Dr. Walter Ofonagoro was the Director General of the Nigerian
Television Authority (NTA )during the Second Republic administration of
former President Shehu Shagari. He later served the military junta of
the late General Sani Abacha as Minister of Information. The duo of
TUNDE THOMAS AND OBIDIKE JERRY of Saturday Sun took him to task
recently in his Lagos home on some of his controversial roles in the
past and other national issues. It’s a no-holds barred encounter.
Excerpts:
Let’s have your thoughts on some of the recommendations/resolutions of the national conference such as creation of 18 more states, six geo-political structure, etc.?
I think the people to ask about the confab would be the members of the confab. I am just an observer just as you are. So, whatever information I have about the confab is what I read in the papers and what I saw on the television. As regards the recommendation, I think it would be difficult to sit here and say this is what the conference recommended because the conference has not even wound up its work. They are still in session even as we talk. They have reached a consensus on 19 of their 20 issues.
What is remaining is that of the devolution of powers where they seem to be having some challenges. Until they resolve it, I think it’s premature to comment. But I just have an observation on what was reported in the papers over the weekend that they agreed on 18 per cent derivation for mineral producing areas (oil producing areas), five per cent for developing the mineral resources of all the states of the federation including the mineral producing areas so that minerals produced in these other areas can also contribute to the federation account. But the whole country cannot just be coming together once a month to share what comes from one product. And there’s no state in the country that does not have resources.
Why don’t we develop all of them and contribute to common pool so that everybody can benefit also from the resources of those who are benefitting from the common pool. Right now, the common pool is funded only by the oil-producing states and the states that are generating something by way of value added tax (VAT), Lagos, South South, and may be South East. And when it comes to allocation to local government, some of the states that contribute nothing take majority of the money. We can’t continue forever on that basis and they all agreed on that but when they came to present it to the plenary, probably some mistakes were made, the presenter said the five per cent was meant for the three northern zones. Of course, others kicked; why are you going to make special provision for the three northern zones. What about the three southern zones? They have similar challenges.
You have Bakassi-where people have been chased out of their homes through no fault of their own and they are now refugees in their own land. Not rehabilitated, not taken care by their government. What about the South East that fought a war and the war ended in 1970, 44 years ago? Up till now not much has been done to rehabilitate the people. What about Odi that was devastated by federal might, revenging what was said to be an attack on soldiers and up till today the people have not actually received any benefit. What about the devastations in Niger Delta from oil production? What about areas that have been devastated by flood and other ravages? That intervention fund was meant for all such cases not just as a pie for the North to serve as a continuation of a pattern that has become more or less a habit since 1914. On that sticky ground they raised a committee to look over it. That is not even the major problem I see there. The major problem I see there was what happened when they were coming with suggestions on what to do with their recommendations.
The conference was convened by the President exercising his discretion as our Head of state and commander-in-chief. He is in charge of exercising the executive powers of the government. And he could see there were problems arising from the unrelenting agitation of some people for what they call the people’s constitution and he thought maybe the time has come for the country to come together and look at these issues and resolve them once and for all. And hence the Conference in which the 492 members were nominated based on recommendations of the committee he set up to advise him on how to summon the Conference. Now, 492 of them are nominated. They are not elected. We are in a democratic setting in which the constitution of Nigeria defines very clearly who has powers to do what and in what circumstances. The constitution of Nigeria clearly divides Nigeria’s governmental powers into three broad arms. The executive powers, legislative powers, and judicial powers.
And who is exercising each of those powers. The legislature exercises the legislative powers, the president executes the law and exercises the executive powers, and the judiciary, through the Chief Justice and the Judges exercise the judicial powers. So, that being the case, when you now have a Conference which is making very far reaching recommendations bordering on constitutional change and the constitution specifies in very great detail the mode of effecting change to the constitution. How do you now translate these recommendations to constitutional change bearing in mind that the constitution has set up the bodies already that will effect the change? It is clearly stated in sections 8 and 9 of our 199 constitution as amended. So, how will you alter or amend the constitution without going to the National Assembly?
So the National Assembly must have an input?
Oh, yes because, remember that these people are nominated. That is the biggest drawback. They are not elected. So, at best they are advisers to the president. The president has the power to ask even the whole country to advise him. What he does with that advice again is subject to the powers available to him or his own appreciation of what he wants to do. He could file it away as many have done in the past. Didn’t former President Obasanjo set up constitutional conference in 2005? What happened to that one? All the recommendations are gathering dust somewhere. And were they given to National Assembly to look at again when they started amending the constitution? Am sure it was also given to the 492 wise delegates to look at again. At the end of the day, some are saying they are superior to the National Assembly, that what they are making is the people’s constitution.
I don’t think that we should even dignify such views. The constitution is already there. The constitution that people are deriding is what put the president there and he swore to uphold it. It is what put the National Assembly there. It is what put the judiciary there. And it’s what gave them (delegates) even the platform on which to come and talk in Abuja because if the president didn’t invite them to come and talk in Abuja, how would they get there? And with what resources would they sit down for three months or four months to advise the government? Without the constitution, you have a situation of anarchy. Nigeria is a country governed by law. It is a creature of law. And the constitution is the basic law of the land. If you don’t respect the basic law of the land, what are you talking about? Meanwhile, National Assembly is already amending the constitution. So, the best they can do is take what the conference recommended, send it to National Assembly and National Assembly will add it to what they already have.
In other words, you are saying the president should send it as executive bill?
It might be through executive or whatever. He may call a meeting of principal officers of the National Assembly, principal officers of the national conference and his own advisers and sit down and say how do we deal with this? Maybe they might say bring it through executive bill. In the executive bill, there might be give-and-take and it would go through the normal first reading, second reading, and third reading and what can be implemented will be implemented. But some people are saying let us go for a referendum. There’s nothing wrong with that but let me draw your attention to the Electoral Act. The Electoral Act is very specific on that. It specifies under what conditions you can use INEC for a referendum. Section 2 of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended says in addition to the function conferred on it by the constitution (which is conducting election), the Commission shall have power to conduct voters and civic education, promote knowledge of sound democratic election processes, and conduct any referendum required to be conducted pursuant to the provision of 1999 constitution or any other law or act of the national assembly. How many law making bodies do we have in Nigeria? It is the national assembly and beneath it you have the state assemblies whose acts are inferior to that of the national assembly. To have a referendum, there must be provision for that referendum by National Assembly. But if it is a referendum to alter the constitution, they cannot do that because the constitution already specified how it can be changed.
And referendum is not there. So, for you to now say you are going to have a referendum on this constitution, you must first of all alter the existing constitution by including referendum as one of the modes for altering the constitution. As I said earlier, the powers of the country is divided into three. The executive powers of the president, the president can issue them but subject to checks and balances of the national assembly. The national assembly can make laws but they cannot execute. The president must execute. However, the problem we have in our democracy is that the National Assembly wants to be the executive and the executive wants to be the legislature. The National Assembly wants to award contract, they want to exercise the power of a minister. If he/she doesn’t cooperate, they try to demand that he be removed. Take the case of aviation ministry, that the minister bought bullet-proof jeep or cars. Is jeep an aircraft? Did she take those cars home? Those are the property of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria. And these authorities have their managing directors, their boards of directors, who have power to carry out the functions of government. So, why punish the minister? She was one of the performing ministers in the government. It is unfortunate that they allowed her to be sacrificed with nobody to fight for her when she gave her best to the country.
Nobody to fight for her, you said?
Who fought for her? She was kicked out after two years and in two years she transformed 22 airports in this country. Is that the way to reward the loyal and hard working minister? I think it is very unfortunate. Nigeria should think twice about treating people like that. As far as I am concerned, I think it’s a shame on Nigeria that the way we reward loyal and hard working people is to throw them out. And the ones who are not so distinguished are the ones you keep.
Are you saying the president ought to have handled it differently?
He has his reasons. The president is the one with the power. He is the one that has been given the authority to run the country. And it is at his absolute discretion what he wants to do. But I wouldn’t dismiss my strongest and best ministers under fire. That’s why I should defend them and stand by them because they are working for me.
The confab recommended the creation of 18 states in the country. What is your take on that?
I think they should have done more. Well, it is very good actually. Eighteen new states will give us 54 states. What is wrong with that? It will actually spread development to the grassroots. You see, the states and local governments since after the civil war have become the means of having access to jobs and development opportunity. If you want to go into civil service today, your quota is based on your state.
If you want to have any job or reference to any opportunity even in your state, it depends on whether you have local government. Some states have local governments with few people and they have the opportunities. And in some other states you have few local governments with large population like Lagos. Lagos has 20 million people, 20 local government areas. But if they have more states and more local governments, opportunities will extend to more Lagosians. The infrastructure in Lagos is already developed, all it has to do is to build industries and create jobs.
But some argue that creating states is not good when some of the existing states are not viable?
Are they saying that it is not good to create jobs for the people? Which means only those who are fortunate to have jobs should be there? The purpose of creating local government is to bring development closer to the people. The clever ones, those who saw road before the others, quickly moved with long legs and got local governments and states for themselves. And then those who didn’t see their way through the military are now shot out. Look at it this way. Some local government areas have, maybe, 2,000 or 3,000 people. Go and check the records or population of some states in Nigeria. You find that those who didn’t find their way through the military in those days are the ones who are cheated in state creation and local government. When we got independence, there were three regions-east west, and North. But independence agreement was that 50 per cent of the houses in the national assembly, the seats should go to the North, and 50 per cent to the South.
And then, in the south, it was divided into two equal parts-25 per cent east and 25 per cent west. When Gowon created states, he created 12 states-six in the North, six in the south. That is, three in the east and three in the west. Just before the civil war when it was necessary to carry the south along. After the war, with victory in the pocket and Biafra thoroughly subdued, Murtala Mohammed bared the fangs of the caliphate. He created states in 1976 and moved the number of states from 12 to 19. And the north quietly took one and put aside. That is, 10 states in the north and nine in the South. In addition, he created a new national capital in Abuja which has the status of a state. That means 11 in the North and nine in the South, the inequality is getting entrenched. Then IBB and Abacha continued the trend moving the number to present 36 states structure plus Abuja. It is now 19 in the north and 17 in the South. The North now has two-state majority plus Abuja.
If there’s advertisement for job and they give 10 jobs per state, the few states you have the more limited the number. And the South East they wanted to punish got only five states. The total number of local governments we have in these five states is less than Kano and Jigawa states combined. And when you now base access to revenue every month on those numbers/ structures you can imagine how much they are getting compared to what comes to us. It is baffling. Our people have to leave home, go to anywhere to earn a living. Go to every corner of West Africa you find them. Are they going there with clear eyes? They are going to earn a living. But if you have the resources at home, you wouldn’t embark on desperate moves.
So, I am saying democratize the access to opportunity for people. When the ground is level for everybody then let us compete in terms of what you will do with your resources and not giving resources to some people and starve the others of access to resources and tell me they are not viable. When you go to an area where a new state has been created you don’t need to be told. Go to Asaba, the capital of Delta State and see. Since they created Delta State and made Asaba the capital you can ‘touch’ the development with your finger when you drive through the place. They have their own airport. So, what government has to do in addition to creating more states is build infrastructure-power, road, etc- so that the private sector will come in and develop the states.
As a chieftain of the PDP, how do you see the opposition in terms of winning elections in 2015?
I still believe that there’s only one political party in this country and that is the PDP. The others are actually assemblages of one or two men and their friends. APC in this case is the most pathetic of all because it is an assemblage of people who are driven by one desire, to take presidency from President Jonathan and carry it to the North. And they looked for various ways to do it, they couldn’t find it. So, they said one way is to poach his governors and also to poach as many of their lawmakers as possible, as they can get and then impeach them, take over the speaker, deputy speaker, senate president and deputy senate president and take the structures won by the PDP in free and fair election. Then you come out in broad daylight and want to snatch it from the back door.
The idea of opposition in democratic government is if you lose an election you work hard to present a better alternative to the electorate. You don’t work to see the way you can go in the night and snatch the man you called an armed robber, looter, corrupt politician yesterday, today you want to go and hijack him. And he has suddenly become a progressive. Because he has joined your party now, he is okay. If he crosses the carpet, he is no longer one of the looters. Is he? If he crosses the carpet back to his party, again he becomes one of the looters. Is that democracy? And you see when you try to build a party on the basis of simply poaching people from other parties then you create a problem for yourself. If you eat too much of different variety of food at the same time, you are going to have stomachache or indigestion. So, with that kind of situation when election comes, you find you are not on ground. When you have a party based on the union of leaders who don’t have any grassroots base, they don’t go to the masses to look for votes because they won’t get it. When the leaders meet they promulgate policies that are based on theories that have no bearing with the grassroots, with the reality on ground. Like testing the teachers in Ekiti State and then sent them out of their jobs. Once Ekiti governor lost his election, Oshiomhole of Edo State quickly cancelled what he did and recalled the sacked teachers.
What I am trying to say is that you do not have carefully developed, constructed, and articulated policy framework for creating a party that is different from PDP. APC has not done that. If the APC had done that, it would not have swallowed both the one half of APGA, one half of CPC, ANPP, all of them are there boiling in one pot. As they are jumping in, those who don’t like their face are jumping out. You go to Sokoto, Wamakko jumped in, all his opponents jumped out. You go to Kano, when Kwankwaso jumped in, Shekarau jumped out. And Shekarau was the one that initiated the formation of APC. Now he is minister in President Jonathan’s government. With this moving in and out, we don’t know who is PDP and who is APC anymore. Fani Kayode’s own is a special case. He was in PDP as a minister in Obasanjo’s time. Then he moved to APC and abused PDP very well. And now suddenly, he has returned to PDP. And right now he is doing a good job bashing APC because he was on the inside and knew what they were planning. And now he is throwing it in their face in public. So, what does APC stand for and what does he stand for? What is the difference between APC and PDP? The issue is that APC simply grabbed leaders who are disaffected, who are ambitious, and who want to look for a short cut to get to where they want to go.
And in grabbing these leaders, they are not looking at the entire party as a whole, what this kind of absorption of disgruntled elements from other parties are going to do to this new party itself. The Ekiti debacle has shown that they are not on ground in Ekiti State. That a sitting governor can be defeated in all of the 16 local governments in the state. He is a perfect gentleman and when he saw the reality he accepted the outcome and congratulated the winner. Some people said he should not have surrendered. I respect that man. I congratulate him for showing a new way in which leaders should behave. If you lose, go home quietly. Go and plan better.
But the APC has gone to court in respect of the outcome of the Ekiti election?
You see everybody has the right to go to court. I drafted the fundamental human rights portion (Chapter 4) of the 1999 constitution we are using. I was the representative of the constitutional conference commission in the committee that drafted that one. So, I had to write that myself. So, all those powers are reserved for everybody. And that is the most difficult part of the constitution to amend because that is where you need four-fifth majority not just two-third. So, they have the right to go to court. But remember that the candidate himself has accepted defeat and congratulated the winner. So, if the man who owns the election has accepted defeat, are you going to cry more than the bereaved? That would be interesting to see.
From your assessment, it’s like the APC is no match for PDP. But some people are still saying we need alternative?
We need alternative but must the alternative be a copy of the PDP. People who want an alternative should sit down, do the hard work and build a new party of their own. The PDP was not invented in heaven. Some people sat down and assembled themselves, first from the G34 gradually until they built their party to that extent. While others had limited vision by thinking of going for regional power, PDP organised itself for national power. So, when nobody was looking, PDP captured national power. In 1999 nobody gave PDP chance to win anything. So, all the big boys were not there. The big boys were either in APP (later ANPP) or in AD. They were not in PDP but by the time PDP took the presidential power, everybody jumped into place. Those who were somewhere else had change of hearts and run into PDP because the presidential power is there. And in Nigeria nobody wants to be in opposition.
From what you are saying PDP will remain in power for too long probably the next 50 years?
I am not saying that. Do you think I would be here in the next 50 years? It depends on what the people of Nigeria want. Every nation produces particular leadership it deserves. If the people of Nigeria continue to play politics the way they are playing it, they are welcoming PDP to a very long stay. But if they now sit down and organise politics based on ideology and having many people come out and say this is what we want and we are going to pursue it steadfastly until we grow in stature to a point where we can now get political power at national level. They will get there. Look at Germany, the Green Party has been there for many years. It is only now that it is beginning to get some few seats at the national level. But in the case of Nigeria, you want to get in today and remove the president tomorrow. It is not possible because somebody put him there. All those millions of people working hard like an army of ants in the wards, villages, local government areas, brought him to power.
The UN has volunteered to help us manage the Abacha loot, about 230 million dollars, that was released recently from Luxemberg. How do you see that and also the desire by President Jonathan to spend the money for special intervention in the economy?
What is Abacha loot?
The money Abacha kept away in foreign land when he was in power as military Head of State?
Who told you it was Abacha’s money? I don’t respect the gossip but one thing I can tell you is Abacha was one of the best heads of state this country ever had. The constitution you are using now, who produced it? It was the constitutional conference he organised and supervised that produced that constitution. All Abdulsalami did was get a small committee to edit it. The National Assembly where you are busy passing laws and others, who built it? I was there with him when he laid the foundation in 1997. When IBB was in power, the National Assembly was at the International Conference Centre where they do all kinds of dances and wedding receptions. Abacha built the Apo village (former legislators quarters) and other infrastructure, the expressways from Yar’Adua memorial, all the way to Mabushi and from Mabushi to Kaddo, and the whole Gwarimpa-the largest housing estate in West Africa. He built all these things at a time when the western world was fighting him. So, you have to look for people who have worked to put their name on marble. He worked very hard. So, if they loot, what are they talking about? The fact was that at the time in question, though I am not trying to defend him, the western world was trying to find a way to sanction Nigeria, seize our foreign reserves and give to NADECO to spend abroad. Remember that NADECO was trying to form a government in exile where Anthony Enahoro generously presented himself as a candidate to be our next president in exile. So, if they can seize our foreign reserves in Canada, Britain, and others, the government in exile will be spending it just like they did with Iraqi exiles before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It was the same pattern. If you are a government and they are perpetrating that, what would you do? So, he put some money aside here and there so that in the event that our revenues were seized, he would be able to operate from wherever he was. He saw himself as the last legitimate government in Nigeria until whenever anybody succeeded in overthrowing him. And even if you overthrow him, he wasn’t going to hide in Congo forest. He had to go somewhere he could operate from. But he died before either of these two positions could happen. So, whatever you find abroad now may have been part of what he was counting on to use in fighting against his being overthrown by violent means. I am not justifying it but if the western world wants to hold it (Abacha loot) or spend it for us, it is probably because they don’t trust us, our ability to spend it wisely.
So, in effect, Nigeria is not being fair to Abacha by filing corruption charges against his son, Mohammed?
Why should Nigeria try Mohammed Abacha? I think in the Bible, it is said that they will visit the sins of the father on the son to the third generation. But that was in Judaism. In Nigeria today, can you go to court and try a man because his father did something? Why should we try Mohammed because his dead father was alleged to have done something? Is that not jungle justice? Is that provided for in 1999 constitution as amended?
Let’s have your thoughts on some of the recommendations/resolutions of the national conference such as creation of 18 more states, six geo-political structure, etc.?
I think the people to ask about the confab would be the members of the confab. I am just an observer just as you are. So, whatever information I have about the confab is what I read in the papers and what I saw on the television. As regards the recommendation, I think it would be difficult to sit here and say this is what the conference recommended because the conference has not even wound up its work. They are still in session even as we talk. They have reached a consensus on 19 of their 20 issues.
What is remaining is that of the devolution of powers where they seem to be having some challenges. Until they resolve it, I think it’s premature to comment. But I just have an observation on what was reported in the papers over the weekend that they agreed on 18 per cent derivation for mineral producing areas (oil producing areas), five per cent for developing the mineral resources of all the states of the federation including the mineral producing areas so that minerals produced in these other areas can also contribute to the federation account. But the whole country cannot just be coming together once a month to share what comes from one product. And there’s no state in the country that does not have resources.
Why don’t we develop all of them and contribute to common pool so that everybody can benefit also from the resources of those who are benefitting from the common pool. Right now, the common pool is funded only by the oil-producing states and the states that are generating something by way of value added tax (VAT), Lagos, South South, and may be South East. And when it comes to allocation to local government, some of the states that contribute nothing take majority of the money. We can’t continue forever on that basis and they all agreed on that but when they came to present it to the plenary, probably some mistakes were made, the presenter said the five per cent was meant for the three northern zones. Of course, others kicked; why are you going to make special provision for the three northern zones. What about the three southern zones? They have similar challenges.
You have Bakassi-where people have been chased out of their homes through no fault of their own and they are now refugees in their own land. Not rehabilitated, not taken care by their government. What about the South East that fought a war and the war ended in 1970, 44 years ago? Up till now not much has been done to rehabilitate the people. What about Odi that was devastated by federal might, revenging what was said to be an attack on soldiers and up till today the people have not actually received any benefit. What about the devastations in Niger Delta from oil production? What about areas that have been devastated by flood and other ravages? That intervention fund was meant for all such cases not just as a pie for the North to serve as a continuation of a pattern that has become more or less a habit since 1914. On that sticky ground they raised a committee to look over it. That is not even the major problem I see there. The major problem I see there was what happened when they were coming with suggestions on what to do with their recommendations.
The conference was convened by the President exercising his discretion as our Head of state and commander-in-chief. He is in charge of exercising the executive powers of the government. And he could see there were problems arising from the unrelenting agitation of some people for what they call the people’s constitution and he thought maybe the time has come for the country to come together and look at these issues and resolve them once and for all. And hence the Conference in which the 492 members were nominated based on recommendations of the committee he set up to advise him on how to summon the Conference. Now, 492 of them are nominated. They are not elected. We are in a democratic setting in which the constitution of Nigeria defines very clearly who has powers to do what and in what circumstances. The constitution of Nigeria clearly divides Nigeria’s governmental powers into three broad arms. The executive powers, legislative powers, and judicial powers.
And who is exercising each of those powers. The legislature exercises the legislative powers, the president executes the law and exercises the executive powers, and the judiciary, through the Chief Justice and the Judges exercise the judicial powers. So, that being the case, when you now have a Conference which is making very far reaching recommendations bordering on constitutional change and the constitution specifies in very great detail the mode of effecting change to the constitution. How do you now translate these recommendations to constitutional change bearing in mind that the constitution has set up the bodies already that will effect the change? It is clearly stated in sections 8 and 9 of our 199 constitution as amended. So, how will you alter or amend the constitution without going to the National Assembly?
So the National Assembly must have an input?
Oh, yes because, remember that these people are nominated. That is the biggest drawback. They are not elected. So, at best they are advisers to the president. The president has the power to ask even the whole country to advise him. What he does with that advice again is subject to the powers available to him or his own appreciation of what he wants to do. He could file it away as many have done in the past. Didn’t former President Obasanjo set up constitutional conference in 2005? What happened to that one? All the recommendations are gathering dust somewhere. And were they given to National Assembly to look at again when they started amending the constitution? Am sure it was also given to the 492 wise delegates to look at again. At the end of the day, some are saying they are superior to the National Assembly, that what they are making is the people’s constitution.
I don’t think that we should even dignify such views. The constitution is already there. The constitution that people are deriding is what put the president there and he swore to uphold it. It is what put the National Assembly there. It is what put the judiciary there. And it’s what gave them (delegates) even the platform on which to come and talk in Abuja because if the president didn’t invite them to come and talk in Abuja, how would they get there? And with what resources would they sit down for three months or four months to advise the government? Without the constitution, you have a situation of anarchy. Nigeria is a country governed by law. It is a creature of law. And the constitution is the basic law of the land. If you don’t respect the basic law of the land, what are you talking about? Meanwhile, National Assembly is already amending the constitution. So, the best they can do is take what the conference recommended, send it to National Assembly and National Assembly will add it to what they already have.
In other words, you are saying the president should send it as executive bill?
It might be through executive or whatever. He may call a meeting of principal officers of the National Assembly, principal officers of the national conference and his own advisers and sit down and say how do we deal with this? Maybe they might say bring it through executive bill. In the executive bill, there might be give-and-take and it would go through the normal first reading, second reading, and third reading and what can be implemented will be implemented. But some people are saying let us go for a referendum. There’s nothing wrong with that but let me draw your attention to the Electoral Act. The Electoral Act is very specific on that. It specifies under what conditions you can use INEC for a referendum. Section 2 of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended says in addition to the function conferred on it by the constitution (which is conducting election), the Commission shall have power to conduct voters and civic education, promote knowledge of sound democratic election processes, and conduct any referendum required to be conducted pursuant to the provision of 1999 constitution or any other law or act of the national assembly. How many law making bodies do we have in Nigeria? It is the national assembly and beneath it you have the state assemblies whose acts are inferior to that of the national assembly. To have a referendum, there must be provision for that referendum by National Assembly. But if it is a referendum to alter the constitution, they cannot do that because the constitution already specified how it can be changed.
And referendum is not there. So, for you to now say you are going to have a referendum on this constitution, you must first of all alter the existing constitution by including referendum as one of the modes for altering the constitution. As I said earlier, the powers of the country is divided into three. The executive powers of the president, the president can issue them but subject to checks and balances of the national assembly. The national assembly can make laws but they cannot execute. The president must execute. However, the problem we have in our democracy is that the National Assembly wants to be the executive and the executive wants to be the legislature. The National Assembly wants to award contract, they want to exercise the power of a minister. If he/she doesn’t cooperate, they try to demand that he be removed. Take the case of aviation ministry, that the minister bought bullet-proof jeep or cars. Is jeep an aircraft? Did she take those cars home? Those are the property of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria. And these authorities have their managing directors, their boards of directors, who have power to carry out the functions of government. So, why punish the minister? She was one of the performing ministers in the government. It is unfortunate that they allowed her to be sacrificed with nobody to fight for her when she gave her best to the country.
Nobody to fight for her, you said?
Who fought for her? She was kicked out after two years and in two years she transformed 22 airports in this country. Is that the way to reward the loyal and hard working minister? I think it is very unfortunate. Nigeria should think twice about treating people like that. As far as I am concerned, I think it’s a shame on Nigeria that the way we reward loyal and hard working people is to throw them out. And the ones who are not so distinguished are the ones you keep.
Are you saying the president ought to have handled it differently?
He has his reasons. The president is the one with the power. He is the one that has been given the authority to run the country. And it is at his absolute discretion what he wants to do. But I wouldn’t dismiss my strongest and best ministers under fire. That’s why I should defend them and stand by them because they are working for me.
The confab recommended the creation of 18 states in the country. What is your take on that?
I think they should have done more. Well, it is very good actually. Eighteen new states will give us 54 states. What is wrong with that? It will actually spread development to the grassroots. You see, the states and local governments since after the civil war have become the means of having access to jobs and development opportunity. If you want to go into civil service today, your quota is based on your state.
If you want to have any job or reference to any opportunity even in your state, it depends on whether you have local government. Some states have local governments with few people and they have the opportunities. And in some other states you have few local governments with large population like Lagos. Lagos has 20 million people, 20 local government areas. But if they have more states and more local governments, opportunities will extend to more Lagosians. The infrastructure in Lagos is already developed, all it has to do is to build industries and create jobs.
But some argue that creating states is not good when some of the existing states are not viable?
Are they saying that it is not good to create jobs for the people? Which means only those who are fortunate to have jobs should be there? The purpose of creating local government is to bring development closer to the people. The clever ones, those who saw road before the others, quickly moved with long legs and got local governments and states for themselves. And then those who didn’t see their way through the military are now shot out. Look at it this way. Some local government areas have, maybe, 2,000 or 3,000 people. Go and check the records or population of some states in Nigeria. You find that those who didn’t find their way through the military in those days are the ones who are cheated in state creation and local government. When we got independence, there were three regions-east west, and North. But independence agreement was that 50 per cent of the houses in the national assembly, the seats should go to the North, and 50 per cent to the South.
And then, in the south, it was divided into two equal parts-25 per cent east and 25 per cent west. When Gowon created states, he created 12 states-six in the North, six in the south. That is, three in the east and three in the west. Just before the civil war when it was necessary to carry the south along. After the war, with victory in the pocket and Biafra thoroughly subdued, Murtala Mohammed bared the fangs of the caliphate. He created states in 1976 and moved the number of states from 12 to 19. And the north quietly took one and put aside. That is, 10 states in the north and nine in the South. In addition, he created a new national capital in Abuja which has the status of a state. That means 11 in the North and nine in the South, the inequality is getting entrenched. Then IBB and Abacha continued the trend moving the number to present 36 states structure plus Abuja. It is now 19 in the north and 17 in the South. The North now has two-state majority plus Abuja.
If there’s advertisement for job and they give 10 jobs per state, the few states you have the more limited the number. And the South East they wanted to punish got only five states. The total number of local governments we have in these five states is less than Kano and Jigawa states combined. And when you now base access to revenue every month on those numbers/ structures you can imagine how much they are getting compared to what comes to us. It is baffling. Our people have to leave home, go to anywhere to earn a living. Go to every corner of West Africa you find them. Are they going there with clear eyes? They are going to earn a living. But if you have the resources at home, you wouldn’t embark on desperate moves.
So, I am saying democratize the access to opportunity for people. When the ground is level for everybody then let us compete in terms of what you will do with your resources and not giving resources to some people and starve the others of access to resources and tell me they are not viable. When you go to an area where a new state has been created you don’t need to be told. Go to Asaba, the capital of Delta State and see. Since they created Delta State and made Asaba the capital you can ‘touch’ the development with your finger when you drive through the place. They have their own airport. So, what government has to do in addition to creating more states is build infrastructure-power, road, etc- so that the private sector will come in and develop the states.
As a chieftain of the PDP, how do you see the opposition in terms of winning elections in 2015?
I still believe that there’s only one political party in this country and that is the PDP. The others are actually assemblages of one or two men and their friends. APC in this case is the most pathetic of all because it is an assemblage of people who are driven by one desire, to take presidency from President Jonathan and carry it to the North. And they looked for various ways to do it, they couldn’t find it. So, they said one way is to poach his governors and also to poach as many of their lawmakers as possible, as they can get and then impeach them, take over the speaker, deputy speaker, senate president and deputy senate president and take the structures won by the PDP in free and fair election. Then you come out in broad daylight and want to snatch it from the back door.
The idea of opposition in democratic government is if you lose an election you work hard to present a better alternative to the electorate. You don’t work to see the way you can go in the night and snatch the man you called an armed robber, looter, corrupt politician yesterday, today you want to go and hijack him. And he has suddenly become a progressive. Because he has joined your party now, he is okay. If he crosses the carpet, he is no longer one of the looters. Is he? If he crosses the carpet back to his party, again he becomes one of the looters. Is that democracy? And you see when you try to build a party on the basis of simply poaching people from other parties then you create a problem for yourself. If you eat too much of different variety of food at the same time, you are going to have stomachache or indigestion. So, with that kind of situation when election comes, you find you are not on ground. When you have a party based on the union of leaders who don’t have any grassroots base, they don’t go to the masses to look for votes because they won’t get it. When the leaders meet they promulgate policies that are based on theories that have no bearing with the grassroots, with the reality on ground. Like testing the teachers in Ekiti State and then sent them out of their jobs. Once Ekiti governor lost his election, Oshiomhole of Edo State quickly cancelled what he did and recalled the sacked teachers.
What I am trying to say is that you do not have carefully developed, constructed, and articulated policy framework for creating a party that is different from PDP. APC has not done that. If the APC had done that, it would not have swallowed both the one half of APGA, one half of CPC, ANPP, all of them are there boiling in one pot. As they are jumping in, those who don’t like their face are jumping out. You go to Sokoto, Wamakko jumped in, all his opponents jumped out. You go to Kano, when Kwankwaso jumped in, Shekarau jumped out. And Shekarau was the one that initiated the formation of APC. Now he is minister in President Jonathan’s government. With this moving in and out, we don’t know who is PDP and who is APC anymore. Fani Kayode’s own is a special case. He was in PDP as a minister in Obasanjo’s time. Then he moved to APC and abused PDP very well. And now suddenly, he has returned to PDP. And right now he is doing a good job bashing APC because he was on the inside and knew what they were planning. And now he is throwing it in their face in public. So, what does APC stand for and what does he stand for? What is the difference between APC and PDP? The issue is that APC simply grabbed leaders who are disaffected, who are ambitious, and who want to look for a short cut to get to where they want to go.
And in grabbing these leaders, they are not looking at the entire party as a whole, what this kind of absorption of disgruntled elements from other parties are going to do to this new party itself. The Ekiti debacle has shown that they are not on ground in Ekiti State. That a sitting governor can be defeated in all of the 16 local governments in the state. He is a perfect gentleman and when he saw the reality he accepted the outcome and congratulated the winner. Some people said he should not have surrendered. I respect that man. I congratulate him for showing a new way in which leaders should behave. If you lose, go home quietly. Go and plan better.
But the APC has gone to court in respect of the outcome of the Ekiti election?
You see everybody has the right to go to court. I drafted the fundamental human rights portion (Chapter 4) of the 1999 constitution we are using. I was the representative of the constitutional conference commission in the committee that drafted that one. So, I had to write that myself. So, all those powers are reserved for everybody. And that is the most difficult part of the constitution to amend because that is where you need four-fifth majority not just two-third. So, they have the right to go to court. But remember that the candidate himself has accepted defeat and congratulated the winner. So, if the man who owns the election has accepted defeat, are you going to cry more than the bereaved? That would be interesting to see.
From your assessment, it’s like the APC is no match for PDP. But some people are still saying we need alternative?
We need alternative but must the alternative be a copy of the PDP. People who want an alternative should sit down, do the hard work and build a new party of their own. The PDP was not invented in heaven. Some people sat down and assembled themselves, first from the G34 gradually until they built their party to that extent. While others had limited vision by thinking of going for regional power, PDP organised itself for national power. So, when nobody was looking, PDP captured national power. In 1999 nobody gave PDP chance to win anything. So, all the big boys were not there. The big boys were either in APP (later ANPP) or in AD. They were not in PDP but by the time PDP took the presidential power, everybody jumped into place. Those who were somewhere else had change of hearts and run into PDP because the presidential power is there. And in Nigeria nobody wants to be in opposition.
From what you are saying PDP will remain in power for too long probably the next 50 years?
I am not saying that. Do you think I would be here in the next 50 years? It depends on what the people of Nigeria want. Every nation produces particular leadership it deserves. If the people of Nigeria continue to play politics the way they are playing it, they are welcoming PDP to a very long stay. But if they now sit down and organise politics based on ideology and having many people come out and say this is what we want and we are going to pursue it steadfastly until we grow in stature to a point where we can now get political power at national level. They will get there. Look at Germany, the Green Party has been there for many years. It is only now that it is beginning to get some few seats at the national level. But in the case of Nigeria, you want to get in today and remove the president tomorrow. It is not possible because somebody put him there. All those millions of people working hard like an army of ants in the wards, villages, local government areas, brought him to power.
The UN has volunteered to help us manage the Abacha loot, about 230 million dollars, that was released recently from Luxemberg. How do you see that and also the desire by President Jonathan to spend the money for special intervention in the economy?
What is Abacha loot?
The money Abacha kept away in foreign land when he was in power as military Head of State?
Who told you it was Abacha’s money? I don’t respect the gossip but one thing I can tell you is Abacha was one of the best heads of state this country ever had. The constitution you are using now, who produced it? It was the constitutional conference he organised and supervised that produced that constitution. All Abdulsalami did was get a small committee to edit it. The National Assembly where you are busy passing laws and others, who built it? I was there with him when he laid the foundation in 1997. When IBB was in power, the National Assembly was at the International Conference Centre where they do all kinds of dances and wedding receptions. Abacha built the Apo village (former legislators quarters) and other infrastructure, the expressways from Yar’Adua memorial, all the way to Mabushi and from Mabushi to Kaddo, and the whole Gwarimpa-the largest housing estate in West Africa. He built all these things at a time when the western world was fighting him. So, you have to look for people who have worked to put their name on marble. He worked very hard. So, if they loot, what are they talking about? The fact was that at the time in question, though I am not trying to defend him, the western world was trying to find a way to sanction Nigeria, seize our foreign reserves and give to NADECO to spend abroad. Remember that NADECO was trying to form a government in exile where Anthony Enahoro generously presented himself as a candidate to be our next president in exile. So, if they can seize our foreign reserves in Canada, Britain, and others, the government in exile will be spending it just like they did with Iraqi exiles before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It was the same pattern. If you are a government and they are perpetrating that, what would you do? So, he put some money aside here and there so that in the event that our revenues were seized, he would be able to operate from wherever he was. He saw himself as the last legitimate government in Nigeria until whenever anybody succeeded in overthrowing him. And even if you overthrow him, he wasn’t going to hide in Congo forest. He had to go somewhere he could operate from. But he died before either of these two positions could happen. So, whatever you find abroad now may have been part of what he was counting on to use in fighting against his being overthrown by violent means. I am not justifying it but if the western world wants to hold it (Abacha loot) or spend it for us, it is probably because they don’t trust us, our ability to spend it wisely.
So, in effect, Nigeria is not being fair to Abacha by filing corruption charges against his son, Mohammed?
Why should Nigeria try Mohammed Abacha? I think in the Bible, it is said that they will visit the sins of the father on the son to the third generation. But that was in Judaism. In Nigeria today, can you go to court and try a man because his father did something? Why should we try Mohammed because his dead father was alleged to have done something? Is that not jungle justice? Is that provided for in 1999 constitution as amended?
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Why Abacha stashed billions in foreign accounts – Ofonagoro |
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