Ciroma seem ot have been
politically inactive for a while. Mallam
Adamu Ciroma was third in the 1978 presidential primaries of the defunct
National Party of Nigeria, NPN.
Mallam Adamu Ciroma is also a close confidant
of President Shehu Shagari and served as minister in the Second Republic. President Olusegun Obasanjo an ally to Ciroma in
the Fourth Republic and a rallying figure in the northern opposition to the
2011 presidential bid of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Mallam Adamu Ciroma, is a journalist,
administrator, politician, former minister of different portfolios and
erstwhile governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
In this interview Ciroma express his views................
You
have been quiet for long on issues. Why?
There is no issue and I
don’t have to talk to the media or anybody.
As
a founding father of the PDP, a lot of things went wrong and the party lost
after 16 years in government. What do you think really happened?
You are a reporter and you
have been following events more than me. Some of the things which caused the
downfall of the party, have already been reported by you, and some of them were
the cause of controversy in the party, for example about the presidential
candidate where he comes from.
Do
you also agree that there were also issues of lack of respect, lack of internal
democracy in the party?
Everything about Nigerian
politics and the formation of PDP and the management of affairs during the PDP
period are known by you and indeed by everybody and everyone is even tired of
them.
Now even the new government
that has not been formed yet properly has not settled yet, has not done
anything yet, why do you want to confuse us again about the PDP period? You
know everything about PDP period; you know everything they are doing even now.
I don’t want to be in the press because you have come to ask me questions.
How
can we get to the end of the Boko Haram insurgency?
The President has asked the
military to bring the insurgency to an end by the end of December, this is
official, everybody has heard of it and everybody is praying for the success of
the president and everybody wants to help. So we pray that what the President
said comes true and we hope that this nation will be able to have peace.
Was
setting a time line for it really feasible?
I am not a military
personnel, I am not a member of the police force.
I am not a member of any of
the security agencies; so I am not the one to answer that question.
How
would you assess the government of President Muhammadu Buhari?
I have just told you that
the government that was elected after the elections has not yet been properly
established; ministers have just been named and approved by the Senate, the
ministers are still familiarizing themselves with their ministries; so it is
too early to ask what they have done or how they are doing it.
In fact, a lot of the
worries people have now, is about the economy and the foreign exchange and
things of that nature. It is now for the president to look at what the people
are saying and deal with the problems of which they are throwing up and it is
his duty to do that.
How
will you assess the present economic team of Mr President and his economic
blueprint? And if you are to proffer an economic advice, what would you
recommend?
You go and ask Udo Udoma
and the Minister of Finance to explain to you their positions on things as they
have outlined their programme to the President. I am not governor of the CBN
now; I have not been the governor of the CBN for a long time.
Even, I was the minister of
finance a long time ago. So all I know is that people are worried about foreign
exchange, about financial transactions, about banking and I know that the
government knows about these problems; though I expect the government to deal
with them.
Nigerians
will want to share in your experience on how you succeeded as finance minister
and as CBN governor.
I did not have the same
problem with the present government. I am old fashioned. Our view was that
finance must deal with funding government activities, paying government
workers, paying for economic development and once you put an item in the
budget, you may consider it already done because government must find the
resources to do them; in fact they will not put anything in the budget if they
cannot find the resources to do them.
So our own way of doing
things was old fashioned and when we say things you know, they will be done.
But the present government is just settling in. I don’t know their plans.
Part
of their plans is to deregulate the price of petroleum which could see the
price go up in future. Is there hope?
Udo Udoma laid out his
views of what is likely going to happen to the economy. The Minister of Finance
has said she expected there should be a lot of hard times next year.
But I am sure that from now
on, they are trying to ensure that only good things happen, that the problems
they are afraid of will be avoided and I am sure that they are going to do
their best.
Are
you worried by the revelations on the alleged misuse of the security funds
raised against the former National Security Adviser, Col. Samo Dasuki?
The issue of the alleged
arms deals involving the former National Security Adviser is just something
which is unfolding and you know that the matter is in court, the EFCC is trying
to prosecute some of those involved and you can see the complication in public
affairs where something begins with security adviser and ends up with the
distribution of money at party level for the campaign.
So we are still in the
middle of these things, we don’t know how it is going to end. You just for the
time being take note that people are being arrested, some are being tried and
some denying receiving money from the security adviser. So the issues are going
to clarify themselves in due course when EFCC has finished trying those who are
accused.
Col
Sambo Dasuki mentioned that some party leaders were involved and they used it
as campaign funds for the party, was it right and during your time did it
happen that money maybe from the NSA or so, will be directed to the party?
Anything in politics, no
matter how you deal with it secretly, eventually becomes public, eventually
people will get to know about it. What didn’t get exposed didn’t happen.
So the issues they are
having now are issues that have happened. It didn’t happen before and that was
why it was not exposed. And I don’t know the details of what they did.
The
PDP recently organized a national conference supposedly to heal wounds? Did they
get it right?
You know it more than
myself, you were there, you reported the thing. I was not there, they said I
would be there, but I was not there. Did they not say I would be there?
Why
didn’t you attend?
I was not there because I
wasn’t clear in my own mind what they were trying to do.
Meaning
they didn’t come to explain, they didn’t visit you.
They visited me, they
explained, but I was not convinced.
Immediately
after the election, two prominent PDP leaders resigned their positions in the
party Adamu Muazu and the next day the chairman BoT, Chief Tony Anenih, what is
your take on this?
I will not. Adamu Muazu is
alive and well, the former chairman of BoT is alive and well.
It is more interesting to
get them to talk than to ask me a retired person to talk about things which
happened when I was not there.
Some
people are still saying that PDP will bounce back. Do you think so?
Politics is a continuous
event, whether you like or you don’t like it, there will always be politics.
Even if the Army is there, there will still be politics, so politics will
continue.
And parties in government
will eventually lose; every party in government will have to lose, so there is
nothing new really about the party losing election, it is nothing new. So
losing elections, people get worried about this, what is there in losing election;
what is new about losing election. If you are talking about democracy you are
talking of winning and losing and anybody can lose, anybody can win; events of
today can change tomorrow.
One
of the problems of the party now is after Adamu Mu’azu resigned, stakeholders
from the Northeast claimed that he should have been succeeded by someone from
the region. What is your take on this?
I don’t know what you are
talking about, I don’t know about it. I cannot comment on what I don’t know. Is
it a new thing for PDP to change their position? In 2011 when Yar‘adua died,
wasn’t it still the time of the north to continue with the presidency? Was it
not changed?
So there is nothing new
about these things. But everything you do have consequences and you must remember
that you are going to pay for the consequences of your action.
In
other words PDP paid the price for not allowing the north to continue
This is your own saying; we
have already done the political side in 2011.
So,
do you think the NWC did a good thing now by zoning the presidency in 2019 to
the north? Where exactly in the north do you think it should go now because at
least the North West has had its own share?
If you do the right thing
you will reap good result; if you don’t do the right thing you pay.
What
is your take on the intrigues that threw up an opposition party senator as
Deputy President of the Senate and an APC Senate President that was opposed by
his party?
All these things are
happening in front of your eyes and the people who are doing it are still
there, what is the need for a retired person like me to answer.
Nigerians
will be happy to hear your views on this
No, it doesn’t follow that
way. Just because I say I am right or just because I say something they are
doing is wrong, it doesn’t follow that way.
Deal with the current
events and the current event is that the National Assembly; they are just
settling in; they have just finished appointing the chairmen of their
committees and they have disputes between themselves. There is nothing new
about that, it is normal.
How
do you react to raging issues in the polity such as the agitation for Biafra,
the faceoff with followers of Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky to the call for
separation by the Afenifere following the kidnap of former Secretary to the
Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae?
The education process up to
University enables you appreciate how life unfolds and especially with your
literature. You will read about how people think, how they create plays and
things like that; a lot of it is drawn from real life.
So you are talking about
Nigeria, you are talking about people, living people, you are talking about
people who are Muslims; you are talking about people who are Christians, you
are talking about people who are pagans; you are talking about people who speak
different languages, about Kanuris, about Fulanis in the Northeast; so life is
dealing with all these complicated things, of people who are actually living.
There is no single
prescribed way of how they are going to live. We are just Nigerians, we are not
even called Nigerians, we are just black people living in this part. The
British came and put us together and said we are Nigerians and eventually we
all agreed with the British that we are Nigerians. And when we are unhappy, we
say we are Biafrans or when we are not happy we will say we are Yorubas, but we
say we are Nigerians.
So we are learning to live
with one another, we accorded each other, so the way things will unfold, you
cannot predict and you have to learn how to live with other people. Sometimes I
wonder you Nigerians, are you real people? Don’t you know that we are coming
together only a hundred years ago and we are still learning how to live with
one another.
By the time the Europeans
came, even the Yoruba people, did not even learn how to live with each other,
they were fighting and all over the north, they were fighting everywhere, there
were tribal wars.
Now we are at peace because
of economic development, social contacts and things like that are happening,
they are changing our ways of thinking, they are changing our ways of life,
education is changing us. And sometimes when you ask questions you seem to be
unaware that Nigeria is a complicated place, but not only Nigeria, Britain is a
complicated place.
Look at how a lot of people
from all over the world now are going to Europe, they want to go and live and
enjoy, the Europeans are resisting. So you Nigerians, you must learn how to
live with one another in such a way that you will understand that you have life
that is you relate with each other in a friendly way, in a stable way, in an
understanding way.
Biafra, this Biafra, I tell
my Igbo friends, Biafra, for what? This Nigeria is too small for you Igbos. All
over Nigeria you will see Igbos everywhere. If you go to Ghana, Igbos
everywhere. If you go to Niger, Igbos everywhere. If you go to South Africa,
Igbo everywhere; this Nigeria is too small for you. But now you want something
smaller, what does it mean?
It means that people
sometimes do things without thinking very deeply. But education is to enable
you to think and to solve problems.
What the Igbos are saying
is that they want Biafra; I just remember only recently the Yoruba leaders said
they want to break, break from where. The Yoruba are probably the people who
economically enjoy Nigeria more than anybody, economically. So why are they
going? So my own problem with Nigeria is that many people say things without
thinking.
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