HON. Danlamin Hamza, a former Permanent Secretary in Kano State, was elected into the House of Representatives on the platform of the ANPP in 2007 and served in various finance and business related House committees during his 12 years stay as a legislator. A very forthright person, an informed analyst and committed party man, he shares his thoughts on Dasukigate, the anti-corruption war of President Buhari and insurgency, among several other issues.
Excerpts:
President Buhari has been in power in the last few months. As one of those who have followed his politics, how would you assess his performance?
I think he has done exceedingly well and true to type, he has not done anything outside what he promised and this is what the entire nation, indeed the world had expected of him. He inherited a very delicate country; a lot of things were fractured. On top of this, we had insurgency, we had a lot of security challenges and to cap it all, we have this decline in the price of crude oil which account for a sizeable amount of the Federal Government revenue. And so, all these things put together, presented a myriad of challenges to him. And to me, one thing he has been able to do firmly is to reestablish his creditability, not only in Nigeria but with the international community. He has gained Nigeria a lot of currency by the singular manner and purposeful leadership he has provided in his war against corruption which as we are seeing and realising by the day is of a quantum height. Furthermore, he has shown in unmistakable terms his determination to position the security architecture of Nigeria, especially the armed forces, who are being properly equipped and trained; confidence is being restored to their glorious height and we can see the performance of the armed forces on the ground.
It has been argued that insurgency has been much higher in the few months of President Buhari than it was in the last days of former President Jonathan. To what extent, do you concede to this estimate?
No, I don’t think that that is a correct analysis. Don’t forget that before President Buhari took over, the insurgents were successfully occupying Nigerian territories. They were occupying seven local government councils for God‘s sake. How can it be more or higher than it was before! No way!! What they (insurgents) are doing, like any other entrapped creature, is that they are fighting back tooth and nail. What they are doing is the classical guerilla tactics of hit and run .They are not occupying territories; they are not raising flags anymore! They are not sending those messages as regular as they used to any more. Is anybody denying the fact that occupied territories have been liberated and people are returning to their villages? There is no comparison.
Talking about the anti-corruption war, what is your rating of his (Buhari) performance? Secondly, one of the consistent criticisms is that the war is essentially targeted at the members of the PDP. How true is this?
No! That is very superficial; that is very erroneous, very misleading. This is because if the target is the Federal Government, the question to ask is who was in power for the last 16 years? Certainly, no APC person was in that government. Right! So logically, if anybody is going to be interrogated, it is going to be the people who were in power. And it was the PDP that was in power. Maybe, when it comes to the state level, individual states, I am sure that you will see the members of the PDP and APC (or ANPP as it was called before) being called to question.
But the EFCC is not only mandated to beam its search light on the Federal Government. I thought their mandate included taking the war to the states and to any other parts of Nigeria. But they are rather silent on the corruption that happened at the state level.
Again I disagree. They are not silent on the states. I am sure you know that Yerima has been taken to court by the ICPC. Several other governors are also being targeted at this level.
But the number of officials that are being brought to book at the state level is far too small compared to the center.
But even the PDP that you are talking about, it is just one singular area. They have not gone to the ministries yet. Nothing has been done. The customs, all the revenue generating ministries, departments and agencies have not been investigated yet. It is one issue that is being discussed and of course, you find that ostensibly, that this was a subterfuge for the election bid and of course, it is the PDP that you will find there. Would you find the APC partaking in that? It does not make sense to expect to find the APC in that. Definitely, the EFCC is going to go round and you will be shocked what will happen by the end of the day. If we are patient, everything will come to roost at the right.
You have just used the key word. You said that, “it looked the presidential campaign fund of the PDP” ……
On one issue rather. It is only Dasukigate. Let me tell you, nobody went looking for the presidential campaign. The issue was that there was an insurgency in the country. The Nigerian armed forces that we know, the young men and women who used to go into battle singing were being accused of running away from battle. This same young men that we were saying we have no weapons, that were being given 40 years- old ammunition, and we thought, it couldn’t be; It is not possible. Which government would do that? Only for you to turn round and find out that it is true. Don’t forget 60 members of the armed forces were even court-martialled and sentenced to death. People were willing to kill 60 young men for telling the truth, to suppress their inadequacies. And that is what led to the wholesale investigation. You bought four Alpha Jets, where are they? You bought these, where are they? It is not a question of that you decided to investigate the president’s campaign fund. It has a direct bearing on the security of the country and that was what opened this Pandora’s Box.
Would you recommend that we also look at the sources of the funding of the presidential campaign of President Muhammad Buhari?
Why won’t you make up your mind on what you want to do? Whatever the source, it is not government money?
What, for instance, if there are issues with the source …… Are you suggesting that corruption is limited only to government’s money?
Of course yes! If I am spending my own money, how do you tell me I am corrupt? Taking public fund is different my brother.
We are talking of corruption and we have Haliburton stuff still lingering and we have the power project racket. When do we start with these cases?
Well, this is the issue. We have several cases of corruption but the journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step. You cannot investigate everything at once. They will be done in good time. And Halliburton… How much is Halliburton compared to what we are talking here. How much? You are comparing 700 million to billions of dollars? Where is the comparison?
From your background in finance and economics, there is the Single Treasury Account issue and the volume of tax payers’ money we are supposed to surrender to the consultants. How do you look at it?
Well, number one, that is what the law says. It is not a whimsical executive decision. The law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria says that all monies due to the Federation must go into this single Federation account. This is what the constitution says. It is a constitutional issue. But the so-called civil servants and technocrats, in their infinite wisdom, will go and start opening accounts on whose mandate we do not know and they would appoint signatories and you don’t know who they are. You will have one ministry that creates over 100 accounts and you don’t know who they are. Let me tell you what has been happening in government. All these governments fund lying in banks, it is the same funds that government goes to go and borrow. You know it. When government issues treasury bills, the banks use the same funds and invest in the treasury bills. It is government’s own money, it is not getting interest. It is government’s money that it is borrowing and it is paying interest. All the government is saying is that for control purposes… at the last count, the Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies were operating over 10,000 accounts. Does this make sense to you? This is what happens. A lot of things that have been going wrong in this country, you don’t even know when it started and who started it. The office of the National Security Adviser, for instance, opened what they called “Operation Account” and there are two signatories namely, the NSA and the Director of Finance. Have you ever seen where a minister is signing cheques before? Have you ever seen that? I was a Permanent Secretary some 30 years ago, I never signed, I approved things. I didn’t sign. So, when somebody sits down and say everything I did, I did with the President’s approval – President Jonathan. But what did you expect President Jonathan to do? He appointed you a National Security Adviser and trusted your competence. You raised a memo telling him the air force, the army needed so and so things and we need your approval to be able to buy these things. What do you expect the president to do? He gives you approval and you collect these monies. Is it for the president to come and inspect these goods? And you yourself said you didn’t see them. The President did what was well within his position – to approve; that is what he is supposed to do. And it ends there. If you fail to do your own job and if he decides to let you go scot-free, that is different if he gets to know. And if he does not know, that is a different kettle of fish. So, let’s put things squarely where they belong.
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