Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation, is working hard to promote peaceful coexistence in Nigeria even though he is worried that banditry in the North West could turn into another insurgency

By Maureen Chigbo

BOSS Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation, is ordinarily a man of few words, not known for singing empty praises of anybody. But on Tuesday, May 28, in a special interview with four journalists, including a reporter from Realnews, Mustapha was made to assess the performance of the past four years of President Muhammadu Buhari. He certainly has reasons to take a heavy breath and smile because, according to him, the Buhari administration has done well given the background of where it started.

Narrowing his assessment on the three areas of focus for the administration – security, corruption, and the economy, Mustapha said: “We should not forget that when we came in, a substantial part of the local governments in the northeast were under the control of Boko Haram insurgents. As a matter of fact, today, I got a new figure that shocked me when the Governor of Borno State, at a meeting, mentioned that 22 out of 27 local governments in Borno States in 2015 were under the control of Boko Haram insurgents.

“Today, I can tell you not a single one of those 22 local governments are under the presence of Boko Haram. We are not completely out of the woods yet, but I can tell you substantially all the local governments that used to be under the occupation of the Boko Haram insurgents have been liberated.”

According to him, “People have returned to their homes. We still have challenges because of the level of indoctrination that has taken place. They still have some sleeper cells that come alive. What they do is that they look at soft targets. They get some small girls wrapped with explosives to go to churches, mosques, markets, schools. But there is no more occupation of any sizeable part of this country.”

He, however, noted that as Boko Haram is being decimated, in other regions of the country, in the North Central, there are clashes between herdsmen and farmers; issues of kidnapping. “We have had issues of arm banditry, which has taken a new dimension altogether. It is no more kidnapping just for the sake of it. Kidnapping is becoming a commercial enterprise and the banditry in the North West if care is not taken will be another insurgency.”

This is because the bandits come in and take territories and declare lordship over those territories and they dare even authorities and security agencies.

“There are many aspects of this crisis that are manifesting, but I can tell you that we have tried as much as possible to deal with those crises. You can see that relative calm even in the Southern part of the country and South-South, which were major challenges at the time we came in 2015, but because of the interface, mediation, negotiation and extending a hand of fellowship and assuring people that they are part of Nigeria and they can make claims for which the government is obligated to listen to them, there has been relative peace even with the issues of self-determination as exhibited in South Eastern part of the country,” he said.

The government is doing so much in terms of interface with the governors, with the leadership of the South East trying to dissuade people from towing that part which will not be of benefit to anybody, he said.

Mustapha is of the opinion that government is doing everything humanly possible to contain security issues in the country as they manifest in different dimensions.  This is in line with President Buhari’s assurances that his government would work on to avoid the conflicts, which are needless.

In its bid to ensure peaceful co-existence, the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, OSGF, has equally done a lot to ensure that the country is devoid of insecurity by interfacing with the traditional rulers, who are the first respondent in most communities. It has reached out to the National Council of Nigerian Traditional Rulers, which is co-chaired by the Ooni of Ife and the Sultan of Sokoto.

“We have had series of meetings. Not long ago, I was in Kaduna, where we had joint one for the Northern states and subsequently we had that of the South-East in Owerri. We are working to have that of the South West in Ibadan or Lagos, which we haven’t fixed the time and one for the South South,” he said.

Based on the fact that some of these conflict issues and clashes in the country come from suspicion that has eaten deep into the psyche of Nigerians as a result of religious differences. The OSGF has revived the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council, NIREC, which prior to Mustapha becoming the SGF stopped having its meeting for six years.

“I had to do a lot of spadework to convince the leadership that we needed to go back to the negotiation table and begin to talk. When the people outside begin to see the leaders of different faiths talking, it encourages them to have a sense or feeling that our problems will be sorted out,” he said, adding, it has helped us tremendously as NIREC has had meetings in all the six geo-political zones.

The OSGF office is also doing the same thing with the National Council for Traditional Rulers to engender peace in the country. “Because we have the responsibility for public safety and security, we have to take these steps to ensure that our people are in dialogue, talking and trying to find solutions to the problems that have engulf our country.”

Mustapha is confident that as much as this is done, it will “reflect in our communities and we would find solutions to our conflicts and begin to accept that we need to resolve our conflicts than engaging on the shedding of blood that has really caused a stigmatization of our nation.”

In the area of fight against corruption, Mustapha said so much had been done in terms of recoveries. To curb corruption, he said going forward as we go into 2019-2023, the government would be looking at strengthening the institutions; putting in place mechanism that would help stop corruption from taking place at all because it comes with a lot of expenses, which I know require a lot of paradigm shifts.

According to him, the government has created safety nets for the people that are involved in the work place.

He identified the fear of the unknown as one of the things that is the motivation for corruption. “You are working today where by you don’t know the future, and you will be 60 very soon and you don’t have a home, a good car and still have kids in school; how will you cope with that kind of life and that propels you into quest for wealth and generally that is the thing that propels people to want to acquire more money as much as possible. But once you are able to create a safety net; something that can take care of them in terms of any major accident, insurance packages that can cover them and their families, people will have less tendency in indulging in corrupt practices.”

He said: “Nobody wants to be stigmatized with corruption, which is the truth, but I know it is this fear of the unknown that normally propels people into doing that.”

“Going forward, we should strengthen the institutions and build capacities for them; make sure too that we create safety nets around the whole places so that people can have a bit of comfort. No Government has ever recovered the kind of money that we have recovered, the kind of properties that have been seized, now going through the processes of temporary forfeiture and eventually permanent forfeiture and after they are disposed of and the funds generated will be ploughed into the treasury account.

“Because of the single treasury system that has been put in place, so much money can be accumulated and be used to fund a project, provide for social services for the people of this country.

On diversification of the economy, Mustapha said the government had done very well in that area, particularly in the area of development of infrastructure.

“Most countries long time ago knew that if they could provide roads, provide rail then they would open up their countries, there will be influx of businesses and I think in that area we have succeeded tremendously,” he said.

Not only that, the government has so much investments in agriculture. The anchor borrowers’ scheme has provided so much resources. “As at the time we went to campaign, about N86 billion was expended from that and you know how many millionaires have come out through the scheme, particularly in the area of growing of rice. We grew the rice farmers’ population from 4 million to 12 million.  So, it’s a mass of people that have benefitted from that scheme.

There is also the social investment programme, which has, in the last two years, done so much in creating wealth for the small business people. “Is it the farmer money or the trader money, market money, and so many of those programmes have helped generate employment for the people. The school feeding programme in the south has created wealth for a lot of people that so many people have gone back to the farms, millions are required to feed the students on daily basis, so much monitoring are required, so many food vendors, women who have been employed as cooks servicing that particular industry.

“So I believe that to a large extent, we have diversified the economy. We realize that we came at a time when there was a major drop in crude oil prices, but we were able to navigate despite that we came out of recession and I think we have done so well and therefore we can do better for the people of this country.

According to Mustapha, one of the key functions of this office is to look out for public safety and security. “It is very imperative for me to have an eye on enforcement agencies when it comes to public safety and security. And part of what we have been able to do is the challenges that we find in this country.”

– May 31, 2019 @ 17:25 GMT |