A former National Vice Chairman (South-South) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hillard Eta, is a member of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council. He spoke with TAIWO AMODU on the chances of his party’s candidate, Bola Tinubu, the forces against him within the presidency as well as the North ahead of the February 25 election.
One week to the presidential election, the narrative out there is that the APC is a party divided against itself. How prepared is your party for this election and how confident are you of winning that election?
This same question was put to the former national chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, in an interview. And like him, I will say that it is far from the truth. The APC has the President, Vice President, Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Deputy Speaker; members of the Senate, members of the House of Representatives, 22 governors; 22 deputy governors, members of the House of Assembly, elected chairmen all over Nigeria working for the success of the party at all levels.
That cannot be said of our major opponent, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). They have 13 governors. About five of them are not on the same page with the party’s presidential candidate and even the party itself. So, it is rather the other party that is divided. It is the other party that is grappling with its internal contradictions and it is becoming clearer on a daily basis that they are not formidable enough to give the APC the kind of contest that is necessary to grow and deepen our democracy.
So, on the whole, on the 25th of February, Senator Bola Tinubu will be elected president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Senator Kashim Shettima will be elected the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I want to believe that we will still maintain our majority hold on the National Assembly. And on the 11th of March, the APC will increase the number of governors in our party. So, on the whole, we are poised for a victory and every narrative that is contrary to our victory is the figment of imagination of naysayers and doomsday prophets.
What do you make of the comment of one of your governors, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, that a certain cabal within the presidency is against the presidential aspiration of Senator Bola Tinubu?
If you listened to the interview by the governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji El- Rufai, he also mentioned that members of this cabal are not members of the party and not part of the presidency; they are just around the presidency. I will go further to say that I recognise that there is a transition in terms of political leadership in the northern part of the country.
So, if you put into context, what Governor El-Rufai said with regard to the cabal which is opposed to the emergence of Senator Tinubu as president, you will immediately come to the issue of the struggle in the north between the old order and the emerging new order in terms of political leadership.
The foot soldiers of this cabal who are found in the Villa are the ones carrying out this agenda on behalf of this old order. We are aware of some retired Generals in the north and a few civilians that are beating this drum. The cabal, as you find them in the Villa, is just dancing to the beats of that drum. But what is essential for us to know is that the emerging political leadership of the north that is more patriotic, that is more Nigerian, will come out successful in this struggle, in these contradictions.
Let me say that this old order, in the way that they conduct their politics, give validation to secessionists in the South-West and in South-East. The mantra of this old order in the north is that Nigeria does not matter as long as they are in charge of the affairs of the country. The unity, the sustainability, the very existence of Nigeria does not matter. But the emerging new political leadership, we say no, the north is part of the larger Nigeria and Nigeria should thrive to deal with the issues of education and general development.
You are from the South-South, that is, the region of the PDP vice presidential candidate, Peter Okowa. How sure is South-South for the APC?
First of all, you must know that the South-South has the third largest number of votes in Nigeria and we are going to participate in the building of Nigeria with those votes. In the South-South, the truth is that for Nigeria’s survival for now, the natural demand is the oscillation of the presidency between the north and the south. So, we are aware that it is the turn of the south to produce the president. We are also aware that it is not the turn of the south to produce the vice president.
The result of the election will show that our people have taken the decision to join other Nigerians to encourage the survival of Nigeria at this time by subjecting ourselves to that arrangement of the oscillation of the presidency, as I said earlier on.
Even in Delta State where Okowa comes from, Okowa will struggle to give his principal the constitutionally required 25 percent of the votes. There is no Okowa effect beyond Delta State; there is no Okowa effect in Rivers State, there is no Okowa effect in Akwa Ibom, there is no Okowa effect in Cross River and other parts of the South-South.
We are not going to vote for Atiku [Abubakar]. The largest percentage of voters of the South-South will cast their votes for Senator Tinubu in Cross River State, in Rivers State, in Akwa Ibom State, in Delta State.
The Peter Obi phenomenon has helped us in the sense that even those who will ordinarily wanted to vote for Atiku will rather cast their vote for Obi. So, it is going to be a direct contest between Senator Tinubu and Mr Peter Obi. But Senator Tinubu will be victorious in the South-South.
One major challenge your party has ahead of the election is that the APC government appears to be becoming unpopular with the people over its new monetary policy and petrol scarcity. Is it not becoming difficult to sell the candidature of Senator Tinubu?
Well, I look at them [the crises] from two perspectives. One, the Naira swap or the redesign of our currency is a policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria. And much as I would have loved to insulate our Central Bank from partisan politics, I cannot do because the present Central Bank governor is a politician and he is partisanly involved. I can assure you that he is one of the foot soldiers of the cabal that has taken it upon itself to de-market Senator Tinubu.
The other perspective is that a few months ago, there was a national cry for the probing of what was called the stamp duties tax that amounted to trillions of Naira. So, the redesigning of the Naira looks as if it has the imprimatur of the president. Because of the kind of person the president is, he must have been railroaded into taking the decision, thinking that the decision was to help the growth of Nigeria.
I will like to say that Mr Godwin Emefiele applied what I call the Tinapa principle. The Tinapa principle is a principle whereby when you have a challenge, you create a scenario to distract the people from that challenge. A few months ago, there was a national cry for the probing of the whereabouts of the stamp duty tax that ran into trillions of Naira. I cannot sit here and tell you the number of trillions but I know from what I read that it ran into trillions of Naira.
Nigerians are not talking about the stamp duty tax anymore. Everybody is now concentrating on the scarcity of the Naira notes. I think it was a properly orchestrated plan to distract Nigerians from a humongous corruption that attended the stamp duty tax in the country. We should not lose the sense that that is something that has to be done and it is a national task that must be done.
To come to the policy itself, Nigeria is not the only country that has done currency redesign. As you are aware, presently in the United Kingdom, there is currency redesign. With the death of the Queen, the image of the King is now on the currency in the UK but it is a normal transition such that as every note with the image of the Queen comes into the banking process, it doesn’t go out again. It is replaced by the one that has the image of King Charles.
Now, nobody has told me, for instance, why the Central Bank is saying that the money I have struggled through life to make and which I have kept in a bank, the amount that I can take in a day is N20,000. Even in the Socialist Soviet Union, I do not believe that the government has the right to monitor and schedule the way people spend their money. Like Oshiomhole said the other night, there are so many institutions of government created to tackle corruption and the Central Bank is not one of them. I have the right to decide whether I want to keep my money in your custody or not. Even the intendment that they want to bring people into the banking process may not succeed because if I know that you want to monitor how I spend my money and you will not allow me use my money for my business the way I would love to, I would not bring it into the banking system.
The Central Bank is lamenting that the mint has no capacity to print the quantity of money that is required in the system. This means that ab initio, this plan was not properly thought through. There was no rigorous thinking on this plan. It was done in a hurry to de-market Senator Tinubu. People will ask why it is only Senator Tinubu. It is because one, he is the front runner. Number two, he has the ticket of the party that is in government. And a lot of Nigerians do not know that the Central Bank is independent of the government. They believe that any policy that Godwin Emefiele brings to bear on their lives is the policy of the APC, thereby de-marketing our candidate. Unfortunately for them, in the 774 local government areas in the country, we have foot soldiers. In all the wards, we have foot soldiers. In all the polling units in the country, we have foot soldiers. And these foot soldiers have been interacting with our people, telling our people that this policy was done by Godwin Emefiele as a foot soldier of the cabal, as a man who is interested in who becomes the president of Nigeria and he has, since a long time ago, given his support to Atiku Abubakar. So, we have told our people and they know.
It is interesting that Governor Wike, a PDP governor, said that whereas Senator Tinubu, whose party is in government, is standing shoulder to shoulder with the people on this matter and asking the government to do what is right and the PDP presidential candidate is saying that the Central Bank should rather tighten the screw on the people; that the suffering of the people is a good thing. They are all celebrating the suffering of the people just because they want to de-market Senator Tinubu. But we have a word for them: the votes for Senator Tinubu have long been locked down and there is nothing anybody can do about it. By the grace of God and the democratic will of the people, on the 25th of February, Senator Tinubu will be elected president of Nigeria.
There are people who are of the opinion that there might be a runoff in the presidential election. There are also insinuations that given the current atmosphere, the election may be postponed. Do you foresee a postponement? Would you call subscribe to a postponement?
It is my thinking that the cabal does not have enough time to put in place their plan, so they are looking for more time to execute the plan. One of the things that they wanted to do was to use the scarcity of the Naira and fuel to cause mass protest across the nation so that the elections would be postponed, so that they would have more time to execute their plan. Nigerians have become wiser; they know that this is the plan of the cabal.
Then, you asked whether we will run into a runoff. I don’t think so because if you look at the North-West, the North-Central, the North-East and the South-South, especially the South-South, somebody is going to score 25 percent. I can assure you that Senator Tinubu will score 25 percent in more than 30 states in Nigeria and he will have the majority of the votes. If that happens, I don’t think there will be a runoff because he is going to score 25 percent in most states against other competitors and he is going to have the popular votes. So, I do not foresee a runoff.
