OPINION: I’m eager to see how Buhari will end corruption in Nigeria – Femi Aribisala

Controversial preacher and social critic, Dr. Femi Aribisala, in this interview with TUNDE AJAJA, insists that President Goodluck Jonathan’s defeat in the presidential election was as a result of a conspiracy against the minority South South region

Since the presidential election, we have not heard or read from you, what have you been doing?

Since the presidential election, I have been doing what I have always been doing. I have been preaching the gospel and writing articles in newspapers as usual.

Some people said you’re mourning the defeat of your preferred candidate (President Goodluck Jonathan) at the polls and that you need to reconcile yourself with the development before coming out. Is that true?

My preferred candidate did not die, so why should I mourn him? Are the 12.8 million Nigerians said to have voted for Jonathan now supposed to be in mourning? Is Jonathan the first person to lose an election? (Gen. Muhammadu) Buhari lost three times; has he been mourning for the last 12 years?

Nigerians have elected Buhari in the Nigerian way; now we have to live with their choice. Since the election, I have written an analysis about how the 2015 presidential election was manipulated by the Independent National Electoral Commission. However, some newspapers have refused to publish my views. It shows you that we may be on our way back to the days of censorship of the Buhari of old. You just wait; in no time at all, people will start longing for the freedoms we enjoyed under Goodluck Jonathan.

Do you also believe that the President should be commended for conceding defeat, or was there nothing spectacular in what he did?

Nigeria is very fortunate to have a president like Goodluck Jonathan. He is truly a man of peace. The president fulfilled his pledge not to allow his ambition to lead to the death of any Nigerian. For that, he deserves our commendation and gratitude.

The last time Buhari lost the presidential election, he provoked a riot. Compare that to what has happened now with Jonathan. That is yet another reason why people like me prefer President Jonathan to Buhari any day; any time.

Why do you think President Jonathan lost the election?

Buhari prevailed as a result of INEC’s policy of voter suppression through the instrumentality of the Permanent Voter Cards. There was a deliberate disenfranchisement of the Igbo especially by the manipulation of PVC distribution and allocation to the South-East. There was also endemic failure of the card reader in the South-East and the South-South, which discouraged voters known to be Jonathan’s supporters.

INEC ensured that, far more disproportionately relative to other geopolitical zones, millions of South-East voters disappeared from the register between 2011 and 2015, in order to provide a smooth passage for a Northern presidential candidate; which turned out to be Buhari.

Between 2011 and 2015, the votes of the South-West remained virtually constant. 4.6 million people of the South-West voted in 2011: 4.2 million in 2015. But compare this with what happened in the South-East. Five million people voted in 2011: only 2.6 million in 2015. That is a drastic and contrived drop of 2.4 million.

Everybody knows the South-East voted en masse for Jonathan. Even now, the Oba of Lagos is threatening the Igbo with death in the lagoon if they vote against the All Progressives Congress in the governorship elections. Many of them were not even given their PVCs.

While Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa and Bauchi were posting humongous figures; Imo, Anambra and Abia were posting relatively disappointing figures. Jigawa used to be a part of Kano. In the 2015 election, the votes of Jigawa and Kano combined was 3.1 million; double that of Lagos which was only 1.4 million. Cell-phone video recordings show that there was widespread under-aged voting in the North.

You didn’t seem to expect that the President would lose and that General Buhari would win. How did you receive the news?

As I said, I don’t believe the president lost the election and I don’t believe General Buhari won. What I know is that the General was declared the winner, and President Jonathan graciously agreed to accept the verdict in the interest of peace. I received the news with great amusement. I don’t have any personal stake in the president’s victory. I don’t work for him and he does not pay my salary. I copied down all the figures released and analysed them. So doing, I reached the conclusion that the result of the election was bogus. Buhari had won the election long before the election. He had been programmed by INEC to win it.

What do you think would have happened if the President had won and Buhari lost?

Buhari would have declared that the election was rigged and would never have conceded defeat. His supporters would have embarked on riots and killings and there would have been mayhem all over the country. Elections are only free and fair when the APC is declared the winner.

Maybe you would have been offered a ministerial or juicy appointment if President Jonathan had won, because some people said all you were doing then was to attract attention?

Maybe PUNCH will be offered a juicy government contract now that Buhari has been declared the winner. Maybe your newspaper will now get all Federal Government adverts for the next four years. It is easy to cast aspersions on anybody who supports Jonathan. If so, what shall we say of PUNCH’s support for Buhari? Is it ever possible in Nigeria to support a candidate on principle?

Cynical Nigerians believe anyone who supports Jonathan must either be in his pay or be looking for a job. Neither allegation holds water with me. Jonathan ostensibly received 12.8 million votes; surely all these people were neither in his pay nor were they Aso Rock job-seekers.

My faith requires me to support the weak. Therefore, I will always support the minority against the tyranny of the majority. We cannot be reliant on South-South oil in Nigeria and then treat one of their sons as if he is an impostor for being president of the country. This presidential election was a vicious and malicious gang up of the majority ethnic groups against the minorities. I cannot be party to that.

In the run-up to the election, you were very critical of Gen. Buhari based on his antecedents. Now that he is the President-elect, how do you feel?

Election results don’t change history. Neither do they convert the propaganda of the campaign into truths. My criticisms of Buhari were based on what I know about him. I challenge anyone to show me anything I said about Buhari that was false. On the question of how I feel, I am saddened that many Nigerians voted the way they are said to have done. I am waiting to see how General Buhari will make the naira equal to the dollar. We will see how he will unilaterally increase the international price of oil, as he said. We are waiting to see these miracles happen.

In the election that was adjudged as free and fair, don’t you think the people rejected President Jonathan?

Truth is not determined by popular opinion. There was nothing free and fair about this election. I said this even before the election. I wrote an article in Vanguard exactly a year ago saying: “The Presidential Election Will Not Be Televised.” That is another way of saying the election will not be free and fair. Elections in Nigeria are rigged procedurally by the major parties. The best riggers win. Don’t be fooled into thinking the 2015 presidential election is any different. It is interesting that the APC spent the campaign season telling Nigerians the election would be rigged. Now it has been declared the winner, we are meant to believe the election was free and fair where it polled massive figures.

We are on the way; but we certainly have not yet reached the destination of free and fair elections in Nigeria. We will not get there until we are able to get a true population census. This business of 17 million people registering to vote in the North-West alone, more than the South-South and the South-East combined, will not produce free and fair election results.

With all you have said and written about Buhari, do you have fears that he might come after you?

That is a very interesting question. In all that you people in PUNCH said and wrote about Jonathan, were you afraid he would come after you? How come nobody asked this question in the time of Jonathan, but you are already asking it even before Buhari is sworn in?

Buhari has no power of arrest over me. Those were the days when he arrested people for telling the truth he did not want to hear. Those days are gone. I am protected from any recurrence of his tyranny by the Nigerian Constitution. Make no mistake about it; we are not going to give Buhari an easy pass. If he could criticise every government in the last 16 years, he must expect to be criticised in turn.

The President-elect needs to fasten his seat-belts. He should enjoy his honeymoon now while it lasts. I even have an egg-timer to determine how long it will take for President Olusegun Obasanjo to start attacking him. As you probably know, according to Obasanjo, the only good government in Nigeria is the one he heads.

You said you were one of those that were victimised during Buhari’s regime as a military Head of State. Some other people that received the same treatment have forgiven him. Are you thinking of forgiving him?

General Buhari sent people to arrest me because I wrote an article against his dubious policy entitled: “Counter-trading Nigeria’s Future.” They came for me on a Friday but could not find me. They left a note that I should report to their Gulag Archipelago at 33 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. However, he was overthrown on Sunday. So God saved me from his hands.

In the end, I was no more victimised than any other Nigerian who had to endure the ordeal of his tyranny. General Buhari has refused to apologise. He has refused to ask Nigerians to forgive him for his atrocities. He merely said he accepts responsibility for them. You cannot forgive a man who refuses to repent.

What if you were offered a position in this new government?

If I maintained I would never accept a government position under Goodluck Jonathan; why would I now accept one under Buhari? I will never ever serve under any government. My kingdom is not of this world.

Some people have said that the President-elect is surrounded by some people that may not mean well for his intentions, do you agree?

You must have a better view of his intentions than I have. As far as I know, birds of a feather flock together. General Buhari is neither better nor worse than the people who now congregate under APC. That is why he agreed to be their leader. Stop making excuses for him already. His intentions are the same as those of the people around him.

The President-elect is reportedly known for his anti-corruption stand and integrity, don’t you share this view?

I disagree completely. The President-elect is very good at making anti-corruption noises, but his actions contradict him. The last time he was Nigeria’s Head of State, he tried to fight corruption with corruption. Imposing retroactive decrees and killing Nigerians under them is corruption. Putting an Igbo vice-president in Kirikiri, while placing the Fulani president under palatial house arrest, is corruption.

Detaining people like Michael Ajasin in jail, even after they were discharged and acquitted by kangaroo courts, is corruption. Jailing journalists for telling the truth is corruption. Putting pressure on a judge in order to jail Fela Anikulapo Kuti is corruption. Shepherding 53 suitcases of contraband unchecked through customs during a currency change exercise is corruption. Presiding over the theft of N25bn of Petroleum Trust Fund money is corruption. Swearing an affidavit that your school-leaving certificate is with the military when it is not is corruption.

With all you have said and written about Buhari, does it mean you don’t expect anything meaningful from his government in the next four years?

I live in Nigeria. I wish Nigeria well. Therefore I hope I am wrong about General Buhari. I hope he will surprise me. But I doubt it. General Buhari did not provide any meaningful public policy programme throughout the campaign. All we got were rhetoric and platitudes. Nothing meaningful came out of his last stint in power. I doubt anything meaningful will come in the next four years. But I pray that I am wrong.

You called for his disqualification after his result/certificate controversy; do you think people shouldn’t have voted for him based on that premise?

I think he should have been disqualified based on that premise. If you fail to fulfil the requirements of an election, your name should not even be on the ballot.

There are reports now that the military said it had found Buhari’s certificate, do you agree with some people who believe that it was all Peoples Democratic Party propaganda and dirty machinery at work?

How very convenient! They suddenly found the certificate now that the election is over.

So where is it? You ask the most biased questions. A man says his certificate is with the military. The military says it does not have it. In any case, the military does not keep the certificates of its officers. So how can this be merely PDP propaganda? Why could General Buhari not retrieve his certificate from Cambridge when he went on his junket to Chatham House in London?

If the certificate is found eventually, will you retract some of your statements, especially the ones that border on his certificate?

If the certificate is eventually found, it would make no difference. He was required to provide the certificate before a particular date and he did not. He should have been disqualified. You need to make up your mind about what is true and what is false. On the one hand, you say the certificate has been found. Now you ask “if it is eventually found.” Make up your mind. Has it been found or not? Was it lost in the first place?

You also described the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, as a traitor, meanwhile he gave his reasons for defecting; don’t you think the court should be left to decide if he erred?

The court does not decide if Tambuwal was a traitor. There is no court case to that effect. I don’t need a court case to determine if Tambuwal was a traitor. I can make up my own mind on that. Tambuwal was elected as a PDP member of the House. He betrayed the electorate by defecting to the APC. He betrayed the PDP by becoming an APC Speaker in PDP clothing. You cannot re-write the history of his actions; neither can you bend the truth concerning his treachery.

Some people have accused you of being sponsored by the PDP to write against APC members. They say you have only been critical of APC members, making PDP members seem like saints. Is this true?

Some people have accused PUNCH of being sponsored by the APC to write against Jonathan. They say you have only been critical of PDP members, making APC members seem like saints. Is this true? I don’t lose any sleep over what people say. People can say what they like, that does not change the truth about me.

Are you saying you don’t agree with the majority of Nigerians who say President Jonathan under-performed?

Obviously, I don’t agree that President Jonathan has not performed. I have stated in my write-ups that the president performed, and I gave my reasons. What makes you think the outcome of a flawed election will now suddenly change my views? When the air clears, the true history of the Jonathan administration will be written.

Then how would you assess the President in the area of security and corruption?

What is the point of that now? Let us now see how General Buhari will destroy Boko Haram in a matter of days like he did Maitasine. Let us see how many days it will take him to bring back our girls. Let us see how he will end corruption when he has a legislature full of corrupt politicians who used all kinds of means to get elected. General Buhari’s vain promises will begin to haunt him in the coming weeks and months.