EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: I fear Buhari may be
assassinated ..How Sultan stopped Tambuwal from
probing Diezani – Najatu
Source: Newsdiaryonline
Hajiya Najatu Mohammed is a well-known politician
from Kano state.She is fearless and very
outspoken.Aside from being a member of the All
Progressives Congress,APC , Hajiya Naja as she is
fondly called is also known to be a close political
associate of President Muhammadu Buhari.They
fought political battles and lost in the past as the
General sought to be president .In 2015, she was
equally in the field campaigning along with millions
of Nigerians to ensure Buhari's victory.
As Buhari settles in Nigeria's president , Naja says
there are already troubling signs from those seeking
to subvert the rule of law .In this interview held
Friday August 14, 2015 in Abuja ,by Danlami Nmodu,
the publisher/editor-in-chief of Newsdiaryonline, she
expresses her fears that the forces that conspired
against Buhari while he was military head of state are
back seeking to scuttle the commendable anti-
corruption moves of the President.Excerpts:
Q:We should start by reviewing the steps taken so far
by President Muhammadu Buhari in trying to restore
sanity to the country.Some say he is slow,others say
well he is just being tactical and strategic.What's you
take on that?
A:My take is that he is being strategic.Those who are
advocating …that he should be fast about the way he
is doing things, that he should take the fast track just
know what is happening.They know that if he
continues (with) investigations in the various
ministries, theirs is finished.They have interest in this
corruption and a lot of them are beneficiaries of
corruption.So the only thing the PDP actually has
been saying is that he should move faster.Faster to
cover up, because once he appoints ministers a lot of
things will be covered up .And if he is unfortunate
enough to appoint a corrupt person minister in a
particularly corrupt area,then that is it, he will never
know the truth.But now, he has had sessions with
perm secs,directors in the various ministries to the
extend that even some directors are counteracting
some information given by some directors where
they are economical with the truth.So there is no
reason for him to be fast.Everything is working well
any way.It took Obasanjo over two months to
(announce) his ministers.I don't know what's the big
deal.And the one that went very fast,President
Jonathan, where did he land the country?He was so
fast in appointment.He was so fast in dismissal.He
never investigated anything.He perpetuated and and
entrenched corruption.So we don't want President
Buhari to be fast, let him take his time.With or
without ministers, he is working and we have found
sanity in our country.The tension is gone.Our foreign
reserve is rising.So what else do we need?There is a
lot of peace in the country.We are all sane
now.People are no longer tensed (up).We have less
fear about being bombed,being assassinated, being
kidnapped,we have less ear of that.
Q:You said the tension is gone but there appears to
be tension within the Jonathan camp,because some
are apparently worried that the anti-corruption
moves are going beyond the expected bounds –
allegedly retrieving money from people,arresting
people to quiz them to the point that even the former
President Jonathan was said to have secretly met
with President Buhari in the villa.So obviously there
is tension.
A :No there is tension in the camp of corrupt
people.There is tension among people that have
looted and bled this country to the brink..They are of
course scared.But they created their own tension.If
you do the wrong thing, evil begets evil.If you do the
wrong thing ,what you get is what you deserve.You
will reap what you sow.They have kept this country
under tension by that carnage,by that theft,that
plunder of our resources for six years.So they are
now reaping what they have sown.But as far as the
generality of the country we are at peace, even in the
North east.
Q:There is even the feeling that the meeting the
National Peace Committee led by former Head of
State,General Abdulsalami Abubakar (with President
Buhari),that the Committee may be intervening now
in order to find some soft landing for some people.
A:Why does a criminal need soft landing.
Q:Nobody has been convicted yet.
A:Then why are they jittery.Nobody has been
convicted but people are being investigated.Why are
they scared.If you are clean, you have nothing to
fear.Did they not investigate Buhari?Even Jonathan
investigated Buhari.General Obasanjo investigated
Buhari.But he could not find anything and there was
never a time that we were jittery about him being
investigated.There was never a time that we were
under any kind of pressure because General
Muhammadu Buhari was being investigated.In fact,
they were so disappointed by their investigation that
at the end of the day ,they could only accuse him of
sponsoring Boko Haram,which of course , they did
not find anything,but you know, they were just
making accusations to create more tension in the
country.So now is their turn to feel the heat that
Nigerians have been feeling as a result of the
corruption in that government because it's
corruption that has led to the breakdown of our
military.They could not function.Now they are
functioning.Now, they are highly motivated.So it's
corruption that has brought about the death of
hundreds of thousands of people particularly in the
north east.So what do you do about those people?
Are they not people that have lost their
parents,orphaned;that have lost their children?
Hundreds of thousands of them that are now
internally displaced in their own country and abroad
amongst our neighbouring countries?Don't they feel
anything for those people,that they have lost so much
because of this corruption?When you are corrupt,
you see what people don't understand is this,when
you perpetrate evil,when you think that man cannot
get hold of you, how do you run away from the
Almighty?When he says don't do this and you do this
and you do it,you think there is no Law of Karma?
There is.This is it.So why are they running helter
skelter?If they are tensed, it's because of the blood in
their hands.
Q:What do you make of the continuing meeting of
this (Peace) Committee with President Buhari?
A:This Committee is a useless one. It's a very corrupt
one.Because let us first look at the reasons behind
creating the so-called peace committee.Like they said
the peace committee is supposed to inculcate or
garner support for peaceful election
A:Don't forget that the committee comprises
respected citizens?
A:No they are not respected citizens.With due
respect, they are not respected.Respected by whom?
Respected by (the fact that ) they created themselves
or were created by the former president?They are
not respected because you have to take each and
everyone of them and look at the interest that each
and everyone of them represents and look at what
they have done when they were in a position of
power.
Q:Can you explain that?
A:Take the Sultan of Sokoto (Saad Abubakar ) for
Instance,when Diezani was being investigated by the
national Assembly under (ex Speaker Aminu)
Tambuwal,where did she run to.She ran to the Sultan
of Sokoto who is heading the Sokoto Emirate and
Tambuwal is right under him.He called Tambuwal
and cautioned him against it(investigating Diezani)
.Why did he do that?
Q:Are you saying this as a fact?
A:Yes, Iam saying this as a fact.Let him deny it and I
will give you more information.That was what he
did.Look at (Pastor Ayo) Oritsejafor, he was a
member of the PDP that was in Jonathan's support
group.He was the one whose aircraft was caught
smuggling Dollars into South Africa.And he had no
business using his aircraft to smuggle arms or
money into any,because like he said, his aircraft was
supposed to have been hired.But it was not supposed
to be hired in the first place, it's a private jet.
Q:If I may go back to the Sultan issue,why would
Diezani go to the Sultan and what was Sultan's
response ?
A:Because of his influence in Sokoto generally.Only in
Sokoto.It is only in Sokoto that he has influence.I
don't think ..he is the Sarkin Musulmi like they say.He
is the Sultan of Sokoto-he is just like the Emir of
Kano.The Emir of Kano has a lot of influence in Kano
– of course for those who want to be influenced by
him.You know, because this is a free world,this is a
democracy.We follow whom we follow whom we
want to follow.When we want, we allow ourselves to
be influenced by whom we want to influence,but of
course these are cultural (things).For cultural
reasons, some people respect leaders even if they
are corrupt leaders.I'm not one of them.And so many
people are not like that because we owe no
allegiance to anybody anymore.But we are obliged to
be influenced by leaders that are upright and that
have concerns for their followers
Q:So Diezani wanted the Sultan to stop the probe?
A:And he did.
Q:By the national assembly?
A:Yes.If you stifle,if you arm-twist Tambuwal, you
arm-twist the whole national Assembly.At the end of
the day,she did not only stop at that but she also
went to court and stopped everything-the corruption
in the courts of course.But going back to what the
Committee is doing,you see ,Nigerians are sick and
tired..
Q:No ma, you are trying to allege that the Sultan arm-
twisted Tambuwal
A:Yes he did
Q;To stop probing Diezani
A:Yes and they did.There is no reason for her to go to
the Sultan in the first place.She has no business
going to kneel before the Sultan..And then Oritsejafor
has over and over again accused Moslems of killing
Christians.Was he helping the peace?And when
Moslems were being massacred ,he never uttered a
word.So what he was doing was to divide and to
rule.So who cares about Oritsejafor and whose
interest was he protecting.His personal interest and
the interest of the president who had given him so
much.That was president Jonathan.And then who is
next.Who are those in the Committee.
Q:Father (Bishop) Kukah and others .
A: Father Kukah.See what Father Kukah,look Father
Kukah is quoted as saying 'face your work and stop
pursing perceive thieves'.This is supposed to be a
man of God.A man of God is supposed to fight
against corruption.It's in the Bible.
Q:But I listened to him saying he (and the committee)
didn't come to ask the president not to probe..
A:But why did he say that President Buhari should
stop pursuing perceived thieves
Q:What I hear him saying was that the President
should follow due process.
A:Due process, what did he do against due process?
Did he create a military tribunal to prosecute them?
No.He said he is taking them to court,so which
(other) due process? Is there a due process beyond
going to court?Isn there a due process beyond
investigations ? And people forget that the president
as per section 130subsectio2 of our constitution is
the custodian of both human and natural
resources.So it is his business as the Commander in
chief to give security to human and natural
resources.It is his responsibility to protect the
territorial integrity of this country.It is therefore his
business as the chief accounting officer of this
country to track,to retrieve and prosecute those who
have looted our resources.He is doing the right thing
in due process as given to him by the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Q:But the peace Committee played a key role towards
the tail end of Jonathan's regime and helped to
apparently broker some kind of deal ,I mean ,some
kind of understanding that led to a peaceful
transition.So why would anyone blame them?
A:No, no no.What did they do?What did they do to
(ensure) peaceful transition?
Q:We saw them meeting Jonathan and meeting
Buhari
A:So what about meetings.They have had meetings
before, didn't they?Let me tell you, we had peace in
spite of them.When the Dokubos were making those
statements to the end of elections, did they utter a
word?Were they ever cautioned?Was anybody ever
caught?And then when (Elder Godsday)Orubebe was
doing what he was doing to truncate the elections,did
they say a word?It took the intervention of the
international community,otherwise, they would have
truncated it.Where were they?So they are lying.That is
not their interest .And what took them so long to talk?
Now we are on course, the country is on
course.President Buhari is on course fighting
corruption, they want to stop it.Look,Iam a history
student.And history teaches us to analyse the past in
order to be able to predict the future by some degree
of certainty,of accuracy.And as a result of that,my
analysis is this:in 1983, when General Buhari then as
President was investigating the massive corruption
then,he was locking people up.People who were
supposed to be executed for trafficking and
destroying our people,drugs traffickers were
executed,because that was the law then.He has never
acted outside the tenets of the law.President Buhari
had never acted against the tenets of the law.If the
law says this is what should should be done,that is
what should be done.So when the law says today that
people that have siphoned money it should be
retrieved and they must be jailed.This is the law of
our country.
Q:They must be tried
A:They must be tried.This is exactly what he is
doing.However, what happened in 1983 was some
clergy and some members of the Ulama were used to
campaign against him then.They said he was
mean.They said he was stiff.He was uncompromising
and that they were losing their businesses,because
then, they were hoarding.The business professionals
were also used to fight him.They were hoarding.It
was a time of famine and they were hoarding
food,selling them to people at very, veryexorbitant
prices.There was so much corruption
everyhwhere.And what did they do?They brought
thse people out to propagate against him and
General (Ibrahim ) Babangida succeeded in ousting
him and nobody said anything.Now, so as a history
student,I analysed that and I see the same trend
happening.They have taken the Ulama represented
by the Sultan of Sokoto,Oritsejafor and Reverend
(Bishop) Kukah and of course General
Abdulsalami.General Abdulsalami himself in fact has
a lot of corruption charges as per what what
happened during Obasanjo.We all know this.It is no
secret.So they don't even have the moral standing to
start talking about corruption or about any
investigation.It is not their business.And they are
talking aboutpeace.Whose peace are they now
representing? Is it the peace of the looters or those
that have been bled?Obviously they are representing
the interest of those that have bled this country.They
are not interested in encouraging the feedom of the
commonman in this country,because as a result of
corruption, hundreds of thousands have been killed
particularly in the north.As a result of corruption,you
cannot find anything in our hospitals.As a result of
corruption, there are senseless killings all
over,lawlessness,total breakdown of law and
order.As a result of corruption,hundreds and maybe
thousand s are dying on our roads,the potholes have
killed so many.As a result of corruption,so many evil
people, smugglers are coming into this country with
all sorts of things arms, drugs they are destroying
this country.Corruption has destroyed this country
for God's sake.So whose interest are they talking
about.
Q:If I get you right,you have the feeling that these
recent moves by the committee members and some
people eventually lead to some sinister moves
against the president?
A:Yes.No doubt because this is what happened in
(1985).It's the same kind of trend .But what they don't
know is that they don't know how far Nigerians have
gone.And I want to zero it and attach it to what
(Governor Ayodele) Fayose has said on several
occasions.He has come out to say,I mean the current
governor of Ekiti;he has come out to say on quite a
few occasions that if you vote Buhari,he is going to
die anyway!He is going to die like Abacha died in
office,like Murtala died in office,like (Umaru)YarAdua
died in office.Now look at these three people, they
are all northerners and they were all assassinated.So
if you link it up with this move that has happened
before,we are saying no to it.
Q: But all believe that (Umaru) YarAdua died of
illness.
A: No, no ,no.There are very ,very strong reasons to
believe that they just finished him up.He had a
terminal
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14:48:00
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