Pope or President? Choose One

Simon Kolawole Live!: Email: simonkolawole@thisdayonline.com


One of my favourite pastimes, if you care, is listening to Nigerians discuss their leaders. It is always interesting. It has become more interesting with the advent of internet blogsites where people say whatever they want—whether or not it is true, whether or not it makes sense. Just write whatever you like. It’s a free world. Abuse anybody. Insult a whole ethnic group and call them a bunch of parasites or scammers or cowards. Have fun. All is fair. Some blogsites are so negative you can never read any positive comments there. If you try to make reasonable contributions, the way others would swoop on you would make you realise you don’t belong to that community. 

As Dr. Wale Adebanwi wrote many years ago, “it is treasonable to be reasonable in an unreasonable society”. Those bloggers want blood and it is only blood that can satisfy them. If you live outside Nigeria and rely on this platform to make up your mind, you will conclude that there is no hope for this country. Everybody in Nigeria is a thief. Everybody is incompetent. Everybody is hopeless. No governor is doing well. No minister is doing well. No commissioner is doing well. Everybody is a rogue from head to toe. Nothing is working in Nigeria. It is Armageddon everywhere. Nothing good can ever come out of this country. These would be your conclusions.
As we get closer to the presidential election—which is considered to be the most critical—I have taken time to observe the comments being passed on the candidates by the various segments of the society, both on internet and non-internet platforms. I find those comments quite amusing. At the end of the day, nobody is fit to be president of Nigeria! Maybe we would have to go and plead for the Pope to take over—that is if the Pope himself is good enough! Nigerians take the candidates one after the other and tear them to pieces. What exactly do we want?

President Goodluck Jonathan, they say, is too soft, too humble. I heard people criticise him for allowing governors in his party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to hold him to ransom in the days before the presidential primary. He should have insisted on having his way on the order of primaries! He should have used the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to deal with them! This was the same reason President Olusegun Obasanjo was vilified—for using the EFCC against his political opponents. So what exactly do we want? Jonathan is also accused of not solving all of Nigeria’s problems since he became president last year. We expect him to, in one year, build all the roads that were not built in 50 years, magically turn around the education sector that collapsed systematically for decades, provide uninterrupted power supply that has been our headache for decades and so on and so forth. Because he has not done these, then he is not qualified to
be president. Don’t vote for him!

On the other hand, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), is guilty of being too straightforward! He is not a politician! He is too rigid! He is a dictator! He belongs to the past! His ideas are archaic! So don’t vote for Buhari! Malam Ibrahim Shekarau of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has not achieved anything in his life! He is a religious extremist! He is just a smooth talker because of his teaching background! Don’t vote for Shekarau! What exactly do we want?
Malam Nuhu Ribadu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) is too inexperienced to rule Nigeria! He has never contested for any political office before so he has no chance! He was Obasanjo’s attack dog with which the former president whipped his political opponents! He’s an associate of corrupt politicians! Don’t vote for Ribadu! We also dismiss Professor Pat Utomi, the candidate of Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP), with a wave of the hand. Let him go and contest as a senator first! He is wasting his time! He can only speak good English! He has nothing more to offer! Nigerians, what exactly do we want?

To be honest, I myself also say some of these things once in a while, but at the back of my mind, I always recognise the absolute reality of life that we can never get a perfect person to rule Nigeria. We can never have a designer president. There is no perfect candidate anywhere. But I also accept that some of these questions and issues being raised are legitimate and should actually be raised in a democratic setting, for the sake of getting quality leaders to pilot our affairs. However, I believe we are so negative that we hardly see anything good in others. We must accept the undeniable fact that whoever emerges president will have one weakness or the other, one fault or the other.

My resolve, which I would love to recommend to Nigerians, is that we have to constructively engage whoever wins the presidential election. We have to devise ways, in our various corners, to help in the governance process, so that our dear country can progress. If our real interest is the development of Nigeria, it shouldn’t matter to us if our preferred candidate wins or not. Somebody must win and somebody must lose. Rather, we should be concerned with how we can make sure good governance is delivered to Nigerians within the realities we find ourselves. We must pursue our aspirations for Nigeria within this natural fact: that we would never produce a perfect president. Such is life.


Thumbs up for MM Foundation
Amid the hullabaloo on presidential debates, a landmark event took place in Abuja early this month which might have escaped the attention of many Nigerians. It was the “Policy Dialogue with Presidential Candidates” organised by the Murtala Muhammed Foundation at the Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja. The chief executive of the foundation, Mrs Aisha Oyebode (Muhammed’s daughter, in case you’ve forgotten), explained her dream thus: the objective was to get the presidential candidates and Nigerians to address issues rather than personalities in the run-up to the 2011 presidential poll. She said the Foundation believes it is time Nigerians paid more attention to critical national issues bordering on infrastructure, education, health and poor quality of governance rather than the perennial resort to primordial and personality politics. Well said.

In a country where the people lack the basic things of life, we seem to have concluded that the tribal marks of the president should take precedent over anything else. The direct implication is that the serious issues to be debated are often relegated to the background. It was therefore refreshing and encouraging to see that the non-governmental sector has taken it upon itself to engage the politicians in a dialogue rather than diatribe, asking them questions one by one on critical areas. Delegates to the two-day event included members of the diplomatic corps, academics, representatives of civil society organisations, government officials and civil servants, politicians, members of the National Youth Service Corps, undergraduates, serving and retired military personnel, international organisations, campaign organisations and the media.

Three presidential candidates participated: Malam Ibrahim Shekarau of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Malam Nuhu Ribadu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Professor Pat Utomi of the Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP). President Jonathan (PDP) and Buhari (CPC) were absent. One by one the candidates were taken to task by the panel. The key issues discussed were Economic Growth, Infrastructure & Homeland Security; Governance; Education & Health; Food Security & Environment; and International Relations. I have gone through the report again and I can confidently say their contributions were mainly impressive. Since nobody has monopoly of ideas, I suggest that the report be made available to whoever is going to form the next government. The most important thing is for Nigeria to be great—it doesn’t matter whose ideas are adopted!

Once again, congratulations to the Murtala Muhammed Foundation. It’s a good beginning. Hopefully, by the next election, politicians in particular and Nigerians in general would have got used to the idea of multiple platforms for candidates to ventilate their views and market their ideas to the various communities in Nigeria—youth, NGO, organised private sector and the popular media.


And Four Other Things...
Tit for Tat
Not surprisingly, three presidential candidates have pulled out of Tuesday’s TV debate with President Goodluck Jonathan in what you can describe as tit-for-tat. Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), Malam Nuhu Ribadu and Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, who all participated in the NN24 debate, were miffed that Jonathan stayed away on the excuse that his campaign schedule was too tight. The three presidential candidates said two things that you cannot fault: one, they too had a tight schedule but had to create the time to attend the debate; two, the president did not as much as offer a word of apology for not attending. It’s a shame that for the fourth general election in a row, Nigerians will not be privileged to watch their top presidential candidates debate. In 1999, Chief Olu Falae did it alone. In 2003, President Olusegun Obasanjo boycotted again. In 2007, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua also boycotted. Shame, really.

Shekarau and Kano
Space constraint meant I had to skip certain aspects of the presidential debate in my overview last week. The most unpardonable omission was Malam Ibrahim Shekarau’s take on the disappearance of ethno-religious riots in Kano State since 2003 when he became governor. Kano used to be the hotbed. Any little riot in any state was always replied in kind in Kano. Isn’t it amazing then that all the Jos killings of the last two years have not had any ripple effect on Kano? The secret, Shekarau said, is that he runs an all-inclusive government where you will find people from other parts of the country, including a Christian, in his cabinet. So everyone has a sense of belonging. This creates room for integration and understanding. As someone who is really interested in national integration, I find Shekarau’s explanation very encouraging. I have always believed that we can live in “peace and unity” in Nigeria if we find the right formula. Nigerians
don’t hate one another despite our obvious differences. This I know very well. It is the wrong application of politics that revs up tension all the time.

Gaffe Galore
In an attempt to point out the gaffes during the NN24 TV debate, I committed my own in more than equal measure. One, I misquoted Ribadu as saying the North-west had not produced a president. He actually said North-east. But the other fact is correct: Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa—from the North-east—was the first chief executive of Nigeria (1960 to 1966). Two, the minimum age for governors is 35, not 40 as I claimed. Finally, as a matter of clarification, when Ribadu said he was not a one-state person, he was referring to Shekarau, who is believed to be limited to only Kano State, and not Buhari, who, at least in my own calculation, has large following in quite an impressive number of states. Thank God I’m not a presidential candidate—my own gaffes would be uncountable! (Don’t laugh).

NFF Again
Is anybody surprised that the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) almost got Nigeria involved in another mess with FIFA this weekend? NFF invited Victor Moses, a gifted footballer who has dual British-Nigerian nationality, to play for the Super Eagles against Ethiopia today, without going through the due process. Minus the fact that the application for Moses to switch “football nationality” was late (he has already represented England in age-group competitions), FIFA needs a letter from the English FA confirming that Moses never played for them at senior level as well as a consent letter from Moses himself. NFF provided none of these. We would have been docked three points if we had gone ahead to field him. And nobody seemed to know this at NFF! Incredible

The Poverty Conspiracy

Nigeria is determined to be poor.  The evidence, at least to me, and quite a few others is overwhelming.  Elite culture, the politics of the land, citizenship behaviour or lack of it and unjust institutions, orient our endowed land, it seems, towards poverty and the strife that comes with it. 

The real problem is how this determination is likely to harm others and leave a region and race prostrate.  As the wind of change, beginning in what is, ironically, Africa’s most competitive economy, Tunisia, spreads, it is hard not to wonder about the choices that make us poor in the face of plenty and how to avert the coming anarchy.

Who are the conspirators in Nigeria’s war of attrition against progress.  I like very much to reflect on the views of Financial Times editorial staff person, the Economic Historian Alan Beattie in his book, False Economy, A Surprising Economic History of the World. 

  Beattie makes the point that the success,  and failure of nations is not the result of one pivotal event or the other but of a series of events which show that choices made, rather than some destiny, is accountable for the state of prosperity, or progress, in that sovereign entity.
Beattie picks one of my favourite examples, the divergence of the paths of Argentina and the United States. 

How did Argentina, competing and  more or less at par with the United States, and until the 1930s, one of the top 10 economies in the World, drop from first world to third world, as the US went on to become the world’s preeminent economy.  To quote Beattie from False Economy:  “There was no individual event at which Argentina’s at which Argentina’s future was irrevocably determined or its path set on a permanent divergence from that of the United States of America.  But there was a series of mistakes, and missteps that fit a general pattern.  The countries were dealt similar hands but played them differently”.

I am of a similar view as Beattie, and as such have dedicated the last two decades of my life, not to find the “dam event” in Arnold Toynbee’s frustrated depiction of how history is chronicled, but to identify those mistakes and missteps that have together led to a separation in the fortunes between once similar nations as Nigeria, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. 

With Nigeria as constant, I have tried to understand what went wrong, using its “development twin” Indonesia, which at the time Nigeria was hailed as a coming great power in the 1960s was written off by Nobel Prize winning economist Gunnar Myrdal in his Asian Drama as locked in the intrinsic stagnation.  For great clarity and the impact of leadership, I have compared Nigeria with Singapore which as Argentina was moving from first world to the third did the opposite journey from Third world to the first under Lee Kuan Yew, knowing that in the typical Nigerian manner, the size of Singapore will be used as excuse. 

But very often I have settled for the example of Malaysia which is somewhere in between or turned to South Korea to point to the difference attitudes to education and entrepreneurship can make. Whichever way you turn it, Nigeria is poor, and likely to continue so, except if radical transformation takes place, because of the missteps we take.  It should be fair therefore to say that judgement will come to this land and these times from global journalism, the anger of our children, the writers of history and ultimately, for people of faith, the creator of us all.

The trouble with Nigeria is that many think it will come mainly to politicians who have done a lot, no doubt, to damage our lives, either from greed or ignorance.  I see it coming to most of us; to the businessmen who will not lift their purses to encourage change, perhaps because their personal fortunes come from the misfortune of the absence of level playing fields; to middle class people so protective of their Land Cruisers they dare not speak truth to power; to policemen who allow ruling parties to convert them to uniformed thugs of the party, and judges who corruptly adjudicate; and even opposition politicians who see more of their ego than prospects of rescuing their country from bad governance when collaboration talks come up. 

I think history has the capacity to bring us all to judgement.  It will be deserved, but I worry more for the judgement of our children who, looking at Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and others may visit this generation that has voted to keep Nigeria poor, inclined towards the road to Somalia, and testing of Robert Kaplan’s Coming Anarchy; with a fire of judgement that can burn really wild.  I have chosen not to engage with the current pastime of guessing whether the fire will come sooner than later, and those who argue whether it can happen here or not.  I have opted instead to stay with how we will be judged and perhaps with providing an early draft historian can consider.

When I said Nigeria was determined to be poor, it was with a sense for the choices we have made repeatedly that set us on the course of damaging the dignity of the human person.  Speaking to a group of friends in Washington D.C. last week I had talked about how my scholarship has profited from activism in civil society and eventually as a political actor.

  It all has set me up on a course of inquiry in which my next book project has a rather peculiar title:  Nigeria – The Pursuit of Poverty.  In this track, I have found great fascination in how a fatalist streak of expecting Nigeria to be great, big and prosperous as a matter of course and God’s goodness, on the part of leading citizens and politicians.  This  goes on even as their actions lead logically to expecting the opposite consequence.

While  as this provides me good feed stock as a academic anxious to analyze the evolution of economic intercourse, it frustrates me as a politician and social engineer desiring “the end of poverty” in a Jeffrey Sachs sense of the usage.  As a citizen and patriot it brings pain to see our doings sacrifice the dreams of the founding fathers as I struggle to understand the depletion of foreign reserves. Collapsing infrastructure etc.

I stay awake sometimes thinking which way tomorrow’s economic historian interested more in systems, processes and institutions, in the manner of the Nobel Laureate, Douglass North, in his seminal book Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance   will treat our times, as different from the one looking for the damn event like military rule to explain how we dropped from forward looking to backwardness.  More importantly I wonder if Nigeria will tomorrow be the example of Haiti I use today when I talk about decline.  It shocks many to know that the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti, once had the highest per capita income in the world. 

As it happened to Haiti in the 19 Century, so it  happened to Argentina in the twentieth century.  With predictions from the US global trends surveys about possible failed state status for Nigeria, Kaplan’s vision of regional descent into anarchy etc, I ask myself if Nineveh is possible.  Can a serious elite emerge in Nigeria that says No as the message of the Prophet Jonah comes and recants its ways steering the country away from a disaster foretold.  As evidence exists that corruption, and state capture by the simple minded, enshrined in the culture of elite accommodation in the sharing of economic rent which the ruling party, the PDP symbolizes, are the main culprits, I wonder about a Mea cupla that can save.

There are many reasons I sleep badly.  One is watching former IMF Chief Economist, Raghuram Rajan speak in the documentary “inside job” about disaster foretold that became the global financial meltdown.  I had loved the thesis advanced by him and his old University of Chicago colleague Luigi Zingales in their book: Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists a few years earlier.  Like North they had preached that institutions were the key stone as I have for years. 

I lament that as US President Barrack Obama pointed out in Ghana Africa needs strong institutions, not strongmen. The institutions are weak and art weakened daily in Nigeria.  I look at my people and they are damaging our institutions and waiting for a Messiah.  Thank God I am not a Prophet.
•Prof. Pat Utomi

Why I’ll Serve for Only One Term -Buhari

A former Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the forthcoming elections, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), has said he will serve for only one term, if elected in April. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Sunday Trust in Kaduna last week, General Buhari said that by the time he would be completing his first term of four years, he would have attained the age of 73, and would prefer to quit the stage rather than perpetuate himself in office.

 

He said as he planned to serve for just one term, he would urgently tackle two major issues, if elected: “There are two issues and I have said it in one sentence. Security and power. This country has to be secured and managed. People in Nigeria must not go about fearing that they would be abducted. You must not be afraid to the point that you can’t drive from Kaduna to Kano any time of the day. If you are in Lagos, you should have jobs to the point that you can afford to have three shifts in a day...”

General Buhari added further that, “We have to revive the electricity sector so that people will have access to power to carry out their businesses. Others include the roads, the railways, the shipping lines, etc. We used to have all these things. In spite of what we earned in the last eleven years, the whole infrastructure has already collapsed.”

The CPC presidential candidate stated that his choice of the leader of the Latter Rain Assembly in Lagos, Pastor Tunde Bakare, as his running mate in the forthcoming election was not as a result of any religious concern, but for the commitment Pastor Bakare showed in his presidential ambition.

General Buhari said the difficult negotiation for alliance with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) could be fruitful even with Pastor Bakare as running mate, considering the fact that there were power-sharing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which should have been considered by all the parties to the alliance.

He told Sunday Trust that: “There are questions of appointments, if we win the elections and form the government. The only thing you are talking about is that of the presidential candidate. There are other things, power sharing formula and all those. Things can be worked out. There are working documents developed by each of the parties.”

(General Buhari’s interview on Pages 5, 6, 7)

How do you feel running for the presidency the third time since 2003?

I feel more or less contented that in each of the cases you mentioned, we followed the system. We did them with integrity. You can see that the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has had a convention and we did it very transparently. Everybody lined up. Delegates came and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) supervised the process and, in the end, the question of I, being the presidential candidate, was ratified by the convention. A new executive was elected very transparently and there was no incident at all.

You said there was no incident, but your friend and associate, Chief Mike Ahamba, wasn’t happy?

He gave a press conference and since he didn’t talk to me personally before he went to the press, I, too, replied him through the press. The problem is I, as the chairman of the Board of Trustees, and according to the constitution of our party, important decisions to be taken are referred to me. But I always require that these issues are sent to me in writing to ensure they are on record, instead of somebody forgetting and denying them. The party offices were shared among the six geopolitical zones. This will ensure that there are people who represent each of the geopolitical zones. When the arrangement was sent to me, it was from the executive of the party. There were no names put against any position, whether Chairmen, Secretary, Treasurer, etc. All they said was a particular position should go to a particular geopolitical zone. They claimed to have done it for the sake of federal character. I said, okay, I accepted it. I didn’t know that Chief Mike wanted the chairmanship of the party to be zoned to the South-East. Unfortunately, the executive of the party zoned it to the South-South. Since it was the executive that did it, nobody can claim that I ordered it, or that I was a party to it. Even if it were zoned to the South-East, one thing could have happened. There are five states in the South-East: Anambra, Imo, Enugu, Abia and Ebonyi States. Mike happens to come from Imo State. There could have been people from each of these states to compete with him. It could have been anybody’s guess. Anybody could have won. For him to be so upset to think that somebody in the executive of the party zoned him out of the chairmanship, I think is not right.

Chief Ahamba is very close to you. Are you now saying he never told you he was interested in the Chairmanship of the CPC?

He said he was interested, but that is not how I operate. Mike knows better than anybody, I should say, since we have been with him since 2003. I will not deliberately zone the chairmanship to the South-East so that Mike becomes the chairman of the party. If you follow my antecedents, you will know that my running mates in 2003 and 2007 were from the South-East. For anybody to make any skeptical suggestion that he was zoned out is unfair.

But you are not choosing anybody from the South-East this time?

That is up to the party.

Are you so distanced from the party?

You see, that was what drove me out of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). It is what the party decides. I have to be given the liberty to decide who should be my Number Two. I must have trust and confidence in him. I must know the antecedents of the person. Look at what happened between 2007 and now. If you look at what has happened to President Goodluck Jonathan, that is fate. He was deputy governor, governor, vice president, acting president and now president. That is fate.

What lessons did you learn from your experience in 2003 and 2007, and which will guide you in the contest this time around?

The lessons I learnt made me to get out of the ANPP.  The ANPP didn’t say they would not give me the ticket, but I mentioned the events that took place that necessitated my exit from the ANPP, and I have said it so many times. In 2003, we were in court for 30 months. In 2007, for 20 months, we were in court. Between these two elections we were in court for 50 months!

You were abandoned by the ANPP during the 2007 court case?

Yes, that’s just one of the issues. I said I wouldn’t go to court after the 2007 elections, but the party said I contested under its banner, therefore, I must go to court. They were right. I said, let us have seperate legal teams, because it was allowed by the Electoral Act. Let the party take its own legal team, and I, as presidential candidate, I will take mine. Virtually, the impossible happened. While we were still in court, they withdrew the case without even saying ‘goodbye’ to me. Now, the implications of that are what most people do not think of.

What are the implications?

The implications are that if I hadn’t my own legal team, that would have been the end of the case. There would have been nothing I could do, constitutionally. People wouldn’t think of that as a real ANPP affair. People would say, ‘he must have been given something. He must have been settled.’ Nigerians will be quick to believe that. Luckily, I had my own legal team, so I continued. The second thing they did was to get into the so-called Government of National Unity (GNU), and they are still there. The third thing was that, they didn’t consult the constitutional structure of the party to do all they did. They didn’t consult the National Working Committee, which was supposed to be running the party on a day-to-day basis. They didn’t consult the caucus of the party, which comprises the governors, chairmen of the party, chairman of the BOT, the presidential candidate and his running mate. We were not consulted. And, most importantly, the issue was important enough for the National Executive Committee (NEC) to sit and deliberate it. They didn’t do it. So, from all intent and purpose, there was anarchy in the ANPP. There is no room for me where there is anarchy. I just had to leave.

You have been quoted as saying if you don’t win the election in 2011 you wouldn’t go to court?

Yes, I said that!

Even if you have evidence that you are rigged out?

Having been in court for 50 months between 2003 and 2008, if I’m rigged out again, I will not go to court. I will leave the party to deal with the case.  The CPC can, but I, as the presidential candidate, I’ve made up my mind never to go to court again on that issue.

Is it because of the expenses involved?

There is the expenses, but look at what happened in 2007. The decision of the case split the Supreme Court in the middle. But look at what they came up with.

Does that mean you have lost confidence in the Judiciary?

That’s very heavy to say. I can’t say I have no confidence in the judiciary, but I’m not happy with the judiciary because even from the lower court up to the Supreme Court, we brought documents, INEC documents. We proved it to the lawyers and the judges in court. There was no election in 29 states out of 36 states and Abuja. It’s their documents. They just stamped documents and went to the radio and announced them. It was recorded. Then, one, at one of the collation centres in Abuja, the former INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, my representative, another one for Atiku Abubakar, were sitting with Iwu when results from 11 states, including Abuja, were received. Iwu said, ‘excuse me,’ as if he was going to the toilet and announced the results. That was the result that stood! That’s three Justices of the Supreme Court said the election should be annulled. Three said, there were cases against the election, but, blah, blah, blah, let Umaru continue. Of course, he continued. So, why should I go to court again? When we proved with documentary evidence that there were no elections in 29 states, and still the Supreme Court, with the Chief Justice of the Federation casting the last vote, said the election should stand. Why should I go to court and waste my time again?

There was so much talk about an alliance between the CPC and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Suddenly, there are indications that the alliance is not working. What happened?

I don’t know where you got the idea from…

Last Saturday, I called Chief Bisi Akande and he told me nothing was happening?

I’m very surprised if Chief Akande would say that. I had a meeting with him last (penultimate) Tuesday in Abuja. I, with the Chairman of our party, Chief Tony Momoh, two members of the BOT, one Mrs Joy Okunnu and Sule Hammah. Chief Akande was there; he chaired the meeting, because we went to where he was lodging. Chief Segun Osoba, former Governor of Ogun State, Chief Niyi Adebayo, former Governor of Ekiti State, and Alhaji Musa Gwadabe. We were all there and we had a meeting on that Tuesday and we said we were going to meet tomorrow (last Tuesday), and Akande said he did not know what was happening?

But January 31 was supposed to be the day the name of the presidential candidate of the allied parties should be submitted to INEC. From all indications, it has not?

We have done our convention and my name will certainly be sent to INEC. If ACN decides to send the name of their own presidential candidate, Nuhu Ribadu, they are free to do so. Still something can be worked out.

The deadline is January 31. What do you think can be worked out?

Yes, but up till February 21, you can still make some changes.

We understand that one of the major problems inhibiting the alliance is the running mate. You are insisting on Pastor Tunde Bakare, while ACN wants one of their own. Why do you insist on Tunde Bakare?

Why not? It is the prerogative of the presidential candidate. I have been ratified by the convention of my party and I can choose my running mate. I asked Pastor Bakare to fill the forms. Now we can negotiate outside the vice president and presidential candidate. It is possible.

But that is affecting your alliance talks with the ACN?

It depends on what remains of the negotiations.

What is remaining of the negotiations?

There are questions of appointments, if we win the elections and form the government. The only thing you are talking about is that of the presidential candidate. There are other things, power sharing formula and all those. Things can be worked out. There are working documents developed by each of the parties. They will be discussing based on them.

You have goodwill all over the country, but we have crisis in state chapters of the CPC: Kano, Katsina, Bauchi. What is happening at the state levels of the CPC?

Well, how many states? Kano, Katsina, Bauchi. How many states do we have in Nigeria? There are 36 states.

But, why are you not intervening, in let’s say, Katsina, your home base?

Why should I intervene? We have a system. If people don’t want to follow the system, the system will throw them out.

How does the system you are talking about function?

For instance, as a new party, we registered with INEC. What we did was to send the membership cards to the states and fix the price of each card at N100. What happened in one of the states you mentioned was that people hoarded the cards. They refused to give them to some of those they don’t want in the CPC to participate at the polls. Secondly, some people refused to account for the money realized from the sale of the membership cards, the money that should be used for running the party. Thirdly, some people printed fraudulent cards, sold them and put the money in their pockets. We, therefore, decided to do the registration again. We got a security firm to produce membership cards that cannot be easily imitated. Again, it was made impossible for some people to get the cards. When we came for the congresses, we said the congress should start from 8.00am to 3.00pm or 5.00pm. Some people conducted their own from 10.00pm to 8.00am. So, our problem is that both caretaker committees and the substantive committees were not following the party’s constitution and guidelines. This is really unfortunate. It shows indiscipline, the lack of commitment, and the prevalence of corruption. These were obvious. For this reason, in some states, we had to do congresses and primaries three times each, instead of doing them once and for all.

How is the party going to sort this out?

We are sorting it out. You know, it is in the Electoral Act that anybody who uses money or thuggery is barred from being a candidate, and we’re doing that. Where there is a clear evidence from the constituency that somebody used thugs to intimidate, humiliate and wound people, we’ll stop him. Somebody who visibly used money, and we have evidence, we’ll drop him. The party is doing something about it.

Are you saying that in Kano, for instance, where there were protests, you are going to deal with the ‘sponsor’ of the protests?

Why are you so particular about Kano?

You have a lot of supporters in Kano. So it’s one of your catchment areas?

Where don’t I have supporters?

Do you suspect that those who left PDP for CPC are behind some of these problems?

Well, that is to be expected. If you’ve got somebody in the opposition, wouldn’t you try to make him uncomfortable? This is natural. We shouldn’t expect PDP to pet us on the back, and send us some money to do our primaries, etc. But if they send people on a mission to destroy the CPC, I assure you, they will fail. We go by our constitution, the Electoral Act, and our principles.

Are you making efforts to detect those ‘agents’ of the PDP who may be destroying your party?

Why should we waste our time trying to detect infiltrators. You see, uptill February 21, we have a very tight schedule. We have to make sure we get our candidates correct: gubernatorial, National Assembly, States Assembly, etc. This is our fundamental priority and objective now. We don’t have time to start fighting the PDP. If we do so, we’ll be wasting time and resources. Let the PDP face their own problems.

Text messages were circulated shortly after the PDP primaries saying ‘vote Buhari, vote Islam’. What is your take on this?

I don’t believe it’s our supporters who sent it. I believe it’s from the other side. I got it myself and we countered it. You can’t come and ask for any constituency’s support in any part of this country and you base it on religion. If you want to be the president of this country and you start talking about religion, you will fail. By the constitution of this country, there is no state religion. In Nigeria, Islam and Christianity are the biggest religions, but there are people who are so confused, they don’t believe in God, but you need their votes. What do you do about them?

Are they trying to label you an Islamist?

Not that they are trying. They have. From 2003, I have visited Bishops and I have started the rounds already.

Is it because of the Islamic labelling that you are making Pastor Tunde Bakare your running mate?

No, that’s not the reason. Pastor Bakare came to this office, and sat where you are sitting (referring to the reporter). He came with his people and said he believed I’m the best of those who have come out to contest. He proceeded to tell his church, both nationally and internationally that I’m the best candidate. This is not a question of religion, but a question of somebody who has a base and beliefs in our cause and programmes, and he came out without being persuaded. Bakare has been on and off since the last eight months or so, contacting churches, going internationally and selling the idea.

In 2003, you were reported to have asked Christians to vote Christians and Muslims to vote Muslims?

That happened in 2002. What happened was that a certain Sheikh from Sokoto told me he wrote a book on Shariah, and he wanted me to chair the launch. The man was over 70 years of age. I told him I would go. Among the audience at the launch of that book was the late Sultan Abubakar, and I suspected that even former President Shehu Shagari was there. If you recall, in 2002 there was no partisan politics. At the end of the launching, I, as the chairman of the occasion, was asked to comment. I looked at that book. I hadn’t the knowledge to comment on that book. That man was in Saudi Arabia for 11 years, studying Sharia and Islam. There was no way I could comment, because I didn’t have the depth. So, I said, well, you people from Sokoto, you know your people. Very soon, there will be partisan politics. Please try and vote people who will work for you and work for the country honestly. And apparently, the person who wrote that story in Thisday newspaper was not a Muslim, he is Yoruba, he doesn’t speak or understand Hausa. He was not in Sokoto. How did he come up about the story?

Did you speak to the people in Hausa or in English language?

I spoke in Hausa. The whole event was in Hausa. How did he come about it? Somebody somewhere just cooked up the story. But this is part of the problem we have in this country.

How do you intend to enhance religious harmony in Nigeria?

Religious harmony in Nigeria is simple. I believe the most important thing is education. If we educate our people, they’ll look after themselves, and there’s a level of nonsense they will not take from anybody. But when you allow education to collapse and you start working on ethnic and religious sentiments, then you will be harming the country. My answer is education. Let people not be afraid of educating their people, because if they are educated they will disagree with them. But how can you build a country without educating the people.

Why did you say you will do just one term, if elected?

I’m not getting younger. If I succeed and do one term, I will be 73 years old.

If you’re doing just one term, you may want to urgently do some things? What are they?

There are two issues and I have said it in one sentence. Security and power. This country has to be secured and managed. People in Nigeria must not go about fearing that they would be abducted. You must not be afraid to the point that you can’t drive from Kaduna to Kano any time of the day. If you are in Lagos, you should have jobs to the point that you can afford to have three shifts in a day. That is eight hours each. But people are now very scared wherever they are. People have built houses worth over a billion naira, but they are afraid to live in them. What is the use? So, security is number one. Number two is structure. We have to revive the electricity sector so that people will have access to power to carry out their businesses. Others include the roads, the railways, the shipping lines. We used to have all these things. In spite of what we earned in the last eleven years, the whole infrastructure has already collapsed.

What else can you do? Obasanjo made so much efforts, pumped billions of dollars into power projects, but nothing happened?

What happened to the hearing in the National Assembly about the $10 billion spent by Obasanjo in the power sector? What was the result of the hearing? It has been killed.

What would you do to tackle Plateau and Borno State killings?

Well, I will try to find out what has happened and fully ascertain the problems. Go to your archive. You will discover that between 1991 and now, there have been about 12 panels of investigations. In most of them, there have been government investigative panels. What has the government done? Something concrete should be done. The case of Borno is most recent, but it is becoming the most volatile. We have to find out the truth, and we can do so through proper intelligence by the law enforcement agencies, the police and so on. Before I get there, I may not know the whole truth. When I get there and know the whole truth, I will know what to do.

We’ve seen what the power of incumbency can do in politics. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was beaten at the PDP primaries because of the factor of incumbency. Are you not jittery over the face that, once again, you are going to face an incumbent president in 2011?

Whenever you contest, there must be an incumbent president.

How are you going to handle this incumbency?

We are hoping for a free and fair election. If the government fails to allow a free and fair elections, well, the government will be prepared to handle the consequences. I have asked people to register and they are doing so. I’m impressed by what the church leadership and muslim leaders, traditional leaders, etc. are doing. I’m very much impressed with it.

With the situation on ground today, are there issues that would give you any iota of doubt that there would be free and fair elections?

If you studied the failure of the 2003 and 2007 elections, I think the government didn’t intend to have a free and fair elections, hence the logistic support to difficult parts of the country was not given. I made mention of it when I registered. Like the Niger Delta area, the Mambilla Plateau, the vast rural areas of the North. No government can say that it doesn’t know this country. Because I had the rare opportunity of being the Governor of the North East, and Petroleum Minister, when the beginning of the North-East was the place that has the same latitude with Lagos and up to Lake Chad. When I was in Petroleum, I mainly operated in the Delta region, and I was hopping in helicopter from place to another, at least every other year. So, I know this country. That terrain is virtually impossible. So, for INEC to have people and material in place at the right time, the government must apply itself to these issues. Honestly, in 2007, election materials didn’t arrive at Mambilla until a day after the elections. Does the government not know that Mambilla and the Delta area are difficult? If the government wants free and fair elections, they can organize it. If they don’t want, they wouldn’t. If they don’t they will face the consequences. If they were not having free and fair elections previously and got away with it, I tell you that, this year, if there are no free and fair elections, they will not get away with it because the level of awareness now, Nigerians are demanding for nothing less than free and fair elections. Nigerians want to be given the right to decide who their leaders will be. This is what Nigerians are demanding now. But if this government thinks that it can frustrate the system, by refusing to give proper logistics, then I think they will have themselves to blame.

You don’t tend to have a presence in the South-South, South-East and even South-West, though we expect your alliance with ACN to take care of the South-West. What are you doing about all these regions?

Well, there is not much presence of the CPC in the South-South, but you know I was there twice. I was in Port Harcourt, I was in Bayelsa. In the South-East, I was in Imo and from 21st of this month we’ll have our programmes of campaigns and I will visit those states. Again, we have our gubernatorial candidates and we have others for positions in the National Assembly and state assemblies. Anybody who is interested in winning elections should go and deliver his constituency. You can’t just come and fill INEC papers and in party headquarters, and just go and sit down in your house. Everyone has to deliver his constituency, otherwise what are they doing in the party? If you want to be a member of the House of Assembly, local government, Senate, you have to go to your people to canvass for votes.

How healthy are you at 69?

I try to keep fit and with my desire to go round the country, I have to keep myself fit.

Are you strong enough to face the stress as president of Nigeria at 69?

I have said this often. In 2003, I visited 34 states. Some of them several times. I only went to four of them by air. I went to Maiduguri and drove back through Yobe and other states. I went to Akwa Ibom State by air, I went to Rivers by air, and Lagos by air. I went to all other states by road, ditto, 2007 elections. No presidential candidate did that. If you could recall, Obasanjo campaigned by air for Yar’adua, because after a few campaigns, Yar’adua had to be evacuated to Europe. Other presidential candidates would talk to journalists on television and radio. No presidential candidate went round this country like I did.

How are you going to tackle the problem of corruption in Nigeria? Every other failure is as a result of corruption. What ideas are you bringing to tackle corruption?

I think this time around, when I talk about awareness, it’s not about being elected alone. There’s awareness on the part of the electorate to know whether, after what we went through in the past 11 years plus, whether PDP can produce any leader capable of being accountable. Try and find out what is earned in the three tiers of government, local, states and federal. Look at the state of our infrastructure and social services. They’ve virtually collapsed. Look at the money we earned. Where is the money? Where is the performance? We have more than enough to tell the electorate. Based on free and fair election, based on performance, PDP will have no chance; they’re lucky to have received so much money in the past 11 years, but they have only succeeded in destroying the infrastructure. They cannot account for the money they have received.

Are you going to ask them to account for the money if you are elected president?

If you insist on that, you wouldn’t do anything. They have done so much havoc. The best thing is to, as much as possible, draw a line and continue. But the cases with EFCC, ICPC, the police, and so on, you allow them to take their courses. I think this is the only way to achieve results. But if you say you are going to investigate in the local government, states and federal, I assure you, you wouldn’t do a thing. Even if you had two terms, you would finish them without achieving anything.

Are you satisfied with how the EFCC and ICPC do their jobs today?

Well, they can say they are doing their best.

How do you strengthen them?

I have to do some institutional strengthening in the form of training, equipping, and effective supervision. There is no way a minister should bring a memo to council asking for $2 billion for Thermo stations or refurbishing of Kainji or Shiroro or starting Mambilla Hydro Electricity project, and then you ask him for progress before or during the following budget, and several billions of dollars have been taken from the Central Bank of Nigeria, approved by the presidency, and you fail to trace the expenditure approved and paid for, and you allow that man to stay peacefully in Nigeria? It is not under our administration.

How would you create jobs?

I told you about infrastructure. The first thing is to make sure we resuscitate the power sector. When there is power, the factories will open shops. The overhead of maintenance of generators, fuel, spare parts, will help them to break-even. Secondly, the roads should be motorable. Thirdly, you have to wipe out the corruption at our entry points, whether it is the airports, sea ports, or land. So that, among other things, the INEC machines wouldn’t be missing. Then, you remove all unnecessary bottlenecks in the bureaucracy, so that entrepreneurs can bring in their money. You have to reopen the factories and allow them to have access to essential raw materials. Then, we talk about agriculture.

I don’t know if you have heard this before: General Buhari is the right man for this job, but those who benefit from corruption will not allow him to be voted as President. Have you heard such expression, and what are you doing about it?

Yes, I have. But I will ask you, journalists, what are you doing about it? I have talked so much, of recent, about the responsibilities of the elite. I always give examples of Kano in 2003, and Bauchi and Lagos in 2007. People in Kano came together: the university community, the traders and the youths. They decided to change their government and they did. In 2007, Bauchi and Lagos decided to have free and fair elections imposed on their states and they did.  It’s up to the youths. Instead of allowing the people to use them; give them weapons and drugs, send them against their own people, let them resist. Why did they allow education to collapse, siphon the money and then pay the drop-outs to go and kill their own people? It’s up to Nigerians.

But as a presidential candidate, you have that responsibility to create this awareness and resist those who would prevent you from winning?

Yes. That’s why I’m talking about Kano, Bauchi and Lagos. Where people don’t organize themselves and decide to have a free and free election, then there will be problems. It’s possible to replicate this in other states. The elite have to go to their constituencies and deliver them democratically. Talk to the educated ones in rural areas, and ask them to participate in mainstream politics at their levels.

What is your message to Nigerians?

What I will tell Nigerians is that, no matter the pains they have to go through, let them register. They may decide not to vote, but let them register, for God’s sake, no matter the frustration. And of course, I want them to elect the CPC.

Nigeria Must Not Disintegrate - Jesse Jackson

PHOTO L-R: HONOURABLE E.O AYOOLA, REV. JESSE JACKSON, LAGOS GOVERNOR BABATUNDE FASHOLA, SAN, AND FORMER UK CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY, LORD PAUL BOATENG AT THE OPENING OF THE KURAMO CONFERENCE 2010 HELD AT EKO HOTEL IN LAGOS, TODAY, NOVEMBER, 02, 2010.

LAGOS, Nov 02, (THEWILL) - United States civil rights activist, Rev. Jesse Jackson today told a gathering of Nigerian leaders at the international colloquium on Law and Development held in Victoria Island that Nigeria should not be allowed to disintegrate.

Jackson, who recounted how the United States grew from being a country of white supremacy as a matter of law and culture to a country of black and white working together equally, praised the effort of the country’s past leaders in ensuring the freedom of other African countries.

He urged the current leadership of the country led by President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan to put up a good fight against corruption and all forms of sharp practices capable of retarding her growth and development.

Jackson said many nations of the world “are planning to carry out comprehensive global investment to guarantee sustainable development. Nigeria which ensured the freedom of other African countries from the oppressive rule of their colonial masters should not be allowed to disintegrate.”

He traced Nigeria’s problems, Africa’s most populous nation to corruption and greed of its successive leaders, saying all hands “must be on deck to stop the menace. Nigeria is too rich for any of its citizenry to be poor.  The people and leaders of Nigeria must rise up immediately to fight the scourge of corruption.”

According to the American civil rights activist, “we can do it. We can stop it because corruption is indeed a crime against humanity. Nigeria is so rich yet her people are so poor. We must fight in a big way. We must fight corruption and poverty. Fighting corruption is crucial to fighting poverty,” Jackson added.

Also at the conference, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka said he is writing a play, which he said would expose the new paradigm of corruption in the country and the threat it poses to the nation’s future.

Soyinka urged the country’s civil society and general public to wake up and put their leaders on their toes, noting that endemic greed and vampire tendencies of African leaders can ruin the continent.

Photo: L-R: Professor Wole Soyinka, Former Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ajibola and Reverend Jesse Jackson.

On his part, Lord Paul Boateng, who was a plenary speaker at the conference, said though corruption is a global scourge, it could be tackled by the people affected. He therefore called on the civil societies to rise up to their responsibilities as enshrined in international chapter to which Nigeria is a signatory.
Boateng said civil societies should be in the forefront of fighting corruption and other vices across the globe. According to him, the vision of the nation’s past leaders must be kept alive by imbibing salient virtues geared towards people-oriented development.  

Speaking earlier, Lagos State Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) said the Kuramo conference is a response to his belief that the African continent must evolve a global new legal order that would make the world more inclusive to secure it for the next generation.

He said: “Kuramo seeks to provide the platform for the best minds to examine the existing legal order for trade, finance, and exploitation of natural resources, protection of the environment, global peace and the dignity of the human race.”

Buhari: Right choice for opposition consensus

By KELECHI NWAGWU

BuhariPhoto: Sun News Publishing More Stories on This Section

If the opposition political parties are serious in their quest to dethrone the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the presidency and produce the president in the 2011 general election, then they must come together in a form of an alliance and present a credible, popular, detribalized and generally acceptable candidate, who will fly their flag on the platform of one of the opposition political parties. Such a candidate should have the clout and following to face the PDP.

For the opposition to match the PDP which at the moment is occupying the governorship seats in about 27 states of the federation, and has an overwhelming majority in both chambers of the National Assembly, it must pool its resources together, take a look around and come up with the best person that can be a consensus candidate. Fortunately, the opposition has been making progress in the South West of Nigeria, where the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has been recording one court victory after another in the quest to recover the stolen gubernatorial mandates from the PDP. A close look at the major opposition political leaders will show the likes of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the leader and founder of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari, the governor of Kano State, His Excellency Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, former EFCC boss, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and the former governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Atahiru Bafarawa etc. For obvious reasons, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is out of it as presidential candidate, and this leaves us with the rest, of which General Muhammadu Buhari stands out.

Why General Buhari?
Buhari is a whistle clean military/political leader, who has never been associated with any form of scandal, be it financial or otherwise. Going through his incorruptible personality will be like restating the obvious. He is a household name, having served as a head of state of this country between 1983 and 1985 with a fantastic scorecard and having on two occasions contested elections for the office of the president and lost, not because he was not the popular choice, but due to the manipulative tendencies of the ruling PDP and the electoral commission as attested to by international observers who monitored both polls. There were credible indications that General Buhari actually won both polls but INEC and the courts thought otherwise.

A look at the rapid growth, acceptance and following of CPC Buhari recently founded, especially in the northern part of the country where the incumbent governors and other elected government officials are getting jittery, attests to the clout and popularity of the General. Putting CPC on the scale with other young political parties will reveal that the party has been growing like harmattan fire, attracting both the elite and members of the grassroots, all because of the personality of the presidential aspirant. So, I solicit for a form of consensus to be built around Gen Buhari with the active support of the political leader of the West, Asiwaju Tinubu and the ACN, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and its leader Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) and its leader Dr Orji Uzor Kalu, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and others like the Labour Party.

The details of the proposed alliance could be worked out in a serious discussion involving the leaders of the different opposition political parties, including those mentioned above. I know that in this part of the world, it is often difficult to get politicians to make compromises and forgo ambitions in order to reach a consensus of national importance and for the general good of the masses. A sincere effort devoid of selfishness and self-interest as well as ethnic and religious sentiment would go a long way in resolving the difficulties associated with consensus building. Position and office sharing would be resolved during such interactions and patriotism and the general desire to put an end to the misrule of the gluttonous PDP should serve as incentives to achieve the desired goal.

Mutual respect and recognition for all the political parties in the consensus arrangement as well as for the different major political leaders will be very necessary in assuaging the egos of the personalities involved, and help in the drive towards consensus. Areas of strength of the different political parties must be recognized and concessions in terms of producing candidates in such areas for other elective positions save for the presidency must be made, and such candidates and their political parties mutually supported during the elections. The ACN and their candidates should be supported by all the associated parties in the South-West and Edo State, the CPC and her candidates equally supported in the North, same for APGA, PPA in the South-East etcetera.

The mobilizing powers of the several leaders of the alliance in their respective areas of strength across the country should be deployed to get Nigerians to see the consensus candidate as the only option they have in seeing the PDP and her failed leadership off. Imagine, the kind of resounding support Gen Buhari will have in a state in the South-west at a rally where Asiwaju Tinubu raises his hands. A similar situation will play itself out if Gen Buhari is introduced to the people of the South-east by say Dim Ojukwu, the support of the General will be a form of mass movement, in fact a revolution of a sort, such that no electoral manipulation can stop him from coasting to victory in the election.

Is the consensus option achievable? I think the answer is yes, but it requires personal sacrifice from all the individuals and parties involved. My worry is that the average Nigerian politician tends to gravitate towards the ruling party. We have seen public office holders elected on the platform of opposition parties saying one thing in the daytime, while romancing with the ruling PDP in the night. Care must be taken in recognizing such characters and isolating them to avoid having moles in the midst of the alliance, as they will be willing tools in the hands of PDP to cause crisis and scuttle the effort to build consensus.

If Nigerians really desire to see the back of the PDP, which has so far wasted 11 good years that it has spent on power, then they must support the consensus arrangement and its flag bearer in the person of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari who is tested and trusted, and has the wherewithal to win the president for opposition and for the growth of democracy and its institutions, but most importantly for the improvement of the well-being of Nigerians.

For the sake of true democracy, national development and progress of the nation, the real opposition political parties must come together and poll their resources together in a battle to rescue our country from the shackles of PDP misrule. There is no strong democracy anywhere in the world without a formidable opposition that has the capacity to take over government and execute policies and programs different from the ruling party thereby offering the masses alternatives.

The bane of our democratic experiment so far has been the absence of a credible opposition, which has turned the people in government to some sort of gods, before whom we mortals must bow down in worship to receive morsels from their dining tables. Nigerians are certainly tired of the current abuse of our country in the name of PDP leadership and are desperately yearning for a change. This desired change is represented in Gen Muhammadu Buhari, and his presidency is achievable if the credible opposition parties and their leaders bury self-interest, embrace unity and rally round the General.
•Dr Nwagwu writes from Lagos. Email: kbnwagwu@yahoo.com

A COUNTRY DASTARDLY ABUSED THANKS TO PDP...

"It is time for Nigerians to stand for something and the only hope in this generation is Buhari." - Idowu

 

And that is where I stand in this debate.

 

I have sympathy for Nnaanyi Agomoh's argument to give the minority a chance, for every reason any can conjure, including the fact that one is part minority.

 

But my nature never fails to give in to experience and wisdom over self and fraternity. It is more so as the argument concerns affairs of state and leadership and management there of.

 

Nowhere is experience and wisdom more needed for leadership, than in a long ruined country like Nigeria. Thanks to the political party called PDP and its 12 long years reign of ruin.

 

If our senses were to guide us right, the one to lead the country now, is the man who began steering the ship of state aright a few decades ago, Buhari, but unfortunately for Nigeria, was stopped by rascals led by baabangida, who began a reign of plunder in 1986, which the PDP took to a different level, since it took the helm in 1999.

 

Experience, wisdom, and stregnth of character are to pave ways and mend ways for the young that must in time take the helm for the rest of the miles Nigeria must run in our life time.

 

The young that prided themselves as "under 50s", had a chance to prove their worthiness as leaders of their country starting in 1999.

 

What a disastrous outing it was for the "under 50s"! Instead of marking their presence as leaders of their country, they marked their presence, as plunderers of their country.

 

Let us call the turn of the so-called young of Nigeria, a turn postponed. It is my turn, too, postponed. 

 

Wisdom, experience and strength of character must reign to cleanse the dirt left behind by "under 50s", before they could try their hands once again at leadership.

 

Buhari is the one that fits the time, he is the one to make the leadership of the young possible and successful, once he is done implementing the needed remedy in a country so dastardly abused.

REV. FATHER MATHEW HASSAN KUKAH on Buhari

"When I saw the screaming headline claiming that General Buhari had called on Muslims to vote only for fellow Muslims in the next elections, I could almost tell what the national reaction would be. My brethren within Christianity would react like wounded lions. There would be name calling, bashing, brick bat throwing, Sabre rattling and so on. The nature of the accusations would be predictable. I also knew that politicians from both sides, anxious for capital and advantage, would throw in their lot in any direction that favours them. My suspicion was that General Buhari would not respond. He will remain his typical Self, taciturn and philosophical. He would be hurting and wondering when it would all end. Interestingly, I was not disappointed, as the reactions in the last two weeks have shown. The General has been called all kinds of names. Christian leaders have threatened to call out their followers to vote only Christians, some have given the General a date line for retraction, while others are calling for his removal from the Council of State and seem to regret over having the man as a Head of State. Just like all debates about such sore points in our polity as ethnicity, we have ended up generating so much heat and have absolutely no light to show for it. Typical Nigerians love talking more than thinking. My purpose in this article is two fold. First of all, to clarify if possible, what exactly General Buhari said and secondly, to use the debate as an opportunity to look more closely at the finer points of the role of religion in politics. We must move from talking to thinking in this country.

In dealing with the first point, I have shied away from commenting on the allegation despite prodding from the media because I have learnt that there are always two sides to every story and unless the evidence of both sides are in, all attempts at judgment are not only dangerous, they will always naturally be based on prejudice and bias. They can either only exacerbate the problem, deepen agony, reinforce prejudice and increase tension and misunderstanding. Since the story broke, I have tried to reach the General without success. Now that I have managed to speak with him (Saturday 23rd June), I feel morally in a position to make judgment on the issues base on my nearly twenty Minutes chat with the retired General. This does not in any way mean that all I say will be correct nor do I attempt any iota of self-righteousness. I believe that whatever the world says, every individual is not only entitled to an opinion, he or she is entitled to be heard. We can register our disagreement based on knowledge of the facts. Facts may be sacred as they say, but facts are not truths.

When I finally called the General's Kaduna home, he sounded like he was in a very good mood. After dispensing with pleasantries, I informed him that I had tried to reach him but had not been successful. He apologized to me saying: Well, whenever it rains, my phone normally has to recover from the effect of the rain. It was a good note on which to start our conversation. So Your Excellency, I asked, what exactly did you say? I have read the reactions to the statement credited to you and wanted to find out what exactly it was you said. He seemed and sounded pleased that he had a chance to state his case. He also did sound anxious to explain himself as I listened. He proceeded to speak on about ten minutes and I listened and made some notes. This is his side of the story as he told me. I can only attempt to paraphrase him: Sheikh Sidi Attahiru Ibrahim is a Nigerian Islamic Scholar and he had been in Saudi Arabia for 13 years. He traveled to see me in Daura and informed me that he had written a book, which Dan Fodio University had published, and he now wanted to launch it, would I kindly oblige him by accepting to chair the event? Considering his age and the fact that he traveled all the way to Daura to see me, I obliged. Although a book reviewer had been invited, I had been asked to make my comments, as the chairman of the event, I spoke without a prepared text and in the course of my comments, I drew attention to the fact that the introduction of Sharia had become one of the main issues in this new dispensation. I explained that Sharia, however, has been with us well before the British colonized Nigeria. Now, Sharia has been introduced in many Northern states and Sokoto is one of the states that has already adopted Sharia. It must be pointed out however that Sharia is applicable only to Muslims. Those elements that have taken the law into their hands and use the opportunity to molest other non-Muslims are not helping the cause. What is more, they are like bad policemen or judges who are making the enforcement of justice so difficult in Nigeria. Their shortcoming does not do the police force or the judiciary any good, but these acts do not detract from the imperative of both institutions. Midway through our democracy, we have time now to assess the situation on ground in terms of making our choice in the next elections. Vote for good men whether they are in Borno, Katsina, Sokoto or wherever. Vote for those who will protect your interest. This, Rev. Father, is the summary of every thing I said and the tapes are there.

I did not record our interview because I did not have the General's permission and in any case, it would have been wrong for me to do so. I have only tried to paraphrase what the General said to me base on quick notes I made and I hope I got him right on the essential thrust of what it was that he said. May be I have made my own mistakes in reading him. However, he was categorical that he did not say that Muslims should vote for only Muslims. After all, as he said again, even during the time of the Holy Prophet, there were non-Muslims just as there were unbelievers even in the time of Jesus Christ. He referred me to an Arewa House Lecture delivered by Alhaji Liman Ciroma, which raise the point that justice is more acceptable than a Muslim who governs unjustly! On the whole, it would seem that the General felt hurt by the comments and reactions to what he considered to be an innocent comment. But that is the way the cookie crumbles.

I believe that I can make what I consider to be my own honest comments now that I have spoken to the General and heard his own story. The important thing to my mind is not so much a question of whether the General was telling me the truth or if with hindsight, he was presenting a revised version of his comments in the light predicament. I personally have no reason to believe that the General was reacting like a man trapped and therefore seeking discussions, but the tape recording of what I said is all there for anyone who wishes to watch it. I also imagine that anyone remotely familiar with the General would make two concessions. One that he would not doctor a comment base on what the public might think so as to receive acceptance. Secondly that General Buhari would consider it beneath him to come our defending himself. Anyone remotely familiar with the mind of a Northern Muslim would concede that the General would remain calm and philosophical, believing in the judgment of his conscience on the one had and that of Allah on the other. It might help to pose the question: did the General warrant the attack that was heaped on him by very senior statesmen and women? Why did our tribe of elder statesmen from whichever calling not find it fit to consult with one of their own before going to town? The inability of his critics to seek his own side of the story would seem to have bothered the General, as I understood him. What this issue raises for me is the way Nigerians generally react in the face of the public discourse on very sore but deeply important issues, especially religion. We all retreat into our cocoons of prejudice and from that comfort, we continue to throw stones at the centre, defending our own but also raising the tensions. The result is that we fail to realize the extent of the damage done to our institutions, causes and integrity. I know that many readers who have rather made up their minds and would rather remain in their laagers will accuse me of blindly supporting the General, pandering to the North, or even trivializing what they consider to be a serious issue. It might also be said that the General may have settled me, as is common with us whenever anyone dares to beat a track away from the popular and wide road tarred with prejudice. They will wonder why I have broken ranks with my own tribe when all good Christians ought to have stood on one side. Well, those who may be familiar with me would already know my antecedes, namely, I love a good fight and do not bow to blackmail or intimidation. I bow to truth as I see it until someone, no matter how small, shows me that there is a superior viewpoint. Indeed, as far I am concerned, Buhari issue could offer us another chance to contest and iron out some more serious national issues.

I am familiar with the wider implication of religion and politics in other lands and this has been my area of research and discourse in the last few years. We are not the first to experience these tensions regarding the implications of religion in political choice. What makes these choices turn into weapons of destruction is the hostile environment with its attendant characteristics: poverty, squalor, illiteracy, hunger and want.

A nation with these characteristics sees its population weakened and reduced to servitude and indignity. The citizens gradually fall back on patrons who then use the condition of their so-called constituency to engineer discontentment by raising the volume of the people's condition. The Patron (he is usually male, a chief, a fake appellation of Dr and a fake Sir, all titles he garners to compensate for his semi literate and modest credentials) is not so much concerned about the welfare of his people, for he requires that existing condition as a grazing field to satisfy his personal ambition and hold on to power. He uses this condition to negotiate with the state, which being largely uncaring about the general condition co-opts this patrons as one of its fellow negotiators (s party member, an office-holder in the dispensation or of a member of the ruling council as the case may be). The patron then invents an identity for his people and builds a brick wall to stop them from both realizing their conditions and negotiating with others in the larger society who may share their depressing conditions. The people are told that they are Hausas, Northerners, Muslims, Yorubas, Igbos, Urhobos or whatever. Their imagined ancestry, with no historical or anthropological basis, becomes the fig leaf for covering the nakedness of the patron's greed. When the people begin to experience the pain and it seems that they are likely to listen to the voice of reason (based on the sermon of those who have seen through this deceit), the people are told by their patron that they cannot contaminate the purity of their linage. We, the descendants of so and so must remain united and stand together. If this identity has been hammered on the anvil of religion, the people are told that the new elite challenging the status quo is betraying the cause. The patron charges anyone exposing this hypocrisy with unbelief or at best those who have abandoned the true religion as ordained by God. This has been the philosophy driving the idea of we, the Northerners, we the descendants of Oduduwa, we the Ndigbo and so on. Although these exclusivist identities make national integration impossible, these characters continue to make noise about the need for patriotism, national unity and peace. But they are a danger to both peace and justice. Unknown to those they claim to represent, they only have the interests of both themselves and their children in mind. The people fail to see that they have time now because all their children have been ferried to the best schools. You can see it when a chance presents itself at the center: it is their children that they put forward when these men of little honour sit down to gamble away our commonwealth. Yet there is the tendency of setting one group against the other when the conditions of poverty are explained away on the claims that our conditions are miserable because the North/Muslims have cornered power, the Yorubas have cornered the economy or the Ndigbo have cornered the bureaucracy. The minorities of course are holding the can marked for the militias because there, life is nasty, it is also brutish and short. They constitute the fighting force and they are doing enough of that as we can see from the internal destructions within both the Northern and Southern minorities. The best of them in the militia tribe, sensing the threat of all this to national survival, have tended to take up arms. Historically, these coups, unless they install one who will sustain the tiny interests of the ruling classes across the board, do not succeed. When the coups threaten to take power from the ruling classes in order to address the issues of equity and create a home for all citizens, they are called failed coups and a chance is provided to eliminate the best from the tribe of the militia minorities. Then, the circle returns as the nation is call upon to spit on the grave of the unpatriotic lot. This has been the history of this nation. Even without arms, when the minorities have tired to raise public awareness to injustice, they have been found to be trying to sing outside the choir and their voices have been shut. The Ogonis are classic representation of this cause. The ferment in the Niger Delta is the best expression of these contradictions…

The reaction to the Buhari saga shows in many respects the fact that we are still not out of the woods. Indeed, those who have argued with no supporting evidence that June 12th showed that we have overcome the politics of ethnic differences and regionalism have overstated their case. We still have a long way to go. For those who have resorted to Sharia to buy time and legitimacy, it is not clear yet whether the worst is still to come. But I have it on good authority from at least two highly placed Muslims from Katsina and Funtua that since the introduction of Sharia, the cost of alcohol has gone up by over two hundred per cent, in some places, much higher. I also hear that the price of kettles has gone up because the elite need at least two, one for real ablution and the other for storing alcohol. At the beginning of the 21st century, at a time when there is no nation in the world that is practicing Sharia at the level we crave for, the ruling elite in Northern Nigeria seemed determined to take a road that will lead to a cul-de-sac. This is not a judgment on the application of Sharia per se. I know that any and every honest Muslim knows that the Laws of God are written in our hearts. We do not need promulgations, proclamations or declarations to implement he love of God. The Iranians tried this road under ayatollah Khomeini. Today, many of the solders of the revolution have changed track and are in a quest for modernization. President Khatami is leading Iranians on the road of modernization. It is nonsense to argue that modernization undermines faith. It is the inability of the elite to respond to the challenges of modernization that create the problems. Modernization is not responsible for the greed and selfishness that face us. It is not responsible for the dubious claims that we make to religion while leaving a lie in realizing the ideals of religion, the liberation of the human person as God's creature…"

CONCLUSION, BMM

In the Holy Bible, it is written that "Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall save thee." Having presented the truth on General Buhari's position on religion and votes, it is hoped that the readers of this pamphlet will help to pass it on.

Finally, I will quote from Proverbs in the Holy Book.

15.1.           "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grevious words stir anger…"

15.4.           "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life; but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit…"

15.6.           "In the house of the righteous is much treasure; but in the revenue of the wicked is trouble…"

15.33.         "The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility."

Amen.