Dr Soleye has expressed his opinion about the current financial situation in the country in a recent interview broadcast on Abeokuta, Ogun state-based Rock City FM. The ex-minister stressed the importance of reducing the cost of running government and warned people that the first two years should be about sacrifice.
Read the extracts from the interview below:.......
Now that the election is over, which area will you advise the president-elect to begin from? What should his immediate priorities be?
I rejoice with Nigeria that in spite of all the predictions and so on before the election, it went on very well so we have to congratulate the winning party and the losing party too for accepting defeat, but more importantly, we have to congratulate Gen Muhammadu Buhari. It’s his name that actually got the result; therefore, the expectation is very high, expectation from Nigerians.
Let’s begin with the youths, expectation that this coming administration will provide jobs, not just for graduates but for undergraduates and others too. The economy is very bad, so at this stage, I want to advise, first to the party that won the election, they should not underrate the problems before this nation, my advice to that political party is to begin from now to let Nigeria know that Buhari coming into power, APC being in government, things are not going to be easy. No, they should prepare the minds of Nigerians and say that, we are now entering an era of austerity and discipline, because what we accused the out-going government of, is lack of discipline in almost everything and the one we always shout about is corruption, corruption, corruption, it’s there but how did we get corruption to grow to the level that nobody is able to do something about it because their political party, I mean the PDP is not a disciplined party.
Not just with Jonathan, it has been an undisciplined party since Obasanjo because that political party contains different people with different ideas, they got into power, but there was no internal democracy within that party. Everyone was behaving like this is our party and our time to do whatever we want and if you have that, it culminates into the word ‘corruption’ and that is one reason most people are having hope in Buhari.
I can talk about Buhari because I worked with him, he is a very disciplined man, I worked with him as Finance Minister and I know he has absolute confidence in me. I will give you an example; when the chief of air staff took proposal to him either to purchase alpha jet or do something, what the chief of staff was expecting is that the commander-in-chief will just say ‘minister go ahead’. No, the way he has always done is go and consult with the minister of finance.
In a military regime, that is strange because the chief of air staff, chief of defence staff, and other security chiefs were expecting the head of state to call the minister and say ‘Minister, call your perm sec, and see what you can do’, but instead, Buhari would say go and convince the minister of finance, that is what the incoming minister will bear in mind. He’ll have confidence in them, they must not also betray him. The first thing I’ll say is to encourage and advise Nigerians with their high expectation that this is not going to be an easy time, it will be difficult, there will be austerity, I don’t want them to fall into a situation where they will say ‘Buhari is there now, we must have plenty of money.’
The first two years should be about sacrifice. So, my advice, we must reduce the cost of running government by at least 50 per cent, we’re wasting money in running government, National Assembly, constituency allowance, I even heard that the Senate President earns more than Barrack Obama. That’s spendthrift! They blow one million naira in one week, that is the situation Nigeria has been spending money as if God has nothing to do with it, so, my advice is to reduce the cost of governance by at least 50 per cent, our Senators, House of Reps will not want to agree, they will want to tell you the amount of money they have spent in campaigning to win this election but it’s not our business, we don’t force them into politics, and every occupation including broadcasting, every occupation has it’s hazard and the hazard here is that you may lose the election, you won’t be able to make your money back and that is the beginning of corruption. So, the first thing is: Nigeria should know that we cannot afford to pay these fabulous allowances for our National Assembly members, they have to do that. If they don’t do that I can assure you, they will fail.
The Buhari you know and worked with was a military officer where fiat is used, express order is given which is going to be very different from the Buhari that is coming in…?
Because he’s now a politician, the political party that puts him there will expect some returns, but let me tell you this, Nigeria is very, very rich even now with the oil price down, there is enough for all of us. Buhari will have to appeal to the political side of him and tell them ‘we will meet you half way’, but in any case, it should not be the ambition to say that I want go there to be a millionaire in one year, we didn’t vote them in for that, we voted them to improve Nigeria, to get employment for the unemployed, to improve our economy, that is what they have promised to do, they should not go to the extent of thinking their priority is to get there and recoup the N20 million they spent on campaign. Cut the cost of running government by at least 50 per cent and that will have to begin with our leaders. They will be there to pass the law to effect it and what you may have noticed in this current regime is, there is only one political party in the National Assembly. When it comes to remuneration, have they ever disagreed on their remuneration? I have never seen them disagreeing on their salary. If I want to talk about the way corruption has been, I’ll say it has become an institution.
Let us think of ordinary fashion, market women, students that are looking for jobs, what we need is a decent life so that if you cannot eat good food three times a day, at least two should be for everybody. The gap, the income gap in Nigeria today is absolutely unbelievable. And why is it not easy for state governments to pay N18,000 minimum wage, you just ask yourself that question. Put it against the amount we used to run government and what our leaders are getting. Discipline and austerity are coming and I can tell you, if they straighten the economy within two years, all of us will be laughing.
The terrain is going to be different for Buhari, he did not just become President without the backing and finance from politicians, do you think he will survive the pressure from these politicians?
I think he will, I’m not sure whether you watched one of his TV interviews where people were criticising him, you know the vicious campaign against him before he won, he did this when he was a military officer and you’ll remember his answer. He said: ‘if you’re going to criticise me or nail me for what I did as a military head of state, no problem. Ask those people who do not like me to join the opposition and vote against me’, he said that, that is Buhari. You know he could have justified and say no, it wasn’t like that. He said if you see all I’ve done in bad light, go and join the opposition, the PDP and vote against me. That is Buhari, there is a limit of decadence that Buhari will tolerate, I know that.
You think he has the skill to fight these politicians who made him president?
He will tell them he is not fighting them, he is letting them see that if you want Nigeria to be a great nation, which is what is in the manifesto, this is the way out, the way Nigeria is, anything can happen. Buhari I’m telling you looks straightforward, but I know he has the guts to stand these people because of their manifesto, he wants a better Nigeria. I’m sure he’ll succeed.
You served as a minister of finance, a very key position under the military, how do you feel or what do you have to say when people blame the military, and say there was a lot of financial recklessness in that era and that is one of the things that have led the nation into the present mess?
Financial recklessness? Not in Buhari’s time, in fact, in the cabinet, they were not calling me minister of finance, they referred to me as minister of debt management because our debt was so high that what we were trying to do was to pay those debts. Domestic debt, foreign debt. So, if you say minister of finance, which finance have you got? And it was a very disciplined regime, that was why we didn’t last two years. We were kicked out after 20 months because Nigerians like owambe (merriment) kind of life, we didn’t go for SAP (Structural Adjustment Programme) we handled IMF, world bank but you see the problem that Buhari had at that time as far as I’m concerned was when he jailed two journalists, that’s all, that’s Buhari but Nigerians were persuaded, you know this is too harsh, they connived with foreign powers.
When you say ‘they’, who are you referring to?
Nigerian populace, you see, when you talk about leaders, you’ll talk about followers, we like cheap things, otherwise how would you explain the fact that Babangida spent eight years and didn’t want to leave, he himself said he’s an evil genius, he understands Nigeria, by the time you come here, give brown envelope, if you cannot beat them, join them. That is why the emphasis I want to put; discipline and austerity are coming. All this simple way of clapping, we too must chop, you chop, I chop and the cake is getting smaller and smaller and now we’re having expectation that cannot be met in two or three years from Buhari. You remember at that time when they see you with foreign currency you cannot explain, you go behind bar to explain how you got it and it involved Fela Anikulapo kuti.
Will you agree that the regime was a draconian one?
It’s hard to be draconian. Who started War Against Indiscipline? Was it not Buhari and Idiagbon? Before you do anything in your personal life, in your community, in your village, you have to be disciplined. There is no magic in running government or in being a minister of finance. If you have a Volkswagen, Nigeria won’t think you have arrived, you must have SUV, but go to their homes, what do they eat? It’s not even comfortable but you see flamboyant living is the basis of Nigerian development. For the good of our children, for the good of future of Nigeria, because we don’t know how to spend money wisely, we need that discipline. That era was draconian because it was based on discipline. War Against Indiscipline started with little things, when you want to buy something, you queue but it’s more than that, there are a lot of indiscipline in the bank, Nigeria Ports Authority, in schools. When you have students slap their lecturers, let’s not get into it now. Let the political party that has won, APC, sit down with Buhari and others, this is not the time for booty sharing. And you’ll discover that within two years, things would be reshaped. Nigeria is stunningly rich, students will be able to eat one meal and then we’ll be able to provide them with books and so on but if there is no discipline, what we’ll be hearing even from principal of school, if you can’t beat them, join them.
You once served on the board of NNPC, petroleum is one sector Nigerians score the outgoing government low and feel bad about it…?
That sector is still the most relevant in the economy, don’t mind the price of crude that has fallen to $55, $57, even if it drops to $40 we can make it. Oil is also a political tool; both domestically and internationally. Anybody who has been with NNPC will know petroleum, is not just an economic industry, subjected to only supply and demand, it’s also political. And I give you examples, when Obasanjo wanted to deal with Ghana, remember what he did? He just cut the supply. So you can see that’s not the law of free enterprise economy, petroleum anywhere in the world is one economic commodity and also political commodity. This is where Nigeria relies on heavily for our resources; I’m not talking about domestic resources. Foreign exchange is about 90 something percent from oil, now let me tell you my simple experience, because it’s a political commodity and economic commodity, and luckily Buhari was one-time minister of petroleum, he knows what is happening, that I know with my relationship with him, my advice is, he should keep an eye on petroleum. You know he was also chairman of PTF (Petroleum Trust Fund). He has an idea, he should be the minister of petroleum for at least one or two years to see what’s happening. After that he has to have a minister, it should be a minister of state. You know the politician side, they’ll abuse us that we’re pushing everything to ourself, we need a minister. If he has to succumb to the fact that he needs a minister of petroleum, he should be a minister of state at least at the beginning, for the next year or two. You might say how is that possible but how is it not possible? That was what Obasanjo did.
The youths have blamed elders like you particularly people of your age-group that have had the opportunity of managing this country, that you have been selfish about giving them the opportunity to administer, they keep saying 30 years ago, 40 years ago we were told that youths are the future leaders of tomorrow, today these same leaders are still the ones leading?
Even my son, he has some friends, they always argue with me and say my generation has disappointed them, ‘you have not done well’, then I say ok, if we have done something that is not good, you go and correct it. Now I’ll tell you how they can correct it. That was when they did a jamboree in Abuja, they submitted a Confab report. My son and his friends came and said, this is what we are saying, look at the people at the confab, 87 year old man was there, the Akinjides of this world, the elderly, they didn’t see the 45-50 year old. This is what we are saying, how can the young one grow? They are right in a way, repetition of the same people, now have we seen anyone surrendering power willingly and laughing? The young ones of today must unite, they’ll get this power if they too don’t succumb to this booty mentality, you know they don’t have money. What you are saying is right for the future. The young ones too must think, you all want to go to National Assembly so that after three years there, they ‘ll have hotels, petrol stations and so on. So, the young ones too must act. I told my son and his friends and I said listen. If you can live in the world as you find it, you need the resources in our society to amend and overthrow the present system and I told them what I heard from a great man, an Anglican Bishop, he came to talk to us students, I’m talking about 1960s, he came to talk to us about our studies, and you know students, they don’t want to hear anything like that. ‘You have failed in your duty, this and that, you didn’t give allowance’, you know, when that man finished his sermon, I still remember what he said ‘I pray if you students, do well in your studies, go back to Nigeria and come and add your wisdom to our ignorance’, that is what I’ll tell this generation. It is bad if we don’t have a replacement generation that can run this nation efficiently, the bad thing about Nigeria is that we are rich.
Will you say that is a curse or we didn’t manage the wealth well?
We are managing it badly. We can’t call it managing. And that is why Europeans, Americans say we want loan, they can mention ten, twenty Nigerians that have the kind of money we need to go and borrow. Let’s look at the amount of money Abacha siphoned away, I heard New Zealand returned $330million, we’re clapping, what about the money that cannot be recovered? Before the election, some of them were running away because they thought something will happen. A friend told me Nigerians don’t buy houses in Dubai any longer, they buy streets, you might think it’s a joke. We can make it if we sacrifice. If we allow Buhari’s government to restructure, there is enough for everyone. It’s not just about cutting, demand management and supply, we must encourage small scale industries. It is not just the negative thing, that is where we have to start even the small one we have, let us know how to manage it, the one I never want to speak about, cut the unnecessary spending. Even the political one, I don’t believe any government should send anybody to Jerusalem or Hajj with government money, don’t take public money into religion.
Those who steal public money or embezzle, will you support the call for capital punishment, death penalty for this set of people?
No, you don’t need capital punishment. How are you sure they are getting the right person? The court always make mistakes, ask the British after 6, 9 years, they discover the people they have hung didn’t commit the offence. Life is so sacred that somebody stole money and then we go and kill the wrong person. I know some people say let’s have the Rawlings type of something.
How then do we deal with this kind of offenders?
There are laws in our country, only that people do not know, some judges and tribunals do get bribes.
Nigerians are frustrated, some people stole billions of naira and they you got only three months jail sentence?
They’ve taken the money from them. And that’s the one you see, what about the ones you didn’t see? My view is: we need dedicated leaders like Buhari. And the laws are there to catch them. But sometimes they don’t catch them. We must also talk about the followers, if you see the number of boys that are in yahoo- yahoo. You’ll say why are they in yahoo-yahoo? Is it because they don’t get a job? And I say No, it is because some of them want to get rich quick, and drive SUV. What’s wrong with driving Volkswagen that can take you to where you‘re going even in Nigeria."
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