Former British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, has asked the incoming President, General Muhammadu Buhari, to overhaul the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, saying it was one sure way of tackling corruption and saving more money for infrastructural development. Blair also asked the leadership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to switch from its opposition status and assume the posture of head of an organisation, stressing that the days of persuasion and agitations were over. He further stated that Buhari and the APC must be true to their words at all times, saying the action of the incoming government within the first 100 days in office would determine the kind of goodwill it would eventually have.
Blair spoke at a two-day policy dialogue themed “Implementing Change: From Vision to Reality,” organised by the Policy, Research and Strategy Directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign Council in Abuja, yesterday.
Represented by Mr. Peter Benjamin Mandelson, a former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in Blair’s government, the former prime minister also asked Buhari to ensure that the revenue of the Federal Government was kept in a comprehensive account.
He also warned against politics of region especially against the zones seen to have not voted for the APC.
He said: “You, Mr. Vice President-elect and Mr. President-elect, Buhari, I must say you have the expectations and the ambitions of 173 million Nigerians in your hands. You have the hopes of an entire continent as well as the eyes of the entire world focused on your efforts. But I tell you, people are excited about what is about to happen in Nigeria. They really feel a sense of expectation of faith and hope.
First 100 days
“What you do in the first 100 days is important and symbolic and can also have tremendously positive repercussion for the government and throughout the country. You have a limited window of opportunity to make an impact as a government. Looking at Nigeria, I would say your vulnerability is corruption and that is not new to you, particularly around the oil sector.
“People in this country seem to be able to do things with impunity and beyond the reach of the rule of law or proper accountability and the judicial system. You can crack the NNPC nut or you can make a start on it in the first 100 days and if you do so, you would have built a very strong foundation for what you have to do in the next four years and beyond.
Keep all govt money in one account
“I think ensuring that all government revenue goes into a single government account will be a good start. Those revenues from your natural resource are so vital for the country and for your future. I think that will send a very strong message. We did the same thing when we came in in 1997 when we gave the Bank of England its independence and that gave us an instant reputation for fiscal prudence.
“It is quite courageous for a government to give power away to another entity. There were people who voted for the others, mostly in the south and the east of the country. You need to show the people who didn’t vote for you that you represent their interest as much as the people who voted for you.
Politics of ethnicity, religion
“This was what we called big tent politics during Tony Blair era. If Nigeria is to transform and evolve towards a politics of performance, it is very important to get away from the politics of ethnicity, religion, politics of patronage and cronyism.”
Blair also urged the government to stay focused on its set objectives if it must succeed, reminding Buhari that allowing pressure and external interferences to get into his way would surely take him away from the set priorities.
“The other thing I want to come back to is priority. You need priority in what you want to deliver to your country, but here is the challenge. Everyday, there is one fresh crisis, some media events, some scandals or some personnel problems to contend with. A whole sack of things will get in the way of getting the real thing done.
Focus on your priorities
“What happens to your priority if you are not careful is that the wall will close in on you and before you know where you are, you are spending the whole time dancing from one place to another, putting out one fire in different parts of the forest without pursuing what you were put in government to do which was to bring about that change and that reform.
“That is why you need to create that mechanism and remain focused on your priorities. That is why you need certain policy delivery mechanisms that you can control, that which you have people working in under your guidance and political will even though you have to deal with the oil scandal.
“One other piece of advice drawn from our experience is that you will have more good will and more authority to do the difficult things at the beginning of your term than at the end.
Be true to your mandate
He also asked Buhari not to derail from his mandate
He said: “I remember many of us ministers, including the Prime minister himself, had never been in government before, not even a junior parliamentary or Secretary of State, the lowest for ministerial life. We were all new. I was the third man. I want to share with you the first rule of government because it is irrelevant to you. Be true to your word. Be true to your mandate.
“At the beginning for us, there was nothing easy at all. We discovered some important things pretty quickly. The first thing is that the skills of leadership that take you to government is not the same skills you need to be successful in government. You have to switch from what you were campaigning when you are in office. You have to switch from a persuader where the tools of your trade are your words to being a CEO. That is the difference between being a persuader and and being a CEO. One is about words, the other is about deeds.
retreat: From left: Speaker, House of Representatives and Sokoto State Governor-elect, Aminu Tambuwal; Oyo State Governor-elect, Senator Abiola Ajimobi; Ogun State Governor-elect, Ibikunle Amosun and Borno State Governor-elect, Alhaji Ibrahim Kashim Shettima, during the retreat of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Governors Forum for the Governors-elect, in Abuja, yesterday. Photo: Gbemiga Olamikan.
“Now, I am not saying you should stop communicating the moment you reach office. You have to keep explaining, educating and agitating for change and reforms to keep people behind and following you. But you have to change from being chief wordsmith to chief implementer and the truth is that many governments actually fall on that first hurdle.
“Government by definition is a team effort. In this job, whatever you fit into the leadership of government is to inspire people and to make them believe in you and in what you are doing and you judge others by the same high standards of integrity and efficiency that you must apply each and every one of you to yourselves.
You can’t do everything at once
“This is my third theme today. You cannot do everything at once just by ordering results, just by bashing the system to deliver those things is not going to achieve change. You have to be much more skillful, much more surgical than that. You have to apply a science of delivering. A science of priorities, a science of proper planning of defining goals, creating data systems that crack progress and developing the routines that make sure you keep all these going even amid the crisis that blow up. And they will.
“And above all, maintain the relationship between yourself and the centre and those in the public service on the frontline, the people who make sure that the delivery actually takes place, praising them when they do well, encouraging them when they fall behind and replacing them when you have to.
“Now, all these might sound straight forward. But it is not straight forward because a lot of the administration you are leading has gone into the habit of driving process rather than outcome.” (Vanguard)
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