Journalists in Nigeria have advised the Federal Government to enlist the support of community leaders across the nation in finding lasting solutions to the problem of insurgency, particularly in the North East and the South East. This was contained in a Communiqué at the end of National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the umbrella body of the professionals, held on Friday in Owerri, the Imo state capital. The journalists wanted a more robust response from all stakeholders, including NGOs, Development partners and other donor agencies in rebuilding and re-integrating victims of insurgency, especially in the North East, in order to discourage those who have moved to their communities from returning to the IDP camps. The Communiqué which was signed by the national secretary of NUJ, Shuaibu Usman Leman asked the Federal Government to specifically address the state of insecurity,especially the rising cases of kidnapping that is fast spreading to all parts of the country. The NUJ appealed to Nigerians generally to support the armed forces in their effort at containing the insurgency in the country. This was even as it wanted men and women of good will to prevail on the youths of the Niger Delta to desist from further destruction of national assets and that the Federal Government should give adequate attention to the legitimate developmental needs of the oil producing areas. The Union wanted the government to declare state of emergency on Nigerian roads to forestall further decay, loss of lives and property on highways. “That Government at all levels should work to improve relationship with journalists covering their activities, especially in ensuring access to information at their events. “That the Federal Government should expedite the process of reviewing upward the present minimum wage which is no longer in tandem with prevailing economic realities in the country. “That the judicial system in the country should be strengthened to end impunity with regards to crimes against journalists.” Members of the NEC endorsed the report of the caretaker committee of Osun State Council and approved that elections be held in January as planned. This was even as it advised that state governments should be encouraged to continue to support and assist the union in its activities. It expressed gratitude to the Imo State Government and Governor Rochas Okorocha for facilitating the hosting of the NEC meeting in Owerri. “NEC also appreciates the Imo State Council and Zone C of the Union for a good organization of the NEC meeting. [myad]
No fewer than two hundred Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) will gather in Abuja and Enugu from Monday, November 28 to critically examine the increased use of Nigeria’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. The 2-day Roundtables are being put together by the Media Initiative against Injustice, Violence and Corruption (MIIVOC), in collaboration with the Freedom of Information Coalition-Nigeria, with support from Justice For All (DFID). It is aimed at increasing citizens’ usage of the FOI Act. Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Freedom of Information Coalition, Nigeria (FICN), Dr. Walter Duru, who spoke to news men in Calabar, capital of Cross River state, said that participants from the Northern part of Nigeria will meet in Abuja, while those from the Southern part of the country will meet in Enugu. Dr. Duru said that the events are aimed at engaging Media and Civil Society stakeholders across the country on issues relating to increased use and implementation of the FOI Act. “Recall that Nigeria’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Act was signed into law on May 28, 2011, after the longest legislative debate in the history of Nigeria. The law was passed to enable the public to access information from government and its institutions, in order to ensure transparency and accountability. “The FOI Act aims to make public records and information more freely available. It enables citizens to hold the government accountable in the event of the misappropriation of public funds or failure to deliver public services. It also seeks to protect serving public officers against any adverse consequences from the disclosure of certain kinds of official information, and to establish procedures for the achievement of these purposes. “Available statistics show that there is an extremely low usage of the Act in Nigeria by the citizens, especially, Media and Civil Society practitioners.” It would be recalled that recently, MIIVOC, with support from Justice for All (J4A/DFID) held a 2-day Roundtable for FOI desk officers in Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government. No fewer than one hundred and fifty MDAs were in attendance at the event, held at Olusegun Obasanjo Auditorium in the Federal Ministry of Justice, Abuja. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari congratulated a Prince of Sokoto and former Nigeria’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Alhaji Shehu Malami, Sarkin Sudan on his attainment of 79 years. President Buhari, in a statement today, Friday, by his senior special assistant on media and publicity, Malam Shehu Garba, described the businessman and diplomat as an asset to the country. “Nigeria will remain ever grateful to the Sarkin Sudan for his years of public service and for his continuing support to humanitarian causes even as he ages gracefully,” President Buhari said, adding that elder statesman “deserves all the attention and accolades he is receiving on the attainment of this milestone.” The President prayed to Allah to grant Shehu Malami more years in good health for the benefit of his family in particular and the nation in general. [myad]
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has alleged that there is ethnic and cleansing with the killing of over 102 Christians in Godogodo and Gidan Waya communities in Jema’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State by Fulani herdsmen. The umbrella Christian religious organization also said that 50,000 houses have been burnt in 25 Christian communities, where as 102 people have been killed and 215 injured in Kaduna State within six months by the herdsmen. Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja today, as he received representatives of the 25 villages displaced by the crisis rocking Southern Kaduna, the President of CAN, Dr. Samson Supo Ayokunle, said the killings amounted to ethnic and religious cleansing. According to Ayokunle, Christians in those communities in Southern Kaduna have been facing the dangers of annihilation, extinction and genocide because of the threats of attacks by Fulani herdsmen.
“Many of them can no longer live in their communities, 32 people were recently given mass burial. Whoever is killed, whether Christian or Muslim, deserve not to be killed in this country.” Ayokunle wondered why Governor Nasiru El-Rufai, who is the chief security officer of Kaduna State, would visit the two communities only once despite the fact that many houses were burnt and three villages were taken over by the gun-wielding Fulani militants. “Is this not Boko Haram in another colour? I want to plead with the government; this is a moment of truth. It is not about politics, religion or ethnicity. It is about the value that is attached to life. “To keep Nigeria as one is first the task of government before it becomes the task of the citizens. Ethnic and religious cleansing should stop henceforth. Every systematic killing should stop. “We know the President is trying but that is not enough. You have to do more to save these innocent lives. We are appealing to the Federal Government and Governor El-Rufai, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris to do their work and let us see and not rhetoric. Killings in those communities have continued up till now. Let us not forget that an invitation to aggression depends on the degree of frustration.” The Secretary of CAN in Godogodo Zone, Rev. Chawangon Nathan, said that the problem which started on May 26, 2016 had degenerated to uncontrollable crisis due to the non-challant attitude of those in authority. According to Nathan, not less than 25 villages in Southern Kaduna had been brought down by the Fulani herdsmen, who he said media unfortunately described as unknown gunmen. He added that despite knowing the culprits, the security operatives refused to arrest them. Nathan said: “Over 102 people have so far been killed with about 215 sustained various degree of injuries. 50, 000 houses burnt in 25 villages, over 10, 000 displaced and over 30, 000 hectares of land destroyed deliberately by Fulani herdsmen within six months. “The governor visited only one village once and the impact of that visit is not felt up till today. There is religious sentiment among the security operatives.” [myad]
Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the IBB International Golf and Country Club, retired Major-General IBM Haruna has solicited an annual subvention from the government to maintain the club. General Haruna, who paid a courtesy visit on the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello today in his office in Abuja, specifically mentioned the FCT administration and the federal ministry of environment for the disbursement of such annual subvention. He also appealed to the FCT administration to give waiver on annual ground rent for the Club in Abuja, even as he commended the efforts of the current FCT administration for the security which the residents are enjoying. He is also happy with the ongoing reconstruction of roads in the capital city as well as the maintenance of healthy environment. Responding, the minister promised to restore the past glory of the IBB International Golf and Country Club, adding that such move would allow the club to take its proper position as a tourism landmark. “The FCT Administration will do everything possible to help maintain the standard of the IBB International Golf and Country club as one of the landmark and tourism sites in the Federal Capital Territory. “We must join hands to strengthen the beauty and serenity of the place for the benefit of the entire Federal Capital City, Abuja.” Muhammad Bello said that he would personally visit the Club to identify the cause of flooding that damaged the surrounding of the area, saying that the problem would be identified and solved before the next raining season. [myad]
“As we continue with the national quest for answers to the great questions of our time, I urge that we do a self- assessment of where we stand as nation.” The All Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship candidate in the 2015 election in Rivers state, Dr. Dakuku Peterside made this poser today, Friday, at this year’s University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) Distinguished Persons Annual Lecture of the Faculty of Management in a lecture titled: Connected Vision: Building Blocks of a New Nigeria, at the Enugu Campus of the University. Peterside, who is currently the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), said that at present Nigeria has no what he called: “CONNECTED VISION.” He argued that vision is the key driver of any endeavour, saying: “this original haziness in what constitute the overriding national vision has constantly plagued our national development in nearly every sphere. My key observation here and operating thesis therefore is that a nation can only endure if it is founded on an integrated and comprehensive vision (connected vision). Nigeria unfortunately missed that opportunity at inception. “This original ‘sin’ has multiplied and contributed to the ever so frequent quest for a new nation founded on a new vision.” Dr. Peterside said that Nigeria’s challenges were historical, recalling that what the British ceded in 1960 was a complex outcome of negotiated settlements among Nigerian elite, representing first and foremost, their respective regional and ethnic interests. “There was no pan Nigerian interest or pan Nigerian Agenda. There was no “CONNECTED VISION.” Dr. Peterside however said that visions can be corrected even though it is a difficult endeavour. The NIMASA Director General said that hope in a Nigeria connected by vision is in the horizon if the nation will retrace its steps and focus on the factors that can make Nigeria great. “The factors that have been identified are put forward as a guide for this assessment. The solutions we endlessly seek would seem right at our doorsteps. But there is a great amount of political will to do what is necessary.” Peterside commended the Muhammadu Buhari administration for its anti-corruption efforts, emphasising: “this is one area where there is a growing national consensus in Nigeria that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has displayed unusual courage. “There are divergent views as to the effectiveness of current measures but many agree that it required a lot of courage to make a start. It is hoped that the Nigerian public will appreciate the significance of this effort in the overall improvement of the quality of governance in the country.” The NIMASA boss said that the development of the capacities and capabilities of people is perhaps the greatest investment any nation can make because, a well-educated citizenry can conceptualise and implement sound economic policies based on its peculiar realities of geography, natural and human resources. Full text of his lecture is reproduced here”
I am most grateful to the Department of Management and the authority of this great university for their kindness to invite me to deliver this lecture, even when I am not privileged to be “a Lion”. Returning to the university campus to rub minds with fellow students is always a gratifying experience for me; more so, as learning is a continuous process. I would like to say that I am at the early stages of my own adult learning experience, learning from the multiverse of the larger society. The regulatory Agency, NIMASA, I currently serve is a special learning experience that could qualify for a University degree. It is my hope therefore that at the end of today’s interaction, I would have increased what I know and reduced what I do not know. In many ways, this is going to be a transactional interaction in the sense that I place greater value in what I hope to learn from you than in what I am about to say. I would like to relate to the topic of this lecture through a series of questions. I have chosen this path because we are all students questing after greater knowledge. And the right knowledge can only come about if we ask questions- the right ones. Another reason is that there is an implicit interrogation element in the topic. We live in a country that is currently undergoing and doing a great deal of self-examination in nearly all spheres of our national life. We are force by the prevailing economic and political challenges to undertake this rigorous exercise in self-examination and interrogation. As it were, it is question time in Nigeria, in which both Leaders and the led are asking how did we get here and how did things got so bad? As students and citizens we are today busy interrogating our destiny as a nation. We are asking many questions about our history, orientation, institutions and corporate organizations. We wonder why true greatness has remained elusive to our nation. We are at a loss why the common things that citizens of other nations take for granted continue to elude us. In this knowledge community, I am sure the questions acquire greater urgency and stridency as the period of youth and studentship is that of great expectations. It is a period of great dreams and bubbling energy. Further, being citizens of Africa’s biggest economy and the country with the highest population of black people, and abundant natural resources, we have a right to expect a good life after schooling. But this has developed into entitlement culture that people have got used to expecting certain privileges as rights. Since things do not work that way, they seem to be in quandary as to why the basic things expected from the society are not gotten and why the ones they are used to are fast disappearing. For those of us present here the objects of collective national self interrogation will include: why are job opportunities diminishing in a country where there are so much work to be done? Why have the elements of national greatness- economic growth, quality education, progress in science and technology, reliable infrastructure to support economic growth, basic security of life and property, religious harmony and an efficient system of government- seemed to elude us as a nation after more than half a century of formal independence. In trying to reflect this, many of our thinkers have argued that we only got political independence and never worked for economic independence. As a player in the political space and corporate world, I am very troubled by the fact that many of our institutions and corporate organizations hardly survive beyond a few dispensations. If you recall, a number of our government owned companies were so badly run that the option of privatization and government divestment became inevitable. Even our private sector organizations are not insulated from the culture of instability and lack of sustainability. This is understandable given the nexus between the public and private sectors. Government through its organs and policies provide the environment in which the corporate organizations thrive or perish. When policy instability prevails in the political public space, it will be extremely hard for corporate organizations to survive let alone thrive. It is pertinent to state at this juncture that this process of self-interrogation did not start today. It has always been a feature of our national life to question the basic vision and orientation of our nation. In my view, this urge for a better or “alternative” Nigeria is a healthy sign. When people are dissatisfied with their current reality, it is a healthy indicator that people are willing to search for a better reality. In recent times, however, the self-interrogation may have assumed a new urgency because of our desperate economic circumstances. It is true that Nigeria is in recession, in the first quarter of this year (2016) our GDP as given by NBS is minus 0.36%, that of the second quarter was given as minus 2.06%, with our country ranked 169 out of 189 in the 2016 World Bank ease of doing business ranking index. Nigeria is placed 136 out of 165 ranked in Transparency International Corruption perception index 2015 (transparency.org). Notwithstanding the negative statistics, the fact remains that the search for a greater Nigeria has always been a feature of our public discourse: from the inception of military rule in 1966, at the end of the Nigerian Civil War in 1970, through the military rule that terminated in 1999 to mention few. Why has the search not yielded the desired result? To answer the question as well as proffer practicable solution to this seemingly complex problem, first I would like to establish the nexus between sound visioning and sustainability in both political and corporate domains. At the political and historical level, my task is to indicate, in the words of Chinua Achebe ‘where the rain began to beat us’ or where our original national vision became defected. I will then proceed to indicate the basic general elements in the founding and sustenance of great nations in world history. This will enable us to assess our progress against the essential factors and elements that have fashioned and distinguished great nations. In the process, it will be inevitable to cast side glances at how well or badly Nigeria has fared among its “age grade of nations,” nations indeed have age grades. No nation can avoid comparing itself against the achievements of those it considers its age mates and even rivals. The implications of these national development factors for corporate survival and sustainability in individual nations will become self-evident then. It has since been established that an overriding vision is key to the success of nations and corporations. Vision determines progress. Rightly regarded, a vision is by its very nature larger than the dreams and aspirations of any one player or even the aggregate vision of a set of players in a nation or corporation. It ought to define the big picture, the guiding principle of the nation or organization in the long stretch of its history. Vision is not physical sight, for many who have sight do not have vision and some who have vision do not have sight. For instance, quadranially the Americans go to the polls to choose a new president. In the run up to the elections, the campaign of each contestant is weighed constantly and balanced informally by the degree to which it approximates the broad principles and ideals of freedom, justice, equality and opportunity enunciated earlier by the founding fathers. Therefore, to many Nigerians, the recent triumph of Mr Donald Trump was shocking as “voting” in Nigeria was for their interest, whereas the Americans voted for what they think best serves their over ridding interests especially expansion of opportunity for, and security of the American people. In the case of Nigeria, the original defect in our founding vision is historical. As you are all aware, Nigeria came about as an amalgamation of different protectorates by the British in 1914. That process was for the administrative convenience of a colonial project that was first and foremost a trading concern. Subsequently, a political veneer was spread over it through a series of negotiations among factions of the emergent educated national elite clamouring for independence. What the British ceded in 1960 was therefore a complex outcome of negotiated settlements among Nigerian elite representing first and foremost their respective regional and ethnic interests. There was no “pan Nigerian interest” or “pan Nigerian Agenda”. There was no “CONNECTED VISION” The founding vision of Nigeria at independence was essentially one of a multi-ethnic nation first and foremost. But this founding vision was devoid of far reaching integrative economic, political, social and moral elements for the future of such a diverse polity. There seemed to be a belief then that independence from colonial rule was the urgent paramount issue. The refinement of a national ideal and vision would follow along the way. This never happened as the aggressive pursuit of regional interests quickly followed after independence. At best, each of the original three (and later four) regions pursued its fairly independent ideals, targets, goals and aspirations. This accounts for the different levels of development that were witnessed among the regions before the military interventions and the civil war of 1966-70. This original haziness in what constitute the overriding national vision has constantly plagued our national development in nearly every sphere. My key observation here and operating thesis therefore is that a nation can only endure if it is founded on an integrated and comprehensive vision (connected vision). Nigeria unfortunately missed that opportunity at inception. This original ‘sin’ has multiplied and contributed to the ever so frequent quest for a new nation founded on a new vision. Nations unfortunately are not like buildings. No matter how beautiful and magnificent a building is, it is possible and easy to evacuate, demolish and replace it with a completely new and more magnificent one, to serve a totally different purpose. But, it is not so with nations. The critical difference is nations contain people who cannot be emptied out to make way for a new nation. The closest of demolition of national foundations to build something new is with peaceful or violent revolutions. After the collapse of the old Soviet Union and the demolition of the Berlin Wall, we are all witnesses to what has become of nations re-invented under ideological revolutions. We do not want to go in that direction if we are to find viable answers to the questions that are today nagging most Nigerians. Therefore, nations can ill afford the luxury of self-demolition and re-invention. Instead, nations renew themselves through a process of systematic reform and periodic renewal through appropriate democratic transformations. On the matter of corrective vision, corporations are luckier than nations. A corporation can change its board and management, re-brand itself, redefine its vision and map for itself a new mission. It can even be acquired or acquire other corporations for healthier growth. There is the probability of success that with better management, from the ashes of the old corporation, something new and more profitable will emerge. This is the spirit and guiding principle behind the reform and repositioning we are championing in NIMASA. Close to ten years of the existence of NIMASA in its current structure, we are in the process of refreshing our vision and mission, we have a new Board and a visionary management, it offers the rare opportunity to re-invent that regulatory agency and reposition it as the most efficient, effective and responsive regulatory agency in Africa, advancing Nigeria’s maritime goals. However, it is pertinent at this juncture to point out an obvious fact. The success of nations in the race for development is not solely accounted for by the soundness of their founding vision, just like the success of corporations are not determined by its vision and mission statement alone. There is an interplay of critical factors that separates successful nations from those that continued to struggle on the development ladder. In the race for the top of the development index, age and longevity do not necessarily confer superior development. While some old nations like Greece and Egypt have continued to struggle with the key indices of development, relatively new nation states like South Korea, Singapore and Botswana have emerged as highly successful economically and even politically. Let us now identify some of the key factors that enable nations transform their founding vision into roaring success. Some form of participatory government and inclusive political institutions is the commonest requirement for national development. At the bottom of this assertion is the understanding that a nation cannot leave out any segment of its populace in the decisions that govern their very lives. Divergent cultures and histories have made it expedient to accept ‘appropriate’ democracy as a term to denote the adoption by individual nation forms of participatory governance that is appropriate to their circumstance in order to carry their people along the path of national development. While western countries have insisted on liberal multi party democracy as the best form of government, other major economies like China and Russia have adopted quasi-autocratic form of democracy to enlist popular participation in national affairs and development. There are also countries where great developmental strides have been made within the context of monarchical governments with traditional ways of engineering legitimacy and popular participation. Whatever the form of government, there is no disagreement as to what constitutes good governance. The principles of accountability, transparency, observance of the rule of law and basic freedoms remain fundamental to any definition of good governance. But the ultimate determinant of good governance is the extent to which such government meets the basic needs of the greatest majority of its people. In recent years, a new overriding challenge has taken the center stage in the assessment of governments all over the world. It is the challenge of global inequality. With the triumph of the West and the open market economic format, countries have woken up to find themselves overwhelmed by glaring inequality among their citizens. In the US, the gap between the top 2% of the population who own literally everything and the rest of the population has become glaring and very embarrassing. Addressing inequality has emerged as one of the top challenges of governments all over the world. Governments are now challenged to adopt smarter policies to reduce inequality through adjustments in the structure of opportunities and the provision of wider access to the basic necessities of life. The quest for more accountable governance all over the world has led the international community to recognize illicit financial flows through corruption as a major obstacle to the attainment of good governance. It is also one factor that has increased inequality within individual national societies. Corruption is extractive and exploitative by nature. Corruption does not create the incentives needed for people to give their best, innovate and be resourceful. The more successful countries have instituted very tough anti-corruption measures to detect and punish corrupt practices through appropriate legislation and the judiciary. In this regard, it is not surprising that some of the fastest growing countries like Singapore, Rwanda and Botswana also happen to have the toughest anti-corruption regimes in the world. This is one area where there is a growing national consensus in Nigeria that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has displayed unusual courage. There are divergent views as to the effectiveness of current measures but many agree that it required a lot of courage to make a start. It is hoped that the Nigerian public will appreciate the significance of this effort in the overall improvement of the quality of governance in the country. Outgoing US President Barack Obama once declared in Ghana that Africa does not need more strong men but strong institutions. At the back of that assertion is the realization that in most African countries, the institutions of state remain relatively weak while leaders often violate them and rule according to their whims. This is true in some African countries such as Zimbabwe as it is true in South American countires like Colombia and Asian countries like North Korea amongst others. Yet it is common knowledge that advanced democracies of the world rely on the integrity of their institutions to preserve order and ensure the survival of the state and society. If our judiciary does not have integrity, then all we can expect from the courts would be judgments retailed for cash instead of justice dispensed according to law. If our military institutions do not have inbuilt service integrity, we will continue to have political generals while avoidable insurgency rages and diminishes our national sovereignty. The same argument can be made in respect of our major national institutions to highlight their current shortcomings as a way of extrapolating on our negative development indices. In general when leaders tamper with the integrity of the institutions of state, they render those institutions weak and subject to constant manipulation by successive administrations. This complicates the problem of governance and policy instability. The economic policies of any nation, in order to endure, must take into consideration its peculiar realities of geography, natural and human resources. Such policy must be a general framework which is however sufficiently flexible to survive the periodic shocks and bumps in an ever changing global economic environment. Ordinarily, Nigeria’s originating economic policy framework should have from the mid 1960s included the element of diversification from oil by retaining the initial pride of place which agriculture enjoyed in our immediate post-colonial period. Even in the context of the so called oil boom, the process of diversification into other lucrative areas like tourism, solid minerals and human capital development should have begun actively from 1970. These did not happen, hence the consequences we are experiencing today. On the contrary, countries like the Gulf Arab states saw their oil wealth as a source of capital for the development of alternative economies hence they embarked on aggressive infrastructure development, tourism development and promotion and savings for difficult times. Countries like United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the most resilient economies in both the Middle East and the world. Every nation’s greatest asset base and resource pool remains its people. The development of the capacities and capabilities of people is perhaps the greatest investment any nation can make. Education is the time-tested mechanism for galvanizing the latent power of a nation to transform its environment and development its economy. Every educated citizen is an engine of development because he/she is a creator, an inventor, a thinker, a technician, an engineer or just an enlightened citizen fully aware of their rights in an orderly society governed by the rule of law. Lee Kwan Yew, the visionary leader of independent Singapore placed human capacity development as his number one priority to grow the new nation. His defining economic policy is arguably uncompressing standards for a universally accessible, top flight public education system- astutely identifying human capital as Singapore’s key competitive advantage, supplemented with rigorous application of meritocracy (www.bbc.com/rishnuvarathan). Natural resource based economies like ours remain vulnerable because we calculate our national survival in barrels of oil and cubic meters of gas. On the contrary, human resource based economies like those of the advanced economies depend more on the power of the human mind to create an alternative economy that is largely independent of the vagaries in the international prices of natural resources and extractive produce. Japan and Germany for instance do not produce a barrel of oil but they rank among the top five leading economies of the world. They depend instead on the ingenuity of the trained human mind in science and technology to dominate a sizeable portion of the world market in finished products especially, machines and IT products, which every economy needs to thrive. You will notice that I have deliberately placed the importance of natural resources last among the factors required for national development. The point is that this is one factor that can easily be dispensed with. The greater majority of successful nation states do not have mineral resources. They may have agricultural resources but this requires the application of labour and capital to amount to anything. Singapore which got independence in 1965 was an Island without any natural resources to call its own but today is an economic wonder. In most cases, countries that rely on extractive industries for their economies to survive have suffered from what has come to be called the resource curse. The over dependence on royalties and rents from extractive industries has been recognized as the cause of rampant corruption, lazy and unproductive bureaucracies, emphasis on imports for consumption, lavish spending on luxuries by the elite of politically exposed persons and slow development of manufacturing and creative industries. There are few exceptions to this law of negativity. In Africa, Botswana for instance has defied the resource curse through an original vision that saw diamonds first as a natural source of capital for national development. Botswana’s founding fathers were themselves very frugal individuals who never mistook national wealth for their personal empires. That tradition has largely endured, making Botswana a shining example of economic growth and good governance in Africa. After 50 years of independence, Botswana is today a rich nation by African standards and is globally regarded as middle-income country. For the first 35 years of its national history, it had the fastest GDP growth rate in the entire world (sometimes in excess of 14% per annum). Its per capita income has jumped from $50 to $7,000, putting it at the top of middle class countries. Botswana has literacy rate of over 87%. The country ranks number 2 among countries in Africa that provide for the social needs of its citizens and is at the top of countries with the lowest corruption scores in Africa. The country has never suffered either a recession or hyperinflation since independence. We can contrast this with the record of nearby Angola, which has the same diamonds and oil. Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and an extreme poverty rate of over 50%. As we continue with the national quest for answers to the great the questions of our time, I urge that we do a self- assessment of where we stand as nation. The factors that have been identified are put forward as a guide for this assessment. The solutions we endlessly seek would seem right at our doorsteps. But there is a great amount of political will to do what is necessary. As the present administration in the country battles to correct the ills of the past, it is hope that the political leadership of the country will muster the will to address the deficits in our national development strategy to date. Thank you for listening. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed that he would never allow budget padding, which just entered the nation’s budgetry lexicon in 2016 to happen again in his government. “I am waiting for the 2017 Budget to be brought to us in Council. Any sign of padding anywhere, I will remove it.”
President Buhari, who received in audience today, Friday, members of the Governance Support Group (GSG), led by Hon. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, lamented what he called the distortions in 2016 appropriation bill, in which series of rogue projects and figures were injected into the financial document.
Emphasizing that such thing won’t happen to next year’s budget, President Muhammadu Buhari confessed again that since 1975, when he served the country as governor, oil minister, head of state, and Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), he had never heard the word ‘padding’ till the 2016 Budget.
Buhari said that his government stands by its tripod campaign promises of securing the country, reviving the economy, and fighting corruption, but lamented that some people are deliberately turning blind eyes to prevailing realities in the country.
“They don’t want to reflect on the situation in which we are, economically. They want to live the same way; they simply want business as usual,” he said.
On violence that attended rerun elections in the country, President Buhari said: “I agonized over the elections in Kogi, Bayelsa and Rivers states. We should have passed the stage in which people are beheaded, and killed because of who occupies certain offices. If we can’t guarantee decent elections, then we have no business being around. Edo State election was good, and I expect Ondo State election to be better.” Speaking on the anti-corruption cases before the courts, the President said he believed the cleansing currently going on “will lead to a better judiciary. When people are sentenced, Nigerians will believe that we are serious.”
President Buhari equally told his guests that the progress being made in agriculture and exploitation of solid minerals “gives a lot of hope. Our grains go up to Central African Republic, to Burkina Faso, but they can’t buy all the grains harvested this year. And next season should be even better. We will focus on other products like cocoa, palm oil, palm kernel, along with the grains. We can start exporting rice in 18 months, and we are getting fertilizers and pesticides in readiness for next year.”
Speaking on behalf of members of GSG, Hon. Nwajiuba said that the government had succeeded to a large extent on the security and anti-corruption fronts, adding that the group was positive that the economy would soon experience a turnaround, “as the government is working very hard in that direction.”
The group said the biggest constituency of the President was the poor and lowly, and thus recommended what it calls “a social re-armament of the poor.” [myad]
The 2nd African Union Interfaith Dialogue Forum, jointly organized by the Citizens and Diaspora Directorate (CIDO) of the African Union Commission and the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID), based in Vienna, Austria, which took place in Abuja came to a close on November 11, 2016. The Forum provided a platform for religious leaders, policy makers, scholars and representatives of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from no fewer than 30 African nations to brainstorm on strategies towards the promotion of peace among adherents of various faiths in the continent.
Anchored on the theme: ‘Leap of faith, religious leaders, advance justice, peace,, security, inclusiveness, dialogue and development in Africa,’ the 1st African Union (AU) Interfaith Summit was built on “a structured partnership between AU and religious leaders for advancing justice, peace, security and development in Africa.”
The 2nd Interfaith Dialogue Forum is a fallout of the first meeting that took place in Abuja from June 15 to 17, 2010, which brought together religious leaders under the theme, ‘Advancing Justice, Peace, Security and Development: Harnessing the Power of Religious Communities in Africa.’ With a membership of no fewer than 70 participants drawn from various African countries, the first AU summit led to a formal declaration of the “AU Interfaith Forum Declaration”, which calls on the need for “further collaboration between religious leaders dedicated for their unequivocal commitment to interfaith dialogue.
Welcoming delegates to the 2nd AU Interfaith Summit in Abuja, the KAICIID Secretary General, Faisal Bin Muaammar, said the forum represents a milestone “in the partnership between the African Union and KAICIID, a partnership which began with our Memorandum of Understanding in 2013.”
Considering incessant religious crises that have rocked the continent, especially the Central African Republic and Nigeria, the AU Interfaith Summit has become imperative in halting the manipulation of religion and to promote peaceful co-existence among adherents of different faiths. According to the KAICIID Secretary General, no religion in the world promotes violence, and that religious violence is caused by manipulation of political factors and greed. Muammar said youths are lured to join Boko Haram in Nigeria, “because these young people are misled or because they seek social, political or economic gain.”
Drawing on the need to draw the curtains over incessaant religious violence, the Secretary General bemoaned: ”In many countries, the manipulation of religion and religious identity for violence is leading to divisions in societies, communities, families. Many of these societies have for centuries been models of inter-religious co-existence and collaboration.”
Speaking at the conference, Head of Civil Society Division of CIDO of the African Union, Amb Jalel Chelba, regretted that Africa finds itself in a precarious condition, with fundamental groups emerging to encourage violence, juts as he added, ”This violent image of religion generated by such groups is a leading cause to intolerance, sectarian violence and destabilising of soecieties in Africa.”
The Head of CIDO said the only hope for the continent is for the leadership in Africa, from governemental to non-governmental, and religious fronts to unite and jointly combat these challenges.”
Also speaking at the opening session of the summit, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, who was represented by the Wazirin Katsina, Alhaji Sani Lugga, called on religious leaders to guard their utterances so as not to encourage violence among their members. The leader of Nigerian Muslims stressed the need for clerics to perform their role as peace makers and tasked religious leaders in Africa to remain the formidable foundation upon which peace and development can be built upon.
Cardinal John Onaiyekan, who is the archbishop of Abuja Diocese, called on the African Union to implement measures aimed at tackling religious and politically motivated crises in Africa. Represented at the event by Rev Sr. Agatha Ogochukwu, the Cardinal reminded delegates to the summit that no religion preaches violence. He called on religious leaders in Africa to join forces with nations, communities and organisations to halt further violence in the name of religion.
Deputy Secretary General for External Relations (KAICIID), Amb Alvaro Albacete, noted that for violent actions in the name of religion to be halted, there is need for collaboration among stakeholders, comprising government officials, religous leaders, among others. He told the gathering that the International Dialogue Centre welcomes the partnership with AU to broaden the frontiers of religious understanding and promote peaceful living among members of the world’s various faiths.
The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto and member of KAICIID Advisory Forum, Dr. Matthew Hassan Kukah, tasked religous leaders to tell truth to powers that be, streessing that religion should be a force for unity and not violence. Speaking on ’Collaboration between religious actors and policy makers in Africa:Positive examples, challenges and lessons learned,’ the Bishop declared that religious leaders must never remain silent on issues that promote peace among adherents of various faiths.
Speaking on ’The Role of Religious Leaders and Conflict Resolution,’ the Senior Political/ Elections Officer of AU, Samuel Mondays Atuobi, noted that for a proper understanding on how to end religious conflicts in Africa, there is need to outline roles of religious leaders in society and assess them as enablers of conflict prevention in the continent.
According to him, religious leaders serve as angels of peace, role models and bridge builders, as well as mediators and reconciliators. Atuobi said for religous violence to be tackled, information sharing, neutrality, interfaith mobilisations, partnership and capacity skill acquiisition are indispensable in ridding Africa of violence in the name of religion.
Other speakers in the summit included Hajiya Saudatu Sani, Secretary General of Women’s Right Advancement and ProtectionAlternative (WRAPA), Ms Saydoon Sayed, Co-chair, African Women of Faith Network, South Africa, among others. Moderators at the event were Professor Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Senior Advisor, KAICIID, and Ms. Quriatou Danfakha, Bureau of the Chairperson Office, African Union Commission.
At the end of the two-day summit, the forum harped on the need for inter-religious and intra-faith dialogue as a tool for peace building and development in Africa, just as delegates approved a Declaration and a Plan of Action on their joint work in education, partnerships, media and development. The 2nd AU Interfaith Forum came out with a declaration which “acknowledges the need to build partnerships between African Union, interfaith and faith-based organisations, as well as religious and traditional leaders to more effectively implement the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in Africa. As part of the Action Plan, the African Union will support a Steering Committee to establish a 10-year interfaith development agenda for all African Union member states.” The Action Plan adopted by the summit also calls for the promotion of peace and reconciliation “through the teachings of the different holy books in all places of worship and to enhance media coverage.”
To achieve the objectives of the summit, delegates were elected into a steering committee to ensure the realisation of the AU Agenda 2063 that calls for closer collaboration of all stakeholders towards attainment of development in the continent. KAICIID Secretary General Muammar underscored the relevance of the steering committe elected for interfaith development agenda: ”The steering committee launched today is a vital instrument in that endeavour. It fosters among other relations, Interreligious dialogue, which is an integral component in achieving the Africa Agenda 2063, global strategy to optimize use of Africa’s resources for the benefit for all Africans.”
There is no doubt that the 2nd AU Interfaith Dialogue Forum not only succeeded in bringing Africa’s brightest in advancing the frontiers of interfaith unity, but also paved the way in broadening measures in resolving religious crises that have often rendered the continent exhausted in attaining peace and prosperity.
When aggrieved politicians within the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) decided to join forces with members of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the All Progressives Peoples Alliance (APGA) to form the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013, they had well-defined, if not so clearly stated, even if poorly conceived objectives: to send President Goodluck Jonathan out of power, displace the PDP which had clearly become a dominating hegemonic party, exert vengeance and offer the people an alternative.
The triumph of the APC in the 2015 elections resulting in victory at the Presidential level, in 23 states out of 36, and also in the legislature, state and federal, was propelled on the wings of the people’s embrace of this slogan of change. Change became the aphrodisiac of Nigeria’s search for democratic progress. The new party’s promises were delivered with so much certainty and cock-suredness. Those who were promised free meals were already salivating before casting the first vote.
The permanently opportunistic players in Nigeria’s private sector could be seen trading across the lines as they have always done. Everyone knew the PDP had too much internal baggage to deal with. The opposition exploited this to the fullest and they were helped in no small measure, not just by the party’s implosion, but also the offensiveness of the claims by certain elements within the PDP that their party will rule Nigeria forever. This arrogance had gone down the rank and file resulting in bitter conflicts among the various big men who dominated the party. The party failed from within, and even after losing the 2015 elections, it has further failed to recover from the effects of the factionalism that demystified it and drove it out of its hegemonic comfort zone. It took the PDP 16 years to get that hubristic moment. It is taking the APC a much shorter time to get to that same moment.
The displacement of the PDP gave the impression that Nigeria’s political space, hitherto dominated by one party, and a half, out of over 30 political parties with fears of a possible authoritarian one-party system, had become competitive. But the victory of a new party over a dominant political party in power such as occurred in 2015, has not delivered the much-expected positives: instead, questions have been raised about the depth of democratic change and the quality of Nigeria’s political development. The disappointment on both scores has been telling.
The ruling APC has not been able to live up to expectations. In less than two years in power, it has been behaving not like the PDP, but worse. Not a day passes without a pundit or a party member or a civil society activist suggesting that the only way forward is the formation of a new political party. There are over 30 registered political parties in Nigeria; no one is saying that these political parties should be reorganized and made more functional; the received opinion is that a new political party would have to replace the APC.
The implied message is the subject of political science. Many political parties in Africa, not just in Nigeria, lack substance. They reflect the problematic nature of party politics in the continent, even after the third wave of the continent’s democratic experience. Party organizations are weak, their organs are inchoate, their fortunes are mercurial. In Nigeria, this seems to be more of a post-military rule reality, for in the First and Second Republics, some of Nigeria’s political parties appeared to be more relatively people-based and socially-rooted. The military left behind an authoritarian streak at the heart of Nigeria’s party politics, producing political parties since 1999 that do not fully reflect or assimilate the people’s yearnings.
There isn’t therefore yet in place a mass-based, people-driven political party to replace the elite-based hegemonic parties we have, despite early efforts in the past in this direction by the likes of Aminu Kano and his People’s Redemption Party (PRP), Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s Movement of the People (MOP), Tunji Braithwaite’s Nigeria Advance Party (NAP), Gani Fawehinmi’s National Conscience Party (NCP) and Wole Soyinka’s Democratic Front for the People’s Federation. There was also the Labour Party, mentioned separately here, advisedly, because it ended up abandoning its social democratic base, and became like the regular parties, an elite cabal, with the initial progressives who championed it on the platform of the Nigeria Labour Congress, moving ideologically to the right in an attempt to align with the Nigerian mainstream and its ready benefits. A profile of this political party and its initial principal promoters would reveal just how alimentary Nigerian politics is.
Our immediate concern, however, is to argue that those who are raising the flag of a new political party as the answer to the emerging failure of the APC and the growth of factions among its members, and by extension, the spreading despair in the land, are missing the point. They are not promising any revolutionary change nor are they interested in deepening Nigeria’s democratic change. Permit me to quote Danjuma Gambo, of the Enugu Chapter of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) who reportedly said: “A new political party is what we need. A new party with new plan, (and an) ideology that will bring succor to the sufferings of Nigerians is the answer.”
Gambo deserves some credit: he phrases the matter delicately as a commentary on the incumbent dominating political party and government. His “what we need”, “new plan” “ideology” means change, another form of change to end, he tells us, “the sufferings (sic) of Nigerians.” We ask him, although he seems to have answered the question already: what happened to the change that happened in 2015? So we ask another question: if the formation of a new political party did not solve Nigeria’s problems since 2015, what is the guarantee that a new party would gain power and perform better than the ruling APC? Professional politicians don’t comment on the matter as carefully as Gambo attempted. They are brazen about it and they have been loud too. They make it sound like a threat and a given solution. When you hear them boasting that a new political party is on the way, you are left in no doubt that they are issuing a threat. But is a new political party the solution to Nigeria’s foreign exchange crisis or the people’s angst?
The conundrum is easy to resolve. It is easy for the political elite in Nigeria to change their garments, sans remorse, ideology or sentiment and that is how some of the most prominent political figures in Nigeria today have changed party membership cards more than five times in the last 17 years. The politics of elitism in Nigeria is simply about access to power, position and privileges. It has nothing to do with the people’s interests. The APC is in crisis for this reason, very much like the PDP, and even the smaller parties, because these are political parties of big men of influence. Conflict results when they are not allowed to exercise that influence by other competing big men, who are similarly if not equally driven by ego, religion and superior ethnic considerations.
The exercise of influence as a party big man follows a known pattern: after electoral victory, the big man wants the spoils of victory; he wants positions for his followers, contracts for wives and children and the freedom to have a say in the new government. Any attempt to shut him down, oppose him, or sideline him or her, immediately creates a crisis within the party. The greater the number of such big persons who feel short-changed and marginalized, the greater the chances of such factionalism that would trigger threats of a new political party. New groups can create new tendencies in society, but in Nigerian politics, new groups don’t really emerge, it is the same recycled set moving from one political party to a new or another one, looking for benefits.
Poverty, low literacy and the weakness of public institutions make the people vulnerable. The people embrace slogans and the dividends of what is now known in Nigeria as “stomach infrastructure.” They are deceived by the politicians’ display of affection and empathy. Because they are hungry, they accept money to attend rallies to help create an illusion of populism and acceptability. On election day, they sell their votes and sign off their freedom. After the election, they are too ashamed to speak up or they compensate for their psychological distress by subscribing to the politics of vengeance. A patrimonial and neo-patrimonial political system such as we run in Nigeria promotes nothing but difference, disappointment and distrust. Those who are plotting to create a new political party should be told that the harvest is predictable: more intense leadership competition, high level conflict among big men, greater deception, increased difference and tension within the polity. Political parties are governed by rules: the Nigerian political system operates above rules. It is possibly one of the most Machiavellian in Africa.
What do we need? Not recycled politicians posing as new party men and women. But this: effective party organizations, like the NCNC, the NEPU, the NPC, the AG, APGA, UPN, UMBC of old which belonged to the people and reflected their aspirations. The only difference should be a necessary disconnect with the politics of ethnicity at the heart of the party formation process in Africa which, as seen, defeats the objectives of true democracy and modernization. Institutionalization of the political party system will also ensure stability within the democratic order: after a bitter political contest in the United States in 2016, the two dominant political parties – The Republican and the Democratic have remained stable, and the country is being projected as supreme.
We should end this then where we started: leadership is the principal challenge. Until we sort that out, Nigeria’s politics will remain trapped in the throes of ethnicity, patrimonialism, authoritarian dominance, the threat of system volatility and fragmentation and the politics of revenge. [myad]
I think I’ve been treated very rough. It’s well out there that I’ve been treated extremely unfairly in a sense, in a true sense. I wouldn’t only complain about The Times. I would say The Times was about the roughest of all. You could make the case The Washington Post was bad, but every once in a while I’d actually get a good article. Not often, Dean, but every once in awhile.
Look, I have great respect for The Times, and I’d like to turn it around. I think it would make the job I am doing much easier. We’re working very hard. We have great people coming in. I think you’ll be very impressed with the names. We’ll be announcing some very shortly.
This is the full transcript of President-elect, Donald Trump’s interview with reporters, editors and opinion columnists from The New York Times. The transcription was prepared by Liam Stack, Jonah Engel Bromwich, Karen Workman and Tim Herrera of The Times.
ARTHUR SULZBERGER Jr., publisher of The New York Times: Thank you very much for joining us. And I want to reaffirm this is on the record.
DONALD J. TRUMP, President-elect of the United States: O.K.
SULZBERGER: All right, so we’re clear. We had a very nice meeting in the Churchill Room. You’re a Churchill fan, I hear?
TRUMP: I am, I am.
SULZBERGER: There’s a photo of the great man behind you.
TRUMP: There was a big thing about the bust that was removed out of the Oval Office.
SULZBERGER: I heard you’re thinking of putting it back.
TRUMP: I am, indeed. I am.
SULZBERGER: Wonderful. So we’ve got a good collection here from our newsroom and editorial and our columnists. I just want to say we had a good, quiet, but useful and well-meaning conversation in there. So I appreciate that very much.
TRUMP: I appreciate it, too.
SULZBERGER: I thought maybe I’d start this off by asking if you have anything you would like to start this off with before we move to the easiest questions you’re going to get this administration.
[laughter]
TRUMP: O.K. Well, I just appreciate the meeting and I have great respect for The New York Times. Tremendous respect. It’s very special. Always has been very special. I think I’ve been treated very rough. It’s well out there that I’ve been treated extremely unfairly in a sense, in a true sense. I wouldn’t only complain about The Times. I would say The Times was about the roughest of all. You could make the case The Washington Post was bad, but every once in a while I’d actually get a good article. Not often, Dean, but every once in awhile.
Look, I have great respect for The Times, and I’d like to turn it around. I think it would make the job I am doing much easier. We’re working very hard. We have great people coming in. I think you’ll be very impressed with the names. We’ll be announcing some very shortly.
Everybody wanted to do this. People are giving up tremendous careers in order to be subject to you folks and subject to a lot of other folks. But they’re giving up a lot. I mean some are giving up tremendous businesses in order to sit for four or maybe eight or whatever the period of time is. But I think we’re going to see some tremendous talent, tremendous talent coming in. We have many people for every job. I mean no matter what the job is, we have many incredible people. I think, Reince, you can sort of just confirm that. The quality of the people is very good.
REINCE PRIEBUS, Mr. Trump’s choice for chief of staff…
TRUMP: We’re trying very hard to get the best people. Not necessarily people that will be the most politically correct people, because that hasn’t been working. So we have really experts in the field. Some are known and some are not known, but they’re known within their field as being the best. That’s very important to me.
You know, I’ve been given a great honor. It’s been very tough. It’s been 18 months of brutality in a true sense, but we won it. We won it pretty big. The final numbers are coming out. Or I guess they’re coming out. Michigan’s just being confirmed. But the numbers are coming out far beyond what anybody’s wildest expectation was. I don’t know if it was us, I mean, we were seeing the kind of crowds and kind of, everything, the kind of enthusiasm we were getting from the people.
As you probably know, I did many, many speeches that last four-week period. I was just telling Arthur that I went around and did speeches in the pretty much 11 different places, that were, the massive crowds we were getting. If we had a stadium that held — and most of you, many of you were there — that held 20,000 people, we’d have 15,000 people outside that couldn’t get in.
So we came up with a good system — we put up the big screens outside with a very good loudspeaker system and very few people left. I would do, during the last month, two or three a day. That’s a lot. Because that’s not easy when you have big crowds. Those speeches, that’s not an easy way of life, doing three a day. Then I said the last two days, I want to do six and seven. And I’m not sure anybody has ever done that. But we did six and we did seven and the last one ended at 1 o’clock in the morning in Michigan.
And we had 31,000 people, 17,000 or 18,000 inside and the rest outside. This massive place in Grand Rapids, I guess. And it was an incredible thing. And I left saying: ‘How do we lose Michigan? I don’t think we can lose Michigan.’
And the reason I did that, it was set up only a little while before — because we heard that day that Hillary was hearing that they’re going to lose Michigan, which hasn’t been lost in 38 years. Or something. But 38 years. And they didn’t want to lose Michigan. So they went out along with President Obama and Michelle, Bill and Hillary, they went to Michigan late that, sort of late afternoon and I said, ‘Let’s go to Michigan.’
It wasn’t on the schedule. So I finished up in New Hampshire and at 10 o’clock I went to Michigan. We got there at 12 o’clock. We started speaking around 12:45, actually, and we had 31,000 people and I said, really, I mean, there are things happening. But we saw it everywhere.
So we felt very good. we had great numbers. And we thought we’re going to win. We thought we were going to win Florida. We thought we were going to win North Carolina. We did easily, pretty easily. We thought strongly we were going to win Pennsylvania. The problem is nobody had won it and it was known, as you know, the great state that always got away. Every Republican thought they were going to win Pennsylvania for 38 years and they just couldn’t win it.
And I thought we were going to win it. And we won it, we won it, you know, relatively easily, we won it by a number of points. Florida we won by 180,000 — was that the number, 180?
President-elect Donald J. Trump met with journalists from the newsroom and opinion staff at The New York Times on Tuesday. Here are some of the issues discussed at the meeting.
TRUMP: More than 180,000 voted, and votes are still coming in from the military, which we are getting about 85 percent of.
So we won that by a lot of votes and, you know, we had a great victory. We had a great victory. I think it would have been easier because I see every once in awhile somebody says, ‘Well, the popular vote.’ Well, the popular vote would have been a lot easier, but it’s a whole different campaign. I would have been in California, I would have been in Texas, Florida and New York, and we wouldn’t have gone anywhere else. Which is, I mean I’d rather do the popular vote from the standpoint — I’d think we’d do actually as well or better — it’s a whole different campaign. It’s like, if you’re a golfer, it’s like match play versus stroke play. It’s a whole different game.
But I think the popular vote would have been easier in a true sense because you’d go to a few places. I think that’s the genius of the Electoral College. I was never a fan of the Electoral College until now.
SULZBERGER: Until now.
TRUMP: Until now. I guess now I like it for two reasons. What it does do is it gets you out to see states that you’ll never see otherwise. It’s very interesting. Like Maine. I went to Maine four times. I went to Maine 2 for one, because everybody was saying you can get to 269 but there is no path to 270. We learned that was false because we ended up with what, three-something.
PRIEBUS: I’ve got to get, we’ve got to get Michigan in.
TRUMP: But there is no path to 270, you have to get the one in Maine, so we kept going back to Maine and we did get the one in Maine. We kept going to Maine 2, and we went to a lot of states that you wouldn’t spend a lot of time in and it does get you — we actually went to about 22 states, whereas if you’re going for popular vote, you’d probably go to four, or three, it could be three. You wouldn’t leave New York. You’d stay in New York and you’d stay in California. So there’s a certain genius about it. And I like it either way. But it’s sort of interesting.
But we had an amazing period of time. I got to know the country, we have a great country, we’re a great, great people, and the enthusiasm was really incredible. The Los Angeles Times had a poll which was interesting because I was always up in that poll. They had something that is, I guess, a modern-day technique in polling, it was called enthusiasm. They added an enthusiasm factor and my people had great enthusiasm, and Hillary’s people didn’t have enthusiasm. And in the end she didn’t get the African-American vote and we ended up close to 15 points, as you know. We started off at one, we ended up with almost 15. And more importantly, a lot of people didn’t show up, because the African-American community liked me. They liked what I was saying.
So they didn’t necessarily vote for me, but they didn’t show up, which was a big problem that she had. I ended up doing very well with women, which was — which I never understood why I was doing poorly, because we’d go to the rallies and we’d have so many women holding up signs, “Women for Trump.” But I kept reading polls saying that I’m not doing well with women. I think whoever is doing it here would say that we did very well with women, especially certain women.
DEAN BAQUET, executive editor of The New York Times: As you describe it, you did do something really remarkable. You energized a lot of people in the country who really wanted change in Washington. But along with that — and this is going to create a tricky thing for you — you also energized presumably a smaller number of people who were evidenced at the alt-right convention in Washington this weekend. Who have a very …
TRUMP: I just saw that today.
BAQUET: So, I’d love to hear you talk about how you’re going to manage that group of people who actually may not be the larger group but who have an expectation for you and are angry about the country and its — along racial lines. My first question is, do you feel like you said things that energized them in particular, and how are you going to manage that?
TRUMP: I don’t think so, Dean. First of all, I don’t want to energize the group. I’m not looking to energize them. I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group. They, again, I don’t know if it’s reporting or whatever. I don’t know where they were four years ago, and where they were for Romney and McCain and all of the other people that ran, so I just don’t know, I had nothing to compare it to.
But it’s not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized I want to look into it and find out why.
What we do want to do is we want to bring the country together, because the country is very, very divided, and that’s one thing I did see, big league. It’s very, very divided, and I’m going to work very hard to bring the country together.
I mean, I’m somebody that really has gotten along with people over the years. It was interesting, my wife, I went to a big event about two years ago. Just after I started thinking about politics.
And we’re walking in and some people were cheering and some people were booing, and she said, you know, ‘People have never booed for you.’
I’ve never had a person boo me, and all of a sudden people are booing me. She said, that’s never happened before. And, it’s politics. You know, all of a sudden they think I’m going to be running for office, and I’m a Republican, let’s say. So it’s something that I had never experienced before and I said, ‘Those people are booing,’ and she said, ‘Yup.’ They’d never booed before. But now they boo. You know, it was a group and another group was going the opposite.
No, I want to bring the country together. It’s very important to me. We’re in a very divided country. In many ways divided.
BAQUET: So I’m going to do that thing that executive editors get to do which is to invite reporters to jump in and ask questions.
MAGGIE HABERMAN, political reporter: I’ll start, thank you, Dean. Mr. President, I’d like to thank you for being here. This morning, Kellyanne Conway talked about not prosecuting Hillary Clinton. We were hoping you could talk about exactly what that means — does that mean just the emails, or the emails and the foundation, and how you came to that decision.
TRUMP: Well, there was a report that somebody said that I’m not enthused about it. Look, I want to move forward, I don’t want to move back. And I don’t want to hurt the Clintons. I really don’t.
She went through a lot. And suffered greatly in many different ways. And I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious. They say it was the most vicious primary and the most vicious campaign. I guess, added together, it was definitely the most vicious; probably, I assume you sold a lot of newspapers.
[laughter]
I would imagine. I would imagine. I’m just telling you, Maggie, I’m not looking to hurt them. I think they’ve been through a lot. They’ve gone through a lot.
I’m really looking … I think we have to get the focus of the country into looking forward.
SULZBERGER: If I could interject, we had a good conversation there, you and I, and it was off the record, but there was nothing secret, just wanted to make sure. The idea of looking forward was one of the themes that you were saying. That we need to now get past the election, right?
MATTHEW PURDY, deputy managing editor: So you’re definitively taking that off the table? The investigation?
TRUMP: No, but the question was asked.
PURDY: About the emails and the foundation?
TRUMP: No, no, but it’s just not something that I feel very strongly about. I feel very strongly about health care. I feel very strongly about an immigration bill that I think even the people in this room can be happy. You know, you’ve been talking about immigration bills for 50 years and nothing’s ever happened.
I feel very strongly about an immigration bill that’s fair and just and a lot of other things. There are a lot of things I feel strongly about. I’m not looking to look back and go through this. This was a very painful period. This was a very painful election with all of the email things and all of the foundation things and all of the everything that they went through and the whole country went through. This was a very painful period of time. I read recently where it was, it was, they’re saying, they used to say it was Lincoln against whoever and none of us were there to see it. And there aren’t a lot of recordings of that, right?
[laughter]
But the fact is that there were some pretty vicious elections; they say this was, this was the most.
They say it was definitely the most vicious primary. And I think it’s very important to look forward.
CAROLYN RYAN, senior editor for politics: Do you think it would disappoint your supporters who seemed very animated by the idea of accountability in the Clintons? What would you say to them?
TRUMP: I don’t think they will be disappointed. I think I will explain it, that we have to, in many ways save our country.
Because our country’s really in bad, big trouble. We have a lot of trouble. A lot of problems. And one of the big problems, I talk about, divisiveness. I think that a lot of people will appreciate … I’m not doing it for that reason. I’m doing it because it’s time to go in a different direction. There was a lot of pain, and I think that the people that supported me with such enthusiasm, where they will show up at 1 in the morning to hear a speech.
It was actually Election Day, they showed up at, so that was essentially Election Day. Yeah, I think they’d understand very completely.
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, opinion columnist: Mr. President-elect, can I ask a question? One of the issues that you actually were very careful not to speak about during the campaign, and haven’t spoken about yet, is one very near and dear to my heart, the whole issue of climate change, the Paris agreement, how you’ll approach it. You own some of the most beautiful links golf courses in the world …
[laughter, cross talk]
TRUMP: [laughing] I read your article. Some will be even better because actually like Doral is a little bit off … so it’ll be perfect. [inaudible] He doesn’t say that. He just says that the ones that are near the water will be gone, but Doral will be in great shape.
[laughter]
FRIEDMAN: But it’s really important to me, and I think to a lot of our readers, to know where you’re going to go with this. I don’t think anyone objects to, you know, doing all forms of energy. But are you going to take America out of the world’s lead of confronting climate change?
TRUMP: I’m looking at it very closely, Tom. I’ll tell you what. I have an open mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully. It’s one issue that’s interesting because there are few things where there’s more division than climate change. You don’t tend to hear this, but there are people on the other side of that issue who are, think, don’t even …
SULZBERGER: We do hear it.
FRIEDMAN: I was on ‘Squawk Box’ with Joe Kernen this morning, so I got an earful of it.
[laughter]
TRUMP: Joe is one of them. But a lot of smart people disagree with you. I have a very open mind. And I’m going to study a lot of the things that happened on it and we’re going to look at it very carefully. But I have an open mind.
SULZBERGER: Well, since we’re living on an island, sir, I want to thank you for having an open mind. We saw what these storms are now doing, right? We’ve seen it personally. Straight up.
FRIEDMAN: But you have an open mind on this?
TRUMP: I do have an open mind. And we’ve had storms always, Arthur.
SULZBERGER: Not like this.
TRUMP: You know the hottest day ever was in 1890-something, 98. You know, you can make lots of cases for different views. I have a totally open mind.
My uncle was for 35 years a professor at M.I.T. He was a great engineer, scientist. He was a great guy. And he was … a long time ago, he had feelings — this was a long time ago — he had feelings on this subject. It’s a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know. I know we have, they say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the scientists. Where was that, in Geneva or wherever five years ago? Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell you this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal clean water is vitally important. Safety is vitally important.
And you know, you mentioned a lot of the courses. I have some great, great, very successful golf courses. I’ve received so many environmental awards for the way I’ve done, you know. I’ve done a tremendous amount of work where I’ve received tremendous numbers. Sometimes I’ll say I’m actually an environmentalist and people will smile in some cases and other people that know me understand that’s true. Open mind.
JAMES BENNET, editorial page editor: When you say an open mind, you mean you’re just not sure whether human activity causes climate change? Do you think human activity is or isn’t connected?
TRUMP: I think right now … well, I think there is some connectivity. There is some, something. It depends on how much. It also depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies. You have to understand, our companies are noncompetitive right now.
They’re really largely noncompetitive. About four weeks ago, I started adding a certain little sentence into a lot of my speeches, that we’ve lost 70,000 factories since W. Bush. 70,000. When I first looked at the number, I said: ‘That must be a typo. It can’t be 70, you can’t have 70,000, you wouldn’t think you have 70,000 factories here.’ And it wasn’t a typo, it’s right. We’ve lost 70,000 factories.
We’re not a competitive nation with other nations anymore. We have to make ourselves competitive. We’re not competitive for a lot of reasons.
That’s becoming more and more of the reason. Because a lot of these countries that we do business with, they make deals with our president, or whoever, and then they don’t adhere to the deals, you know that. And it’s much less expensive for their companies to produce products. So I’m going to be studying that very hard, and I think I have a very big voice in it. And I think my voice is listened to, especially by people that don’t believe in it. And we’ll let you know.
FRIEDMAN: I’d hate to see Royal Aberdeen underwater.
TRUMP: The North Sea, that could be, that’s a good one, right?
ELISABETH BUMILLER, Washington bureau chief: I just wanted to follow up on the question you were asked about not pursuing any investigations into Hillary Clinton. Did you mean both the email investigation and the foundation investigation — you will not pursue either one of those?
TRUMP: Yeah, look, you know we’ll have people that do things but my inclination would be, for whatever power I have on the matter, is to say let’s go forward. This has been looked at for so long. Ad nauseam. Let’s go forward. And you know, you could also make the case that some good work was done in the foundation and they could have made mistakes, etc. etc. I think it’s time, I think it’s time for people to say let’s go and solve some of the problems that we have, which are massive problems and, you know, I do think that they’ve gone through a lot. I think losing is going through a lot. It was a tough, it was a very tough evening for her. I think losing is going through a lot. So, for whatever it’s worth, my, my attitude is strongly we have to go forward, we have so many different problems to solve, I don’t think we have to delve back in the past. I also think that would be a very divisive, well I think it would be very divisive, you know I’m talking about bringing together, and then they go into all sorts of stuff, I think it would be very, very divisive for the country.
SULZBERGER: I agree, I think speaking not as a journalist now, it’s very healthy. There, and then we’re going to go
MICHAEL D. SHEAR, White House correspondent: Mr. Trump, Mike Shear. I cover the White House, covering your administration …
TRUMP: See ya there.
[laughter]
SHEAR: Just one quick clarification on the climate change, do you intend to, as you said, pull out of the Paris Climate …
TRUMP: I’m going to take a look at it.
SHEAR [interrupts]: And if the reaction from foreign leaders is to slap tariffs on American goods to offset the carbon that the United States had pledged to reduce, is that O.K. with you? And then the second question is on your sort of mixing of your global business interests and the presidency. There’s already, even just in the 10, two weeks you’ve been president-elect, instances where you’ve met with your Indian business partners …
TRUMP: Sure.
SHEAR: You’ve talked about the impact of the wind farms on your golf course. People, experts who are lawyers and ethics experts, say that all of that is totally inappropriate, so I guess the question for you is, what do you see as the appropriate structure for keeping those two things separate, and are there any lines that you think you won’t want to cross once you’re in the White House?
TRUMP: O.K. First of all, on countries. I think that countries will not do that to us. I don’t think if they’re run by a person that understands leadership and negotiation they’re in no position to do that to us, no matter what I do. They’re in no position to do that to us, and that won’t happen, but I’m going to take a look at it. A very serious look. I want to also see how much this is costing, you know, what’s the cost to it, and I’ll be talking to you folks in the not-too-distant future about it, having to do with what just took place.
As far as the, you know, potential conflict of interests, though, I mean I know that from the standpoint, the law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest. That’s been reported very widely. Despite that, I don’t want there to be a conflict of interest anyway. And the laws, the president can’t. And I understand why the president can’t have a conflict of interest now because everything a president does in some ways is like a conflict of interest, but I have, I’ve built a very great company and it’s a big company and it’s all over the world. People are starting to see, when they look at all these different jobs, like in India and other things, number one, a job like that builds great relationships with the people of India, so it’s all good. But I have to say, the partners come in, they’re very, very successful people. They come in, they’d say, they said, ‘Would it be possible to have a picture?’ Actually, my children are working on that job. So I can say to them, Arthur, ‘I don’t want to have a picture,’ or, I can take a picture. I mean, I think it’s wonderful to take a picture. I’m fine with a picture. But if it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again. That would be like you never seeing your son again. That wouldn’t be good. That wouldn’t be good. But I’d never, ever see my daughter Ivanka.
UNKNOWN: That means you’d have to make Ivanka deputy President, you know.
TRUMP: I know, I know, yeah. [room laughs] Well, I couldn’t do that either. I can’t, that can’t work. I can’t do anything, I would never see my, I guess the only son I’d be allowed to see, at least for a little while, would be Barron, because he’s 10. But, but, so there has to be [unintelligible]. It’s a very interesting case.
UNKNOWN: You could sell your company though, right? With all due respect, you could sell your company and then …
TRUMP: Well …
UNKNOWN: And then you could see them all the time.
TRUMP: That’s a very hard thing to do, you know what, because I have real estate. I have real estate all over the world, which now people are understanding. When I filed my forms with the federal election, people said, ‘Wow that’s really a big company, that’s a big company.’ It really is big, it’s diverse, it’s all over the world. It’s a great company with great assets. I think that, you know, selling real estate isn’t like selling stock. Selling real estate is much different, it’s in a much different world. I’d say this, and I mean this and I said it on “60 Minutes” the other night: My company is so unimportant to me relative to what I’m doing, ’cause I don’t need money, I don’t need anything, and by the way, I’m very under-leveraged, I have a very small percentage of my money in debt, very very small percentage of my money in debt, in fact, banks have said ‘We’d like to loan you money, we’d like to give you any amount of money.’ I’ve been there before, I’ve had it both ways, I’ve been over-levered, I’ve been under-levered and, especially as you get older, under-levered is much better.
UNKNOWN: Mr. President-elect …
TRUMP: Just a minute, because it’s an important question. I don’t care about my company. I mean, if a partner comes in from India or if a partner comes in from Canada, where we did a beautiful big building that just opened, and they want to take a picture and come into my office, and my kids come in and, I originally made the deal with these people, I mean what am I going to say? I’m not going to talk to you, I’m not going to take pictures? You have to, you know, on a human basis, you take pictures. But I just want to say that I am given the right to do something so important in terms of so many of the issues we discussed, in terms of health care, in terms of so many different things. I don’t care about my company. It doesn’t matter. My kids run it. They’ll say I have a conflict because we just opened a beautiful hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, so every time somebody stays at that hotel, if they stay because I’m president, I guess you could say it’s a conflict of interest. It’s a conflict of interest, but again, I’m not going to have anything to do with the hotel, and they may very well. I mean it could be that occupancy at that hotel will be because, psychologically, occupancy at that hotel will be probably a more valuable asset now than it was before, O.K.? The brand is certainly a hotter brand than it was before. I can’t help that, but I don’t care. I said on “60 Minutes”: I don’t care. Because it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters to me is running our country.
MICHAEL BARBARO, political reporter: Mr. President-elect, can I press you a little further on what structures you would put in place to keep the presidency and the company separate and to avoid things that, for example, were reported in The Times in the past 24 hours about meeting with leaders of Brexit about wind farms …
TRUMP: About meeting with who?
BARBARO: Leaders of Brexit about wind farms that might interfere with the views of your golf course and how to keep, what structures, can you talk about that meeting, by the way?
TRUMP: Was I involved with the wind farms recently? Or, not that I know of. I mean, I have a problem with wind …
BARBARO: But you brought it up in the meeting, didn’t you?
TRUMP: Which meeting? I don’t know. I might have.
BARBARO: With leaders of Brexit.
MANY VOICES: With Farage.
TRUMP: Oh, I see. I might have brought it up. But not having to do with me, just I mean, the wind is a very deceiving thing. First of all, we don’t make the windmills in the United States. They’re made in Germany and Japan. They’re made out of massive amounts of steel, which goes into the atmosphere, whether it’s in our country or not, it goes into the atmosphere. The windmills kill birds and the windmills need massive subsidies. In other words, we’re subsidizing wind mills all over this country. I mean, for the most part they don’t work. I don’t think they work at all without subsidy, and that bothers me, and they kill all the birds. You go to a windmill, you know in California they have the, what is it? The golden eagle? And they’re like, if you shoot a golden eagle, they go to jail for five years and yet they kill them by, they actually have to get permits that they’re only allowed to kill 30 or something in one year. The windmills are devastating to the bird population, O.K. With that being said, there’s a place for them. But they do need subsidy. So, if I talk negatively. I’ve been saying the same thing for years about you know, the wind industry. I wouldn’t want to subsidize it. Some environmentalists agree with me very much because of all of the things I just said, including the birds, and some don’t. But it’s hard to explain. I don’t care about anything having to do with anything having to do with anything other than the country.
BARBARO: But the structures, just to be clear, that’s the question. How do you formalize the separation of these things so that there is not a question of whether or not you as president …
TRUMP: O.K.
BARBARO: … are trying to influence something, like wind farms?
TRUMP: O.K., I don’t want to influence anything, because it’s not that, it’s not that important to me. It’s hard to explain.
BARBARO: Yes, but the structures?
TRUMP: Now, according to the law, see I figured there’s something where you put something in this massive trust and there’s also — nothing is written. In other words, in theory, I can be president of the United States and run my business 100 percent, sign checks on my business, which I am phasing out of very rapidly, you know, I sign checks, I’m the old-fashioned type. I like to sign checks so I know what is going on as opposed to pressing a computer button, boom, and thousands of checks are automatically sent. It keeps, it tells me what’s going on a little bit and it tells contractors that I’m watching. But I am phasing that out now, and handing that to Eric Trump and Don Trump and Ivanka Trump for the most part, and some of my executives, so that’s happening right now.
But in theory I could run my business perfectly, and then run the country perfectly. And there’s never been a case like this where somebody’s had, like, if you look at other people of wealth, they didn’t have this kind of asset and this kind of wealth, frankly. It’s just a different thing.
But there is no — I assumed that you’d have to set up some type of trust or whatever and you know. And I was actually a little bit surprised to see it. So in theory I don’t have to do anything. But I would like to do something. I would like to try and formalize something, because I don’t care about my business.
Doral is going to run very nice. We own this incredible place in Miami. We own many incredible places, including Turnberry, I guess you heard. There’s one guy that does — when I say Turnberry, you know what that is, right. Do a little [inaudible]. But they’re going to run well, we have good managers, they’re going to run really well.
So I don’t have to do anything, but I want to do something if I can. If there is something.
BARBARO: Can you promise us when you decide exactly what that is, you’ll come tell The New York Times about it?
[laughter]
TRUMP: I will. I’ve started it already.
SULZBERGER: One of our great salesmen, by the way.
TRUMP: I can see that. I’ve started it already by, I mean, I’ve greatly reduced the check-signing and the business. I’ve greatly reduced meetings with contractors, meetings with different people that, you know, I’ve also started by — ’cause I’ve said over the last two years, once I decided I wanted to run, I don’t want to build anything. ’Cause building, like for instance, we built the post office, you’ll be happy to hear, ahead of schedule and under budget. Substantially ahead of schedule. Almost two years ago of schedule. But ahead of schedule, under budget, and it’s a terrific place. That’s the hotel on Pennsylvania.
FRIEDMAN: Just so you know, General Electric has a big wind turbine factory in South Carolina. Just so you know.
TRUMP: Well that’s good. But most of ‘em are made in Germany, most of ‘em are made, you know, Siemens and the Chinese are making most of them.
[cross talk]
TRUMP: They may assemble — if you check, I think you’ll find that the, it’s delivered there and they do most of the assembly.
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, White House correspondent: Mr. President-elect — I’m sorry I entered late, but I did want to ask you about …
BAQUET: You should introduce yourself.
DAVIS: I’m Julie Davis, one of the White House correspondents.
TRUMP: Hi, Julie.
DAVIS: I apologize for my delayed flight. I wanted to ask you about personnel. They say personnel is policy.
TRUMP: I can’t quite hear.
DAVIS: Personnel.
TRUMP: Personnel.
DAVIS: You hired Steve Bannon to be the chief strategist for you in the White House. He is a hero of the alt-right. He’s been described by some as racist and anti-Semitic. I wonder what message you think you have sent by elevating him to that position and what you would say to those who feel like that indicates something about the kind of country you prefer and the government you’ll run.
TRUMP: Um, I’ve known Steve Bannon a long time. If I thought he was a racist, or alt-right, or any of the things that we can, you know, the terms we can use, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him. First of all, I’m the one that makes the decision, not Steve Bannon or anybody else. And Kellyanne will tell you that.
[laughter]
KELLYANE CONWAY: 100 percent.
TRUMP: And if he said something to me that, in terms of his views, or that I thought were inappropriate or bad, number one I wouldn’t do anything, and number two, he would have to be gone. But I know many people that know him, and in fact, he’s actually getting some very good press from a lot of the people that know him, and people that are on the left. But Steve went to Harvard, he was a, you know, he was very successful, he was a Naval officer, he’s, I think he’s very, very, you know, sadly, really, I think it’s very hard on him. I think he’s having a hard time with it. Because it’s not him. It’s not him.
I’ve known him for a long time. He’s a very, very smart guy. I think he was with Goldman Sachs on top of everything else.
UNKNOWN: What do you make of the website he ran, Breitbart?
TRUMP: The which?
UNKNOWN: Breitbart.
TRUMP: Well, Breitbart’s different. Breitbart cover things, I mean like The New York Times covers things. I mean, I could say that Arthur is alt-right because they covered an alt-right story.
SULZBERGER: [laughing] I am, I am. I’ll take whatever you say. I am always right, but I’m not alt-right.
[laughter, cross talk]
TRUMP: The New York Times covers a lot of stories that are, you know, rough stories. And you know, they have covered some of these things, but The New York Times covers a lot of these things also. It’s just a newspaper, essentially. It’s a newspaper. I know the guy, he’s a decent guy, he’s a very smart guy. He’s done a good job. He hasn’t been with me that long. You know he really came in after the primaries. I had already won the primaries. And if I thought that his views were in that category, I would immediately let him go. And I’ll tell you why. In many respects I think his views are actually on the other side of what a lot of people might think.
DAVIS: But you are aware, sir, with all due respect, that African-Americans and Jews and many folks who disagree with the coverage of Breitbart and the slant that Breitbart brings to the news view him that way, aren’t you?
TRUMP: Yeah, well Breitbart, first of all, is just a publication. And, you know, they cover stories like you cover stories. Now, they are certainly a much more conservative paper, to put it mildly, than The New York Times. But Breitbart really is a news organization that’s become quite successful, and it’s got readers and it does cover subjects that are on the right, but it covers subjects on the left also. I mean it’s a pretty big, it’s a pretty big thing. And he helped build it into a pretty successful news organization.
Now, I’ll tell you what, I know him very well. I will say this, and I will say this, if I thought that strongly, if I thought that he was doing anything, or had any ideas that were different than the ideas that you would think, I would ask him very politely to leave. But in the meantime, I think he’s been treated very unfairly.
It’s very interesting ’cause a lot of people are coming to his defense right now.
PRIEBUS: We have never experienced a single episode of any of those accusations. It’s been the total opposite. It’s been a great team, and it’s just not there. And what the president-elect is saying is 100 percent true.
[cross talk]
TRUMP: And by the way, if you see something or get something where you feel that I’m wrong, and you have some info — I would love to hear it. You can call me, Arthur can call me, I would love to hear. The only one who can’t call me is Maureen [Dowd, opinion columnist]. She treats me too rough.
I don’t know what happened to Maureen! She was so good, Gail [Collins, opinion columnist]. For years she was so good.
[cross talk]
SULZBERGER: As we all say about Maureen, it’s not your fault, it’s just your turn.
[laughter]
ROSS DOUTHAT, opinion columnist: I have a slightly different, but somewhat Steve Bannon-related question, I guess. It’s about the future of the Republican Party. You started out here talking about winning in so many states where no Republican has won in decades, especially Midwestern Rust Belt states. And I think many people think that one of the reasons you won was that you deliberately campaigned as a different kind of Republican. You had different things to say on trade, entitlements, foreign policy, even your daughter Ivanka’s child care plan was sort of distinctive. And now you’re in a situation where you’re governing and staffing up an administration with a Republican Party whose leaders, and Reince, may differ with me a little on this, but don’t always see eye-to-eye on those views.
TRUMP: Although right now they’re loving me.
[laughter]
UNKNOWN: Well, right now they are.
[cross talk]
TRUMP: Paul Ryan right now loves me, Mitch McConnell loves me, it’s amazing how winning can change things. I’ve liked Chuck Schumer for a long time. I’ve actually, I’ve raised a lot of money for Chuck and given him a lot of money over the years. I think I was the first person that ever contributed to Chuck Schumer. I had a Brooklyn office, a little office, in a little apartment building in Brooklyn in Sheepshead Bay where I worked with my father.
And Chuck Schumer came in and I gave him, I believe, I don’t know if he’s willing to admit this, but I believe it was his first campaign contribution, $500. But Chuck Schumer’s a good guy. I think we’ll get along very well.
DOUTHAT: I guess that’s my question is, how much do you expect to be able to both run an administration and negotiate with a Republican-led Congress as a different kind of Republican. And do you worry that you’ll wake up three years from now and go back to campaigning in the Rust Belt and people will say, well, he governed more like Paul Ryan than like Donald Trump.
TRUMP: No, I don’t worry about that. ’Cause I didn’t need to do this. I was telling Arthur before: ‘Arthur I didn’t need to do this. I’m doing this to do a good job.’ That’s what I want to do, and I think that what happened in the Rust Belt, they call it the Rust Belt for a reason. If you go through it, you look back 20 years, they didn’t used to call it the Rust Belt. You pass factory after factory after factory that’s empty and rusting. Rust is the good part, ’cause they’re worse than rusting, they’re falling down. No, I wouldn’t sacrifice that. To me more important is taking care of the people that really have proven to be, to love Donald Trump, as opposed to the political people. And frankly if the political people don’t take care of these people, they’re not going to win and you’re going to end up with maybe a total different kind of government than what you’re looking at right now. These people are really angry. They’re smart, they’re workers, and they’re angry. I call them the forgotten men and women. And I use that in speeches, I say they’re the forgotten people — they were totally forgotten. And we’re going to bring jobs back. We’re going to bring jobs back, big league. I’ve spoken to so many companies already, I say, don’t plan on moving your company, ’cause you’re not going to be able to move your company and sell us your product. You think you’re going to just sell it across what will be a strong border, you know at least we’re going to have a border. But just don’t plan on it.
And I’ll tell you, I believe, and you’ll hear announcements over the next couple of months, but I believe I’ve talked numerous comp — in four-minute conversations with top people — numerous companies that have, leaving, or potentially leaving our country with thousands of jobs.
FRIEDMAN: Are you worried, though, that those companies will keep their factories here, but the jobs will be replaced by robots?
TRUMP: They will, and we’ll make the robots too.
[laughter]
TRUMP: It’s a big thing, we’ll make the robots too. Right now we don’t make the robots. We don’t make anything. But we’re going to, I mean, look, robotics is becoming very big and we’re going to do that. We’re going to have more factories. We can’t lose 70,000 factories. Just can’t do it. We’re going to start making things.
I was honored yesterday, I got a call from Bill Gates, great call, we had a great conversation, I got a call from Tim Cook at Apple, and I said, ‘Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many big plants in the United States, where instead of going to China, and going to Vietnam, and going to the places that you go to, you’re making your product right here.’ He said, ‘I understand that.’ I said: ‘I think we’ll create the incentives for you, and I think you’re going to do it. We’re going for a very large tax cut for corporations, which you’ll be happy about.’ But we’re going for big tax cuts, we have to get rid of regulations, regulations are making it impossible. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, I mean I could sit down and show you regulations that anybody would agree are ridiculous. It’s gotten to be a free-for-all. And companies can’t, they can’t even start up, they can’t expand, they’re choking.
I tell you, one thing I would say, so, I’m giving a big tax cut and I’m giving big regulation cuts, and I’ve seen all of the small business owners over the United States, and all of the big business owners, I’ve met so many people. They are more excited about the regulation cut than about the tax cut. And I would’ve never said that’s possible, because the tax cut’s going to be substantial. You know we have companies leaving our country because the taxes are too high. But they’re leaving also because of the regulations. And I would say, of the two, and I would not have thought this, regulation cuts, substantial regulation cuts, are more important than, and more enthusiastically supported, than even the big tax cuts.
UNKNOWN: Mr. President-elect, I wanted to ask you, there was a conference this past weekend in Washington of people who pledged their allegiance to Nazism.
TRUMP: Boy, you are really into this stuff, huh?
PRIEBUS: I think we answered that one right off the bat.
UNKNOWN: Are you going to condemn them?
TRUMP: Of course I did, of course I did.
PRIEBUS: He already did.
UNKNOWN: Are you going to do it right now?
TRUMP: Oh, I see, maybe you weren’t here. Sure. Would you like me to do it here? I’ll do it here. Of course I condemn. I disavow and condemn.
SULZBERGER: We’ll go with that. I’d like to move to infrastructure, apologies, and then we’ll go back. Because a lot of the investment you are talking about, a lot of the jobs you are talking about — is infrastructure going to be the core of your first few years?
TRUMP: No, it’s not the core, but it’s an important factor. We’re going for a lot of things, between taxes, between regulations, between health care replacement, we’re going to talk repeal and replace. ’Cause health care is — you know people are paying a 100 percent increase and they’re not even getting anything, the deductibles are so high, you have deductibles $16,000. So they’re paying all of this money and they don’t even get health care. So it’s very important. So there are a lot of things. But infrastructure, Arthur, is going to be a part of it.
SULZBERGER: It’s part of jobs, isn’t it?
TRUMP: I don’t even think it’s a big part of it. It’s going to be a big number but I think I am doing things that are more important than infrastructure, but infrastructure is still a part of it, and we’re talking about a very large-scale infrastructure bill. And that’s not a very Republican thing — I didn’t even know that, frankly.
SULZBERGER: It worked for Franklin Roosevelt.
TRUMP: It didn’t work for Obama because unfortunately they didn’t spend the money last time on infrastructure. They spent it on a lot of other things. You know, nobody can find out where that last — you know, from a few years ago — where that money went. And we’re going to make sure it is spent on infrastructure and roads and highways. I have a friend, he’s a big trucker, one of the biggest. And he orders these incredible trucks, the best, I won’t mention the name but it’s a certain truck company that makes — they call them the Rolls-Royce of trucks. You know, the most expensive trucks. And he calls me up about two months ago and he goes, ‘Man, I’m going to buy the cheapest trucks I can buy.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ and — you know, and this is the biggest guy — he goes, ‘My trucks are coming back, they’re going from New York to California and they’re all busted up. The highways are in such bad shape, they’re hitting potholes, they’re hitting everything.’ He said, ‘I’m not buying these trucks anymore, I’m going to buy the cheapest stuff and the strongest tires I can get.’ That’s the exact expression he used, ‘the cheapest trucks and the strongest tires.’
We’re hitting so many bad points, we, you know, I said, ‘So tell me, you’ve been doing this how long?’ 45 years. He built it over 45 years. I said, ‘Have you ever seen it like this?’ He said, ‘The roads have never been like this.’ It’s an interesting …
BAQUET: What did, what did, I’m curious what Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan said when you said, ‘I’m going to launch a multibillion-dollar infrastructure program.’ Are they reluctant to spend that?
TRUMP: Honestly right now …
DOUTHAT: Trillion. Trillion, I think, was the figure.
BAQUET: Because they would be in the wing of the Republican Party that would say, ‘That’s great, but you’re not going to be able to do that and balance the budget.’
TRUMP: Let’s see if I get it done. Right now they’re in love with me. O.K.? Four weeks ago they weren’t in love with me. Don’t forget — if I read The New York Times, and you don’t have to put this on the record — it can be if you want, you might not want …
SULZBERGER: You say if, but you do …
TRUMP: Well, I do read it. Unfortunately. I would have lived about 20 years longer if I didn’t.
SULZBERGER: There’s Nixon’s quote right there if you’d love to reread it —
TRUMP: I know. But when you look at the different, all the newspapers, I was going to lose the presidency, I was going to take the House with me, and the Senate had no chance. It was going to be the biggest humiliation in the history of politics in this country. And instead I won the presidency, easily, and I mean easily — you look at those states, I had states where I won by 30 and 40 points. I won the presidency easily, I helped numerous senators — in fact the only senators that didn’t get elected were two — one up in New Hampshire who refused to say that she was going to vote for me, who by the way would love a job in the administration and I said, ‘No, thank you.’ That’s on the record. This is where I’m different than a politician — I know what to say, I just believe it’s sort of interesting.
She’d love to have a job in the administration, I said, ‘No, thank you.’ She refused to vote for me. And a senator in Nevada who frankly said, he endorsed me then he unendorsed me, and he went down like a lead balloon. And then they called me before the race and said they wanted me to endorse him and do a big thing and I said, ‘No thank you, good luck.’ You know, let’s see what happens. I said, off the record, I hope you lose. Off the record. He was! He was up by 10 points — you know who I’m talking about.
So, others — if you look at Missouri, [Senator Roy] Blunt, he was down five points a few days before the election, he called for help, I gave him help, and I think I was up like over 30 points in Missouri. I was leading by a massive amount, 28 points. I gave him help and he ended up winning by four points or something. I brought a number of them. Pennsylvania, brought over the finish line. Let’s see, we brought Johnson, in, you know, that was a good one. We brought him over the line in Wisconsin. Winning Wisconsin was big stuff, that’s something that …
FRIEDMAN: Mr. President-elect, I came …
TRUMP: So right now I’m in very good shape, but
FRIEDMAN: I came here thinking you’d be awed and overwhelmed by this job, but I feel like you are getting very comfortable with it.
TRUMP: I feel comfortable. I feel comfortable. I am awed by the job, as anybody would be, but I honestly, Tom, I feel so comfortable and you know it would be, to me, a great achievement if I could come back here in a year or two years and say — and have a lot of the folks here say, ‘You’ve done a great job.’ And I don’t mean just a conservative job, ’cause I’m not talking conservative. I mean just, we’ve done a good job.
SHEAR: To follow up on Matt, after you met with President Obama, he described you to folks as — that you seemed overwhelmed by what he told you. So I wonder if you are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the job that you’re about to inherit and if you can tell us anything more about that conversation with the president and the apparently subsequent conversations that you’ve had on the phone since then. And then maybe talk a little bit about foreign policy, that’s something we haven’t touched on here, and whether or not you believe in the kind of world order — a world order led by America in terms of having this country underwrite the security and the free markets of the world, which have been in place for decades.
TRUMP: Sure. I had a great meeting with President Obama. I never met him before. I really liked him a lot. The meeting was supposed to be 10 minutes, 15 minutes max, because there were a lot of people waiting outside, for both of us. And it ended up being — you were there — I guess an hour-and-a-half meeting, close. And it was a great chemistry. I think if he said overwhelmed, I don’t think he meant that in a bad way. I think he meant that it is a very overwhelming job. But I’m not overwhelmed by it. You can do things and fix it, I think he meant it that way. He said very nice things after the meeting and I said very nice things about him. I really enjoyed my meeting with him. We have — you know, we come from different sides of the equation, but it’s nevertheless something that — I didn’t know if I’d like him. I probably thought that maybe I wouldn’t, but I did, I did like him. I really enjoyed him a lot. I’ve spoken to him since the meeting.
SHEAR: What did you say to him?
TRUMP: Just a basic conversation.
I think he’s looking to do absolutely the right thing for the country in terms of transition and I really, I’m telling you, we had a meeting, Arthur, that went for an hour and a half that could have gone for three or four hours. It was a great — it was just a very good meeting.
UNKNOWN: Sort of like this meeting.
[cross talk, laughter]
TRUMP: He told me what he thought his, what the biggest problems of the country were, which I don’t think I should reveal, I don’t mind if he reveals them. But I was actually surprised a little bit. But he told me the problems, he told me things that he considered assets, but he did tell me what he thought were the biggest problems, in particular one problem that he thought was a big problem for the country, which I’d rather have you ask him. But I really found the meeting to be very good. And I hope we can have a good — I mean, it doesn’t mean we’re going to agree on everything, but I hope that we will have a great long-term relationship. I really liked him a lot and I’m a little bit surprised I’m telling you that I really liked him a lot.
Let’s go foreign policy, sure. Sure.
FRIEDMAN: What do you see as America’s role in the world? Do you believe that the role …
TRUMP: That’s such a big question.
FRIEDMAN: The role that we played for 50 years as kind of the global balancer, paying more for things because they were in our ultimate interest, one hears from you, I sense, is really shrinking that role.
TRUMP: I don’t think we should be a nation builder. I think we’ve tried that. I happen to think that going into Iraq was perhaps … I mean you could say maybe we could have settled the civil war, O.K.? I think going into Iraq was one of the great mistakes in the history of our country. I think getting out of it — I think we got out of it wrong, then lots of bad things happened, including the formation of ISIS. We could have gotten out of it differently.
FRIEDMAN: NATO, Russia?
TRUMP: I think going in was a terrible, terrible mistake. Syria, we have to solve that problem because we are going to just keep fighting, fighting forever. I have a different view on Syria than everybody else. Well, not everybody else, but then a lot of people. I had to listen to [Senator] Lindsey Graham, who, give me a break. I had to listen to Lindsey Graham talk about, you know, attacking Syria and attacking, you know, and it’s like you’re now attacking Russia, you’re attacking Iran, you’re attacking. And what are we getting? We’re getting — and what are we getting? And I have some very definitive, I have some very strong ideas on Syria. I think what’s happened is a horrible, horrible thing. To look at the deaths, and I’m not just talking deaths on our side, which are horrible, but the deaths — I mean you look at these cities, Arthur, where they’re totally, they’re rubble, massive areas, and they say two people were injured. No, thousands of people have died. O.K. And I think it’s a shame. And ideally we can get — do something with Syria. I spoke to Putin, as you know, he called me, essentially …
UNKNOWN: How do you see that relationship?
TRUMP: Essentially everybody called me, all of the major leaders, and most of them I’ve spoken to.
FRIEDMAN: Will you have a reset with Russia?
TRUMP: I wouldn’t use that term after what happened, you know, previously. I think — I would love to be able to get along with Russia and I think they’d like to be able to get along with us. It’s in our mutual interest. And I don’t go in with any preconceived notion, but I will tell you, I would say — when they used to say, during the campaign, Donald Trump loves Putin, Putin loves Donald Trump, I said, huh, wouldn’t it be nice, I’d say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn’t it be nice to actually report what they said, wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, wouldn’t it be nice if we went after ISIS together, which is, by the way, aside from being dangerous, it’s very expensive, and ISIS shouldn’t have been even allowed to form, and the people will stand up and give me a massive hand. You know they thought it was bad that I was getting along with Putin or that I believe strongly if we can get along with Russia that’s a positive thing. It is a great thing that we can get along with not only Russia but that we get along with other countries.
JOSEPH KAHN, managing editor: On Syria, would you mind, you said you have a very strong idea about what to do with the Syria conflict, can you describe that for us?
TRUMP: I can only say this: We have to end that craziness that’s going on in Syria. One of the things that was told to me — can I say this off the record, or is everything on the record?
SULZBERGER: No, if you want to …
TRUMP: I don’t want to violate, I don’t want to violate a …
SULZBERGER: If you want to go off the record, we have agreed you can go off the record. Ladies and gentlemen, we are off the record for this moment.
[Trump speaks off the record.]
TRUMP: Now we can go back on.
SULZBERGER: I’m going to play the cop here. We’ve got only two and a half minutes left, because they have a hard stop at 2. And by the way, I want to thank you again, on behalf of all of us …
TRUMP: Thank you.
SULZBERGER: … for this meeting, and really I mean that. We are back on the record. Maggie, you get the last question.
TRUMP: Is he a tough boss, folks? Is he tough?
HABERMAN: I have two questions, very, very quickly. One is your vice president-elect left open the idea of returning to waterboarding. You talked about that on the campaign trail. I’m hoping you can talk about how you view torture at this point, and also what are you hoping that Jared Kushner will do in your administration and will you bring him in formally?
TRUMP: O.K., O.K. So, I didn’t hear the second question.
HABERMAN: Jared Kushner. What will Jared Kushner’s role be in your administration?
TRUMP: Oh. Maybe nothing. Because I don’t want to have people saying ‘conflict.’ Even though the president of the United States — I hope whoever is writing this story, it’s written fairly — the president of the United States is allowed to have whatever conflicts he wants — he or she wants. But I don’t want to go by that. Jared’s a very smart guy. He’s a very good guy. The people that know him, he’s a quality person and I think he can be very helpful. I would love to be able to be the one that made peace with Israel and the Palestinians. I would love that, that would be such a great achievement. Because nobody’s been able to do it.
HABERMAN: Do you think he can be part of that?
TRUMP: Well, I think he’d be very good at it. I mean he knows it so well. He knows the region, knows the people, knows the players. I would love to be — and you can put that down in a list of many things that I’d like to be able to do. Now a lot of people tell me, really great people tell me, that it’s impossible, you can’t do it. I’ve had a lot of, actually, great Israeli businesspeople tell me, you can’t do that, it’s impossible. I disagree, I think you can make peace. I think people are tired now of being shot, killed. At some point, when do they come? I think we can do that. I have reason to believe I can do that.
HABERMAN: And on torture? Where are you — and waterboarding?
TRUMP: So, I met with General Mattis, who is a very respected guy. In fact, I met with a number of other generals, they say he’s the finest there is. He is being seriously, seriously considered for secretary of defense, which is — I think it’s time maybe, it’s time for a general. Look at what’s going on. We don’t win, we can’t beat anybody, we don’t win anymore. At anything. We don’t win on the border, we don’t win with trade, we certainly don’t win with the military. General Mattis is a strong, highly dignified man. I met with him at length and I asked him that question. I said, what do you think of waterboarding? He said — I was surprised — he said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said, ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ And I was very impressed by that answer. I was surprised, because he’s known as being like the toughest guy. And when he said that, I’m not saying it changed my mind. [An earlier version made a mistake in transcription. Mr. Trump said “changed my mind,” not “changed my man.”] Look, we have people that are chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages and we’re not allowed to waterboard. But I’ll tell you what, I was impressed by that answer. It certainly does not — it’s not going to make the kind of a difference that maybe a lot of people think. If it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it. I would be guided by that. But General Mattis found it to be very less important, much less important than I thought he would say. I thought he would say — you know he’s known as Mad Dog Mattis, right? Mad Dog for a reason. I thought he’d say ‘It’s phenomenal, don’t lose it.’ He actually said, ‘No, give me some cigarettes and some drinks, and we’ll do better.’
SULZBERGER: So, I, with apologies, I’m going to go to our C.E.O., Mark Thompson, for the last, last question.
TRUMP: Very powerful man …
MARK THOMPSON: Thank you, and it’s a really short one, but after all the talk about libel and libel laws, are you committed to the First Amendment to the Constitution?
TRUMP: Oh, I was hoping he wasn’t going to say that. I think you’ll be happy. I think you’ll be happy. Actually, somebody said to me on that, they said, ‘You know, it’s a great idea, softening up those laws, but you may get sued a lot more.’ I said, ‘You know, you’re right, I never thought about that.’ I said, ‘You know, I have to start thinking about that.’ So, I, I think you’ll be O.K. I think you’re going to be fine.
SULZBERGER: Well, thank you very much for this. Really appreciate this.
TRUMP: Thank you all, very much, it’s a great honor. I will say, The Times is, it’s a great, great American jewel. A world jewel. And I hope we can all get along. We’re looking for the same thing, and I hope we can all get along well. [myad]
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Journalists in Nigeria have advised the Federal Government to enlist the support of community leaders across the nation in finding lasting solutions to the problem of insurgency, particularly in the North East and the South East.
No fewer than two hundred Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) will gather in Abuja and Enugu from Monday, November 28 to critically examine the increased use of Nigeria’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the IBB International Golf and Country Club, retired Major-General IBM Haruna has solicited an annual subvention from the government to maintain the club.
