Professor of Political Science and Secretary to Edo State Government, Julius Ihonvbere, who served as Special Adviser on Policy and Project Monitoring to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, talks to Special Correspondent, TITUS OISE, on his ambition for the Senate and, his pro-democracy days among other issues…
Agenda for the Senate
Based on my understanding of how the legislature works as a political scientist, a politician and someone who had been in Abuja, not in the corridors of power but inside power, and who had had to relate with the National Assembly on daily basis, I know Edo North deserves better. The people of Edo North have a very rich history of making far-reaching interventions and engagements in the course of nation building. We are a hardworking and proud people; we don’t shy away from challenges. Our history is replete with numerous reports of engagement with critical issues of politics and society. I believe that we need somebody with intellectual depth, somebody with a robust world view, somebody with capacity and capability to do research and generate people-friendly bills, and someone who understands the intra and inter-political engagements in Abuja. I had done that at the level of the presidency, so I know that terrain very well.
I also believe and I truly mean it that if you don’t have the history, you do not have a record of commitment to pro-people issues: issues of gender equality, protecting the girl child, environmental protection issues of human rights, pro-democracy disposition, issues of articulating politics around questions of transparency, accountability and social justice, which you cannot learn in Abuja. You cannot learn how to ride a bicycle when you have become old, crippled and blind; you cannot climb a tree from the top. I believe that between me and other two contestants, there is a gap of more than 10 per cent in terms of records of struggle in this country, whether as student or as a university teacher. I was secretary, then vice chairman and chairman of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU); a human rights activist – a member of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR); and a pro-democracy activist with the likes of Anthony Enahoro, Kayode Fayemi, Professor Wole Soyinka, Professor Sola Adeyeye who is now a senator, Bola Tinubu, and General Alani Akinrinade, to the point where I had to spend 12 and half years in exile. Even there, we still organised to fight, including featuring on Radio Kudirat International on a regular basis. Not one of my opponents can stand anywhere. These are credentials that stand me out as someone who understands the critical issues in the dynamics and dialectics of history of politics of society and of power.
Power blocs as stumbling block
I think in the All Progressives Congress (APC), history is on our side. We have gone through nominations for councillors and chairmen; we’ve done congresses. There were some fallouts that we were not too comfortable about, but we adjusted quickly and went ahead. I think we learnt serious lessons from that and the governor has publicly said he was not going to interfere; that people should go to the field, and it is cheaper. We are committed to bringing out the very best. We are going to be totally opposed to violence not only by way of providing security but also by ensuring that the way the primary election is conducted will give room for it. We have such instance in this state where the gubernatorial election (2011) was conducted and not a shot was fired; nobody was killed even in my own local government where you had a deputy gubernatorial candidate in the opposition party.
Decline in party supremacy
I believe that it is changing and I believe it is a good paradigm change because, for instance, in the days of Obafemi Awolowo, we all know how Ambrose Alli became governor. The order came right from Ikenne and others had to find their own accommodation within. My belief is that the party structure plays within a platform on which the members can compete within a laid down guideline; but today it is very difficult. Even at that, today even in APC, when we hold expanded caucus meetings, it is the party chairman that presides because it is a party affair. But the parties are still fairly weak because they depend on the executive for funding. Then, you cannot claim absolute autonomy. Many of the aspirants now have never paid a kobo to their wards. But I am sure, down the road, the parties will mature and stand on their own.
Right now, if you watch, most people do not even know what party platform is. It is only APC that is trying to do that now with this Governors Forum Lecture Series where they pick an issue, appoint guest speakers and discuss it in detail, and come out with recommendation that comes like a Grundnorm.
Where party supremacy works is after you had been elected and party says you are going to block this budget and you go against it, then they can say you are going against the party. But when you are competing like this, the best the party can do is to set up general guidelines and ensure that nobody violates it.
Withdrawal of House of Representatives Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal’s security aides
I believe it was not properly handled. Generally, people should allow for contestation both of ideas and of persons and let superior argument win at all times. This is clearly a case of using big hammer to hit the floor before the fly you wanted to hit landed on it. You just cracked the floor for no reason.
Aspirants paying huge fees to get nomination forms
Women didn’t have to pay a penny. How many women bothered to go and take the forms? But even if they did across the country, there are still moral and socio-political obstacles put in their way to make sure they didn’t get to where they want to. I believe that the charges were too high and they simply restrict competition to those who are wealthy. I believe that as our politics develops, as we grow and serious-minded people begin to weigh the ideas properly before going to take the form, the forms will come down.
Politicians and name dropping
I think it is only politicians who are weak and empty-chested who have no ability to articulate an agenda of their own that engage in the idea. For me, it has not been a problem because part of my programme requires me to go from local government to local government and to meet the people, not just one person. If you have a clear focus, you have an agenda to the people, you should not be bothered. We have examples in this state where some very powerful politicians said don’t vote for this candidate and the people said no, we must vote for the person. People use the name of the president, president’s wife and all of that.
Re-aligning with the progressives
When that man (General Sani Abacha – I don’t always like calling his name) died, General Abdulsalami Abubakar came to the United States and wanted to meet the leaders of the opposition. Wole Soyinka, Senator Sola Adeyeye, Professor Bolaji Aluko and I met him and he said we should come back home. But we said ‘no, we don’t trust you military, that is how you will lure us back and then execute us one after another’. We told him our names were still at the airports and he gave us his phone number and said if we came home and we are arrested, we should call him directly. But we had a meeting in London with Enahoro, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Adeyeye, Akinrinade, Tinubu, Fayemi and many others. We were split into two; I belonged to the group that said after what they had done to us, I wouldn’t trust them. It is difficult for the military to give birth to a reasonable democracy. Tinubu led the group that said whether they would kill him or not, he was going back. He led that group and they came home.
But for me, I was working at the Ford Foundation in New York and I was running a programme on Pluralism and Social Justice. When I put in my resignation, they prevailed on me that it would disrupt my programme, a multi-million dollar programme in Asia, Africa, Europe, in America and South America; that I should spend one more year to let my grants mature before coming to Nigeria.
After one year, I came back. By that time, Tinubu had become governor of Lagos State and, to a large extent, I was his informal adviser, and the Ford Foundation had given me a grant of $500,000 to set up a Centre for Constitutionalism and Governance because that was what I was doing.
Before I came back, Kanu Agabi had moved from the Ministry of Justice to that of Solid Minerals as Minister. But I had made a grant to FIDA (International Federation of Women Lawyers) to hold a conference when he was in the Justice Ministry and he came to deliver the keynote address where he insulted everybody, including the Ford Foundation that provided the money. On my flight back to New York, he was on board, so I sat with him and I said look this constitution you are amending, it won’t work and I said the days when you get a few lawyers and politicians and you put them in a room and they would review a constitution were over; these days, it has to be consultative, participatory, transparent, and it has to go to the grassroots. I told him how it was done in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana and South Africa. He was amazed and said I should come back to Nigeria. First, he wrote me a letter of apology on behalf of Nigeria and how I was treated and was put in exile. By that time, Obasanjo was in government and I could come in.