 Thanks for joining us on PLOS Politics, the most popular name in the last couple of days, Issa Pantami. The presidency declares its support for the minister. And, what exactly is the security implication of the embattled minister staying in office? I am Osaogye Ogboa, and this is PLOS Politics. Welcome once again to PLOS Politics here on PLOS TV Africa. The presidency has finally made known its stand as regards calls for the embattled communications minister, Issa Pantami, to step down or be sacked. In his statement, Garba Shehu said President Buhariya's administration stands behind minister Pantami and all Nigerian citizens to ensure they receive fair treatment, fair prices and fair protection in ICT services. He also said the administration would commence an investigation into allegations that some businesses were behind the attacks on the minister. Joining us to discuss this is political analyst and, of course, a legal practitioner, Byron Fagmeu. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. All right, so I'll start with, you know, there's been numerous reactions since the message from Garba Shehu came in, late yesterday evening. I want to get yours. There's people who agree with the presidency and agree with Garba Shehu. And then there's those who say that Nigeria has made a huge mistake with taking a stand like that. What are your own thoughts? Well, the issue is very sad, but seems to be playing out or confirming the fears of many Nigerians that were not, that were concerned about our president, President Buhari and his government. There have been also allegations in the past about extremism, about religious bias, about challenges in capacity to understand the issues and, you know, the deliberate exclusion of certain Nigerians based on both ethnicity and religion and general bias. And this playing out appears to be confirming this. The issues against Pantami is not an attack on a person. It is considering the fact that you have a minister of the federal government in charge of one of the most sensitive responsibilities, which requires absolute openness, transparency and patriotism. Now, in the cause of his performing those responsibilities, we've seen that national identity, the implementation of the NIM has affected commerce, has affected demographics, and there is evidence that non-nationals are beginning to benefit from this. It was in the midst of this that facts emerged that Pantami was, had demonstrated in the past and there is still evidence as he is conducting his ministerial responsibilities that he's, that he has an Islamist agenda, not only an Islamist, an extremely Islamist agenda, and that he will use his responsibilities to support Islamists, one religion against another. And one of the clear evidence of this was his being, he was patronizing with federal funds an online communication outfit that is purely and entirely religious. The implication of that is that money from the federal government is being, is funding Islamist organizations under the guise that we are buying airtime and promoting a federal government activity. Now all these moderate Muslims, those who understand that Nigeria is a circular government and millions and millions of Christians of course are concerned. Clearly the NIN process is at risk, it's under threats and people register that concern and the decent thing to do if there was no malvolent intention or if the quest for office was more interesting than the service to be delivered, Pantami should have resigned or at least stepped aside and this is what people are asking him to do. People are saying look we cannot trust you as a person who is representing the federal government of Nigeria with so much security data, considering your position to a great population in this country, considering your extreme positions, considering your past utterances that bother on criminality. So Nigerians are considering this, and I've asked him to resign. Now the federal government has come in, instead of seeing it as a legitimate allegation that should be investigated, they are seeing it as an attack on Pantami, as a personal attack on Pantami. Now I want to believe that the president does not understand what is going on at all. If it does, the question to ask Mr. President is that is this consistent with his vision for Nigeria? Is it a great time also to have a conversation about whether the president truly understands every single detail of what's going on in Nigeria or chooses to ignore? That is the first question I ask. I believe and I honestly believe that the president does not have an understanding. He does not know the implications of this. Mr. Fagmero, are you saying that? The implications are the sad thing is that he doesn't care. Yeah, so are you saying, you know, do you choose to believe that he doesn't understand because it's a safer belief than agreeing or admitting that he maybe understands and, you know, the possibility of him being in on the same or with the same ideologies. Is that scary? You see, that is, it is most scary, but for me, for a person like me, it was predictable and it was a foreset. As you know, I took part in the last elections and a number of other people had registered. General Buhari, you know, we, you know, he's well known, his position, he has not changed in terms of ideology and his emphasis and his preference, which since 1984. So that's why I'm asking, but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt of not understanding on account of number one, his age. Secondly, on account of the fact that he claimed to have been a converted Democrat, it's a combination of the two. So the only condition which he may not understand what is going on is because of probably the loss of certain capacities and the fact that there is deliberate misinformation around him. Otherwise, we must have to admit that it is consistent with his vision. The second point I made was that is this his vision? And I think somebody should ask and the president himself must answer, is this the vision you had for Nigeria? What is the vision? How come that we have this now? It appears that, you know, if you have people like Pantami in government, you will never win the war against Buhari. You will never win the war against his wife. You will never win the war against Islamic terrorism. And Nigeria will collapse as a secular country. All right. So I want to ask another has control over the NIN has control over the demographics. Yeah. I want to ask another another question. Hold on, Mr. Fagmeru. I want to ask, maybe this should be my second, maybe scary question. So do these things that you're saying also, you know, is there a possibility that there is more than one Issa Pantami in the current Nigerian government? From your analysis, if the analysis, the president may not be aware. Everything is networked. The entire government is networked. And when policies are to be implemented, they are always implemented multidimensionally. Even a policy that is negative, if policy, for example, like the Islamization of Nigeria has to be conducted in collaboration with a number of sectors, sectors that determine. All right. We seem to have lost Byron Fagmeru there. I hope that we can reconnect with him. The conversation really is on the program this evening is on the president's and the presidency's response to the conversation surrounding Issa Pantami. Byron Fagmeru, welcome back. I guess we can have, you know, go ahead, please. So what I'm saying, in essence, is that the any policy to be implemented has to be implemented within a multitude of sectors. A policy, for example, for a negative, because we are in that realm and we have to talk about it. The threat now is a policy to Islamize Nigeria. It has to be run concurrently with sections of the government that deal with registration, that deal with internal security, that deal with intelligence. You see, that deal with enumeration. That deal with internal affairs and that deal with migration. You see, because the attack is on the demographics. Now that is a clear policy. And so you will have somebody who has to partner with Pantami in somewhere else, in some of the ministries that are related to this. And I tell you, we've had this Boko Haram struggle for a while, extremely struggle for a while. And, you know, from the Boko Haram maturing to the Banditry experience to the Healthman experience, they said, by thy fruits, you shall know that the objective of Boko Haram, for example, is to make sure you shut down schools, shut down Western education. But what is the effect of Banditry? Schools are being shut down. What is the effect of invaders of husband and villages? Schools have been shut down. And now you're having someone we've discovered in our federal cabinet that has confessed that this is his agenda. Now, he's told us he has changed, but the gentleman who did the investigation proved to us that even while as a minister, he's patronizing extreme Islamic media vehicles, even using state funds. How do we explain that? You see, so I want to believe that the president does not understand the full implications of this, because it goes directly against the point of office. Kindly hold on, Mr. Fagmaru. I want to bring in Wali Ogunwadi, who just joined us. I think I would like him to pick up from that last point you made the benefit of doubt that the president may not understand the implications or may not be fully aware of the implications of taking a stand like that. So, Mr. Ogunwadi, thank you for joining us. Thank you, my brother. How are you? Fantastic. So, let's hear from you. Your co-anchor, co-speaker there, says that President Mamdoubari may not be fully aware of the implications of the Nigerian government taking a stand like that. Do you agree with that possibility? And what's also your reaction to the defense from Garbashi? Well, Garbashi will always talk like that. So, we are not surprised because he is man Friday to the president. He is to always be the attack dog. And to that extent, to always talk, he doesn't see anything wrong with whatever the government does. And this is a very big issue. And I have always been surprised the way Boko Haraman, all these extremists have been working, having classified information and working with classified information of government, including how troops moved in those dangerous areas. So, we now know where it has come from. And for somebody in the name of Garbashi, to now be saying that the president is comfortable or not, that maybe there are some double personality. I don't think so, because I'm aware that before anybody assumes any office in this country, even at a local government level, a check is thrown on him by the director of the Department of State Security. And they have a list and a profile of everyone who is everybody in this country. And so for the president to tell us that this personality is unknown and the accidents are unknown is a big error. And that can be given to us because we know that the issue of sentiments and nepotism have taken the right of this. And I refer the government, particularly the presidency, to section 10 of the 1999 constitution, which forbid anybody sponsoring or using state resources for a particular religion. And to that extent, I want the government to come out clean on this. This one has come upon and in one of the interviews, the man indeed confirmed that, yes, that was in his past. And I don't see how his past cannot continue to haunt him because all of us must come out clean and not come out clean. Obviously, it's an error that will affect the future. And that's what we are seeing. And that's what we are seeing. And I can show you that if the DSS will dig deep, I want to divulge more than that. If the DSS will dig deep into this man, you will find that, indeed, there is a whole lot of connection, contact, and a ringman between them and these people. All right. I want you to also speak with regards to the response of the presidency and the picture that they have tried to paint, that this is, like you said, in Issa Pantami's past. Do you think that that is also in line with the Nigerian government's positioning? If you remember, they've also had deradicalization campaigns and reintegration of ex-Bukoharam and forgiven Bukoharam and forgiven terrorists into the system. So do you think this is also in line with that same ideology that people could be terrorists in the past, but when they decide to pull down their weapons and be deradicalized, they can be forgiven and reintegrated into society? Is that what the current Nigerian government is saying as their own ideology? Yes, that's their ideology, and we now know who is pushing their ideology forward. And there's no other person who is pushing it forward than Issa Pantami. Issa is just it because this is a group that has caused a lot of havoc on this country. And of course, I would just push it to that a banditry has been pushed by Gumi. These things are things going whatever is bad. We are straight forward on this. Whatever is bad is bad. There is no other name. If people who have committed heinous crime as this are now said yes, that they should now be integrated into the military or the system, security system by the past, then obviously it's a big error because we know that they will become a tongue code. They will turn around. That I know for sure. And to me, it's a dangerous idea and it's a policy that should be discarded. And I know we have discussed it before that this policy should not fly and should not be allowed in the Nigerian system. And it shouldn't because it is, it will put it put in danger for the nation called Nigeria. And that's why I can assure you that it is encouraging all these calls for self-determination by the Europas in the middle belt and even the southeasterners. But again, that would be another discussion for another day. But mark my word. What I've just said about the government not keeping this issue in the board and taking it to listically looking at it, non-partisan. Because partisanship has really caused us a whole lot of problems in this country. And the earlier we start moving against partisanship in this country, the better. Government is government and government is for all. Not for some section and not for a religion and not for a people. It is for all. And it's for the betterment and the best interest of everybody. That government must work in the interest of everyone. Because a section 12, section 14 of 1999 constitution provides that security, sorry, section 12, security and welfare of the people not of a section, not of a tribe, not of a religion. The constitution is definite on this mandate of government and those who hold instruments and levers of government. And that they must do to the people. And of course, when they were taking the out of office, what they do was an allegiance to the federal republic of Nigeria. Not an allegiance, taking an allegiance to their tribe, to their section, onto their people or even to their family. It is to the federal republic. And whatever it is about the federal republic, it must be something that will be done without any form of sentiment, without any form of bias. Bias is there. And that's why we see what is happening. All right. I'm going back to Byron Fagmeiru. I'm going to share with you and of course in reaction to Mr. Aguade's statements, Aisha Yesufu was on social media today and she may mention that the presidency is an institution and it's not dependent on Garbacheu or Femi-Addition or anybody. It is an institution that should represent something that should stand against terrorism entirely. But Byron Fagmeiru, I want you to react to this. Twitter user, it's pretty popular, Chetan Waze tweeted. It says, whether people realize it or not, something died in Nigeria yesterday, something that had been holding on to its dear life for a long time. Does that make sense to you? And do you agree with that? You see, I absolutely agree with that. Something happened. For me, it's like someone took a pot of, you know, a clay pot that belonged to everybody and smashed it on the floor. You see, now it appears that all pretenses are off. We have seen clearly that the extremist forces, they've been in government for a very long time, but now they've been caught, they've been exposed, which is consistent with the prayers of many that those who make Nigeria, those who are enemies of Nigeria, enemies of the people, enemies of peace, enemies of justice that may God expose them. And to be honest, that is what has happened. I'm only giving the president the benefit of the doubt because he is the president. And I've given him the president that he does not know. But the vice president knows. The vice president of this country knows exactly what is happening. Well, Byron Fagmere, it doesn't... The president of the Senate, they speak out the house, they know. Yeah, I was just going to mention that. The minister of internal affairs knows. Yeah, Byron Fagmere, we need to wrap it up here. I was just going to mention that saying that the president is not aware as benefit of doubt doesn't make anybody feel safer. He should know every single detail of what's going on in Nigeria. Some of these things, there's nothing that should be kept from him. But thank you very much, Byron Fagmere and Wali Ogunwadi, for sharing your views with us on the program this evening. I truly appreciate it. Thanks for your time. Thank you very much for having us. Absolutely. Thank you for staying with us. We'll take a short break and when we return, we discuss the security implications of the minister staying in office. We'll be right back.