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Special Assistant to the President on Special Duties, Mr. Jamiu Abiola, speaks on the on efforts of President Bola Tinubu to resolve the country’s challenges, and nationwide protest, among other issues with Seun Okinbaloye, DEBORAH ODEKOLA brings excerpts
You work for the government from the office of the vice president on special duty. And in the books that you have written, try to flip through and get a sense of what your thoughts are about the presidency and how what your father did and all whatnot. But when you see what is happening on the streets of Nigeria today and the agitation on the minds of many Nigerians, what do you think is going on in our country and the way to fix it?
Well, what is happening in Nigeria goes on to prove that sometimes, it is easy to forget the past. A lot of Nigerians are looking at this president as any other president because a lot of them have experienced broken promises from one president to another. So as far as they’re concerned, anything that seems difficult is another broken promise. It’s like somebody that has been in marriage like five times and always disappointed. Even if he married a good person, he would think, oh, any small thing he would be looking and trying to pick. But that is our job, is to let people know when we see that things are getting out of hand, we are going to come out. I will come out and let people know the truth from my perspective. First of all, democracy was a very difficult fight. If you know what happened in Africa in the 80s with African leaders, those of them that stepped down, they had ruled for 20 years and they were like 70-something years old. I mean, this was a time in which people were very rich and very powerful. So the people who came out to fight for democracy are exceptional. And where I am going with this is the president that we have now is a different kind of president.
What makes him different?
He is a different kind of president because he is a president who believes in democracy. He is a president who believes in the common man. He is a president who loves the common man. And when I see all this that is happening, it is my job to remind people about who they are talking about. This man is Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man who could have left the democratic struggle but stood to fight for it, risking his life, risking everything he had. So he is not like the other people that have come and are disappointed. That is why he needs to be given time. He has the credit. He is like you in the United States, you have a good credit rating, and you can apply to get a loan because they will look at your credit record and they will give you, as opposed to someone who doesn’t have a good credit record. So this man has become the president in just one year and two months he has been serving, a lot of things he has done have been unprecedented.
If it is unprecedented, why are people on the street?
People are on the street because number one, it’s like now, this is channels. Do I work here? I don’t. You work here, right? Let’s assume that the owners of channels say I want Jamiu Abiola to become the Managing Director and they put me to work here. And I come in here and you tell me this is how the books are and this is how things are. And I come here and I make promises to people based on what you have told me. And then I come, I find another thing entirely and I’m trying to work it out. And it would take like almost two years for you to start seeing the results. Should I be blamed for what other management people did or not?
But you promised and asked for the job and the president said I asked for the job, don’t pity me. I will get it done.
Yes. And that’s why he has four years. The only person who knows everything is God. He is the President of Nigeria. Since he has gotten there now, what has he been doing? I’ll tell you some of the things he’s been doing because people that are protesting, of them, have not sat down to think about what he has been doing.
So those who are protesting are not being fair to the president?
No, they are emotional. But anybody can get emotional. And that is why I am here, to also let them know some of the facts. And by the grace of God, when we now tell them some of the facts, a lot of them will say, oh, wow. That is where I’m going. First of all, we have a president that set up a fund to come and take care of people that are not, you finish, you have your NYSC, you haven’t gotten a job. The federal government, for the first time, is going to be giving you an allowance every month till you get a job once you have your NYSC. The other thing the president is going to do is that we have a programme that we want to create three million jobs for people of high tech. 200,000 people have already benefited. This is not something that is a pipeline, something that is already happening. Rome wasn’t built in a day. There is also the subsidy removal loan scheme, which they have been giving out to a lot of families. 600,000 people have benefited 50,000. Of course, it’s not enough, but it is a start. We have student loans. Whenever anybody tells the president that, oh, it could be done better. He is not proud. He will step down and he always does it. So when people are protesting against somebody who is already doing what it is supposed to do, then it is like you want to fix something that is been fixed. It has already been broken before, but now he is working towards fixing it. The first book I wrote is called Realistic Hopes. I wrote that book 11 years ago. And the reason why I named it Realistic Hope is that I realised even back then that what makes people fail in life is that their hopes are never realistic. If you want to succeed, you have to have realistic hopes. This man came to a government and so much has happened. Terrible things have happened in Nigeria.
But it’s the same government of APC?
But when you say the same government as APC, government is government. Whether it is APC or PDP. You people remember what happened before the election. There was no petrol, and there was the issue of the naira redesign and all of the conspiracies so that he wouldn’t become president. So let us take a step back. One year and two months is not a long period.
So when do you think people should have gone to protest if the president wasn’t performing?
First of all, people have a right to protest. It is in the constitution. But what I want people to do as well is to take a look at what the president has been doing.
Is it the fault of the people that they’ve not seen? Is it that the government is not communicating enough? What do you think is the problem?
Whether it is the fault of the people. What has happened has happened. And now we are here to let people know that this president that you are looking at has a lot of wonderful plans for Nigeria. Look at this new Ministry of Livestock. You know what it’s going to do? Do you know what the Livestock Ministry has done in Brazil? Do you know how that is enough to even transform Nigeria? The president is trying to solve this cattle, farmers problem that has been going on for a long time. Look at the issue of security. The president told the security agencies that all of you have to work together. Even recently, just three weeks ago, a whole family was kidnapped in Kaduna, but they all came together. And in less than a week, they freed the wife, they freed the children. So now the country is already going on the right path. So when all of these things are happening, it’s as if somebody is trying to bring God back. It’s like the people of Israel when the Jews left, and now somebody wants to take them back to Egypt. You know, this should not happen.
Do you think for a moment, maybe there are conspiracies against President Tinubu?
The truth of the matter is that there were always fears from the beginning, that if this protest starts, some people might hijack it. And some people, unfortunately, haven’t gotten over the fact that God did not promise that they will win last year’s election. So at the end of the day, some of these people, I’m not accusing him. I don’t know him. I don’t know what his mind is. Nobody has the right to accuse anybody. But some people are very unsincere. The same people who worked against my dad and canceled his election, do you think they are going to want the person who was trying his best to support my dad to ever become president and to succeed? It is the same forces that we have. But by the grace of God, I believe in God. And I believe that whatever it is that is happening, a lot of people will come to realise that this is wrong. This man has so many things he has done. I just mentioned so many things. I can talk about it all day. This is what we do in the office, even me on my level. I have just signed an agreement with the NDLEA (Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency. We have come up with the Renewed Hope Resilience Initiative. We are starting with 50 former drug addicts who were rehabilitated by NDLEA. We are going to rehabilitate them in vocational training. We have so many plans in a supply chain. These are the same people who would have been drug addicts and gotten involved in banditry and kidnapping. This government has wonderful plans. So Nigerians shouldn’t be deceived and shouldn’t be fooled.
So you are asking Nigerians to give this government a chance?
They should give the government a chance. And the reason why they should have realistic hopes is they should know that this government came at a time. Even the election is enough to tell Nigerians everything.
Your father ran to be the president of this country in one of the elections, regarded or tagged as one of the freest and fairest in this country. Do you see Bola Tinubu in an MKO Abiola for some reason?
Well, I will tell you one thing. At the end of the day, everybody is different. But if you look at his attitude, if you go to his house on a given day, he didn’t even know he was going to become president. You will see people lining up the same way you see them lining up in my dad’s house. A lot of people I meet up with today, tell me stuff like, Oh, your father did this for me. Your father did that for me. A lot of people I meet, tell me that, Oh, Senator Bola Tinubu did this for me. He did that for me. I see these similarities in those areas. And of course, they are both accountants. But I also see a conspiracy as like, the same people that didn’t want my father to succeed, they also don’t want him to succeed because he supported my dad and he almost lost everything. But that is my personal opinion. I’m not forcing my opinion on anybody.
And your father preached hope and Bola Tinubu too is also preaching hope.
Yes, preaching hope. In the first book I wrote, I called it Realistic Hope. Hope is the only thing. Even Barack Obama, Audacity of Hope, you know. Without hope, you cannot get anywhere. And there is no way we can keep having hope if we see people going out.
But when the hope looks like a dashed one and people think that what they wanted, they are not getting it. You don’t think that that would be a problem?
I will tell you what is so funny. When I was a kid, there was a hospital near my house. They take me there, whenever I have malaria and they give me an injection. Knowing this I would just run away. And they will drag me back. I would run away again. Then they would finally hold me and give me the injection. After two days of pain, I will now be happy because I will be playing around. I would have recovered. So sometimes for you to get better, it has to get tough. It is a test and it is from God. But you see, God is testing people and it is not just in Nigeria, in America.
Are you saying there is a hand of God in all of this?
There’s a hand of God in everything. Even in the United States.
In which part is the hand of God? Is it in the hardship or the president coming into power?
Everything. Anything you go through. The president coming into power was divine. Even in the United States, the highest level of inflation in the United States is this year, it has never happened like that in the US before. The whole world is like, I don’t know what’s going on. I think God is testing us, you know. And I’ll tell you this, we have to pass the test. When I see people looting and all of that, all in the name of protest, I say to myself that the person you are looking for, you don’t know what he has gone through to even open the shop.
