Days of Party Supremacy Are Over in Nigeria – Akinyemi
JULY 5, 2015
BAYO AKINLOYE
Nigerian Punch
A former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, tells BAYO AKINLOYE that the recommendations of the 2014 confab report are available for President Muhammadu Buhari’s government to make use of
Talking about events happening on a daily basis in Nigeria, are you provoked by the recent happenings at the National Assembly?
Yes, I am provoked but in a positive sense. I am not a politician. But as a scholar, I think the last party I joined and whose card I held was the now defunct Social Democratic Party. And that was in the late 80s. That was the only political party I have ever joined in Nigeria. Therefore I am speaking from a purely academic affair. Nigeria will continue to transform and emerge as it wrestles with development and changes in its political and social system. The heydays of party discipline and party dominance were actually in the 50s and early 60s when we were practising the parliamentary system. The leader of the party then was the Premier because the Prime Minister then was not the head of his party. But when we transformed into the presidential system, we now had to find the kind of presidential system we were going to run because the parliamentary system was still in the blood of our politicians. Whereas under the American system which we adopted, there is no party supremacy. In 1979, there was no party supremacy as such. Frankly, each state in the United States basically has its own Democratic and Republican Party and their policies could be different. The policy of the Democratic Party in Tennessee, for instance, could be different from that of the Democratic Party in Vermont and the Republican Party of Texas would be different from that of its Montana counterpart. Once a party elects the president, you seldom hear the chairman of that party. The president becomes the protem leader of the party for the duration of his tenure. In the US, the congress also has its leadership depending on who formed the majority. Even if the same party produced the president and formed the majority in the congress it is the norm for the president and the congress to still fight not to talk of when they are from different political parties. It is the norm of the American presidential system of government that we seek to copy in 1979. But like I said; the parliamentarian blood is still running in the veins of our politicians when they are still talking of party supremacy or no party supremacy. And thus, what we are going through now is how to evolve what I will call a Nigerian Presidential system which may be different from the American system in some ways and may be close to the French system or may just really be purely a Nigerian system. I am going through this extensive analysis because I am sending a message to Nigerians not to panic or think everything is going to crumble or think we have an existential crisis on our hands. Secondly, even in Britain where they still run a parliamentary system of government, the control of the party over parliament is very minimal. Frankly, the last time I could remember that one could say the party controlled the parliament was under the Labour Party before Tony Blair; we are talking about the time of Harold Wilson, Callaghan, and this was the time when the trade unions really controlled the party. And the Labour Party found out that it had started to lose elections because the type of leaders that were then being thrown up by the party were unelectable. And gradually they looked for means by which they reduced the influence of the trade union movements on the party so they could elect somebody like Tony Blair who now moved the Labour Party from the far left. Nobody dictates to the prime minister who his cabinet members would be because he is going to put into consideration the major forces within his party. Nobody is going to march in there and say I am the chairman of the Labour Party or the Conservative and say that this is the list of the cabinet members. In 1999 (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo basically controlled the National Assembly but (late President Umoru Yar’Adua and (former President Goodluck) Jonathan never did. In fact from day one, Jonathan lost the control of the House of Representatives. The world did not come to an end. Yes, it affected legislation but here we are – Nigeria survived a president being at logger heads with a House of Reps controlled by the same party. Really, I find it interesting and very engaging.
As a member of the committee on the restoration of peace in the North East and deputy chairman of the National conference, what are your recommendations for the restoration of peace to the troubled region?
What the government should do is very simple. It is not rocket science. It is very simple. You must engage the Boko Haram militarily, degrade them and defeat them militarily. It is a must. Secondly, you must now address the social and economic circumstances that created this pool of foot soldiers that Boko Haram’s ideology appealed to. The issue of poverty should be addressed and an economic environment that could generate employment should be created. Someone who is gainfully employed and catering for the needs of his family would not listen to the ideology of Boko Haram. That is part of our recommendations which the government accepted and has set up funds to address. Of course, you must set aside funds that would repair the economic damage done to the North-East. Economically and industrially, the North-East has been set back. The level of infrastructural destruction there is unimaginable. That also must be addressed. But in our report as well, we drew attention to the danger of treating the North-East in isolation because I don’t like the fire brigade approach to solving problems where you allow the patient got crippled by the disease before you start paying attention. One should address the factors that lead to the illness so that the patient does not even get ill. Looking around all over the country, factories are being closed and there are pools of unemployed young, energetic graduates. People get frustrated if they don’t find meaning to their life and they are likely to turn to radical courses. Therefore, we actually did suggest a master plan for the whole of the country where you would deal with poverty, unemployment. You seek to create an environment that will allow factories and industries to be regenerated.
You were in the forefront of the fight for democracy some years ago. Do you have any regrets doing this looking at what our democracy is now in Nigeria?
It is true this is not the kind of democracy we fought for. However, that is life. Evolution is the constant factor in life. We have just had a change of government from one party to another. It was done peacefully and we have had elections conducted in a credible and basically honest version. If you think of the way elections were conducted in 1999 and what (Prof Attahiru) Jega did, we have moved a long way. We are not there yet. If perfection were to be achieved, then life becomes boring. We will never have a perfect society, but that is not failure. I am not happy, neither am I depressed. We are not there yet, but we would get there. A state of emergency was declared in 1962 because a few punches were thrown in the House of Assembly, I wonder what (Chief Ladoke) Akintola, Chief(Obafemi) Awolowo and (Chief) Fani-Kayode in heaven would do now if they could look down and see what is happening now. On a serious note, we wish our people will behave as they do in the House of Commons where the excess is in the debate and the American congress or French rather than turning our chambers into a training ground for World Boxing champions. In all I don’t regret being part of NADECO and I believe that some the seeds that NADECO sowed are yielding results.
You were a member of NADECO, so also was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress. What is your relationship with him?
We don’t have any relationship. He is a politician, I am a scholar. We look at things from different angles. He is a very clever politician. I don’t agree with some of the things he stands for and he probably doesn’t agree with what I stand for. That is life. He is a practical politician who understands power. I am a man of ideals.
Many people see a Tinubu factor in the ongoing crisis in the National Assembly while recently Chief Bisi Akande accused the Northern elite of conspiring against the South-West. How do you these playing up in the polity?
It is not a new thing that the South-West is marginalised. One thing you cannot accuse Obasanjo of is having favoured the South-West; looking at his appointment and policies. But what I see and what people ought to understand is that the APC is not a homogenous political party. It is an alliance of different political groups. All these came together and they were united. The APC is like NADECO which was made up of many tendencies. There were those who came into the NADECO with the objective of restructuring Nigeria and if the military would do it, they were prepared to give the military a chance. There were those who came into NADECO to validate (Chief MKO) Abiola’s mandate and whether or not the military were going to restructure Nigeria was secondary to them. Thus there were different tendencies that came together to form NADECO. The same thing with the APC. To me, the Tinubu factor in the APC is just a factor. We may never get a homogenous party in Nigeria because neither the PDP nor the APC is homogenous.
What roles do you think the president can play in all these crises?
Again, let’s take a historical look at this. Obasanjo tried to control the National Assembly but he failed. Do you know the number of attempts that were made by the House of Representatives to impeach him? He ended up with Speakers that were antagonistic to him. During the struggle that led to the emergence of (Aminu) Tambuwal, (former President Goodluck) Jonathan made it known that that was not the House of Reps leadership he wanted. But he ended up with a very hostile House of Reps. Now, when you see how the elephants and the buffalos tripped; you yourself will learn a lesson. I will not be surprised if the President is thinking, “If I intervened, will I succeed? Or would the reaction be what happened to Obasanjo or Jonathan? If I’m not going to succeed, why intervening in the first instance?” If you do that, you lose some political goodwill because he’s got to get a National Assembly that will function. Therefore, I don’t think that it is a question of the President being impartial, I think his handlers should devise some ways by which the National Assembly will not disrupt the programme of the President.
As the deputy chairman of the confab, do you think former President Jonathan betrayed Nigerians by not attempting to implement any of the recommendations?
I believe that if Jonathan had time to reflect, maybe this is a question he himself would have to address because when we wrote that report and submitted it in August 2014, we made his job easier by dividing it into parts. Part one was on resolutions that he could implement because they dealt with issues completely under the control of the executive. Part two dealt with issues that needed the National Assembly’s concurrence. And it went on like that.
Only the former President knows why between August 2014 when we submitted the report and the elections in April, 2015 he did not implement the ones under his platform. Only he can explain. I don’t know why he did not do it.
Were there efforts made to get ex-President Goodluck Jonathan to implement certain aspects of the confab’s recommendations?
There were efforts made by some delegates; because there were people close to him who were also delegates at the conference. But I am holding back because I don’t want to be seen as knocking a man while he’s down –therefore, I am holding back.
Is he really down?
Well, of course, he lost an election.
But it’s been said he lost on a good note and people have been commending him for that…
Which is quite true; the manner of the concession, as far as I am concerned has increased his stature worldwide. I think he’s greater out of office than he was while in office –absolutely, no doubt about it. Thus, I don’t know why he didn’t implement those recommendations that didn’t require the approval of the National Assembly or the state Houses of Assembly.
With no likely implementation of any of the recommendation by the confab, won’t you say the National Conference was a jamboree?
No, it is not. The issues we discussed were the issues Nigeria faced in 2014. Nigeria is still facing those issues in 2015. Nigeria will still face them next year. Nigeria will still face them in 2020. Ideas are never lost. You may not claim that, ‘Oh, this is part of the recommendations by the National Conference that I am implementing simply because you have a visceral objection to the conference. But you will visit the recommendations, to the extent that they are valid. For example, former President Umar Yar’Adua’s amnesty programme for the Niger-Delta; did you think he plucked it out of the moon? Somewhere along the line this issue had been addressed. When a student tells you he wants to write a thesis on something, he or she goes and visit documents, historical documents in the library, in the public view and when he or she can’t get them, comes to interview people. Therefore, the report of this National Conference including the report of Obasanjo’s conference plus the report of the late Gen. Sani Abacha’s conference are never lost; ideas are never lost. Therefore, when a government is faced with an issue, you turn to your civil servants and ask for direction. The civil servants don’t just sit down and dream of an idea. They go into the archives.
With the All Progressives Congress being averse to the National Conference, do you see the Federal Government tapping into the report?
Yes, if I were one of the President’s advisers –which I am not – I am not going to go to him to say this is the confab report, here are the resolutions; what do we want done? Of course, it would be flung out through the window. But when your governors say that the centre controls too many resources and they don’t have enough resources to do what they want to do and the President seeks their opinion on what should be done, they will go back to that report; they won’t make reference to the confab recommendations. Since you know that viscerally the President doesn’t want to hear about the confab recommendations, they don’t need to point out that their ideas were taken from the confab report.
It appears President Muhammadu Buhari has become the new bride of the international community unlike the less robust international acceptance that his predecessor enjoyed. As a one-time Foreign Affairs Minister, how do you see the increasing international acceptance of Buhari?
I will say ensure that it is really a bride and not a mistress. National interests matter a lot and I am happy that at least the environment ensures that the President has access to work with all the world leaders. But as I have often said, it is not the fact that we are talking that interests me, it is what the content of the conversation is that matters. That is why I said there is a difference between a bride and a mistress. A mistress is used and dumped; a bride is mutual interest of the bride and the bridegroom. Our own interests must be very well articulated and we must ensure that we do not confuse having a conversation with the content of the conversation. I pray that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be restored to its former glory in terms of resources, training of personnel, and status as the articulator of Nigeria’s foreign policy rather than being relegated because of the problems it has faced in the past. The government will get the best out of a foreign affairs ministry when it is well funded.
What negative bearing can the National Assembly crisis have on the nation?
The downside of the crisis is the effect it will have on governance. The former Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, left office on Tuesday along with several national commissioners, there is no quorum now and yet some governorship elections are due next year in some states. Probably, in another –who knows –two months or so, election tribunals will begin to give judgment but the country doesn’t have the INEC in place to conduct elections and it won’t until the Senate is in a position to accept nominations from the President. There are also some judicial positions that will soon become vacant and nominations from the President need to be confirmed by the Senate, not to talk about the ministers, not to talk about ambassadors –those are the downsides. The National Assembly must get its acts together.
What do you make of Buhari’s inability to name his cabinet after a month in office?
The President is taking his time. I get his feeling based on his government in 1984, ministers –known as federal commissioners at that time –were appointed in January 1984. He didn’t reshuffle his cabinet until he was overthrown. That tells me that he is a man who believes that once he’s got the round peg in the round hole, he lets his ministers get on with the job rather than rushing to making ministerial appointments only for him to say, ‘Oh my God! What have I done? Who have I appointed? The guy has no clue.’ If I could be mischievous a little bit, I am looking forward to the day that those who want to become ministers are made to apply for the job and tell the President what their achievement goals are likely to be and if they don’t meet those goals? what should be the penalty?
But you know ministerial appointments are political…
Maybe we should start making those appointments technocratic because that may also explain why the United States seldom gets cabinet reshuffle for the President takes his time to make sure he’s putting a round peg in a round hole and then leaves him to work. If he fails, he’s chucked out. But in Nigeria, we change ministers more often than not and this is a reason we have abandoned projects and policies. Does it really matter if a good minister remains in office for the entire four years?
Do you think President Buhari can bring about the desired change millions of Nigerians are yearning for?
Yes, I think so because of his character. An African proverb says, ‘Fish rots from the head.’ At the same time, the direction of a fish is determined by the head. Even though the tail wags in different directions, it is the head that sticks to where it wants to go the tail just propels it. And going back into our history, I remember late Gen. Murtala Muhammed even though it was just for six months, he made enormous changes. We have a president who has the image of incorruptibility, man of integrity, a principled man and one who you should underestimate at your own peril. And if you think that the civil servants have not changed since he became the president you are being mistaken. To me, I think Nigeria will get a different style of good governance and depending on policies he wants to pursue, he could get the changes made. I believe a man can make a difference. A man doesn’t make a forest but a man can make a difference.
Will you recommend that the Federal Government bailout states currently in financial mess?
Like Greece, right? To me, this may in fact be the opportunity this government will be looking for to restructure. If the Federal Government is going to bail them out there should be conditions attached –no free lunch, no freebies. The money shouldn’t be given to them to do whatever they like with it.
A drama recently played out at the Presidential Villa regarding which security agency should serve as the inner guards of the President. What is your view on this?
The institutions are there and the regulations setting them up are there. The situation should never have been allowed to arise where you knock the heads of two (security) institutions together. If there is something wrong with a particular institution, the heads should be dealt with. But again, in the United States, no First Lady or the President will dare tell the secret services what to do because they know what to do. And, as we have seen, each time there was a lapse in security there, the head had left. The situation in the Presidency concerning which security agency keeps a close watch on the Villa should be handled carefully. The secret service will always be there; it’s like the Nigeria Police.
BAYO AKINLOYE
Nigerian Punch
A former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, tells BAYO AKINLOYE that the recommendations of the 2014 confab report are available for President Muhammadu Buhari’s government to make use of
Talking about events happening on a daily basis in Nigeria, are you provoked by the recent happenings at the National Assembly?
Yes, I am provoked but in a positive sense. I am not a politician. But as a scholar, I think the last party I joined and whose card I held was the now defunct Social Democratic Party. And that was in the late 80s. That was the only political party I have ever joined in Nigeria. Therefore I am speaking from a purely academic affair. Nigeria will continue to transform and emerge as it wrestles with development and changes in its political and social system. The heydays of party discipline and party dominance were actually in the 50s and early 60s when we were practising the parliamentary system. The leader of the party then was the Premier because the Prime Minister then was not the head of his party. But when we transformed into the presidential system, we now had to find the kind of presidential system we were going to run because the parliamentary system was still in the blood of our politicians. Whereas under the American system which we adopted, there is no party supremacy. In 1979, there was no party supremacy as such. Frankly, each state in the United States basically has its own Democratic and Republican Party and their policies could be different. The policy of the Democratic Party in Tennessee, for instance, could be different from that of the Democratic Party in Vermont and the Republican Party of Texas would be different from that of its Montana counterpart. Once a party elects the president, you seldom hear the chairman of that party. The president becomes the protem leader of the party for the duration of his tenure. In the US, the congress also has its leadership depending on who formed the majority. Even if the same party produced the president and formed the majority in the congress it is the norm for the president and the congress to still fight not to talk of when they are from different political parties. It is the norm of the American presidential system of government that we seek to copy in 1979. But like I said; the parliamentarian blood is still running in the veins of our politicians when they are still talking of party supremacy or no party supremacy. And thus, what we are going through now is how to evolve what I will call a Nigerian Presidential system which may be different from the American system in some ways and may be close to the French system or may just really be purely a Nigerian system. I am going through this extensive analysis because I am sending a message to Nigerians not to panic or think everything is going to crumble or think we have an existential crisis on our hands. Secondly, even in Britain where they still run a parliamentary system of government, the control of the party over parliament is very minimal. Frankly, the last time I could remember that one could say the party controlled the parliament was under the Labour Party before Tony Blair; we are talking about the time of Harold Wilson, Callaghan, and this was the time when the trade unions really controlled the party. And the Labour Party found out that it had started to lose elections because the type of leaders that were then being thrown up by the party were unelectable. And gradually they looked for means by which they reduced the influence of the trade union movements on the party so they could elect somebody like Tony Blair who now moved the Labour Party from the far left. Nobody dictates to the prime minister who his cabinet members would be because he is going to put into consideration the major forces within his party. Nobody is going to march in there and say I am the chairman of the Labour Party or the Conservative and say that this is the list of the cabinet members. In 1999 (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo basically controlled the National Assembly but (late President Umoru Yar’Adua and (former President Goodluck) Jonathan never did. In fact from day one, Jonathan lost the control of the House of Representatives. The world did not come to an end. Yes, it affected legislation but here we are – Nigeria survived a president being at logger heads with a House of Reps controlled by the same party. Really, I find it interesting and very engaging.
As a member of the committee on the restoration of peace in the North East and deputy chairman of the National conference, what are your recommendations for the restoration of peace to the troubled region?
What the government should do is very simple. It is not rocket science. It is very simple. You must engage the Boko Haram militarily, degrade them and defeat them militarily. It is a must. Secondly, you must now address the social and economic circumstances that created this pool of foot soldiers that Boko Haram’s ideology appealed to. The issue of poverty should be addressed and an economic environment that could generate employment should be created. Someone who is gainfully employed and catering for the needs of his family would not listen to the ideology of Boko Haram. That is part of our recommendations which the government accepted and has set up funds to address. Of course, you must set aside funds that would repair the economic damage done to the North-East. Economically and industrially, the North-East has been set back. The level of infrastructural destruction there is unimaginable. That also must be addressed. But in our report as well, we drew attention to the danger of treating the North-East in isolation because I don’t like the fire brigade approach to solving problems where you allow the patient got crippled by the disease before you start paying attention. One should address the factors that lead to the illness so that the patient does not even get ill. Looking around all over the country, factories are being closed and there are pools of unemployed young, energetic graduates. People get frustrated if they don’t find meaning to their life and they are likely to turn to radical courses. Therefore, we actually did suggest a master plan for the whole of the country where you would deal with poverty, unemployment. You seek to create an environment that will allow factories and industries to be regenerated.
You were in the forefront of the fight for democracy some years ago. Do you have any regrets doing this looking at what our democracy is now in Nigeria?
It is true this is not the kind of democracy we fought for. However, that is life. Evolution is the constant factor in life. We have just had a change of government from one party to another. It was done peacefully and we have had elections conducted in a credible and basically honest version. If you think of the way elections were conducted in 1999 and what (Prof Attahiru) Jega did, we have moved a long way. We are not there yet. If perfection were to be achieved, then life becomes boring. We will never have a perfect society, but that is not failure. I am not happy, neither am I depressed. We are not there yet, but we would get there. A state of emergency was declared in 1962 because a few punches were thrown in the House of Assembly, I wonder what (Chief Ladoke) Akintola, Chief(Obafemi) Awolowo and (Chief) Fani-Kayode in heaven would do now if they could look down and see what is happening now. On a serious note, we wish our people will behave as they do in the House of Commons where the excess is in the debate and the American congress or French rather than turning our chambers into a training ground for World Boxing champions. In all I don’t regret being part of NADECO and I believe that some the seeds that NADECO sowed are yielding results.
You were a member of NADECO, so also was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress. What is your relationship with him?
We don’t have any relationship. He is a politician, I am a scholar. We look at things from different angles. He is a very clever politician. I don’t agree with some of the things he stands for and he probably doesn’t agree with what I stand for. That is life. He is a practical politician who understands power. I am a man of ideals.
Many people see a Tinubu factor in the ongoing crisis in the National Assembly while recently Chief Bisi Akande accused the Northern elite of conspiring against the South-West. How do you these playing up in the polity?
It is not a new thing that the South-West is marginalised. One thing you cannot accuse Obasanjo of is having favoured the South-West; looking at his appointment and policies. But what I see and what people ought to understand is that the APC is not a homogenous political party. It is an alliance of different political groups. All these came together and they were united. The APC is like NADECO which was made up of many tendencies. There were those who came into the NADECO with the objective of restructuring Nigeria and if the military would do it, they were prepared to give the military a chance. There were those who came into NADECO to validate (Chief MKO) Abiola’s mandate and whether or not the military were going to restructure Nigeria was secondary to them. Thus there were different tendencies that came together to form NADECO. The same thing with the APC. To me, the Tinubu factor in the APC is just a factor. We may never get a homogenous party in Nigeria because neither the PDP nor the APC is homogenous.
What roles do you think the president can play in all these crises?
Again, let’s take a historical look at this. Obasanjo tried to control the National Assembly but he failed. Do you know the number of attempts that were made by the House of Representatives to impeach him? He ended up with Speakers that were antagonistic to him. During the struggle that led to the emergence of (Aminu) Tambuwal, (former President Goodluck) Jonathan made it known that that was not the House of Reps leadership he wanted. But he ended up with a very hostile House of Reps. Now, when you see how the elephants and the buffalos tripped; you yourself will learn a lesson. I will not be surprised if the President is thinking, “If I intervened, will I succeed? Or would the reaction be what happened to Obasanjo or Jonathan? If I’m not going to succeed, why intervening in the first instance?” If you do that, you lose some political goodwill because he’s got to get a National Assembly that will function. Therefore, I don’t think that it is a question of the President being impartial, I think his handlers should devise some ways by which the National Assembly will not disrupt the programme of the President.
As the deputy chairman of the confab, do you think former President Jonathan betrayed Nigerians by not attempting to implement any of the recommendations?
I believe that if Jonathan had time to reflect, maybe this is a question he himself would have to address because when we wrote that report and submitted it in August 2014, we made his job easier by dividing it into parts. Part one was on resolutions that he could implement because they dealt with issues completely under the control of the executive. Part two dealt with issues that needed the National Assembly’s concurrence. And it went on like that.
Only the former President knows why between August 2014 when we submitted the report and the elections in April, 2015 he did not implement the ones under his platform. Only he can explain. I don’t know why he did not do it.
Were there efforts made to get ex-President Goodluck Jonathan to implement certain aspects of the confab’s recommendations?
There were efforts made by some delegates; because there were people close to him who were also delegates at the conference. But I am holding back because I don’t want to be seen as knocking a man while he’s down –therefore, I am holding back.
Is he really down?
Well, of course, he lost an election.
But it’s been said he lost on a good note and people have been commending him for that…
Which is quite true; the manner of the concession, as far as I am concerned has increased his stature worldwide. I think he’s greater out of office than he was while in office –absolutely, no doubt about it. Thus, I don’t know why he didn’t implement those recommendations that didn’t require the approval of the National Assembly or the state Houses of Assembly.
With no likely implementation of any of the recommendation by the confab, won’t you say the National Conference was a jamboree?
No, it is not. The issues we discussed were the issues Nigeria faced in 2014. Nigeria is still facing those issues in 2015. Nigeria will still face them next year. Nigeria will still face them in 2020. Ideas are never lost. You may not claim that, ‘Oh, this is part of the recommendations by the National Conference that I am implementing simply because you have a visceral objection to the conference. But you will visit the recommendations, to the extent that they are valid. For example, former President Umar Yar’Adua’s amnesty programme for the Niger-Delta; did you think he plucked it out of the moon? Somewhere along the line this issue had been addressed. When a student tells you he wants to write a thesis on something, he or she goes and visit documents, historical documents in the library, in the public view and when he or she can’t get them, comes to interview people. Therefore, the report of this National Conference including the report of Obasanjo’s conference plus the report of the late Gen. Sani Abacha’s conference are never lost; ideas are never lost. Therefore, when a government is faced with an issue, you turn to your civil servants and ask for direction. The civil servants don’t just sit down and dream of an idea. They go into the archives.
With the All Progressives Congress being averse to the National Conference, do you see the Federal Government tapping into the report?
Yes, if I were one of the President’s advisers –which I am not – I am not going to go to him to say this is the confab report, here are the resolutions; what do we want done? Of course, it would be flung out through the window. But when your governors say that the centre controls too many resources and they don’t have enough resources to do what they want to do and the President seeks their opinion on what should be done, they will go back to that report; they won’t make reference to the confab recommendations. Since you know that viscerally the President doesn’t want to hear about the confab recommendations, they don’t need to point out that their ideas were taken from the confab report.
It appears President Muhammadu Buhari has become the new bride of the international community unlike the less robust international acceptance that his predecessor enjoyed. As a one-time Foreign Affairs Minister, how do you see the increasing international acceptance of Buhari?
I will say ensure that it is really a bride and not a mistress. National interests matter a lot and I am happy that at least the environment ensures that the President has access to work with all the world leaders. But as I have often said, it is not the fact that we are talking that interests me, it is what the content of the conversation is that matters. That is why I said there is a difference between a bride and a mistress. A mistress is used and dumped; a bride is mutual interest of the bride and the bridegroom. Our own interests must be very well articulated and we must ensure that we do not confuse having a conversation with the content of the conversation. I pray that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be restored to its former glory in terms of resources, training of personnel, and status as the articulator of Nigeria’s foreign policy rather than being relegated because of the problems it has faced in the past. The government will get the best out of a foreign affairs ministry when it is well funded.
What negative bearing can the National Assembly crisis have on the nation?
The downside of the crisis is the effect it will have on governance. The former Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, left office on Tuesday along with several national commissioners, there is no quorum now and yet some governorship elections are due next year in some states. Probably, in another –who knows –two months or so, election tribunals will begin to give judgment but the country doesn’t have the INEC in place to conduct elections and it won’t until the Senate is in a position to accept nominations from the President. There are also some judicial positions that will soon become vacant and nominations from the President need to be confirmed by the Senate, not to talk about the ministers, not to talk about ambassadors –those are the downsides. The National Assembly must get its acts together.
What do you make of Buhari’s inability to name his cabinet after a month in office?
The President is taking his time. I get his feeling based on his government in 1984, ministers –known as federal commissioners at that time –were appointed in January 1984. He didn’t reshuffle his cabinet until he was overthrown. That tells me that he is a man who believes that once he’s got the round peg in the round hole, he lets his ministers get on with the job rather than rushing to making ministerial appointments only for him to say, ‘Oh my God! What have I done? Who have I appointed? The guy has no clue.’ If I could be mischievous a little bit, I am looking forward to the day that those who want to become ministers are made to apply for the job and tell the President what their achievement goals are likely to be and if they don’t meet those goals? what should be the penalty?
But you know ministerial appointments are political…
Maybe we should start making those appointments technocratic because that may also explain why the United States seldom gets cabinet reshuffle for the President takes his time to make sure he’s putting a round peg in a round hole and then leaves him to work. If he fails, he’s chucked out. But in Nigeria, we change ministers more often than not and this is a reason we have abandoned projects and policies. Does it really matter if a good minister remains in office for the entire four years?
Do you think President Buhari can bring about the desired change millions of Nigerians are yearning for?
Yes, I think so because of his character. An African proverb says, ‘Fish rots from the head.’ At the same time, the direction of a fish is determined by the head. Even though the tail wags in different directions, it is the head that sticks to where it wants to go the tail just propels it. And going back into our history, I remember late Gen. Murtala Muhammed even though it was just for six months, he made enormous changes. We have a president who has the image of incorruptibility, man of integrity, a principled man and one who you should underestimate at your own peril. And if you think that the civil servants have not changed since he became the president you are being mistaken. To me, I think Nigeria will get a different style of good governance and depending on policies he wants to pursue, he could get the changes made. I believe a man can make a difference. A man doesn’t make a forest but a man can make a difference.
Will you recommend that the Federal Government bailout states currently in financial mess?
Like Greece, right? To me, this may in fact be the opportunity this government will be looking for to restructure. If the Federal Government is going to bail them out there should be conditions attached –no free lunch, no freebies. The money shouldn’t be given to them to do whatever they like with it.
A drama recently played out at the Presidential Villa regarding which security agency should serve as the inner guards of the President. What is your view on this?
The institutions are there and the regulations setting them up are there. The situation should never have been allowed to arise where you knock the heads of two (security) institutions together. If there is something wrong with a particular institution, the heads should be dealt with. But again, in the United States, no First Lady or the President will dare tell the secret services what to do because they know what to do. And, as we have seen, each time there was a lapse in security there, the head had left. The situation in the Presidency concerning which security agency keeps a close watch on the Villa should be handled carefully. The secret service will always be there; it’s like the Nigeria Police.
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