It’s mischievous to say Osinbajo outperforms Buhari — UNONGO

A LOT of positive things are happening.
If it is what some mischievous people are saying, that it is because Osinbajo has come, Osinbajo is a person that Buhari trusted and gave the opportunity to be his number two man and the Constitution is very clear that when the man is not there, the vice president should continue and Osinbajo understands and has continued with the Buhari ideas.

So, Osinbajo’s success is Buhari’s success, but people who don’t know try to bring schisms. No. Even in sickness, Buhari is making tremendous achievements.
So everything they said they would do, they are on course in this their half-term score sheet. Would they have done more? Yes, they would have done more, but as a new party in power, they had a lot of problems finding their feet, fighting themselves and taking themselves to court. APC wasted a lot of time sorting themselves out. In spite of all these problems, the APC government has achieved.

party in power, they had a lot of problems finding their feet, fighting themselves and taking themselves to court. APC wasted a lot of time sorting themselves out. In spite of all these problems, the APC government has achieved. There are those who have called for Buhari’s resignation on account of his ill-health. What do you say? No. Nigeria is not a banana republic. We have a constitution, and the constitution is clear.

You see, people talk nonsense and they are cynical people with cynical motives. They know Nigeria is a constitutional democracy. They know there are ample provisions in the constitution as to how somebody should resign. There is provision which can be applied where the president is so sick and has become incapacitated. Constitutional democracy Where do these people come from?

 The constitution provides that if the president is sick or if the president is absent for whatever reason, the next person that he brought to stand election with him, that is, his vice would continue. Buhari did more than that. Now, second part of my answer; if Buhari reaches a state where he cannot obviously perform or as it happened in the case of Yar’Adua, he dies, the constitution is very clear. We are not going to have the sort of crisis like we had before. What is your stance on the ongoing agitations in the different geopolitical zones? They are children. They don’t know anything.
They had no right to issue quit notices. Who are they to say they are speaking for the North? But, you cannot ignore them when grown-ups come and repeat the same sort of funny things. I had a reason why I did not vote for Jonathan for second term; I decided that he was not good to be president. In 2011, I told Jonathan when he came to Makurdi that we would vote for him.

 And when it was time not to vote for him, I went to him and told him we were not going to vote for him. Then I advised him, because it was not something to fight, that ‘when you lose this election, don’t let these useless people that are around you stealing money and you have been seeing and they have been pushing you into trouble, push you to sit tight because you have presidential power. You are a young man.

You are only 50 plus, and if you do what I am advising you to do, you would be surprised maybe God would bring you back.’ I withdrew my electoral support for him because he allowed people to run his life. When you are a leader, you should allow people to help you but do not let them take the decision-making power from you. I discussed with him and told him that this was going to work against him.

Those that were supposed to help him didn’t help him, most especially after the death of his first Chief of Staff. The people around him were just after their interests, and they saw this young man that had no experience, they were using him, exploiting him and using his name for all kinds of things. And because he decided to see only certain kinds of people, not some of us that appeared critical of certain things, I felt he lost good advice. It is wrong when you get into power, and you allow only your friends or tribal people to surround you like what was happening to Buhari. Buhari would have had a problem if he was well and he allowed this to continue. It was not only his tribesmen that voted for him, all of us did.

 And then after he got in there, we noticed gradually, people trying to isolate him from the rest of us, and I went and told Mr. President. And people were complaining. I told him, ‘people are deceiving you that you can micro-manage Nigeria, but you cannot. People wanted you because they saw hope in you.’ I don’t know what he would have done if illness had allowed him to continue right now. I think the man loves Nigeria so much and at a specific time, he would have said, no, this people that are surrounding me and telling me when something is red they would say it is blue, go away. I am sure Buhari would have done that, but now we don’t know. He was getting into trouble with his staunchest supporters.

 Nigeria must address this issue. How come a real good person, when he gets power he allows some people to cage him instead of assisting him to achieve excellence? In 2014, you were against the National Confab. Today, the Senate is asking for the report in the wake of current agitations… No, they are wrong. I disagree with them. That report does not represent Nigerians. It represents, as I describe it then, a bunch of friends of Jonathan who Jonathan trusted and he told them of his dream Nigeria, and they went there and discussed and packed N6 million or was it N12million, and gave them each, pretending that they were representing Nigeria. They never represented Nigeria.

If they were representing Nigeria, my constituency would have elected me. Jonathan knows me. I was not qualified to be present in Jonathan’s conference. The composition did not take into cognizance the reality of Nigeria’s demographics. There were no discussions. My friend, a renowned constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze invited me and Prof.
 Ango Abdullahi to also join the charade, and I told Ben you know me, and I can’t do that because this is not representative, let the president set up modalities for a constitutional conference. You can even make it a sovereign national conference, and I will attend.

 I had attended all the constitutional conferences in Nigeria including that of Abacha which could have given us the best constitution, but unfortunately, he died.

 When I saw the young man I love so much, Bukola, because I was very close to his father, saying they should bring the report, I was wondering whether it was advisory because it is supposed to go through a constitutional conference that is representative of the people.

What are your thoughts on fiscal federalism or restructuring as some people would want to call it? I do not know what they mean by true federalism.
 Is it because they feel that money is found in their place now and money is not found in any other place? It is wrong. I know in Benue State alone, the quantum of gas that flares up is in billions and trillions and it is not exploited. I am willing to discuss with anybody.

 And I know what is in the soil of Nasarawa and Sokoto and I know the petroleum that is developed and harnessed in the Niger Republic. So, the petroleum found in Chad that is exploited, you want to say it doesn’t flow around the Lake Chad?

 I know that Nigeria’s leadership has not exploited all the potentials of the country and in the long run, the places that are not developed, if you restructure the constitution the way these people are agitating now, which I will support, they will become the richest parts of Nigeria and they will keep 100 percent of all the minerals they have in their states. That may be the best thing so that we can have respect because people insult people.

You know human beings are sentimental and emotional. All these issuing of threats left and right by young men is because of this misconception that these people are not rich. They are beggars; they are parasites.

That is not correct. We haven’t read history correctly. There was a time in the evolution of Nigeria as a nation-state, we relied on agricultural produce and because of the size, maybe Ango puts it in a way that irritates people, but it is true, most of the development of Nigeria was done with the money that came from agriculture and the white men said, take go and develop the rest of the country, we are together, even the petroleum industry.