 Thanks for staying with us. It's still a breakfast on Plus TV Africa. And right now we're looking at another headline that is Ghandu J. To be arraigned on bribery charges in Kano. Remember, Ghandu J. is a former governor of Kano State. And he was the reason that we had what we used to call the Ghandola. And we didn't hear much about that case. But right now the Kano State government is trying to probe what he did while he was the state governor of Kano State. Even some people have come up to say that a lot of other people needs to be probed. But this is the immediate one and the governor is interested in this. So we have, as I guessed, the National Spokesperson Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP, or CUP as some people call it. Comrade Mark Adebayo. Good morning and welcome to the program, Comrade Adebayo. Good morning and good morning viewers. Back at the Salah. Same to you. And Ghandu J, who is the current National Chairman of APC, is going to be probed for what he did while in office in Kano State. Well, thank you so much. The first thing I want to say is that all Nigerians are aware that corruption in the body politic of Nigeria is a cancer. It's a malignant cancer that has divided all manner of attempts to stop it, to reign it in. And that is because of institutional failures. I had your immediate, the other guest before I came on talking about EFCC being a post-mortem organization. I agree 100% with him. You know, oftentimes the EFCC acts like the typical Nigerian traffic controller, the traffic police. Here in Lagos, you see the last mile of traffic police, they will go and hide somewhere, allow you, allow the driver to commit a traffic offense, and then they will now jump into the front, or they will start posturing the car with the possibility of even getting accident while they are posturing it. Rather than prevention, you see somebody who wanted to make a wrong turn, rather than telling the person, look, we can't go that way, this is the way to go, you go and hide somewhere, allow that person to commit that traffic offense, and then you begin to pursue the person. And then, pursuing the person is just for your own personal gain, because the collaborator of the person allows you to go. And that is the same way that EFCC has been leaving. They do not believe in the principle of prevention is better than cure. But of course, it's not necessarily, it's not totally absolutely the fault of the EFCC. Because we have an organization that is called NFIU, Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit. That is the organization, that's the agency, principally responsible for monitoring financial transactions, movement of funds and rest of that, including issues that have to do with money laundry and go. You understand? That is the, that Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit is principally and fundamentally responsible for the easy intelligence to the other corruption agencies like the EFCC and ICPs. Of course, the EFCC and the ICPs need to have their own intelligence units that are supposed to be monitoring. And that is why it bothers one that before there is going to be an issue, if someone, a central bank governor, if he could sit over a heavy and unprecedented corruption corporation for so long, to the tune of trillions of naira and dollars, and then nobody did anything to him, while he was in office. He didn't have immunity, the civilian governor doesn't have immunity. So, with that Nigeria issue, it goes a long way to tell you. Look at 2017, that issue, you know, that viral video. We are going to do, we only become gandola and was put in, you know, millions of mint dollars into Isibabariga and into some envelope. That was 2017, December, around December 1, 2017. That thing happened. Buari was the president then. Buari was, who purportedly came to fight a corruption. He looked at the, he was interviewed, he was asked a question about Ganduji, that you are supposed to be an anti-corruption president, but what is happening about Ganduji? The president loves, he loves it all. He said, I don't know the kind of technology they used to project Ganduji in that manner. Didn't Ganduji have aids and code that he could use to go and collect, but why would he be collecting them? So, the president dismissed it as a joke. And once that happened, what do you expect the EFCs to do? The EFCs didn't do anything about it, because the president had already said, and then put a lie to it that it was not real, that it was more or less like a kind of a cloning of a video. So, what did you expect the EFCs to do? The EFCs is under the purview of the authority of the Attorney General of the Federation. So, they couldn't have done something against the interest or the opinion of the president. Who fights corruption and says and comes to defend, and comes to defend corruption. And that was the one legacy for you. And the EFCs, in most cases, as we have discovered, your immediate past case spoke about a case lying for 10 years without the EFC as much as doing anything about it. That is it. Until they have political prompting, when they want to victimize and persecute an individual, probably a former governor, a former minister, it is when they want to politically persecute someone. That is when you see the EFCs going on overdrive, because they have instructions from above to go after this particular individual, to go after this particular person. That is when you see them working on overdrive to make sure they persecute, to make sure they arrest, to make sure they detain, to make sure they blackmail and do everything against one particular individual. The corruption that they supposedly fight in Nigeria is a kind of political corruption. It has been politicized. The operations and activities of the EFC, you know, often have been politicized. And then when you see them going after a former governor in the very bold manner and the rest of that, because there is a political interest from the power that be to prosecute that person, maybe that person serves as the kind of political interest to them, then they go after the person. And I must commend the cannot say government. Why? How do I mean? You know, we have been clamoring and advocating for a disambiguation. The EFCs and other anti-corruption agencies need to be on good good. Each state must have its own anti-corruption agency to be able to deal with the issues of corruption in within their state. Because if you are going to make some time to use the EFCs to, you can see that when the ambassador was in power, he used the EFCs to impeach and impeach the governors who are not doing his bidding. No, you know, that kind of thing cannot be allowed to continue. There must be a disambiguation. The EFCs must be on good good. Let EFCs and ICPCs, thank God the president said that they are managing it together. Let them deal with issues that have to do with federal corruption cases. Let states and corruption agencies deal with their own corruption issues. So that the federal government does not use the federal might to continue to oppress states. We operate a federal system. We have constitutional federalism as a country, which you allow that to happen. This idea of allowing... Imagine if you consider the EFCs could not even go after Gandhi. But now, the current state anti-corruption agency has the confidence to go after him now. Whether we appear in court on 17th or not, is left to be seen. But if he doesn't, some of us are at the level of the opposition and at the level of the civil society organizations that are coming after them because they need to do what they need to do. The current state government is now helping the federal government to do what they refuse to do. And that is why it is necessary in order to remove the partiality, in order to remove the persecution, in order to remove the political victimization of either president of former public office orders who might seem not to be the good books of the people in power. And then you go after them. Everybody is clamoring for state police now. Let each state also have its own anti-corruption agency. The legal state government has passed the national state assembly and I think the government has ascended to it for legal state anti-corruption agency. We have not been established today. I think the legal state government needs to tell us why they have not done that. Because it is necessary for each state to have their own. Look at what is happening inside for the state now. The current administration of the state has indicted the immediate past government of their state. Who is now the current minister of state for defense? It is pathetic when people have corruption allegations or indictment on them and then you go ahead to appoint them into sensitive political offices in the country. It is such a shame, it is quite unfortunate. But I do hope that the issue of WJ would be laid to rest by proper prosecution at the court of competent jurisdiction because that is the law in Kano state and that law stands for that state and whoever has been caught to have promptly enriched himself or herself in that state. Look at what is happening in this issue. We have a former governor, his wife, his son or something. A whole family and friends, all of them now are being taught to have engaged in this corruption issue because we are talking about a bribery that $5 million video that went viral and then they are talking about some contract fraud and the rest of that amount of things. 500 billion error, he left 500 billion error debt for the current administration in Kano state. How do we expect the country to progress? Now it is the national shaman of the ruling party and these cases are not cases for today or yesterday or the day before yesterday. These are cases of three, four, five years that these things have been in public view but the past administration refused to do anything about it and then the current administration ensured that this man had become the national shaman of the ruling party. You know, you remember a phenomenon, a trend that was happening during the Guari administration. It really came into power. You saw that people that had either been addicted or a legion of corruption started moving into the APC. They began to move en masse into the APC, including the government. Hoping that they would be protected by the powers of the incovency and to a large extent they succeeded in getting away with so many things. They got away with so many infractions, so many corruption allegations. So there are pending allegations for over three years now that EFCC has abandoned but they are going after people they have been giving authorization to go and pass it to them. Nigerians are just wondering because you said for EFCC to behave like that, to go after somebody like the same in the local communities that when a small boy confronts you in the early morning know that an elder is somewhere backing him up. Otherwise he cannot talk to you the way he's talking to you. So now if we talk about EFCC being political, do you think this is an exercise that will come to fruition or it is an exercise in futility and we are wasting our time. We should move to something else that is better. He's the chairman of the ruling EFCC. Do you think anything will come out of this? You see, I just hope that the current state government will have the courage to go the overall about this matter and refuse to be cowed and refuse to be intimidated and refuse to be dissuaded from going ahead with this. We need to know the truth. We need to call it closure on this issue. So there must not be unnecessary political intervention from the field argument on this matter. It needs to go and answer to these allegations about him. So, yes, the Nigerian way, one is not totally optimistic about the fact that maybe something will come out of this but since it is the current state government that is handling this matter, I am sure that we use every instrumentality and improvement of the law to make sure to get to him because also that the public pressure, like I told you, the civil society will not be silent. Your position, parties will not keep quiet. It's necessary and important that we focus on everybody now to ensure that Gandhi goes and answers to those allegations that have been levied against him. The question now is does the state have that kind of power? Because you were just advocating EFCC to be in every state some kind of independence for the state EFCC as it is. So now that it has not happened that way, do you think with all the arsenal that Canada State might have, they can pull that off? This is our country where you find a governor winning at the Supreme Court and then even the opposition party coming out to congratulate and thank the president for not intervening, for not influencing the judgment, which means they know that it is a possibility and these things happen. And they were saying, oh, thank you, Mr. President, for not influencing it. I say, I mean, who does that? If the law has given someone the right to be whatever he is, then why are you coming to tell us that it could have been influenced by the president? Which means there's something fundamentally wrong that makes Nigerians to just look at it and say, will anything good come out of it? Because right now we have had some organizations coming to say, now you want to probe Ghanduji, probe all other governors that have come even before Ghanduji, that is on the other side now. So we are having opposition and the people for and against and all that. So if we are wasting our time, shouldn't we just move on to something else? You see, the good thing about all these things is that NMPP is the party in power in Karnu state. So it becomes very difficult for anybody to influence them otherwise, to influence the current governor otherwise. What I do know that Ghanduji might try to do. In fact, it is surprising, I was telling a friend, I called a friend in Karnu this morning, I messaged him that. He said, let me get going to Karnu to celebrate the future because I don't see him going to Karnu anytime soon. If you understand what I mean, because that is one good thing about this because he knows that he does not. He cannot move freely in Karnu state now. It's not like I would be surprised if he goes home to celebrate the future. So, you see the opposition parties of figures who are thanking the president for not intervening in their election and the rest of that, whatever the investigation they had. You know, in the euphoria of future, sometimes people misdrive, they just say things. I think it's in the euphoria of the moment that somebody will say that. It's the president supposed to intervene in the legal judicial process at all, whatever. But this also shows you, I mean, I'm not going to defend that because it shows you how our facade, our socio-political and judicial system has been. It's quite unfortunate because it shows. If somebody says that it shows that the president has the capacity to influence the outcome of the judicial process. And then we have to turn the president for letting go, for not doing. I mean, it's quite unfortunate. It's quite funny peculiar. It's part of the role in our socio-political system that we need to. It's part of the chaos element within the political system of the country called Nigeria. But you see, something like EFCC would not have been, would have had the temerity to go after Nigeria. The way the counter-state anti-colonial agency has gone after him. Because it is chairman of the ruling party. But now the beauty of it is that we have a state anti-colonial agency saying that we need to reinvestigate, we have reinvestigated, we have our facts, we have our evidence. It needs to be persecuted, it needs to face the law. And that's how it should be. That's how it should run. Because, you know, the beauty of democracy is that one party cannot perpetuate itself in power. If your party will defend you, another party will come tomorrow that is coming to open the books, open your file and it will go after you. That is the beauty of democracy. That is the beauty of law. That is the beauty of the mega-processes. That is the beauty of the rule of law. So I want to give... You will see that the state anti-colonial agencies will be more effective than the national one. That's why I said let the EFCC deal with... ...colonial matters that have to do with Federa, let them deal with their president, their ministers, the DGs and everything of federal government, ministries and power, citizens and agencies. And let the state deal with... Because when you give the state their monthly allocation is their money. It is their money. The Federa government has no right to dictate to the state how they manage their money, how they administer their money. Because, like I said, they use that. And unfortunately, you see that where a governor steals money from the state and that money is recovered. It is not returned to that state too. Sometimes, you know, you see that there will be banter between the Federa government and the state. You say, no, this is our money. The money you have recovered should be returned to our state. You know, I'm sure you have seen that before. The Federa government has no right to cover the government money. But the Federa government has to come at us and say, okay, well, all the money is stolen by a bachelor that we are recovering. We are also disreputing to the state. Of course, we don't have any evidence of how their bachelor route has been managed. What we are hearing is that the route has been re-arranged. So, unfortunately, let the Federa government deal with the level of the Federa government, whatever corruption allegations or issues or incidences or crimes that have been committed at the level of the government, let the EFCC and EFCC deal with that. Let every state have their own anti-cultural agencies to deal with local issues, to deal with their own local state issues so that there is no incident of political persecution that the president, your president, you say this person is a political enemy. This governor belongs to the opposition. Even within their own party, anybody that has fallen out of favor, they send the EFCC after them. So, the gossips, the gossips with which he goes after some individuals, sometimes you just say, no, no, no, no. This is the real corruption issues that we abandon those ones and go after probably people who have even done very well in office just because those ones are falling out of favor with you. For the sake of political correctness. And that is not how to fight corruption. What do I think? Everybody clearly used to believe that this man, because of our experiences in 1985, how he did it and everything, he was coming to reform the country, he was coming to fight corruption. We couldn't have been more wrong. We couldn't have been more wrong. This was a man. I mean, I don't know. Hopefully, we are not seeing anything too much different in the current dispensation. No, no. I was just saying, okay, because I was taking your final word. Maybe the lessons that we need to learn from here, with this probe of Ganduja, that he's going to be arraigned, the former governor and current chairman of APC, what lessons can we learn here? What can we build on as time goes on as we wrap up on the show? First and foremost, I want to encourage his excellency, former governor Ganduja, to be a man of honor. He has been invited to be a man of honor and go and defend himself in court. One of the lessons we should learn from this is that, number one, we know that corruption is building this country. We have to keep corruption. Number two is that the lessons we are learning is that the corruption agencies unfortunately are not doing what the consistency they should do. What they are doing is they are doing the political beating of those in power, which is very, very unfortunate. They are persecuting people that are putting out of political force and they should not be doing that. Another lesson here is for Nigeria to know that we cannot see back and the complaining only about bad governance and corruption. We need to do something about it. We need to condemn it. We need to be active in their focusing against corruption. We need to be able to help people to account who we know that have resources and properties that are far beyond the parts of their offices. If you are on 200,000 era, as a local government councillor per month, well, you don't get money to buy a 2024 Range Rover. It must be a process of corruption. And we don't have to wait for the FCC before we get to shout and make noise and petition the agencies to go after him. Once they know that they have no ID placed with their loot, they will stop looting. That's the middle lesson for all of us as Nigerians, regular Nigerians, activists, politicians, and everybody that means well for this country. But we do know that where we are today, the suffering in the land, the hardship in the land, the economic backwardness in the land, the development backwardness in the land is majorly the responsibility of corruption and corrupt public office holders. We need to keep corruption so that it does not kill us, does not kill the future of our children. That is the collective responsibility, not just that of anti-corruption organizations. And we must stop the political persecution of innocent people. Okay. Thank you so much, Comrade, for being a part of our program and sharing your thoughts this morning with us. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. Yeah. We've been talking to Comrade Marc at the BIO National Spokesperson Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP, and we were looking at the fact that Ganduja will be arraigned on bribery charges in Kano. This is where we draw the curtain on today's program, and we're hoping that you are going to join us again tomorrow for another edition of the Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. Until then, I'd like to say barqad-i-salla to you, and see you tomorrow. My name is Nyam Gul Aghaji.