Buhari has made a strong start’  June 26 , 2015

Buhari has made a strong start’

 June 26 , 2015

 Written by Our Reporter

The Buhari Administration is barely 25

days old . But , a frank appraisal of the

administration ’s first steps has been

made. In an interview monitored by

ROBERT EGBE on Channels TV, United

Kingdom High Commissioner to Nigeria

Dr . Andrew Popcock shares his thoughts

on a wide range of issues affecting

Nigeria, including the prospects of the All

Progressives Congress ( APC ) government

led by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Buhari’s win , a political earthquake

President Muhammadu Buhari’ s win was

not just a political change, it was a

political earthquake. I was present at

President Buhari ’ s inauguration last month

and the British Foreign Secretary came, the

American Secretary of State and many

African Heads of States came as well and

the president made the most astonishing ,

ambitious, analytical and indeed self -

critical inaugural speech I ’ ve ever heard .

It was remarkable. So , that is in itself an

extremely good thing , but what he ’ s also

done, of course, is , I think he recognises as

well that it’ s raised the bar . It ’ s lifted

people ’ s expectations of what this new

government is about and what it has

promised to deliver . And I think we now

need to move to delivery stage .

The president has made a ‘strong , focused

start ’

The president looked at the country so

critically ( in his inaugural speech); he

looked at the security situation, particularly

in the North East ( of Nigeria ) . But not just

the North East , he looked at crime, at

instability in the Middle Belt and The Delta.

So , he looked at it pretty plainly and said ,

‘ This is not where we want to be . ’ And he

looked at governance both at the federal

level and the state level and he made some

very interesting observations about the

federal government not wishing to interfere

in the governance of the states , as that is

the states ’ issue, at the same time acting

as a sort of referees, at least as a sort of

element of oversight to make sure that the

states were being managed properly and

public money was being managed properly.

He looked at the international agenda

which , I must say , I think one thing this

administration has done is to start very

strongly on the diplomatic agenda . The

first thing the president has done is with

his neighbours . The second thing is to

invite his neighbours to Abuja for a summit

about the North East . He’ s been to the

G - 7 where he met ( Chancellor) Angela

Merkel ( of Germany ) and our own prime

minister ( David Cameron) and other G - 7

leaders. He’ s been to South Africa, where I

think it ’ s important not just for African

Union purposes but to rebuild the

diplomatic relationship between Nigeria

and South Africa, the two power houses of

the continent; they need to work together .

That’ s a very strong and well focused

start . I think what people are now looking

for, people want more of this. People are

looking for the domestic agenda to

develop .

Nigeria needs a ‘grown up form of politics’

I think the president has defined his own

agenda here, I mean what needs to happen

is , I mean the North East is a very

complicated issue, the key thing , the key

point that we made to our Nigerian friends

is that the security response is only one of

the many responses required in the north

east. It ’ s an essential response but it ’ s

not the single one. So , while the Nigerian

army needs to approach this in as effective

a way as possible , you need also to do a

number of things , you need to get the

politics right , for too long the federal and

state governments have been at logger

heads , to put it mildly , you need a more

grown up form of politics recognising that

Borno State and the surrounding states are

an essential part of the country and need

to be treated as such . Secondly, you need

an element of economic uplift , people up

there need hope, they need the prospects

of employment , and you need to address

the dire humanitarian situation with almost

two million people internally displaced. So

there ’ s an element of humanitarian as well

as economic response. And the third area

is , working with the neighbours , this is

now a problem that’ s overlapped borders ,

the neighbours wish to be engaged, indeed

Chad has been immensely helpful on the

military side . So , those four things ; the

security side, the development side , the

political side and the cross border regional

side have to come together in a

synchronised approach.

I think president Buhari understands this ,

and the question is just to get the people

and the mechanisms in place , and let me

use this as a quick commercial for the UK ,

we want to help with this .

How The UK can help Nigeria recover

stolen funds

I think the simple answer is , in any way we

can. Some of it requires good old

fashioned police work. What we would

need to do is work closely with the federal

authorities ; with the EFCC, the federal

police , with the Nigerian government in

other aspects to learn as much about what

they know , and we will help , as will other

administrations in Europe and the United

States, to try and trace funds like this . As

you know ( The late) General ( Sani )

Abacha ’ s stolen billions were tracked down

to banks , I think , in Switzerland and the

Swiss government has been reacting,

returning a lot of this money. So , I think

the question , this is an important question,

but it’ s also a multi - dimensional one, as

you would expect . Part of the issue is to

trace and return stolen money. But that is

only the tip of the iceberg; the real

question is ( how ) to break up the systems ,

the routines, organisations , individuals that

contribute to the leeching of Nigerian

public money ( and taking it) overseas and

even more important , I think, is to assault

the mentality that regards public money as

a free good and effectively drives large

scale corruption.

Now that is an immensely complex

business, and , I ’ m not here to give advice

to the president of the federation , but , it

just seems to us that to tackle corruption

is a bit like launching a war on the Russian

front , but , if you do it across the board,

you are likely to succeed.

The way to do it is to pick areas of

primary focus and zero in on that . So if

you’ re looking at military reform , it might

be a good idea to look at procurement. If

you’ re looking at reforming the oil sector ,

it might do to look at revenue diversion of

the money that ever reaches the federation

account , never mind oil theft . So , to break

up the great corruption cocoon, into

project - size bites in which you can focus

on particular difficulties . And I think what ’ s

important is , nothing succeeds like

success . If you begin to make an impact , if

you begin to challenge the network or

more importantly, the attitudes , and you

begin to show that impunity – the ability

to steal public money and get away with it

– if you can show that impunity is no

longer the norm , then things will begin to

click in a different direction . So , a strong

start , but a focused start , I think, is the

key to this .

Security: The UK’s help in intelligence

Nothing’ s gone wrong ( with The UK ’ s

assistance to Nigeria ) , it ’ s just gone

slowly. President ( François ) Hollande of

France convened a meeting in Paris , this

was a while ago , after the kidnap of the

Chibok girls in an attempt to pull together

the friends of Nigeria , the international

friends of Nigeria , and , we speak in

shorthand , the P 3 – the permanent

members of the United Nations ; France ,

The United States and The United

Kingdom. We followed that up with a

meeting in London , and that was then

followed up by a meeting in Abuja ,

operationalising what we were trying to do

from the concept to the structures , to

activity. And in this activity , the United

States, the United Kingdom in particular

are contributing to intelligence gathering

and what ’ s as important , intelligence

analysis. Feeds from space don’ t give you

much until you know exactly how to make

use of a good map in front of you.

And the second thing that we ’ ve been

doing for a while now is working with the

Nigerian Army , actually, training Nigerian

soldiers to operate in cohesive units in a

combat environment . We want to move

from training companies to training

battalions, we want to work up to

divisional level which would see senior

operating elements in Borno State and

Adamawa. We’ ve made some progress , we

need to make a great deal more . But what

we need above everything else , is access .

Let us in, allow us to talk to the very

senior people , allow us access to the

crews and this is something the Nigerian

Army needs to provide us , with the tools

that are required ( for training Nigerian

soldiers ) , weapons and ammunitions ,

communications, uniforms . The troops are

there but they have not been as well-

equipped as they might have been .

That can be rectified . Nigeria has a military

budget of five billion dollars a year. That is

more than adequate to provide the basic

inputs the troops need .

British trainers find Nigerian soldiers to

be ‘really good material’

Nigerian Army Battalions and Brigades

who are part of the third division based in

Maiduguri, combatants . What we ’ ve found ,

and it ’ s worth saying this because the

Nigerian Army has had a difficult time of

late, and senior officers have often accused

soldiers of being cowards and there have

been court -martials and so forth . The

British regiment that was training two

companies of Nigerian soldiers recently,

who then went on to do extremely well in

Adamawa State , and push Boko Haram out

of parts of in and around Mubi ; the British

regiment that trained them said they

preferred working with Nigerian soldiers to

working with soldiers they ’ ve trained in

other countries , because they found the

Nigerian soldier to be really good material ;

loyal , hardy and prepared to take risks . But

he didn’ t have , not just some basic

equipment , but the training to give him

confidence in two things : firstly , that he

had a good chance of staying alive , and

secondly, that he had a good chance of

winning . You give a soldier those two

things and you’ ve created a much more

effective unit . So , that is what we can offer

and it ’ s not a theoretical thing , we ’ re not

going to put British soldiers in Borno

State . This is a Nigerian conflict , no

Nigerian government , not least this one,

has ever asked for someone to come and

fight their battles , but what we can and

will do, is train Nigerian soldiers to fight

more effectively and we’ ve seen that they

can do it . So , our prime minister’ s aide

has offered to the president ( Buhari ) , our

foreign Secretary told me that recently .

What we’ re waiting for is the access and

whatever arrangements are going to be

made by the command at the top of The

Nigerian Armed Forces so that we can

move forward .