Three decades after the fact, Tam David-West has just clarified that former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, meted out different measures of punishment to former President Shehu Shagari and his Deputy, Alex Ekwueme, because of the need to “treat unequal things unequally.”
David West
Shagari was ousted in a coup d’etat on December 31, 1983 in which Buhari emerged Head of State, and detained Shagari in a guest house but locked Ekwueme up in Kirikiri maximum prison.
David-West, who served as Petroleum Minister in the Buhari regime, was reacting to criticism of his book The sixteen (sins) of General Muhammadu Buhari, a rebuttal to the mudslinging against his former boss.
Though the unequal treatment of Shagari and Ekwueme is not discussed in the book, David-West, a professor of virology, told TheNiche in an exclusive interview in Ibadan that it was the logical thing to do.
“Justice treats equal things equally and treats unequal things unequally. Shagari was President, Ekwueme was Vice President. Ekwueme existed because Shagari existed. The Constitution is clear.
“The Constitution has no provision for a vice presidential candidate to contest election. The presidential candidate selects the vice president,” he explained.
David-West also spoke on other issues, including the recent national conference, the politics of former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, and former Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau.
Both men recently defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
David-West dismissed the national conference as a waste of time and resources.
His words: “Before you came, I checked my thoughts with some lawyers. I phoned a SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria) and three other brilliant lawyers. I said these are my views about it; if I am wrong please correct me, because I may be wrong. I try to be educated.
“First I said, the confab has finished and the document is useless because there is nothing that can be done with that document because the law of Nigeria is blind to its existence.
“There is no enabling law that set it up. They agreed with me. Jonathan put the cart before the horse. The National Assembly (NASS) should have made a law ab initio setting up the confab. But since they have not done it, the only way is to send all the recommendations to the National Assembly.
“The National Assembly can then make a law in retrospect to sanctify it. Without that, nobody can do any business with it. There must be a law. And who makes the law? The law is made by the National Assembly.”
He maintained that the document must go to the NASS to deliberate on whether it is advisable to make a law or consider it, or lawmakers can take the recommendations one by one and see whether they can accept the report.
“If they don’t take it, it is dead. The other option is to hold a plebiscite (referendum), which is more cumbersome. But this document, as it stands, is useless.”
David-West said the defection of Ribadu from the APC to the PDP did not come to him as a surprise. “I expected it. And a lot of people in the APC expected it too.”
On why he suspected that Ribadu would jump ship, he said: “I cannot go into details, but there are some Freudian slips from Ribadu. Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh.”
He added: “You see, fortunately again and by the grace of God, I was among the people that set up the APC. I was a member of the merger committee. There were people in our midst that we knew were there not with their heart and soul.
“If not, how can somebody who, in our meetings make beautiful speeches, beautiful to listen to, and beautiful in content; and afterwards, leave the APC experiment to go and be minister. After being a governor, you go and become a minister!”
Apparently referring to Shekarau, who was recently appointed Education Minister, David-West added: “You cannot be a governor for eight years and be comfortable to be a minister. For goodness sake! Haba! There must be some honour.
“You cannot be a governor of a state, even if it is a small state, then change your party so that they can give you a job. Don’t you (the defector) see it as a disgrace, an insult? You are to recommend others to be ministers!”
