The Rise Of The Black British Actor In America By Kelley L. Carter

Due to a lack of opportunity in their home countries, black British actors are finding success-- and meatier roles-- telling Black American stories, sometimes even iconic ones. For David Oyelowo, who plays M<artin Luther King Jr. in Selma, this is one of those transformative moments

In Britain, David Oyelowo was feeling limited.

A brilliant actor who can melt inside of a role and turn in a performance worthy of high praise from his contemporaries, Oyelowo — who first came of notice as doomed spy Danny Hunter on BBC’s Spooks (called MI-5 in the U.S.) — wasn’t finding much material that allowed him to push himself to the next level. He’d had minor success doing prestigious work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, but breaking into TV and films proved to be challenging. And he envisioned more for himself when he fancied a performance art career.

So seven years ago, he and his wife Jessica made the decision to head to Los Angeles, with the hope being that he’d find the type of work fitting for his training at the esteemed London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He arrived in May of that year and by July — a mere two months after moving in the place where he’d hoped he would find the role of his dreams — the script for a film named Selma was dropped into his lap.

It took another seven years, five directors, and a rewrite before the film would hit the big screen, but now Oyelowo is impressing critics with his arresting portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, the humanitarian who would help to change the lives of millions of Americans before being slain in 1968.

Oyelowo’s story isn’t so uncommon. It’s familiar to that of many black British actors, and in some ways, his role — and his story — is part of a larger trend playing out in Hollywood right now. There’s a black British Actor Renaissance of sorts occurring, largely because black Brits aren’t finding the type of work in the United Kingdom that allows them to explore the depth they’re seeking from their roles. But stateside, these British expatriates are giving life to classic American stories, many gritty and all of them deeply layered and complex.

Part of that may be luck or timing or opportunity. But it’s the odyssey of Oyelowo — who as King is playing one of the most recognizable and iconic Americans of all time — that feels as if it were being orchestrated from on high.

“I played a soldier confronting President Lincoln in the film Lincoln, and I say to him, in the winter of 1865, ‘When are we going to get the vote?’ and then there I am, 100 years later, depicting Dr. King, alongside the very same actor, Colman Domingo — we confronted President Lincoln together — we are now in a jail cell, asking for the vote again, in 1965,” Oyelowo said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “I’ve played a preacher in The Help, I played a fighter pilot in Red Tails, I played someone who was in a sit in, was a Freedom Rider, was a Black Panther, then goes on to be a senator in The Butler. They’re all characters that took me on this journey through what it has been to be a black person for the last 150 years.”

Oyelowo stopped, paused, and corrected himself slightly here. In nearly every role he’s taken on since he arrived in the United States, he’s portrayed the sojourn for what it’s like to be a black American for the last 150 years. It’s an important distinction that’s not taken lightly by the 38-year-old actor.

“I know more about American history than I do either Nigerian or British history at this point,” he said, before adding a quick chuckle.

David Oyelowo (as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) discusses a scene with Director Ava DuVernay on the set of Selma. Atsushi Nishijima/Paramount Pictures

In Selma, we find two of the most well-known and high-profile black Americans of all time getting the big screen treatment. Together, Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott-King became the poster couple for the civil rights movement, which promoted nonviolent protests in order to get inalienable rights for all Americans. In the film version, directed by Ava DuVernay, both roles are portrayed by black British actors; Carmen Ejogo, who has portrayed Scott-King once before (in an HBO film, Boycott), also is British.

“I’m sorry — they were just really good!” DuVernay mock-wailed in defense of her casting British actors during a recent interview with BuzzFeed News. “David is just an extraordinary artist. He is unlike anything I’ve come across in terms of his depth of his preparation, the openness of his heart with this part — totally sinking in and a desire to disappear into this, to give his whole self over to it. That level of commitment is the kind of thing you hear when you read Premiere magazine articles about Daniel Day-Lewis preparing. I would see it happen. And know how important it was to him. And to be a partner with him in this performance was just an honor, and at that point, you could be any nationality.”

Still, there is something to be said for the technical training that many actors receive in England. Day-Lewis, who won an Academy Award for portraying President Abraham Lincoln in 2012’s Lincoln, also is British. And in Selma, DuVernay cast Tim Roth, another Brit, to portray former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

Although white, Roth said it’s easy to see the struggles that black British actors have.

“They’re not getting the roles at home,” Roth said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “There’s some good stuff being made, but … there’s much more of a black component that’s happening in your cable world here.”

But it’s more than just the actors navigating across the Atlantic to find great work. They’re winning these roles because many of them are able to utilize their U.K. theater backgrounds and translate them to major Hollywood productions, something that works quite well with the deeply constructed roles many are landing.

“I think there’s something about the stage, because they have that stage preparation,” DuVernay said. “Their work is really steeped in theater. Our system of creating actors is a lot more commercial. … there’s a depth in the character building that’s really wonderful.”

There also is a cultural disconnect that allows actors like Oyelowo and Ejogo to strip down iconic figures like the Kings and play them with vulnerability and without falling into, say, the fear (and in some cases, the burden) that American actors steeped in historical traditions may have.

“They had a distance, yes,” DuVernay added. “It’s that whole idea of the reverence — if you don’t have the reverence and you’re not putting them up on a pedestal, then you’re more apt to get to the truth and the heart of it to explore. You’re not wrestling with the fact that his picture was on Grandmama’s wall. Because it wasn’t. Because you ain’t from here. You didn’t have to do “I Have a Dream” speeches in school. You don’t have all that residue to deal with.”

Ejogo said that’s what helped her dissect Scott-King. Critically, she gives the first wholly human portrayal of Scott-King, which is especially important here, given that Selma touches briefly on King’s much talked about infidelity.

“I’ve been trying to convince myself that being British has had no bearing on any of this, but actually I think that’s where it served me well,” Ejogo told BuzzFeed News. “I’m not as entrenched in the history so immediately. I didn't go to school and learn about Coretta, and I have this one idea that was put in history books as to who she is or who she wasn't. And now I’m going to have to reel that back in, and try and find something that doesn't sit well with me in terms of what I was raised in. I didn’t know who Coretta was until I played her the first time. And I think I have permission — that’s the definition of the artist, in my opinion — to be a little deviant. It wasn't as daunting as it might have been for an American actress. An African-American actress … that might have been a bit more of a challenge.”

The same holds true with Oyelowo, who although he’s never portrayed King before, sat with his character for years before the first camera rolled on Selma. Already, Oyelowo has been nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance, and talk is strong that he’ll hear his name called for an Oscar nomination for helping to bring to life a story that depicted a dark time in American history. In some ways, it feels a lot like last year, when fellow British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (who also is of Nigerian descent) was riding the award show wave for his inspiring portrayal of Soloman Northrup in 12 Years a Slave, a real-life story about a free black American who is wrongly placed in captivity and forced to live as a slave.

Ejiofor in 12 Years A Slave

Over the years, we’ve seen other black British actors head to the States — Idris Elba took on the role as the menacing Stringer Bell in HBO’s The Wire, where he played the No. 2 guy in a Baltimore drug cartel, largely culled from real-life stories; Thandie Newton has had roles as Sally Hemmings and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and Gugu Mbatha-Raw found critical acclaim in 2014 in Belle, portraying a fictional account of the mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral and a Caribbean slave, but she previously donned a Yankee accent in the short-lived J.J. Abrams espionage drama Undercovers in 2010.

British actor Naomie Harris (Skyfall), who starred alongside Elba in 2012’s Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, has her own rationale for why so many make the journey. “I think it’s quite simple, really, and that’s work,” she said. “I think there just isn't enough work in England to sustain a career long term, unless you want to do one of the British soaps and stay on that. We have to travel across to the States, because the States has such a much bigger market; it’s a much bigger industry over there and therefore there are a lot more roles for us. And that’s why actors like Idris … end up going to the States.”

Elba isn’t alone, of course. There are many more who have found acclaim on American TV and in film, including Marianne Jean-Baptiste, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, and Adrian Anthony Lester, just to name a few. That list continues to grow and grow.

“In Britain, they don’t know who they are. In Britain, they’re like, That’s that American actor. I’m like, No, no, no, I was in England and I couldn’t get any fucking work and I went over there and now…,” actor Thandie Newton, the lead of DirecTV’s cop drama Rogue (on which she plays, you guessed it!, an American), said. “I’m sure there are many explanations. The thing that pops into my head is that when you’re hungry for something, and you’ve got a little bit of desperation in there and it serves you well. You know? When you feel like a fish out of water you struggle a bit. That struggle’s healthy; it’s good for you. And let’s face it, America’s made up of people from all over the world, as every city is. It’s almost like we’ve just sort of come via England to America. I hope it’s seeming that way, anyway. Otherwise we’re like a swarm that comes in and infests Hollywood and takes over.”

Together, this group makes up a rather small and exclusive fraternity of actors, united in their collective desire for better opportunities, all eyeballing bigger careers and understanding that America was the promise land. And that particular American dream began on those London stages, where many of those actors were educated together and worked together, Oyelowo said.

“Ten years ago, every one of those actors you were talking about, we were either at drama school, or we were treading the boards in theaters in London, getting paid very little money. Every single one of those people you just mentioned,” Oyelowo said. “I know them all, I would watch them in plays, in small theaters — Chiwetel and I were at drama school together. We went to conservatoires to train for three years: We did classical theater; we did modern theater. I think that the reason why we’re having this moment we’re in right now, is because all of that hard work is now butting up against the time whereby a very big discernible appetite. And to be perfectly honest, we’ve had enough of having our stories be told from a white perspective, being peripheral characters in our own stories.”

And again, the training and educational background is essential, according to Harris.

“I think people recognize with British actors that they do a lot of training, and I think people really respect that a lot of them have gone to places like Rose Bruford [College],” said Harris. “I went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and trained for two years. They respect that we generally start off in theater and have a theater background. Film producers really like that.”

Right now, many are marveling when they see Oyelowo give television interviews in support of Selma; the realization that he’s not American is a top interview topic, given the slow, Southern drawl inflected with little bits of a Bostonian accent that he uses in his performance as King.

Oyelowo doesn't hesitate when it comes to talking about racial disparities experienced in the U.S. Though he didn’t grow up with the same history as black Americans, he’s able to understand and speak to racial irregularity with the fluency of someone born here — and in some cases with a perspective that perhaps serves the roles he takes on better than most.

“I have a very unique bird’s-eye view on what it is to be black in the world today, in the sense that I was born in the U.K., and I spent most of my life in Europe — my parents are from Nigeria, and I actually lived there for seven years, from the age of 6 to 13,” he said. “And now I've lived in America for nearly eight years now. I've lived on two continents where I've been a minority, and I've lived on one continent where I was a majority, where I was a person who had no discernible barriers to me, because everyone looked like me. I didn't experience inequality or injustice because of the color of my skin.

“And so, when I was dumped back into society where I did feel like there was a different view of me as a human being on the basis of my race, it’s a very stark feeling, it’s a very discernible jab in the ribs. Even though I’m not an American, I know what inequality feels like, partly because I felt what being equal also feels like.”

One of the many virtues of Oyelowo’s stirring performance as King is that he brings to life small human nuances about a man who has been canonized for the last five decades. He reached out to Andrew Young, a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who was also part of King’s inner circle, for insight.

“I spent a lot of time with Andrew Young who talked to me about his friend, Dr. King, who gave me unseen footage of him at home with his family, eating fried chicken, belching, on planes, traveling around,” Oyelowo said. “The Dr. King that we haven’t necessarily seen. I steeped myself in this man and this movement, and these people, I met Dr. King’s children, and I spoke to them about him. I tried to soak myself in it as much to compensate for anything I didn’t know.”

The complexity of King’s character as it plays out in Selma is in keeping with the type of work Oyelowo was envisioning when landing Stateside less than a decade ago. And that he’s portrayed significant turns in history for black Americans may not be so coincidental.

“I gravitate towards films, stories, characters, filmmakers who are interested in those things that are meaningful, those things that actually have something to say,” he said. “I am not one of those filmmakers who thinks that we don’t have to take responsibility for what we put out into the world. I think that’s a lie, I think it’s irresponsible, and I think it’s downright untrue. I think film is culturally intensely potent and it does — for better or for worse — shape what people think about the world they live in. I try to be part of projects, try to play roles that inform the human experience, in as edifying a way as possible.”

Kelley Carter is a senior entertainment editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York

WORLD BANK AND IMF WANTED US TO REMOVE PETROLEUM SUBSIDY - MUHAMMADU BUHARI

BRF, GMB & Amaechi

A lot of people are saying the problems of Nigeria are so many now, more than what you met in 1983 as military head of state. If you were elected president, what would you do differently from President Jonathan on power supply, for instance? How can we tackle this problem? 
 It cannot be done overnight. The hearings conducted by the National Assembly on NEPA or Power Holding Company of Nigeria, of blessed memory, pension fund and petroleum industry show the extreme mismanagement of what Nigeria stands for… because if you remove petroleum industry, if you remove the organisation of pension funds and power, Nigeria will collapse. I refer you to my declaration that in 1999 when the PDP came, power generation was hovering between 3,000 and 4,000 megawatts. It is now hovering between that number again after $20 billion had been spent. This is what the hearings exposed. And nobody has been punished. What happened to the $20 billion? What happened to pension funds?
What happened to another $20 billion exposed by a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria [Lamido Sanusi]? All these things the PDP governments between 1999 and now have not been able to explain to Nigerians. And the remarkable thing about Nigeria is that: because having been a minister, governor and head of state, you do not go to any parastatal or any ministry without meeting financial instructions and administrative instructions, but Nigerians have the audacity at each level to cast that away and keep doing what they like. And no one is being punished.......

Would you like to dig up the report before we move forward? 
If you try to do that, the state will immediately collapse because a lot of the institutions have been compromised. With whom are you going to work? My own belief now is that you just have to draw a line and move forward. But since cases are in the court no matter what, you have to allow the judiciary to do its job. We can hurry them up a bit, but we must allow the judiciary because it is not a profession you can take over their duties. It is the third arm of government. We can come as the military as we did and remove some parts of the constitution, but most of the constitution have to remain and again it is the judiciary that will have to interpret what remains. But in a democratic setting, you cannot do what the National Assembly and the Judiciary are empowered by law to do. It is impossible. And look again, when our soldiers started giving interviews to the foreign press that they were being sent to the war front [against Boko Haram] with obsolete weapons, the National Assembly attempted to call the service chiefs and show them the budgets they have been approving over the years for arms and ammunition and for military hardware and software. Where is the money? Have you heard of the hearing again?

What do you think they are doing wrong in the power sector? 
If you could recall, after 1983 elections, NEPA virtually collapsed. But when we came in 1984-1985, we had the late Lukman, an engineer. He was in Plateau when I was working as GOC 2 Armoured Division. I got to know him. He was an extremely truly hardworking engineer of great integrity. I put him in charge of NEPA. If you could recall, I did the tour of NEPA installations and some industries. And we ordered some spare parts mostly of the thermal station and we were using the military C130 aircraft to bring spare parts.
By the time we were removed in August 1985, blackout in Lagos had been forgotten because the thermal station had been made functional. Lagos was the home of industries. Industries were given priority because of employment. If you close the factories, as they have done now, there will be no goods and services. Power is the most important thing for our sustained development. But unfortunately, the PDP government has failed to understand or accept that. Hence money, billions of dollars, goes down the drain. If from 1999 till now, in my own perception, Kainji, Jebba, Shiroro had been repaired and brought to optimal usage, and we do the thermal stations… it is a question of changing spare parts because the gas is there. The studies of Nigerian petroleum, the studies of 1970s when I became minister of petroleum, showed that Nigeria was a petroleum country in name; mostly it is a gas country. In the east of the Niger, the gas reserve there was fantastic. That was why LNG project was initiated. You cannot initiate LNG except you have a 30-year reserve to back you up. But this means nothing to the PDP government. It is not a priority. That’s why we find ourselves where we are.

What’s your position on petroleum industry bill? 
I know the PIB is a non-issue as far as this government is concerned. So I am telling you practical things that will transform the economy [beyond the PIB]. I will tell you one thing about industries. The Nigerian textile firms in Ikeja, Aba, Kaduna, Kano, they used to employ over 300,000 Nigerians in the 1980s. Now they employ less than 30,000. A serious government would get worried if over 250,000 in one industry are put out of job. Because behind every Nigerian worker are five dependants. This is my problem with PDP government. Unseriousness. That is the textile industry alone.

Part of the key recommendations in the PIB is deregulation that will lead to the removal of petrol subsidy. Removal of subsidy is sensitive issue. How do you hope to handle that if you are elected president? 
When we came into power, technically in December 1983 but we started in 1984, I had been part of Obasanjo’s government in petroleum. Nigeria handed over to the second republic government a relatively physically-secure and economically-safe country. I can’t recall exactly how much foreign reserve we had, but there was physical security and the economy was good. That is what the military handed over to the second republic. By the time the military came back and I happened to be the head of state, if anybody told you that he knew how much Nigeria was owing, it was a lie. So we had two committees, one international and the other local, to find out the debt Nigeria had accumulated over those years and how. This report has never seen the daylight because up to the time we were removed, it was not brought to us. But when it was eventually brought, by which time I was safely under lock and key, nobody could do anything about it.
Secondly the American president then, Ronald Reagan, sent his friend, General Walters, to me saying we should accept the IMF programme. What was the IMF programme then? World Bank and IMF wanted us to remove the so-called petroleum subsidy, to devalue the naira, to remove the subsidy on flour, as they perceived it. But what we knew was that in some of the states, workers were being owed nine months salaries. I was in Plateau state and I saw the so-called progressive governors crisscrossing this country almost every other month, making a lot of noise when the ordinary worker was not being paid.
I told Walters we were not going to devalue the naira; we were not going to remove any subsidy. And if you recall by the time we were removed, one naira was equal to 1.2 or 1.5 dollars. The naira was run down to N80 to a dollar by General Babangida’s regime. I refused to remove the so-called petroleum subsidy. I said I had been in the petroleum industry for three and a quarter years. I signed the contracts for Warri and Kaduna refineries. I signed the contract for more than 20 depots, from Makurdi to Ilorin to Gusau to Kano to Maiduguri. And then pipes were laid over 3,200 kilometres. Nigeria didn’t borrow a kobo. 

I can understand Nigerians being charged the cost of petroleum if you can work it out… because we know how Nigerian crude costs per barrel from the world market, the transportation cost to the refinery, the money for refining and then the transportation to the filling station. I agree Nigerians should pay for that to sustain the industry. But for someone to say they are subsidising, who is subsidising who? This industry, the prospecting and development, were paid for by the Nigerian people. We spent money to discover the oil. Who then is subsidising who? To come and kill Nigerians, you know, to put that amount of burden on them when their salary is hardly enough for them to eat, pay for their bill of their healthcare, and education of their children. Who are you subsidising? It is Nigerian petrol, it is Nigerian capital that was used to mine it, it is Nigerians doing most of the work, so who are you subsidising? Subsidy for what?
And even then, if you go and interview Tam David-West, when I came back as head of state, and we stopped [illegal] bunkering, Nigeria was choked with product. We were exporting 100,000 barrels per day of refined products because Warri, Kaduna, Port Harcourt alone was doing 250,000 a day, the old refinery and the new one built… and we found out Nigeria was normally consuming about 300,000 barrels a day. All the people that were doing the [illegal] bunkering abandoned their jetties, their barges, because they knew who were sending them to jail or beyond. But now, Nigeria goes to world market and buys petrol as much as any other person does with all the infrastructure in place. That is how efficient the PDP government is (laughter).

Some of your allies in APC believe in fiscal federalism, resource control and restructuring of the federation. What is your position on these issues? 
The important thing is to change Nigeria. And with the economy which is almost down and out, how can you bring sustainable economic development? There is the terrible problem of youth unemployment. The first one is security. Nigeria has to be secure and efficiently managed. This cannot be done overnight. Nigerians have to be prepared, at least from 2015 to maybe about 2018 to really work extremely hard. We have to work extremely hard because a lot of institutions have been compromised. Education down, infrastructure down, security almost non-existent.  So for anybody to come and create the impression that he can work wonders [is a lie]. Nigerians have to be prepared to suffer for at least five straight years before we can stabilise this country, security wise and economically because so much damage has been done. And Nigerians are feeling it. No matter how much you like Nigerian voters, if you lie to them they will know, because so much damage has been done. But we can quickly recover as we showed between 1984 and 1986 until the naira was killed, literally. We were recovering.

Do you believe in resource control? 
Who is to control what? All this is said mainly on petroleum because it is what Nigeria depends on. It gives us at least 90% of our foreign revenue at the great danger of ignoring agriculture and solid minerals, which Nigeria has great potentiality in. In fact, in my declaration speech, I emphasised the question of agriculture and solid minerals. For employment of youth generally, we have to go into agriculture very fast and solid minerals to complement the petroleum industry and stop the illegal oil bunkering and outright theft.
And we see what we can do with education, the standard of education, and the lack of it in parts of the country, especially the north. I believe some generations have been betrayed because if people fail to go to school or become dropouts before they go to university or tertiary institutions, and without going to training schools to become electricians, bricklayers, mechanics, and so on, we have really destroyed their lives. I was listening to a programme now, from the BBC, there are 64 million Nigerians that have missed education. 64 million. Now, out of the population of a 160 or 170 million, you have a youthful chunk that has missed education. We can only take them to agriculture, solid minerals, give them quick training, for them to get employment and a means of living because you can’t say you’re going to send them to polytechnics, and universities that are overcrowded, lack of infrastructure, no equipment, no qualified teachers. Oh God! We’re in very, very bad shape. Nigerians need to know we are in very, very bad shape.........

Some people say the quota system and federal character no longer have a place in Nigeria, that originally they were meant to equalise the states, but that now virtually every state has educated people, that the field should be thrown open. What’s your position on this?
I think it is important in the federation when you come to the centre, it is better for people to feel that they too are participating at the centre. But it must not be at the expense of standards. Any geopolitical zone or state, if they want their people to participate at the centre, must ensure they can compete professionally. You can’t take somebody who did not go to school or who said he went to the university but cannot write a two-page memo, to become a permanent secretary. How will he do it? How can he articulate policies that will be taken to executive council to be debated by ministers? We really have a problem. We have to remove sentiments and not excite or provoke our constituencies that they have to participate. You can only participate if you develop the capacity to participate.

So it should not be at the expense of merit?
Exactly! If you want your state to participate you must make sure you do something about education in your state. That you can produce qualified people to participate. But because you are part of Nigeria, you kill education in your state and you want your child to be taken and made permanent secretary even though he cannot write his name.

We know you as an honest and upright man but in a democratic setting you have to deal with the National Assembly and the judiciary. How do you fight corruption within these constraints?
As I just mentioned to you, if you go to any ministry or parastatal in Nigeria you will not fail to find out financial instructions and administrative instructions. Schedule of officers, expenditure, tenders board, but Nigerians put it in the waste basket and do their own thing. And because leadership has been compromised at various levels, if you are a personal assistant and chief clerk and your head of department knows that you are a thief, he cannot stop you from stealing. These are Nigerians, we know what is wrong with us. That is why I am putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of the elite. We have a constitution and all sorts of laws… let us revisit them. Let us move forward and stabilise the system. I am very concerned about stabilising this system........

And there is this sensitive issue of Muslim-Muslim ticket… 
You see, Nigerians will always discover impossible room for manoeuvre for politicians. I had to face one of the governors in our party’s meetings. I told you I joined partisan politics in April 2002. In 2003, I was given a ticket. Whom did I chose as my running mate? Chuba Okadigbo. He was brought up by Zik. And he was senate president and was a serving senator when he accepted to be my running mate. He was a Roman Catholic. He was an Igbo. In 2007, whom did I pick? Edwin Ume-Ezeoke. He was a Roman Catholic. He was an Igbo. And in 2010, I even chose a pastor. Pastor Tunde Bakare. Honestly, what do Nigerians want me to do? If they don’t believe I’m not a fundamentalist, what also can I do?  In any case, who attempted to kill me? Is it Boko Haram or who because I told them they were ungodly? Again I repeated it during my declaration that they are ungodly. Because no religion advocates hurting the innocent. No religion. So if you go and kill children while they are sleeping, blow people up in churches, in mosques, in the market place, and motor park, you can’t say “Allau Akbar”. Because “Allau Akbar” means God is great. Now if you believe God is great, he says you must not hurt the innocent. There must be a justice system, investigations… if you find people guilty, punish them. So, you either don’t believe that God is great, or you don’t know what you are saying. Is it for this that they attempted to blow me up? Or somebody else did it?
So the question of this Muslim-Muslim ticket, although it was a long way from Abiola and Kingibe [in 1993], all the same, I have not absolutely closed my mind to picking a Christian or Muslim as running mate if I get the ticket. Because I firmly believe that Nigerians, having gone through what they have gone through, realise it is not a matter of religion, but a matter of Nigeria. And the main religions, Christianity and Islam, they know and they believe in the almighty God. The question of stealing and short-changing people in the name of religion should stop. Why did Nigerians line up and elect Abiola and Kingibe, both Muslims? The late Joseph Tarka, in a clearly Roman Catholic environment, brought Ibrahim Imam from Borno, to his constituency to represent Tivland in the Northern House of Assembly in 1961. This new phenomenon of religion is another blackmail political confusionists in Nigeria are bringing to the fore.
I will tell you something. Tinubu’s wife is a Christian, Governor Fashola’s wife is a Christian, Governor Amosun’s wife is a Christian, Bisi Akande’s wife is a Christian, Governor Ajimobi’s wife is a Christian. For goodness sake, the children of these political leaders in Nigeria were bred and brought up by Christian mothers. You think those people, wherever they participate, they will bring a religious issue? What kind of people are we? Nigerians will always bring something to cause confusion while we are trying to stabilise the system.

THE CABLE 25TH OCTOBER 2014

Buhari: Nigeria Will Be Secure Under My Leadership

His quick, light steps belied his age. The smile on his face, his clear tone and his eagerness to provide details painted a vivid picture of a man at home with himself and the society at large. His wit and quips revealed an often unexposed funny side that were difficult to place with the no-nonsense, carefully cultivated image ascribed to the former military Head of State and All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari.

However, the irony in Buhari’s character could be deemed a reflection of his transition from a military officer who overthrew a democratically elected government in December 1983, to one who after retirement became an avowed democrat that has sought to rule Nigeria via the ballot, albeit in three unsuccessful attempts.

But for many who have followed Buhari, they would be the first to remind anyone who cares to listen that his democratic conversion occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union and dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Essentially, it took the collapse of communism and totalitarianism in Eastern Europe for Buhari to take the journey on the road to Damascus like the biblical Apostle Paul.

For some, drawing the similarities between Buhari, a practising Muslim, and Paul who is considered one of the most important figures of the Christian Apostolic Age, may be taboo. But after the THISDAY Board of Editors met with the retired army general last Friday at his home in Abuja, the board came away with the view that Buhari is anything but a religious bigot, as his opponents would have us believe.

Yet, despite Buhari’s best efforts to distance himself from religious extremism, he cannot runaway from the fact that in his three attempts to return as Nigeria’s head of state through the ballot, he has not been able to build political structures that transverse the fault line between the north and the south. Indeed, whilst his following among the masses (better known as the Talakawa) in the north is cult-like, the same cannot be said of his followership in the south.

For the first time in his political career, the general would also have to compete for the ticket of a political party to contest the 2015 presidential election. In the past, Buhari was handed presidential tickets without lifting a finger. To secure a win over four other contestants on the platform of the APC, especially his closest rival former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Buhari has been forced raise the ante by lobbying for delegates’ votes.

Should he win the APC presidential primary and go on to win the 2015 presidential election, Buhari informed the THISDAY Board of Editors that one of his primary goals will be the defeat of Boko Haram in the North-east and combating corruption in Nigeria. Indeed, on matters of security, Buhari’s military background and grasp of warfare shone through during his interview with THISDAY.

So did his disdain for corruption, even though he acknowledged that times have changed since his stint as head of state between 1984 and 1985. On the economy, however, Buhari has so much to learn and found it difficult to present a coherent blue print on the economy. The conversation with the THISDAY Board of Editors, nevertheless, was not just limited to matters of security, corruption and the economy. Uncharacteristically, Buhari opened up on a host of other issues.

In the first installment of its Presidential Series, THISDAY presents the man and presidential aspirant, Muhammadu Buhari.

GMB

The key issues facing Nigeria obviously are security, corruption and governance. I believe your last beat as a serving general before you became head of state was GOC Jos Military Command. As the then GOC Jos, the current North-east was under your command. Given what is happening today, given the onslaught of Boko Haram, how would you have prosecuted the war differently?

Differently? Certainly something has to be done first to secure that part of the country, which is virtually under Boko Haram.  I have the background information of what happened in the North-east then as the GOC in Jos back in 1982-83. You would recall the Chadian troops made an incursion into Nigerian territory. The United States then asked (former President Shehu) Shagari to help Chadian President (Hissene) Habre because Habre was suspected of being used to destabilise Libya. Oil had not been discovered in Chad then and the country was a bit poor. So the president agreed to provide petroleum products to Chad. All the tankers were lined up and were providing fuel to Chad. And Habre decided at that it time to attack Nigeria and killed our soldiers, took some of our military hardware and I was extremely concerned. I flew into Lagos, saw the Chief of Army Staff, General (Inuwa) Wushishi then, and I moved into Maiduguri. That was the last time, until recently, in whatever form the Chadian troops dared Nigeria. I have also been a governor in that area, the North-east.

The question is how did Boko Haram start, because we have to know how it started before we can effectively get rid of it. Just like how did the Niger Delta militants start in the South-south. Politicians use unemployed youths as vanguards, they called them ‘Ecomog’ in the North-east then. One of their leaders called Yusuf, a young charismatic man, tried to give it a religious tinge but unfortunately the chaps were badly handled by the security forces - a combination of the police and the military. There was a small demonstration by members of the sect on motorcycles over the death of one of them accompanying a corpse and seven of them were shot dead. Of course they were not wearing protective helmets. Now this is an ordinary offence in this country and it was easy to handle. Just arrest the people, take them to a police station and charge them to court the following day and fines could be imposed. But instead, they chose to shoot them.  From there, Boko Haram really started and they have never looked back. And once the police couldn't handle the situation, according to the Nigerian internal security operations, they handed the matter over to the military. The army commander then did extremely well. The GOC of Third Armoured Division in charge of the command went and looked for Yusuf, got him and handed Yusuf to the police. The police killed Yusuf, his in-law and levelled their houses and since then Boko Haram got out of hand.

What would I do differently? It is to make the military much more effective in their operations. If we get the opportunity, we will make the Nigerian military capable again because if we could go through ECOMOG forces to stabilise troubled zones and go to Darfur and to other places of the world and perform, why can’t we perform at home when our national sovereignty is being threatened?  That is what we will do differently, to make Nigerian military capable again.

The Nigerian military became incapable following a failed coup against your successor, General Babangida. And following the failed coup, the command and control of the army decided, as it were, to disarm the army so that they were not able to take on the political leadership of the military at the time. We heard some of our helicopters were even given out to Congo and other countries, so that the army would not have the weapons. Since then, the army has not been equipped. So is it a question of lack of equipment, a question of will or that of rot over the years?

I think it is a question of the rot over the years, because the most important thing is the intelligence. Having known how the Boko Haram developed, what I would have personally done differently would be to get the Presidents of Cameroun, Chad and Niger together to say, ‘look our borders are porous and that we are not able to effectively protect them and monitor movements of people in and out of our territory, but please make sure that you do not provide training facilities or allow people to be coming into the county.’  The practical possibility of guarding our border from Lake Chad area to Sokoto is nil. If you look at that area, you cannot stop the donkeys, the oxen, the camels and human beings from crossing that border. It is impossible, unless you will line up all the Nigerian population, which is not possible. But firstly you have to reach an agreement with your neighbors. As we talk now, Cameroun seems to be fighting Boko Haram more effectively than Nigeria, from what I read in newspapers. You cannot change the Nigerian military overnight but still, but I think there are trained officers who can train the men and you can get the weapons legally. There are government rules and regulations and as an elected government, the people or countries that normally provide you with weapons will not refuse to provide the weapons because it is an internal operation. We are not attacking anybody, rather we are being attacked. So countries that have been providing us with military hardware will have sympathy for us and provide us with weapons. We do not have to change money in the black market or take it from the vault of the central bank in a hired aircraft and say you are going to buy weapons. This is unusual, very, very unusual as government has legal ways of how to source arms and ammunition. Look at how we fought a serious civil war for 30 months without borrowing a kobo. General Gowon was the head of state then, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the Minister of Finance and deputy chairman of the Federal Executive Council. We fought the civil war without borrowing a kobo. Now you want to chase insurgents after spending what they have spent, they are rushing to the National Assembly for permission to borrow $1 billion, there is a problem of leadership and I think everybody knows it.

But how will you make the US to supply us arms given the accusations against the military and how will you get Cameroun to cooperate more given the crisis over Bakassi and the border demarcation, bearing in mind their refusal to cooperate up till now?

On the question of the US selling arms to us, the US can influence our traditional arms suppliers but the US is probably not a major supplier of arms to Nigeria as far as I can recall – right from independence till now.  But they can influence those that can supply arms to us. As you know, the black market of sourcing military hardware has never been stopped even with international pressure. I think for the weapons we need to fight Boko Haram, a group of people taking arms against the country. I do not think we need weapons of the magnitude people are talking about. Of course, the military was disarmed in order to stabilise democracy. But how can I stabilise the army and get the cooperation of the US to help us and at least to give us the moral support and allow our traditional arms suppliers – France, United Kingdom and Russia – to give facilities for maintaining those weapons like tanks and armoured cars? I believe the US will not stand in the way of a democratic country getting supply of weapons and ammunition to defend itself against internal or even external aggression. As I have said earlier, Cameroun is even fighting Boko Haram more effectively than us. If you would recall that there were some kidnappers that took away the wife of a (vice prime) minister but the Camerounian law enforcement agency got her released. 

Given your experience in the military, what can you point to as the problem with the military in challenging Boko Haram?

I think what I can do is appeal to the patriotic sense of the military. The military's constitutional role is to protect this country from external aggression and I mentioned earlier on, even in internal operations, the police are allowed to come in at the initial stage but once things are bad, then the military has to come in, just as it is happening now in the North-east.  I believe the military would like to preserve a strong Nigeria because if they allow Nigeria to be balkanised, they will be the first to lose their security because I do not see any part of a balkanised Nigeria that will like to get a general or colonel to be in charge, and you don't talk about pension or even gratuity. So there will be total insecurity if they allow anything to happen to Nigeria. I think the situation needs a leadership that will give the military the backing in terms of sourcing the weapons and ammunition to fight. And Nigeria, no matter how oil prices have fallen, will source enough funds to fight the insurgents.

Do you see corruption in the military as a major problem?

It is a major problem. As I have just mentioned there are ways to source weapons, ammunition and other military hardware; there are rules and regulations; tenders boards at various levels where they examine applications by suppliers; getting the best for the country and then recommending to the government to go and secure it. The issue of putting dollars in an aircraft or handbags or asking one senior officer to go and look for weapons does not arise under the Nigerian laws. This is corruption and I do not blame the military because it is a situation of a fish with rotten head.

Don't you think that the nature of the warfare, which is asymmetric, in the fight against insurgents also has a lot do with the limited successes the military has recorded? We have a situationwhere you have to seek out terrorists who live in the midst of the people. It is not like fighting with a conventional army?

I agree with you partly, but look at how some of the committed commanders that dealt with the late Yusuf’s case. I talked about intelligence; we have structures of assistance throughout the country. We have ward leaders, district heads and emirs – these people are good sources of intelligence. There is this structure on ground and it still exists. Some parts of Nigeria have been able to ward off Boko Haram. It is not because of government's effort but people started their own JTF. If Maiduguri people did not organise their own Civilian JTF, the city would have been overrun.

At the initial stage of the insurgency, you were quoted as saying that any attack against Boko Haram was an attack on the North and that while federal government negotiated with the Niger Delta militants it was attacking Boko Haram. So you were now tagged as one of those behind Boko Haram. How would you react to this and what do you think is the place of negotiations in arresting the insurgency?

Yes, I spoke on the radio and gave a press statement. I hope you would take the positive ones as well and not only the negative aspect. I mentioned that they were trying to give it a religious tinge and I came out to say that no religion advocates hacking the innocent and our people can easily understand. Christianity and Islam do not authorise anyone to take the life of any other person. Justice, which needs restraint, is what is supposed to be applied by the strong to the weak. The incident where I made that statement was, if you could recall what happened in Barma and Baga. I think Boko Haram killed a soldier or two and the whole town or part of it was razed, some satellite pictures of it were published. This is not how to do it. What to do was what was done to Yusuf before he was killed. If you recall, the army did not have raze the part of Maiduguri but they went and caught Yusuf and handed him over to the police. This is what the army then was supposed to do and even now. It is not to go on a rampage killing everybody and that was why I made reference to what the late President Yar'Adua did when he invited the militant leaders, sent them presidential jets and they came here in Abuja and they negotiated with him, empowered them and put them back into the society. But that type of army, which was sent to Barma and Baga, they created part of the problems we are in now and now the problems have proved stubborn to be solved. Instead of trying to get the leadership as Yusuf was found, they just went and razed parts of the towns and alienated themselves – the military and law enforcement agencies – from the people rather than getting their sympathy. This is what could be done differently, use intelligence, find out the leaders that are responsible and deal with them.

But that statement led to the feeling in many quarters that you were sympathetic to Boko Haram and that led to the political brickbats between your party the APC and the PDP, and PDP alleging that APC is sympathetic to Boko Haram. Do you regret the statement now or the context in which it was made?

The problem is the failure on your part, the media, to carry out investigative journalism if I may use the word, because when I made the statement it should have been in the context of my position that no religion advocates the hacking of the innocent and that the strong should be sympathetic or show some restraints when dealing with the weak. If it were in that context, then the question of I being sympathetic to Boko Haram would never have arisen. 

When I was bombed, what was the reaction of Boko Haram? Did Boko Haram ever put out a statement? It was the government that quickly said that they were not responsible and that was the last we heard about it. Even if it was an unknown Nigerian, I think a proper investigation would have been carried out to find out what happened. How did they get the sophisticated weapon to bomb your headquarters in Abuja and the United Nations building? How did they get to such a sophisticated level of detonating an explosive device just adjacent to my vehicle and see how it pierced the body of the bullet proof vehicle as if it was a piece of paper. I think that we have to really have a capacity for investigating this type of things. So my party and myself have shown enough patriotism that we are not behind any insurgency in or outside Nigeria. The harm it is doing to our economy has not yet been calculated by anybody but I was reliably informed that everyday about 100 articulated vehicles, not even tankers, used to go to Maiduguri and traders from Cameroun, Chad and Niger do business there. At least two million Nigerians, from wheelbarrow pushers to big time shop owners, make their living in the city.  But look at it, these are all being destroyed.

Tell us what happened on that day you were bombed.

I don't know why you want to listen to a disaster story again. Well, you know Rilwanu Lukman died somewhere in Europe and if you could recall he was my Minister of Power and Steel. So I was told that his body was to be brought the following day. I was told on Tuesday that on Thursday he would be brought home for burial, through Kano Airport where it will then be flown by another aircraft to Zaria. So I decided to drive to Daura, my hometown to be able to come to Kano the following day to receive the body. Luckily, was in a bulletproof vehicle. I was only using it from Kaduna to Abuja and may be Abuja to my hometown because armed robbers are getting more desperate now and they operate 24 hours a day now. A vehicle was trying to overtake us, but my backup vehicle stopped him in Kaduna. But when we came to that market before the overhead bridge, there was confusion in the market located on the right side of the road leading to Zaria. So that driver got an access and quickly drove close to my vehicle. Then the bomber exploded the device and when I came out I saw blood on my trousers and I looked to the right and I saw body parts of people selling second hand clothes, sugar cane on the roadside. I don’t remember the law enforcement agencies ever telling Nigerians how many people were killed there. I shook my head. Some of my operatives quickly came to me. I saw some of them were bleeding. They pushed me to the other side of the road in case there was another bomb. They stopped another vehicle coming, replaced the driver and drove me home. That was what happened. They tried to take the picture of the vehicle and we saw the army when they came. I noticed one person dressed like a woman with a handset contacting some people while beside the armoured car. So I told them, go to the military, show them the picture and tell the soldiers that you too want to interview the man in ladies dress. I do not know why he left his jeans trousers on but he had his wrapper around his body. That was the last I heard about it. Nobody ever bothered to brief me on the outcome of any investigation on the incident.

From all you have said, we are persuaded to believe that the solution to the problems afflicting the country is just about having a good leader. What credentials are you presenting to Nigerians as an alternative to what we have currently?

Yes, I tried to mention one. While I was the GOC in 1982 and Nigeria was giving Chad economic help and instead of the president of the country coming to thank our president for giving him economic support, he just sent his soldiers to kill our soldiers. I had a command then and it was within my area of responsibility. I went and sorted it out. Secondly, you must have known about Maitasine sect. I was the Head of State in 1984. Maitasine, you recall developed from Kano and he was killed during the Second Republic but his followers resurfaced in Burunkutu, again in Borno and Jimeta, Yola. My second in command then, Tunde Idiagbon, was not in the country. I flew into Yola, Gambo Jimeta, I think he was the AIG and Wash Pam were there and that was the last we heard about Maitasine. Really, I do not think the Nigerian military including the law enforcement agencies have absolutely lost their capacity to deal with internal security problems. The leadership seems not to be aggressive and cannot properly lead. And the fundamental problem of Nigeria now is security. Nobody is feeling secure in the country and I think this is the fundamental responsibility of government. So the leadership must make sure that they secure Nigeria and efficiently manage it.

Are you also thinking of doing something to beef up your charisma? Nigeria is a complex entity and needs somebody who is flexible. People say you are stiff.

If I can achieve results with my stiffness, let the stiffness stay. Because when you go and ask ordinary people, when we, myself and Idiagbon, came on board, ordinary people in Kano came out when it was hot, they put the keys of their cars on top of the cars, slept in front of their houses and woke up the following morning. People say time changes, yes, but when people find out that you do not tolerate big thieves not to talk of the small ones, then they will sit up.

Do you subscribe to the view that oil is an issue with regards to this security challenge? What is your position on the role of Chad in the botched ceasefire agreement?

I think Chad knows that Nigeria can certainly secure its borders. I still cannot understand why it took the leadership of this country so long to get those three presidents to sit down and agree. I think even within the framework of ECOWAS such agreements were feasible to make sure that weapons do not cross our borders and that people were not given training facilities. How could Boko Haram abduct 200 schoolgirls of ages of 14 to 18 from their school and we were giving the impression that these girls were in Nigeria? For seven months, the Nigerian government could not get the intelligence of where these girls were in particular and where they were moved. They kept saying they know where the girls are, then what the hell is stopping them from getting the girls out?  Imagine you have got a daughter there, how do you go to bed and how do you wake up for seven months? Your 14-year-old daughter is in the hands of insurgents and your government is making noise and spending money on unnecessary things. I think the whole country ought to have been mobilised to get those girls back alive or their bodies so that their parents can get closure.

Should the Nigerian government negotiate with Boko Haram?

Well, since they are stronger than the government, I think the government should negotiate with Boko Haram. But we did not even negotiate with President Habre of Chad when he tried to come into our country. We tried to solve our problem ourselves. Nigeria is capable, this is my point. I firmly believe that because when we were there with Prof. Gambari as Minister of Foreign Affairs, we had an Afrocentric foreign policy, that is, first Nigeria in our heart and then our immediate neighbours.  If you do not cultivate a good relationship with your neighbours, it will cost you so much in terms of security and the economy. So you have to cultivate a friendship with your neighbours and then it goes on to ECOWAS, Africa and the rest of the world. I think this is a viable policy option. But if your neigbours think you are a nuisance to them, then the economic activities and the cross-border trade suffer. Since colonial rule, when they sat down with rulers and maps and they cut us off; they cut us off in Benin, in Niger, in Chad and Cameroun. We are virtually surrounded by people who are culturally related to Nigerians. So it is quite easy to get our neighbours to sympathise with us and help us check insecurity so that we can stabilise out country and move forward.

The North is backwards in terms of development and the Boko Haram scourge has further compounded it. If elected the president, how do you hope to bridge the gap and reconstruct the economy of the North-east?

First of all it is important to debunk the notion being peddled by Boko Haram that Western education is ungodly. They go into schools and slaughter children both Christian and Muslim children. They go to mosques and explode devices, they also go to the churches and motor parks. So really, it is very easy to disabuse the minds of Nigerians on the wrong notion that Boko Haram is a religious enterprise. They are just simply terrorists. Having reduced them to that, then you can earn the support of the immediate communities for you to flush the insurgents out of the society. I believe that this will not take a long time. Then you discuss with your neighbours to make sure that weapons are not crossing the borders and that there are training facilities for terrorists. As we can see, the Camerounians are very serious about fighting Boko Haram. They are fighting the sect more than we are fighting the insurgency and they are doing it more successfully because they are able to secure their own part of the country from being occupied by Boko Haram. So you have to first get rid of Boko Haram before you can talk about rebuilding the North-east because you cannot do it while the fighting is still going on.

Then we have to go back to General Gowon's three Rs. We have to assess how much damage to infrastructure has been done and then see how we can re-equip them and help people to get employment and access to goods and services. I think that soldiers and police barracks and their armories must be strengthened to ensure that they are properly secured. Thirdly, I think that the air force has to be made more effective by acquiring more new aircraft and establishing a base in Kano so that the distance to cover is shorter and returning to base is made easier.

Is oil an issue in this insurgency, especially with regard to the role of Chad?

Yes oil has now become an issue because Chad no longer needs us as it used to need us in terms of supporting them because oil has been discovered and developed in commercial quantities and they generate more money now. They can really bypass Nigeria and get what they want. So oil is an issue. It makes a country economically viable, especially because foreign countries investing in Chadian oil will certainly have sympathy for them and they can try to help them to be stable.

Why did Boko Haram prefer you leading their negotiation with federal government at the initials stage?

You know there were problems with the Boko Haram leadership, there were some people that claimed to be leaders of Boko Haram and the sect disowned them. So we have to identify the real leaders of Boko Haram before you can negotiate with them. I do not think the government has identified the leadership. So it is shooting into the dark and this is why I am insisting on intelligence, which means gathering information and making sure that it is correct and you deal with it. Without intelligence you waste too much resources and lives.

In terms of economic policy, the central question right now is oil and the fall in (foreign) reserves and the exchange rate? What direction of economic policy will you take Nigeria if you are elected president?

You see, it is a pity that we have a mono-cultural economy and we all depend on oil. We have agriculture, mining, things that can complement oil in terms of income and employment. I think insecurity cannot be separated from this. The amount of oil lost to the activities of oil bunkers sometimes has put Nigeria in a very serious condition. On the question of reserves, having been in charge of Ministry of Petroleum for over three years, I know that people who invest their capital and knowledge, they know Nigeria has prolific fields but they have moved offshore mainly due to insecurity. Unluckily for Nigeria, the offshore oil fields, most of them are prolific but are expensive to develop. The best way we can persuade investors to come in and invest is to secure the country. Security is still key to economic development. People will just load the barges and tankers on the high sea and come to collect the crude from the terminals and go and empty them because part of the oil proceeds belong to them  (60:40%). But when they are losing, they cannot bring in more resources and technology to establish more reserves in the country. So security is the key, this country has to be secured.

If you are elected president when the country is in great economic deficit, how will you turn things around and secure the economy?

I think that for the navy, air force and the army it is their fundamental constitutional responsibility to secure the country with whatever we have. I believe this country is still strong to make sure that we secure these areas as quickly as we can and re-establish confidence in ourselves, in the world and in our business partners. The capacity to do it rapidly, I am afraid, one has to know the total intelligence, one has to know where we are exactly before you can make a determined move to correct the situation. Really, it is a question of putting whatever we have available in terms of fighting capability to first secure that area, to earn the confidence of investors for them to quickly come back, because they can even organise soft loans for us to stabilise our budget deficits so that we move forward.

So can we deal with security without tackling corruption? When you came to power last time, you were known for your fight against corruption. Today, it’s a different kind of fight. In your party, the APC, there are many people accused of corruption, so how do you first put your house in order and then deal with the hydra-headed issue of corruption?

I think the priority has to be the other way round, we have to put the country in order first. In attempting to put the country in order, it is going to be a terrible situation for whoever wins and I pity whoever succeeds President Jonathan, even if it were to be myself. But this is what we can do; the practical way to tackle corruption is to draw a line, because institutions have been compromised. We cannot go on the way we did in the military in 1983 to fight corruption. This time around, you cannot do it that way because most of the institutions have been compromised. The person you will depend on as the auditor to go and check the CBN, maybe he has got some substantial part of the deal. These are the facts on the ground. So what you do is to persuade them and tell them to help to amend it. You have drawn a line, part of these are in courts and you cannot interfere with the judiciary, no matter how bad you believe the judiciary is. Constitutionally or otherwise, you have to leave the judiciary, you cannot bring better judges and put them on the job over night. It takes generations. So you have to appeal to their conscience and prove to them that you are serious and that cases in the courts that you are interested in them but let the judiciary continue. Cases that have been struck out, the government will move forward but any case that comes up will be handed over to the judiciary. But to say that you are going to investigate, I am afraid that government will not last a quarter because the institutions have been compromised.

So there is no capacity to investigate corruption and what you are proposing is to draw a line going forward?

Yes, to be honest, the capacity is not there because as I said, institutions have been compromised but if you say I am not going to participate in corruption, I am not going to tolerate it from day one, I hope the people will believe it and those that have cases in court have to give way so that people that have not been caught because God help those caught helping themselves then. We can deal with them. But as I said, you cannot go head on as we did under the military.

Essentially to understand you sir, so all these governors who are alleged to be corrupt, all these senators and others, you are drawing the line. Is that amnesty for corruption? Don't you think that you are also being a victim of your past, that something you did successfully, that because you were criticised, you are now afraid to do it again?

No, I am not afraid. If I was afraid the day they attempted to bomb me, I would not have felt like continuing. But I felt I have done nothing wrong other than telling the truth where I find it serious enough to tell the truth. The important thing is that I mentioned it, you don't have the capacity to catch the big thieves right now, you don't have the capacity. You have to do it gradually because, as I said before, all the institutions have been compromised. Do you know that I said it about 18 months ago, I think it was at a book launch where I said in my own area in Nigeria, people hardly go to the police. If they are cheated or something, once they are alive, they say 'God dey' and they continue with life because they cannot afford justice, they cannot get it. Virtually the whole country has reached that stage.

How do you reconcile your party’s position to ensure zero tolerance for corruption with the approach you have decided to adopt on corruption?

No, I said that as far as corruption is concerned I will not tolerate it from the day I take charge of governance. But those cases that are in courts, they will continue but as we move forward, cases that come up will be handed over to the judiciary.

The effects of shale oil and the direction of our oil right now, how do you intend to save our mono-cultural economy, given the new world order for oil?

Again, the issue is the security and then the unemployment of restive youths.  Those who go to school cannot get jobs and others cannot go to school. I believe agriculture and solid minerals are the sectors we can move quickly into in dealing with the unemployment of the youths. But then moving forward has to take a lot of thinking and planning and cooperation of the international community to come and invest. We must get our infrastructure back. For instance, power supply. A lot of industries were closed because they cannot afford the diesel, they cannot survive the roadblocks from the ports to their places. You can imagine how many roadblocks are mounted by the military, police, customs and immigration. Everybody is asking for money, whether you are guilty or not guilty. So to secure this country is no joke. It has to be done. That is the bottom line.

Now let’s talk about religion. There is a perception that you are either a fanatic or a fundamentalist. Are you a religious fundamentalist?

Well, what I know is that I am a practising Muslim. I think that those who accuse me of being a fundamentalist ought to have seen which career I came out from. From the day I left school I did not work for a day and I joined the military and consistently the Nigerian military has been 80 per cent Christians. So you find out that your orderly, your cook and sergeant major are Christians and you are a Muslim. And fighting through the civil war, if you could recall the international media was saying the Muslim North versus the Christian South. You remember how it upset General Gowon to the extent that after the civil war when they rushed to help us, he said, ‘I do not need your blood money.’  They refused to understand that Gowon was and is still a Christian and all his commanders were Christians and less than 10 per cent of the military were Muslims. So this perception that I a religious fanatic is what can I call sophisticated disinformation. I cannot disown my religion because of the accusations. People I worked with for more than 20 years and I rose from second lieutenant to general. All the commands and staff that I worked with along the line, most of my associates were Christians, for example when I moved into Maiduguri to sort out the Chad invasion, my number two then was Ugokwe. He is a Chritian  from the South-east. He happened to be my coursemate but because of civil war he lost his seniority and he became my number two. When the Americans provided President Shagari with satellite pictures that I had gone beyond Nigerian border, I received a presidential order to pull out and fall back into Nigeria. I handed over the division to him and went back to Jos.

Do you go to Mecca? When last were you in Mecca?

I did not know you were following me so closely. The last time I was in Mecca was 12 years ago. Somebody asked me this question why was I do not go to Mecca like some others and I told him that I come from a big family in terms of numbers. And with the collapse of education, I have to make bigger contributions to the education of members of my family. Again with the collapse of the health facilities, these are immediate requirements for majority of Nigerian families. So I have less money to go to Mecca because I have to contribute to the education of blood relations.

So should the state fund anybody to Jerusalem or Mecca?

My opinion is no. As far as Islam is concerned, going to Mecca is your personal business.

Religion is also a toxic issue in Nigeria, I understand that there is somebody that you like, who you may make your vice-president but happens to be a Muslim. Will you have a Muslim-Muslim ticket?

Yes these developments are very irritating. I talked about General Gowon and his commanders and his nine years in office. I talked to you about past pairings: (Bashorun  Moshood) Abiola and (Ambassador Babagana) Kingibe and I told you myself and  (Major-General) Tunde Idiagbon – military - and Abiola and Kingibe - civilian. So this surge of religion consciousness, as far I am concerned, is a recent development and it has been taken to a bigger dimension. Let me tell you in 2007, I went to Lagos to meet with religious leaders and one of the biggest Christian religious groups. After an hour of meeting with them, the leader said to me, general, I replied ‘Your Eminence’, and he said, ‘We are not going to accept a Muslim-Muslim ticket.’  I said thank you very much. I respected him because he meant it. But if you ask me, I think Nigerians ought to be less concerned about the issue. I joined partisan politics in April 2002 and by 2003, there were governors, there were senators, but I got the ticket. I picked late Chuba Okadigbo, every Nigerian knew Okadigbo, he was a Roman Catholic and an Igbo and he was brought up politically by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, we were rigged out and we were in court for 30 months, up to the Supreme Court. In 2007, I picked Chief Umeh-Ezeoke, he was an Igbo and Roman Catholic. Again we were rigged out.  In 2011, I picked Tunde Bakare, a pastor. So how more Christian do you want me to go in picking as running mate? I never picked a Muslim as a running mate.

But this time around?

I am not going to tell you. I would do that after the primary. If I win the primary then I will reveal who is my running mate.

But would you consider a Muslim-Muslim ticket?

I said I would not tell you.

There is a school of thought that said your incursion into Chad was in disobedience to the civilian authorities. That you did not wait to get the permission of President Shagari.

The type of training I received up to my commissioning and up to my rank then, major-general, was that you have to be loyal to those that are below you and those above you. How can a country, which America literarily forced us to give petroleum products to, instead of its president flying in to come see our president and thanking him, went and killed our soldiers and you think I will wait for orders. Well, I asked for their understanding, whether they gave me or not I do not know until they asked me to pull out, otherwise I would have lost respect from my soldiers.

I think that most people think that you are not a fundamentalist. But I have seen your children at the airports, they are like my children, they love good things. I do not think that you raised yourself in that fundamentalist way. However the fear is about those around you, that the nature of your support base is driven by clerics. The fear is that if you become president will these clerics not take over the Villa?

I am just a Muslim and those who studied Islam or know more about its tenets know that it is all about justice. But in Nigeria, we are not practicing Sharia, the constitution has set out legal provisions and states that have voted for Sharia have got their courts to some extent. But then in the end, it is the Supreme Court that will decide. So I cannot work out of the constitution of the country. If those clerics are supporting me as you alleged, then perhaps they are supporting me because they feel there will be justice. If you steal, you will have to return it and maybe get some punishment but if you do not steal you will live in peace.

There is this perception that Boko Haram has religious undertones. If elected president, what will be your position be on Sharia?

It is about the constitution. It is the constitution that we agreed to follow as an emerging nation. The 1999 Constitution gives every Nigerian the right of practicing any religion of his or her choice and not to even practice any religion. I had deliberately refused to make comments on what happened in Nassarawa State where some 70 policemen were killed by a militant group and one misguided SSS person came and said that they had pardoned them. I issued a statement that she had no right to do that. The fundamental responsibility of government is to protect the lives and properties of citizens. And Nigerians, by the constitution, can practice any religion they wish to or refuse to practise any. 

Now what do you like about President Jonathan?

His smile.

If you look at other four people running with you under the APC, assuming that you choose not to run again, who would you chose to fly the party's flag at the election?

I think if I am not running, I should leave it to the party to decide. I understand Rochas Okorocha got two forms, one for president and one for governor, I do not know which one he wants. In any case, I think by receiving those two forms he has disqualified himself from the race.  So out of the remaining, Atiku Abubakar, Kwankwaso and Nda-Isaiah, I think I will choose Kwankwaso.  Atiku was the vice-president to President Obasanjo for eight years and you know how they ended up. You know that one more than myself. While in school, I was a class monitor, a prefect, a head boy. From there, a governor, a minister, chairman of PTF and a head of state and so people can refer to something. Kwankwaso has also served as governor for the second time and was Minister of Defence, may be you can refer to something. But Sam is a very difficult one.

What is your economic blue print?

It will be a set of regulations, strategies, policies and a vision on how to stabilise the economy, secure the country and move forward. I think that’s what it is.

The APC presidential primary is coming up this week and you have never gone through a competitive primary. What do you think your chances are in the contest?

Well, that is why I have been going round the country meeting the delegates to seek their understanding and support. There are these reports that some people are spending so much money. But I think Nigerians have suffered enough and I think it is not a question of getting just N50,000 and then you are on your own for the next four years. I think it is a question of thinking seriously among the five of us who will really make an attempt at securing our country and managing it efficiently. I respect the system, so the best way we sell ourselves is to tell the electorate what we can do and leave them to decide based on our previous performance or lack of it and then vote for us. If they make a mistake, then we will suffer, our children will suffer. If they make the right choice and regroup around the right person, then we may salvage our country once more.

You presented yourself to Nigerians in the last three elections but lost although you claimed you were rigged out. What measures have you put in place to ensure that this does not happen again?

What I am suggesting is that Nigerians should stand for a free, fair and credible election, otherwise look at the problem some parties are having anointing candidates before the primaries. The system does not stop parties from having consensus candidates to produce the candidates but the ideal is to go through the primaries and choose who they want to represent them. The bottom line is to have a credible election.

The interview was culled from ThisDay