The Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media, AbdulAziz AbdulAziz, in this interview with MUHAMMAD KABIR, navigates through the President’s journey in steering the affairs of the nation, and makes projections into the 2027 elections
What is the impression of people like you that are working with President Tinubu on the coalition of ADC?
On the coalition, let me tell you that the President is unperturbed. He is completely undisturbed. He is not in any way jittery about whether it is a coalition or any political formation. Because, one, it is the people that are championing these things, most of them are politically expired. They are no people with political weight or relevance that would cause the government or the President any jitters. We have had serial contesters who had, you know, thrown their hearts into the ring on many occasions. And they were fully lost. And nothing much has changed.
In fact, their stars are dimming, and in that kind of situation, what they did not do or they did not get when their stars were shining, I don’t see them getting it now. Then secondly, you should also know that these are a group of bitter individuals – people driven by personal vendetta and a sense of personal loss. And their concern is not the people, not the ordinary Nigerians. Their concern is that they are not on the table. And Nigerians have sufficiently understood this. That is why the coalition is not catching fire as they thought it would.
This is because if you just cast your mind back not long ago, you will know that what they wanted to achieve was grand. Like, some three, four, five months ago when they started, they were thinking that it was going to be like a snowball of fire that will just come and consume the government. But it has not happened. So, why should anybody get jittery? They have failed in that attempt already.
As I said earlier, Nigerians see them for what they are. They are disgruntled elements that are only talking about themselves. Listen to their interviews. Nobody, hardly do they talk about the people. Even if they do, it’s just a smokescreen to use to advance their own agenda and interests. But what they majorly talk about is their exclusion. And leadership should not be seen as and chop. Leadership should be seen as service. So if people who ostensibly call themselves saviors or people who have a new movement or something like that should be seen to be altruistic, should be seen to be people who are driven by public interest, not by the fact that they are only crying over spilled milk, over something that they thought they should take as if it is their own birthright or their own inheritance, which someone has taken from them. So that’s the second point.
Then number three, why the President is not disturbed is also because he knows that all well-meaning Nigerians, people who really care and understand what it means to drive a country, are actually behind the President. Because President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has shown that he is a leader, not a politician. Unlike so many political leaders who would want to go with political expediency.
What do you mean by political expediency in this regard?
Political expediency in this case means to keep digging the hole. Even when you know that it’s not going anywhere, you are sinking the country further. Like in terms of borrowing money to pay for subsidy, in terms of printing money to finance things that are not productive. In terms of subsidizing the currency and giving preferential rates to friends of the government. The politician would have easily continued with those things. But as I often say, there is a difference between leadership and politics.
Politics is a game of popularity. Leadership is a game of nation building. And that is what President Tinubu is doing. To really take hard-hitting decisions, even if they affect him personally. But those decisions that he feels are for the good of the country. And gradually these monies have been devolved into more productive ventures, into helping the country to be more productive, to redirect our economy.
Look at, for example, the huge investment in infrastructure. That is unprecedented in terms of scale and spread. Also look at things like student loans. When the President was coming, he kept saying this as a mantra. That four-year course will be a four-year course. There won’t be a strike. Schools will not be closed arbitrarily. And nobody will have a reason not to go to school because his parents could not pay for school fees. Now, all your children, children of all Nigerians, are free to access a very lenient loan facility that allows them to remain in school, both in terms of school fees, but even handouts as a pocket allowance. So, for these reasons, the President is not disturbed about any coalition.
Do you think most Nigerians are enjoying this or can they make the difference?
I believe that Nigerians are able to differentiate between light and darkness, between people who are soldiers of fortune, who want to just grab a national pie and run away with it, and someone who actually wants to secure our future in terms of more sustainable prosperity.
On the other question, I think those concerns are really purely political. Let me tell you, some people ask, what is the President doing in the North beyond new projects, which I can come to? When President Tinubu came, there were so many projects in the northern part of Nigeria. A lot of them at a very early stage. I tell people, if this man is wicked or doesn’t like the North, he could have abandoned them. He can withhold financing. If there is no financing, these projects will stagnate or will even naturally die. But none of these projects that he inherited, which are massive, have actually stopped. And these are projects that are in billions of dollars.
If you look at the very important energy projects for northern Nigeria. The Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline, the AKK, was something that when we came was not up to 50 per cent. It has continued. We are nearing completion. This is somebody that is faithful. As I said, if he had wished, he could sabotage the funding for it or redirect the money to something else. If you look at the Kolmani oil prospecting, it’s ongoing. It’s something that was at an infancy level when this government came, but it’s continued.
If you look at the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road, the very important road, but for the altercation with Julius Berger that led to its cancellation, revocation and rewarding of the contract, it would have been completed by now. But now, I drive from Abuja to Kaduna to Kano, and at different points, you see the projects going on. The portion that remains between Zaria and Kano is almost completed. They are laying asphalt. If you come from Suleja, from the Suleja axis, you see work is ongoing on reinforced concrete, that is iron and concrete. That is very durable work that has been done. This project, the government devoted over N400 billion to complete it.
If you come to the Kaduna-Kano rail line, it was a stage when this government came in. But this government has continued. So many other projects like that- Kano-Kasina-Maradi rail line are ongoing at a very speedy level. In fact, they are working literally 24 hours, because I pass by the places on weekends and I see them working. If you go just to the outskirts of Kano, around Janguza, once you cross the bridge from BUK you will see them working up to now, as we speak. And so are so many other places and other projects like that.
I say the greatness of a government, for me, is in the way it continues with the project it inherited. The norm, usually in Nigeria, is that every government tries to do something new. So that it will be praised that it has done this. But yet billions and billions of Naira get wasted in abandoned projects. But this President has strong faith in Northern Nigeria. And he is a nationalist. And that is why he has devoted a lot of attention, devoted a lot of resources to ensure that projects in Northern Nigeria are not halted because a southerner is now the President. No, he sees them as Nigerian projects. And coming to the new roads and other infrastructure, everywhere there are roads dotting Northern Nigeria and other infrastructure that the President is doing.
But there have been complaints too…
If you look at, people complain about the Coastal Highway, but look at the Sokoto-Badagry Road. It’s a bit longer than the Coastal Highway, only that the Coastal highway, because of the terrain, maybe is more expensive. But this one is a virgin road that is connecting communities, connecting businesses, connecting social interactions between the farthest place in the North to the creeks down South. And along the road, there are economic activities that are being carried out along with the road, including dams, farming clusters, and all that. And this is why it is a very noble project, and over 60% of it is in Northern Nigeria. And the work is ongoing on that. And work is ongoing from different sides, so that no part is left behind. In fact, on the northern plank, I think right now there are about three lots that are concurrently taking place – From Sokoto, it has started. From Kebbi, it has started. So this shows that the government is serious about… It’s not something that is just a name. It’s something that the government is doing to bring prosperity among our people and to also ease movement of goods and services. That is a very important corridor of livestock and then also goods from the South.
On the other side, you know, there is the other road from Lagos to Abuja that is also being done, which is also connected. And then the Port Harcourt line, the government has gotten funding for it, and work is starting. And that is also one very massive project that is to the advantage of northern Nigeria. So, talks about lopsided projects and all that, as I said earlier, are largely political, and the people saying those things are not genuine. They say that to advance their own political causes, not because they mean what they say. This is because any objective analyst, as I just pointed out, any objective analyst will see the economic benefits of this.
Sometimes, people are myopic about issues like this. A country is not built in a fragmented arrangement. You can’t develop an economy in fragments. It has to be holistic. And there are things that are done not because maybe the President is from Kano or the President is from Ibadan, but because Kano or Ibadan is important and therefore needs to be developed along that line.
For example, there were talks about when recently the Federal Executive Council approved the upgrade of Abuja and Lagos Airport. People were saying all manner of things. But any objective person would know, especially any modern educated person, knows that anywhere in the world there are hubs. And you can’t say that you develop your airport or ports at the same rate because they don’t have equal importance. You can because you say you like equity or you approve equity. And you say you will go and spend N300 billion to develop an airport in equity. When nobody goes there, when there is no economic activity there. But Lagos is a hub for Nigeria. Not even for Nigeria, you can say even for West Africa. But modestly we can say for Nigeria, it is an airport that carries more than 70 per cent of our passenger traffic. So why don’t you develop it?
If you go to UK, they have Heathrow in London, and Heathrow is not the same as maybe the airport in Sheffield or the one in Liverpool. It can be. If you go to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, people even sometimes, especially people that are not really educated, they don’t even know that Dubai is a city in a country called the United Arab Emirates. But because the authorities understand the importance of having a hub and developing it, that hub will end up servicing the country. So, Dubai is developed deliberately so that it keeps attracting money for the rest of the country. There are other cities. Even the capital, Abu Dhabi, is not a hub compared to Dubai. So, in Nigeria it’s the same thing. What is the percentage of our revenue coming through the artery of Lagos? It’s a lot. So, why don’t you develop it? Because it’s just like a milking cow. If you have a cow that gives you a lot of milk, you should also take care of it so that you will get more milk from it. You can’t say that because the cow is this or that, I won’t take care of it. Because the most important thing is that when you feed it well, you will also get a lot of milk. So, if our airport is an ISO, and this is our major entry point, and then some investors or some people are not keen on coming because they feel we don’t have the right facilities and some airlines cannot land, we are losing. So, we ought to be very patriotic and genuine in terms of assessing some of these things.
