…Says Amotekun has no need for guns but……
Former secretary general of Transparent International, General Isola Williams noted for his unrelenting crusade against corruption in high and low places is worried. He is worried because at this stage of the nation’s history, impunity has continued in high quarters while those elected to fight the menace of societal ills are themselves encouraging such attitudes.
He believes a situation where an imprisoned legislator is collecting salary and emoluments even as a convict is no cheering news for the nation.
General Williams in an interview with Newdawn also took a swipe at Information minister, Lai Mohammed for relegating the development and promotion of the nations cultural heritage to the background while dissipating energy and resources in disseminating wrong information to the citizens.
He also spoke on controversial South west security outfit,Amotekun.
Excepts from the interview:
What exactly do you think is wrong with the floating of southwest security outfit,Amotekun?
I think first of all ,we should emphasize on the need to give sound training to those recruited for the outfit which is basically set up to promote safety of the people.it is guaranteed in the nations law. Everybody is qualified to contribute to measures to bring about safety and it should not be misconstrued as threatening the nations security.
In this regard ,we have to set up a good culture for the outfit right from the word go to prevent them from imbibing wrong culture of the exisisting safety organisations like the Police and others.
Therefore training is very important. Like I was saying use both native and modern gadget, in fact if it is possible let them use werepe for the criminals to catch them, there are so many things they can use, they don’t need guns.
They must have their own culture, if not they would be behaving like the police, they must start from telling them you must not take bribe, never set up road block with police, let them not set road block, let them set up mobile road checks, do not develop the police culture. They must understand their limit and the people too they say they are policing must be told their limit.
They must understand their limit and the people too they are policing must be told their limit because someone would say someone has taken my land, come and help me, people must know the limit. So these are the things that need to be done. Governor Fayemi got a doctorate in security studies.
The way Fayemi spoke was different from others, I knew they had a security meeting with the AIG in charge of Oyo State.
IG knew that what they are doing is right. To me there is no need for any political brouhaha at all except those who have bad intention. Anybody who says I’m wrong with all these things I have told you let us have a debate because they are turning it into politics as if somebody is coming to attack the south west let us rise up, who are we fighting? Even Obasanjo saying we are going to have another civil war. Who is fighting who? What is the population of Fulani in this country and how many pure Fulani do we have that has not mixed up with Hausa or another group? Or are the Ilorin people saying they are pure Fulani? They have Yoruba names, speak Yoruba and laugh in Fulfulde. You can’t just go to Ilorin and say you are speaking Fulfulde, they would just be looking at you but when they laugh, they laugh in Fulfulde. That is my position on that.
On the idea of medical tourism, do you take the government seriously?
That is obvious. The government is not serious about anything. Somebody needs to tell Lai Mohammed and those who are encouraging him that he should stop spending money saying he is promoting tourism, nobody will come to Nigeria. Why does he go to London and America all the time anytime he has an appointment? The conditions here are normal for human existence. Develop your infrastructure and people would come, you don’t need to beg them. People go in millions all over the world to Europe and America, how many people have seen adverts that people should come to London and America? When you develop the infrastructure of a country, then if you go to Kenya for example, the infrastructure is developed and you will know these are the people that want people to come to their country. The game reserve, it is developed to standard. They can have people who can handle tourism but the other thing is that he the information minister, has completely neglected culture, he and his permanent secretary they have neglected culture. What has Nigeria got to offer that they cannot see anywhere else except culture? And the culture we have we have suppressed. Is it Nollywood? The other time they rejected Nigeria’s Nollywood because they said it was not original. The Nolywood one that talked about real culture they share, they have translated into other language. I don’t think we are getting anything straight, and again people use that to chop money. Now they are supposed to digitalis television in the country but the money has disappeared, tell Lai Mohammed to come to court he will not go. And he is coming to preach tourism, who will come to a corrupt country? Except for him, his name sounds like lies, if I were him I would have changed my name a long time ago. Call it in any language it is like a lie.
Few weeks to the launch of Amotekun people have started talking about 2023.what is your take on this?
Of course there is a lot of money in politics, when you open a newspaper or online what do you see? Millions of people disappear from somewhere; if people go there to suffer do you hear such things?
Unfortunately ,the worst things people talk about is that a senator goes to jail and the senate president keeps paying him and the Attorney General who is condemning about Amotekun is keeping quiet, the President is keeping quiet, and you journalists are not talking about it.
The President of National Assembly is not ashamed, they have no integrity. They only stopped Dariye salary because he was not reelected, Orji Kalu is in jail and they said they are going to continue to pay his salary.
Secondly too ,how can you become a senator, you collect millions of naira every month, as ex governor you collect millions of naira every month is this country made for you alone? And then the court ruled that AG should take action, the AG said it is not within his powers. How do you intend to stop corruption o? How do you want to stop it? Recently too the Auditor General has been telling people things that have been happening in MDAs and some MDAs have not been audited for years.Yet, the President has not come out with a statement, what is in it for having an Auditor general, the same thing with the National Assembly, they have not signed the auditor general’s bill, the president has not signed the Auditor General‘s Bill that has been sent to or three years ago and this thing will change the whole system.
Now the Auditor General himself and his staff, they want the auditor- general to be chosen from one of them while we need to have a fresh person. It is a modern bill compared to anyone in the world. What that bill allows is that the people inside can also apply. The President should please sign that bill and give the Auditor General’s office all it needs to operate, this government has not changed the system at all, padding of budget is still going on, that will start from the budget office of the auditor general , nothing has changed.
Do you think the President can change the medical tourism in the country as he promised?
I don’t think so because,the President too has been taking the treatment for a very long time and who wants to die so the presidency has to keep telling lies on his behalf. So anytime he is traveling he has to keep passing through London.
