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Nigeria: Presidential System BAS No Room for GNU - Bugaje

Isiaka Wakili &aliyu Machika

5 October 2008

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interview

Dr Usman Bugaje is the National Secretary of the Action Congress (AC), the party that rejected the idea to participate in the Government of National Unity (GNU). In this interview with Sunday Trust, Bugaje describes the GNU as unconstitutional and a sham that has failed to achieve anything. Excerpts:

Can you share with us your own understanding of Government of National Unity (GNU) as it operates in the Nigeria?

To start with, in my own opinion, there is no government, let alone Government of National Unity because government is a system working to deliver the social services to the people. For instance, the 2008 budget was taken to the National Assembly a year ago and that budget is still with the NASS members. How can you say there is a government? What happened to the resources and the revenue that have been accumulated? People have been indicted of corruption starting from James Ibori, Iyabo Obasanjo and many others, but they are yet to be prosecuted. Nobody has gone to jail and no money has been returned. One and a half years has gone with nothing to show. How can anyone say that there is a government? If there is government you cannot run a government for more than one year without a budget. There is more to say to show there is no government. Even the like of Edwin Ume-Ezeoke that are talking about the GNU are confused. Maybe they will quit now that there is cabinet reshuffle under way and they want their own men there.

In an ideal democratic setting, what is GNU supposed to achieve?

Under presidential system, you don't have GNU, but you can have it under the parliamentary system of government where you have problems of coalition or where you have crisis in place such as Kenya and Zimbabwe. But in our own constitution at the moment, there is nothing like the Government of National Unity because what we have now is presidential system of government which does not need the GNU. The president was elected by electorate, not by the parliament.

The AC was invited by President Yar'adua on assumption of office to join his proposed GNU which the party rejected. Can you explain why your party turned down the invitation?

The reasons are as they have ever been. One, running a GNU is not in the constitution of the country. Two, in the first place, we never believe Yar'adua won this election and, therefore, we do not see him as President, but as a pretender. There is no how we will be part of something we do not believe in. In our party, we called an expanded NEC meeting where we brought in stakeholders and debated. The majority took a position against joining the GNU. Even those parties that went into it are now crying because the PDP has deceived them.

Some of these parties that joined the GNU claimed to do so in the interest of peace and tranquillity. What is your reaction to this?

Well, they actually need to explain to us what is peace and tranquillity. Where is the peace and where is the tranquillity in Nigeria? Of recent, I was reported in the News Watch magazine that the infrastructure is still rotten, the economy is collapsing, the insecurity is rising, and the president doesn't have any clue of where he is taking the country and therefore everything is at a standstill. So, with all these, where is the peace and tranquillity? In Nigeria today, nobody leaves in peace and this is not just in the Niger Delta region but all over the country. How can one be in peace when he cannot eat, go to school, pay for school fees and go to hospital? Also, how can there be peace when there is no light to support small businesses. The truth is that one cannot join illegality to ensure legality. So, in actual sense, there is nothing like peace and tranquillity in Nigeria.

But the parties insisted that their participation in the GNU has saved the country from running into chaos, citing Kenya and Zimbabwe as examples. Do you believe that achievement is real?

This is absolute rubbish! They don't even understand what is happening in Kenya and Zimbabwe. And in any case, Zimbabwe was a recent thing, so they could not cite it as an example because Zimbabweans had taken their decision before the election took place there. The truth about what really stopped people from violence was the fact that the real opposition comprising the Action Congress (AC) and the Buhari's wing of the ANPP had gone to court and people had confidence that the Supreme Court will do the right thing. The day the Supreme Court disappoints this country, God knows what will happen.

Are you saying that the political parties have failed Nigerians since some of them have come under the GNU and failed to deliver?

Political parties are made up of different types of people and I give you an ANPP example. They got General Muhammadu Buhari as the party's presidential candidate and Ume-Ezeoke who preferred to sell his conscience as well as the ANPP governors who are more of the PDP than some of the PDP governors. They got all manners of people in the party. So, it would be unfair to blame the political parties entirely. What I can conceive is that the whole politics in this country has been taken over by the scam of the society. The criminal elements are at the fore front of our polity. And this is why what is happening today is happening. As long as these criminals are at the helm of affairs, there will be no proper voting, free and fair election, accountability in governance, development and peace, and we are heading for a crash. When and how it will come, I cannot say.

But if a conglomeration of some parties could come together under a GNU and still fail in delivering services to Nigerians, how could one party achieve that?

It is not the singularity or the plurality of the party that determines the delivery. It is the will of the people who formed the party. If we have conscientious democrats who have sense of responsibility and the desire to serve their people, our story would be a different one.

There is this allegation that the AC refused to join the GNU so that Atiku Abubakar would not withdraw his case against Yar'adua. Is this true?

Atiku regards Yar'adua as a brother and I am sure Yar'adua considers him so as well. He has made it very clear to all that his case is not about him, but about the people who have suffered to go to the polls to elect him. So his case is part of the struggle to ensure the survival of democracy and give way for the supremacy of the rule of law in this country. It is so critical to this country that we take this matter to court and let the court decide.

Some people are of the view that the ANPP's participation in the GNU may have influenced the outcome of the presidential election tribunal which upheld the election of Yar'adua. Do you subscribe to this?

I don't think that was the reason. If you say it was done because they joined the GNU, why did the same court also strike out the case of AC? That judgement is something that we need to revisit more carefully because if our legal system is so blind to the injustices and the criminality perpetrated right under naked eyes, then I think we need to revisit this legal system in its entirety and find out if the courts have the capacity to really deliver justice. Everybody, including the BBC, expressed shock over the irregularities of the last general elections, but the court was blind to all the proofs. Iwu was caught lying severally and he was caught violating the 2006 Electoral Act. Because there is an appeal now which we are waiting to see, there is need to examine the judges to check if they are really in their senses.

In the light of all these, what is the way forward for Nigerians?

Everybody can give a different idea of his/her own understanding of the way forward. In this kind of situation, it is not the individual effort that we need, but a collective will. The reason is simple. Even if I say this is the way forward, that doesn't solve the problem because it needs the will to execute it. I will not say exactly what the way out is. I will rather say that while we are waiting for the Supreme Court to decide and for the investigations to be conducted on some of the tribunal cases that were handled like that of Benue and other places where justices were upturned, we should start thinking of an alternative that would bring about or laid the foundation for a real democracy that is people-centred, people-driven and people-motivated. In other words, there must be accountability.

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