– Ango Abdullahi, Northern Elders spokesman
•Says North ready to support Atiku, Kwankwaso, others
Professor Ango Abdullahi is the spokesman of Northern Elders Forum, and former Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He
expressed support for the position of the Yoruba nation that Nigeria be
restructured.
Although there is a caveat that each existing region be
allowed to decide the modalities for internal restructuring in view of
new realities before fusing with others under a federal constitution
similar to the First Republic. The NEF boss spoke with ABDULLAHI HASSAN in Zaria on other national issues including the current rift between former Vice President, Atiku
Abubakar and President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives
Congress, APC; the speculated cabinet reshuffle; Buhari’s performance
and health; who the North will support for President in 2019; and
ongoing militarization of the South East.
Sir, few days to Nigeria’s 57 years
of nationhood, are we where we ought to be, given our potentials and the
level of development of other countries with which we were at par at
take -off?
Well, the starting point is to thank
Allah for enabling us to observe yet another independence anniversary
which we got in 1960. Obviously, the citizens must expect a lot of good
things to have happened in terms of development over these years. When
we look back, we can see that Nigeria is endowed with a lot of potential
areas for development. This is what has been the expectation of
Nigerians, particularly my generation because when the country attained
independence, I was at the University College, Ibadan. Our fathers or
leaders of the country at the time used to talk to us in the university
and asked us to work hard, saying that very soon Nigeria would attain
independence and that we were the ones to take over from the British.
There were high hopes and expectations from within and outside the
country that the new nation would make rapid progress in all aspects
that touched the lives of her citizens.
As you said, we will be 57 years
and the question is, have all those aspirations been achieved? The
honest answer is no. If I was a teacher marking Nigeria from 1960, or a teacher marking Nigeria’s script as one of my students of over these 57 years, I will grade her a failure. When
you look at it from the point of view of the opportunities available,
the resources available, the chances available, both internal and
external and you sum all these up, including the human capital, I will say that Nigeria failed to achieved the
goals and aspirations it set for itself and for its people. There are
benchmarks with which one can base this conclusion. There are quite a
number of countries we virtually achieved independence either together
or almost at the same time. Some of the references used in gauging our
development indices are India, in 1948 and
Malaysia. Malaysia has really moved faster in their development
endeavours. Unfortunately, despite all the endowments, Nigeria has
failed to achieve the goals expected of it since independence.
So, who or what do we blame for the failure?
Well, if you go back to 1960, I will say that our founding fathers did extremely well. They did very well indeed. I will score them high, going by
my marking scheme. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, with all his colleagues in
his cabinet did well for the independence government; Chief Obafemi
Awolowo for the South
Western Nigeria, along with his friends, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe; Michael
Okpara for Eastern Nigeria and Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello for
Northern Nigeria. All the leaders did well in terms of providing honest
and committed leadership to their people. If you did
an honest assessment of each of these leaders on what they achieved
even before or after independence, you will appreciate and commend them,
especially for managing their
resources well.
They had nothing to depend on except revenue generation
mostly from tax and agriculture, being the main export product that earned
the country a lot of foreign exchange. In fact, 75 per cent of total
revenue came from agriculture. For those of us now who witnessed and were beneficiaries of that government, the current state of things is regrettable. For example, I went to elementary school free, Middle School free and university free.. those were things enjoyed
within the limited resources. In Western Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo
introduced Universal Free Education Programme for his people and
ultimately placed Western Region at an advantage over the North and
East. In 1953, there were only two secondary schools in Northern
Nigeria-Barewa College and Government Secondary School, Keffi. By 1966,
the Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello had provided secondary schools in each of the provinces in the North, as well as Teachers Colleges and vocational training centres. He established Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in
1962. One should ask why those leaders were different from those that
followed them? Despite the interruption of democracy by the military in
1966 which culminated in civil war , their legacies and values have
continued to yield positive results… Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s regime invited most of the products of the First Republic to serve
as federal commissioners. People like Chief Obafemi Awolowo was
appointed Finance Commissioner, Malam Aminu Kano was appointed Health
Commissioner. From 1960 until 1974, Nigeria was doing well in the area
of development. I happened to have served as Commissioner of Economic
Planning under the military
government from 1973 to 1975. As from that period, things began getting
worse, particularly, during Gen. Murtala Mohammed. Although Murtala
appeared to be a nationalist and Pan-Africanist, regrettably, he messed
up the civil service, which has always been the stabilising factor in
any country’s development programme. Politicians come and go, but civil
servants remain until retirement. Murtala abused civil service rules, he
arbitrarily sacked civil servants, permanent secretaries , directors were
sacked on radio without procedures, no query, warning or setting up of
committees. The security of tenure that civil service guaranteed, Gen.
Murtala destroyed it when he came to power. Now a civil servant has to
be a liar, or sycophant to keep his job. This is where Nigeria began to
run into serious difficulties in governance. Secondly, we rushed to
change from parliamentary system in the Second Republic to presidential
with a military fiat . This is the major mistake that
was made. Presidential system brought about nothing other than huge
overhead costs in government; compared to parliamentary system.
In other words, the presidential system is more expensive to run anywhere around the world. It also brought in corruption and lack
of accountability. In the parliamentary system, ministers were
appointed from elected members in the Parliament, which means that you
have a constituency to account for, not only to your constituency, but
also to the parliament and the prime minister. While under presidential
system, you can lobby for positions by licking the boots
of other political leaders, in a nutshell, you can be enlisted to be a
minister even if your people don’t know you. In other words, you don’t
feel accountable to anybody apart from the person who nominated you, or a
godfather. In presidential system, a minister is free to do whatever he
likes as long as the
President is comfortable with him. These are some of our major setbacks.
So, to answer your question, this is to some extent, the factors
responsible for the lack of development of our nation today.
You were an arrowhead of support for
the election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
It is nearly 15 months for
this administration to exit, but people are still complaining about lack
of development viz bad roads, ill-equipped hospitals, schools etc. Does
that mean that Buhari has failed Nigerians?
You see, the problem is the system. Buhari may be a good person; he could be a gentleman who wants
to work honestly but in a wrong system. It was a system of military
fiat when he was a head of state, but the system he finds himself now
does not allow him to manoeuvre. He has to cross many hurdles
and checkpoints at the National Assembly and his party before he can
execute anything meaningful, and all these squabbles are not based on
principle but personal interests, either at party level or at constituency or at the level of the judiciary. All this really will make it impossible for a good person or committed person to operate effectively in this country in the manner which will accelerate development. Perhaps, you might ask the question if we
can really change? Buhari might not have failed, but the system of
government that he is operating in has substantially failed in the same
manner as the ones before it.
Many Nigerians expected the President
to re-shuffle his cabinet soon after his return from medical vacation
as a step towards rectifying mistakes in the administration, but that is
yet to happen. How do you view this?
I really don’t count that as a solution
to government’s problems, weighed against the substantial damage he
inherited. You see, once a system is not right everything inside it
tends to fail. Of course, people blame President Buhari for not picking a good team to start with. I personally made that observation two
years ago and I came under much fire from the corridors of power but
I’m here again criticizing. I have so far been vindicated in
terms of the quality of people he picked as operators of the
government, either at ministerial level, or institutional level. Their
quality has failed to measure or meet the yearnings and expectations of
Nigerians. When people think that cabinet reshuffle is the answer, it
may bring out some good, but for me, it is too late in the day.
Ministers are part of the instrument of decision-making, the only
difference between them and their permanent secretaries is that only
ministers are allowed in the Federal Executive Council. Bureaucrats in
their ministries prepare the memos they read at FEC. What I am saying is
that it is not enough to simply look at the ministers as the problem. I
can argue that most of the people who brought the problem on this
country, especially during Obasanjo and Jonathan’s administrations are
still and very much in this administration. When you are talking of
corruption and incompetence, in fact 70 per cent of the people who
operated in the Jonathan government are still in this system. So why do
people expect Buhari to perform miracle? It is possible, but very
difficult in this kind of system or arrangement. I
believe that the system in which Buhari is operating is not working,
since it was changed in 1977/79. It does not fit the kind of federation
of Nigeria’s structure, because when the British came, actually, they
thought Nigeria could run in two parts, the Northern and Southern
protectorates. But very soon, they realized that there was substantial
difference between the eastern part of the country and the western part,
which later made mid-west to be created, leaving the North as it was.
What do you make of the stiff war
between Abubakar Atiku on one hand and the President and his party on
the other over alleged spite of the former VP?
You see, I don’t regard Atiku as a major
actor in the system; he only operated in the system, but largely failed
us. He operated as a Vice President to Obasanjo in the latter’s
government, which, as far as I am concerned failed. So
they both have failed. I could not see Atiku being isolated as a major
factor in subsequent years. He joined APC, but he was not part of the
major groups, though he contested in the primary election when we were
challenging the Jonathan administration. In 2015, I was one of those who felt
that PDP had failed to honour an agreement that everybody was aware of
and which most of the leaders signed. I was one of those who drafted the
constitution of PDP and signed for it to become a political party. So I
was also a member of the first Board of Trustees of the party. But the
party quickly collapsed and failed. People in executive authority
replaced the PDP. The PDP paved way for Obasanjo to be reelected. In the
case of states, the party paved way for governors to manoeuvre. So what
we had was mini dictatorship within a short time. Obasanjo changed the party chairmen about three or four times. If you want to maintain your position you have to go and vow before Obasanjo or a governor. Atiku can go and make whatever complaints, he
knows how he joined the party, he is just a party member like anybody
else. The only thing he may argue is that when the party was formed , he
played a role, which he
thought should be appreciated, recognized and rewarded. He is only
behaving like most ordinary Nigerian politician. He participated and
contributed and he now waits for reward. In
other words, he is like an investor expecting dividends and profit,
therefore, he wants to get dividend on his investment. I think this is
all Atiku’s complaints.
His challenge seems to foreshadow the
direction of the politics/contest of the 2019 presidential election.
Who will the north support between the two leaders in the event the dice
is cast, and why?
I am not a witness to that, I don’t
know, what I read in the newspaper is that, Atiku only complained that
he was sidelined in the process of operating party and government. That
was not enough for me to say that he has reached a point of contesting or quitting
the party. I would want to say he, of course, in the primaries of the
party together with others and they all lost to Buhari. It’s also wrong
to assume that in every contest, you must win. You may contest severally
without winning, so winning election is not always automatic. There are
some party executive arrangements that sometime make you an enemy if
you contest elections and lose, and this is happening in many states now, those who contested for governor became enemies of those who won. I think that is what will continue to divide APC, if care is not taken.
Is the Buhari-Atiku altercation in the interest of the North, and where do we place the aspirations of others like Kwankwaso , Lamido, Tambuwal, etc?
No, no, you see the fact that Buhari is incumbent does not automatically confer on him the candidature of the party in the next election if there
is internal democracy in the party. The fact that you are a sitting
president does not mean other members of the party cannot contest
against you. If I were Buhari, I will welcome competition in my party. This is an opening for democracy in my party and I will ask people to come and test their popularity. If he has done well, people will re-elect him. This is a confirmation he has done
well and that both the party and voters trusted him. I criticize all
political parties for the system they employ in conducting primary
elections. The one I am most familiar as good was the one used by Social
Democratic Party (SDP) in 1992, that was a direct primary election,
where every member of the party has a chance to come and vote for who
will represent him as a councilor, chairman, governor or
president. In direct primaries, all parties have chance to come, cue
and vote or elect any person of their choice. But the current delegate
system brings nothing except corruption. Once the parties are corrupt,
certainly, government must be corrupt, this is what is happening now all
over the country.
Where do you stand on the question of
whether or not Buhari should run again, against the backdrop of
non-delivery on electoral promises and his health issue? You may wish to
answer that question with what you think is in the North’s strategic
interest, vis-a-vis, experience over the issue of tenure and dispute
with the South on zoning principle.
On the issue of who the North will
support among Northerners who are likely to contest, I will say we will
support internal democracy, that the person who wins the primary
election in the party becomes the candidate. It is premature to say and
there is no basis for me to
deny Atiku or Kwankwaso, or whoever is said to be contesting, the right
to contest. Whoever emerges from the North, we will support him. You see
personally I am not a member of any political party, I am only
concerned that there should be an internal democracy in any party for
development of our democracy, so that people will know that the
candidate emerged and was chosen by their wishes and support. That is the most important thing. In the case of Buhari, he had
a bad start as far as I am concerned, somebody who is in office is
supposed to show his credentials of being in that office and these
credentials should sell him not only to his party, but to the generality
of Nigerians. The decision will be made by party members and eventually
when election comes, voters
will ultimately decide party’s decision. My support or non support for
Buhari does not matter, our concern is for the system to be sanitized.
The Yoruba nation unanimously and unequivocally stated last week its position on restructuring,
declaring it was mandatory as the basis for the continuation of the
Nigerian union. The Yoruba also defined what this restructuring should
be, so there won’t be any ambiguity that those opposed to it had often
cited. Your take on this?
I believe Nigeria has been in
existence for 100 years now, in this 100 years, there are people who
believe that Lord Lugard or the British made mistakes in the way they
crafted a territory and called pieces of this country called Nigeria in
1914. Up till now there are people of high intellect and in responsible
positions who believe that
Lugard made a mistake by merging the Northern protectorate and Southern
protectorate and Lagos Colony. These agitations have manifested in
various forms over the years and appear directed against the North. You
see, there was no restructuring agitation during Jonathan or Obasanjo’s
administration. It started few years ago. All these agitations started
when there was no true government. My first reference is to go to 1914, examine this question of whether Lugard or the British made a mistake by merging the territories that appeared incompatible,
according to the agitators. So, if we want to give credit to the
British in 1914, for crafting the constitution for these colonies and
you also want to give credit to our founding fathers who really faced
the British and argued for independence, you may say that, perhaps, this
was the fundamental mistake of our
coexistence. There is also a merit in looking forward that even though
diverse, we could eventually be molded into a nation. So they tried
together with our founding leaders and agreed on the federal
constitution. By 1960, if you remember very well, prior to independence, the regions asked for self-government on different dates. The Northern Nigeria said it was not ready in
1957, while other regions said they were ready, which later brought
about some misunderstanding in the country, but eventually the regions
resolved their differences in term of dates. The North later had its own
in 1959, while other regions had theirs in
1957. Again within one year, Nigerian leaders sat together and
discussed independence of the country. The final constitution we had was
a federal constitution with regions as the federation units. Western
Nigeria, Eastern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria. Those were the federating
units under the 1960 federal constitution. My excitement about the
position taken by the Yoruba is
that we should go back to the 1960 constitution, go back to the
regions. I agree with this position in all honesty and sincerity, but
the only point I may have difference with is that, let it be Western,
Eastern and Northern, as it was said, but the Yoruba should remember
that each of these regions in the past had a constitution. If we are going back to that, then we must take each region to have its constitution. It’s also good
to remember that a lot of things had happened even before the British
left, there was minority commission set-up by the British prior to 1960.
The minority groups from different parts of the regions asked for
status. The Western Region later agreed that Mid West should be created.
So even now, if we are to go back to the regions, what should be done
is for each region to go back and consult its people to decide whether
these regions will be like what is used to be, or there should be amendments in the 1960 constitution, or there
is need for new arrangement before making recommendations to the rest
of the country. The Eastern Region will do the same. The Northern region
will do the same. You see , I am not discounting that there will be a
lot of requests, even before
1960 , there were lots of agitations in the North for Middle-belt. In
short, I agree entirely that we should go back to regions as the Yoruba
have suggested, the point of difference here is that the regions should
go back decide for themselves
and decide how they want to restructure themselves. Nobody should
decide for any region how to be restructured. I am happy to hear that
even South East governors have decided to remain together, to that
extent, this might be attractive on the part of Northern Nigeria. I am
among those who support this Yoruba recommendation.
Government has practically militarised
the S’ East under the pretext of going in to tackle crimes and
insecurity in the region. We have seen a crackdown on Biafra agitators,
while Arewa youths known to have breached the constitution are treated
as sacred cows. Tell me how can this brazen display of double standard
promote a sense of equality and fair treatment and as such oneness among
Nigerians from different divides? Again, as long as this continues,
don’t you think it will only further fuel discontent and agitation? And
do you believe this strong arm tactics and forceful approach by
government is the best way to bring about peace?
Well, I consider all these Kanu’s saga as general pretence of Nigerians’ dishonesty. When the Northern youths reacted to the abuses that their parents and grandparents were being subjected by some interest groups, insult and provocation , nobody uttered a word of guidance, counseling or caution among so-called elders in the East, even
as I am speaking now. It is when our children reacted the way they did
that they had, had enough of these abuses coming from that area, and
also supported that those agitating for their own state should be given
chance for self-determination in line with the international protocol
for self-determination. With this, who now says that Nigeria’s unity is settled? It is not settled for more than hundred years? We can see from this saga that there is a lot of pending issues on Nigeria’s unity. If this problem is still lingering, then you cannot say Nigeria’s unity is settled, this word is Utopian. Settling the
issue of unity is a determinant factor for coexistence, as such you
cannot say Nigeria is indivisible, while its component parts are not
united. So you see, I disagreed with all this Utopian position that
Nigeria’s unity is settled. The question of its unity now or in future
will be the question to ask from time to time. I keep repeating that the
problem of Nigeria is the elites, both political and other levels,
Nigerian elites have been the cause of either disunity or lack of
developments and if that is the case, then we are not prepared to read
and visit our souls and attitude.
It means that the celebration of independence
anniversary, to me, is an anniversary to mark the waste of two
generations of Nigerians over the last 57 years. Let’s ask ourselves; if
we the elites are the problem of Nigeria, why can’t we come
and sit down and tell ourselves the truth? Enough is enough, let’s save
future generations, if we continue the way we are going, nothing
positive will happen apart from wasting time.
At Yusuf Maitama Sule book presentation, Chief Edwin Clark made a similar observation and requested you all to come and resolve your differences as elites in order to save Nigeria from ongoing crises. Are you ready?
I don’t want to reveal too much on what transpired between me and Chief Edwin Clark, it is an old issue, we
engaged Edwin Clark and his people when we were fighting Obasanjo’s
third term, we engaged him positively together with the current father
to the Senate President. The Northern Union headed by its chairman, the
late Dr Olusola Saraki, while I was his deputy, fought against
Obasanjo’s third term agenda. Edwin Clark pledged that whenever the
North takes over the presidency, his area (South South) will produce the
Vice President. And this
was how we sealed the deal, which produced Jonathan as Vice President to
Umaru Yar’Adua. The arrangement was perfected and successfully
executed. I don’t want to go into details of other negative side of the
story, but I know we’ll get ourselves together for discussion on the
solution to Nigeria’s problem.
So, if I may ask you as part of the Nigerian elite, what is the solution to the crises?
We have been failing Nigerians, the elites before us, like late Sardauna, Chief Awolowo, Dr.
Azikiwe and others risked their lives, worked and died for Nigeria,
under an arrangement that was not forced. Like what the late Premier of
Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, said, let’s understand our
differences, so that we work together for the development of Nigeria.
This can still be applied today, that is why I feel excited with the
position of Yoruba elders, that we should go back to our regions as federating units. The elites should stop pretending that tough time is over and Nigeria’s unity is settled. We in the Northern Elders Forum have agreed that we are ready to engage in dialogue with anybody that will solve Nigeria’s problems.
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