I have an obligation to speak for the people – Ndume

Here are the highlights from the interview on Arise TV with Senator Ali Ndume on Tuesday, July 16, 2024, which led to his removal as Senate Chief Whip on Wednesday, July 17, 2024.

• Senator Ndume alleged that the presidency was like a “besieged fortress” and that President Tinubu was not aware of the true state of affairs in Nigeria.

• He claimed that the presidency was dominated by “kakistrocrats” (bad government officials) and that the president was being misled by his aides.

• Ndume expressed concern about the growing storm of insecurity, rising cost of living, increasing hunger, and the administration’s inability to address these issues.

• He suggested that the government should introduce food stamps and subsidize food and transport to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians.

• Ndume criticized the removal of oil subsidies, saying that it had led to a rise in prices and that the savings from the removal had not been used to benefit the people.

• He argued that the government should engage with experts and democrats to find solutions to the country’s problems.

• Ndume emphasized that the cumulative effect of the government’s actions could lead to instability in the country.

• He reiterated that the presidency was not aware of the true state of affairs in Nigeria and that the government needed to take decisive action to address the country’s problems.

Presenter: Senator Ali Ndume had earlier said the presidency had become like a besieged fortress, threatened by various plutocrats who have caged the president and are transmitting lies to him, bypassing those like himself who can inform the president of the true state of affairs in Nigeria. Senator Ali Ndume. Thank you for coming in.

Ndume: Thank you. Lovely to see you again. It’s been a long time. Indeed.

Presenter: Tell us more about why you’ve decided to launch this accusation against the presidency?

Ndume: Well, first, let me comment on what you said earlier.  I’m supposed to be a top member of this government or committee. Most importantly, I have a personal relationship with Mr. President, who I was very anxious to see [win the elections] and believe in what he said about Renewed Hope. When he came on board, you could see he was someone who was very anxious and used to taking bold decisions. But as I said, and I’m on TV, I speak straight.

Presenter: Indeed.

Ndume: Yes, if anyone says what I’m saying is not true, they can come on tomorrow and say [ their own position]. This government is going down because it’s been taken over by kakistrocrats, not plutocrats. If it were plutocrats, it would be better. But this government, and you can quote me on that, is now run by kakistrocrats. And that’s very dangerous.

Presenter: Kakistrocrats?  The presidency, specifically, has adopted a closed-door policy, and that even ministers and members of the National Assembly, presumably like yourself, are struggling to engage with the president. I mean, that sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it?

Ndume: Yes, it seems, but that is the truth. In every government, it’s like that. You have the gatekeepers. Those who want the president to know everything and to have other opinions will even encourage those that matter in the government to come over. During Buhari’s administration…I thought [it] was not that good, but if you compare this now to Buhari’s regime, you will give Buhari a thumbs up….

Presenter: Well, some would say that would be rather difficult to do?

Ndume: You know, at least he opened up, people went to see him. You can quote me,  I don’t speak just like that. There are some ministers that don’t have access to Mr. President. The only access they have to Mr. President is when they are invited, and some may not be invited. [Some have access] when they go for council meetings. You know, when they go for council, by the time the president goes in, all of them are seated, and the president is the first person to leave. You can’t say, oh, I want to [see you, Mr President…] No, that is it. There is a procedure.

Presenter:  And then the SGF, who is supposed to be the clearing house?

Ndume: I don’t know about him. I’ve not seen him most lately. But I’m telling you,  I won’t come to the TV or even in private to lie.

Presenter:  So have you had a challenge in seeing the president yourself personally?

Well, let me tell you one thing. The president, severally, if we meet in public, he will say, Ndume, why are you not coming? And I said, no, Mr. President, when you look for me, I’ll be there… I said it once to one of his staff, that they were the people  keeping us out of this place [The Villa]. And so I will not struggle to come and see Mr. President, but I have an obligation to speak for the people, or speak for my people, or speak as a senator. You can imagine, I am the Chief Whip. If a Chief Whip cannot have access to Mr. President, that’s a problem. Let me tell you. And let me tell you the difference to it. [During] Obasanjo’s  government, in 24 hours, if any senator wanted to see him, nobody will ask him, what do you want to see the president for? He made sure that within 24 hours, any senator had access to him. Ministers went in and out. Obasanjo, as old as he was, older than our president, he will be saying, that is politics. You talk to the people, hear from the people. But now, to me, it seems, besides shielding Mr. President, they always give him assurance that everything is all right out there.

Presenter:  Is it really his aides? Because I mean, if we look back, for example, even Arise News had an issue at one point, trying to convince him to come to a debate, to a town hall meeting, to all these things. I mean, can you blame it entirely on his aides? He may not want to engage with the public…?

Ndume:… You see, there are some TV stations that have mindsets about the government… I’m coming here because I know you are an objective; you have renowned television journalists. Otherwise, if you put it all together, I would say that Arise TV is anti-APC. You can’t say it’s pro-PDP, but that is, you know.

Presenter: Do you see him on TVC?

Ndume: No.

Presenter: So, it’s not like he is against Arise TV.

Ndume:  I agree with that, but let me also say that there are some people that are introverts, there are some people that are extroverts, there are people that can talk anytime. I was a teacher, now a politician. You called me this morning and I had to come. I didn’t plan for it.

Presenter: And I appreciate that. Yeah, so, don’t blame the president for that. But now that you’ve mentioned the APC, I mean, you are, of course, a member of the APC, which is the ruling party in Nigeria. When you came in, one of the first things you said is that this government is going down. Some would say that you’ve taken a double-barreled gun, aimed it at your party’s foot, and blown its feet off?

Ndume:  No, that isn’t.

Presenter; I mean, yourself, and your very criticism is leveled at your own party, and you’re helping the opposition deliver a sucker punch?

Ndume: There’s no opposition.

Presenter: I like that. Okay. I thought you had… Don’t you have opposition in the National Assembly?

Ndume: No, I don’t think so, you know.

Presenter: I like that. So, the APC has free rein to do whatever it wants?

Ndume: Not only that, this is a fact of it.

Presenter: The major opposition is supposed to be PDP, isn’t it?

Ndume: The Labour Party, I think, got it wrong from the initial stage. It has one of the biggest chances, especially with the youths. But I think somewhere along the way, they got it wrong. Well, both parties are obviously having internal problems..

Presenter: Well, obviously, the APC is as well. You’re saying that you can’t get access to your president, and you’re a senior member of the party.

Ndume: But that’s not a crisis in the party.

Presenter: Yeah, but yours is even worse, because the crisis is with the country. I mean, you, yourself, are telling us that Nigeria is in crisis, and that your party, which is in power, is unable to deal with that crisis, or at least the presidency is not able to deal with it, because, I mean, that’s an even bigger issue.

Ndume:  I mean, the internal problems within political parties are a slightly minor side thing.

Presenter: I mean, if your party, which Nigerians have voted in and given the reins of office, if you’re not able to handle the big issues, which you, yourself, have enumerated, and your point was that the government is going down, that’s your part. That’s an even bigger crisis, isn’t it?

Ndume: Well, I don’t think that is a bigger problem than what they have on the other side. I think you’re mixing things up a bit. You’re talking about governance, and you’re talking about party administration. Let me land.

Presenter: Yeah, okay.

Ndume: I can see, and I may see more of the reaction of Mr. President, especially when they hear us out on this programme. Maybe they, in the villa, are watching this programme, and they may be able to pick up [few points]

Presenter: It’s possible.

Ndume: Yeah, because that’s the only way left [to communicate with them]. There was an alarm that United Nations has statistical figures that 82 million Nigerians will face acute hunger? Are you aware that UNESCO is now counting and treating malnutrition in the state? If nothing is being done, then there can be a crisis.

Presenter: And your sense is that nothing is being done at the moment. Right?

Ndume: I will still say that the president is caged in there; let me use that word again, and there are no people speaking out or doing anything for the Nigerians to see visibly and make you appreciate the effort of the government. For example, now, we are faced with climate change palaver. The rainy season here; mostly,  in the north and elsewhere, is hazy. But nobody is telling people what needs to be done and what the government is doing. Nobody is talking to the people. That is a problem. That is my concern, as I said.

Presenter: Yeah, well, some would argue that that’s not entirely fair because you’ve got the agencies. I mean-

Ndume: Which agencies?

Presenter: That are in charge.

Ndume: Well, the National Emergency Management Agency, you’ve got the Ministry of Environment, you’ve got

Presenter:  He’s just appointed somebody and who used to be his spokesman, I think it’s Ngelari as a kind of special climate envoy. I mean, so they’re not unaware of what is going on and I’m not their spokesman. I’m just saying that they’re not unaware of what is going on. And every time there’s a lot of talk and alerts are put out about the potential for flooding and so on and so forth, so they do try to draw the attention of people to things. But what I wanted to ask you is that looking at the things that you’ve pointed out and the way things are going at the moment with the economy and with the fiscal situation in this country, the people, as you said clearly, feeling the pinch of it as inflation goes through the roof, do you believe we’re going to see real growth in this country anytime soon?

Ndume: It’s possible because Nigeria is so blessed with natural and human resources. But no matter how blessed you are and how much- You have to harness those resources. That is the problem now and that’s why we are calling on the president to harness those resources.

Presenter: Absolutely.

Ndume: And for you to do that, you must have people out there that know Nigeria in the first place. So he needs to engage more.  No, he needs to get the right people into the office and he needs to be a Democrat.  This is not an allegation. I said this government is dominated by Khakistocrats and kleptocrats. He needs to dominate his government- But that’s always been the story of Nigerian governments. He needs to dominate his government with Democrats, the people that worked for him to be elected, the people that will realize his dream, the people that will look at him in the face and say, Mr. President, this is wrong. Let’s do it this way. And he will argue. And he’s that person that takes superior argument. But when you gather kleptocrats and you gather Khakistocrats, the end result is what defines them.

Presenter: And your point is that this is a bad time for that to happen because the country is going through a major economic crisis?  

Ndume: You need somebody who is decisive like him, but it is not enough to be strong and decisive. Of course, when you take any action, there must be consequences, and there must be something that you need to do. So, like now, this removal of oil subsidy, let me tell you that he abruptly announced this removal of oil subsidy. And I supported him because I was thinking that there is going to be a program that will take us out of the hands of these few people that are draining the economy in the name of subsidy. And the savings from that will now be used, utilized for the people. And I’m saying that instead of oil subsidy that you remove, then you engage in other subsidies that are important like food stamps, like making food available. And that is not by doing palliatives. Palliatives are temporary measures. So, if you have experts around that know this thing, then you will not be overreacting. Instead, you will be managing the situation and carrying Nigerians along. Nigerians know the situation. It is not peculiar to Nigeria only. It is worldwide. The issue of hunger is worldwide. So, if Nigerians are made to know that this is a problem that we have to face collectively, Nigerians are good supporters.

Presenter: Well, I don’t know, maybe you can actually enlighten us because I mean, you’re a member of the Senate. You’re a senior member of the government, and you’re privy to things that a lot of ordinary people are not. I mean, it’s been reported, for example, that because you mentioned the oil subsidy, I mean, that fuel suppliers are being owed more than $6 billion, which has gone up considerably from the $3 billion they were owed in April. That is according to Reuters News Agency, which says that the NNPC is struggling to cover the gap between local pump prices and international fuel costs. And that means that there is a subsidy that is being paid to cover that shortfall. As you know, as you said, after President Tinubu announced an end to fuel subsidies last year, pump prices tripled. The NNPC was forced to put a cap limit on fuel prices because of the rising cost of living. And that cap added to a crash in the value of the Naira, essentially allowed subsidy to return. I mean, that’s the story that’s coming from experts. And according to industry experts, that subsidy, which we were led to believe, and you’re pointing to, were led to believe has ended, is going to cost at least $3.7 billion this year. So back to square one, in effect.

Ndume: Well, I must confess that I don’t talk ignorantly or from, I’m not an expert in the petroleum industry stuff. And I was not expecting us to discuss this subject.

Presenter: No, it’s just, it’s because you brought it up. I mean, you don’t have to dwell on it if you don’t want to. We can move on to-

The interview that that cost Senator Ndume his position as Senate Chief Whip

Ndume: No, not that I don’t want to. I always want to talk from the background of knowledge and facts.

Presenter: Yeah, I understand that.

Ndume: But as I told you, I one time asked the GMD of NNPC, you know now, that, wait a minute, you said we’ll be saving one trillion by removing the oil subsidy. I said, where is the money? And he said, there’s no money. I said, what? What do you mean there’s no money? He said, no. Before the removal of the subsidy, what they are facing is that they have to get, borrow, or they are running at a loss. So they have, and there’s, and- So basically, whatever monies are there will just go to fill those gaps.

Presenter: Yeah, fill those gaps.

Ndume: That if they recover and there’s profit, because they are now a corporation, they will pay the money to the government. And I said, wow, so why are you asking us to make sacrifices? And immediately after that, I was thinking that the Nigerian government, and I still argue on that now, that we are talking about full subsidy. Now we have a problem with food. Why don’t you introduce food stamps? I’m yet to hear that. And the Senate passed a motion that I brought that they should introduce food stamps. And look, let me say here again, this subsidy matter is not the problem. It is how it is being managed. It is overwhelmed by corruption. But if not, Nigeria, check, the American government right now is subsidizing about 18, have 18, no, 13 interventions. Excluding fuel. But they subsidize agricultural products, they subsidize food.

Presenter: Yeah, but they have the money to do it. I mean, the reason why everybody kept talking about-

Ndume:  No, no, no, I don’t want you to say that. Removing subsidy was because they said Nigeria couldn’t afford it.  That’s why I say I disagree with that. In the whole world today, after Japan, and  America is the second-largest or highest debtor. They borrow to do what government is supposed to do. But they have enough goods and services. What is wrong with borrowing, if it will be useful to the people? My problem with borrowing is that if some people borrow that money to steal it and take it back to those people that gave us the money, that is where the problem is. But in America, I said they need to subsidize food. They need to subsidize transport. There’s nothing wrong in subsidizing transport, food, and some other important things, basic needs of the people.

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