 Welcome back to The Breakfast here on PLOS TV Africa. Last month, the Northern Elders Forum released a communique calling for the restructuring of Nigeria. It followed the conclusion of a two-day Northern summit organised by the forum in Kaduna, and just yesterday, the Forum's Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Hakim or Dr. Hakim Baba Ahmed, called for the impeachment of President Muammar Ubuwari over Nigeria's security situation. We're joined this morning by Dr. Baba Ahmed to look at the state of the nation. Alright, we seem to have lost him briefly. We're going to connect with him in a bit and get to talk about, you know, all of this, you know, that is going on. We hope it's going to be a very interesting conversation. There's so much we've already started with, of course, getting a clearer picture of what it is like in Northern Nigeria. Alright, once again, good morning to Dr. Baba Ahmed. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. You're welcome. Alright, you, of course, is one of the things that we shared in the news this morning, your call for President Muammar Ubuwari to be impeached, citing the security challenges Nigeria is currently dealing with. So let's quickly start from there. Why do you think so? And what's your argument with regards to the calling for the President's impeachment? Well, we have to understand the comment of the impeachment of the President. Okay, since we lost contact again with Dr. Ahmed, we'll try to reconnect with him and continue this conversation. But really, this is one that must be had. Twenty-three elections is drawing nearer and the policy seems to be, you know, heated with conversations regarding the President, his performance in the past, you know, years in government. And one more in a statement we've seen from groups like this is saying that the presidency does not even deserve to rule the country for the next two years. And, you know, they backed this up with their claims of just what the statistics are saying regarding insecurity. We saw in the news just last week as to how many people have been kidnapped in the country within just these two months and how many people have been killed by Boko Ramteris. This is just a new year, first quarter of the year. And we've seen students being kidnapped. Conversations about the release of Greenfield University seems to be dying down. We have not made headway so far regarding the release of the students. So these conversations must be had regarding security of Nigerians, welfare of the people, how much has the government accomplished, you know, with his time in power, promising change and promising to, you know, just take us, you know, from where we were to where we need to be. So these assessments really must be made. We have Dr. Ahmed back with us. Good morning again. I was saying that I made the issue of impeachment came in the context of discussing the options that are available to the country at the moment. And one of them is obviously that the President Buhari, that as a leader, he cannot lead the country through its current challenges and difficulties. And this is borne by the evidence on the ground. He has consistently failed to lead the military and law and order institutions, intelligence institutions to find a way out of insecurity. If he fails to do that, a whiteboard impeachment, when they present and if or what the president did or formed some key functions of his office. And there are a lot of with each of the offices. The third one is that we increased the pressure on Borne Assembly and the President to try and see to prove their responses to our problems. And the last one, the national elite. Organizes activities that are within the law. And try and see if we can provide options, if we can provide looking, if we can prepare for the future, rather than just on our hands and wait for two years for President Buhari to leave the country. Because the bad things are going, we could actually lose the country in the next two years. Quickly, what signs do you see that tell that we, Mandra may not survive the next two years? Well, as I said, one is a radical threat to the government. I don't see that on the horizon. If they could change anything, they would have changed it. This is an administration that is chronically resistant to change, both the president and those who support him, including people who support him in the future. They don't believe that we should change the way they govern, quickly, before the nation has a problem. But it's still there, it's a hope. Second one is that more of the elite, more of the young people, more of the people who are concerned that the rules came in on us, should organize legitimately and legally to put pressure on our leaders to do the needful. Everybody should play the roles that they're supposed to play. Those who should consult with each other should consult. Those who should bring down the temperature should do so. Those who should exercise their constitutional duties to put pressure on them. And at all costs, we must avoid the situation where we are set against each other. That appears to be what is happening, whether it's part of the game plan to divert attention from the failures of the administration, or whether it is to play to a different clip where communities are fighting each other, the North is fighting the South, the East is fighting the South. Whatever, we must avoid playing into the hands of people who just want to make sure it works, and you require political parties. This is where a major weakness of the country is showing. Our tools do not appear to recognize the fact that the major role in terms of what happens now, all that we is just planning to grab power again. You have to wonder what they're going to do with this power. By the time they get to the country, they would have destroyed it themselves. They would have destroyed each other, and they would still be clamoring to govern this country. So that's a gap. So there's a lot that needs to be done. What we must not do is simply say, the country is in trouble, there's nothing we can do. So let's create something that can be done. Dr. Ahmed, flashing our minds back to 2015, we know how the Northern Elders Forum supported and endorsed President Mohammed Buhari to run for presidency. A spokesman of the NEF at that time, Ango Abdelahi, mentioned that the North to deserve the chance to produce the next president of the country, and that President Mohammed Buhari should be voted for. Years later, the NEF has switched gears. Why? What changed? I'm sorry for a reason. Your question wasn't very clear, but as I understand what you're saying, our convener now, Professor Ango Abdelahi, was then playing the role I'm playing now, supported President Mohammed Buhari. We all did. They held us forum and a lot of groups in the country, in the North. We supported President Buhari because we believed it was likely we were going to do better than President Jonathan. We saw President Jonathan was soft on security, was soft on corruption. We didn't see the kind of forum, decisive leadership that we needed to fight Boko Haram at its formative stages. And we supported President Buhari. We campaigned for President Buhari in the country outside the country. There's no reason to regret that. We reflect on the basis of what we saw in the best interest of the country. However, it wasn't long before we realized that we just might have made a mistake. President Buhari appears more in power than in using power. Look at these difficulties. And it turns out that he appears to have achieved his objective. He contested for power in 2003. He didn't get it in 2011. He didn't get it. Not elected in 2015. Nigerian Spaniards said, yes, we'll give you a chance for that. And he appears to have drawn a line there. So that he had become president. No problem of Nigeria was worthwhile in his time. We didn't see that energy, that focus, that competence, that weakness that we had hoped to be applied to the president's governance. We saw a slow, indecisive, cumbersome governance. No new ideas. No competent hands around helping to push the country through the difficulties that we had. So we didn't see good ideas coming to work. All right. Dr. Amid, if you admit that in 2015, the NEF had, you know, canvassed for, you know, votes and asked the people of the North in Nigeria to vote for President Muhammad al-Buhari. He came into power. We also saw how, you know, criticism of the, by the NEF of the president, you know, how he took about six months to, you know, put his cabinet together. And now you say, yes, that was a mistake. Do you think now calling for the president to be in pitch can fix that wrong? Well, look, and let me remind you, I think that our gaps in your history, pardon me for saying, in 2019, we actually campaigned against the president. 2015, 2014, 2015, we campaigned for him. After four years of his first term, he wanted to be re-elected. We assessed him. And we told Nigeria's, we didn't think President Muhammad should be passed that too, with another four years. We foresaw the possibility that things were likely to get worse. And we told Nigeria openly, and we said many times when we gave our facts. And we warned Nigeria not to elect President Muhammad, but they did. We started in the second term and things got considerably as we moved on. And that's where we are now. We have exercised other constitutionals, but one of them is an impeachment. People worry about impeachment because it's a project to redeeming. And they forget the fact that the people who drew up our constitution had foreseen this possibility. For many reasons, a president could be unable to exercise his ability. We even had a president who died and was succeeded by another one. However, a president could commit impeachable crimes and be impeached. It's not an ideal recession. It is simply that those who drew the constitution recognized that a president is a human being. He could make mistakes. He could commit crimes. And there could be reasons why he shouldn't continue to be in office. So we are not asking for anything out of the constitution. It's not an illegal thing. Yes, it's unusual. But look, we are living in unusual times. Everything about Nigeria has been unusual. But living in a country no one, no one ever anticipated the last 10 to 15 years we would ever see. So we believe that this is the right way to go. We didn't just bring up the impeachment. All right. I want you to speak. What is the choice? The president will go into... Apologies. I want you to speak with regards, maybe a completely different opinion that other northern bodies, for example, the Muslim rights concern, Miriq, we've spoken with Professor Ishak Akintala on this platform. And Miriq seems to be on the side of the government and supports its decisions. For example, with the decision to stand by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Issa Pantami. So I want you to speak with regards that. Is Miriq and the Nigerian Northern Rather Elders Forum, you in the same on the same page with regards the direction Nigeria is going and also Issa Pantami's controversy? Well, Miriq is an independent organization. It makes its own minds about national events and it's free to express its opinion on them. We don't compete with Miriq. We don't have much of a relationship. On the Issa Pantami issue, we haven't made a position clear because we really didn't believe that there was enough on the ground to say how it affects the North and how it affects the rest of the country. We literally followed the uproar about what he was supposed to have said 10, 15 years ago. We observed his reaction to those comments. We observed the President's comments about that. Our position would be that if the Minister has actually committed crimes or transgressions that are inconsistent with this position, then people should make them available and the law should take its course. If it hasn't, then they should just leave them out to do his work. What I think is sad about the issue is that the manner it was done, people created the ethnic and religious context in it which made it impossible to really sift the facts from the passions to just get a Minister out of office. These kind of things happen and they just simply muddle the waters. All right, so Dr. Ahmed, looking ahead regarding the 2023 election, what is the nod and else from saying about this? Is there any endorsement of any candidate in view? What exactly is the NEF looking forward for 2023? What we're looking for is a situation where the country comes to terms with the fact that it needs a leadership from 2023 that is radically different from the current leadership. It must be a leadership made up of Nigerians who recognize the fact that they must address insecurity, they must address a crumbling economy. Our economy is actually crumbling. I don't know how much it will hold. With almost great, almost strong certainty, we will end up paying close to 250 Naira per liter by the end of this year or next year. That is based on facts and on the projections. Revenue revenues are dwindling, cost of living is going up, insecurity is going up. So we need a politician or politicians who will operate with a sense of mission, a sense of emergency under the recognition of the fact that the country has to be stitched back. So for 2023, Dr. Ahmed, NEF, one like 2015 is not saying the 2023 president has to be from the north. NEF could be supporting someone from the south-south-south-east. We're saying it should be an Nigerian who recognizes the fact that he has to represent everybody's interest. Just coming from one part of the country does not qualify someone to be a good president. In fact, on the contrary, it can be a deterrent. I mean, it can be an liability. People may think, okay, I represent the north and therefore I'm only going to protect northern interests. I represent the east and therefore I'm going to see if it is possible to de-emphasize identity, regional grouping, ethnic, religious identity. Those kind of things partly what brought us here. A lot of people voted for President Bahari, especially here in the north, because he was northern, because he was Muslim, and look at where we are now. And even Nigerians haven't learned the setbacks to this tendency to ethnicize leadership. Then I don't know when I'm going to learn anything. We must run away from this. And we are at this stage where we are not going to get involved in this north. It must come from the north. It must come from the south. But we are also not going to accept what appears to be a blackmail against the north unless you guys concede at this stage that the leadership must move to the southern. There will be more trouble for northerners in the southern part of the country. That's a very dangerous game to play. What is sad is we don't see any of these two parties addressing the issue of quality leadership rather than power grabbing. That is going to be major setback for the country. Just before you go, is there any parts of the last six years that you might say that the government has done well enough and might be considered as a plus with regards to retaining the current of all the APC or whoever else in 2023? Look, when you say things like where the government has done, governance is not judged on the basis of performance in one area and must failure in others. You assess governance in a holistic context. That's why even the constitution identified two things that says this is the sole purpose of a government, security cities, and addressing their welfare. On these two scores, we haven't seen anything that this government has done in the last six years that gives us confidence that the party, if they continue the way they are going, the APC stands any chance of being elected again in 2023. Now talking about that, we also don't see the PDP preparing to assume responsibility where the APC fails because all we see is infighting in the two parties. They are playing the same old game in spite of the fact that there are new challenges they are being faced. And the two parties together don't give Nigeria's hope that they will provide the kind of leadership we need post 2023. We've made terrible mistakes in this country, and one of them is that the dominance of these two parties from 1999 to date, one has literally brought the country to its knees. The other one is finishing off. The nation needs options. The nation needs alternatives. And the nation needs a new brand of leadership. If it has to come from the two parties, fine. Otherwise, it should come from another party or another group of parties. But Nigeria cannot continue to play the same game that they are playing at this stage. It cannot be the same. All right, Dr. Amid, lots of Nigerians do agree that there's a definite need for a thought force and alternative to the two ruling parties. But only time will indeed tell. Dr. Amid Babah, thank you very much. You're the spokesperson or the director of publicity and advocacy for the Northern Elders Forum. Thanks for your thoughts on the breakfast this morning. Thank you. We're going to break here. Yes, and we'll come back to talk about the big issue right now, COVID-19 and the new restrictions that the federal government has imposed to stay with us.