Why Buhari Won’t Intervene In Oshiomhole, Obaseki Crisis – Tony Momoh

Prince Tony Momoh, a former Minister of Information and one of the national leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in this interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI, speaks on latest developments in the polity and the political impasse in his home state of Edo. Excerpts: 

What is your position on the raging controversy surrounding Operation Amotekun which has been declared as illegal by the Federal Government? 

The fact is, in every society where you have due process, that due process must be followed for peace to reign. But where the need not to follow due process arises, then the terms for not following it must be agreed upon by all the parties. In the case of Amotekun in the South- West, there is the need for looking at the principles of how the child of necessity is born. A child of necessity is born when you are confronted with issues which due process cannot resolve. 

Police is on the exclusive list but policing is not on the exclusive list. Policing is the duty of everybody who lives in a society. And this policing is done at all levels, where you look at what your neighbour is doing and frustrate him in doing it or call him to order. There are 97,000 communities in Nigeria and we grow up in age groups. Age groups are responsible for policing in Nigeria. They may not be members of the Police Force but they supervise policing at different levels, especially at organised levels. 

So, Amotekun is a policing effort which should be seen as an attempt to tackle the problems of insecurity in the South-West and indeed, all over the country. For instance, the police force is there but the need to maintain peace in a place like Katsina made the governor to be so humiliated that he had to negotiate with bandits, and these bandits in turn gave him terms for cooperating; the same thing with Zamfara. In other words, it is a slap in the face of security agencies for a government to be reduced to the level of negotiating with bandits and kidnappers who are more armed than the security forces. So, if you have an outfit like Amotekun, which I recommend for all the regions in Nigeria, within three months, we will attend to the problems of kidnapping, armed robbery and other vices all over the country because there is no armed robber who is not known in a community. I believe the structure of Amotekun should not threaten the existence of the Nigerian Police which is on the exclusive list. But as a policing body, at the level of the regions, I think the fear of those who are worried now should be allayed that Amotekun is a good initiative which should be done in all parts of the country.

Do you think the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice , Abubakar Malami (SAN) is wrong by declaring it illegal? 

The Minister is only referring to the law; that is Police is on the exclusive list but like I said, policing is not. He is the chief law officer of the country and he looks at the law in arriving at his decisions. So, I will advise the Minister to also look at the threats that insurgency is causing to the Nigerian polity. The whole of Nigeria must be thoroughly and effectively policed at the federal, state, local government and community levels. 

President Buhari recently said most of the projects being undertaken by his administration are projects that should have been done by previous administrations. Do you agree with him? 

Of course, I agree with him. If Buhari had come in as President when he first contested in 2003, Nigeria would have been different today. He tried to become President three times but he never succeeded until the fourth time. He once told me that he thought corruption and indiscipline is at the level of the elites but when he came in, he discovered that it was at the top with the elites, people at the middle, people at the bottom and even with people below the bottom. For instance, they said I should hit the road running but the whole road is full of mines. So, how do I start? If I start hitting the road running as they said, I will be blown up by the mines. I told him and said ‘You have to start somewhere and do it gradually’. And so he started by fighting corruption, tackling insurgency and also addressing the challenges in the economy. It is a gradual recovery progress but nobody can say that we are not recovering. Look at the Enugu-Onitsha road; look at Second Niger Bridge, the rail projects and so on. Since Independence in 1960, we have not improved on our rails; it is only now that we are doing that. Look at the trillions of dollars that was spent on electricity by previous administrations. Where is the power supply today? Benin-Abuja road was paid for about two to three times and the money was shared. Ask yourself, what happened to the money that was budgeted to fight the Boko Haram insurgency? It was also shared. A lot is being done by Buhari and these are projects that should have been done years ago by previous administrations which were abandoned. 

You once stated that the Governor of Edo state, Godwin Obaseki is the leader of the APC in the state but we understand some leaders of your party are not happy with what you said. What is your reaction to that? 

What I said is a fact and I don’t care what people say about what I said. I know the workings of the party. In Kano, Shekarau was one of those who packaged the APC and when Kwankwaso joined us from Kano and the leadership of the party in Kano was given to him, Shekarau was very angry and he left the APC to PDP. The person who is in charge of the state is the governor; he has access to funds and so he organises and funds the party structure. Go to all the states, it is the governor who is in charge of the party. Oshiomhole was our governor for eight years in Edo state and during those period, he was the leader of the party. When there was a disagreement between Oshiomhole and the chairman of the party in Edo state on one hand and Chief John Odigie Oyegun the national chairman on the other hand, we called them together and settled them and Oshiomhole as the leader of the party in Edo state by virtue of his position as governor had the upper hand. Even now, Oshiomhole is not competing for the leadership of Edo APC with Governor Obaseki. There is no competition between them. Oshiomhole is the national chairman of the APC while Obaseki is the governor of Edo state and the leader of APC in Edo state. There has never been any argument about that. 

You once said the APC may lose Edo if the crisis continues, are you still holding to that view? 

I haven’t changed my position on that. All I’m saying is that if both parties, that is supporters of Oshiomhole and Obaseki fight themselves to the point of primary, it means whoever wins the primary will lose the support of the other because they may work for the opposition and eventually, APC will lose. If that happens, what both of them are fighting for will belong to another person. 

The Oba of Benin has visited President Buhari asking him to intervene in the crisis. Why has the President not intervened? 

Elders in Edo state have tried to resolve the issue and they will continue to try. Even if the President comes today and say both of them should sheathe swords, who says they will? I don’t know whether people see what I’m seeing. When it comes to a stage where people want to flex muscles, we should let them box. When a child is going near fire and you hold him, he will be crying as if you are depriving him of something good. Let the child touch the fire, next time, nobody will advise him not to go near the fire again. Look at what happened to us in Zamfara and Rivers. When you have these kinds of struggles, at the end of the day, like Ozumba Mbadiwe used to say ‘when the come comes to become, then we shall know who can win or who loses.