President Buhari came with good intentions, and so far he is on the right track, and we should be praying for him and be helping him to remain on the right track, but I think little down the road people may then be looking at how he has performed.

He is dealing with the issue of Boko Haram; he is dealing with the issue of corruption, he said he will do that; he is giving Nigeria a new image, and Nigeria is now being seen at the table in the international arena. I think those are good things, and we should be encouraging him to keep on doing that.

Well, he [President Buhari] has chosen his ministers; for me they are no surprises. He has to pay some political debt, and I think some of the people he has chosen were meant to pay political debt, and that is understandable in party political life. I think what will matter more is the kind of leadership he himself gives, because some ministers who would normally have behaved badly if they will be caught by the head of government they will behave not badly but properly.

Oh, one, the legacy that Nigeria remains a country; two, that I started democracy and it continues; three, that we were able to move from one regime to another regime and now we have been able to move to an opposition defeating the incumbent government. I think our democracy has come to stay and that is very important. There will be a number of other things that you need to do. There will always be challenges for government but once the basic and fundamental things are taken care of — today we have challenge of Boko Haram; it was not there in my time as a challenge — but once the stability of government is assured — democracy and good governance, that is very important — all other challenges can be faced and be dealt with.

I think power, because we did not have money. For the first three-four years I did not have money to put into power like I would have wanted to, and the oil companies, I tried to encourage them but they did not see the point of view that I was pressing, and, by the time we had money, we were going into power in the way that I would want to see us going into it.

We started the foundation and the successor government held back for almost two and a half years and that has had adverse effect on the energy or power in Nigeria. But it is an issue that of course is tied up with all aspect of infrastructure. But power has a source of energy to drive the economy, to drive even the social life to make for the welfare and well-being of the people is very crucial.

When Nigeria became independent both our colonial masters and some Nigerians said that Nigeria was a geographical expression that will not last, but we have lasted for 55 years and we are going strong. We have had ups and downs, maybe a little bit more ups than downs, but I believe we are also learning from our experiences, some mistakes unintentional some maybe intentional by leaders.

We are also improving in the quality of leadership at every level and quantum of leadership. Today, if we have to talk about leaders in Nigeria at the national level, you will not be zeroing on only one or two; we have about half a dozen you will zero on. That's not bad. There was a time when there will only be two you will be talking about; now you will be talking about half a dozen. So that is also very important, that in all walks of life we are increasing and improving in leadership, in governance, in management. We are not there yet. We are not there yet, but we are making progress.

Boko Haram is a matter of socio-economic development, but for domestic terrorism to have hold of the people they must tie it up to something, and they tie it up to some form of religious agitation. So what do I see? I see a situation where, first of all, the government must have the upper hand militarily, then, after you have had the upper hand militarily, you have to deal with the genuine issues of socio-economic development. And I believe that if that is well-handled such issues will disappear.