Kalu Okwara and Mansur Oladunjoye
4 April 2008
Lagos — FORMER Vice President, Atiku Abubakar yesterday warned against leaving the fate of Nigeria in the hands of those he called "emperors," urging the citizenry to stand up against election rigging.
Speaking at the public presentation of three books by renowned constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze (SAN) at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos, Atiku said the nation was in dire need of an honest and pragmatic leadership.
He said that the country, in the past eight years, witnessed a progressive rot of public infrastructure and institutions.
Titles of the books are 'How President Obasanjo subverted Nigeria's federal system; How President Obasanjo subverted the 'Rule of Law' and 'The Judiciary as the Third Estate of the Realm.'
Atiku who was chairman of the occasion said that democracy has many definitions but at the centre of all those definitions is the people, democracy is about people; democracy, therefore, must be people-centered and people-driven.
"In democracy, people must have the total freedom not only for social interaction but more importantly to truly elect their leaders.
In a democracy, elections, therefore, are free for people's participation It is disheartening that for eight years instead of improving on the qualities of our election, we are deteriorating by making unprecedented blunders where the international community is telling us that ours was the worst.
"Yet our peers have consolidated and even smaller countries around us have been able to organize elections that were adjudged credible by their citizens and international community," who chaired the book.
He said the level of decay of infrastructure and institutions in the past eight years have been unprecedented, resulting in apathy and despondency.
According to him, for Nigerians to appreciate the degree of rot of the infrastructure and institutions, they needed to look at Brazil, Malaysia and India, countries that started almost the same time with Nigeria.
He said they had emerged from under-developed nations to developed ones with vibrant institutions and infrastructural facilities.
Those countries, according to him had positioned themselves at the gate of growing economy powered by knowledge and power supply, stressing, that even Ghana, had overtaken Nigeria in having reliable electricity.
The former vice president said the usefulness of development is the challenge of economy, stressing that it was only in a sustainable democracy that employment, agricultural production, industrialisation etc could be achieved.
In his contribution, former governor of Abia State, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, said the rule of law was the necessary ingredient for cooking democracy, decrying the manner ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo destroyed all the institutions that supported the sustenance of democracy.
He said unless President Yar'Adua set up a competent panel to probe Chief Obasanjo, the revolution canvassed by Prof. Nwabueze would come earlier than expected.
Chief Kalu kicked against the clamour by some people for the removal of the immunity provision contained in Section 308 of the Constitution, stressing that without it he would have been killed by 2002.
He said after Sani Abacha, who he pejoratively described as a saint, the next Nigerian saint was Obasanjo, stressing that he would tell Pope Benedict XIV to make it public.
Also contributiong, former governor of Lagos, Senator Bola Tinubu said there was no Nigerian as guilty as Chief Obasanjo in corruption, stressing that he deserved to serve a second term in jail.
Prof. Nwabueze in his remarks, said the purpose of writing the books was to draw Nigerian attentions to the lessons of Obasanjo's eight-year administration.
According to him, Nigeria was in dire need of the ethnics of civil disobedience, stressing that it was the revolution of the people as it happened in France that would salvage the nation.
He called for the amendment of the Evidence Act so that it would not apply in election petitions, citing examples of occasions a president or governor was "appointed" by the tribunal or court instead of the people electing him.
Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola in supporting the revolution, said it should be a revolution of ideas, stressing that law and order were the greatest inventions of mankind.
Fashola condemned the sacrilege done to the 1979 condition when in adopting for the 1999 Constitution 64 items were included on the exclusive list.
According to him most of this items were initially on the residual or concurrent list, lamenting that bloating of the exclusive made it possible for the government at the centre to undermine the federalism principle or to disobey court orders.
Among the dignitaries on the occasion were, General Theophilus Danjuma, former governors James Ibori, Ayo Fayose, Chris Ngige, Segun Osoba, Prof. Anya. O. Anya, Senator Ben Obi, Dr. Nnia Nwodo, Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, Prof. Yemi Osibanjo, Prof. Itse Sagay, Mr. Rickey Tarfa, Eze Hycient Ohazulike, Chief Guy Ikokwu, Chief Ken Njemanze, Mr. Dafe Akpedeye, Lari, William, Chief Tony Igbokwe, Seyi Sowemimo, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Chief Akin Kekereoku.
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