THE SECURITY CHALLENGES CONFRONTING THE COUNTRY WILL BE RESOLVED-FEMI ADESHINA

By Dayo Olujuwon

The Special Adviser on Media and publicity to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Femi Adeshina, has said that the security challenges confronting the country will be resolved.

He made this statement in an exclusive interview with AsphericTV, and it was aired on their programme “The State of The Nation” which was hosted by Dayo Olujuwon on Monday, August 3, 2021. He strongly admitted that the greatest challenge we have in Nigeria is security and it is vigorously fought. He is confident that, it will be over very soon.

The Interview is as follows;

Dayo Olujuwon: How are you doing today, sir?

Femi Adeshina: Very well, it is my pleasure to be here?

Dayo Olujuwon: Good to have you here

Femi Adeshina: I’ve learnt a new word, Aspheric…so, I’ve added it to my stock of English words (Laughs)

Dayo Olujuwon: Sir, let’s talk about your 6years as special adviser to the president. How would you describe it?

Femi Adeshina: Well, I’ll say it’s a privilege to serve your country and among the journalist in the country, thousand and you are singled out and asked to be a special adviser on media and publicity to your president. You are quite privileged…so I see it as a privileged opportunity a unique assignment, something I was not expecting, it just dropped on my laps, so to speak. I have always supported, Muhammadu Buhari from when he was the military head of state and when he joined partisan politics, I began to write actively on him. Right from his first foray into a presidential election in 2003, I wrote pointing Nigerians in His direction., He didn’t win, or rather, he was said not to have won, then the same thing in 2007, the same in 2011. When he said he was not running again in 2011, I was among those who came out to say NO! you are not bound by that promise. What If Nigerians want you and truly, by 2015 he came out to run again, he ran and he won and after that victory, he put a call to me on the very night he was declared, he said Adeshina I want to say thank you to you, you have supported me all this while, I couldn’t give you even a bottle of coke, there are people who could have paid you millions of naira for your support but you didn’t follow them. He said I want to say thank you to you. Eventually, he asked me to be his special adviser on media and publicity. I was glad to accept, I wouldn’t have won the government for any other person, but because he was Muhammadu Buhari, a man I have always admired and liked. When he asked me to work with him, I left everything I was doing and came into government, it’s been 6years of challenges, good, bad, ugly, everything. The through, all things achieved, if this was just a job for day to day living, it is not worth it but if it an assignment to serve your country, then it’s very well worth it and I’m glad serving the country, I’m glad serving the president, no regrets.

Dayo Olujuwon: Why do you admire him so much?

Femi Adeshina: yes, ehn…When he emerged as a military leader, you know Nigeria was in such a Topsy Tovey stage and he identified the problem of indiscipline and he set out to tackle it he wanted to knock sense into the heads of Nigerians by restoring discipline in the polity, he wanted to restore the economy, he wanted to restore our ways of doing things generally. He was doing that for 20months when he was overthrown, so after he was even overthrown, I still remained with him, I had the gut to admire him, I stood by him. Therefore, when he came into politics again, I was very glad. I’ll say the greatest attraction, I had for him, was his penchant for disciple and his penchant for transparency and accountability, now I’ve added another one to that simplicity. Having worked with him for close to 6years, I’ve seen that he is the simplest of all men, dresses simply, eat simply. Everything he does is very simple… He is a man out without hairs.

Dayo olujuwon: As the mouthpiece of the president, it will be a great privilege for Nigerians to know the magic Mr President put in to ensure Nigeria’s economy, remains stable despite the global economic crisis caused by Covid 19 pandemic. Many countries economy is either in insolvent or in ruin but Nigeria still stands strong…What is the secret?

Femi Adeshina: In terms of the economy the president himself will tell you that he doesn’t know much about it. What he then provides is just a direction and he let those who know about it run it. That is why you find that most of those economic things are run by the vice president, run by the minister of finance, run by the Governor of the central bank of Nigeria, he even put up a PEAC presidential economic advisory committee. So, they run, all they need to do is discuss with him, explain to him, and then he gives them the go-ahead to do that. The Strength of the president in that direction is that he is a good listener…oh, the president can listen, He will hear every side of the debate before he takes a final decision, so he let those who know chat the cause, he just provides the moral authority. You know, if we say this are times you need to tighten your belt, he will be the first person to tighten his own belt. If we say this is the time to be thrifty, he is the one that will first cut some things coming to him, I guess that, is one of the strengths of Nigeria economy. When Covid came, there was something set up, the economic sustainability programme under the vice president and other people involved in running the economy. You will see that the success, or the strength, or the stability of the Nigerian economy today is due largely to that economic sustainability programme and the president just allow them to do it

Dayo Olujuwon: What would you say is the biggest challenge we have in Nigeria right now

Femi Adeshina: It is insecurity, it is very easy…security…when the president came in, and right from the campaign, he identified three things; we will secure the country, we will revive the economy, we will fight corruption. Fighting corruption is going well…it’s succeeding …reviving the economy is going well. We are not where we should be but at least the economy is like a plane with its nose in the sky as long as the nose of the plane is in the sky, its good sign, but if the nose suddenly comes down, it’s dangerous. Our economy is like that, a plane with the node upwards is climbing, it may be slower than what we want but at least it’s on a positive trajectory, the greatest challenge is insecurity and that challenge has been with us before the president came, that was why he identified it as number one priority when he lists those three things, he does it in this order; to secure the country, we will revive the economy and then we will fight corruption, the number usually is we will secure the country.  He says a country or an institution cannot be run or efficiently managed unless you have first secured it and you will see that when he first came, he made some pronouncement on security that brought immediate flutes, he changed the command centre of the Boko haram fight to Borno state immediately, and you will find that the thing was going down, till we got to a point we could say Boko haram was technically degraded, and then suddenly there was an upsurge and the upsurge came not just in form of insurgency, banditry joined, kidnapping joined, cultism armed robbery…all sort of violent crime just came from every quarter of the country. It’s been tackled, it’s been vigorously fought, if you know how much of those people are being sent to God to answer for their crimes daily, you know the new army chief said, that his duty is to send them to God daily, it’s a huge number, that gives us the confidence that one day, this thing will be over, it will surely be over, but for now, the greatest challenge Nigeria have is security

Dayo Olujuwon: some Nigerians are of the view that the government will not be able to manage the economy without fostering interaction between it and the private sector and also the state civil society. Do you agree with this?

Femi: Well, the economy is never managed by one person, it is usually managed by a team and that was why, the president set up the presidential economic advisory council, it is there and you find out that any given time, the vice president is also meeting with the economic management team, we have an EMT, Economic Management Team. So, it’s a team that runs the economy, it can never be a one-man show, a one-man show, will not run an economy successfully, is in a wrong direction, nobody will be able to tell him, this decision is not right but when it’s a team, there’s check and balances

Dayo Olujuwon: Are you trying to say that the president has been able to interact efficiently with the society, in respect to this

Femi: That is why he has a team to advise him, Economic Management Team is there PEAC, Presidential Economy Advisory council is there, so

Dayo: Has the president lived up to expectations, has he fulfilled the campaign promises to ensure the continuity of his party, APC beyond 2023?

Femi Adeshina: Absolutely, and what were those promises, we will secure the country, we will revive the economy and we will fight corruption, like I said earlier, the number two and three goals have succeeded lightly and are succeeding. Number one, is highly challenged but no quarter is being asked for none is being given, it will succeed. It’s only a matter of time, the security challenges confronting the country will be resolved.

Dayo Olujuwon: There has to be one thing you think this government can do better. What could that be?

Femi Adeshina: There is no perfect government, everywhere in the world, you have not seen one, you will never see one. There’s a saying that, the largest room in the world, is room for improvement. So, that is the way it is with the government, this government is doing well, fantastically well, but there are always things it can do better. As an insider in government, I will agree that there are things that can be done better but are the government doing well? Yes, it is doing very well

Dayo Olujuwon: Can you tell us what you think they can improve on?

Femi Adeshina: I would rather that comes from the outside, you know, I rather that comes from the outside because if I’m the one accessing and condemning, that will not be right but when it comes from an outsider, I’ll listen to and I will always pass the word to say the public wants us to do better in this area, I know some but I shouldn’t be the one saying it

Dayo Olujuwon: In less than two years your time as special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity will come to an end, hopefully. Are you going back to the newsroom? What are your plans for the future?

Femi Adeshina: Well, I want to thank you, you said in less than two years. That means you believe that I will stay with him till the end…because when you hold it, you hold any office at the pleasure of the president, so he has kept him for six years, and more, I thank him, if he keeps me till the end of eight years, I’ll be very glad but if he also says he wants to rejig the thing and somebody else will come, no problem. I will always support him, whether in government or outside it, now, anytime I leave government, whether now or in May 2023 by the grace of God, I will love to return to my media work. When I was leaving the media, six years ago, my proprietor of the newspaper, I worked with was kind enough to tell me, I’m giving you a leave of absence, if you get a government and you don’t like it, you can always return or if you like it and you stay eight years, you can always return. So, by the grace of God, anytime I leave government, I have a job waiting for me, not in the same status I was, but a higher status

Dayo Olujuwon: if you are asked to make a wish for this country Nigeria, what will that be

Femi Adeshina: My wish will be. Oh, if only they know Muhammadu Buhari, and they will cooperate more with and they will criticize less and wail less and cry less and distract less. If President Buhari was not a focused person, the volume of distraction thrown his way daily is enough to ensure that he does nothing. So, my wish will be to let Nigerians understand their leaders and let them cooperate more, countries of the world that work did not work by magic. They worked through the cooperation of the leadership and the led. So, I just wish the led will cooperate more with the leadership in this country

Dayo Olujuwon: Quite a number of people have said that you are so blunt. How do you take that?

Femi Adeshina: If blunt means telling the truth, then no apologies, if blunt means not colouring things, no apologies because I don’t know how to colour things. I just say things the way they are. People say those that hold this position, lie and I ask them to mention one lie that I’ve told Nigerians. When I challenge them, they begin to look like fools, because they can’t point out one lie. So, my own is we will say it the ways it is and my principal, the president does not expect that you will lie for him, he does not expect you to lie for him, he just wants you to say things the way they are, that is what I do.

Dayo  Olujuwon: I guess we’ve really had a nice time with you because I have had a nice time with you. It’s a great privilege sir, thank you so much sir for joining us in the state of the nation, today on Aspheric TV. God bless you

Femi Adeshina: Next time you hear me speaking and I use the word Aspheric, know that I borrowed it from there

Dayo Olujuwon: Thank you so much for staying with us…