Why I'm Combative -- Fani-Kayode
In this interview with Chuks Okocha of our Abuja office, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode speaks of his job as the Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs and why he takes on the posture of a fighter.
It is almost a year you assumed office as the Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs and people say you are very combative in the course of your duty. ?
Well, I think that it is left for people to say what they want because my own perception of what I am doing is that from time to time you need to be combative in order to do your job well. My position is the Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, which is the position that encapsulates everything that happens in the public, concerning the person of Mr. President. On some occasions, I have to try my best to cajole, to win people over, to appeal to people, sometimes even to beg people for understanding and patience, at other times, I am compelled by the nature of my work to stand up against those that in my view have been mischievous in their submissions and perceptions about the person of the President and what it is that the president is trying to do and what he is saying so on some occasions, perhaps yes, one has been combative, but 99 per cent of the time and this is what I want to emphasise, one spends one time, trying to win people over, I am not a public relations man; to be a public relations man is not what I am required to do. My schedule of duty requires me to take on those that feel free to take on the president rightly or wrongly whenever he deems fit and proper to do so and it also means that I should also try to win as many friends for Mr. President, and you don't win friends just on the pages of newspapers, we do a lot of covert work, we do a lot of behind the scenes negotiations and discussions, we do a lot of information passage and this job touches and concerns a number of areas, so if some people want to say I am combative, well that is that, I am afraid it is the nature of my job, it is required from time to time, but I don't enjoy the combative word and I sincerely hope that I haven't hurt anybody while being combative, and if I have done so, then I am very sorry.
Even as being combative, could it be because the president has a very poor human and public relations?
Well, I wouldn't say the president has a poor human relations or poor public relations, what I will rather say is that perhaps segments of people in our society, in our community who have decided that whatever Mr. President does, whether it is good or whether it is not so good, that it must be painted as being very, very bad and they are fixing their views and they will say or do anything about Mr. President in order to try to denigrate him or bring him down and these are not the people that we are worried about, because they've already made up their minds. The people that we are worried about are those that are still ready to be objective, still ready to hear what we are trying to say and still ready to be understanding about some of the efforts that this president is trying to set in motion and also still ready to be honest about some of his achievements, which I think are very, very clear and are very numerous when it comes to number.
You are one of the spokespersons for the president and there are several others. How do you harmonise your views so as to avoid overlapping?
Well we don't cross each others path because our offices are separate and our roles are clearly defined according to our schedule of duty and I thank God that you have Chief Spokesperson of the president in the person of Mrs. Remi Oyo, who is a distinguished journalist in her own right, who knows the ropes very well and who gives us counsels and advise as to how to handle ourselves and also you have Emma Arinze who is very, very good in his own field and the three of us constitute what we call the media unit within the Presidency and we are all charged to carryout specific duties for Mr. President, so we work very, very well together. My job primarily is to back her and in all that she is doing, perhaps I need to do a little bit more explaining than she does, in terms of why we have a certain policy or why Mr. President does A,B,C,D or E. I need to perhaps go a little more in-depth into this issue simply because she may not have the time to do so because she is with the president virtually all the time and she has so many other things to do, but having someone like that to work with makes my job much more easier because she knows what she is doing and I have to commend her efforts, the same with Emma Arinze. Between the three of us, I think we work well together and we have all managed to do our bit and contributions so there is absolutely no conflict at all.
The problem with the Presidency is that it may have good intentions but people complain that the way the policy issues are delivered to the public is poor, that there is no communication between the people and the government, what are you actually doing to bridge this gap?
I think that is a misconception and I think it is an unfair one. First of all, you have a president that doesn't rely on aides to communicate with the public, why because once a month he has a radio chat with anybody that cares to phone him from any part of the planet to ask him any question that he deems fit. Two, he has a media chat every month with seasoned journalists like yourself, some of the most brilliant people in this country who will question him on any issue that they see without them having any knowledge of the areas they are not going to touch on and the whole of the country is watching this programme on NTA once a month, then you also have a very able Minister of Information who is charged with explaining government policy and speaking for the government and then of course you have the media unit within the Presidency itself, of which I am part of and others and you have Remi Oyo and many, so there are many, many of us that are charged to carryout these things, quite a part of the efforts of Mr. President and I think that for those like I said earlier that are still ready to listen to what we are trying to do, to listen to explanation and to be objective in reasoning, I think really we've done our very best and I think we are doing the right thing and I wouldn't accept the view that, the perception is that we have poor public relations, I don't think so because the fact speaks for themselves, you cannot package a bad product, you understand, no matter how hard you try, but even if you are not so good at packaging, if the product is good, then it makes your job a lot less difficult and in this case, the product is good, so what more do we need to do? If you care to study the product, that is Mr. President himself, if you care to look at what we've been doing, if you care to actually look at the facts and the figures in virtually every sector of the economy and outside the economy in this country, compare between now and 1999, you cannot come up with any conclusion other than the fact that this man has done a great job, this man is a good product and despite the misinformation, the lies and the deceit of a number of people that Mr. President is on the right course and that is the most important thing, not public relations, but the product itself.
Working for the president could be bad because People say the problem with him is that he is a bad product, that you are marketing a bad product. How do you find yourself marketing a supposedly bad product?
First of all, if he was a bad product, I will not be in the business of marketing him and in any case, I am not a marketer, I am a honest broker of information, I am not a marketer, there is a distinction because if you are a marketer, you have to sell anything, no matter what it is, no matter how bad it is, in this case, I took this job simply because I believe in Mr. President, I know he is doing the right thing, I can see what he is doing, I believe in what he is doing and in my view, he is not a bad product, he is a good product and it is very easy to sell him to those that are still objective and imagine the overwhelming majority of Nigerians are objective, otherwise they wouldn't have given him an overwhelming mandate one year ago before we came into office, so in my view I think if I hear that Mr. President is a bad product and we all have to work so hard, but it completely has no foundation at all, he is a good product, it is a privilege and a pleasure to try to explain to people what he is trying to do and to join hands with him to move the nation forward and I will indulge everybody that is still objective and that really still believe in this country to come and join hands with us, I am not saying we got it right all the time, but that he got it right all the time, but the fact of the matter is that most of the time, this man is right in the things that he is doing, we need to join hands with him, not to label him as a bad product.
Do you believe that it will be fair for the president to choose his successor as people have said?
Well, let me just say this about 2007 I think that it is premature for anybody to be talking about, and especially those ones within government, it would be most unfair, but I would also say that Mr. President is the father of the nation, he is an elder statesman, he is the father of the nation and certainly, when the time comes, he, together with other party members will come together and they will try their best to make an input as to they way which the party goes, now, I have chosen my words very carefully here, but that is the position and this is my personal opinion, he hasn't asked me to say this, I am just saying it, Mr. President is the father of the nation and certainly it is very, very important that whoever comes in, in 2007 builds on the foundation that he has already in the process.
In any case, the president must have a hand in who succeeds him?
I am not going to say whether that would be the case one way or the other, until Mr. President has given us the green light to comment on 2007, I am a man that is under instruction and I am a disciplined servant of the state, I will not comment on issues that I have not been told I can comment on and I will not say one way or the other whether he will have a hand in any, what I will tell you is that he is a loyal party member, he is an elder statesman of Africa, he is the father of the Nigerian state and in my own view and this is my personal opinion, definitely he will join hands with other party members to perhaps lead the party in the right direction for 2007, but that is not appropriate for now, it is still a long way away and when the whistle has been blown and the president has said we can comment on that and has told us what to say we would do so.
Still on the presidency, there is a general assumption that after President Obasanjo's tenure, that the mantle of leadership goes up north, but the president surprisingly told the nation that as far as he was concerned, only the south-west from where he comes from is not going to vie for that, that the presidency is still open. People see it coming as anti-north.
It is only somebody that is not fully conversant with the records of Mr. President and the facts on the ground and also his record in public office that would say Mr. President is anti-north or anti-south or anti-east or anti-west. He is fair to all and that is the most uncharitable contribution from whoever it is that made that suggestion. What he has said as regards the zoning is very simple and very clear and I will not add to that because I don't need to because the President has spoken on the issue. He has said that the Presidency, the only area that is excluded is the south-west and the rest is to the party to decide, he hasn't excluded anybody, he simply said the party will decide at the appropriate time and he is a father of the nation, he has spoken on this issue, if anybody has any, if anybody is not clear about what he is trying to say, I will suggest, I will refer them to the text, that is the interview he gave on NTA, to go and look at it and once they look at it they will perhaps understand what he is trying to say, but I will not add to that, the president has spoken and as far as I am concerned the matter is closed.
The other day the vice-president said that the government has accepted the convocation of the Sovereign National Conference, but the president said that as far as he is concerned there will be none. What is the true position?
Well I wouldn't say anybody is lying.
But, there is a contradiction between them?
Neither of them are liars, what I will tell you though is that the president is the president and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic and once the president has spoken, the rest of us immediately fall into line, I never heard the vice-president making that comment, so I would not be the one to say anything about it one way or the other, he is a loyal vice-president, he is a man that is far more conversant about the workings of government and the mind of persons than even somebody like myself and we have tremendous respect for him and are not one of these people that will sit somewhere and be spending my time fielding any division because there is no division in the Presidency, we all work very closely.
Are you saying that the vice-president never said that there will be a Sovereign National Conference?
I never said that, I said I wasn't aware of that, I read about it in the papers, but I never saw it happening and one thing I have learnt is before you comment on any issue, you need to first of all ask the person, I haven't had the privilege of sitting with Mr. Vice-President to ask him precisely what he meant by that and neither would I do so because whatever it is he said, he would have said it with the clear understanding of Mr. President, perhaps Mr. President now felt it was necessary to clarify the position, I don't know, but what I am saying is that neither of the two of them are liars, neither of the two of them contradict one another and it is a very simple matter, I never saw what the Vice-President said, I only read about it in the newspapers.
So what is the position of the president on the Sovereign National Conference?
The position of the president is what the president himself expounded on an NTA programme, the last media chat, which was that there will be no Sovereign National Conference as long as he in power, perhaps he might change his mind I don't know, but the truth is, that is what he has said and that is the position of government because he is the president and once he has spoke, we all fall into line.
The boss of crimes commission was alleged to have been queried by government. Was it an indictment of what he is doing or what?
You have to excuse me on this one, again I didn't see the letter of query. I haven't been fully briefed on this issue.
You don't need to see the letter of query, the issue is that he is fighting corrupt practices in the country and the government that he is out supporting is now querying him, the secretary to the government gave him a query. Is the query out to slow him down or to encourage him?
Well, let me just put it to you and I have to say this that Nuhu Ribadu is one of the most brilliant people we have in this country and he is a personal friend and he is doing a great job, I have to repeat, I never saw the letter or query, I accept the fact that it was sent because I actually know the person that signed the letter of query, but what you call a letter of query may not be what I will call a letter of query. If somebody asks you to substantiate an issue or substantiate something, that in my view is not a letter of query, but what I will tell you is that no matter who you are, no matter what you do, you cannot get it right all the time, sometimes, we human beings do make mistakes, I make more mistakes than Nuhu or anybody else, we are all learning we all make mistakes from time to time and it is in that light that I will want you to see this issue. If for example somebody say somewhere that somebody is perceived as saying that every single government official was given a position because he was once involved in 419, which is the way some people have chosen to interpret what Nuhu has said, but then of course, it will create some kind of problem in terms of what he is trying to do, because that simply is not true and it is in that light that I want you to see it, but one thing, Nuhu is an absolute gentleman, the president and all of us have respect for him, he is doing a good job and we are all solidly behind him, he may make mistakes from time to time like all of us, but I am not prepared to tell you that he was queried or that he was not queried. That question is best put to him, not to me. In any case, the information that I gathered from the presidency is that the matter has been settled and Ribadu has been cleared.
Ibori, the Governor of Delta State is currently under trial for allegedly being an ex-convict. The general impression is that the President is the mastermind. Why would the President persecute the Delta State Governor?
Well let me just tell you that it wasn't Mr. President that took Ibori to court, it wasn't Mr. President that claimed that Ibori was an ex-convict, as a matter of fact I believe it was somebody from another party by the name of Chief Great Ogboru. I may even be wrong in that because frankly I haven't been following that case too much, the president is a PDP member, he is not an AD member and it is the height of mischief for anybody to say that Mr. President is the one behind all Mr. Ibori's problems, if Mr. Ibori has a problem and let him sort his problems out in the court of law and let nobody bring the president into the arena. We have absolutely nothing to do with it, as fellow members of the PDP, we wish him the very best in his endeavour, and we hope he gets out of his problems. But the most important thing is for all of us to appreciate and accept the fact that nobody is above the law in this country and if anything has been said or done by anybody, whether he is a member of the PDP, a senior government official, a governor or whatever that is against the law, then certainly, all of us must encourage the court to look into the matter in order for us to know whether that was the truth or not the truth, we don't know, only the court will be able to tell us what the position is, but to say that Mr. President does not has a hand in this is the height of mischief, he has absolutely no hand in this and I know that Mr. President have anything against any of the governors and least of all James Ibori.
Iyiola Omisore the other day was acquitted by the court for having no hand in the death of Chief Bola Ige. The trial Judge indicted the Police, don't you think that with the indictment of the police, that the president ought to have ordered a fresh investigation into the cause of death of Chief Bola Ige, the former Minister of Justice of this country?
Well let me just say that Chief Bola Ige was an institution in this country and he was also a member of this government and Mr. President and all those in the government felt the pain of his murder, perhaps more than most people did because he was part of us, but in terms of fresh investigation and so on and so forth, that is a matter that would be considered at the appropriate time, depending on whether there is any fresh facts. Before the President can issue an order for a fresh investigation, a number of things have to be done, there has to be new evidence, and so on and so forth, the court knows this, the lawyers know this, anybody that is in law knows this, secondly, really, it is not even for Mr. President to do so, it is down to the Attorney-General of the relevant state, that is the governor of the state, in this case, the trial took place in Oyo, so it is down to the Attorney-General of Oyo to make a recommendation to his government, because that was the prosecuting state, not the Federal Government, so we cannot get involved in due process, because let me tell you something, if for example we were to say that, some people will turn round to say that we are trying to prosecute Iyiola Omisore for political reasons. I mean you will be back to ask me that question, we can't get involved in matters of due process, there is a firm distinction between the role of the judiciary and the role of the executive and the role of the legislature in any democracy, we are limited, the executive is limited in this matter, we are guided by the court, the courts have freed Iyiola Omisore and I for one have to say that with all the trauma and all the problems that he and his family have had to face in the last one year, I personally, this is just my own personal, I have to say that I rejoice for him, and I rejoice with him that he was not convicted because he was found innocent by a court of law and if people feel that it was the wrong judgment, then let them provide evidence and make it available to the Oyo state government that has to look into the case again. But you also have to be mindful of the fact that this man has rights, and it is not, it is a very hard thing for anybody to go through that process and there are still other people that are in jail over this issue of Chief Bola Ige and you have to understand they have family and you have to understand that the worst thing that could happen for a court of law to convict an innocent man of anything, let alone murder, so let's pray for them, let's pray for the judiciary, let's pray for the Oyo state government, and let us also pray to God that those that killed Chief Bola Ige, those that really killed Chief Bola Ige should be brought to justice and if they are not brought to justice soon, that justice should be brought to them.
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