From: NOAH EBIJE, Kaduna
Senator Mohammed Muhkar Aruwa was a two-term Senator and represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the Red Chamber between 1999 and 2003. He was also the governorship candidate of All Nigeria Peoples Party, Kaduna State, in the 2007 and 2011 elections. In this interview with Daily Sun, Aruwa declares that the issue of who will succeed President Good luck Jonathan is nothing to fret about, as he believes the North will decide. According to him, “As long as Nigeria is concerned, the number is here in the north. The leadership resides here. To take it anywhere else, there has to be consensus and agreement of people from the north. There is no question about that. It is a question of understanding the politics of democracy.’’ Excerpts:
Why did you decide to leave the ANPP?
I have the choice and the right to leave. Should I broadcast my right, what belongs to me? Who did I consult before I joined them? Nobody. I consulted myself and I decided. Now, I have also decided and in the course of my decision, I am consulting with the people I know and whoever wants to go with me is welcome. It is not by force and there is no reason why I should give explanation why I am leaving. It is unfair.
It appears that the level of reported corruption at the National Assembly is much pronounced now than during your days there. What do you think?
When we were at the National Assembly, there was corruption but nobody drummed it as it is being done now. Corruption has been there right from the military era. As long as there are civil servants in Nigeria, corruption will never be stamped out of Nigeria. People talk about corruption and relate it to politicians but the biggest corruption lies with the civil servants. No politician will go to an office and start corruption without those people he met there putting him through what has to be done. If a minister is appointed for a particular ministry, he does not know what is what and where is what. The civil servants are his coaches. They alone know the tricks and intrigues to get to the corrupt means. I am not saying that politicians are not corrupt but the biggest ones are the civil servants. So, during our time, civil servants were also there. Those who decided to follow their sermons got corrupted and those who did not remained uncorrupt. It is the same thing up till now. As long as we leave the civil service intact, we would be chasing shadow.
Would you say the Executive is more corrupt than the Legislature?
The Executive arm carries along civil servants. How do you perpetuate corruption without having an insider whether Executive, Legislature or Judiciary? All the arms of government are corrupt and the corruption spans from those workers called civil servants in the various organs.
How then do you begin to reform the civil service to eliminate the corruption?
The first thing is to look at the civil service rule and amend it because it is too archaic and the powers given to those officers, from deputy director up to the Permanent Secretary, is so dangerous. They can make or mar a minister no matter how powerful that minister may be. If he does not follow their way, they know the way to plot his downfall. They are the ones behind the big corruption. They should be graded and rated by performance and transparency and they should not be promoted indiscriminately. A civil servant should have a record of what he has done since he joined the service and how long can a civil servant be in a juicy office. Where you have a director for donkey years in the ministry, he knows how every kobo comes in and how it will be spent and how every kobo will not be spent and how it can be taken out. They become consultants to the politicians. Some politicians go into that office without knowing a thing about corruption but by and large they get corrupted. So, first, reform the civil service, make those offices unattractive and see if it does not address corruption.
Are we expecting a more vibrant Aruwa now that you are joining another political party?
Aruwa will never change as far as the interest of Nigerians and Nigeria is concerned. Wherever I see wrongdoing, I will expose it. When I hear about wrongdoing and confirm it, I will expose it. I do not witch-hunt, I do not envy and I know that collectively if we put our heads together with the fear of God, this nation has great things to offer everybody. But there must be the fear of God, transparency, the love of one another, regardless of creed, tribe or religion. That is when we will have the kind of Nigeria Aruwa will die for.
Given your experience in the National Assembly, what is your view on the purported move by the House of Representatives to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan over alleged non-implementation of the budget?
Impeachment has its causes and the word impeachment should not be taken lightly because once it is sounded, it must be followed by facts. Members of the House do not represent themselves. They represent all of us. If they choose to go that way, they should first of all convince those they represent as to the grounds for the proposed impeachment. But if it is non-implementation of the budget, then it is a non issue. It does not have the weight to impeach the President. But the budget is law and non-implementation constitutes a violation of the law.
Is he implementing the budget?
Yes, they claim that he has implemented about 50 per cent of the budget. I am looking at the core issue that justifies an impeachment and certainly, partial implementation of the budget cannot be enough reason to impeach the President.
Some other people are also suggesting that the President should be impeached for his alleged inability to handle the Boko Haram issue….
I think it is everybody’s responsibility to handle Boko Haram. It is not the responsibility of the President alone. He did not create Boko Haram. Did he? And he is not happy with what they are doing in a country that he is the President. There are issues that the National Assembly can take the president on but certainly, not these ones. Everybody is doing his very best to get to the bottom of this unfortunate development and how do they want the President to handle Boko Haram? Is there a set rule of handling Boko Haram that Jonathan has failed to follow? I am not trying to defend Jonathan but there are so many other issues that affect Nigerians and Boko Haram is just one of them. Is that what the National Assembly should be telling us now? Are there no other core issues, which they need to bring to light? But it appears the Boko Haram issue has apparently gone out of hand. The main job of terrorists all over the world is to make governance impossible. Under the circumstances, the government is doing its best but maybe there are some approaches that need to be re-examined.
Will impeachment solve the Boko Haram problem?
Certainly not. There are issues that the National Assembly should talk about and they are not talking about them. You and I and other people know about Boko Haram and the menace and harm they have continued to cause and it is not new. When a catastrophe of this nature begins to brew, we all turn the other way and begin to bring religion into it. But they have now proved to the whole world that they are not after Christians only. Christians and Muslims, nobody is spared and we all believe it is a Muslim sect. So, the focus of the authorities had gone to the wrong direction not until the Boko Haram started planting bombs in the mosques, planting bombs in churches. So, they have told us that they are not what the security people think they are. They have proved that they want to make governance impossible whether you are a Christian or Muslim. So, is that why you want to empanel some people to impeach the President? But the President was quoted sometime ago as saying that members of Boko haram have infiltrated his administration yet he refused to name those involved. I support those asking him to name them. But you see, initially, nobody took this Boko Haram as serious as we later found out. We had thought it was something that was hanging out in a section of the country and that it would remain there. I am sure the President made that statement out of context because for a President to say that they infiltrated his government and was not able to fish them out of his government, leaves a lot to be desired. But I feel it was a slip of the tongue. They did not give him the correct picture of what they call Boko Haram in the first place. But now that he has realized that they are not what we thought they are, he should listen to Nigerians much more than to those so-called advisers. He should not enclose himself with the very few advisers. He should listen to every statement made by majority of Nigerians and have them analyzed and follow them up. But where the sources of information are limited to a section of the people who do not even mix with the people, then there is bound to be problem. I feel sorry for the President and until he gets out of that cage and starts listening to Nigerians, he may never get it right.
Some people also believe that activities of Boko Haram may deny the north the presidency in 2015. Do you hold the same view?
No. How do they identify themselves and how many of them are registered voters? The only authorities that can deny any section of the presidency are the people of Nigeria and it is a matter of votes and number. What the north needs is to unite. Once the north is united, the leadership of this country is nothing to fight over. It is naturally residents of the north that will determine where and who becomes the President, if democracy is about number. But where the north is not united, the results will be scattered. You do not wrestle for leadership; the number gives it to you. Anybody from any part of the country can be President as long as there is consensus. As long as Nigeria is concerned, the number is here in the north. The leadership resides here. To take it anywhere else, there has to be consensus and agreement of people from the north. There is no question about that. It is a question of understanding the politics of democracy. But I am not saying that power should reside in the north forever.
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