Abba Hamisu Sani
Africa-Press – Nigeria. Senator Shehu Sani is a Nigerian Politician, human rights activist, author, and playwright. He was a leading figure in the struggle for the restoration of Democracy in Nigeria.
He served one term as Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District at the Nigerian 8th National Assembly from 2015 to 2019.
Comrade Shehu Sani in this interview with Africa-Press discusses different issues that affect the Nigerian present situation particularly the effect of subsidy removal and the hardship faced by Nigerians and the need for Tinubu’s government to tackle the situation to avoid an uprising, among other issues. He also spoke about the immediate past administration under President Buhari, he described the former president as an economic ignorant and the one who destroyed the country’s economy through his leadership approach which promoted corruption.
Senator Sani also provided an insight into how problems affecting Nigeria could be addressed among other issues.
Nigeria is faced with different socioeconomic and political challenges, particularly at this time when life is very difficult for the common man. How do you view Tinubu’s policies, especially on the economy?
First of all the economic policies unfolded by Tinubu are something that ought to have been done 10, or 15 years ago, if it had been done we couldn’t have been where we are today.
Secondly, the most painful part of the economic policy was the removal of subsidies. The issue is that Nigeria must decide what should be its economic future for the simple fact that we have been paying oil subsidies in millions of dollars and the latter is transforming to hundreds of millions of dollars which the Nigerian economy can not sustain, so we have been in support of such subsidy at a certain time we understand that our economy can not afford to be paying for it because it reaches a level that the country has to borrow for the payment of the subsidy. The action taken by interns of removal is in order where the government failed or made a mistake that there is not enough arrangement to address the consequences of the removal as it comes with the socio-economic outcome of poverty and so much suffering and the rising cost of living which is something which we have seen. But if the government had put in place proper mechanisms to address those issues we couldn’t have found ourselves where we are today.
About the timing Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidy on the very day he was sworn in as President of Nigeria without even understanding what the subsidy means in the official term, don’t you think this decision will even cripple Tinubu’s government?
Well, it can create a lot of unrest in the country because right now the threat by the labor movement to call on strike is based on this issue which is supposed to work out, so as far as I am concerned I believe that there should be a well thought out measure which could have addressed this problem if this poverty and hardship is not been addressed certainly there is going to be an explosion but I think the government is quite aware that is why is dialoguing with labor to avert the possibility of National paralysis.
Comrade Sani, what do you mean by explosion?
Explosion means social uprising in the country.
So you think people will react by coming out to the streets and demonstrating?
Of course, they will react and the reaction will be terrible in the sense that no one can put them under control, to me I believe the only way to avert that is to ensure that the necessary steps are being taken to address the issues of the suffering of common people which has to do with providing transport, raising wages, addressing food problems then increase palliatives, short term and long term measures need to be taking that is my position on that.
Senator Sani affirmatively responded to this as he said to return to subsidy “No no”! We can’t be paying subsidy in such a high amount of money, is not possible the government should engage in other things like reviving the refineries and also reducing our consumption by shifting to electronic vehicles or gas powered, these are the measures I think need to be done not to start paying off trillions of Naira every month to a gang of subsidy people.
Nigerians at the micro level don’t understand all these languages. What they need to see is food on their table ,now food is beyond their reach. What do you think will happen if such a situation continues ?
I told you that if there is failure of the government to address the problem of poverty in the country it is risking for uprising as I have said earlier but we can not go back to the era of subsidy because the resources to pay subsidy is virtually not there because they said the subsidy reached one trillion Naira per month (1,255,280,000.00 dollars) so where will the money comes from ,so is good we tell ourselves the truth by solving this problem once and for all.
The government make the refineries back on track and we should reduce our consumption by moving away from petrol to other sources of powering our own vehicles I think this is very much needed and providing subsidized transport system that make it easier for people and also raising wages these are all measures need to be taken not going back to subsidy regime.
All such things you mentioned are supposed to be provided before the removal of the subsidy?
Yes of course that is where the government has made a fundamental mistake .Actually what happened Tunibu didn’t remove the subsidy but in Buhari’s administration,he inherited a budget that subsidy provision was not included in.
So the point is that how many months there is no money for subsidy before he takes over then there could be an opportunity for them to make provisions for fall out from subsidy , palliative measures need to be arranged before the removal.
Are you telling Nigerians that it was not Tinubu who removed the subsidy but Buhari?
Of course it was Buhari regime and is not about removal, money was not budgeted for it in the 2023 budget.They budgeted subsidy money only to last to May as of June,July ,August up to the end of the year there was no money for subsidy .The budget for subsidy only stops on May that is the fact of the matter.
There is insinuation that Buhari set so many Trapps for the succeeding administration,do you subscribe to that ?
Ofcourse he deed that Buhari’s government is one of the most corrupt administrations in Nigeria ,he is just an economic ignorant, one who simply doesn’t know about the economy and allowed his subordinate to simply miss manage the economy, look at what happened at the central Bank.The revelation coming up from the CBN investigation shows that his whole government is a corrupt entity he has habit of keeping people in positions and even extending their tenure without them making any serious impact for example in the national Population census about hundred billion Naira(128,385,700.00 dollars) was wasted in the census that never took up and from revelation from all quartets you can see how the government was run , he left debt of a about 77 trillion Naira.(98,856,989,000.00 dollars).
Coming down to the issue of state Governors and how they manage palliative funds provided to their states by the Federal government. Before Buhari left government there was a loan of 800 million dollars from the World Bank meant for palliative, you are talking of how governors share the palliatives. Can you shed more light on this ?
From what we have seen some governors purchased busses like governor of Adamawa,Borno,Lagos State , governor of Sokoto State and governor of Bayelsa State you can see they have provided busses and transport system to alleviate the suffering in their respective states.But the other governors we don’t know actually what they are doing with the money and we have also seen some palliative shared by Niger State governor and Yobe state governor and there are many states that nothing have been heard about their palliatives up to now.
My own belief is that they should know that such palliative is to address the suffering of people and if they don’t do that they are virtually handing on a cake of gum powder ,and society can explode at any time.
Governors’ decisions of not doing things right is one of the major problems that affect Nigeria as a whole. What is your take on that ?
Well for now it is too early to condemn or praise them but so far many of them are doing good Job by starting on good putting and money is giving them to buy palliative but may be as time goes on in the next six month we can be able to assess them and conduct a comprehensive analysis on their conduct and performances.
Governors are the ones in charge of states and they are provided with finances so they should address the poverty issues and reduce the suffering of people in their respective states.
Some Economists believe that IMF and World Bank are behind the issue of subsidy removal and now they are saying Nigeria will have more poor people ,don’t you think IMF and World Bank are fooling Nigeria ?
It is a question we have before us here and I hope the government and the new economic minister who is an experienced man does something better but the economy was destroyed under Buhari’s administration completely and we hope the development will take measure first of all to rescue the falling value of the Naira and to address the problem of poverty and debts, so engaging the IMF and world Bank shall be the one that will benefit our country not the one that will sink us in to the backward.
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