Mr. Solomon Dalung was Nigeria’s Minister of Sports between November 2015 and May 2019 in the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Dalung, a lawyer, academic and politician, in this interview, speaks a wide range of national issues including making the telling allegation that the 10th National Assembly with Senate President Godswill Akpabio were mere choristers for President Bola Tinubu. Excerpts:
What is your assessment of Tinubu’s two years in office?
Well, Tinubu’s administration for two years has been far below expectations because his personality in governance is not strange to the Nigerian political climate. He was a governor in Lagos for eight years, so when he was elected, a lot of Nigerians who cast their votes for him had high expectations of him. He was seen as the Lagos miracle maker, and Nigerians expected that in spite of whatever situation that was on ground, which Nigerians are also conversant with, he was the proper person to change things.
Disappointingly, he dashed their hopes from day one and that sent a signal that he lacked comprehension of the country’s situation. That is because he removed the fuel subsidy without even a government on ground. And if there was no government on ground, the fundamental question is who would have subjected his thoughts and aligned it with the reality on the ground and if there were suggested methods and mechanisms of dealing with the crisis of the withdrawal?
So, that statement of ‘subsidy is gone’ was quite reckless and was not expected of a leader who is familiar with governance. So, that statement of ‘subsidy is gone’ was quite reckless and unexpected of a leader who is also familiar with governance, even though he and his men have appropriated it to be correct. But some of us, who are familiar with governance, considered it as the worst cowardice any leader will ever demonstrate. That is because if he was courageous enough, then he could have subjected the policy to a superior argument and the litmus test of scrutiny and he could have faced a panel and defended it; that is courage. But to cowardly ambush Nigerians as he did, was not courage at all.
So my assessment of his performance is that it has been far below expectations and disappointing.
You have seen the number of endorsements President Tinubu is getting from APC leadership to the APC governors and National Assembly amongst others; what do you make of the endorsements?
There was a Prophet Adams Oshimhole who had earlier prophesied that any sinner, even if the person was an armed robber, a bandit or a Boko Haram member, who jumps into the APC ship, would have his sins forgiven. So, if you want to understand politically the meaning of these endorsements, you must go back to the prophecy. So it is not an endorsement as a political reality. It is a conclave of sinners; people who have committed heinous crimes against the Nigerian people and they are jumping into the ship for the forgiveness of their sins. Not that they believe in Tinubu, no; they do not. They are only assembling so that their sins will be forgiven.
So it is a conclave of political cardinals who have committed grave sins against the Nigerian people and a political party has offered them the opportunity of forgiveness on entrance. So they are jumping into it and that is why all the endorsements are by APC. So, even if APC has endorsed the president who is also the leader of the party, what advantage or what value has it added? The votes he got were not APC votes; they were the votes of Nigerians. If Nigerians had endorsed him, I would have taken time to make a critical analysis of it.