinery some Nigerians have a refinery in another country should also be investigated.
How would you assess the security situation in Kaduna State now?
The security situation in the state has improved, but it has not been addressed completely. Kidnappers are still at work. But if we want to be honest, the situation is not like before. The government of the day, unlike the last government, is friendly. During El-Rufai era, we received insults from the government simply because we were talking on the insecurity bedeviling our state. The situation has improved but it is not yet Uhuru. There is a shift from what we used to know. I appeal to the people to support the government in their efforts to rid the state of criminals.
The government is doing things differently and with a human face. We want to have a violence-free Kaduna. We want the government to sustain the peace the state is currently enjoying. Kaduna should be for all and not a particular tribe or religion.
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