- Says Nnamdi Kanu played into his hands
On Wednesday, June 16, elder statesman, Dr. Uma Eleazu, marked his 91st birthday. A day after, he sat down with IKECHUKWU AMAECHI for an exclusive interview that lasted two hours.
And what an interview it was. At 91, Elder Eleazu has seen it all. His life story is like a chronicle of post-independent Nigeria.
He was doing his Ph.D. when the civil war started. He regrets not being around to defend Biafra as most of his age mates did.
But when he came back to Nigeria, there was no dull moment. He tells the story of his one and only encounter with Head of State, General Murtala Muhammed at the then seat of power – Dodan Barracks – in Lagos. “Two weeks after, he was assassinated,” he recollects.
He set up the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru. He served in the 1978 Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) set up by General Olusegun Obasanjo to midwife the 1979 Constitution and was also a member of the Constituent Assembly.
“Literally, I wrote the section on the Executive in the 1979 Constitution except the bit under the Directive Principles which Prof. Ben Nwabueze wrote almost single-handedly,” he says.
He was also invited by General Abdulsalami Abubakar to be part of the Constitutional Debate Coordinating Committee that supposedly midwifed the 1999 Constitution but regrets that Abdulsalami used Justice Nikki Tobi and Prof. Auwalu Yadudu to defraud Nigerians in the process. “It is a fraud!” he exclaimed.
When General Ibrahim Babangida started his ill-fated transition programme, Dr. Eleazu threw his political hat in the ring.
“I did so many other things during the military regimes and I had got enough experience to run the country. I was in the team that wrote the original Social Democratic Party (SDP) manifesto from which I developed my own personal manifesto.
“I had looked at other leaders of the world, so I thought I should go into politics. And I didn’t want any other thing except to be president so that I will be able to do exactly what I think this country required.”
But he got his fingers badly burnt in the political arena.
“They use all kinds of underhand means, including devilish means to ensure that the good candidates don’t emerge,” he moans.
“In Jos, Babagana Kingibe was giving N25,000 per delegate and MKO Abiola topped it to N30,000. As a student of politics, I wanted to see what was actually going on and money was moving from hotel to hotel. Abiola was giving N30,000 per delegate and there were over 3,000 delegates in Jos. So, you can imagine the amount of money he spent and, of course, he won. I was so sad.”
He was invited to be part of the Traditional Council of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra set up by IPOB but refused to join unlike Dr. Dozie ikedife. His reason for declining? “I didn’t think we should give Nnamdi Kanu that aura,” he says, before adding, “right now, he [Nnamdi Kanu] has played into the hands of Buhari. That is the way I see it.”
The interview was conducted two weeks before Nnamdi Kanu was arrested and extradited back to Nigeria.
He says President Muhammadu Buhari is suffering from dementia. That is why he “tends to remember only things that happened long ago. He is too old to be sitting where he is sitting.”
His verdict on the Buhari presidency: “In my own opinion, the country is already finished. What we are doing now is to see how to pick up the pieces. Buhari has destroyed the country. And if we allow him to continue, I even doubt if we will have any election in 2023. So, I think he has messed up the country.”
At 91, Dr. Eleazu is too alert. He remembers things that happened decades ago as if they happened yesterday.
If you think Professor Anya O. Anya’s interview was classic, wait until you read Dr. Uma Eleazu’s interview.
Now, Igbo elders are talking and they are doing so, forcefully, through your favourite online newspaper – TheNiche. Keep a date with us on Monday, July 5, 2021. Visit www.thenicheng.com. You will be glad you did.
It is an interview like no other.