Babachir Lawal is a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). In this interview monitored on Channels Television, he speaks on emerging political trends and insecurity, among other issues. ANAYO EZUGWU reports
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) placed a distant third in the Anambra State governorship election. Did you see that coming?
We didn’t even expect to come third. I mean, the issue was that the man was in the Labour Party and I think it was when it was clear that he was not going to get a ticket for Labour Party that he joined our party and picked the ticket.
As a party, we had wished that he would have supported the candidate of the Labour Party because the Labour Party had done their convention at the time we were still in the process of the realignment.
That was one of the reasons why some of our leaders requested that we excuse them because they had already committed to other elections, the off-cycle elections, and that when they are through with those elections, they will join us fully.
It is on that basis that we excused Mr. Peter Obi to go and continue the campaign for the candidate of Labour Party. So, in spirit, he was never our candidate but he wanted to contest on our platform and he had the right to do so and he did so.
Does it not bother that your party doesn’t really have that kind of political weight because this is a party that some of you had said that a lot of Nigerians are supporting?
It would have bothered me if the All Progressives Congress (APC) had won with all their federal might. They didn’t do well either. So, the battle in the coming election in Nigeria is against APC, not All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Everybody knows that APGA is a traditional Anambra party since its foundation. Nobody has ever been able to displace them.
So, it’s only a tradition that and we did hear some rumours going around before the election that the man was going to support Bola Tinubu in the general election.
So, there was a deal behind the scenes. And I think APC found themselves in the same boat as us because they were supporting APGA and they had a candidate. So, I think it’s the issue of morality in the Nigerian politics that has pervaded everywhere.
You are in one party but you are supporting the other party and so on. But in truth, we knew that we didn’t stand a chance because the candidate came in late. He was not very well known but he was determined to contest and so we let him be.
Does that validate the need and the necessity or the importance of political structure in an election?
It does not; election is about the candidate. The structure only comes into context when you expect to be rigged out, and you need the boots on the ground to protect your votes. Structures are used to rig elections and structures are also used to defend votes and the polling units. But at the level at which I was involved in the presidential election, our candidate was not a candidate that would tolerate rigging.
Muhammadu Buhari’s position is: Let us respect Nigerian voters; let us allow them to go and cast their votes and be counted and announced. Even if that is the only legacy I will leave for Nigeria, I will be willing to do so.
Not once, not twice; any time there is a major election, President Buhari would call me and tell me that because, obviously, I was the politician of the government, and if rigging was going to take place, it probably would be coordinated by me, but he wouldn’t let me.
Are you saying that the Office of the SGF could be used to coordinate rigging?
Of course, yes. The office of the SGF is the engine room. Everybody who is a political appointee reports to the Office of the SGF. You can’t avoid that. I mean, you sit in Abuja, you pass on the instructions.
One thing with politicians is that at the lower level, they don’t care about rules. They don’t care about what the Federal Government’s position is.
They don’t care about what the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) position is. They want to win first. That’s where the mantra comes that win and let them go to court because if you can rig out millions of Nigerians, what are five, six judges.
Are you one of those who joined the ADC with a primary objective that President Tinubu must go back to Lagos in 2027?
No, I’m not. My own is more global than that. There’s no point taking out Bola Tinubu if you are going to replace him with a more evil government.
Is there an evil government?
Yes, of course.
Is it like the one you belonged to under Buhari?
The Buhari government was not evil. Because Buhari is dead, everything he did is dead, so let’s not argue about mundane things. When you classify something as evil, it’s relative to what it’s not. So, by calling it an evil government, it’s relative to past governments that we’ve had, implying that past governments were better.
If I see results of what the APC government is doing, I’ll say it. It won’t hurt me; it won’t kill me, vut I don’t see it
They were more accommodating in the sense of equity in the system, in the sense of the intention to fight corruption, in the sense of being fair and just, even in the sense of security.
On the issue of insecurity, Goodluck Jonathan was not so successful at it. Buhari took over and did his best, but this government is not interested in that. Let me tell you something; before this government came into office, Adamawa State was peaceful, just small skirmishes in border areas with Borno State.
We can go to our farms, except for a small area in my local government, which borders Sambisa Forest. Occasionally, they came down from the mountains in Madagali and forage for food, and anybody they find on the way, they attack physically. This government met it that way.
Are you saying that things are worse in Adamawa compared to when Buhari was in government?
By the time Buhari was leaving, Adamawa was peaceful, but now, people are coming to invade lands, drive out the people, kill them, and so on and so forth. It wasn’t like that during Buhari’s time.
But the National Security Adviser (NSA, who is your brother from Adamawa, says they are working day and night to fish out these people… Yes, he is my friend and we are from the same state but I don’t see the work he’s doing.
If I see the work he’s doing, I’ll tell you. I’m not somebody who will say what is not there. If I see results of what the APC government is doing, I’ll say it. It won’t hurt me; it won’t kill me, but I don’t see it. I know soldiers that are out there. Some are losing their lives.
The question is: Why are they losing their lives? They are losing their lives because the system that’s supposed to support them has failed. How can you send a soldier to the battlefield with an old and antiquated rifle that can only hold 20 rounds of ammunition, when he is facing an enemy that has chains of bullets?
Why didn’t you change things when you were the SGF?
Our time was better as they had better arms. We had this advantage that the president then was a soldier and he understood the issues very well.
Some people call you Pastor Lawal; are you a practicing pastor?
I have two degrees in Theology and I do missionary work. When I was young, I used to be a missionary out there in other countries. But now I don’t do missionary work because, for one, I’m diabetic. I need to carry my injection, which requires refrigeration, 24 hours. So, you can imagine me in Darfur, where I used to be, or somewhere where there’s no electricity, I’ll be dead.
Would you regard yourself as a minority Christian from a largely Muslim North?
No, and let’s define that. There’s no minority Christian. I think what you are trying to say is that I come from one of the smaller tribes compared to the Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa, who are called major tribes because they are larger ethnic groups. But there are some of us, like my own, probably below one million, or if maximum maybe one million, and then we aggregate ourselves to form a whole, and then they call us minority in the sense that individually we are small, but nothing more than that
There are Christians in southern part of Borno; in Adamawa, there are a lot of Christians too as well as other parts of Northern Nigeria. But the voices of these Christians are not prominent. What do you think is responsible for that?
I’m a Christian from one of those tribes, but you need to look at the historical reasons why things are the way they are. Before the British came during the colonial era, there was jihad, and the jihadists actually went around conquering and installing Islamic emirates. But quite a lot of the tribes resisted them, and they were not able to conquer them.
And those tribes, mostly smaller tribes like our own, eventually embraced Christianity, or they were already Christians by the time of the jihad of 1904 or so. But you see, the British had an issue.
They wanted to rule through the indirect rule and they felt that using the emirate system was good as there were already established administratively and so on.
They were collecting tax effectively, so the British leaned on that system. And like in Adamawa, where majority of the tribes were not conquered, they went about installing and demoting the chiefdoms they met in place; they demoted our own people and gave ascendancy to the newcomer, the emir. And so, all over the place, that’s how it has been.
They were not able to conquer us and this position remained. So, we feel that we are not subservient to the Muslim, so to say. Quite a lot of our people converted to Islam eventually, not by coercion of the jihad, but by conviction or whatever. So, the dynamics has remained that way.
The jihadists feel superior but we feel they are not because in any case, like me, they didn’t conquer my people. They just went to Yola and installed Modibo Adamawa, who came with a staff office from Sokoto. This is what has affected the dynamics. But majority of us are Christians and we are many. We cut across, like you said and we don’t feel subdued.
Is there a religious discrimination to the point that it can be described as a deliberate attempt to subjugate or some kind of genocide going on in Northern Nigeria?
There are two things. You separate the emirate system and the traditional chiefdom issues aside, jihad and those who were not conquered by jihadists, and then religion.
It appears that the jihadists have not forgiven the Christian community for not being conquered and they have consistently used all manner of subterfuge to get that ascendancy. Today, if you call a Muslim nailcutter, he’ll cut your nails but he’ll feel superior to you because he’s a Muslim.
One of the reasons why we protested against the Muslim-Muslim ticket was because it was going to give such Islamic fundamentalists the impetus and the courage to go ahead, feeling that now is their government. They have a stamp of approval at the federal level, so it’s now an excuse for them to go down the line. It does happen. I gave you a story one time when a Fulani man entered my farm with his cows, and we arrested him.
He was taken to the police station and he was boasting: ‘Do you think that I can come to your farm without somebody giving me the permission. This is our government.’ I was even the SGF then and a cattle herder was telling me that Buhari authorised him to enter my farm. It was very annoying.
But you see, at his level of education, he thinks that because the president is a Muslim, he has the right to do whatever he wanted and get away with it. That is the consequence of the Muslim-Muslim ticket. It has given them the courage to go the last mile persecuting people, intimidating people, and killing people where they refused to be intimidated.
Christians are being killed in the North; is it some kind of genocide and will you describe it that way?
It’s genocide and if it is not genocide then it’s a pogrom.
