… says Buhari has not breached any law by appointing kinsmen as aides
Kingsley Kuku, immediate past Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, is one of the promotes of the Niger Delta struggle, having been part of the Kaiama Declaration of 1998, which set the stage for the agitation for a better region, and having participated actively in most of the programmes that subsequently resulted in the granting of amnesty to militants on June 25, 2009.
But, more importantly, Kuku became the driver of the amnesty package from 2011 till the end of the Jonathan administration on May 29, 2015, largely helping to push the frontiers of youth training in the region. However, as soon as he finished his tenure, he left Nigeria for a medical procedure to salvage a broken knee, a development which has delayed his appearance before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which wants him to defend his tenure against certain petitions.
In this interview, Kuku explains his role in the Niger Delta struggle and how, at a point, elder statesman, Chief Tony Anenih, offered to lay down his life in place of militant leader, Government Ekpemopolo, alias Tompolo, to convince him to leave the creeks and sign up for peace with his foot soldiers, how the amnesty deal was sealed under the Yar’Adua administration, why he had to seek medical attention abroad and his plan to defend his tenure before the EFCC. Excerpts:
By Soni Daniel,
Northern Region Editor
As a former presidential aide, do you think President Buhari has breached any law by appointing mostly his kinsmen as his personal aides and key government officials such as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Director General of the Department of State Security and the Chief of Staff all from the North, where he comes from?
President Muhammadu Buhari has come at a time he needs to build a solid team that will help him to deliver on the many promises he made to the Nigerian people. Right or wrong, he would be the one to take the glory or the blame for whatever he does while in office. That is why he needs to critically look at the political landscape and take decisions that would bring the best for the country. He has to take his time in doing all these.
Chief Anthony Akhakon Anenih
Our leaders have a problem which they need to sort out. It is important for him to take time before nominating anybody into the position of authority. He has to select the best from among the lot. So, I think that this short period that he has been in charge, he has not disappointed and has not done anything wrong. I have argued with those who say his appointments so far are skewed in favor of the North. Some have said he appointed the SGF and the Chief of Staff from the North and my response is that Buhari has not done anything wrong in that regard because during our time, that is President Jonathan’s Presidency, he appointed his SGF from the South-East, where he comes from.
The first Chief of Staff was Mike Ogiadhome from Edo State while the second, General Arogobofa, from Ondo State, is also from the South-South. It is important to also point out that all other personal aides of the former president, from his ADC to the Chief Security Officer and the DG of the DSS, Ita Ekpenying, all came from Jonathan’s backyard, South-South.
So, I don’t see anything that Buhari has done wrongly to warrant the outcry that he is more of a northern president than a southern President. I suspect that the outcry came just because he did not appoint ministers at the same time with the personal aides, thereby making some people to feel marginalised.
I think that we really need to encourage Mr. President to look for credible and non-partisan people to serve in his cabinet and to do their best to be able to deal with the problems that he met on the ground. He should continue from where Jonathan stopped and anyone who wants to demonise Jonathan, should not forget that he did his best for history to judge.
Months after the office, how do you feel? Are your phones still ringing?
I would like to say that it was a mixed life. I am saying so because I miss the Presidential Amnesty Programme through which I touched lives. We were dealing with a situation where our brothers and sisters, who never had the opportunity to leave their communities in the Niger Delta were exposed to the outside world for them to go to school and interact with nationals of other nations on the Federal Government scholarship. I was merely a servant getting that done and it was fulfilling. Now, I am not handling that again. They used to call me daddy and all that.
I am not being called daddy again. The other point is that I have a respite to review my contributions to Nigeria, my state and community and think of how to move on in life. It may interest you to know that from July 2, 2007 when the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua appointed me as Secretary of the Presidential Committee on Niger Delta Conflict Resolution, till I left office in June 2015, I had never had time for myself not to talk of my family.
If you meet my wife today, she would tell you that from 2004 when we got married till today, she had never had two complete weeks with me because of service to Nigeria. So, today, beyond my recuperation, I now have some time with my family so that my children would not pass me on the road and call me uncle or brother, having not seen and spent time with me in the past for even one week. But I really miss the PAP and the children that I was able to move out from impossibility to possibility.
So, my phones have not stopped ringing.
What took you to hospital in the United States? Some have alleged that you ran away in order to escape the probe by the EFCC.
Any time I reflect on this thing, it makes me very sad. I was the captain of the House of Assembly playing football with the governor’s team to mark Ondo State Day in 2006. It was an executive football match and there was a penalty for our team and, as the captain, I was to take it. I managed to strike the ball and scored the penalty and we all rejoiced. But just as I did that, I discovered that my legs were wobbling and I could not stand firmly on the field and was taken out. I must have been seriously wounded in the process that resulted in the penalty. My knee had never been the same until I underwent the surgery in the U.S. I had a fracture which had been causing me serious pain since 2006 and I did not have the time to go hospital to do the operation until I left office on May 29.
After the injury, they took me to traditional medicine dealers, who did their best to fix the fracture. As an Ijaw man, they tied the leg, removed bad blood, injected me with some herbs and rubbed some creams just to get me going. We must give kudos to tradition bone healers who did all they could to save my leg. From 2006, till the moment that I came to the United States to carry out the procedure, the work the trado-medical men did, is what kept me going.
I left the House of Assembly and got a job with the NDDC and I could not go to do anything about the leg. That job made it possible for me to kick-start the process of conflict resolution in the Niger Delta and I took some ex-militants to South Africa. In July 2007, the government appointed me the Secretary of the Presidential Committee on Peace and Conflict Resolution in the Niger Delta. That afforded us the opportunity to visit all ex-militants’ camps from Ondo through Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom states.
This was how we commenced the arduous and risky job to bring about the peace process in the Niger Delta. I had committed my life to the peace process and assured the militants that the Federal Government was sincere in its efforts to bring about peace and development in the Niger Delta. We finally got the amnesty on June 25, 2009 and, from there, the process of reintegration commenced and I never knew that, one day, I would be the one to manage the Amnesty Programme. But before then, I had always been strategically involved in the process.
I had always been either the Secretary or member of the peace committee at the local, state or national levels and this afforded me the opportunity to know all those involved in the struggle. Even when the former governor of Bayelsa set up a peace committee, he still made me a member even though I am from Ondo. So, strategically, I have been involved in the peace process till date. Is it Asari Dokubo, my friend?; , is it Henry Okah, my brother?
I believe that my knowledge of those directly involved in the struggle was an advantage for me and the government of the late President Yar’Adua, having been properly counseled by former Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, my immediate past boss, who made me whatever I am today, made me Secretary of the committee and they tapped my potentials and that made peace possible.
I was able to take government position directly to those who were to take strategic decisions Asari Dokubo in Buguma or Port Harcourt; T.K Ogoriba in Ogboroza House at Ogboroza in Delta State; Ateke Tom, my elder brother, we all worked together. This was how we cemented the peace process and I pray that it will never collapse because we have committed so much to getting to where we are today. We were deeply involved in the peace process and I did not have any time to do the surgery on my leg. It became even more tedious after I had been appointed the SA on Niger Delta and Chairman of the PAP in 2011. I was therefore going about with pains, to the extent that sometimes, the knee would lock up and I would not be able to move again.
*Tompolo
But the pain grew more serious just before the presidential election and I made up my mind that I was going for the operation once the election was over. And as soon as we lost the election to the APC, I made up my mind to get out and get it done. I was in Birmingham and I did the scan and was referred to St Andrews Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Centre in Alabama.
Even after a date had been fixed, I had postpone the surgery twice because of my attachment to the Amnesty Programme and the need to get someone appointed for me to hand over to. I did not want the programme to suffer any setback. While I was still waiting for my successor to be appointed so as to get the programme going, I got a stinger from the hospital in Alabama, warning me that they don’t postpone surgery the way I did and that there was penalty already for me. I was scared and refused to sign for a general anesthesia but a localised one so that I could see what they were going to do on the leg. They agreed and we did it on the 30th of July. Since then, I have been doing physiotherapy first in Birmingham and later I was referred to the Sports Physiotherapy Centre in Atlanta, where I have been undergoing the recovery process.
Having completed your assignment as the Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, can you in all honesty say that you did the best for Nigeria and the people of the Niger Delta given the money and other resources at your disposal?
As far as I am concerned, between me and God, those who want to be sincere to themselves would be able to say that I did my best to salvage Nigeria from economic downtown occasioned by a period when Nigeria experienced a sustained drop in oil production from over four million barrels per day to just over 683,000 barrels.
The job we did from 2007 was not easy. Senator David Brigidi, who chaired the first committee set up by the late President Yar’Adua, of which I was the Secretary, recommended to him the need for amnesty. I still remember that night how Yar’Adua who had almost slept came down from his bedroom to meet us at the Villa once he heard that Kuku and Brigidi were waiting to submit a report on the Niger Delta situation to him. From that moment, the peace process began. Many governors, political actors, among others, did not believe that there should be amnesty apparently because many of them had grouses against some ex-militant leaders from their states. But this thing was a general thing that was to be done for the good of all. There is need to always remember the wonderful disarmament job that the committee under Brig-Gen. Godwin Abe did that took us to where we are today.
We need to remember the wonderful work done by elder statesman, Chief Tony Anenih, who staked his life and integrity and played a strategic role in pulling Tompolo out of the creeks. At a point, Anenih agreed to submit himself to be killed in case the Federal Government arrested and prosecuted Tompolo in Abuja. Anenih offered himself as a sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered by the Ogboroza people if he would not bring back Tomplolo after his meeting with President Yar’Adua. To further convince the daring and skeptical community leaders, Anenih dropped out of the helicopter we were given by the Presidency to go and fetch Tompolo and opted to remain with the roaring men until Tompolo was brought back safely. But our people reasoned that there was no need to take the life of an old man like Anenih in place of Tompolo, who is seen as the hero of the community. So, they left Anenih to go in peace. Yar’Adua did the right thing and got us the Amnesty and Abe, Timi Alaibe and others did their best to give practical meaning to the process.
- Next week, Hon Kuku talks about his Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) story
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