Adebayo: Tinubu Should Not Take Nigeria Back to the Dark Days of the Military
The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 general election, Prince Adewole Ebenezer Adebayo, has tested the political waters in Nigeria. Rather than take a break like many of the politicians did, Adebayo has become even more visible, enlightening and educating the public, advising and criticising the government, particularly on policies when necessary. In this interview, Adebayo advised President Bola Tinubu not to take the country back to the dark days of the military where human rights of the people were trampled upon even as he advised Nigerians to reserve their energy as the increase of fuel pump price is just beginning.
What does it say about our democracy when, despite calls to empower youth leadership, we face rising fuel prices and allegations of intimidation and harassment of dissenting voices?
Well, it’s not unusual because democracy is a concept. It’s a flexible concept. The texture of it is under pressure from different directions. Those who are in government have some powers given to them by the people. Sometimes, they don’t know the limits of these powers and sometimes go beyond it. So democracy is a pressure cooker. The food in the pressure cooker cooks well because of the heat inside the pressure cooker trying to escape and the pressure cooker keeping it inside. That’s what makes you have that balance. That’s why you are able to have a pressure cooker working for you. It’s never a concluded argument. As different characters attain power, they bring different manifestations. That’s what you see. What are your concerns? Fuel price increase? That is one debate that we should put an end to because, electorally, we decided that we are going to vote for those who said they will remove subsidy. The implication of it now is the feedback we’re getting from the market and feedback we’re getting for the people who are experiencing it. So, if the people change their minds, given the experience they’re going through, and when they have the next opportunity, they will put that into consideration. With respect to what is happening with law enforcement, especially with respect to the arrest of the labour leader, Mr. Joe Ajero, and the invasion, as it was, of the office of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), I think, three things we need to know clearly. One, despite being in a democracy and notwithstanding politics, law enforcement must do their work. So there is no debating that if you are a labour leader, run an NGO, presidential candidate, someone in government, the police, law enforcement agencies have the right to interact with you where they think you have broken the law. So that is not what we are complaining about. But there is a rule of law. There is a process for doing things, and especially the timing.
When you are doing something at a time when it looks like there’s a conflict with the government over policy issues or other issues, law enforcement should try to be above board.
I won’t second-guess them, but I don’t think that they had reasonable ground to believe that Mr. Joe Ajaero was running away from Nigeria forever. So, if he was going for a conference, yes, if you are invited by law enforcement to come, you are supposed to go. But law enforcement agents do have a right. They have a duty to send reminders. So, if you don’t come, they send you a second reminder. And if he travels for an international engagement where he’s representing Nigeria, they should let him go and do his function, and when he returns, they’ll send another reminder. If he doesn’t come, they get a court order and have him brought to them. So that is what you should do. With respect to SERAP, I’ve listened to the arguements after I issued my own publication on it, or my opinion on it, where I said they need to give explanation, I was happy to see that they gave explanation, but listening to the explanation, there’s no good reason stated in there. I don’t know if they are keeping some things because of an investigation, but there’s no good reason for stalking them, going to their offices like that.
Investigation these days, if you are doing them genuinely, not to intimidate people, or to harass them, there are better ways to do it. And I must say something clearly, which you must understand. When you run an NGO all over the world, it’s the duty of the law enforcement to watch you. Because NGOs are special purpose vehicles that international spies, foreign spies use to penetrate a country. I’m sure you read the news where the FBI in America now is prosecuting some NGOs in America who got money from Russia. So, people who want to undermine your democracy can use any institution to do it. So NGOs should not be an exception if there’s a suspicion.
However, there are three steps that you take. One, if you think that an NGO is being infiltrated by foreign elements, you try to alert them because they may not know.
Second, if you think that they are complicit in working against the national security, the national interest, you do your investigation discreetly, and you let an independent agency like the judiciary to be aware of it.
Thirdly, try as much as possible to give confidence to the civil society that law enforcement is not being used to support the government of today in its politics. One of the things I had in mind as president was to stop the police and DSS from interacting with the government, from following politicians around. That’s why in the U.S. we have the Secret Service. The Secret Service does not investigate crimes and follow you around, but their job is to protect the government.
The FBI doesn’t protect the VIPs. It just does law enforcement. Except if the life of a VIP is in danger, they can alert police or other people to say go and do something to protect them. We should separate those who follow politicians all around from those who actually have to enforce the law because that way, there is no suspicion because there are two extremes. Again, you don’t want police to become a tool of politics or of harassing people, which is essentially what they have become over time and the same thing with the DSS. It shouldn’t be the case. And we can’t go back to the days of Abacha where the government would say, well, if you are irritating us, then we will look for you and harass you. We can’t do that in a democracy. I know that even under President Goodluck Jonathan, there used to be a lady called Marilyn Oga who gave a black face to the DSS because anybody who was opposed to President Jonathan’s policy, she would start abusing them, going after them, harassing them. And I think that era went away. I think during the Buhari era, apart from some occasional instances; they tried to keep away from overt political activities like that. So, I think the new DG DSS should do what is right.
Some people say the recent actions signal that there’s a new sheriff in charge, especially with the state security services. What are your thoughts on that?
No, I think the new sheriff is welcome, but I think it should focus on Boko Haram, bandits, kidnappers, and such other things, and probably also the criminals who are inside government, to try to do his work there.
You said you saw this (fuel increase) coming. In fact, you’ve praised President Tinubu for being able to hold a price that has not gone beyond it. You thought that this would have gone to almost N2,500 or so?
Yes, because that was why when we were running for the presidency, I knew that one of the greatest mistakes you could ever make was to adopt a policy of removing subsidy because the gravitational force of the market will drive the price towards equilibrium. And equilibrium, not to sound too technical, is where supply and demand meet reliably, sustainably. If you have this price, you can continue to supply that product without failure. That is, all other costs you should have to absorb to get that product to the market to meet the buyer. The price will pay you the cost, plus the element of profit. So, I knew that. But you can’t do that because there are so many externalities and imperfections in the system that will not let that be the wisest decision you can make. More so, all the noise being made around subsidy, I thought that there was an exaggeration of the fiscal burden of subsidy and that the burden of palliative, the burden of price dislocation, the burden of lower productivity, social and civil unrest, but when you put all those other costs together, they far outweigh the cost of maintaining subsidy by a factor of 5 to 1. So it will not be a good decision for anyone to say, I’m going to remove subsidy as president.
If you had won the election, would you have removed subsidy?
No, of course, I would not. I’ve said it, even though the people who scored the highest votes, President Tinobu, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Governor Peter Obi, which incidentally was advised by Professor Pat Utomi, all of them said they were going to remove subsidy. In fact, the Labour candidate said he would remove subsidy on day one. So the issue is a bad decision.
How is it bad?
This has been debated over and over again. There are a lot of people who said removal of subsidy was the right pathway in killing that evil that has bedevilled our oil and gas sector.
Not removing it was very unpopular before now. Like you said, it was a campaign promise by most of the major candidates who said they would remove it on the first day, or they would remove it at some point. What do you think?
The so-called major candidates are the major headache of the country. Because the political elite and business elite thought that they shouldn’t share prosperity with the downtrodden. So, they will collect subsidy on any other thing. They will subsidize the living condition of people in government. Whether you are elected, whether you are in the National Assembly, or you are in the presidency, whether you are a judge or anything, your life will be subsidized. Your housing will be subsidized. Your cars will be subsidized. That one is not bad. If you are a professor or vice-chancellor in a university, you will subsidize. So that subsidy is good. But that’s one that the poor people are partaking in. That’s one that is bad. So, it shows you the social injustice and socio-economic injustice in Nigeria.
But that’s even the most critical question in the minds of most Nigerians. Yes. You mentioned criminals in government. These criminals, in quotes, they don’t have respect for the law. Yes. That’s the challenge we have in Nigeria today. The judiciary is our problem, don’t you think so?
Well, we have our own problems in many ways because they’re Nigerians that go to the judiciary. The judiciary has had some black eyes in recent times, and one of the areas that I had hoped to make an adjustment if I was president, if I ever become president, is to see that the judiciary doesn’t deal with election matters as well, that we have a constitutional court. That constitutional court, they don’t do any other thing other than anything that has to do with politics. And then when politics is over, they go and rest, just the way we have industrial courts. So, that is why these days you don’t find Labour Congress, anybody having a problem with the regular courts, because they know their matter goes to the industrial court. So, if you have a constitutional court, as it is purely to do with election matters and similar issues, then the judiciary on its own will have a better chance of self-redemption. So because there’s no one, I’m a member of the bar. Yes. I’m a servant in the judiciary, and I have the duty to protect the target audience. I’m a member of the judiciary, even when I’m not happy with the judgment. But my duty also includes giving critical feedback to the judiciary when there’s a little slip-up. So I may not do it on television. I may also do it on television sometimes. But the idea is that we need to protect institutions.
Even those who are in DSS now, they need SERAP because they will not be there forever. Everybody needs human rights. SERAP is a laudable organization. I have a lot of respect for SERAP, and I encourage what they are doing. Everybody should encourage what they are doing. I believe even President Tinubu, in his private life, had occasionally used references that are related to the work done by SERAP to address issues with the previous governments.
All of us have a duty to let the civil society breathe, but with some guidance from law enforcement, because I cannot tell you that I don’t know that there are hostile interests in Nigeria who come from abroad, and they use our institutions against us. Of course, they use our government officials against us as well. So when you are looking at whether NGOs and civil groups are being sponsored from abroad, you also look at our other companies that are from abroad. They are controlling our economy. Our bankers receive money from abroad. Our government goes abroad every time looking for foreign investors. So we are all dealing with people abroad. So, dealing with people abroad is not a crime on its own. It’s just that we have to have a national ethic whereby we guide our people and say, if you are collecting money from foreign agents, you are collaborating with them, they come in any form in which they come, if we see what is wrong, we will interact with you. It should be a friendly thing, not in the heat of when you have a dispute with the government. It should be a general programme where there is a kind of counseling given to NGOs so that if you are fighting over issues of environment, social and economic rights, any other issue, you don’t get used against your own country by foreign elements.
It’s the same thing with our military. The way they go and get visas, send their children abroad to school, and all those things are vulnerabilities. So, law enforcement can deal with that. The Nigerian intelligence agency can have information from abroad and domesticate it to our domestic law enforcement.
So, is it possible that things could change? Maybe in the third year, are we likely to see a dramatic change?
Things will always change whether you change them or not for good. Yes things will change for good, but the price of petrol will always go up. So that one you can’t be sure of until you do what we call shift. If you are travelling in economics, if you are travelling along the curve, you cannot escape demand and supply. Because you are travelling along the curve unless you do a shift. You move from that shift and say okay, you know what it doesn’t matter. What President Tinubu can say is that petrol price will reach N3,000 per liter, but Nigerians will not feel it. If he makes that promise, I can believe him. But if he says he will not reach, he is deceiving himself because two things are moving.
Remember that petrol price has a twin sister who you don’t mention called foreign exchange. That foreign exchange is what is even more influential than the subsidy. And that foreign exchange will determine a lot of things because even if you get Dangote, you get me, you get anybody to have a refinery, their cost is in dollars. Dangote cannot say come and be the chairman or come and be the M.D. of my refinery. I’ll pay you in naira. That person will not come. So, he can’t tell you I want to buy crude. Only you can buy crude from NNPC in naira. But that one is the Central Bank of Nigeria that will suffer it. So, they can’t buy it from outside. The long and short of it is that Nigerians should understand that we have made a choice that subsidy should go by voting those who don’t like to give you subsidy. For that reason, the only thing we can do for the government is to try to talk to them to try to take away the effects by taking the people away from the use of petrol. And then if at a macroeconomic level, you can get off petrol yourself, better for you.
