Chief Guy Ikokwu, lawyer, Second Republic politician and former Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra State is worried at the current state of the country and why restructuring is urgently needed.
He told The Niche that Nigeria is at the brink and may cease to exist beyond the end of 2017 if the system continues to run the way it is now.
Most Nigerians seem to be dissatisfied with what is happening in the country, both politically and economically. Some have 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 wrong doing, 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 and the reason for this tolerance is that they hope things should 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 brinks if things are not done properly we shall fall over the precipice. We are talking of months, we are not talking of years. I repeat, we are talking of months if Nigeria system is not immediately changed by Nigerians not by foreigners, Nigeria will fall over the brink and if it falls 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. The system which we operate in Nigeria even if former US President Obama comes here to operate it, he will fail. Without disrespect but with every 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. That is how bad our system is. If I give you a car with an engine but no engine oil and I put only one litre of petrol and give it to you and say that’s a nice car, a brand new one please you can go to Ibadan now without telling you that there are no filling stations from here (Lagos) to Ibadan.
You start the car it starts and you don’t look at the gage for petrol because the electrical mechanism is faulty so you won’t know how many gallons of petrol in it. But the car is a beautiful brand new one. You start it and it did because it has a battery that can start it and off you go but will you reach Ibadan with one litre of petrol and with no filling station on the road? You will not get to Ibadan and when you get stuck on the way, armed robbers, kidnappers etc. will be there to feast on you. That is what is happening to Nigeria today. But if you get even a second hand car which is maintained, the plugs are ok and you put 40 litre of fuel and you build petrol stations on the way, even though it’s not a brand new car, the battery is working, with enough fuel, you can go to Ibadan with assurance and gradually you reach your destination. There is great danger ahead if we continue this way.
There is this clamour for restructuring Nigeria, do you support it?
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 has 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; it is a military democracy if you like. From the time 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 again and you know they are not trained for civil rule or democracy. The military system has been that of command and control, one man giving orders and others to obey. And when you have such a system running for 50 years it changes the psyche of the people.
We have been trying to configure during this 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. Late military Head of state, Sani Abacha, tried it and wanted to be the life President for Nigeria. I think it was under Abacha that we had the six geo-political zones but Abacha was told to make the six geo-political zones federating units and give them their powers but he said, why? He said they were only for appointments not for development, so what is appointment? Appointment means individual gratification and this individuals are contented and want the status quo to remain. They don’t want it changed and could do anything to maintain the status quo.
Then President Olusegun Obasanjo came in, of course it is common knowledge that he would have been killed by Abacha after being accused of treasonable felony but for God’s grace over his life and that of those officers, colleagues he knew in the military that helped him to survive.
Obasanjo was released after the death of Abacha and those who released him, his military counterparts, prompted him up 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 then attached to it another clause: his third term agenda. It was the national assembly that shot it down and insisted that there will be no third term.
It was Obasanjo that brought his own attachment, Goodluck Jonathan, to rule Nigeria from Bayelsa where he was a deputy governor. Jonathan was paired with Yar’Adua and we know the remaining story.
Jonathan started realizing 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 one, it cut across board. They made recommendations, passed resolutions and at the end of the day over 600 resolutions were passed by consensus.
Here comes in Buhari, his second coming, we knew what he did in his first coming but he said he has changed from his military garb and nature, a changed person and now a democrat. It’s possible he has changed but if you take his mid-term performance and analyze it the conclusion is that it has not been well, he has 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 to roost that is the situation now.
How can you give my child 200 score for him to pass into a university and he scores even more than that, getting 220 and you deny him admission and his classmate from the other 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 any more, that is why we are where we are now. We are at the final crossroad of Nigeria. Did you see what happened at the Senate? Instead of each senator standing up and saying exactly where he or she is 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 don’t know where you are going to.
Nigeria is on the wrong road that will get us to nowhere, if we continue this way it will take us to our doom, to our destruction. We have to turn back, reverse and watch the sign posts on the way.
If you refuse to use the sign post in a land that you don’t know where the roads go to 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 peoples 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 they are using it, 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 that the referendum or plebiscite is not corrupted. If it is free and fair not the one you vote and you get another result or 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 etc. meet, and take a position and the South, their governors, royal fathers, law makers, politicians, religious leaders etc. also meet and take a position and later they come together to meet and agree and take a position on critical issues, and the two groups tell the National Assembly and the state Assemblies to implement it, let’s say within 2 Weeks they will implement it. They will have no choice but to implement it immediately.
What is it that have 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 etc. these other countries have reached the climax of their own civilization 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 etc 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 Mao Tse-tung but see what they are doing. China with discipline, believing in themselves and what they can do are on top there.
