Jibrin Barde is an accomplished banker. In this interview with OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of SunTrust Bank, explains why he decided to leave the boardroom for the soapbox. He wants to be the governor of Gombe State on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Excerpts:
What informed your decision to join the governorship race in Gombe State?
I have decided to seek for the nomination of our party, All Progressives Congress, which I belong to in order to contest for the governorship of my state – Gombe. And the reason I want to do this is because I think it is high time we stopped sitting on the fence any longer and accuse people of not providing the right leadership that is expected.
My state consists of about eleven local government areas. It is in the North Eastern part of the country but over the last seven years the little resources that came our way have been mismanaged. Our collective responsibility has been raped in the state and all the human development indices that you can think of have completely collapsed. Our people have no access to potable drinking water. It doesn’t maintain the dam that was constructed at a meagre sum of N200 million per annum but the Gombe metropolis alone ends up spending N5.4 billion annually just to buy water. Our education system has totally collapsed. Our classes are mere playground for our children. Some of the children don’t even have classes; they study under the trees. The hygiene that is there is completely unacceptable below human standard. Our health system and hospitals are just mere mortuaries. I have witnessed life that women will have to carry mats to the hospital because there are no hospital beds in Gombe. This is totally unacceptable given the enormous resources and humongous amount of money that the state government has received in terms of allocation from the Federation, in terms of budget support, Paris Club refund, other forms of bailout and the resources that they have collected in terms of other soft loans that they have taken. The state is debt-ridden, it has a debt in excess of about N100 billion and I have looked at every single aspect of it and feel that that is not right.
I was challenged by my daughter – 11 year-old – whom I was taking to school some time ago and she said to me, ‘Dad, now that your generation has failed’. And I looked up to her and said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘You are going to make my generation fail. It is a failure of your own generation that has not challenged the present leadership’. It got me thinking.
I have reached the pinnacle of my career as a banker and I felt that I should give back to the society by providing and offering myself to serve the society. And the only way I can do that is to take the position of leadership and show an example that I have a clear vision of empowering our youths, of gender equality, providing the basic infrastructure and the needed environment that can thrive because we need to build a very prosperous and successful people and society. That can only happen when you have the right leadership in place.
I intend to show that governance can be done in the highest level of corporate responsibility and ensuring equal opportunity, effective resource management put in place to ensure that our society grows and develop. And that is why I decided to leave my job. And I am just two years into my career as CEO of a bank but I have decided to take up the challenge. After my daughter challenged me, I went back to my hometown, I went round the state and these were my findings: the environment is terrible, the health system is nothing to write home about, the education system which is the foundation of every society has totally collapsed, no single project has ever been completed and commissioned by the present administration. The administration is full of deception, youths are just roaming about the streets, the rate of unemployment is very high. It is a time bomb that is waiting to explode when you have very young, energetic and educated youths who are actually jobless. We need to harness those resources. They are very educated people, highly resourceful and economically mobile indigenes and therefore we need to put together the kind of leadership that we need to be able to harness those resources and transform them into development and prosperity for our people. That is the reason why I have decided to join the race.
Given the power of incumbency and considering the fact that APC is a young party in the state, how do you hope to realise your political ambition?
If you are on ground in Gombe State, you will know that Gombe is an APC state. The majority of the followers are APC. We do believe strongly that even in 2015, the election was totally rigged. It was won squarely by APC. But far and beyond that, we are talking about human development indices. What has PDP got to show to prove that it deserves the mandate of the people again? All the elements human development are down. You can crosscheck that as a fact. Therefore they are enough for you to understand that the people are not with the current administration of the PDP and we will certainly get their confidence and their votes.
You are just coming from the corporate world into the political environment. In Nigeria, many aspiring politicians tend to have godfathers. How do you intend to cope with this?
As I said earlier on, I am fully aware that I am throwing myself into the race against strong political forces in the state, especially given what you just said about incumbency of power. But our people need to be educated. Our vision is very clear. We are very clear about what we want to achieve, our goals and objectives are very clear. We are talking directly to the voters. And I have been a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). I have contributed enormously at the formative stage in 2013. I have been a founding member of the party and I have supported the party all along, ensuring that we get our people in government. Luckily, we have been able to form government at the centre. My support for the current administration of Muhammadu Buhari is very clear. Since 2003, I have followed him, I have been his supporter. We need incorruptible leaders that are above board, we need leaders that will provide strong leadership, equity and justice to each and everybody in order to guarantee peace in the society. And these are the bases upon which I have followed him. The party machinery in the state is fully aware of my contribution to the party and I believe that we are in the right position to position ourselves in order to get the nomination of the party and also get the eventual votes of our voters.
As a political neophyte, don’t you think this will be a disadvantage to you, considering the fact that you are going into a terrain where there are sharks already?
I don’t think I am going into a terrain of sharks. I said I am fully aware that there are highly political savvy people that I am going to contest with. I am leaving the corporate world with the conviction that I have my own contribution to provide to the society. As I said earlier, I have reached the pinnacle of my career and I felt that I should offer myself for service for the benefit of my people for the very reason that I have articulated earlier on, showing that we have failed as leaders and we have a responsibility to stand up against tyranny, irresponsible leadership so that we will be able to bring a very visionary and equitable leadership that is fair to all, honest to its people and ensure the prosperity, development and growth of its people.
But also, I am convinced that as a Muslim, you seek power not for yourself but for service. And that power belongs to Allah. He gives power to who He wants to give power to at whatever point in time. However, we also have a responsibility to seek for such political offices simply because God has already known who He gives power to and has already determined who will be our leaders from now till the last day of judgment. But having known this, we are not God so we won’t be able to determine who will be our leaders tomorrow. So you have to seek for it. And in the book of Timothy, it is very clear that a leader should be trustworthy and that he who aspires to the office of the overseer of the church desires a noble cause.
Consequently, it is important and incumbent on us to ensure that we go out there and seek political power so long as it is about service to the people.
It appears the APC both at the state and national level is in crisis, coming at a time President Buhari appointed Bola Tinubu to reconcile aggrieved members of the party. How will you react to this?
Reconciliation doesn’t mean there is crisis. There may be disagreement among some members of the party and there is nothing wrong with disagreement in a family. And at any point in time when you always disagree, an elder will come and try to settle people who have disagreements. That is the way I look at it. The party is intact as far as I know. I am a very loyal member of the party. There is no division in the party unlike other parties. We will always disagree as a people. Disagreement is allowed even in family. So it is a natural process and it is healthy for democracy anyway.
What is the Unique Selling Point (USP) of APC in Gombe State because there is growing discontent among Nigerians about the party fulfilling its campaign promises at the national level?
I don’t know what you mean by discontent but let me tell you one thing that I know. The APC government has specifically said it is going to fight for security of lives and properties. It has specifically said it will fight against youth unemployment and said it will fight against corruption. It specifically said it will ensure improved economy.
Before now, my part of the country was almost a pariah state. The number of checkpoints and incidents of bombing across the state was unimaginable. So people who are riding motorcycles were virtually made to step down at various checkpoints and move one after the other. I am sure you may not recall now but the number of checkpoints even in Abuja and the condoning of Abuja were almost like a pariah state. It is easy to forget. Today, we have seen peace returning to most of these areas including the Federal Capital Territory. Therefore, I feel APC has fulfilled part of that promise.
Secondly, in terms of youth unemployment, we are aware of the N-Power programme of the Federal Government in which it tries to empower people, generate employment, school feeding and conditional cash grants. The government has set aside over N500 billion in that regard as it had gone far in those disbursement. And I feel that it is generating employment and we know that over 200,000 people have already gotten employment under the N-Power and I am sure it is going to scale up very soon. It is not going to happen overnight.
In terms of corruption, you have seen the high-profile cases that this government has cracked over the last three years and what they have done to bring everybody to check. So I think they have fulfilled that as well. It is a country that has been cancerous with corruption and all sorts of stealing over the last many years. It will take time for you to clear it. But certainly the government has gone far in doing that.
In terms of the economy, the government has specifically preached that it is going to diversify the economy against reliance on oil. And you can clearly see that this administration has focused on agriculture. That is the hallmark of this administration. We have seen how we have become self-sufficient and self-reliant in terms of food production in the country to a large extent.
It will not happen overnight but all the necessary policies and actions have been put in place. We have started seeing the result of that but we are not there yet. The economy has gone through recession; we eventually got out of recession. The economy is growing at 1.5 percent GDP now; our reserve has gone up a little bit from where it was. When this government came into power, we had less than $20 billion in reserve. Today, we have about $46 billion in reserve. So you can clearly see that this government is doing something concrete for the future of this country. It is our future that matters not today.
