Jonathan, Buhari laid foundation for Nigeria’s current hardship, Tinubu worsening it -SDP Presidential Candidate, Adebayo

By Folorunso Alagbede, Abuja

Prince Adewole Adebayo, a lawyer and business morgul, is the National Leader and Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, in the last general election.

In this interview, Adebayo spoke on a wide range of national issues including the recent boast by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that his administration is doing well.

He also offered his advice as to what can be done to make the nation’s judiciary perform effectively well.

Excerpts:

How would you describe the year 2024, and what is your projections for 2025?

To me, 2024 was a good year, speaking from a personal point of view. It was a good year, once you are alive. It was a good year for me as a professional, but to the country, it was a mixed year. We had a lot of good things, but it  was also a challenging year, because of the continuation of the  economy we inherited last year, and the  other social issues. In the area of security, it was the year the Emir of Gobir was killed. It was the year we had major challenges. It was towards the end of 2024, we had tragedies in Ibadan, Okija, and Abuja, over the distribution of foods and other things.

So, it was a very tough year for the Nigerian people. That  was the year they felt the bigger impact of the policies of  2023. We saw a lots of prices rising as a result of inflation, we saw the exchange rates fluctuating, and on the macroeconomic scale, unemployment , and all of that, but it  was also a good year for Nigerians in the sense that we had no serious community clashes. I don’t think we had serious religious unrest this year, and what we are just facing is the normal consequences of governance methodology.

Does that mean you agree with the President’s submission during his media chat that the government is doing very well?

Well I don’t agree because he is not in government, he is only in power, he is not using the power to govern. He is slightly better than President Buhari, who was neither in government nor in power, but Tinubu is in power not in government. He is using the power for other things, so he is not able to know what it means to say the government is doing well. He missed the opportunity to set up a sound government. He had some talents, but he missed the opportunity to use those talents in the country, even within his own party. I’m not saying he should leave his political party and look for talents, even within his political party, he did some patronage within his followers, but he has not used the strongest hands; the most clever hands; and the most agile bodies, and he is not using the best ideas. He is wasting opportunities. So,  if he says, the government is doing well, I can understand because  he is not in government he is in power, and anywhere he goes, everybody gravitates towards him.

But in FCT for example, that is one area you can say you see a sign that they want to govern. The Minister that he puts there, and the one in Interior, I think the two Ministers are making serious attempts to govern, outside that, I’m sorry, there is no sign that they want to govern. So, I don’t agree with him that his government is doing well.

Many people have commended the President’s media chat, what is  your take on this?

People will commend the President, the same thing you see in a family,  where you have  a six-year-old who has not been speaking, but the day he calls baba, everybody will be excited about it because they were already losing hope that this child may never speak, but after a while that this child has already spoken, this will wear off because the President is not a ceremonial masquerade that speaks only on Christmas Day and October 1. He is a public servant that gives account of his activities, who has to convince his employer, that is the people, that he is on the job, and that he understands what he is doing, and also understands the effects of what he is doing for the people, that he knows that he is leading other people, he is not a sole administrator. Under the constitution, he is the sole secretary but but he has since looked beyond that to appoint lesser executive under him, and that he is supervising them. If what he said on that day, many of which I disagree with, but if what he said that day represents  the day he came to power, if that is what he has to say in several months, almost one and a half years, I’m not impressed with that.

The presidential media chat should not be routine, should be done regularly. President should answer questions on a day-to-day basis, to convince the people that he understands what he is doing; understands the philosophy behind his actions, he knows the implications and he has a kind of vision on what he wants to do, and I assume that the media will not go there like Christmas guests, who are being polite to their host, they should go there and do their own job too. Overall, I’m not impressed. But that the President recan speak, it is great.

But it appears many Nigerian are hopeful ultimately about the policies of the Tinubu’s administration?

Nigerians should be hopeful at all times, even if there is no government. During the civil war, people had no food, they had no security, they should be hopeful because hope is one thing you can invest in yourself. So, you can be hopeful despite bad governance. You can be hopeful despite unserious leaders, you can be hopeful despite bad policies. So, being hopeful should not be conditional, hope is what you need to not give up but if there is not much to hope for in the government, that government will also go. Whatever President Tinubu is doing, whatever he fails to do, he is not the only alternative Nigeria has. He has a limited period of four years, so the hope should go beyond that; even while he is there, the policies that he is implementing are not the only policies that he can implement, so there is a lot of hope. If you are going on a journey, and you have a bad vehicle, you still hope that there are other vehicles you can take. If you have a bad driver, there are other drivers you can take, so, your hope is not invested in one government, your hope is not invested in one individual, it is not invested in one period because the country is continuous. On that basis, Nigerians  have a very good reason to be hopeful.

You appear to be fond of white colour, your houses, your wears, and other things you have, are in colour white. Any special reason for sticking to one colour? Why is it that you do not wear wrist watch?

I’m attracted to white because it is easy for me to detect if it is not clean. It also depicts transparency. I don’t like something  to be unclean or dirty, white lets you to know that this is unclean. As a lawyer, I wear white and black, white symbolizes transparency, that is the way I see it. As regards wristwatches, the original purpose of a watch in the time past was to tell you the time, but now, there are many ways to get the time, so I don’t see any reason, carrying an additional burden on my body that does not do function for me. I even inherited some watches from my parents and grandparents, I look at them now as museum pieces. I’m even told that some of them are quite expensive, that if I bring them out some people would want to buy them. Wrist watches have been overtaken by telephones and so many other things, even your camera has time piece. Wrist watches have become an obsolete thing. The same reason  I don’t ride horses. You can see horses in my compound, but if I’m going from Ondo to Lagos, I go in my car, the watch is obsolete like a horse.

Many people believe that the hardship in the country today was caused by the subsidy removal and the floating of the naira. People have been saying that until the government reverses those two policies, things will not be better in this country?

A: It is an exaggeration. Even before Tinubu came, there were problems .We had problems with our economy, even under the  colonial government because of the satellite structure of our economy where the British wanted us to be producing raw materials for their industries in Liverpool  and other places, we had structural economic problems. In the First Republic, we had impediments, if you studied national development plan, first one, 60-65, we had import substitution, industrialization, we had problems there as well, especially the funding of those policies. During the military time, we had a terrible economic situation because of grid collapse, we did not even have electricity, it cannot be that Nigeria was a paradise, and Tinubu came and it became a hell. Tinubu’ s problem is trying to decapitate somebody who is complaining of migraine. All he needed to do was to give the person pain reliever and try to give other therapy that will make the migraine go down. But they worsen what they met. They are not responsible for all of it. Anybody who took over from Buhari was already sure to have ill-luck because Buhari alone , just in one transaction, wasted 3.7 trillion naira by ways and means.

Goodluck Jonathan almost finished everything before Buhari came. It was a succession of issues. Obasanjo handed over a fairly robust reserve, but he wasted money in his eight years without infrastructure. He left with undone jobs- East-West road, Niger Bridge, Kaduna- Kano road, rail lines, electricity, all those things he didn’t do. So, Tinubu met a fairly parlor economy, but he made it worse because he did not understand economics at all. He is an Accountant, who understands finance, those that if I meet 20 billion, I raised it to 30 billion, adding 10 billion. But if you have to damage 100 billion to get an additional 10 billion, he is not aware of that, and he has no economists in his team at all. Wale Edun is a banker, if you are a rich man and you have a lot of money, and you want Wale Edun to place them all over the world for you, as an investment banker, he can do it very well. If you are in business and you want loan, he knows where the lenders are all over the world, but he doesn’t understand the multiplier effect in economics.

Until you joined politics, little was heard about you what were you doing before now?

Well, I was doing good citizenship. I tried to visit a lot of countries. In  Nigeria, I tried to make a lot of contributions. As far back as 1999, if you go to TV and radio stations, you will know what I was doing, even in terms of contributions. You know typically, if you come out to run for Mayor in a City, even in London, a councillor, no media man will ask you because they already know it, not to talk of you want to run for President of Nigeria. What your mother was doing when she was 10 years old, the media  over there will know, but here, the media ask the candidates himself,   but they tell a lot of lies, so we have gotten to a point where media should invest in background information about candidates, even if there are things candidates want to run away from, like  what you did in primary school, they will know.

Basically, I have been a lawyer, I have been practicing both in Nigeria and oversea. If you go to the Supreme Court of Nigeria, and read law reports, you will find dozens of Supreme Court  cases that I argued. In the Nigeria Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, there are 100s, and countless in the High Courts, likewise in the U.S., Washington DC, Federal Court District Washington and other places, if you go to Supreme Courts in Australia, you will see my law practice. Many of my colleagues, like I said during the Nigeria Bar Association, that I don’t need to talk here because other presidential candidates talked, you are my colleagues, you should know my character indices, sometimes we are on the same side, sometimes we are in opposite side. Judges see me practice before then, so I can’t go to the NBA where I belonged and say I’m a good person, just by hearing my voice you should know, they should be the ones telling other people in my profession, I’m one of the excellent ones.

There is no former Head of State who was in government when I was already a full adult, who you will accost and say ‘did the Prince tell you something about governance, did he try to help you?’ None of them can deny, they will say, ‘yes.’ Since 1999, there is no Head of State that I did not do something for, trying to help in this or that area. I have never gotten a government contract before, I have not been paid government salary before. There is no government that will say he(Adebayo) didn’t try to help us. That is what I have been doing, and when I saw that it was the turn of my generation to lead. I looked at the leaders and said okay, whatever your opinion about them, their time is gone, in our generation now what do we do? We need to start to come out and offer leadership instead of offering advice.

The role now is reversed, those who we used to try to help in governance, we used to assist, now need to step back and also be offering us advice.

Many have accused the judiciary of committing infractions. What do you think the government can do for the judiciary and judicial officers in terms of salaries to curb corruption?

Well, if you were a judge, and government wants to pay you more money, more salaries, and a lawyer like me say ‘don’t pay them,’ when they see me in court, they won’t be happy but I don’t think money is their problem, there is even too much of it already. Nigeria is not an industrialised country, you can’t pay your judges far more you than you pay your cleaners. How much do you pay the teachers who train the judges? Judges are not from heaven. Why should two brothers who went to school, one decides to be a lecturer, one decides to be a judge, why should  the one who is a judge be paid better than the one who is a lecturer? Most people don’t use judges, everybody uses doctors, teachers, nurses, drivers. Most people don’t use judges, they don’t know what they do, they see them well-dressed like foreigners inside one room, the door is locked, they speak Latin, most people don’t go there. So, why should all the resources of Nigeria go there? Judges should not suffer, they should not have fear that they will lose their jobs, they should not have cause not to be unable to pay their bills. But in overall, if we improve inflation in the country, improve economy, and everybody uses less of their income to do basic things, it will affect judges positively.I think it is better for us to do the economy well because if you pay a judge very well, but you don’t pay the judges driver, how will the judge get to work? It is part of injustice in Nigeria, the elite just select themselves to tell you let’s pay the Senators well so that they can be honest, they are all elites. Let’s pay the President more money, let’s pay governors allowances and pensions so that they will not steal while they are there. Everywhere elite are represented, they quickly say let’s pay them more but where the common people are, they will say let’s be patient we cannot afford it.

But the problem with the judiciary is that most Nigerians don’t even know them, they only know them through the election petitions and other high profile cases, and one of the ways to help the judiciary is just to take this political question from them, so that if you take the political questions from them, they can go into backgrounds and they can be satisfied with people who need them. Most people’s encounter with the judiciary is at the magistrate level. Magistrate do most of the jobs and they are not even well paid, they don’t have good court rooms and all of that. How many people go to the Supreme Court of Nigeria? The practice in America is that the Supreme Court can decide which case to hear and not to hear. They are not peoples court, they are just up there. The same thing the  Nigeria Supreme Court, even though by constitution, any question of law or final judgment, they can force it on them but they don’t hear them for many years. If you bring your appeal to me, 10 years you are still in the Supreme Court, so I think, if you ask anybody who says the judiciary is bad, he never had a case before, he has never been a witness before, it just that he supports SDP, SDP loses an election, and SDP also loses the petition, so he is annoyed. Have you read the judgement? No, so if you want to help the judiciary, take them away from election matter, create a constitutional court that does not have regular judges, judges who have retired because election petition is so simple, it is so simple to the extent that you don’t have to  be too intelligent to decide the winner, it is a simple arithmetic. So, you can now take it to constitutional court, where you have retired justices, very senior lawyers who no longer practice, you put them there, you constitute them ad hoc, they hear the case after and they stand dissolved till the next election time. That will allow the regular judiciary who are doing a good job in other areas to continue to do that. But more importantly, the laws have to be just, most laws in Nigeria are not just, even before the law gets into the judiciary, it is already a bad law. So,  where laws are bad, the  judges are supposed to do justice.