The North Has To Solve Its Own Problems –Baba-Ahmed

…says Tinubu’ll be seen as father of new Nigeria if he doesn’t run in 2027

..insists politicians only defect for selfish reasons, not ideology or principles

Until recently, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed was the Special adviser on Politics to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. His resignation raised some eyebrows within the polity with many pundits adducing reasons for the move. In this interview with OLAOLU OLADIPO, conducted on THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2025, the Kaduna State-born scholar shed light on the circumstances leading to his exit just as he also bared his mind on the state of the nation. Excerpts:

 

Your recent exit from the government came suddenly, setting tongues wagging with regard to why it happened; why did you leave?

I left because I was under-utilised by an administration that asked for my services.

The job on paper looked like a challenge to contribute to reversing the damage that former President, Muhammadu Buhari, left behind and even, perhaps, lay the foundation of a Nigeria that will operate with some respect for the rights of younger Nigerians to live in a country better than the one we built to date.

There were many issues regarding governance, institutional reforms and improving national cohesion I could have helped with. I was not involved in them.

In fact, I did not see anyone else addressing them either. I did not want to leave too early, or stay longer than necessary which will make me part of the problem.

I resigned because I hope Nigerians will see that positions that are inconsistent with your conscience are a liability, no matter how comfortable they are.

Could it be due to what you saw, which more or less fell short of your expectations?

Of course! As I said, while we must excuse President (Bola Ahmed) Tinubu for governance and management issues which he inherited from former President Buhari, we should not excuse the failure to live up to promises to fix insecurity, address unbearable economic burdens under which citizens live, create and sustain a new sense of national mission to raise levels of integrity of leaders, confidence of the people, inclusiveness and building a nation for our young.

I saw the abolishing of subsidy on May 29 2023 as a radical step towards a comprehensive national re-engineering. Everything since then was dealing with unforeseen consequences and preserving the usual and the ordinary.

Could your exit be due to perceived cold relations between President Bola Tinubu and his Deputy, Senator Kashim Ibrahim, whom you served? Being an insider, is there any kind of animosity between the two?

I did not see anyone else addressing animosity between them, although I have to admit my perceptions were garnered entirely from interactions with the VP.

I also heard these rumours, but I thought they are just staple Villa mischief which has afflicted every regime. I saw in VP Kashim Shettima a very loyal, hardworking and intelligent asset for President Tinubu and the administration.

Of course, this in itself is reason for mischief among those who seek to benefit from these rumours. It will be a good gesture if President Tinubu takes appropriate steps to put these rumours to rest.

He does not need a crippled Presidency to compound all his current problems.

Looking back, would you say the government had met the expectations you had before going into it? If it hadn’t what were the expectations that you had before going into government?

Two years is long enough for a good leadership to get a handle on insecurity. You know, its real roots and dimensions; why it has been defeating us for 15 years; why it mutates so easily; what we have been doing wrong, and what we need to do better.

As we speak, we are getting more swamped by sundry threats. Insecurity impacts heavily on the economy and the perception of the citizen regarding the commitment of leaders to his life and livelihood.

The administration had not prepared adequately for the abolition of subsidy. We have stumbled from a pronouncement to a series of remedial measures, all of which have compounded hardship.

Macro-managing an economy with adhoc decisions and knee-jerk reactions in a context of severely weakened institutions, rampant corruption and poor quality of managers is a recipe for disaster.

I am sure President Tinubu meant well, but good intentions alone do not change a country. Now he says we left a past, but the future we see does not promise to be better.

Our politics still thrives on weakening national cohesion and improving the grip of ruling politicians around our lives.

I thought President Tinubu would want history to record him as the President who brought sections and parts of Nigeria together after he won an election that exposed our bare skeletons as a country.

I thought he would stop corruption and waste and rebuild infrastructure like roads, boost power and empower rural communities. I thought a President who was an active politician and keen observer since the ’90s would learn from, and avoid mistakes of his predecessors.

I thought he would re-integrate the East and make it safer. I thought he would stop oil theft. I thought he would take steps to assure young Nigerians that their future would be better than it is.

I really wanted President Tinubu to succeed as the President who used his incumbency to transform Nigeria. It was not a naive or unreasonable expectation. To be honest, no! We are bleeding all over the country as more threats find places in our towns and villagers.

Citizens feel abandoned amidst unprecedented hardship. But President Tinubu has two more years to work harder and better on the economy and security.

He will find it very difficult to convince Nigerians that he had done justice to the mandate we gave him if he does not radically improve his administration’s record so far.

What do you consider as the way for the country, now that you feel the country is not going the direction you felt it should be heading?

I have advised President Tinubu and other politicians who have been permanent fixtures in the decline of our political and economic fortunes as a nation to shelve their personal ambitions to continue the quest for power to rule, accumulate and worsen the fate of our country.

President Tinubu in particular will go down as the father of a new Nigeria if he decides not to run again in 2027. He should, instead, convince his party to encourage the emergence of younger, healthier and committed Nigerians who are willing to work and fix our country for future generations.

If APC can do this, politicians in other parties will have to yield the space to a generation that could win the support of Nigerians. If they don’t, Nigerians will vote for a leadership that will not perpetuate decay and danger.

They will trust a new generation of people who feel the pains of our existence. Politicians running to his party will change direction once he leads his own party to chart a course that changes the way our politics has been captured by them.

He should understand that Nigerians are tired of being used merely as voters, while politicians, irrespective of party, milk our country.

What do you consider as the way for the country, now that you feel the country is not going the direction you felt it should be heading?

I have advised President Tinubu and other politicians who have been permanent fixtures in the decline of our political and economic fortunes as a nation to shelve their personal ambitions to continue the quest for power to rule, accumulate and worsen the fate of our country.

President Tinubu in particular will go down as the father of a new Nigeria if he decides not to run again in 2027. He should, instead, convince his party to encourage the emergence of younger, healthier and committed Nigerians who are willing to work and fix our country for future generations.

If APC can do this, politicians in other parties will have to yield the space to a generation that could win the support of Nigerians. If they dont, Nigerians will vote for a leadership that will not perpetuate decay and danger.

They will trust a new generation of people who feel the pains of our existence. Politicians running to his party will change direction once he leads his own party to chart a course that changes the way our politics has been captured by them.

He should understand that Nigerians are tired of being used merely as voters, while politicians, irrespective of party, milk our country.

Do you subscribe to efforts being made by various political gladiators to float a coalition platform that will challenge the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027 and do you think it will defeat President Tinubu considering the fact that many opposition figures are currently defecting to the APC?

How does this unseemly jockeying for new places and accomplices by politicians help the citizen, desperate for higher quality of leadership? All these manoeuvres you see are purely about them.

Politicians abandon people who voted for them for greener pastures, or to avoid prosecution. Others attempt to create new platforms because theirs have rejected them, or other politicians are not yielding them space.

No ideology, no principles, no shame. Only the naked scramble to be part of the power elite. How many ordinary citizens have you seen in discussions about mergers and platforms?

You see the level of disrespect of the politician for Nigerians when he struggles for a personal space among fellow politicians, when he calls a press conference to announce that it is all for the people.

So long as it is the same politicians who had been serial decampees or are running from fellow politicians, Nigerian politics will not change. Nigerian voters should be wiser. These hustles are not for them.

APC itself which is bulging with decampees should read history. Those who ran to you today will run away from you tomorrow, for the same reason.

One major issue for consideration in the build up to 2027 is the issue of zoning; as a strong voice in the North, would you advise that the North back a Southern candidate against President Tinubu or the North should sponsor its own?

My advise to the Northern voters is to vote for the politician who appears to understand Northern problems and will make efforts to solve them. The Federal Government is never going to be able to solve Northern problems.

The North has to solve its problems itself. To do this it needs to understand two things. One, we need a much higher quality of leadership at State and Local Government levels and in legislatures in the North and Abuja.

Two, our politicians are not really different from politicians in the South. The North should improve its sophistication in deciding who to trust. Only quality of the candidate should matter, henceforth.

If a Northerner has the best promise to do justice to our problems, vote for him without apology. If the better candidate is from the South, vote for him without shame.