Leadership (Abuja)
12 October 2008
interview
In this interview with LEADERSHIP SUNDAY, Shehu Sani, a foremost social critic and human rights activist expounds on the Masaba case, saying that the decision of Masaba to have as many wives as he pleases is a burden he has chosen to bear, as such, it was wrong for him to be dragged to court on that count.
He also speaks on the ongoing constitutional reform to be embarked on by the National Assembly and the planned cabinet reshuffle. Excerpts:
From the stand point of a social crusader and a human rights activist, what do you make of the Masaba Saga?
First and foremost it is important for the general public to understand that we are human right activist. It is our voluntary vocation to defend and protect the interest, the right, the fundamental human right of individuals whether it is violated by the state, or by the institution of the states or by the apparatus of the state, or by another individual or groups.
We have been involved in this for as long as we can remember and the results we get for those who don't understand what we are doing is either insult or sceptism. But we are not bothered. Masaba's issue is one of several that we have gotten our self involved in. In 1999 or 2000 when Sharia was introduced and politicised by the former governor of Zamfara state regardless of how contentious it was, I was among the few that took the bull by the horn and made it categorically clear that what was happening was not about religion.
It was simply politics by politicians. As a result of that, many Ulamars and sponsored groups went about criticising, attacking and threatening us, to the point that in some worship centres, insults were muttered on my person because we spoke out. But fortunately, years after, we were vindicated because the major actors that made that a national issue are now being criticised even by their own people.
Last year, when I wrote a play I made it clear that the fundamental human right of citizens must be preserved and protected. And their religion must be a tool for socio-economic and political advancement of society. It must not be an instrument for exploitation, it must not be a reactionary instrument for undermining basic rights of citizens, and it must not be used for repression and entrenchment of the culture of silence and suspicion. Well what I got from that also was a lot of ctiticisms and insult but we were not bothered. When Masaba's issue came in, it came like a bolt. And old man in his 80s is holding custody of 86 wives, and it became a national and international news. The first reaction we had was a statement issued in Kaduna by some clerics threatening to pass a death sentence on the man if he did not divorce those wives.
Now, I don't know that body to have the authority or powers of the court. It is a faith-based non-governmental organisation and it has no right or authority to pass a death sentence on a Nigerian who is allegedly accused of having 86 wives because he still remains innocent. He ought to be presented before a regular court and the complainant, against him must be people that are directly involved-his wives or their own parents. So, our own involvement came as a result of the threat of banishment by the Emir of by the Etsu Nupe. Now threat of death and banishment are illegal and unconstitutional and as human rights groups, we stepped in to defend the right of this man. He has the fundamental right to live as a Nigerian and constitutionally, he has broken no laws. I as a person do not have 86 wives, so I simply see him as someone who has carried the burden unto himself. And if he has broken any religious law, the first order of a religious group is to counsel and advise him, and you do not threaten him nor do you threat to banish him because you don't have the right to do that and this is why we are there to assert that.
At what point can we draw the line between religion and the constitutional fundamental human rights of citizens?
Well I think these are the major problems confronting our judicial system and political order in the country. First of all we are a multi-religious society and secondly this is not a theocratic state, and as such applications of religious law could all be subjected to the vagaries and the supremacy of the common law. In the sense that, you can challenge the decision of the lower court at a regular court. We should understand that on issues of law, people should simply treat it as a matter of law. But what we do here is raise a lot of sentimental attitude. Once you are being condemned to have committed blasphemy or religious law, nobody wants to give you a fair hearing. And, it is because of this that you will never hear any human right organisation in old Northern part of Nigeria getting involved in issues that have to do with violation of fundamental human rights if it was done under the guise of religion. Because a lot of them are afraid to speak out, a lot of them are scared of what could be the out come of that. And even, when we had the guts and got involved in the issue, we got a lot of threats and insults via text messages, write-ups and even in places where we do go for worship. But unfortunately, people like us are not people that give in to threat because I know it very well that the powers of a cleric does not also involve that of determining which part of heaven I will be and thereafter.
Are you saying that the civil society has not done enough in Masaba case?
It's about people always prefering the soft side of activism, either defending a minister or taking up issues that are not controversial like the freedom of information bill, like the electoral reform, like the reform of the judicial system, like issues of resource allocation, like issues that has to do with budgeting. These are issues which the civil society wants to get involved in. But things that will threaten their own individual liberation and also threaten, things that are also controversial are not things which they want to get involved in. And if it this is all there is to activism it is better we stopped getting involved and look for other things to do. If you are a journalist and you are afraid of being sent to cover a war or if you cannot go out and source for news in times of crisis, I mean you are not actually a journalist. So we are only setting the pace. We don't believe that activism should simply be about conferences, seminars, press statement and advertorials. It should also be involved in taking on issues, no matter how sensitive they are and reasserting the need to do everything right and that is why we make a difference in activism.
Our own style of civil society activism is quite different from the way in which other people do theirs. During the time of the military, in the early 1990s, I can remember how I wrote a pamphlet and I mobilised groups of people to challenge Babanginda's regime and to challenge Abacha's regime. And you could not believe that during that time, many of those that called themselves activists were reporting my activities to the security agencies, some of them were even collecting money, some of them even came out openly in the media disassociating themselves with what I was doing because they were afraid of being arrested. Well, I was never afraid of being arrested. They were hobnobbing with Babangida and Abacha's regime and many of them also were being hypocritical about what they are doing.
Concerning the proposed constitution review, do you share the sentiments of those who are against the National Assembly procedure in reviewing the much anticipated constitution?
First of all I'm not a part of that group but I share a lot of their sentiments. And one thing that we should always put into consideration is that the issue of reviewing of the constitution was a pet project of the civil society groups. In 1999 the politicians were not interested in the kind of document that was given to them by the military, they simply wanted power.
Nine years after, we have become hostage of that defect. The attempts in the past to review the constitution under the president Obasanjo's administration had an evil intention of manipulating it to suit his own agenda of elongating his tenure. Now, the civil society groups fears are apt and right. If the chairman of the PDP which is Ogbulafor would repreatedly make a statement that PDP will rule for 60 years. So how do we trust a review of a constitution by a legislature and a government that is dominated by the PDP. And reviewing the constitution is not an exclusive prerogative of the National Assembly.
You are not talking of the constitution of the National Assembly, you are talking of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Every Nigerian must be involved. Civil society is not civil society groups, civil society means the general public that are detached from government. And, the constitution of this country can only be legitimate if it is being amended with the support of the people and not by the people who claim to be representing the people. Going by the approach of president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua of rule of law and separation of powers, we will not take chances where he will allow in the interest of separation of powers for some persons to amend the constitution in the name of their own people that will in effect be themselves. If now the PDP sat down and decided that this is the kind of constitution they want for Nigeria, if its presented before the states and National Assembly, it will scale through. So we have also the fear of domination by the majority as we fear the domination by the minority in that philosophical sense. So any amendment of the constitution of the country that does not involve the direct participation of people in town hall meetings, and also a direct participation of the civil society groups, will be seen as and it will continue to be challenged as a nullity an illegitimate document. So, if the military have left us with an illegal document, the civilians should not provide us a deceptive document.
The Kano state governor was recently criticised for giving out jeeps to some traditional rulers. What do you make of it?
I have read a lot of reactions to it and sometimes if your are going to guage this by the level of madness of the political class, you will simply say that perhaps giving jeeps to traditional rulers is far better than the governor keeping the money in his own pocket. Because, for most, of them to even be accused of giving jeeps to traditional rulers is not a crime in Nigeria today compared to the way and manner in which people in the position of power are looting public funds in billions. So to me it is not even an issue comparated to what is on the ground in Nigeria. We can say that Shekarau could have used the money to provide a sound transportation system that would ease the problem of transportation in Kano, we can say that the money could have been better put to use on other issues that have to do with poverty alleviation.
The sack of Kingibe generated a lot of reactions from several quarters. How do you see the sack of the former secretary to the federal government and the circumstances surrounding it?
When Umaru Musa was appointing Kingibe, he did seek the opinions of Nigerians to appoint him and when he sacked him he did not also seek the opinions of Nigerians to sack him. But one thing we cannot deny is the fact was that Kingibe was a strong asset to Umaru's administration as an experienced and well exposed personality, with also a progressive background. When you are in government, you are bound to hear and see so many things, and governance in Nigeria is most likely about undoing individuals, bringing down individuals and making sure that the seed of discord is sown between leaders and also individuals that the leaders hold in confidence. But I know it very well that the greatest threat to Umaru Musa Yar'Adua cannot be Baba Gana Kingibe. The greatest threat to Umaru Musa is about the issues and challenges before him and how he will be able to tackle them. And if you are a leader, and you insist that you can only work with people that are one hundred per cent holy and saintly, you will end up working alone.
As a leader you must cultivate the habit of advising, counseling and weighting issues of gossip and misinformation whenever they are being tabled before you. Even from our own small circle as leaders within our own very small communities we do have gossips, we do have reports about people who are close to us as either being treacherous, or working against us or being ambitious to undo us. So if Kingibe was sacked for being over ambitious as it is being reported on paper then Umaru will most likely sack a lot of people who also are ambitious. Every politician is ambitious, if you are a member of house of representatives, your ambition is to be a senator, if you are a senator, your ambition is to be a governor, if you are governor your ambition will be to become president and if you are a minister too, when you are sacked or your tenure is over as a minister, you also have ambitions. So if ambition will be a yardstick for measuring loyalty then you cannot get it among the political class.
A major campaign tool of this government is the 7point agenda. While it has been hailed in several quarters as a step in the right direction it has equally, record some knocks. Do you think the 7 point agenda is feasible?
Well coincidentally, I'm working towards a small book on assessing and analysing the whole concept of the seven-point-agenda. I have gone through the submission of government and their ambitious plan and I have heard some people shower praises and commendation on Umaru's 7 point agenda, even before the agenda started. It is a normal Nigerian sycophancy, where people always want to be seen on the good books of government because they are currying for one political favour or another. But for those of us who simply want to express our opinion, we would say that Umaru's agenda still remains an agenda and up till now it has not started delivering any result.
First of all, our primary school system is in a total state of paralysis. Public primary schools have become centres where children simply go away from their parents for some 5-6 hours and they come back home as un-educated as they left. This was the same public schools that our senators, minister, governors, the president and all people who parade themselves as who is who in Nigeria have attended. Our public secondary schools are not different. Some of them are presently surviving by some few old boys' associations. Most of our universities had their last consignment of books for their libraries in the 80s and 70s. You go to their science lab, apart from titration there is nothing to see there.
We have reached a point whereby the president, governors, ministers, commissioners and people in public office have their children in private school. Yet they tell us that they are trying to reform the educational sector. General Abacha said in 1993, that our hospitals are merely consultant clinics. Some of the mortuaries like in Gwagwalada do not have air condition system. We have reached a point where our leaders visit hospitals in Saudi Arabia, and Europe. With this show of lack of trust, by our leaders, for our health sector where lies our hope of a better health sector? Over N16biillion was spent under president Obasanjo. Right now we have heard that over N614billion is allocated to the power sector. Nobody is saying anything about how we can recover the N16billion and we are still pumping in more money. Moreso a committee that was setup on power said their target was 10,000 mega watts but later they told us that they cannot meet that target. It took less than five years for the revolutionary, in Russia, to electrify the whole of Russia. Power is not about too much talk but about the provision of energy, hydro-energy, solar energy, nuclear energy, bio-fuel; controlling our consumption rate and a master plan to achieve them.
In the Niger-Delta, it is obviously about object neglect, evinvonmental degradation, social injustice, absence of infrastructural development and it is also about misplaced priority by previous governments that organise, conferences, summits, town hall meeting, and set up frivolu s committees which has not worked. As for transportation there is the federal road maintenance agency (FERMA) but if you check very well there is nothing to maintain on our federal roads what we need is a reconstruction of road. If president Yar'Adua does not want to make the mistake of Obasanjo he should be a president on sight, who will directly monitor and see that roads are constructed.
There have been so much praises on the Nigerian economy that now we have $63billion dollars in our foreign reserve and that our economy has appreciated by 2.9 per cent. Now the appreciation of our foreign reserve is not by any miracle, it is simply because of the quantum leap in price of crude oil in the oil market. How do we keeping on expecting paradise by the year 2020 when our people are suffering. He has a period of four years which he needs to demonstrate to the public by performing and he is talking about year 2020. He does not have the mandate to lead Nigeria to 2020 and he must not deceive himself that by the time he is out of power the next president will build on his foundation, after all he is not building on the foundation of Olusegun Obasanjo. So on the 7 point agenda he should be able at the end of his first term come out with a paper and tell Nigerians what he has been able to deliver.
What should be the expectation as the Yar'Adua led government conducts the much awaited cabinet reshuffle?
It is simple a case of "solider go, solider come." Whoever is being appointed will simply do what the programmes and policies of the government of the day profer. So if you remove a Yoruba man as a minister and put an Hausan man as minister they will all work within the context of the direction of the government they are serving. It is simply about changing names, particularly in the kind of system which we operate which does not allow anybody to do more than what Mr. president wants them to do. And to be a minister in a government like this, you have to be nominated by the party on seat in the government and you have to be in the good books of the governor and the party regardless of whatever ideas they have and they are very serious at making sure that whoever is coming is not different in philosophy and tendency because they are quite conscious of protecting the interest and status quo of their own privileged class.
On the 2008 budget that is yet to be finalised by the National Assembly?
I think budget has become an annual ritual project are made, proposals submitted for projects to implemented but at the end of the day if we don't have a standard educational system or health care system and state of the art infrastructure; the budget simply becomes a theory. The only difference Yar'Adua can make from Obasanjo's regime in terms of the budget planning and implementation in seeing to it that as he makes proposals at the beginning of the year of what he wants to do, at the end of the year also he should make a presentation to the nation that this is what he has achived with the budget which was passed a year ago.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Leadership. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
