Gabriel Enogholase
29 June 2009
(Page 3 of 3)
It would be re-called that at the Aburi Conference in 1967 Chief Emeka Ojukwu called for a con- federal political system for Nigeria and only recently, the Movement for National Reformation (MNR) led by Chief Anthony called for the division of the country into 8 autonomous regions with a weak centre. Do you support these calls against the backdrop of development in the country?
We need a federation and not a confederation. We need a type of federation where the federating states have autonomy in relation to the specific functions they have to perform within their own territories. One of the problems that we have over the years is that we are federal in name but unitary government in practice.
The centre has overt powers and if you read other authorities on this matter, you find that we do not have a federal structure. It is because federalism has failed that people now talk of confederation. We need a centre that is really strong while allowing the states to exercise the powers they have under the constitution.
That is not what happens now and so, we have to return to the type of federalism that we have in the first Republic. That was when the Western Region depended on cocoa , the North on cotton and groundnut and the East on rubbers, palm oil and other things.
So let us return to that kind of federal structure. If we find ourselves in that kind of arrangement, people will not be talking about confederation. I don't believe that we need a weak centre because if you have a weak centre, that is not really the best for the Nigeria, but then, having a very strong centre and very weak states is also not good for the people. There has to be proper balance between the powers of the states, the local gov
ernment and then, the federal government.
President Umaru Musa Yar 'Adua is two years in office. In spite of mounting problems such as the failure in the energy sector, increase in crime rate, and restlessness in the Niger Delta, people are still clamouring that he should re-run in 2011. What is your view on this?
You are dealing with a class phenomenon. Yar 'Adua is not the issue because he did not make himself President of Nigeria. Certain forces made him president of country and it is the same forces that are clamouring that he should continue because they know what is happening under the system. Individuals play a huge part in history, but they do so only within context of other forces within which they coalesced. So, the fact that he has not performed over the last two years in office is not his fault alone, it is the failing of the forces that propelled him into power.
It is the failing of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because that party is made up of a gang who are interested in looting the treasury of the nation. They are not interested in the development of the country, they don't have a sense of patriotism and they do not know the meaning of shame. How did the Third Term agenda for Obasanjo emerge? It is the same forces that said let Obasanjo have a third term in office that is saying, let Yar' Adua go for a second term.
The President is entitled to a second term with the provisions of the constitution. So if he wants to run in spite of the widely speculated health problem that he has, it is his right. But the decision is that of the electorate to make whether they want him or not. And the problem in Nigeria is that the electorate do not decide who remains in office. It is the same gangsters in power that decide who remains in office.
So, if they agree that Yar Adua is going to be president of Nigeria in 2011, he will, unless the people and other political parties get their acts together and say enough is enough. If people resist and say he cannot continue, that is it. If they see the resistance of the people, they will run because their investments are not in Nigeria . All the money that they looted are outside the country and they will run for their lives. So if people do not resist, Yar' Adua will continue in office in 2011.
He may even have a third term in 2015. Any thing goes. Obasanjo did not have a third term because there was a disagreement within his party. Atiku did not want him to continue and if there was agreement that he should have a third term, he would have had it, Nigerians would have just shouted for one or two weeks, and then it would have died down.
If you are asked to access the two years dministration of President Yar 'Adua, what would you say?
I will not just make a blanket assessment; I will look at the different sectors of the economy. In doing so, I will then arrive at a general assessment. I will take the issue of poverty. Are Nigerians poorer that they were in 2007? The answer is that Nigerians are poorer today that they were in 2007. Do they have more energy that they had in 2007? The answer is again, no.
We have less power. Look at the health and education sectors, look at infrastructure development and all other areas, the country is worse than it was in 2007. And then, look at the whole issues of accountability and transparency. Is the government better than what it was in 2007; the answer is no. Things are much worse. The promise of Electoral Reform have not been carried out? If you then take everything together you find that the government has not performed.
And if you take the areas separately, the verdict is that the government has not performed. But unfortunately, the people did not put the people in power. They remain there by the forces that rigged them into power. That is the way this kind of assessment can be done.
In fact, I was reading the other day, a statement credited to the wife of the president, saying that she was alarmed at the report being made about mortality rates in Nigeria . Those reports are true. Nigeria has one of the highest infant and mortality rate in the world and the situation is not improving, rather it is getting worse.
It is because there is a failure in leadership. Ghana conducted election, it is over, South Africa conducted election it is over, the same with Indian with 70 million going to vote and within 12 hours, the result was going to be made known. So if you take everything together, I will say that we do not yet have a country.
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