Right activist and Ondo State governorship aspirant on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC), Tunji Abayomi, in this interview with DANIEL KANU and HENRY ODUAH, speaks on the travails of Senate President Bukola Saraki, President Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership and his governorship ambition, among other issues.
What is your view on the litigation by the AGF against the Senate leadership?
With regard to Senator Bukola Saraki, everything that is going on is normal and according to law. It is important to understand the processes. First, an event took place in the National Assembly; that is the election of the principal officers, an event that is to hear the concurrence of the members of the National Assembly. When I say “concurrence”, I mean the process was supposed to have been supported or accepted.
Now some members of the Senate complained that the outcome of that process was improper and didn’t follow due process, in the sense that the rule of order was altered in order to bring it about.
Their complaint was sent to the police. The police that are mandated by law to investigate allegations of crime conducted the investigation and recommended that there’s a prima facie case for prosecution. They forwarded recommendation to the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) that is empowered by the Constitution as the chief law officer of the federation to institute prosecution against anybody.
In exercise of the discretion given to him by law, he initiated prosecution, since no one is above the law and the court is there for anyone to prove his innocence. I don’t see any problem at all. I believe that the noise and resistance in the Senate is inappropriate. What I think the leadership of the Senate as lawmakers should do was merely to tell the people of Nigeria, “well, we do not agree, we have not committed any crime (if in fact that is their view); we will get to court and we will prove our innocence.” And they would just stop there.
To begin to stigmatise the President who obviously has nothing to do with the process or to suggest that he should impede the process or interfere with it on their behalf, which is their suggestion, an indirect suggestion, I think, would be inappropriate.
Some critics say Saraki was not a principal officer when that process was altered, and that the former Senate President and others should have been invited to be part of the case.
The issue as to whether Saraki was there or wasn’t there is not for the AGF to decide. It is important for us to appreciate that the AGF cannot be a judge in the case. The only person that can judge the case is the judge in a court to which the case is charged.
So if Saraki is of the view or some people are of the view that Saraki wasn’t there, then they should have sufficient confidence in our judicial system to prove their innocence and to believe that they would get justice in the court.
Some perceive political victimisation in all of these since Saraki was not the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Senate Presidency ab initio.
If there were efforts to remove Saraki as President of the Senate by his own party, that is an internal affair of the party. I don’t think it should be our problem because they belong to the same party. There may be legitimate political reasons they want to remove him. It is also his responsibility, if I were him, to resolve such a problem internally.
For example, now I’m speaking as a politician; if I were Saraki as a politician, the moment the party said, “we will recognise you as president of the Senate; please accord us the regard to accept the other principal officers in order to appease them”, I think in the interest of appropriate rapprochement and orderly administration of political party and conviviality, he should have agreed.
The issue that is on the ground now is whether there was a wrong done under the criminal law. The AGF thinks there may have been one, and the only way he can annul it is to go to court. Don’t forget that if the AGF, despite the complaints, refuses to go to court, he may be accused, by the senators who complained in the first instance, of having taken money from Saraki to kill the case. So if he didn’t act, he may be in some kind of jeopardy; if he acts, he may also be in some form of jeopardy. So where do we go? I think the AGF has acted professionally, and I do not believe that he deserves any blame nor should he be persecuted or demonised by the Senate that in my view acted wrongly by summoning him to appear before them when he was doing his job.
But the AGF is an appointee of the President, and there is also this feeling that he may not want to offend his boss.
Well, that may be a possibility. But that is why the court exists. If the AGF is appointed by the President, the judge in the court is not appointed by the President and the AGF is not the judge over the case. So the attempt to demonise the AGF is unnecessary.
But the AGF could influence judgment in the court.
Well if the position is that the AGF can influence judgment, where do we go? We can’t go to heaven to have justice done. Somehow, despite the imperfect state of our state, we must still have some level of unchangeable faith in some systems, one of which is the judiciary.
Today if I’m charged before the court, I still have to go before the court; there’s no other way. I cannot say that because I don’t have faith in the court refuse to defend myself. If I refuse, I will be convicted and put in jail by the government because, as far as they are concerned, they still have faith in the judiciary. So where do we go? In my opinion, the most sensible thing is to trust that the judge handling the case will do justice. And if you look at it, it appears as if the judge is committed to it, after all he granted bail taking into consideration the prestige of his office and the character of his personality.
Saraki’s case in the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) demanding his time, morning to evening, seems absurd to many.
But it is the senators that created unnecessary demonstration about the case. When a man is charged to court and the entire Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria follows him to that court, they’ve sensationalised it. At a point, the judge said it looked like intimidation and the court is treating the case sensationally.
You cannot blame the court. If, for example, he was the only one or maybe one person was going with him, it would have been treated like an ordinary case. But they treated it like an extraordinary case, and extraordinary cases in court deserve and demand extraordinary attention. That is what the CCT case has demonstrated.
Nigerians are dissatisfied with hardship in the country. There are doubts if this was the change they called for. What is your reaction?
Where we are is not the change we called for. Where we will be is the change we called for. But the Nigerian people themselves must be ready for that change. The truth of the matter is that, in this nation, we are not prepared for change. A lot of the problems of leaders of government is activated by the people themselves. We are very quick to blame those leaders, but we created them by our choices, interests, pressures and tensions in our normal lives. So while we are condemning and complaining about leaders, I think it’s also important to take a look at ourselves as a people. Are we not largely responsible for the type of leadership that has brought this nation to the point that we are now?
Like I said recently on television, our nation has largely been governed by a corrupt, pitiless oligarchy. We need to have internal re-examination, mental review and look at the ideals of government that we want. We need to make sacrifice that will guarantee the future.
Where are the people that are willing to sacrifice? The people are not ready for the sacrifice; for the pain of childbirth before the child comes and smile follows. The leaders see the people as weak, ephemeral, uncertain, easily deceived and they take advantage of them. I think one of the lines of Biafran song says the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Where is the vigilance in the land? Yes, it is not what we want, but can we doubt that the President is actually looking at the fundamental problem of this nation which is deep-rooted corruption that has eaten into everything. That is why this nation is undeveloped. If this government gives us pain now, it is, in my view, for a purpose, and it is important for us to recognise it.
Who will doubt Buhari? I don’t think anybody can doubt him. A man who has been President and he does not have a big house; he has been head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and does not have a petrol station or an oil block; he has been a General in the army and he doesn’t have a house in Dubai; he has commanded the army and doesn’t have a housing development in Abuja. How can you doubt such man? He is an exceptional man. He is not one of us, but he is good for us, in my view.
What can you say about allegations of nepotism against Buhari, and what does the Chief of Army Staff (COAS)’s ownership of Dubai houses mean for Buhari’s fight against corruption?
I have two responses to that. First and foremost, with reference to the COAS, who is alleged to have a house in Dubai; there’s nothing wrong in having a house in Dubai, but you must be able to justify it. And lucky enough, the press is already asking questions. I understand that the military is going to do some investigation on the issue. The immediate past President of Russia said a nation is rich when it has wealthy people. I don’t think our nation is against wealth, but wealth without character is what our nation should be and is against.
The COAS has a duty, being a public officer, to convince us that his house in Dubai was acquired legitimately, especially considering the government’s stand on anti-corruption and considering that this nation has been a victim of leadership through all sorts of chicanery.
With regard to nepotism, there is a lot of concern. I have heard that concern too and people have complained about that. I think the President who swore to protect the Constitution, which insists on Federal Character such that the apparatus of government should not be dominated by one ethnic group, should be advised, in my view, to listen to the voice of the people and to make amends where necessary.
There’s a resurgent call for the restructuring of the country. What is your take?
I am of the view that this nation has no structure. So, if we’re talking about restructuring, the nation must first of all have a structure. We need to understand the nature of our nation.
Nigeria is a very peculiar nation. God created this nation in a unique way. It puts in this nation different ethnic groups, but what is outstanding is that these different ethnic groups are geographically located in different places and uniquely concentrated in those places. So the Igbo are in the South East, Yoruba in the South West, Akwa Ibom and others South South, the Tivs, Jukun etc in the Middle Belt while the Hausa and Fulani and others in the North.
Now these separate peoples want to form a nation. In my view, the only sensible thing to do is to have what I call ‘political banquet’ where they sit together and agree on the terms of their unity. That has never happened in Nigeria. Before Independence, it was a writ of summons; we were summoned as a people after being conquered under colonialism to Lancaster and they told us the type of constitution they wanted, largely to their benefit.
We didn’t have much choice nor could resist. After colonialism came the military and dictatorship covered the firmament of the nation; so much that the military that had no power legally or legitimacy to give us a constitution did give us. A constitution that lied to us, one that gave us Decree 24 of 1999.
In the whole world, our constitution is the only one that is a decree. And a decree is a forced law. Now you must understand the error of this nation. When the military took over power in 1984, it gave itself the power to make laws like the National Assembly. It never gave itself power to make a constitution. And a constitution is not law. In my book, Constitution Powers and Duties of the President, I set out 10 differences between a law and constitution. A law, for example, is enacted by an act of legislature, but a constitution is agreed upon by the people. That is why this whole issue of national conference is nonsensical in my view, apart from its unconstitutionality.
The Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa and all others should have met on their own and put issues on the table in the formation of this new nation. Then we bring it to the universal political table to make a nation. But this has not happened, and because of that, there will continue to be disorder, resistance, shaking of the nation, ethnic intolerance, religious difference and regional disorder in this country. Until we reach that point, we are not going anywhere.
Are you optimistic that you’ll get your party’s ticket for the governorship election?
Like every aspirant, I hope for the best. But I think comparatively, like one of my friends from Ijaw said when they’re asking to govern the people, the people should ask if they’ve gone to jail for the people because in that we know that they’re willing to make necessary sacrifice for the people. As for me, I have gone to jail for the people. I believe I have stood for something for the people of Nigeria and Ondo. I have been consistent. I have done all that I think is possible; so I hope that as I stood with the people, they’ll stand by me.
But if somebody else is picked and he follows due process, there’s no problem. I’ll continue my adventure through life to do what I can. If I can touch somebody as I pass through this path, if I can lift pain from the heart, if I can feed the hungry, if I can give helping hand to the needy, then my life has not been in vain.
My adventure into politics is to see if I can do a little more for the people. All that a human being can ask God to give him in his journey through life He has given to me. I am a contented man, but your contentment cannot be deep when you see pain, hunger, denial, unwarranted anguish and uncaring poverty around.