Sahara Reporters : Exclusive
Interview with the Nigeria’s Vice President Atiku Abubakar at his Potomac, Maryland USA Residence on December 29, 2006
My name is Sowore Omoyele, I’m doing this on behalf of Sahara Reporters, an internet based news website and also TheNEWS magazine in Lagos. We have quite a few questions regarding your altercation with your boss President Obasanjo.
Sahara Reporters (SR): First question and we’ll like to be direct and precise, are you on political exile out of Nigeria?
Vice President Atiku Abubakar (VP): No, no, no, obviously not! Certainly not!
(SR): So how long are you going to be here on vacation and when are you going back exactly?
(VP): You see about 1½ months ago I put in my normal notification to the President of my intention to take my end of year vacation in the U.S. to be with my family and also to have some rest and he approved that. It was suppose to be between 2 to 3 weeks and [he] also approved the use of the Presidential aircraft. So, it’s certainly not a political exile and in any case I have enjoyed this kind of vacation for the last 7½ years. Every end of the year I come to stay with my family and sometimes we travel out together. So it’s not anything unusual.
(SR): When are you going back?
(VP): I should go back around mid-January.
(SR): So people in Nigeria should expect you back?
(VP): Oh yeah! Certainly yes because any case campaigns are suppose to start the same time so I should be on the campaign trail by then.
(SR): Are you aware that all [of] your staff have been redeployed, posted out as of yesterday, your residence sealed by security agents?
(VP): No, no, no, my residence has not been sealed; my things are still there so I haven’t moved out of my residence.
(SR): What about your staff?
(VP): Yes, staffs I understand have been redeployed; most of them, but you know there are skeletal services.
(SR): So you’re still the V.P of Nigeria as of midnight mid-January?
(VP): Of course, of course, of course.
(SR): Vice President Atiku there are people who would say, this is the prevailing opinion that this serves you right, that you been with Obasanjo together taking all these decisions, oppression of the people, all his policies that you’ve repudiated. How do you react to that?
(VP): How would you say it serves me right, by being apart of an elected government for the last 7½ years or what do you mean by that?
(SR): The fact that Obasanjo was broke in 1999 when he came out of jail, you and some other people went and bailed him out, even Nasir El-Rufai said he had 20,000 Naira left and made him President. In 2003, you stepped down for him in the primaries so that he can be President again? You were called upon by the governors to contest and you said you want continuity. You have said it yourself that this government with its policy, their vendetta, their vindictiveness, all the things that have gone wrong with Nigeria which are also in your view, not acceptable. But you’ve been part of that?
(VP): You seem to misunderstand the role of the Vice President in our own country’s Constitution. My role as a Vice President is merely advisory. The President has said it repeatedly, that he doesn’t have to take the advice of either his ministers or anybody else, that he does what he believes is right for the country and as a Vice President you don’t have executive powers, you don’t have a budget, you can’t implement government policy, the most you can do is to advise. So what happens, when you advise and your advice is not heeded or is not accepted and the President has made it quite clear he is not bound to accept anybody’s advice? He will govern the country the way he deems fit and the way he deems right.
(SR): But there are feelings out there that if you so disagreed with him, you give him advice and he doesn’t accept and things are so wrong as you see with the security in Nigeria today, power supply, the economic state, the situation with the judiciary, situations in which the President violates the law, why didn’t you resign?
(VP): You forgot that this is a ticket and a ticket has a term. Of what use is my resignation going to make?
(SR): Even if it is just to show that you have a different conscience from that of the President? This rampaging President?
(VP): I believe it would have been better for me to continue dialoguing, drawing the attention of the President from within than from the outside. But eventually perhaps my thoughts and analysis have not come to be right because this is a President who would not listen to anybody. It’s just most unfortunate.
(SR): So you just stuck in there, give him advice and hope that he would listen for 7 ½ years?
(VP): Definitely, you see we did not start this way. The first term was really not that bad. We started on a good start. But along the way of course things went wrong and therefore we found ourselves where we are today?
(SR): But there is also the other dimension to it that you have repudiated everything this regime represents?
(VP): I did not repudiate everything because I said there are certain things I believe should not have been done the way they have been done. I did not repudiate everything.
(SR): But you have openly fallen out with the President?
(VP): Yes I have openly fallen out with the President, because I have openly fallen out does not mean I disagree with almost every government policy that has been implemented in the last 7 ½ years. I said it, I said it before.
(SR): Yeah, but right now there is no question that you guys have fallen apart. “Things have fallen apart and the center no longer holds”. What you used to be what you guys called “one presidency” is now a totally dysfunctional presidency?
(VP): Yes. In fact let me tell you the terminology I later came to realize the terminology of “one presidency” was employed in our second term. In hindsight, I now came to realize that that was intended to remove me out of the presidency, that was all that terminology meant because ever since we came back in our second term he had been removing every responsibility he had given me before until I was left with no responsibility. So that was his terminology: “one President, one person doing everything”. “One person President, one person Vice President, one person everything”.
(SR): For how long have you been on ‘vacation’ from the Presidency, as the Vice President of Nigeria?
(VP): I think for the greater part of the second term really.
(SR): You haven’t done anything at all?
(VP): No I haven’t done anything other than attend Federal Executive Council meetings. That’s all.
(SR): In 2003 coming to the second term when you finally fell out the issue has been widely reported in the media, it is that he felt that you challenged him and that he had his ego bruised because some governors called on you to run against him in the primaries. You declined because you wanted as I said before a continuum of your joint ticket?
(VP): I think it was more of a nationalistic instinct other then mere continuation. I have explained this over and over again. Some people have asked me whether I have not regretted what I did. I said no, I did not regret taking that decision. It was based on nationalistic instinct because you see before we came in 1999 there was this raging debate in Nigeria that the North dominated political power for three decades and I remember when we were in the Constitutional conference in 1994/95, you remember during Abacha’s time we deliberated as politicians agreed that after that Constitution or with that Constitution we should begin the policy of power rotation.
That we should all agree that power should move to the south whichever party you found yourself. So that came to pass in 1998 when we formed these parties. You recalled both 2 parties, both PDP and ANPP, had their presidential candidates from the south and fortunately PDP won. We came to the second term and here were these governors who foresaw or saw something that I did not foresee. They said, it was irrespective of whether Northern or Southern governors. They all came and converge and said, “look you’ve got to run, we don’t think we we’ll move on with this guy.” I said look, I mean whatever may be our difference lets go and sort it out with the Presidency because I believe that it is better that the Presidency is still left in the south. So it was out of Nationalistic instinct and so I took the governors along with me and we went to meet the President and said “look these governors have grievances with you and the way you have been running things, so lets discuss this, and he said we should all be very sincere, very open. And these governors opened up only for them of course later to be hunted for speaking to him. So it was actually based on nationalistic instinct rather then any personal gain.
(SR): Talking out 2003 again, it has been adjudged that the 2003 elections was the most rigged in Africa. You were part of that by virtue of the fact that you
(VP): Who adjudged that? Who adjudged that?
(SR): International observers, Nigerians, you have been in Nigeria; you’ve seen what has happened. People who didn’t win elections were rigged into office, even the Senate President we hear didn’t even win the elections this is something everybody knew. Do you have any regrets about the 2003 elections?
(VP): Which Senate President?
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