'Machiavellian' Tinubu begins arduous task to renew Nigerian economy, tackle 'whirlwind of violence'
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00:00 Let's get some broader analysis.
00:01 Douglas Yates joins us, professor of political science
00:03 at the American Graduate School
00:04 and associate professor of Anglo-American law
00:06 at the Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
00:09 Douglas, as ever, pleasure to have you on France 24.
00:12 Do you think that President Tenouba will succeed
00:15 where his predecessor didn't?
00:17 - Well, he supported his predecessor from behind the scenes.
00:22 And I think it's always easier to do that
00:25 than to take the front center row
00:28 and be a visible target for criticism.
00:31 So I think he's set himself a very hard task.
00:35 He was poorly elected, the turnout was terrible,
00:38 the elections are contested,
00:40 but he is a truly Machiavellian character, a kingmaker.
00:45 He has lots of connections,
00:48 he's extremely modest in persona.
00:50 I think he'll do well on the international scene,
00:53 particularly with the Americans.
00:54 But the real question will be,
00:56 can he manage to deal with the various security crises?
01:00 I think for the economy, he's probably the best man.
01:03 But for security, it's not clear anyone could take care
01:06 of this tourbillon, this whirlwind of violence.
01:11 - 'Cause this issue about security in Nigeria,
01:14 it is a manifold question, isn't it?
01:16 It's not just one group, it's various things
01:17 and groups within the borders.
01:19 It's all manner of things happening,
01:21 which raises that question
01:22 about the security of the country.
01:24 - That's right.
01:25 Here is where Buhari, his predecessor,
01:27 who had come in promising to solve these matters,
01:30 didn't succeed.
01:32 If you cut up Nigeria into four quarters,
01:35 the new president is from Lagos, the Southwest.
01:39 The Southwest is doing fine.
01:41 It's got organized crime,
01:44 but it's not one of the centers of violence.
01:46 If you go to the Southeast, you have separatists
01:49 in the oil river states involved in hijacking
01:53 and oil bunkering.
01:54 If you go to the Northeast, you have Boko Haram,
01:57 terrorists, Islamic terrorists.
01:59 And if you go to the Northwest,
02:01 you have a fairly new phenomenon, which are called bandits.
02:06 These are pastoralists who now,
02:08 under increasing drought conditions,
02:11 are attacking farmers, taking hostages,
02:15 and conducting crime.
02:16 200 different bandit organizations.
02:18 Nigeria, with its military,
02:21 has a hard time effectively dealing with these problems,
02:26 which tend to have other bases besides governance.
02:30 - So business, economy,
02:33 as anybody will tell you, like stability,
02:35 it sounds that basically the foundations
02:38 on which the new president will try to build in Nigeria
02:41 are already very shaky.
02:42 - Well, in a way, Bolo Tenubo,
02:45 since the return of democracy in Nigeria,
02:47 is the man who's been attributed with Lagos' success.
02:51 Lagos was a city that had been dilapidated
02:54 during decades of military rule.
02:56 And since then, it's become the thriving metropolis
03:00 of the African continent,
03:02 the fifth largest economy in Africa.
03:06 What he's been able to do, perhaps with corruption,
03:09 is organize large-scale infrastructure,
03:13 like the new mega refinery that's being built with Dangote.
03:17 - So this idea of the new refinery,
03:20 I presume, is to sort of tap into,
03:22 oh, sorry, that's a very bad pun, but I think it's apt,
03:25 tap into a way of trying to use oil
03:28 that Nigeria produces for some kind of domestic purpose,
03:31 because as I understand it,
03:32 the amount of oil it produces,
03:34 that they can't refine enough for the population to use.
03:37 So Nigeria actually has to import oil,
03:39 when actually it's a big producer.
03:41 - This has been a terrible irony.
03:42 Nigeria nationalized its oil, joined OPEC,
03:46 but then just exported it.
03:47 It was part of the oil curse.
03:49 Dangote, the richest man in Africa,
03:53 has invested billions of dollars in a mega refinery
03:56 just outside of Lagos.
03:58 He's got a huge transportation network
04:00 with thousands of trucks,
04:02 and his goal is to be not only able to supply all Nigerians
04:07 with locally produced oil products, but also to export it.
04:10 It would be a game changer.
04:12 It would be the first time since oil was discovered
04:15 in Nigeria that oil would be channeled to development.
04:19 If Tenobo is able to do this,
04:22 you could call his presidency a success.
04:26 - So one of the present issues that Nigeria has, of course,
04:29 is that it's importing oil at one price
04:32 and selling it at a loss.
04:34 Creating, obviously, a real problem
04:36 from the word go for the economy.
04:38 - That's right, and also,
04:40 much of Nigeria's oil production is stolen.
04:44 It's bunkered.
04:45 The estimates vary,
04:47 but hundreds of millions of barrels of oil are stolen.
04:51 Now, this doesn't go on
04:53 without the knowledge of the local governors.
04:55 It's done with the organization of local governors.
04:59 Much of this pilf is done with pipelines.
05:03 So it used to be you'd have people tap a pipeline,
05:06 and then they'd fill up a truck and drive away.
05:09 Now the pipeline itself,
05:11 under the surveillance of local governors,
05:14 carries the fluid to the port.
05:16 So Nigeria needs to clean up the corruption
05:19 in order to benefit from its very large oil resource.
05:24 - You paint a very vivid image
05:26 of some of the problems that lay ahead,
05:27 and it does seem to be leveled upon level upon level.
05:30 Can we talk terror and those issues?
05:33 'Cause obviously, Boko Haram, for many years,
05:35 has been very much in the news
05:37 in terms of terrorizing the northeast of Nigeria.
05:40 What is that situation right now?
05:42 I mean, clearly, they're still there.
05:44 They are still a threat.
05:45 You mentioned the bandits to the other side
05:47 of the country, too, creating a threat there, too.
05:50 It's not that long ago that, you know,
05:51 sort of kidnapping schoolgirls, for instance,
05:54 caught the world's attention.
05:55 But those threats are still there,
05:56 even if they're not happening every day.
05:58 - That's right.
05:59 For a while, the attention had been shifted
06:01 on the Niger Delta, and so much attention
06:03 had been paid to the Niger Delta
06:05 that the northern part of the country was left to fester.
06:08 Then comes the collapse of Gaddafi,
06:10 the influx of millions of small arms,
06:13 and suddenly you have teenagers, fully armed,
06:16 driving around a very large country in the north,
06:20 taking hostages, committing crime, attacking the nation.
06:23 - So that's a result of what happened in Libya.
06:25 - That's right.
06:26 - That's a knock-on effect.
06:27 - That's right, it was a knock-on effect.
06:29 The presence of all of these weapons
06:31 is what makes it possible for such a small number of people
06:34 with almost no funding to wreak terror.
06:37 And thus, Nigerian soldiers go in,
06:40 but they're not effective at dealing
06:42 with the underlying problems,
06:44 because they themselves are treated as brutal,
06:47 much like we've seen
06:48 in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
06:51 And so these groups present Nigeria's
06:54 main security challenge in the north.
06:57 Often, Nigeria was under northern military rule.
07:00 The campaign promise of Bola Tenobu,
07:02 he said, "It's my turn."
07:04 What was that in reference to?
07:06 The North-South division.
07:08 Mohamedou Bouhari was a northerner.
07:10 Tenobu's a southerner.
07:11 A southerner's always gonna have a hard time
07:14 delivering a security message in the north,
07:17 because Nigeria's a country that's divided territorially,
07:21 religiously, ethnically, and generationally.
07:24 - Trying to hold all that together is a massive task
07:28 for someone who, as you pointed out
07:30 at the start of our conversation,
07:32 wasn't elected with a massive turnout,
07:34 and the results contested.
07:36 - That's right, that's right.
07:37 He's managed to eke out a victory,
07:40 but behind that very narrow electoral victory
07:44 is extremely solid base of support.
07:47 He's been a silent man behind the strings.
07:49 He is one of the richest politicians in Nigeria,
07:52 and he's clearly a clever strategist.
07:55 I wouldn't be surprised to see him
07:58 manage the development challenge,
08:01 but I'm not sure anyone will be able to deal
08:03 with terrorism and with banditism and with separatism
08:07 in the other three quarters of Nigeria.
08:09 - A rich politician, Douglas, can you put figures on that?
08:13 - Well, it's difficult.
08:14 The most exaggerated figures you see,
08:16 for speaking of Bolotonubu, $33 billion.
08:20 And these are, they name hotel chains, oil companies,
08:25 but this is very difficult because he'll often deny
08:28 that he owes things and you don't have title.
08:31 A more reasonable figure that's been put out
08:33 by some of the watch eye groups is about $4 billion.
08:38 At worst, he's a multi-billionaire,
08:41 and at best, he's one of the owners of Nigerian economy.
08:45 - Okay, so in terms of making things work
08:48 with that kind of push, influence, power,
08:52 it's again, it's falling away from the kind of structures
08:55 you will need to create the security that Nigeria needs
08:58 because its potential is massive.
08:59 - That's right.
09:00 - It could go on to become not just an African powerhouse,
09:03 but a world powerhouse, could it not?
09:05 Well, in the right circumstances.
09:06 - That's right, in a way,
09:07 because it's not just a country that exports oil.
09:11 It has a major population,
09:13 it's a serious agricultural producer,
09:15 and it's a serious military actor.
09:18 It's a regional hegemon.
09:19 It has everything you need
09:20 to become the Brazil of West Africa.
09:23 - Seriously, you're talking that kind of influence.
09:25 It could really sort of create that kind of sense.
09:28 - Yeah.
09:28 - Fantastic stuff.
09:29 Douglas, thank you very much indeed.
09:30 Always illuminating speaking to you, sir.
09:32 Always a pleasure to see you at France 24.
09:33 Douglas Yates, Professor of Political Science
09:35 at the American Graduate School
09:37 and Associate Professor of Anglo-American Law
09:39 at the University of the Ciergy-Pontoise,
09:41 and as we've heard, specialist on matters in Africa.
09:44 With that insight in Nigeria, really, really helpful.
09:46 Thank you, sir, very much indeed.
09:47 President Tinubu, sworn in today in Abuja.
09:50 Douglas, great to see you.
09:51 Thank you very much indeed.
09:53 That's it for this slice of the program.
09:55 Stay with us, more news to come.
09:56 (upbeat music)
09:59 .