Ambassador Joe Keshi is a former Permanent Secretary in the cabinet office and one-time Nigeria’s Consul-General in Atlanta Georgia. He speaks with BIYI ADEGOROYE on the ongoing political development in the United States and other national issues in Nigeria

After a few weeks of showboating, President Joe Biden finally dropped out of the American presidential race. What do you make of that decision?

Well, given the circumstances in which he found himself, I think that Joe Biden, being a decent man, has done the most decent thing that will at the end of the day protect his political legacy, especially as the President of the United States.

The second point Is that his decision not to run and endorsement of Kamala Harris, and the swift manner she has moved to take control of the Democratic Party, her energy has also translated to energizing the base. You know when you energize the base of a political party, the end result is that as of today the democrats are in a better position to contest the election than they were two years ago. And I can tell you that last Sunday night that Biden would not contest the next election, that day must go into history books as the day the race for the 2024 White House changed.

That announcement came in the form of something like a Tsunami that completely changed the dynamics and what is at play. If you have seen what has been happening since then, the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris campaign, have raised $100 million, within a few hours after Biden nominated her, they raised about $47 million which has now jumped to $100million. Thirty-six thousand black women are working on the phone as we speak to mobilize support for her candidacy. So, for the Democrats and those who support them around the world, it is an exciting moment.

How do you see the assassination attempt on Donald Trump which garnered some sympathy from him and gave a boost to his chances?

You know, when you say God works in a mysterious way, I think we should understand that sometimes, God works for both sides. That is why I often say to people that when it comes to sports, and football in particular, where there is so much passion, anger and sometimes violence, the Almighty God goes to sleep and say ‘may the better team that has prepared very well and have good strategy win,’ because all of us cannot be praying ‘we want our team to win.’

But the point I am trying to make is that the unfortunate incident gave a boost to Donald Trump, and almost instantly killed any hope of Biden being re-elected, and I think the polls eventually began to show that.

You know, in America, every political party and their supporters do so many polls, universities are doing polls, even some political parties in this country that I know were consistently conducting opinion polls, even though none of these polls told them they would win, but at the end of the day, we all know what happened, but that is not the issue.

The issue is that there are so many people, including universities, and I am emphasizing this, because universities make money from these polls, something Nigerian universities should think of doing also. In Britain, universities also do polls., and Joe Biden had previously said that he had not seen a poll that indicated that he would lose.

But I think after the assassination attempt, the COVID attack not to talk about his poor performance in the debate, I think his campaign team showed him a poll that indicated that he had no path to win the election, otherwise, he would have brought down the Democratic Party which he had lived with and fought for more than 40 years of his political career. And he did the most honourable thing, and instantly, that changed the dynamics of the race. The race is no longer for Trump to win, rather for him to compete in.

How do you see the security failure at the Trump Pennsylvania campaign rally, and the consequent resignation of the Director of the US Secret Service?

Well, I think this is where Nigeria security forces should borrow a leaf from. I have always said something. One of the reasons why we do badly, (though there are a few exemptions), is the limited exposure of our leaders. Not just political leaders, but those in various institutions and so on. You know, in this country people who have failed and are not doing well in heading institutions are still retained, because the political leaders want to use them for one thing or the other, or that they are doing something for the political leaders.

You see, it is a matter of honour when you are put in a place and you say the bulk stops on my table as a leader. Of course, the head of the secret service has taken responsibility for their failure. She did not fail, but as the head of the organisation, she had the responsibility to admit that they made a mistake. It’s not even that they made a mistake, It was as if they did not elevate that threat to a high level or somebody just missed the ball. But as a matter of honour, she has resigned, and of course, everybody was saying how could you guys be so careless?

In Nigeria, nobody would do a thing like that, and that is why we have all these repeated security failures, bandits all over the place, because nobody is resigning, rather they remain there, continue to make whatever they make and make the same mistakes. How on earth can a country go through these internal security issues for almost 16 years and more? How? And people do not have the conscience to ask what is really happening? Do we really have intelligence? Nobody has come up to say ‘let’s inform the intelligence community to do this,’ let’s inform the military to do that.’ Instead, what happens? Banditry is increasing, insecurity and kidnapping and now we have Boko Haram, or whoever it is, now attacking Borno State again and we have food security issues as people can’t go to farm again.

Look, our political leaders should ask themselves a question. If they were running a company the way they are running Nigeria, will they allow things to be going like this? That is the question. Would they have not changed the leaders and look for people to help them out? No, if they were running a company the way they are running Nigeria now, will they allow the heads of various departments to misbehave as they are doing in the country now and still retain them?

For God’s sake, do you know why she resigned? Because they still have honour and have regard for values in America. In this place, our values are completely dead, nobody cares. So, we do whatever we want to do.

Still talking about values, although this is not your core area, some people see Dangote Refinery as a solution to Nigeria’s perennial fuel crisis, especially following the comatose condition of our four refineries. What do you make of the current controversies around it?

You know, the current controversy is most unfortunate, and you see, we were talking of honour and value. If that gentleman in NNPC or NMDPRA has any value or honor in him, he does not need to wait to be fired, given the controversy he has generated. He should take the most reasonable way, whether he Is acting for somebody or not, the fact that he had allowed himself to be involved in that controversy means that he is not honourable.

Look, one of the major failures in my perspective is that he has succeeded in demarketing the Dangote Refinery. Listen, why did they not communicate bilaterally that this is what we are suspecting about your product. Can you please do your test and let us know because we know you have a laboratory? This is what they could have done bilaterally, but they now blew it into the public that he has a high level of Sulphur and all that.

Now, what does that do to the refinery? It means that potential buyers would be asking themselves questions. Look, we don’t have such a high level of sulphur in petroleum products in our country. Now, even if they are still going to buy from Dangote, they are still going to subject it to far more rigorous tests than necessary.

You see, the government is here to help everybody, including those doing business. All over the world, I can’t see anybody or company that has succeeded without the government helping them or government patronage. You know. It is also a lesson for Dangote himself and for all of us. But for me, what they have done to Dangote is very unfair, because they could have done it quietly. And Dangote did something dramatic by going to NNPL petrol stations and conducting his own test and people were there to see it happen. So that itself destroyed the credibility of NNPC, such that we now know that NNPC has been bringing in substandard products and selling it to Nigerians at a high cost. Are you surprised that many cars are breaking down?

I don’t care who gave Dangote money and who did not or who he supported for the election or who he did not. The point is that somebody cannot build such a huge industrial complex and you want to destroy it. If we do, even the weirdest of the world will think that we are mad people.

Some Nigerians have expressed a desire to embark on #Endbadgovernance protest over worsening cost of living. How do you see this?

I think the government should have devised a better way to manage this. To start with, Bayo Onanuga gave prominence to it in the first place. Until he wrote about it on social media, calling names and all that, how many Nigerians were aware of the plans? Many Nigerians were not even aware that any protest was in the works. Nigeria is about 220 million in population; how many Nigerians are on social media? But now everybody is aware.

Now what have we seen? The government is running helter skelters, meeting with traditional rulers it has never invited before, and governors and ministers too, and mobilising traditional rulers who suddenly began to fix a date for Oro festivals where movements would be restricted. What do you call that? Usually, Oros are held once a year, and this speaks to my issue about the sinking values. We have debased the values we have as Nigerians; we have debased every value that exists in this society.

Government has mismanaged it by allowing Bayo Onanuga’s diatribe against some individuals. If he had kept quiet and they had managed it behind the scene drawing attention to the new minimum wage, fiscal and economic policies and agricultural and security plans, it would not have been as popular and not have created much fear as it has today. He gave free publicity to the organisers.

Back to the US election. Some people have raised the issue that America is putting ahead a convict for President. How do you see this?

Well, you know, what has happened is that human beings are not God, and there is a limit to which we can foresee the future. So, when they were preparing the American Constitution centuries ago, I am not sure that the founding fathers envisaged a situation where a felon, not to talk of a convicted ex-president, would get up to contest in an election and that is the dilemma they now found themselves in. So, if they have to amend their Constitution, they might include that next time, but Americans are not like us who, after every election, every committee wants to amend the Constitution. (Sunday Telegraph)

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