Viewpoint
The story of liberal democracy flourished when the Soviet Union fell into irreconcilable parts and eastern Europe smothered under communist ideology went on a tear of disintegration. West exulted and one of its noted intellectuals, Francis Fukuyama, announced gloatingly that liberal ideas would now rule the world. So, Fukuyama and his uproarious choir proclaimed “the end of history.”
Fast forward to 2018. And that celebration sounds too optimistic and premature. This age is aflame with a sense of illiberalism. Against this background, a Vladimir Putin roars to a return to power as the indispensable man in Russia, a Duterte of the Philippines rejoices over his bloodthirsty programmes, an Erdogan of Turkey relishes throwing journalists behind bars and entrenching himself as the despot of the land. Even in the world’s most adored democracy, the leader, Donald J. Trump of the roosterly combover, coddles all these men and even looks to them with a sort of systemic envy.
China has never regarded itself as a western-style democracy. Never mind that its citizens, like most in the world, fall to elements of its cultural imperialism: movies, fashion, eateries, music, et al. China has always seen itself in the light of its imperial past, its burgeoning civilisation, its eminent military, its science, its arts, the pop and colour of its royalty.
When its present leader, Xi Jinping was voted overwhelmingly as the premier for life, or at least indefinitely, the west saw this as antagonistic to what it saw as the wise path for nations. Yet what cannot be denied is President Xi’s era has been marked by a systematic whittling down of his opposition.
He has also turned its military, though still far behind the United States’, to an increasingly powerful force in a world that is verging gradually into an arms race. He has also become an apostle of what many military and geo-political analysts call the Asian pivot, trying to overthrow the United States as the major force in southeast Asia.
All of these mean he has revived the pride of the Asian stalwart and fed nostalgia to its stature as the world’s dominant power. The decision to make him the paramount ruler counters a cautionary chapter in its history a generation ago when the same Chinese power elite decided to chasten its rulers to term limits.
This was after the death of its famous leader, Mao Zedong, who had unlimited powers. Mao gave the country a revolution in the communist style. His style was not only that of a despot but he subjected the country’s citizens to years of extreme suffering in what was known as the cultural revolution and the great leap forward.
He had overthrown the ancient regime, a feudal stronghold and asphyxiated a strong and virile people. So, at his exit, the political elite decided that Mao had wielded too much power and it was necessary to avert such tyrannical muscle in the future. The era of the gang of four in which a quartet strangulated the country with a show of power and corruption in a decade of turmoil capped the Zedong years.
These temptations to tyranny led to the enactment of the term limits. In spite of the benefit of hindsight,why did the Chinese elite succumb to another set of experimentation? We are not aware of any show of power arrogance in an overt sense from Xi. But he has been firm on his foes and sterilised them. Could that be a prelude to a more robust manifestation of power?
Yet, the system that led to term limits was not a western style system but it was an overthrow of an autocracy by the cult of one man. That cult seems awake again in China. Is this a different time? Mao Zedong allowed his wife to bring the system into a fever of oppression of the citizens. Do the Chinese bear that in mind or are they so trustful of Xi that they believe that his level-headedness will prevail?
He is presiding over unexampled prosperity and national pride and it could be that they believe that he has the personal vision and acumen that no other person can deliver on the national stage.
This is how autocracy yields to dictators. We only hope that he does not precipitate the indiscretions that Mao brought his fraught land. There is always a trap fall in a system that relies on one man. The Chinese and Xi are betting on the premier. The world watches.
The Nation
Nigeria is sliding fast. The people’s dreams are transfiguring to nightmares. The hope Nigerians once had has turned forlorn. Misery reigns in high and low places. Despondency has become the citizens’ lot. Hopelessness is driving young Nigerians into peril in their search for a more luxuriant pasture. They want to be anywhere but their fatherland. They believe in any country but their native land. In their desperation to bid Nigeria bye, they brave the hunger and the danger of the desert, the terror of Libya’s slave camps and the turbulence of the Mediterranean Sea. Many have lost their lives while searching for the elusive Golden Fleece. Many have lost limbs. Many have been turned into slaves. Yet more are determined to travel same path. Even those once rescued have returned to their land of slavery.
How shall we tell the President that our young men and women are losing faith in their fatherland? How will the President know that he needs to arrest this situation? Shall we send Alhaji Lai Mohammed? Or shall we ask Lauretta Onochie to tweet at him?
Perhaps the President does not know that our value system as a nation is being daily eroded by the corruptive inclination of his appointees. How shall we tell the President? Shall we send Katsina elders to him? Or shall we give the task to Colonel Hameed Ali (Rtd.)?
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo once bailed Nigeria out of serious indebtedness. His administration, after effecting part payment of the huge debt, got $18billion debt forgiveness for the country. But according to the DMO, Nigeria’s debt stood at N21.7trillion as of December 2017. Warning about the consequences of the debt-piling attitude of Nigeria, IMF last year said over 60 percent of the country’s budget goes for debt servicing. How shall we tell the President that our country is regressing into economic slavery?
How shall we tell the President that with merely 34 percent left of our budget after debt servicing, development will remain a mirage in our land? How shall we tell the President that racking up debts today is a recipe for a difficult time for future generations? How will the President get to know this? Shall we send Mallam Nasir el-Rufai or Alhaji Yahaya Bello?
IGP Ibrahim Idris flouted the President’s directive to relocate to Benue State after the gruesome killings by herdsmen in the state, yet the President was oblivious to this. After being intimated with this gross misconduct whose obvious consequence was more killing in Benue State, the President has been too genial to wield the big stick. Mass killing has become a daily occurrence in Nigeria, yet the President is either too busy to stop the killings or too timid to punish dereliction of duty. The President has been too engrossed in self adulation to hear the gush of Nigerians’ blood. Despite relentless bloodletting in the country, the President was so satisfied with his performance about securing the country that he rated himself better than Dr Goodluck Jonathan. But how shall we tell the President that this is not what those who voted for him in 2015 expected?
How shall we tell the President that those who trekked from Lagos and other places to Abuja to felicitate with him did not envisage this? How shall we tell the President that he is losing grip of the nation? Shall we send the First Lady or do we trek to Abuja to express our frustration?
By the government’s own admission, over 80 million Nigerians live in abject poverty, which makes Nigeria home to the largest concentration of poor people globally. In addition, over 10 million people are in need of food assistance. More people slide into poverty at an unprecedented rate in this country. While other countries are moving their people out of poverty, we seem to immerse ours deeper in it.
How shall we tell the President that he needs to save Nigerians from poverty? Who shall convey to the President the need to save our children from the pangs of hunger? Shall we send Musa Daura? Or shall we send Abba Kiyari?
Amidst all these, a survey showed Nigerians as becoming happier. Is this mirth in the midst of misery? Or is it what Fela Anikulapo called shuffering and shmiling? Can the people become happier when they are getting hungrier? Can they be happier when they are getting poorer? How can they become happier when their hope gets dimmer daily? Shall we tell the President before the government rolls out the drums in celebration of this report that the rating agency probably mistook the deriding laughter that trailed the announcement of dead people as chairmen of government agencies as a measure of the citizens’ gaiety?
We agree with Senate’s decision last Thursday to frown at the court order granted by Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court purporting to maintain the status quo ante bellum with respect to ongoing efforts to amend the Electoral Act. The suit was brought to court by the Accord Party. The process of amendment had already reached a critical point when President Muhammadu Buhari wrote to both Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday last week withholding his assent to the Electoral Act 2010 amendment bill passed by both chambers of the National Assembly on February 13.
Since the president has exercised his constitutional power and vetoed the bill, what remained was for the National Assembly’s two chambers to assemble a two thirds majority in both chambers to override the veto. In that case it becomes law even without presidential assent. If they fail to muster such a majority, then the bill fails to become law. Even if it is passed into law, anyone with locus standi who objects to it can then go to court and test its legality, but not before. Senate decided last week to write to Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen and urge him to draw the attention of judicial officers to the principle of separation of powers. The senators are right that the constitutional power of law making should not be stopped by a court, but any law so passed can be challenged in court for interpretation of its constitutionality.
In our view, neither the National Assembly’s nor the president’s stance on this matter is free of personal motives. Each one wants his or their election to be held first because it confers certain political advantages. As we argued in a previous editorial, we think that INEC should organise only two elections as was done in 2015, not three as the National Assembly wants in this amendment. Also, we believe that neither presidential nor National Assembly polls should hold first; that the most logical thing is to hold governorship and state assembly polls first and to hold federal elections next. However this matter is resolved, INEC should make the right arrangements to hold the polls according to the law, and this could alter its current arrangements.
At this point we must remind both presidency and National Assembly of the need to resolve this matter as quickly as possible. The Electoral Act 2010 amendment bill contains many items other than election sequence, such as enshrining card reader into law. Whatever election sequence is adopted, we must legally protect the sanctity of the card reader, lest the gains of the last five years are completely thrown overboard.
Daily Trust
The Senator representing Kaduna Central District, Shehu Sani, has said despite the reconciliation undertaken by a leader in the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, there is still a ‘civil and cold war’ within the party.
The civil rights advocate Senator, who recently disclosed the monthly pay of each Senator, asked Nigerians to pressure those in the Presidency, the governors, the ministers, and others in government agencies and parastatals to disclose how much they get monthly.
On election re-ordering, he explained that the National Assembly took the decision to prevent what he called a “mass trial and mass conviction” of its members, adding that Nigerians would have a choice to assess their lawmakers separately from President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The National Assembly is made up of distinguished personalities: doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics and all who made it in life. But because of this culture of secrecy and silence, people who found themselves in the National Assembly are criminalised and stigmatised.”
“The dome of the National Assembly is being seen to house people of questionable character and integrity. So, what I did was to rescue the honour and credibility of the National Assembly by removing the veil secrecy to bring it once and for all to an end,” he said.
Tribune
A huge number of Nigerians, from what I can see, will vote against President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019. Which is no news, really. All you need to do is read the newspapers, watch the TV, listen to the radio or browse the internet to come to that conclusion. Those who voted against him in 2015 will certainly do it again.
But the crowd is expanding rapidly, from what I can glean, and this is what should actually worry Buhari, who has so far not hidden his intention to seek a second term in office. When your opponents rally against you, that is natural. But when your own supporters become openly critical of you, then you need to worry. Buhari needs to lose some sleep.
But anytime someone tells me Buhari has lost much goodwill and does not deserve another term in office in 2019, the statement I usually make is that “you cannot analyse an election in isolation of the opposition”. It is not enough to say an incumbent has failed and does not deserve another chance. You need to also work out how he will be voted out. If not, he will get re-elected by default in spite of public disenchantment.
People can be dissatisfied as much as they want, but that could translate to nothing in the end. In the “aluta” community, they say “organise, don’t agonise”. No amount of agonising can defeat Buhari if the opposition is not well organised.
The way the Nigerian political firmament is today, what you can call opposition is highly fragmented. Coming barely a year to the general election, this is no good news. I’m told 24 hours is a long time in politics and something major can still happen — which is true. However, by this time in 2014, APC was already consolidated and ready to do battle. Today, much of opposition’s hope is built on the assumption that people are disappointed with Buhari and will automatically vote against him. Yet we know you don’t defeat an incumbent in Africa through wishful thinking. Anywhere an incumbent has lost, it is usually because the opposition played smarter.
Generally, Obasanjo was poorly rated during his first term in office. He spent most of the time in the air looking for “foreign investors”. He was constantly at war with the National Assembly and organised labour. There was pervasive insecurity, from Sharia riots in the north to uprising by Bakassi boys and OPC in the south. Political killings were commonplace. Fuel prices kept going up, leading to strikes, and the refineries remained comatose.
Power supply was as epileptic as ever. Federal roads were an embarrassment, with the horrendous Benin-Ore axis — the gateway to the oil-rich region that produces the Nigeria’s livelihood — making headlines as the “shame of a nation”.
Obasanjo still went on to get a second term. Why? People would talk about the incumbency factor — which guarantees the misuse of state agencies such as the electoral commission, police, military, DSS, NNPC and CBN. I wouldn’t downplay the significance of that. However, as we saw in 2015, you can control all these things and still lose an election if the opposition is very strong. As at 2003, the opposition was highly fragmented: ANPP (which is now part of APC) was limited to the north; AD (whose leaders later moved on to form AC/ACN before fusing into APC) was basically a south-west property; and APGA was more interested in Biafra.
In a sense, Obasanjo played on the fragmentation of opposition parties to keep PDP in power. In 1999, there were three officially recognised parties — PDP, APP and AD. The military actually wanted a two-party system — which would have produced only PDP and APP — but afraid that the south-west might boycott the election and raise hell again, they lightened the preconditions to accommodate AD.
At the end of the general election, PDP produced 21 governors, APP nine and AD six. If APP and AD had fused, as was being proposed then, they would have controlled 15 states and would most likely have grown stronger to keep PDP in check in subsequent elections.
AD, however, insisted on going it alone, ridiculing APP (All Peoples Party) as “Abacha People’s Party” because of the preponderance of those who served the Abacha government. Ironically, AD went into an alliance with the same APP for the 1999 presidential election, losing to the PDP. On assuming office, Obasanjo began to systematically decimate the opposition. He appointed the APP chairman, Alhaji Mahmud Waziri, as his special adviser. He later made the AD chairman, Alhaji Adamu Ahmed Abdulkadir, his special assistant. The opposition was in disarray and began to die in instalment. Thereafter, Obasanjo lured many ANPP (formerly APP) governors into his fold.
After the 2003 polls, most ANPP governors became Obasanjo’s “boys”. Buhari, the ANPP flag bearer, became politically orphaned. Not a single ANPP governor was with him any longer, including Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau who had been elected governor of Kano state simply because Buhari raised his hand. In no time, Nigeria began to move towards a one-party state — which Obasanjo had vigorously propagated for decades as a commentator on African affairs. Many opposition governors started defecting to the PDP. When Obasanjo was in 2007, PDP controlled 29 out of 36 states. The party was walking on water. At some point, they threatened to rule Nigeria for 60 years.
But something changed ahead of the 2015 elections. Many would say it was because of President Goodluck Jonathan’s soft nature — “live and let live” — while others would say it was because there were powerful political forces at play. Whatever it was, the opposition managed to come together, even if it was a marriage of strange bed fellows. Helped by the fracturing of PDP and the defection of five governors, the emerging APC became a redoubtable force. For the first time, the opposition had a real chance of displacing the ruling party.
It appeared they had learnt from their failures in 2003, 2007 and 2011. And, by the way, there was a formidable Buhari to fly the flag.
Typical of Nigerian politicians, as soon as Buhari won the election, they began to flock to APC. I was scared and I wrote about it (THISDAY, April 5, 2015), warning that opposition might become insignificant again — the same thing that sustained PDP in power for 16 years. Today, APC has 24 governors to PDP’s 11 and APGA’s one. In the national assembly, legislators are daily defecting to APC without shame. Politicians who could have stayed back to rebuild PDP could not imagine life in political wilderness devoid of milk and honey. They started flocking to APC. Whereas APC is internally unstable, it is not losing as many key members as necessary to impact on its fortune.
PDP, as presently constituted, is still the strongest opposition platform. But its brand image is not sparkling. After overcoming the storm-in-a-tea-cup internal imbroglio which many swore had the hand of APC, the PDP is now perceived as the property of one or two governors. Meanwhile, the SDP has been telling us that governors and senators will defect to “our fold” in large numbers “next week” but next week never seems to come. There is also the third force as well as the third farce. The youth are mobilising and saying they are not too young to run. A lot is going on, but where is the harmonisation? It’s less than 10 months to the nomination of candidates!
What am I driving at? It is not enough to say “Anyone But Buhari”. Agreed, “Anyone But Jonathan” worked magic in 2015, but it was a combination of many factors. For one, the opposition worked together. They were not just shouting “Anyone But Jonathan” all over the place. Remember, too, that there was a Buhari with massive electoral value in the north who was helped by a national movement to take out Jonathan. Yoruba would say “ara ran bombu l’owo”. Everything simply came together in the nick of time. While I am not ruling out the chances of the opposition (I’m not that reckless), I also don’t think they should assume that displacing Buhari is a done deal.
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AND FOUR OTHER THINGS
SANI REVELATION
Senator Shehu Sani has set the ball rolling by telling us how much each senator takes home every month. It comes to over N14m in a country where minimum wage is N18,000. Every senator — Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, Muslim, Christian, conservative, progressive — collects it. The senate spokesman tried to assault our intelligence by saying “it is nothing new, it is in the budget” — knowing fully that it is not broken down. Now that we know what senators earn, what about the reps? They will tell us it is inside the budget! Can the “progressive” reps help us break it down? And may we know how much do members of the 36 houses of assembly take home too? Nigeria!!!
BUHARI VS JONATHAN
Was it not last week that I was wondering why we keep discussing former President Goodluck Jonathan when we should be discussing President Muhammadu Buhari? At what point are we going to move on and face the future? Buhari himself is determined to keep playing that game. He was in Dapchi, Yobe state, where 110 schoolgirls remain missing after being kidnapped, and he boasted that he reacted better than Jonathan did over the Chibok kidnappings in 2014. The parents of the Dapchi girls will not agree with Buhari, though. And you can understand why. If Buhari did better than Jonathan, why are their daughters still with Boko Haram? Simple.
THE TROLLERS
Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, chairman of THISDAY editorial board and arguably Nigeria’s most popular columnist, almost ran into an ambush on Twitter last week. Assuming that he was going to have an intellectual engagement on the state of the Nigerian media, he walked straight into trolling by one chap who said journalists collect money from Buhari (the fellow even dragged the name of my humble self into it). In my opinion, those who lack integrity are always the first to question the integrity of others. Nevertheless, public debate is critical to our development and all good people must learn to eat the rice and ignore the stone. Tact.
STEPHEN HAWKING
I don’t know much about physics, just that I am always fascinated by things like gravitation, motion, time, space, light, relativity, black hole and stuff. The more I try to understand them, the more I force my brain into overdrive, so I quickly respect myself and give up. Stephen Hawking, the British physicist who just died at the age of 76, goes into history for propounding theories that left fellow physicists with problems to solve! Isaac Newton gave us the law of gravitation. When man eventually landed on the moon over 200 years later, the law was more than confirmed. Hawking’s theory on the black hole will be absolutely confirmed someday. Maybe in AD 2300. Genius.
Boko Haram extended the frontiers of its atrocities with the callous attack on an Internally-Displaced Persons camp in Rann, Kala-Balge Local Government Area of Borno State, early this month that left three United Nations aid workers dead. Such an attack contravenes the global convention that an IDP camp is a humanitarian centre. This places a burden on the Muhammadu Buhari administration to bring the perpetrators to book.
Two of the deceased represented the International Organisation for Migration, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, stated. The third casualty, a medical doctor, worked with the International Red Cross. The attack on the 55,000-member camp also saw the abduction of three aid workers and a UN nurse. The consequence was instant. The UN, which has 3,000 humanitarian workers in the North-East, immediately shut its operations in Rann, putting the IDPs in further distress.
Likewise, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials, MSF, suspended medical activities because of the attack. It said that 40,000 IDPs, who needed medical attention, were affected by its decision. “The latest attack is a stark reminder that it is the people in Borno who are paying the price of this ruthless conflict,” the IOM said. Indeed, Nigeria is paying a heavy price for the insurgency. Over 100,000 people have been violently slaughtered since 2009, when Boko Haram’s terror campaign began, according to the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima.
Unfortunately, the government is adamant that the Boko Haram insurgency has all but faded away. At the eighth National Security Seminar recently, organised by the Alumni Association of the National Defence College in Abuja, the President said the sect “is no longer a serious fighting force.” This is out of tune with reality. Juxtaposed with the horrific banditry it is still carrying out, the denial is akin to hiding behind a finger.
Apart from carrying out repeated suicide bombings since the turn of the year, Boko Haram regained global infamy on February 19 when it kidnapped 110 female pupils of Government Science and Technical Girls College, Dapchi, Yobe State. It is a repeat of the abduction of the 276 Chibok schoolgirls on April 14, 2014 in Borno State.
Having taken root for over nine years, Nigeria faces a formidable task to reduce Boko Haram to rubble. Although negotiations have yielded the return of about 100 Chibok girls, lecturers of the University of Maiduguri and abducted female police officers, Boko Haram is still waxing stronger. Buhari had made the same mistake in December 2015, when he controversially declared that the sect had been “technically defeated.” This was after the military high command said it had captured “Ground Zero,” and cleared the Sambisa Forest, the sect’s stronghold.
Before the latest attack, the insurgents, armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and gun trucks, according to the IOM, had raided the military formation at Rann. Damian Chukwu, the Borno State Commissioner of Police, said that four policemen and six soldiers died in the attacks. This shows that the group has not been weakened. At best, it is in retreat, which is the modus operandi of Islamist terrorism. Without saying so, Buhari, last December, asked the National Assembly to approve $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to buy arms needed to prosecute the war.
Experts state that terror organisations mutate. They operate as the occasion demands, using asymmetric tactics, capturing territories or hitting soft targets with bombs. It is naïve, therefore, to assume that Boko Haram has been tamed because it is not currently holding territories, as it once did across Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.
The incontrovertible evidence is that it is still a potent fighting force. One, Borno, not underestimating the Boko Haram threat, shut female public boarding schools in 25 of its 27 LGAs on March 12. “If the entire security situation is not addressed, one cannot be sure what could happen,” the state’s Commissioner for Education, Inuwa Kubo, said. “…in a situation where you cannot move to some parts of the state without an escort and you are hearing that, in some cases, soldiers are being ambushed, do you deceive yourself and say everything is okay?” Why, then, is Buhari underrating the Boko Haram menace?
Two, in a state visit to Nigeria on March 12, the then United States Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said the Boko Haram insurgency extended beyond Nigeria. “Boko Haram is a threat to other regions…in my discussions with President (Idris) Derby in Chad earlier today, we spoke about the threat of Boko Haram….” Put differently, taking Boko Haram for granted could be perilous.
This is how Saudi Arabia, which is leading the military coalition in Yemen, responded. It fired its security chiefs on February 27. The major shake-up ousted the key security and military brass. The President should infuse new ideas into the war, appoint capable personnel and give them targets, including taking out Abubakar Shekau (the Boko Haram leader) and tracing the source of the Islamists’ funding and weaponry, collaborate with our neighbours and seek financial and technical assistance from the US and Europe.
Punch
The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee for the 2014 National Conference, Senator Femi Okurounmu, tells SAMUEL AWOYINFA that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government can restructure the country before the 2019 general elections among other issues.
What do you think is wrong with the report of the 2014 confab, where you played a prominent role?
Why do you think the APC leadership rejected the report of the confab?
They never wanted the confab in the first place, like I told you earlier.
What are your thoughts on the recommendations of APC’s panel on restructuring?
My position, I believe, should also be the thought of anyone with a logical mind. There are people who, in the last three years, have been opposed to restructuring. They were equally opposed to the national conference. President Muhammadu Buhari, for instance, would have nothing to do with the confab report. He said he would keep it in the archives. Those who have been speaking on behalf of the APC since 2015, including the Vice-President, Lai Mohammed and Nasir el-Rufai, have all been lambasting advocates of restructuring. They are even pretending as if they don’t know what restructuring means.
The President, in his New Year message to Nigerians, said the country’s problem was not restructuring but a process to achieve good governance. He specifically said that we did not need restructuring. So, with these antecedents of all the leaders of the APC, if they now suddenly turn around, a year to election and begin to say they support restructuring, should any reasonable and logical mind believe them? They are only looking for votes, especially with the way they lied to us in 2015 to get our votes. Are they not telling us lies again to get our votes in 2019? They know that if they fail to support restructuring, they will have a tough time to win in 2019.
Do you think the current agitations are addressed in the 2014 confab report?
To a large extent, the agitation for restructuring has been addressed by the 2014 confab report. In the report, consisting of all delegates from all sections, 432 delegates in all, no section can get all its demands. But by and large, through the cooperation of the South and the Middle Belt, the advocates of restructuring got most of what they wanted.
I think there is one issue where I can see us saying the same thing: it seems they are now open to the idea of state police. The 2014 confab report came out clearly to recommend state police. Now the Vice-President and the governors’ forum have come out in support of the state police. So, we are on the same page.
But I want to observe that the Arewa Consultative Forum has come out to strongly oppose the position of the Vice-President and that of the governors’ forum. So, we are back to square one, because this was the position at the 2014 conference. It was the Arewa people who opposed the creation of state police but the majority prevailed and we were able to pass state police at the confab. It was because Arewa people were not satisfied with the confab’s decision that they now prevailed on the President not to even look at the report.
Why do you think the North is opposed to restructuring?
They are afraid because they don’t want to lose their privileged position in Nigeria.
Did the 2014 confab address their fears?
Yes, it addressed their fears by making sure that we took decisions in the confab by unanimity without having to vote, so that the decision reflected the wish of the overwhelming majority of delegates and therefore of Nigerians.
Do you think Buhari’s decision to set up a restructuring panel has anything to do with 2019 elections, as some have said?
Yes, he (Buhari) has seen where the pendulum is swinging and he wants to pretend he is in favour of restructuring even when he is not.
Do you think the adoption of the 2014 confab report would address the agitations by Nigerians?
It will. One, it will give the federating states more autonomy. Two, it will give the contiguous states opportunity to merge if they want to merge. Three, it will allow the formation of state police. Four, it will remove the creation of local governments from Federal Government and bring it under the confines of the state; states will be responsible for creating and funding the local governments. More revenue will accrue to the states because they will have more responsibilities. These are some of the areas that tension will be reduced.
Do you think restructuring can be achieved before the 2019 polls if the confab report is adopted and implemented?
Yes, I think so because there are three different categories of recommendations. The first category requires only administrative action only. That can be implemented immediately. The second category requires legislative action by the President and the National Assembly. Again, this can be implemented without delay. The third category requires the most time and this involves areas of constitutional amendment. Even this can be implemented within three months if the President wants to show sincerity that he is for restructuring.
The constitutional amendment requires three stages. The first step is to be driven by the National Assembly; all that can be done within one month, because the President controls the majority in both houses. Once the party is carried along, and it is a party decision, the necessary amendment by the National Assembly can be done within one month.
The second stage is to forward the decisions of the National Assembly to the state Houses of Assembly. For any amendment of a constitution to become valid, it must be passed by at least two-thirds of the members of state Houses of Assembly. Because the APC controls the governors’ forum and if they are brought on board, it will be easier for them to steer the amendments through the state Houses of Assembly.
When it has been passed by two-thirds of the state Houses of Assembly, it goes back to the National Assembly for final ratification. All this could be done in three months. So, if the President wants to show a serious change of mind on restructuring, he can do all these within three months. Then we shall believe he is serious.
What do you make of the recent statement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo advising President Buhari not to contest in 2019?
I am not an Obasanjo fan, but I have always been objective in assessing him. In his ‘letter’ to Buhari, he expressed what was in the minds of the majority of Nigerians. It can be said that he was not saying anything new. In fact, many Nigerians have been saying these things, but coming from Obasanjo, given his influence and importance as a former president, gave the statement more weight and mileage among Nigerians than they had got before.
His assessment of Buhari was accurate — failure in managing the economy, failure in being President for all Nigerians; he’s been one of the most tribalistic and most nepotistic presidents Nigeria ever had. This shows in his handling of security of ordinary Nigerians against the continuous killings of Nigerians by herdsmen; raping of women and daughters of farmers by these rampaging herdsmen and destruction of their crops and farmlands. It shows he only cares about the herdsmen and does not care about the security of Nigerians.
But the President ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to relocate to Benue State…
The police can move in, but what instruction has he (IG) been given? The herdsmen are still killing the villagers and farmers with impunity and the police failed to arrest and bring them to justice. But when the villagers organised local vigilante to protect themselves, the police were quick to go and arrest the vigilance group or the villagers.
Are you saying that the police are protecting the rampaging herdsmen?
They allow them (herdsmen) to go away and wreak more havoc. Look at what happened in Benue State. The state governor said he informed the government about the impending invasion, but nothing was done to save the people. The IG first said it was a communal clash, but when there was uproar, he apologised. The Minister of Defence was also quoted by some newspapers as saying that it was because the grazing route was blocked that the herdsmen struck. So, he was in effect justifying the killings.
The killings by the herdsmen have not stopped; see what has happened in Taraba, Plateau, Nasarawa, Ekiti, Ondo and Edo states. That of Southern Kaduna is constant and the latest was Zamfara. The attitude of the President to the killings is deplorable. As they were burying those killed in Zamfara, President Buhari and some of the governors were meeting in Daura, perhaps on how to return in 2019. So, they don’t care about the dead; the second term is more important.
Again, like Obasanjo pointed out, almost all the security chiefs are northerners, except the Chief of Naval Staff.
Are you saying the IG has not done enough on the issue of the rampaging herdsmen? Some suspects have been arrested over the Benue killings.
The IG has not shown that he is there to protect the interest of all Nigerians but that of the Fulani. The arrests are belated. As far as I am concerned, it came after a lot of uproar from Nigerians. It was when it became an embarrassment to the government that they made those arrests; they are not doing it for the people; they are not doing it conscientiously.
Recently, there was a proposal for the establishment of cattle colonies in the states of the federation. What is your own view on these proposed cattle colonies?
As far as I am concerned, I see the cattle colonies as a way of facilitating a complete takeover of Nigeria by the Fulani. The background to this is that since the Fulani jihad of 1804, they had the ambition of overrunning the whole Nigeria. After they overran the Hausa, their next targets were the Middle Belt and Yoruba territories.
They had said it was British colonialism that stopped them. The herdsmen have always been there with us and they were known with their ‘sanda’ (sticks) with which they directed their herds, but this is no longer the case. We now have herdsmen carrying AK-47 rifles. Cattle rearing is a private business and ranching is the modern way of doing this. In developed climes like the US, UK, and even in Argentina, ranching is the mode of rearing their herds.
Do you think the South-West should be wary of suffering the sort of tragedy experienced by Benue and its environs?
I say this because by the time they set up cattle colonies, they will begin to control some local governments. We should not allow any cattle colony in the South-West.
But there are some herdsmen that have been living in some communities in the South-West and they have become part and parcel of those communities and are law-abiding.
It is true but there is an agenda. If they are here genuinely to sell their cows, I mean for economic reasons, they are welcome. But when they carry arms, there is a cause for concern. Some of them are trans-border herdsmen from Mali and Niger. It is a common agenda to invade Nigeria. Why is the Federal Government trying to link a rail line to Niger?
Would you also support that Buhari contest a second term?
Like Obasanjo and other eminent Nigerians have advised that he (Buhari) should not contest a second term, they are merely speaking the minds of a majority of Nigerians. I will say he (Buhari) is not up to the task of governing Nigeria. He has no clue about how Nigeria should be governed. The economy has been in a mess since he took over.
All the promises he and the party made, when he got to government he dissociated himself from the promises. He had promised that the naira would be exchanging at par with the dollar. But today, it is N360 to a dollar. It is an improvement of what it used to be six months ago.
He also promised that Nigerians would be buying a litre of petrol at N40. Now, we are buying at N165 per litre, and there are even queues. If one says someone has not done well in their first term, is there any need for a second term? Obasanjo has said that. Chief Edwin Clark, Afenifere, Middle belt Forum, Pan-Niger Delta Forum and Ohanaeze have all said he has not done well, and he should go and rest.
But some believe the administration has whittled down the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East.
If the administration has defeated Boko Haram, as it claimed, why is it still asking for more money to fight the insurgents, which they claimed they had subdued?
In what areas do you think the current administration has made any improvement?
None, but some of its apologists will say it has been fighting corruption. I don’t agree. Its entire inner circle is full of corrupt people. When people, who are close to the President are accused of corruption, he goes out of his way to protect them. Obasanjo gave some examples in his open letter to the President. One of them is the Mainagate of the pension reform funds. Another one happened in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, where contracts were awarded without following due process. I can go on and on.
The current one is the case of the Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, who was suspended by his supervising minister. Buhari went over the head of the minister to reinstate him. Some people, we heard, returned their looted funds, and they were not arrested and tried for corruption. This will definitely keep encouraging people to steal, because once such people return a fraction of what was stolen, they go and enjoy the rest. Buhari’s approach to fighting corruption is actually encouraging it.
What would you say about the Coalition for Nigeria Movement being promoted by former President Obasanjo?
Obasanjo is not in the best position to bring up a coalition for Nigeria because he is one of those who ruined this country. He is a northern apologist. He has been giving us leaders since 1979. Unfortunately, none of the leaders has performed well.
This shows that he has a hidden agenda for selecting the leaders. He gave us Umar Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. He knew Yar’Adua had health challenges and he eventually died and then, Jonathan came in, and he later wrote him a letter. Later, he joined forces with the APC and they brought in Buhari. Obasanjo has never been in favour of restructuring.
Punch
Frequent strikes have very damaging impact on academic pursuits
With more than half the current academic session gone, the non-teaching staff of Nigerian universities operating under three unions, namely, the Non Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) finally announced the suspension of their strike last week. The decision followed a commitment by the federal government to source for about N8 billion to settle some of the financial claims within the next five weeks, after acceding to the unions’ demand that no worker will be victimised on account of taking part in the strike.
The strike had been temporarily suspended last September before it resumed in December with the students bearing the brunt of the endless disruptions on their campuses. Yet, as we stated in an earlier editorial, it is a measure of what education has become in our country today that while the strike lasted, many Nigerians were not even aware that administrative activities, including admissions of new entrants, had been suspended in all federal universities cumulatively for more than four months under the current 2017/2018 academic session.
The main contention is the N23 billion released last year to 24 federal universities, being the amount owed the lecturers as Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) for 2009 and 2010, a concession granted after the last Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike. While the academic staff received N18.4 billion, representing 89 per cent of the total sum, the three non-academic unions were allocated N4.6 billion which amounted to 11 per cent of the money. It is the disparity in the distribution that has been causing the problem. But since the money was for academic allowances, we have always considered the position of these non-academic unions untenable.
What makes the situation particularly unfortunate is that students in public-owned tertiary institutions are now caught in what amounts to a rivalry between academic and non-academic staff. The consequences have been a situation where these unions alternate strikes, with the attendant debilitating effects on academic pursuits on our campuses. The hurried academic calendars following the end of industrial actions allow for very little attention to serious studies. These have contributed significantly to the decline in the quality of graduates of our public universities.
However, we cannot shy away from the fact that the underfunding of the education sector, over the years, has had collateral damaging effects on the country, such that our universities have now become grotesque carcasses of their former selves. The weak financial conditions in the universities are exacerbated by the current crippling economic crisis afflicting the nation. Yet besides personnel costs, funds are required to rehabilitate dilapidated facilities, purchase consumables and research capability.
While dealing with the challenge of thin liquidity requires more than seasonal strikes by both the academic and non-academic staff, the federal government must also understand the primacy of constant dialogue, especially given the current realities.
Thisday
Professor Tunde Adeniran, a former Minister of Education, contested for the national chairmanship seat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDD) during its last national convention. However, he and some other top members, including a former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana, recently dumped the party for the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Professor Adeniran spoke on his defection and other sundry issues after the inaugural meeting of SDP at Orin-Ekiti in Ido/Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State recently. SAM NWAOKO reports:
The new vision is to give effect to what we believe in. We believe in a sanitised political system where the rule of law prevails; where there is due regard for justice, equity and fairness in the political process. And we also believe that it is long overdue for this country to have genuine democracy. Genuine democracy can only be premised on what we regard as internal party democracy. We believe that unless and until you have that, we are going nowhere and things will just be getting worse. So, there is a clear vision of dedication to certain core values that we believe we need to actualise through the appropriate framework. That was what led to the choice of SDP. Of course, if this was not lacking where we are coming from, there wouldn’t have been any need to leave, because when certain things are happening and you have done your best to try to correct them or try to effect a change, but that is impossible. So, some of us just don’t believe in doing politics just for the fun of it. We believe in changing lives; in making sure that we transform the system and get a situation whereby the human dignity and human integrity and all that is edifying are promoted. I also believe that for those of us who believe in certain principles that we cannot compromise, that there is just no choice than to move on.
In many political circles, the talk is of a “third force”. Can we say that we now have the third force, viz-a-viz the strength of the two main political parties in the country, PDP and the All Progressives Congress (APC)?
Of course, it is evolving. You can call SDP the third force of the coalition of progressives and all that. Whatever name you call it, it has become a force to be reckoned with and it will soon become the force to beat. I think, in due course, it would become the first force actually because people are yearning for change. People believe that SDP is a viable platform to really get to the Promised Land for Nigeria. There is so much that has gone wrong in the past. People that are coming together, particularly, young people, the youth, believe that this is the appropriate vehicle for them. We also believe that by the time some of the various groups that are anxious to be part of this evolving coalition now come in, it would be a very formidable force. That is why we believe that, indeed, SDP is the force that everybody is waiting for and has been talking about.
What are the areas of priority where you think Nigeria needs to effect change?
First of all, when you have a party process that has internal party democracy, we will work to ensure that, indeed, this is not tampered with. That is the irreducible minimum because you cannot put something on nothing. If the party system is not what it should be there is no way such a party can produce a good government. And good governance is one of the goals we intend to achieve. We believe that the party which has endorsed quite a number of things to pursue will be able to deliver for Nigerians what they have been yearning for; like the progressive programmes and agenda that are people-oriented. This means an agenda that will be able to transform and change some of the prevailing negativities in our society. There are certain programmes that are already having strength being canvassed for the people. And we will be promising what we can deliver.
For instance, when you talk about education, when you talk about restructuring and when you talk about health, you also must talk about agriculture so that we don’t have a hungry people anymore, where people are suffering in the midst of plenty. These also include the area of education. It is just not enough to have it as part of the objective principles of state policy, but we have to make it actionable. We have to make it compulsory for people to have access to education, to make it free and compulsory, at least, up to the secondary school level. Healthcare delivery is another area and so on. We also believe that the existing structure is so defective that it really cannot lead to the actualiasation of the potentials that are in Nigerians. Unless and, of course, until we change that to make people want to live in harmony, peace and unity, we will still be having some problems.
When you restructure, you restructure to encourage people to compete among themselves, to be the best of whatever they could be within a united Nigeria. That was what used to be; there was competition among the regions; there was competition among some states in the past. But right now, everybody is in the straight-jacket thing. That is why we have strikes upon strikes everyday because of the unified system that we are operating. Whereas, if you have a federal system that was truly restructured, what happens for instance in State A will not be happening in State B. The two states will be having different programmes and policies and the unionised system of government that we now have will not be so.
Now that SDP has been brought to Ekiti and the party has taken off, are we expecting the party to use the state as its launch pad as a governorship election takes place there soon?
Yes, certainly. It is the litmus test and we hope, by the grace of God, that we will use it effectively as a launching pad. By the grace of God, when we win in Ekiti, we will go ahead and win in Osun State and finally at the national level.
What are those things in place to help SDP to achieve these objectives as the party isn’t coming as early as some people might have wanted?
Yes. But it takes time for people of diverse backgrounds to really come together. But when they are united by a common purpose, a common goal to promote progressivism, to make life easier for people and to promote an ideology that will be people-oriented, then that has solved almost half of the problem. This is because when there is unity of purpose and you have on ground human resources-people who would make it happen-and among them, there is a clear idea, there is no confusion at all as to where they want to go, what they want to do and how they want to achieve it. All that you now require is effective networking to ensure that, at the end of the day, we direct our energies in one particular direction.
How much of that networking has been done now?
A lot has been done. What you see today is a concrete reality of some of the networking that had been done. We want to build on it so that we carry it to the local government and the ward levels.
In a layman’s language, should we expect some of the governorship aspirants in Ekiti to join SDP?
We expect that because everybody now knows that this is the party to beat; that this is where progress would be made for them and this is where justice will prevail. They know this is where a level-playing ground will be provided for everybody so that, at the end of the day, whoever wins will know that they have been fairly treated; that there has been fairness, there has been justice, equity and, of course, that it is a system that throws up the very best.
You said you are a member of the Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Are we expecting more people from the coalition to join you in SDP, especially Nigerians like His Chief Obasanjo?
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is a statesman. He is an elder statesman. We do not expect him to be involved in partisan politics. But we expect him to continue to be interested in salvaging the country. And in that regards, it is expected that the effort of those who are committed to rescue the country would be reinforced by his moral weight. He is the father of all, but then those who believe in his philosophy of rescuing the nation, of ensuring that things are done in a better way, that there is justice, that there is progress and that there is peace would certainly have his moral backing. But we shouldn’t expect him to be partisan in his approach.
Tribune
Former Minister of Information, Prince Tony Momoh has said that President Muhammadu Buhari will win the 2019 presidential election despite criticisms in some quarters against his administration. Among other issues in this interview with WILLY EYA, he also examines why insecurity persists in the country.
Ahead of next year’s general elections, what are your feelings especially with regards to all manner of political activities including alliances, realignments, defections and even the creation of a third force in the country?
The election would come and go; government is a continuum. Our democracy is maturing. Many people are registering and there is a tendency to regionalise our politics with the parties telling their members to go and register. But all of them are doing the correct thing in trying to grow our democracy. However, when the time of decision comes, that is the time you would know that emotion guides our actions more than religion. What I am saying is that those Christians who are preaching against certain candidates because they belong to another religion and those Muslims who are preaching against certain candidates because they belong to another religion, would be shocked what would happen. But when like Mbadiwe said, “come comes to become”, people would move to the areas of their beliefs. In the East for instance especially Onitsha, many of them are Catholics and so on and so forth but when Zik was there, they put up a candidate against him and appealed to the sentiment of Christians but Zik still defeated them. At certain critical time, emotions take over.
Our religion is that of peace but our elections are just like war on their own. So, when it is time to vote, people go to war and then go to their areas of upbringing. Many of them who are Christians and Muslims are not really mature to imbibe the values of Christianity and Islam. So, it shows that politics is maturing and people would move in the direction of what is there on the ground. And as I have told you, Nigerians would be shocked because there is more on the ground than lots of people think. Hunger for instance is on the ground but the fact is that people would discover, and they are already discovering that the only language that hunger understands is food. We either buy food or we grow it. We do not have money to buy food but we are growing it. Everywhere, food is being grown all over the country and Nigerians would more appreciate made in Nigeria goods than foreign goods. So, the change that was promised is taking place and it would be reflected in the voting pattern and not the sentiment of dividing Nigeria along ethnic and religious lines. That would not work.
But ahead of the election, you must admit that the major challenge facing the administration is the spate of violence and killings in various parts of the country. Are you not worried that your party, the APC is going to that election with that problem still lingering?
Killings are activities that the government did not envisage but the killings are a challenge to everybody. So, everybody should be blamed for the killings. Communication resolves everything. How much communication is there? And if there are no instruments of communicating, we must establish them rather than buying the weapons of war. But let me tell you and I am saying it with all sense of responsibility. Many people are playing politics with the killings. They are initiating a particular pattern of belief, which would undermine the credibility of their group in future. We had the Biafran war in 1967 -1970 and the South East held Nigeria to a standstill before it ended. So, nobody could undermine the Nigerian/Biafran war. Now, the issue of militancy confronted this country and reduced our oil production to less than one million barrels per day. Nobody can undermine the works the militants did in the Niger Delta. The National Democratic Coalition(NADECO) confronted Nigeria peacefully after the annulment of the 1993 election and in spite of what you may think, there was no coup in Nigeria that was resisted that ever succeeded.
The 1993 annulment of the election of MKO Abiola was resisted through the activities of NADECO and so on and so forth, and that was how the compromises of 1999 brought in former President Olusegun Obasanjo from the South West zone of the country. From what I said now, you cannot undermine the Niger Delta, you cannot undermine the Igbo and you cannot undermine the Yoruba. And when the problem of the Fulani caliphate was there, they discovered that they could not undermine the Kanuri and the Tivs. But do you know what we are doing now because of politics? Anything that happens now, we say it is the Fulani herdsmen whereas it is since the collapse of the Libyan army and the problem in Mali that caused the free flow of weapons into Nigeria especially the activities of Boko Haram. And instead of looking at the challenges confronting Nigeria, we are saying that it is the herdsmen that are doing it. Cattle rustlers also seize the cattle and kill the herdsmen which is another issue confronting Nigeria but we in Nigeria because of politics always say killings are by the Fulani herdsmen. Do you know that what Othman Dan Fodio could not achieve when he was quoted as having said that he would dip the Quoran in the sea is being achieved through stupid politicking by saying that everything that happens in Nigeria is by the Fulani herdsmen? Anywhere you go to, people would say we cannot go to farm because of the Fulani herdsmen. This is when as a matter of fact, the Fulani herdsmen are in more danger than any other Nigerian.
Do we talk of Igbo armed robbers? Do we talk of Yoruba 419ers and so on? We talk of all these as crimes and we should be talking of the killings as also a crime. But because of politics, we are going into areas to make our children believe that the fear of Fulani herdsmen is the beginning of wisdom. So, what Othman Dan Fodio could not achieve when he was alive in Nigeria, we are achieving it through communication and making our own children afraid of the Fulani. Remember that the Fulani are in the minority in this country. Can you see the way we are moving in the way of deforestation and who would pay for it; our children. We must have the right communication. So, I want to say that criminals do the killings and we must all come together to fight it.
The events of this period are similar to those of 2015. Ahead of the last general elections, there were all manner of killings, the climax of which was the abduction of the Chibok girls; now ahead of 2019, the same scenario is playing out with the most recent being the abduction of 110 schoolgirls from Dapchi town. How do you feel about this development?
I am worried over the situation but do not think that it is because the election is coming next year. The Boko Haram sect is fighting a war and they are not fighting a war because there is an election. They are fighting the war because they believe in what they are doing. They are ‘haram’. In other words, they are discouraging people from going to school. So, if Boko Haram abducts people like they did recently in Dapchi, they could not go to school. It is an area that people do not want to go to school and with what happened, you further discourage them from going to school. They are achieving the mission they have set out to do. So, they are not looking for election but do not forget that since they have been degraded, they would look for soft targets and where the military is weak to carry out their activities. If they go to the market, they are not there to kidnap anybody but to kill people. They have their members who are suicide bombers.
The perception they have is what no Igbo man or Yoruba man would have. They say if you kill yourself, you are going to paradise. Tell me any Southerner whether Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Urhobo and so on that would kill himself in order to go to paradise. Nobody would do that. But over there, you are told that if you kill someone for a good cause, you are going to paradise. And that is not even in the Quoran. When I was in a Quoranic school in Auchi, I was told that if you kill a Christian, you have not committed an offence. I grew up to discover that it was a lie. It is not there anywhere in the Quoran. But then, the Prophet Muhammed said that there would be 73 sects in Islam and only one would be correct. Only one that abides by the provision of the Quoran is correct.
The Quoran has dos and donts which says that you do this, you go to paradise and you do that, you go to hell. I am not aware of any book that says it so clearly where you go to when you sin. So people now take the road they want to take and when a scholar moves in the direction of using religion as a weapon, then you get what we have in Nigeria today. So, we have to really communicate in the direction of peace and not war. Someone wins an election, takes over and governs and someone loses election and gets prepared to contest again. That is what happens in Britain, America and others. Election should not be a do-or-die thing.
Let me tell you; is it because we are talking about Chibok and Dapchi now. Do you know that the whole of Nigeria is porous? How many areas do we have? The borders are thousands of kilometers porous. Do you know that around 1980 or so, people of Chad came and invaded Maiduguri and I think that President Muhammadu Buhari was the GOC that time. So, these people have been coming but do not forget that Nigeria is at war with Boko Haram. Therefore the whole world of insurgents –ISIS, Tuaregs, al-Qaeda and so on are there fighting. Perhaps, if we look deep enough, we may discover that all these people we call Fulani herdsmen are insurgents who have infiltrated Nigeria. So, the nation is fighting more than the Boko Haram sect. We are currently fighting the whole world of insurgents and that is what Nigerians should be thinking about. It is a war that Nigeria must fight and whatever government that we have, the insurgents are there to undermine security. Nigeria is 60 per cent rural and in the rural areas, how many security officials do we have there? So, we have a lot of problems on our hands and we must unite to address these problems.
What is your take on the proposed reordering of elections by the National Assembly?
They are the lawmakers and they can do it but that means that what they are doing is in their selfish interests. If they want to reorder elections, the proper thing to do is to have presidential elections, National Assembly elections, state Assembly elections and gubernatorial elections. In other words, it has to be four and not three. You can put National Assembly and state Assembly election and the presidential and gubernatorial elections together. It has to be two and not three. If you want it to be three, then there is selfishness there. Another is that people think that we have had this kind of election that we are asking for before. In 1979, we had other elections before the presidential poll. In 1999, we had other elections before the presidential poll too. But all others that followed, it was always the presidential before others. And do not forget that it was the period of handing over from the military to civilians, so they conducted elections in the rural areas before that of the presidential. There was no occasion where we had other elections before the presidential poll during civilian rule. So, what they are trying to do is to reintroduce what the military did when they were handing over to the civilian. So, if you analyse it carefully, you would see that what the NASS is doing is more of self-interests.
But one thing that they do not really know is that they even stand more danger because a sitting president is in a position to do damage to those who want to contest elections and the governors also are in a position to do damage to all those who want to go to the National Assembly or state Assembly. The reordering of the elections would give them the opportunity to do more damage to them if they so wish. So, there is not much they think they would do. Why not let us have what we have been having. With improvement in technology, the ideal thing is that all the elections should be held the same day.
Do you think that the National Assembly is targeting President Buhari by coming up with such a bill?
What do you think are Buhari’s chances in the coming election and what do you make of the emerging third force ahead of 2019?
Everybody has a chance but the fact is that you should not forget that the APC is not an alliance of parties. It was a political association that applied for registration and got registered. We had a lot of people that had structures that came into the APC. So, if you want to know how these people would perform, look at what they are taking to the SDP. If they have nothing they are bringing to the SDP, then they would not go anywhere. But do not forget that they just started. We can assess them on the basis of what they are bringing to the party. But it is very difficult for anybody who does not have a structure to win elections in Nigeria. You may have name but you must also have structures. So, those who are going into the SDP now, are they governors, are they former governors, are they Senators or former Senators, have they been involved in any election and they won and do they have structures? So these are the things people consider. Many can move anywhere but I can assure you that the two major parties are the APC and the PDP. And if the SDP comes, they would be there for the PDP because the PDP with due respect has been reduced to a regional party. I cannot see any party that is ready and on ground to defeat the APC. And I cannot see President Buhari losing the 2019 election.
Sun
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Professor Ango Abdullahi, is a former spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and recently elected the Leader of the forum. In this interview with PAUL ORUDE in Bauchi, the former Vice Chancellor, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, speaks on the focus of NEF under his leadership.
He has harsh words for Northern Governors, who he calls irresponsible leaders over their statement calling for the establishment of ranches as solution to the clashes between farmers and herdsmen in parts of the country. He also lists impossible conditions under which the North will support the restructuring of the country, while in another breath, he says the region will resist any attempt to restructure the country based on the current agitation. “We have all personalized restructuring with a view to targeting a section of the country and this is the area that we feel very sensitive about and we will resist it. Even if we don’t resist it objectively, we can resist it politically”, he warned.
Why did you decide to take the leadership of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) at this critical time? What is your focus, and what do you hope to achieve for the body?
Well, let me start by saying that I did not seek the leadership of the Northern Elders Forum. The leadership of NEF was foisted on me by members, so let me make this very clear. Ango Abdullahi has never been ambitious in terms of positioning wherever he finds himself. All my political life you will never see me frantically jostling for position. I have always believed in teamwork and the team players in the Northern Elders Forum decided that I should take on the leadership of the forum so that is why I think I should make very clear from the beginning. Number two relates to the issue of what is the focus; the focus remains what brought out the NEF in the first place. The focus of the forum has always been that as a civil society organisation it has responsibility in ensuring that there is a role in the socio economic and political development of the country and wherever it seems that things are not going according to the expectations of Nigerians, especially according to the constitution of the country which stipulates how Nigerians should live in the country and so on, of course the northern elders forum will come out and make its views known.
The Forum has been searching for a presidential candidate that will be acceptable to the northern region and Nigeria. Are you looking at the younger generation or the age you belong or even where the incumbent president belongs?
Well let’s go back to 2015. The north insisted then that the north should produce the next Nigerian president and this is what we worked on. Thank goodness some of the parties or some of the players responded and this was what brought about the dislodgement of the PDP as a government and the loss of the presidency by Jonathan and takeover of government by APC and the presidency by General Buhari. This is what we did and I like to correct that we have not started searching for a presidential candidate but our eyes and ears are wide opened. We are looking at all options on the table -old, middle age, young- all are options on the table and irrespective of which politics they profess, what we will be looking for is a good presidential material that is going to serve the needs of the county effectively and so on so all our options are on the table. It has no age limit and perhaps our age limit is the voting age. If there is a very competent 18 years old may be but this is not very likely but all options are on the table, we have not started searching yet but we will keep our eyes and ears opened to ensure that the principles upon which we argued and argued in the previous elections will still be the principles that will guide us in supporting a presidential material from amongst many that perhaps would like to offer themselves for the position.
Some are suggesting that NEF is almost pushing itself as an opposition to the Buhari administration. How true is this?
The man heading the Benue Livestock Guards, as recently revealed by Saturday Sun, was a wanted Boko Haram suspect. How do you react to this?
My first reaction is to congratulate The Sun newspaper for carrying out this investigation. This is what the media are supposed to do. They are supposed to be watchdog of things that are going right or wrong in the society. When it was brought out, appropriate reports were made to authorities that they should take action and this is part of the crisis we are going through in this country. People are not being honest. Now that you have mentioned this issue of Live Stock Guards in Benue, and so on, this now brings me, even though you haven’t asked the question, this brings me up to the media reports of Friday, March 2.
The Northern Governors Forum to me, irresponsibly, came out with a statement that the northern governors should adopt a policy of ranching as solution to whatever their own understanding of livestock development or peaceful co-existence between herders and farmers is. It is an irresponsible statement. Emphatically, because these governors have been sitting there for years, virtually with no policy on how to develop agriculture generally let alone how to develop livestock industry in this country and they have waited until some of these crises started manifesting and now we know we are in election year and a lot of the statements that seem to come out from the politicians including the governors are self-serving statements. I don’t know whom they are trying to please or where they are trying to escape to in terms of responsibility that they have to bear. You see, either they are speaking out of sheer ignorance, tactical ignorance of what agriculture is or what livestock development or industry is or they are speaking to the gallery, or speaking to both during elections.
I am a professional agricultural scientist. I was at one time Director Agriculture Research Institute of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) before I became its Vice Chancellor and we know what agricultural development is in its comprehensive forms in terms of crop development, in terms of livestock development, in terms of other branches that are relevant to agricultural development and we have been working on this for years and we have the relevant information available on our shelves, sometimes information that has been passed on to the Agriculture Extension Services of the states and this research information is supposed to be used in each state for the benefits of farmers, whether they are crop or livestock farmers. And these are things this government has consistently ignored and these are things that have taken us to the crisis stage that we are in now. And the fact that we have arrived at this crisis point will not allow anybody, governors inclusive to hoodwink Nigerians into projects that are unrealistic and cannot be achieved. I challenged any governor to go and show me his ranch so that livestock owners can go and learn from the ranch. I challenge any governor to go and show me how he has successfully or his state government has successfully created a pilot scheme to demonstrate how a ranch is established and operated. I challenge them.
And they have failed to read history. If they had read history of agricultural development correctly in terms of livestock development, they would have seen responsible governments in the past, particularly our regional government, here I want to make a distinction between a responsible regional government which we had, and I served under one of the them, the Northern Nigerian Government-they tried their hands, and honestly and genuinely tried their hands on grazing reserves which were established and gazetted. They also tried model ranching scheme. The most famous is Mokwa Cattle Ranch. If they had forgotten their history, they should go and read their history books particularly on ranching development that was. But all these failed, some for careless reasons, some for purely unavoidable ethical reasons, they failed. So for them to be talking to us about ranch now, I consider it irresponsible and deceptive but I challenge them, we want to see model ranching in each state that talked about ranch now within the next 12 months. I try to restrain my comments over this for some time now. I have seen this now more or less in the light of 2018 where we are, one year to the election and politicians including governors, politicians from all levels here, I don’t make any exception, are trying to play to the gallery, in playing to the gallery, they are looking for votes. Well, we are not going to allow them to deceive the people by way of these cheap, irresponsible statements, in trying to hoodwink us into believing that what they are saying is correct and the solution to the problem.
Certainly, they should know that this is not a solution to a problem that had been with us for hundreds ofyears. Even when the British came, they saw livestock as an important component of agricultural development policy and they did everything to make sure that it thrived and the way they did it was not necessarily to go for ranching even though they came from an environment where ranches were working or worked. They decided that they had to create something that fit the Nigerian environment. The circumstances of the Nigerian environment include lack of education on the part of the crop farmers, lack of education on the part of the livestock farmers and all manners of policies that had to be introduced that will enhance crop production and that would also enhance livestock production. First and foremost in the case of livestock, they decided that grazing reserves should be created as models for people with means, they could create their own pastures where their animals could feed throughout the year, and that is why they created a number of grazing reserves across the country.
And if you look at this 35 percent I am talking to you, as an agronomist, we don’t require even the 35 per cent to do all that we require in terms of food production, including exports and raw materials; you only need a quarter of it. If you apply the technology that we researchers have developed over the last 40 or 50 years, I as a farmer knowing what to do, I can produce seven tonnes of maize on one hectare today, given the knowledge that is available, not only in research institutes but should be available to our agriculture extension workers, they should be teaching farmers. As I speak to you now, our farmers are only able to produce 13 bags, 1.2 tonnes of maize per hectare because the extension services of the state governments are not working and the policy supports services, which include subsidy to agriculture and so on are not being applied. The livestock farmer does not even know that there is subsidy while the crop farmers are being given subsidies on fertilizer.
As a Director in the Research Institute 30 years ago, the minimum fertilizer requirement in this country is four million tonnes 40 years ago. So you can imagine what has happened to our soil 40 years ago, we probably require 10 million tonnes of fertilizer now. Go and check the total fertilizer that is available to famers in Nigeria today, it is less than one million tonnes. So where are these policies that talk about agriculture development. The livestock farming where we need our meat, where we need our milk and other things gets nothing except this vendetta, I call it political vendetta. The summary is this: what is driving all this noise about herdsmen-farmers clash is political, mixed with ethnic and unfortunately in some cases, religious bigotry. I want to emphasise that this is dangerous. The time has come for us to stop it before it gets worse than what it is now.
Atiku has made restructuring of Nigeria a focal point of his subtle campaign and appeal to other parts of the country. Does NEF support the idea of restructuring as being championed by the former VP?
Well, let me speak first on a personal note. When I started politics 1987, I started together with Atiku under the umbrella of Shehu Yar’Adua group so I know him very well. In fact, the first party we formed was People’s Front of Nigeria and Ango Abdullahi was its first National Chairman and Titi Ajanaku was its first Secretary, so we know ourselves well. Of course, he is a Nigerian politician and whatever may appear to be a soft spot for the Nigerian politician to press his finger on in order to gain support he will do. Restructuring if you look at it objectively and dispassionately, when Nigeria was put together in 1914, that was the beginning of restructuring of the country so that it can eventually come to be what Nigerians will wish it to be. When the amalgamation took place in 1914, that was the first restructuring that the colonial masters did bringing the Southern and Northern Protectorates together into one country, and eventually over time, began to introduce structures that will begin to bring the different structures together.
So many constitutions were enacted between the amalgamation and 1960 when Nigeria attained independence; so much has been going on in the country which is all restructuring of the Nigerian arrangement that will make the system work, not for anybody, but work for the people of Nigeria. In 1960, Nigeria was granted independence under a federal system of government, with a parliamentary system of government, with three regions, Northern, Western and Eastern regions. The first additional restructuring that followed 1960 was the adoption of the Republican system of government in 1960 and the same time brought about the fourth region, the Midwest Region. Of course, the military intervention in 1966 brought about certain changes, in that we moved from four regions to 12 states created by the Gowon administration. I think this is restructuring from what it used to be-one amalgamated country, to three federating regions, then later four federating regions, then 12 states and so on and these processes continued. My skepticism of the current call again takes me back to the issue of politicizing everything that we do.
So for me, if there is going to be restructuring in the country, first, we should change from the presidential system of government to parliamentary system, and in terms of institutions that are in charge of elections; we should abolish the State Independent Electoral Commissions and we should ban any party from contesting elections unless it has direct primary where all its members will come out and decide who is going to contest council chairmanship up to the presidency.
What does the nation expect towards 2019?
We are expecting a very peaceful transition of power from the present set of leaders at the national, state and local levels based on free will and free choice of Nigerians. That is our expectation.
Sun
The senator representing Kaduna Central in the National Assembly, Shehu Sani, has always been a radical. This nonconformist threw numerous federal lawmakers into uneasiness with his disclosure that senators collect N13.5 million monthly as running costs. Sani said it was necessary to stop the payment to make the National Assembly attractive to only people with ideas: “I decided to burst it open. It was a moral issue. The National Assembly is one of the most non-transparent organs of government. It pricked my conscience and I decided to burst the bubble and open the National Assembly to public scrutiny. If the payment system is ended, then parliament would only be attractive to people who contribute ideas.”
No doubt, our lawmakers need to cover running costs on things like travels, medicals, consultancy, maintenance of constituency offices, visits to constituency, office work and maintenance of facilities for operating offices in the National Assembly and constituencies. They also need good money to effectively carry out their oversight functions. However, this monthly N13.5 million figure can’t fly amid suffering in our land. At the current rate, the Senate and the House of Representatives will need about N50 billion annually to fund running costs. So, the National Assembly must cut down its expenditure in the interest of Nigerians. They must cut down their expenditure and free the funds for projects that will directly touch the lives of the masses of the people. Our dear legislators must subject themselves to greater austerity measures in an era of economic depression.
I still clearly recollect that in 2012, the United Kingdom-based Economist magazine concluded that Nigerian lawmakers were the highest paid in the world. This must not continue. For me, running cost for federal lawmakers should not exceed N3 million. These lawmakers must sacrifice their comfort in this era of despair. I believe that the bureaucracy of the National Assembly should be allowed to directly handle travels and medicals of these lawmakers to end insinuations of abuse and corruption in this process. Yes, the bureaucracy would try to drag them back with bottlenecks, but with good leadership from the National Assembly, these bureaucrats will fall in line.
Costs cutting must also apply to our legislators at the state level. They must cut down their spending in the interest of their people. For example, monthly, each lawmaker in Lagos takes home N5 million as cash advance for overhead costs. In all, a total of N550 million is allocated monthly to the Lagos State House of Assembly for overhead expenses. This amounts to N6.6 billion per annum. This is happening in a state where so many inner roads, schools and hospitals are in shreds. It is a slap in the face of the suffering masses of Lagos State. In Osun, Oyo and many other states where civil servants die daily due to huge salary backlog, lawmakers still draw huge running costs.
Insinuations abound on the abuse of running costs and constituency projects. I can clearly remember that Dr. Mohammed Tahir Bello, who worked as Senior Legislative Assistant to incumbent Senator Ibrahim Gobir representing Sokoto East sent a petition to Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, alleging abuse of the cash advance for overhead costs by his principal. He told me then that I could quote him that senators in the 7th Senate were advanced about N200 million each annually for this purpose.
Dr. Bello stated this with good authority because he handled some of the paper work for Senator Gobir. He alleged in the petition: “A cash advance of N51 million was quarterly released to every Senator which was retired fraudulently within three months to qualify for the next release.
The release was directly associated with an imaginary travel tour, constituency visits, office work and maintenance of facilities for operations of the senator in the National Assembly and the Constituency. The attached copies of the documents approved for retirements from the Sokoto-East Senatorial District speak volumes and exposed the fraudulent nature of the fund release. The expenditure was not desirable and therefore must be curtailed.”
Dr. Bello further claimed that there was consistent corruption in the Constituency projects executed for the federal lawmakers. He used his own Sokoto-East constituency as an example. Bello alleged: “A Constituency Project of N190 million was also approved for Sokoto-East Senatorial District and a sample presentation attached for 2012, shows a trend which was open for abuse. The first item on the submission list was a provision of two hundred (200) units of EasyBiz scheme facility at N550, 000 per entrepreneur to the tune of N110 million.
“An Award Contract document attached shows the initial release of about N67 million. However, throughout the project period, only twenty (20) and not the two hundred (200) units approved were delivered and even these were not distributed as scheduled but kept within the constituency office in Sokoto. These same twenty (20) units initially presented, were being cleaned and presented annually to the supervising Ministry (NDE) officials in Sokoto for fresh payments. These processes were maintained severally throughout the tenure.
“The Constituency Project was not delivered but payments were made annually. These projects and many others need to be examined critically to determine the best option to develop the constituencies. The project was for the provision of two town halls but that was converted to a construction and renovation of the residence of the traditional ruler which was uncompleted and abandoned, to date.
“The objective behind the MDG Project(s) was good but these were subjected to various abuses. Please find attached sampled copies of the cash retirement documents for your perusal and necessary action. As a strong member of the Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) during the campaigns, I look forward to providing the necessary assistance to reduce to the barest minimum the highlighted fraudulent activities in the operations of the National Assembly.”
Senator Gobir did not respond to these allegations. Gobir, who is also in this 8th Senate, evidently has a lot of explanation to do on this.
While tackling our lawmakers, we should also interrogate the Executive and Judicial arms of governments at all levels regarding running costs. All holders of elective and appointive offices still access huge running cost in an era of change. Many will be shocked if they know what ministers, heads of departments and agencies draw as running cost monthly. It was also alleged that Maikanti, who heads the NNPC, collects perplexing figure monthly as running outlays. The lady at the NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman and my friend at NIMASA, Dakuku Peterside, are also said to be drawing frightening figures monthly as running costs. In the Presidency, aides of Mr. President pocket millions of Naira monthly as running expenses. These public servants should come out clean on what they collect as running costs. There should be transparency in an era of change.
Governor Ajimobi’s Absurd ‘Technical University’
All the higher institutions owned by Oyo State Government are in tatters. We are daily assaulted by tales of woes from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso; The Polytechnic, Ibadan; Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo; The Ibarapa Polytechnic, Eruwa; The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, Saki; Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igbo-Ora; The College of Education, Lanlate; School of Nursing and Midwifery Eleyele, Ibadan and the College of Hygiene and Health Technology, Eleyele Ibadan. Teachers in these institutions are permanently on strike due to unpaid salaries and decaying infrastructure.
I thought Governor Abiola Ajimobi would use the state’s resources to improve facilities and pay backlog of salaries in these institutions, but the reverse was the case. An apparently muddled Ajimobi recently inaugurated a new university called The Technical University (Tech-U), Ibadan, with fanfare. He said it was established to change the nation’s employment landscape through graduation of innovators and entrepreneurs. This is just a delusion.
Just like existing ones, Tech-U will evidently grapple with the same underfunding and infrastructural challenges. Ajimobi has not done any good to the people of Oyo State with Tech-U. This state under this governor has been struggling for survival in the last seven years. Health, education, road and other critical infrastructure in Oyo State are in a mess. Just visit any state-owned public school and hospital, and you will understand what I am talking about. Civil servants are also owed salary backlog. So, why waste resources on a new venture instead of tackling existing enormous challenges in the existing ones? This is food for thought for Ajimobi today.
Who Will Save Lagosians from Visionscape’s Shenanigans?
The main job given to Visionscape, the waste management firm engaged by Lagos State Government to keep Lagos spotless under its Cleaner Lagos initiative, is to collect waste from homes weekly and dispose. We were also told that waste bins would be provided for households. I doubt if a mere 1% of Lagosians are enjoying this service, several months after they assumed duties. This is why most homes in Lagos have been enveloped by waste. Some frustrated Lagosians simply heap their waste on the main roads. What Visionscape has been doing since assumption of duties is to place medium size waste bins on curbsides. Ordinarily, this should not be for households. In sane societies, bins on curbsides are for passersby. Some frustrated household heap their waste into these curbside containers and they spill over within minutes. This is why you hardly see a curbside bin in Lagos not begging for attention. When will Visionscape start collecting waste from homes? This is its main duty. Majority of Lagos households are still waiting for answer.
Again, street sweeping and cleaning by Visionscape is done manually and messily. Haba! How can this be happening in a modern era of motorised street sweeping? This is not the global standard. Lagos State deserves the best.
Visionscape’s trucks transporting waste to the landfill site in Epe often litter their routes because they are always poorly covered. I unsuccessfully tried to stop one of such notorious trucks with registration No EKY 33XV on Thursday March 15, while scattering its content on the road on the way to Epe. Visionscape is evidently unprepared for this task after collecting billions of Naira of Lagos tax payers’ money. There is more to this contract than what Lagosians are seeing. Watch out for a big expose soon.
A former Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the defunct Presidential Committee on Boko Haram during the Jonathan administration, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, has said that external forces were undermining the country’s security and that the forces were stronger than the country.
Akinyemi, in an exclusive interview with THISDAY in Lagos on Tuesday, added that Nigeria was experiencing the worst level of insecurity under the current government since the return to democratic rule in 1999.
The former minister said: “It’s always difficult to comment on matters dealing with security because there are always details that are only available to security operatives in the country and the President as the commander-in-chief. So in a way, one can only use common sense. And, when you feel that an issue that can be addressed by common sense wasn’t addressed then you wonder. There’re forces – very strong forces, external, and when I said ‘external’, I meant (forces) external to Nigeria – that the Nigerian government is incapable of controlling those who’re actually masterminding these operations.”
When asked if he agreed with the claim that security in the country is at its lowest ebb under the current regime, the elder statesman said: “Yes, I’ll agree with it and it is because there are forces at large internationally and those forces are looking for sanctuaries all over the world. Nigeria has been identified as one of such sanctuaries that they can operate in. Also, there’s competition for dominance in Nigeria by these forces.
“I’m worried. I am worried because it confirms my suspicion. My suspicion that there are forces – very strong forces, external to Nigeria – that the Nigerian government is incapable of controlling those who’re actually masterminding these operations. That’s what I’m worried about.”
When asked to expatiate on the external forces he was referring to, Akinyemi said: “ISIS is one of such forces. Number two, I think that we didn’t pay enough attention – of course, I mean when the people you put in charge of institution are actually not deep in the issue they confront, you’re going to have things like this. I served on the Boko Haram committee that was set up by the Goodluck Jonathan administration and we came across facts that I found frightening. Fortunately, this is a strange thing to say – the committee itself wasn’t unanimous on its interpretation of the realities that we came across.”
Citing an example of how precarious the state of insecurity of the country is, Akinyemi stated: “You’d recall that during the Jonathan administration, a ship laden with weapons was captured in Apapa and it turned out that an Iranian diplomat and other Iranian personnel were involved in this. It was of sufficient concerns to the Iranian government that they sent to Nigeria their foreign minister as the head of a delegation and they smuggled out of the country the diplomat who was involved in the arms issue. The other personnel were charged to court and sentenced to jail for their role in it –and then quietly released and expelled them from the country.
“But what’s happening in Syria if caution isn’t taken can be replicated in Nigeria. Let me give you another example: again, under Jonathan if you could recall, some weapons were found in a bunker in Kano. The DSS said they discovered those weapons. I got to know that it was the Israelis who tipped off the DSS as to the existence of those weapons. People were charged to court; what happened? I don’t know what happened to the people that were charged to court. But under the existing regulations, if weapons were found in a building, it is supposed to be demolished. And, I know that the DSS applied to Jonathan for permission to demolish that building. Permission wasn’t granted.
“Definitely then, you know that Iran is involved in Nigerian spectacle. The Israelis are involved in Nigerian spectacle. The Palestinians are involved in Nigerian spectacle; and the Saudis. There has been penetration of our security forces –our security agencies –by some of these elements. So, we’re dealing with forces that are larger than Nigeria. The forces involved in the Nigerian debacle are by far stronger than the Nigerian government. Even if you changed your president, his successor would have a major battle on his hand if he decided to confront these elements.”
Alluding to some conspiratorial activities in the Nigerian government, Akinyemi expressed his angst over reported sabotage of military of a particular military operation in the North-East.
“On CNN, about three weeks ago, there was a news item interviewing some of the soldiers involved. These soldiers were supposed to have been five miles from the headquarters Boko Haram and they were stopped. They got orders from above to stop their operation; their movement and they stopped obeying the last order and then they were attacked massively. “CNN carried the story; showed the pictures. The army denied that any such order was given. Of course, they would deny, wouldn’t they? But the soldiers who were on the frontline – of course, anonymously you would expect – said they did get an order to stop advancing making their position available for a counterattack by Boko Haram. Tell me, what’s going on?”
Akinyemi also urged Nigerian politicians and the public to pay attention to what the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, said concerning the possibility of the military taking over the reins of power against the backdrop of the ongoing socio-political upheaval rather than see him as an alarmist.
“We don’t learn from history; not only politicians but even the public. That was really what Ekweremadu was saying: that the politicians –if the antelope decides to be so proud that it just marches with majesty and pomp and pride, it must remember that there are hungry lions around; that the field isn’t cleared. That’s all Ekweremadu was saying. Let those who have ears to hear, let them hear,” he said.
ThisDay
The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), and human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), on Friday, said the National Assembly was wrong to question the authority of the judiciary to halt the plan by the lawmakers to proceed with the Electoral Act (Amendment) bill 2018.
The Senate had on Thursday resolved to petition the National Judicial Council over the decision of a Federal High Court to stop the lawmakers from taking any further action on the bill.
The lawmakers had said the judiciary had no power to stop them from carrying out their primary duty, which is to make laws.
However, Sagay told one of our correspondents during an interview that the court took the action in line with Quia timet, which is an injunction to restrain wrongful acts which are threatened or imminent but have not yet commenced.
The PACAC chairman said, “The law has a principle known as Quia timet. In other words, the court is given the power to stop or prevent injury before damage is done. A person who believes he will be a victim of an injury has the right to apply to a court to stop it beforehand and that is what the court has done.
“The court did not put a permanent stop to the process but merely a suspension. It is a brief restraint for a few days for a matter that is in court.”
The senior advocate urged the National Assembly not to be in a haste to question the powers of the judiciary as the judiciary was the only organ empowered by the constitution to resolve disputes between the executive and the legislature.
Sagay said the lawmakers should remember that if the executive refused to implement laws made by the National Assembly, the legislature could do nothing but run to the judiciary and so the lawmakers should be careful of their utterances.
He added, “It is very dangerous even against the interest of the National Assembly to begin to challenge the courts which are established to settle differences between the other two arms of government. And this is exactly what is happening.
“If the National Assembly is challenging the court for hearing this suit, what happens if after they have overridden the President’s veto, INEC decides to go on in accordance with its own timetable regardless? Where will the National Assembly run to?
Sagay maintained that the National Assembly’s plan to reorder the elections was at variance with the 1999 Constitution which empowers INEC to undertake, organise and supervise elections.
Also speaking, a human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), faulted the Senate for questioning the power of the judiciary.
He said, “Neither the judge who granted the order nor the lawyer who applied for the order committed any act of misconduct. The Senate ought to be reminded of the interlocutory order granted by the Supreme Court on May 7, 2015, which restrained the National Assembly from overriding the veto of former President Goodluck Jonathan on the 2015 amendment to the 1999 Constitution.”
On his part, a patron of Buhari/Osinbajo 2019 re-election organisation in Kwara State, Alhaji Abdullahi Samari, urged the National Assembly not to override President Muhammadu Buhari ’s veto of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
He expressed the hope that Buhari would handle the matter wisely.
He spoke during the inauguration of the Kwara State Buhari/Osinbajo 2019 re-election organisation in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital on Friday.
Samari said, “Buhari is protecting the interest of the masses of Nigeria. It is unfortunate that some of our representatives may be trying to protect their selfish interest.
“I want to believe that at the end of the day, what Buhari is proposing will see the light of the day. I would not think the National Assembly should go to the extent of vetoing him. There must be an agreeable point. I think they should not do it (override Buhari’s veto.”
Samari, who is also the Chairman, Caucus for Progressives Change in the Kwara All Progressives Congress, said members of the group would work hard for the success of the APC in 2019, particularly the re-election of Buhari and Osinbajo.
Punch