Professor ISHAQ OLOYEDE, co-secretary of the 2005 National Political Reforms Conference (NPRC) and secretary-general of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), is a delegate at the national conference. In this interview with Assistant Editor, North, CHUKS EHIRIM, the former vice chancellor of UNILORIN blames members of the nation’s political elite who seek power at all costs for the current state of insecurity in the country, expressing fear over the outcome of the ongoing confab
How would you assess the national conference so far?
Professor ISHAQ OLOYEDE
I believe the atmosphere depicts some level of seriousness that people are beginning to attach to the assignment.
How much of work can the delegates do at the committee level within just two weeks?
I have my reservation, but the organisers of the conference should be able to address that. I don’t believe that much can be done within this short period. Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) had earlier on advised against the timing of the conference because we felt that the time would not be adequate for what ought to be done. That’s what our position at NSCIA had been.
But the president felt otherwise. We hope we will be wrong. But the way I see it, a good job will require more than three months, and our fear was that as important as the conference is, it should not interfere with the elections and we were told that we were wrong. But from what we are seeing now, I am yet to be convinced that a thorough job can be done at the committee level in less than eight or nine days, because we have about six working days for the committees to work and make all their recommendations. I have my strong reservations.
Why did the delegates not collectively push for a longer time for the committee work?
I think the conference should respect itself and respect its terms of reference. The term stipulated three months, and whatever is possible within three months should be done and submitted. I believe that a thorough job requires more than three months. But I do not advocate extension. I am not advocating extension because a more serious issue is the issue of the election, and I don’t believe it will be wise for anything to tamper with the arrangement for the elections. Having said that, whichever way we have it, I believe that whatever can be put together should be put together within the period allotted.
Considering the shortness of time for the conference, one would have expected that the delegates would have spent lesser time debating the president’s inaugural speech. Why was it not so?
I agree totally with you, but our agreement does not translate to anything. You know when people are interested in their faces appearing on pages of newspapers, of course, you will have that. I agree with you that we spent unnecessarily long time on the presidential address. I also believe that the president himself would be amazed because he would be surprised about the way people were praising him one after another.
This is a president who holds a Ph.D, and you are praising him for writing a good speech. Even if he was the one who wrote it, it means you were under-rating him before. I believe that he had done what he should do. It would take somebody who has a low rating for Mr. President to be praising him for that speech. I believe that given his qualification, given his background, he has done what is expected of him.
But many people had praised him to the high heavens. I believe the president himself knows the purpose of such rating.
Given this scenario, what then will be your expectation of the conference at the end of the day?
I expect the conference to come up with concrete and implementable suggestions for the development of this country.
One issue, which is likely to generate a lot of debate at this conference, is that of resource control. Do you see the possibility of a consensus being reached on this?
As far as I am concerned, I am indifferent because whether 10 per cent or 20 per cent, proper management is what should be there. People are asking for what would favour them. As far as I am concerned, mine is devolution of power. I am interested in devolution of power. There are certain things that the federal government does that it has no business doing.
More resources should be given to the states to implement things that would actually positively impact on the lives of the ordinary citizens.
Whether it is 10 per cent or 20 per cent in terms of resource control is not my business. As far as I am concerned, whatever you have, proper management is what is important. Many of those that are agitating are agitating because of where they are positioned today. Their position will change, if they are not there again. So, as far as I am concerned, those things are mundane.
What I want is a government that will serve the people and serve the people effectively. Resource today may be determined or located somewhere; tomorrow it may be in another place. You will see that the argument would change. When the president said the National Assembly is in place and there was no need for the national conference, many people believed that he was right and supported him.
I was among those who believed him that he was right. When he again changed his mind and said national conference is good, many people also changed their minds and said it is also good. That is why a leader must be reasonable.
A leader must know that clapping is not acclamation. People clap for you because you are holding an office and, tomorrow, once you are no longer in that office, they will sing another song. A reasonable leader would think twice, would ask questions from those who are genuinely interested in his success, not just the market noise.
What do you expect this national conference to do to bring down the tension being generated by the issue of religion in the country?
I do not think the problem in this country is being caused by religious differences. I believe that the crisis is being caused for non-religious purposes. All these things are facade. They are just artificial creation for some selfish and personal reasons. Our people are together; they work together; they inter-marry; they eat and commit crimes together across religious lines.
If you go to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), for instance, you may not be able to know who is a Muslim or a Christian because Christians and Muslims come together to establish and register private companies. The point I am making is that this hype about religion is a creation of the political class, which stands to benefit from the hype.
I want to believe that most of these things are just artificial, and I pray that God, one day, will expose those behind all these tensions and you will realise that they are just created for purposes that are not religious. As far as I am concerned, it would be myopic to think that the Muslims are the ones killing Christians and vice versa. Are the Muslims the ones killing people in the South South? Are they the people killing in the South West? Are they the people kidnapping in the South East?
I believe ordinary Muslims, ordinary Christians, don’t have problems working together. But the elite, because of what they stand to gain, are the ones creating these problems, and if they continue to create these problems, one day, it would consume them all.
You were the co-secretary of the 2005 National Political Reforms Conference (NPRC) organised by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. What actually went wrong with the report of that conference?
We should not have the impression that we can by-pass the National Assembly. I hope this will not be a repeat examination. The 2005 NPRC did not recommend extension. It didn’t. The tenure extension was not part of the recommendation. People give the impression that in 2005, one of the recommendations was extension and that it was why it was dropped. It was not so. But assuming you even had problem with that, which was not so, for the purpose of argument, why not drop that and consider other issues?
It failed because the National Assembly was not carried along, pure and simple; because the National Assembly that had the powers was not convinced of what we were doing. Therefore, when the president (Olusegun Obasanjo) presented it to them, they just dumped it. I hope this will not be a repeat of the 2005 conference.
What do you think this present conference should do to avoid the mistake of the past ones?
What you can do is to get the National Assembly to either make an enabling law or to consider this matter and legislate on it. If they fail to do any of the two, they would have what we had in 2005. They will just dump it and there is nothing the executive can do.
