Chief Frank Kokori, an irrepressible down-to-earth unionist, contributed his own quota to the enthronement of democratic governance in Nigeria following the annulment of the June 1993 presidential election by the military regime. In this interview, he examined the two successive four-year tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari, declaring that the administration failed to meet the expectations of Nigerians in the areas of the economy, security and anti-corruption.

President Muhammadu Buhari has consistently promised to leave a legacy of credible election. With the conduct of the 2023 elections, would you say that the promise has come to pass?

Certainly, the promise has come to pass. Actually, the magic was done by the BVAS. At least, he assented to the Electoral Act at the last moment after a lot of pressure which is good. And that has been a game changer. No matter the controversy surrounding the process, I think this is one of the best elections we have ever had in recent time. A lot of things happened that have never happened in Nigeria before. Sitting governors don’t lose their constituencies especially when they want to go to the Senate. But this time around, over 70 per cent of them lost their senatorial bids. They could not achieve the bogus votes they normally ascribe to themselves in the past. They all went down the drain. That is why you can see that the total tally is very low. You could see that the BVAS has done wonders in Nigeria’s electoral process. That is why you could see Peter Obi’s Labour Party that has no visible structure making such a huge impact. In my area here (in Delta), they don’t even have agents. Yet, they won elections. If LP supporters are crying foul, they are just crying for nothing. Instead, they should be celebrating, rather than making unnecessary controversial noise everywhere. Forget about the noise, it is the best election Nigeria has ever had.

How do you see the scenario that played out in the just concluded governorship election in Adamawa State?

It was the highest point of irresponsibility displayed by the Resident Electoral Commission (REC). How can the man emerge from nowhere to announce the result of the election when the collation was still going on? These are the type of people we don’t need in this country. That man should be used as a scapegoat for attempting to destroy our democracy. It’s an insult on the psyche of our people; he should be punished for it. But the problem is that Nigeria doesn’t punish people for wrong doings.

The latest report showed that Nigeria spent 96.3 per cent on debt servicing in 2022? What does this portend for the new incoming administration?

That shows that Nigeria is in a very dangerous situation. Actually, Buhari has not done well in the area of economic management of the country. He has brought a lot of damage to the economy by over borrowing and outrageous debt-servicing. It is above the normal acceptable economic norms. And that was very irresponsible because nobody expected that from Buhari. So, what is left to develop the country? We all thought that Buhari was a frugal man. But immediately he took over power, he wasn’t frugal any longer. Nobody thought Buhari would like luxury the way he is now, travelling flamboyantly with a lot of crowd, entourage, and abnormal fleet of aircraft. His personal recurrent expenditure is outrageous. He is always out of the country with a powerful entourage, wasting money, right, left and centre. Nobody expected that from Buhari. And that is one of the reasons we voted for him, but he has not lived up to expectations. It is good we saw that. If not, we would have been singing his praises. Buhari has brought Nigeria backward. The little gains he made are not special; any normal human being can do more than that. He could not manage his team properly. His ministers were working at cross purposes, they don’t obey him and he does not sanction them. The ministers are lords of the manor. I have never seen a president leaving the ministers with so much laxity, sacking people anyhow. They reconstitute their boards anyhow without president’s interference. He has not done well at all in the area of economy. Even security wise, he has not done well. We thought he would do wonder in the area of security, he has not. We pray that the new Asiwaju’s government will do better. Much as I know of Tinubu, he is a good strategist and a team worker. I believe he will do far better than any government we have had since the advent of this Fourth Republic.

How would you also rate the performance of the administration in terms of its anti-corruption mantra?

Buhari came to power on the mantra of anti-corruption. That was why most patriotic Nigerians voted for him. But his fight against corruption is mere cosmetic. We were thinking that it would be like the Idiagbon days, but he hasn’t done much in fighting corruption. Nigeria still remains very corrupt because there are no sanctions. And most of these are coming from the Ministry Department and Agencies (MDAs). Nobody is there to check the activities of MDAs. So, they have all become very powerful in their own right because there are no checks and balances. Unfortunately, this was the main reason people struggled to promote Buhari and voted for him. He is a lucky man. He never had funds, he never had goodwill in the South, but he won election twice. It’s good we have come to the end of his regime. He has done some good things like the electoral reforms, road infrastructure, railways and so on. But on the whole, he has not done anything extraordinary. Everybody who aspires to rule must have an agenda. If you are doing your agenda of building good roads, you are not doing any favour to your people because it is not your money. Nigerian governors used to think that they are doing wonders doing all these, whereas, they use people’s money to provide these infrastructure. Nigeria is unfortunate in that aspect.

What do you make of the government’s plan to borrow $800 million to provide palliative for 50 million vulnerable Nigerians ahead of the proposed removal of subsidy?

That is another big fraud. Workers don’t need it because they won’t benefit from it. It is the ruling class that is going to enjoy that money like the rubbish they did in the Ministry of Humanitarian and Disaster Management that the administration founded and expended trillions of naira without any benefit to the people. It’s going to be a drain pipe to the government. So, we don’t need it. It’s a shame that Buhari could not come up with one functional refinery for eight years. It’s a big shame to Obasanjo, a big shame to Jonathan, that for all these years, we cannot boast of one single functional refinery. I left the oil industry when we had four refineries working at an average of 85 per cent capacity, producing one of the finest petroleum products in the world. Warri refinery was producing the finest kerosene in the world. These refineries were destroyed by the military, but we thought that Obasanjo, Jonathan and Buhari would revive them. But today, we don’t have any refinery working. That’s a disgrace. I blame my comrade in the labour union. When we were there, we didn’t do those rubbish they are doing now. How can you be in labour movement and you don’t check the government? The labour is the biggest and most powerful pressure group in this country and all over the world. But they are there, sitting and enjoying themselves. They are afraid of taking risks. Since I left labour movement over 20 years ago, all the refineries have become comatose. We thought Obasanjo would revive them when he came into power, but he spent eight years as minister of petroleum and still could not do anything. Then, Jonathan from the South-South came in, we thought he would do wonders in the petroleum industry, yet he could not do anything. Buhari came in, spent eight years, leaving without a single refinery working. It’s a big shame. Yes, subsidy should be removed. But when you remove it, how can the people pay the international rate when the standard of living is not up to 10 per cent of the standard of living in developed economies?

Then, what is the alternative way to cushioning the effect of subsidy removal?

There is no alternative for now, but the government should not make Nigerians bear the brunt of subsidy removal. Nigerians should not pay more than anything above between N200 and N250. They should work out some other areas. The lasting solution is to make the refinery work. It’s possible to build a new refinery with public and private partnership within a short time. What is in a refinery? We built two refineries between 1970-something and 1980. It’s a big shame that an oil producing country like Nigeria cannot build a single refinery in 20 to 25 years and we can’t account for our oil. Some of us weep for this country in our retirement age. Obasanjo spent eight years, he could not restructure the country, but he is now busy writing useless letters. (Sunday Sun)

Update news