Second Republic politician and former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Anambra State chapter, Guy Ikokwu, is worried at the current state of Nigeria, fearing that the country is at the brink and may cease to exist beyond 2017, if the system continues to run the way it is. He also speaks on why restructuring is urgently needed, in this interview with Assistant Politics editor, DANIEL KANU
Most Nigerians seem to be dissatisfied with what is happening in the country, politically and economically. Some have even gone further to say that the country is at war with itself. Do you share in this view?
Let me start by saying that things are not right in Nigeria, yesterday and today, from 1970 to 2017. The system under which we are operating in skewed. It is disruptive of normalcy; therefore, there is no quietness, no justice and any situation where you don’t have justice and the place is not quiet, you will have nothing else but confusion. So Nigeria is not at peace with itself. What is happening now in the country is the climax of insecurity. The economy is bad; it has been bad in the last five years. The system under which we operate is not justiciable, and there is a lot of wrongdoing, a lot of impunity. Not that Nigerians are not good people! You can see that Nigerians have tolerated a lot more than other countries’ citizens can tolerate. The reason for this tolerance is that they hope things would be better, but their hope has been dashed so many times that it’s now a hopeless situation. So the truth is that the situation in the country today is absolutely hopeless.
Nigeria is at the brink. If things are not done properly, we shall fall over. We are talking of months; we are not talking of years. I repeat, we are talking of months. If Nigeria’s system is not immediately changed by Nigerians not by foreigners, Nigeria will fall over the brink. If it falls over the brink, as you know, scientifically, to come up, is horrendous once you fall over. Once you fall over, you continue tumbling and tumbling to your resting place where you are totally crushed and dead. So if Nigeria falls over the precipice, the country will disintegrate; there will be no Nigeria. The problem with Nigeria is systemic and I can say it a thousand times. Given the system which we operate in Nigeria, even if former United States President, Barack Obama, comes here to operate it, he will fail. Without disrespect but with every sense of respect, if the Archbishop of Canterbury comes to operate it, he will fail. If Pope Francis, very good and pious man, comes under our own system of today to operate it, he will fail.
There is this clamour for restructuring of Nigeria. Do we take it that you support it, given your observations?
The restructuring of the country, for me, is just three things: true federalism, fiscal federalism and devolution of powers from the exclusive list to the federating units. Once you do that other things will begin to take shape.
Restructuring only means: change the system, give us a workable vehicle, the engine is okay with fuel, with other necessary parts in good condition, we will get there, no doubt. We have the ingredients, we have the manpower. Nigeria is one of the countries in the world that have human resources, but we have to invest a lot where the current federal government is not investing. People call it federal government and that is erroneous. What we have today in Nigeria is a unitary government, a military democracy if you like. We had a Republican Constitution in 1963. Thereafter the army changed it and they have refused to do the right thing.
We went into a civil war which is also a military command, and after that, the army struck again, and you know they are not trained for civil rule or democracy, so to speak. The military system has been that of command and control, one man giving orders and the others obeying. When you have such a system running for 50 years, it changes the psyche of the people.
We have been trying to configure during these 50 years how Nigeria can live progressively and, as you know, progressively is a word that has been very much abused.
We can use the other word and say how Nigeria can live developmentally than where it is today. The late military Head of State, Sani Abacha, tried it and wanted to be life President for Nigeria. I think it was under Abacha that we had the six geo-political zones. Abacha was told to make the six geo-political zones federating units and give them their powers, but he ignored the advice. He said they were only for appointments, not for development. So, what is appointment? Appointment means individual gratification, and these individuals are contented and want the status quo to remain; they don’t want it changed and can do anything to maintain the status quo.
Then Olusegun Obasanjo came in (as executive president). Of course, it is common knowledge that he and some officers would have been killed by Abacha after being accused of treasonable felony, but for God’s grace over their lives.
Obasanjo was released after the death of Abacha. Those who released him, his military counterparts, prompted him to disrupt the democratic process again. Of course, he cannot displease them. At the end of the day when he finally packaged the restructuring formula and sent it to the National Assembly for it to become law, he attached to it another clause: his third term agenda. It was the National Assembly that shot it down and insisted that there would be no third term.
It was Obasanjo that brought his own attachment, Goodluck Jonathan from Bayelsa where he was governor, to rule Nigeria. Jonathan was paired with (Umaru) Yar’Adua and we know the rest of the story.
Jonathan started realising what should be done, what is good for the nation and did nothing until after pressure was put on him that he called the 2014 national conference. Of course, the conference had better representation of Nigerians than any other; it cut across board. They made recommendations, and at the end of the day, over 600 resolutions were passed by consensus.
Here comes Buhari, his second coming. We knew what he did in his first coming, but he said he had changed from his military garb and nature to now a democrat. It’s possible he has changed, but if you analyse his mid-term performance, you discover that it had not been well, he had not done well. We cannot go on recycling our ineptitude, recycling our idiocy, recycling what our children cannot understand that we are doing as their fathers and elders. So the chicken has come home to roost. That is the situation now.
How can you give my child 200 score for him to pass into a university, he scores even more than that, getting 220, yet you deny him admission, but his classmate from another part of the country will score 30 and get the admission? How do you expect that child to react? He will be very bitter. That is why our children are very bitter. They cannot see justice in what their elders or perhaps their leaders are doing. They cannot tolerate it anymore. That is why we are where we are now. We are at the crossroads of Nigeria. Did you see what happened at the Senate during the constitution amendment? Rather than each senator standing up and saying exactly what he or she was supporting: yes or no, good or bad, they decided to use electronic voting. Then you ask who voted for this and who voted against it? There is silence everywhere. That is where the country is.
Silence is not golden in the situation like ours now, and if we don’t speak up to tell Nigerians what is good for Nigeria, the calamity is right in our face. We are at the threshold; if we fall over, that will be the end.
This country may not survive 2017 if it is not restructured; if the system is not put well. We need immediate restructuring. It is a panacea that will put us on a proper road. We have an adage in our culture that says: if you don’t know where you are coming from, you won’t know where you are going to.
Nigeria is on the wrong road. That wrong road will get us nowhere. If we continue this way, it will take us to our doom, to our destruction. We have to reverse and watch the signposts on the way.
If you refuse to use the signpost in a land that you don’t know where the roads lead, you may be doomed. That is what is happening. So, we cannot say we are blind; that we don’t know. Nigeria is in a state of warfare now and something serious needs to be done.
Can the National Assembly really embark on devolution of powers?
Of course, they have the constitutional rights to do that, but are they sincere? The National Assembly can, under the constitution, together with the states, as prescribed in the 1999 Constitution which is a fallacy. It is not a people’s constitution. It is a constitution that tells a lie about itself. We know that, but it is the only legal document that can be used to change our system. The National Assembly can pass a law for a referendum or plebiscite. They can’t pass the law. It is not in the constitution, but if they pass it, amend the constitution, it will be there and they can tell you when a plebiscite can be used, when a referendum can be used and for what purposes. If you look around, you will see that countries in Europe, South America are using plebiscite or referendum to determine certain issues, so that they don’t fight and kill themselves.
Let the people say what they want, where they belong on issues, provided the referendum or plebiscite is not corrupted. It should be free and fair, not the one you vote and you get another result [that is] manipulated. Another way is that the people themselves can meet and decide where they will go to and what they will do and implement it. For instance, if the North, their politicians, emirs, governors, lawmakers, religious leaders, meet and take a position and the South, their governors, royal fathers, lawmakers, politicians, religious leaders also meet and take a position, and the two groups later come together to agree and take a position on critical issues, and tell the National Assembly and Houses of Assembly to implement it, let’s say within two weeks, they will implement it. They will have no choice but to implement it immediately.
What is it that has not been talked about before? Nothing. It is the dire need of the people to espouse something and implement it for the good of the country. If Nigeria is restructured this year, if the skewed system of Nigeria is changed this year 2017, in four years’ time Nigeria will be one of the fastest developing countries in Africa. In 20 years’ time, Nigeria will develop like Singapore and be rated as a first world country like France, Britain.
These other countries have reached the climax of their own civilisation. So, they are declining and cannot advance again at our own expense. If you allow them, they will be neo-colonial masters, a different type of colonialism, economic colonialism, technical colonialism. But I can tell you that Nigerian children in Europe, America and different parts of the world will be disappointed with us. The truth is that we have the human resources to take the country to the apex, just like Singapore and China did. China is only 40 years from [Chairman] Mao Tse-tung, but see what they (Chinese) are doing. [People of] China, with discipline, believing in themselves and what they can do, are on top there.