For the 12 years he spent in the Senate, Victor Ndoma-Egba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), carved a niche for himself and was really a force to reckon with in the upper lawmaking house.The last Senate Leader on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) talks on his surprising exit from the party, leadership crisis in the Senate, Nigeria at 55 and other issues, in this interview with Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU.
How would you describe Nigeria at 55?
At 55, can we say we are where we could be? No! We certainly are not where we could be. We could have done better. There have been missed turns, there have been many missed opportunities. But that is not the whole story. Given the contradictions in our history, we could also have been far worse than we are. It could have been better. But it could also have been far worse. So, I think that we thank God nevertheless for where we are. When I say given our contradictions, if you were slightly above 55, you would have seen colonial rule; you would have seen Independence; you would have seen the country move to republican status; you would have seen by 1965 one of the fastest growing economies in the world; you would have seen several military interventions; you would have seen a civil war; you would have seen oil boom; you would have seen a country where the problem was not money but how to spend it to the country where money is now the problem; you would have seen schools especially universities that competed with the best in the world and you would have seen those same schools recede to becoming embarrassing shadows of themselves. You would have seen all of these. But on the flipside, you would have seen a country that has remained one country in spite of all these contradictions and challenges; you would have seen a country even more determined to remain one in spite of its challenges. You would also have seen a country that saw several episodes of democracy now having a consensus that democracy would be our way of life. So, in all we have seen everything. And I think that things can only get better than get worse where we are.
Don’t you see our current economic downturn pushing the country further down the ladder?
Well, like I said it could be better, it also could be worse. And don’t forget that this is not the first time we are witnessing an economic downturn. But somehow we have always survived it. It is just a phase. What we require now is discipline. And I believe that this mantra of change, one key component of it will be the kind of discipline that we require, not just for the moment, but for all times, so that when we are faced with challenges like we are facing now we will be able surmount them.
Corruption and bad leadership have been identified by many as the main causes of our backwardness in terms of economic growth. Do you agree with that position?
I have always been an advocate of accountability. I have always believed that only three categories of people are spared the duty of accountability – that is God because He is the owner of the universe, mad men because they have no legal capacity and children. But if you don’t fall within any of these categories, then, you owe it a duty to account for whatever responsibility you have been charged with. Corruption is the lack of accountability. It is people taking advantage of a systemic failure for personal gain. Corruption is one issue, one vice that must be addressed very decisively because it goes to the root of accountability. It goes to the root of the strength of our social institutions. For as long as accountability and our social institutions are compromised, efficiency will also be compromised. And the moment efficiency is compromised; people will continue to take advantage of the system for personal gain. So, I believe that corruption, if we must move forward, must be confronted head on.
What precisely do you recommend as ways to steer Nigerians out of corruption?
One is value orientation. We must stop celebrating “successes” that cannot be accounted for. In those days when people were seen to be living beyond their means, society questioned them. But today we celebrate them. Nobody is asking any question anymore. We must go back to that culture of asking questions, of interrogating our lifestyle. That is one. Two, I believe that public office should come with some rectitude. There must be rectitude in public life. It is not an occasion for flamboyance. It is not an opportunity for flamboyance. So, there must be rectitude in public life. And then thirdly, nobody, nobody must be above the law. Nobody! In recent times the feeling I get is that the only offence you can be guilty of is being poor. It is only when you are poor; you are made to answer for your deeds or misdeeds. But for the wealthy, anything goes. I think we must go back to that era where there were no sacred cows, where no matter how highly placed, if there was any infraction of the law on your part, you would need to answer. So the corollary to all of these is that there must be deliberate effort at strengthening our institutions – the judiciary, the law enforcement agencies and all our institutions.
Some had suggested death penalty for anybody found to be corrupt, with the belief that it would serve as deterrent to others. How do you place this?
Given my faith, my religion, I am a Catholic – and the Catholic faith does approve of the death penalty, I don’t approve of the death penalty. I don’t believe that death is punishment. Death is not punishment. When you are dead, all pain and all sorrow is gone. So, it is even a favour. I think you must be alive to bear the consequences of your action. A dead man bears no pain. So it is not punishment for me as far as I am concerned. So I don’t subscribe from a moral perspective and from even the angle of logic to the death penalty. Death is not punishment.
In-between the 55 years of Independence, we had an unbroken democracy of 16 years from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2015 under the PDP. Some have in a way contended that the PDP government within these 16 years caused more damage to the economy than could be imagined. Do you agree with that postulation?
I think that the PDP must be given credit. In spite of everything it must be given credit for the sustenance of our democracy. It may not have been perfect in its approach, but at least the PDP takes full credit that our democracy has endured till now. Like I keep saying, democracy is not a destination. There is no milestone that you get to and you say this is democracy. Social Scientists and Political Scientists have argued that there is correlation between democracy and economic development – that there is a linkage, which means that as our democracy endures, our economy also should improve. So, having deepened our democracy to this point, we should begin to look at the other side of the journey, which is that the economy must also begin to deepen as our democracy deepens. But I must say that democracy and economic growth are endless journeys. There is no destination you get to and you say look we have reached our final destination. It is an endless journey. It is going to be a journey into eternity. The important thing is that with every step, we should be seen to be improving. There is no milestone that you will say we have arrived at democracy or we have arrived at economic liberation. No. There will be no such point.
You feel that PDP should be commended in the role it played in the entrenchment of democracy in the last 16 years?
Well, that it lasted this long, I think the credit should go to the government that was in power. The fact that we also had an opposition party taking over from a party in power is a sign of the depth of our democracy, which means that we have now overcome those critical stress points that used to fail in the past and give room for military incursion. We have survived those stress points, and the credit must largely go to the party that was in power at the time.
After about six months of speculation, you finally announced your resignation from the PDP recently. As a pioneer member of PDP, a party on whose platform you spent 12 years in the Senate. Do you think it was a wise decision?
I don’t think my resignation from the PDP should be that much of an issue. You see, what we should see is a pattern. We should see a pattern that was taking the PDP to self-destruction, if I may say. It didn’t start with me and it is not going to end with me. Don’t forget that the highest opportunity a political party can give to any of his member is the opportunity to be President of this country. Our former President tore its membership card of the PDP. Did he not?
You mean former President Olusegun Obasanjo?
Yes, Obasanjo tore his membership card or it was torn on his behalf. The second highest opportunity that a party can give you is the opportunity to be Vice President. Vice President Atiku Abubakar, while in office left the PDP. These were all signs that we should have read, but we didn’t read them. A former National Chairman of the party, Audu Ogbeh, left the party in frustration. Another former national chairman of the party, Barnabas Gemade left the party in frustration to an opposition party and secured what the party where he was National Chairman couldn’t give him. How many governors left in one fell swoop? It was a pattern that was building up. It has nothing to do with me as a person. We ought to have read where this trend was taking us to. Despite the fact that the trend has forced the party to its knees, the party is still not learning any lesson from it. It still continues in that direction. So, it has nothing to do with me. In my own case, I can clearly say I was constructively evicted from the party. I have said it again and again, for three years I was not invited to a meeting of the party. Nobody said a word until my letter of resignation came. Ha! Why is he resigning? The party had already sent you away. So, the resignation was just formality. But you see the PDP has been moving in a particular direction that is inimical to its growth. In fact, that direction portended and it blossomed but because the party was in power; the governors appropriated all the organs of the party – arrogance, arbitrariness, impunity all set in and we were blinded. In fact, at some point PDP started looking like the Titanic. People thought it was too large to sink. But you know when you have become so arrogant, that is when the unexpected happens. The Titanic sank after all, in spite of its size and grandeur.
Some insinuate that you are moving to APC. How true is that since you have formally quit PDP, or are you looking at a different platform other than APC?
Well, one thing I will say for certain is that I am not done with politics yet. I remain active in politics. Under our current constitutional arrangement, you can only play politics on the platform of a political party. So, definitely, I will end up on another platform because I still have political life and I intend to continue with my political career. But for now, I am just having a short break and then I will launch.
Will it be correct at this point to say you are defecting to APC?
What would be correct is that I have formally left PDP.
The eighth Senate has been ridden with leadership crisis since its inception. How does it worry you as one who just left a stable Senate? Is it not likely that we may be going back to the days of instability in the Senate, after it had maintained stability for a long stretch of eight years?
Let us go back to 1999 when the current democracy was started. There was a lot of instability in the Senate. You remember Evan Enwerem, Chuba Okadigbo, Anyim Pius Anyim, Adolphus Wabara and then eventually Ken Nnamani in very quick succession. Now, we now come to a new government of the APC as it was in 1999. You begin to see the same ripples. What lesson is to be learnt from this is that each time you have a new government in power; it takes a while for the legislative arm to settle down. So, what we are seeing is not anything new. What is perhaps a bit disappointing is that the APC was not reinventing the wheel. The APC ought to have anticipated that this kind of instability will happen, given the lessons learnt when PDP was in power. But the instability you see is not anything new. It is something to be expected each time you find a new party in power.
What would be your candid advice to the parties involved in this issue, particularly the senators, to ensure smooth conduct of the affairs of the Senate?
It is a political problem and they must find a political solution to it. There is no political problem that has no political solution. It is not for me to begin to advice on the way to go.
