Dr. Farah Dagogo, former Rivers State governorship aspirant and member who represented Bonny/Degema Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, in this interview by GODWIN OKONKWO, gives his perspective on the controversy surrounding the position of Secretary national of the Popular Democratic Party. (PDP), federal budget for 2025 and other topics.
The Court of Appeal recently issued a ruling sacking Samuel Anyanwu as national secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), replacing him with Ude-Okoye. What is your opinion on the matter? Also, would you support the idea of the PDP forming alliances?
Let me join the majority in swimming with this tide. It is a welcome development. However, it's still not uhuru. I hope that all legal disputes will now be put to rest and the party will be allowed to make appreciable progress. As I said before, the root cause must be uprooted and treated completely. I have pointed out some of them recently. We can learn from it and find viable solutions. And that brings me to your follow-up question. The PDP has the capacity to lead the charge to unseat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) but will need the support of others who can be called alliance. The idea is to provide Nigerians with a viable alternative. Give them a better country than the one they live in now, improve their lives and alleviate their suffering, sorrow and anguish. The screams are loud, people want something different. And the PDP can deliver on that front. But the PDP has to put its house in order and show Nigerians that it can be trusted with the future of the country once again.
There are about two years left until the next electoral cycle and it is expected that all aspirations are germinating. Will he take on incumbent Governor Siminalayi Fubara or contest for a senatorial seat?
I am no stranger to this concern, as more often than not I have been inundated and bombarded with queries from friends, associates, followers, other people and also journalists. There is a time and season for everything. It is not yet ripe to talk about elections or things like that, especially with the suffering and hunger prevailing in the country. It would be quite insensitive. Rather, our common goal and focus should be how to support the government at all levels with the good intentions that will help spread development and improve the country's economy. Today we have a president and it is appropriate to support him and criticize constructively when necessary, according to the temperament of what the population is going through. We also have a governor in Rivers State and other states who need to be supported and criticized constructively.
Despite my ordeal and what transpired during and after the PDP gubernatorial primaries in Rivers State, I used my resources to canvass, support and vote for all the PDP candidates in that election. In my home area in Rivers State, the PDP won in all the contested seats. That shows the type of person who sacrifices personal interests or activities for interests that would be beneficial to everyone. As you correctly pointed out, the governor has the right of first refusal; That theory is also applicable to all incumbents who hold other elective positions under the party banner. However, there is a caveat, which comes down to the ability and connection of the individual or person competing against such incumbents, then you understand what you are up against and it would no longer be a public road.
You were very close to the late President Umaru Yar'Adua. Do you really believe that your tenure, in terms of performance, would have been a benchmark for other presidents if death had not cut short your presidency?
Absolutely! The late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua would have been the greatest Nigerian president of all time. But God, in his infinite wisdom, knows why his life and tenure had to be cut short. As a former governor of Katsina State, he understood the enormity of the job at hand and came fully prepared. His performances in his less than three years were stellar and unmatched in that duration. Let me start with my region, the Niger Delta. It came at the height of the region's struggle with the federal government. It must be recognized that it not only extinguished and nipped in the bud the then apparently intractable problems that were spreading throughout the volatile region. He went a step further in addressing the infractions the region had consistently suffered from the previous government, putting in place and implementing policies that eased those concerns. For the first time in its annals, the Nigerian government, through President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, admitted its part in the failure to develop a region that is the nation's revenue base but was left to rot, suffer absolute pollution and other environmental hazards. as a result of years of oil exploration and exploitation.
Not only did he limit himself to acknowledging that the government had turned a deaf ear to the cries of the region, but he also took the bull by the horns. He listened, reconciled all warring parties and pursued a genuine and sincere drive to achieve both human and economic prosperity and development for the region. He created a program through which thousands of young people traveled abroad for studies and vocational training. He breathed fresh air into the NDDC and his tenure also witnessed a rare revenue boom for Niger Delta governors. However, his achievements and comprehensive transformation of the government were not limited to the Niger Delta but also spread across the country. He judiciously followed his seven-point agenda: food security, wealth creation, transport sector, land reforms, security, power and energy, and education to the letter. Yar'Adua's Nigeria was on the path to economic sustainability, prosperity and boom. We were marching towards the Nigeria of our dreams before death struck us.
What is your view of the late president's personality from your perspective and what would you say was his most notable legacy?
The late President Umaru Yar'Adua was a good man who meant well for Nigerians and the country. He was not seeking personal aggrandizement! There was a communication number that he provided to me. Almost every midnight, he would call me on that line and share his dreams and visions for the Niger Delta and Nigeria in general. He told me with complete equanimity that none of the regions in the country would have accepted what the government had been doing in the Niger Delta without resorting to self-help and that was why he was very determined to right the wrongs of the past in his own small way. He was solemn and sober about it. We were in constant communication until a few months before I finally gave in to the powers of death. Even when death loomed, he never lost hope of contributing his quota to making Nigeria great and improving the lives of its citizens. The man was truly an enigma. he was remarkably unflappable despite the every-second challenges and chaotic circumstances that come with governing Nigeria. I was more focused on solutions.
Let me tell you something that happened when the then Team Aaron, created by the President to chart a course for the rapid development of the Niger Delta region, met him. I was the youngest member of that team under the Nobel Prize Chairman, Professor Wole Soyinka, which has as members Major General Luke Kakadu Aprezi (retd), former Chief of the General Staff, Vice Admiral Okhai Mike Akhigbe (retd), inter alia. . We were a team of 12 members. Remember, I told you before that he understood the enormity of his job as president and came prepared. He further demonstrated this in that meeting held in his private bedroom in Aso Villa. President Yar'Adua showed how motivated he was in the face of the Niger Delta debacle. He pulled out a ready-made map detailing his development plans. It was so eye-opening that we, Team Aaron, were flabbergasted. We were all amazed by that honest disposition of purpose displayed by the president. The president's plan was even more insightful and far-reaching than what Team Aaron was proposing.
At that time, a consensus was reached with the Aaron's team aligning with what was presented by the president. I just want you to understand how passionate the President was about the development of the Niger Delta. He didn't just trust that he had built a team, he stepped out of his busy schedule to see how he could contribute to their success. Everything was going well before the illness struck and ultimately led to his death. The late president is a man of honor whose words were his bond. I think one of his greatest legacies would also be the restoration of the hope of the common man in the judiciary.
Under his leadership, the courts regained their freedom, told the truth and dispensed justice in the true sense of it. The courts, without any burden, handed down verdicts that annulled political victories, even though their party, the PPD, was the loser. Of course, there were pressures and anguish among the faithful, who wanted some form of executive intervention and continuation of what was applicable in the eons. But President Yar'Adua, a man firmly committed to the principles of democracy, stood his ground. He was not vindictive as it did not take him long to release the over N10 billion of Lagos State local government councils funds withheld by his predecessor.
Speaking of economic growth and development, as a former state and federal legislator, what is your opinion on President Bola Tinubu’s 2025 budget of N49.7 trillion?
The basics and breakdowns have been in the public domain. Simply put, the country's budget for this year will be in deficit and we will have to borrow £14 billion to increase it, as the President forecasts possible revenue generation of £35 billion for this financial year. This is not new, as we have been constantly fighting budget deficits since 2016. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with borrowing to finance budgets, but it has to be progressive and productive, not regressive and simply redundant! For example, £15.8bn is allocated to debt servicing and a further £14bn is allocated to recurrent expenditure.
So what is left for capital expenditures that will cover critical sectors such as Health, Education, Security, Infrastructure and others? However, we are still going into debt. Next year we continue with the same cycle. You would be interested to know that, a new breakdown has shown that Nigerians will continue to bear the brunt of the burden with the increase in VAT rate from 7.5 to 10 percent, but with nothing to supplement, in terms of paying population, for the sacrifices they are expected to have to endure once again. Because how will a £16 trillion capital budget get this economy back on track and address priority concerns?
What would you recommend governments at all levels prioritize this year?
The outlook for the 2025 appropriation estimate unfortunately points to more pain for the population. There's no point in sugarcoating it. How can we avoid the inconsolable and inevitable truth that our purchasing power, as a people, has plummeted because our currency has lost its value and has shrunk exponentially? So many anti-people and inhumane economic policies have contributed to putting people in a terrible state and there seems to be no end in sight. The solution is in the government. They should retrace their steps, it is very honorable to admit where they were wrong, go back to base and fix it. As I always advise, it is better to stop by mistake than to end by mistake! Government policies, no matter how good they sound on paper, do not resonate in practice and that is a very damaging flag.
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