Muhammad Jibrin Barde was the immediate past Managing Director of Sun Trust Bank. Barde who is the deputy director, Field Operation of the APC for the Presidential election, in this interview, dismisses the opposition and highlights reasons why President Buhari will win the February 16 Poll
What do you think are the best selling points of the Buhari-led administration in terms of concrete achievements beyond integrity?
Integrity is everything, because here is a man who his previous employers or bosses who happen to be an employer of most of other candidates have provided a documented record of this man for you and for posterity to judge his character, about his character, competence, level of work and the same man has provided reference for other candidates about their character.
It is very clear that if you are an employer of labour the first thing you will do when I approach you for employment, you will seek for a letter of reference from my previous employers and the reference is very clear for all or some of the contestants in this election including Mr. President himself who has a documented reference from his boss particularly former President Olusegun Obasanjo has provided documented evidence and reference for you, for me to judge most of the candidates about their character and what we can think of them and you and I know that if I am going to employ you, I will take reference from your previous employers and the first important thing for me to look out for is the character of the individual, the time tested values of honesty, integrity, loyalty, courage, uprightness and the most important which is discipline are looked out for.
To address your point about what the administration has achieved, it is very clear and unquestionable, I am from the North eastern part of Nigeria, in fact I am a resident of Abuja and I have known how we use to work under a very tight policing situation both in Abuja and the north eastern part of the country where I cannot move from point A to point B of a 100 metres without having road blocks and we have also experienced the bombings that took place in Yanya, the hundreds of thousands of people that have died, the bombings of the independence day, the north eastern part of the country was taken over by insurgents and let me say this to you that there is no individual, no community, no country and there is nowhere in the world where any single thing can be achieved without peace and security.
The responsibility of each government is to provide the security of lives and property, but this the previous administration of PDP for the 16 years they have been in power have failed to provide and the height of it was insurgency and the taking over of so many parts of our country particularly the north eastern part of the country.
This administration has restored peace, security and this is very fundamental or do you want us to go back to the era of insecurity? The choice is very clear, there is a choice between continuation with the security situation of the country or we go back to the period where there is insecurity. That is number one.
The second most important factor in nation building and development is to ensure that you and I do not feel that the system is against us. When this administration came into power, the President met security agencies that were very weak and underfunded whereas billions of dollars have been stolen that could have gone into basic infrastructure particularly such as education and health care which is the basis for progress and prosperity that has been taken by the privileged few and it has been diverted from being applied for the common good of the generality of the country.
Corruption is a cancer and if you do not kill it, it will kill you. To be honest with you and luckily for us, the President said in 1983 that you and I have no other country than Nigeria and has decided to remain here in Nigeria to salvage the situation together with the people of the country and the only way we can is to confront the privileged few who have taken our common good to tell them that we will not give them another opportunity to come back and so many examples abound.
$16 billion has gone down the drain and we do not have power for 16 years. We have also seen a situation where main institutions have been sold to chronies of individuals that wants to come back to power. This we really need to ensure that it does not happen again.
The sorry state of Ajaokuta Steel, the sorry state of ALSCON, the sorry state of NITEL, the sorry state of power all these happened under the 16 years misrule of a particular party and still wants to come back to power and other people are also supporting them, so it is very clear that what this government has achieved is to reset the economy. It has made sure the security of lives and property is guaranteed and in order to save the economy, it is also killing the cancer of corruption because corruption is a radicalizer. It creates a lot of issues for and it takes away resources meant for everybody to the privileged few and unless we address these two fundamental issues the economy cannot reset and thirdly, and most important is that our farmers have gone back to farms.
You can clearly see that farming is now being seen as a serious business in this county and we have largely arrested the situation where we were dependent on other countries to feed our nation, but now, we are not only feeding the nation, but also exporting our farm produce and ensuring that we are generating revenues for ourselves and that has helped in resetting the economy while also making sure that job opportunities are provided and people have things to do.
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The choice is very clear and it is about ensuring security, fighting corruption and creating jobs like we have done in the last four years and this administration has achieved this feat in the last four years or going back to insecurity, corruption, unemployment, people abandoning farms going to other areas to look for greener pasture and let me say this lastly that the generality of the people of Nigeria and from the rallies, particularly the downtrodden and what we have seen,the masses of this country have made their choice and it is very clear and what you are here talking to me about is argument that takes place between the elites and I need to say this very clearly to remind them.
Do you have confidence in the ability of INEC to deliver a credible free and fair election?
I think everybody knows that if there is anybody that is trying to compromise INEC is the opposition, because it is their tactics, it is their belief, most of these political parties do not believe going to the people to seek for election, what they do believe in is to rig elections, they perfect it and the only way they perfect it is by working with INEC. They have seen that we have people of impeccable character in INEC now, the President has appointed these people and most of them have proven track record to deliver a free and fair election. We have confidence in that, but they have not been able to find ways to actually compromise them and to go along with their tactics and that is why they are coming out to talk about INEC being compromised
The opposition also sees the tradermoni as a vote buying scheme and many Nigerians seem to agree with them. What is your take on this?
There is nothing like vote buying and of course the opposition knows that vote buying only takes place at the polling stations. You do not give people money to run their businesses, access to capital or support for their businesses and you say it is vote buying and let me tell you that one of the challenges the country is faced with is that world over, countries have moved from large and big corporations to small and medium enterprises.
Small businesses are key for the development for any economy and one of the major challenges we face in the country is small businesses not getting support and financing is because the banks are not providing that level of financing to small businesses and it is understandable because as a small business man, you do not have access to finance, you cannot borrow on reasonable terms, you cannot save for the rainy day like you and I can do that, but they cannot do that, the generality is that small businesses do not have access to finance, the reason is that they do not have any form of identity and today out of the 200 million Nigerians if I tell you that close to a 100 million do not have a form of identity and you cannot wake up one morning and drop identity to people or say you want to give passport to everybody, it is not possible therefore the banks cannot lend to them and the only way is through the social investment programme of the federal government to provide access to capital to these small traders who will be able to turn around their businesses, we are not doing this on the election day.
Governance is a continum and as long as we are doing it within the period of governance and within the period of mandate given to the APC, we are on course and the social intervention programme did not start today, the school feeding programme did not start today, the empowerment programme did not start today, are you going to say that is vote buying? Therefore, I can tell you very clearly that it is just hype, it is just a way of crying by the opposition and it cannot get anywhere to be honest with you
Do you envisage violence in some parts of the country during or after the elections as some politicians are already predicting?
No, there won’t be any violence. This country is secured; this government is doing everything to provide security of lives and property. People have realised that there is a clear difference between good and bad governance.
There is no question, there is no opposition, this is in the minds of the elites and I will say this again as you and I are arguing about opposition and the generality of Nigerians know that the difference is very clear. We have provided roads, we have made massive investment in infrastructure development, provided security, education, health care, so they will not want to go back to the privileged few who took away the nation’s common wealth for themselves.
Do we want jobs provided by resetting the economy and making sure that everything is working base on what the government is doing or do we want to go back to where we do not have jobs and being told that the economy is growing on paper. The people have decided so there won’t be any violence. I do not see any violence taking place in this country, not a single one happening
The opposition party has also promised to take on all these things you have mentioned if given an opportunity. What is your take?
The man has had his own time and we have seen it. For me the choice is very clear and luckily for me, I have seen this happening over and over again and the President has come before and he has tackle all these issues, the people that stole our common wealth locked him up and he had to come back as a democrat, fought three times and the fourth time, God gave him the opportunity even though we know that he won the 2003, 2007, 2011 elections and luckily he got it in 2015. The question is that do we want to go back to those years wasted? These people have been part of that governance in those periods and they have had their opportunities so what are they coming to say that is new and that is the honest truth.
