Abdullahi Hassan ; Noah Ebeji, Kaduna
Professor Ango Abdullahi a spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, former special adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on agriculture and former vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. In this interview with Sunday Sun, he described the recent endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari by APC governors and adoption of delegate system in primary elections as an act of corruption because other interested aspirants are deprived the right to contest. He spoke on recent Benue killings by herdsmen, saying that the minister of agriculture should be held responsible for failure to coordinate with states before the Benue State enacted the anti-open grazing law. He also spoke on other issues.
Recently many people were reported killed in Benue State in attacks by Fulani herdsmen who are protesting against the implementation of anti-open grazing law enacted by the state government. What is the position of Northern Elders Forum?
Yes, it is true that at very early stage, before Benue State Government came to implement the anti-open grazing law, I personally raised the matter in the formal meeting of the Northern Elders Forum and it was decided that a committee should be set up to look at some aspects of law passed by the Benue government and see whether the implementation could start as well as consider the possibility of providing input by way of advice to the government. It happened that I was the chairman of the committee. We know Taraba State was already in the process of enacting similar kind of law. Our committee had worked on this. You know we really had to do a thorough job, particularly, within the limited time. We needed to look at various aspects of the law, it’s implications with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and so on. We got professionals including lawyers and livestock experts, and later came up with a report. Before we could finally finish and present it to the appropriate authority as our own input and advice, the Benue State Government had already started with the implementation of the law. So, we decided that maybe it’s no longer necessary for us to proceed with the passage on to the authority. But we still believed that the information we have in the report would be very useful to all stakeholders. The main issue that came out in our discussion is that this kind of law cannot and should not be introduced in isolation. The Federal Government was derelict. It has failed to examine the implication of the events including the enactment of the law itself, because looking at the livestock industry, 99 per cent of the industry depends on nomadic tradition with Fulani in particular. Nomadic traditions over the centuries entail moving from place to place, looking for grazing for animals. This is what we have lived with for a long time, right from the period when Lord Lugard drafted this country. This is what he found and he spoke about the Fulani. I really want to say that Federal Government is at fault on this because they should have foreseen that the law would create one problem or the other, if not carefully handled. Careful handling means that whatever law that is coming irrespective of economic benefits, livestock development is among core, and the Federal Government has the responsibility to general policies, more importantly, policies that will ensure security and peace in the country. So, when they saw this coming from states, the Federal Government should have drawn the attention of the appropriate authorities on the matter, and called them for thorough study of the law including its implications and benefits. In fact, the agriculture minister ought to be blamed for not taking the appropriate steps to discuss this issue at National Council of Agriculture where the minister and state commissioners of Agriculture meet periodically to deliberate on policy issues in the country. The Federal Government was totally away from it, and now they are talking about irrelevant and meaningless thing called livestock colony.
The law is a concurrent subject in terms of coordination between states and the Federal Government. Federal Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for coordinating any policy directives concerning agricultural development generally.
The Benue State Government has insisted on the implementation of the law despite the ugly development. How do you see this scenario?
Well, I am not a governor of Benue State, but I think the governor knows how to handle the situation, but it looks like he is not going back from the implementation. Surprisingly, he is running away from insecurity situation. Well I didn’t know that Benue State is the kind of state that does not need the assistance of security apparatus especially in this kind of insecurity that erupted the state. I thought at the early stage, the governor should have remembered that if crisis occurs, he would need the intervention of the Federal Government, particularly in the area of security. That is why the state and federal government must come together in this regard. If the governor insists on implementing the law, he must have known or found a way to deal with the chaotic situation.
Some people were arrested for impersonation as Fulani after killing many people. Don’t you think that the crisis has gone beyond mere grazing law to politics?
First and foremost the crisis was spurred by the enactment of the law. So, our understanding of the situation is on the grazing law, though there are factors that interplay. The grazing law should be objective. Whatever it is, it must be done in the interest of the people, meaning that all the people must have their interests protected. Our Committee had critically examined the law in detail and we found out that it clearly intended to exclude the nomadic aspect as sub- development. Nomadic here means people that move around looking for grazing. And these people are only Fulani in this kind of category as livestock keepers. If you look at other aspects of the law, there is no way you can escape from bringing other issues into the matter. Of course, there is ethnic aspect of the law, religious aspect and political aspect of the law. These three elements are all important factors to take into consideration in enacting this kind of law and avoid the possibility of misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the intention of the Law. The intention of the law, the way it was crafted, gave room for people to misinterpret it. In other words, it has left opening for people to speculate, which could lead to crisis as it’s happening in Benue and its neighbouring states.
Recently, the chairman of the Northern Elders Forum, Chief Paul Unongo accused former vice president, Atiku Abubakar of sponsoring Fulani herdsmen to kill innocent people in Benue and urged Nigerians not to vote for him. Is that the position of your forum?
I think from what I read in newspapers, Chief Paul Unongo had already said that the statements were his personal views. But clearly, let me say that at no point was Atiku, either his political ambition or his involvement in any form or the other mentioned in this crisis. The issue has never come under our perview on the Northern Elders Forum. So, there could have been no reason why opinion of accusing the former vice president of sponsoring one group against another one would be discussed in the forum. It was never on our agenda. I will like to emphasize that whatever views had been expressed on the issue, should be considered as opinions of Paul Unongo, not the views of the Northern Elders Forum.
What is the solution to the crisis, as your report is still with you?
The report is for the Northern Elders Forum. Yes, we have not presented the report to the governments and now the crisis has erupted. For me the report has been overtaken by events, because its relevance was before the implementation of the law so that some advice could be injected into the earlier thinking of how to craft the law. But since the implementation has started. There is no need going forward. The solution is for government to go back and rethink about what has brought the crisis and coordinate well with other stakeholders.
There are divergent views on whether APC deserves a second term and whether the PDP should return to power. What is your view on this?
First of all, Northern Elders Forum does not belong to any political party, though we may be individually members of different political parties, but the forum has no lineage to any party. Our position is always that there should be good governance, which is usually brought about by good politics in the country and this is the position we took even before the 2015 elections. So it is left for Nigerians to judge. Our position at that time was that there should be equity and justice in power sharing in Nigeria, and the North was being shortchanged and we argued along those lines. We didn’t hide it. Eventually, power shifted to the North. We didn’t bother whether power shifted to a candidate of a particular political party, like it happened in the case of APC. Nigerians should be the best judges of whether the APC government had performed to the extent that they could ask for extension to second term or not. NEF is not a consultant to any party or government in power.
You said that NEF is concerned with candidate of northern extraction. From the look of things, PDP may eventually present a presidential candidate from North to compete with the APC candidate. In this situation what will you do?
Well, the Northern Elders Forum will allow Nigerians to decide whether the candidate presented by PDP is competent enough to challenge APC candidate in the presidential elections. I understand that PDP had arranged to fill its presidential candidate from North. What will be the yardstick for measuring competence of any candidate will be his records or party or both.
Some prominent politicians from the South-west have said that they can only support President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 if he renews his agreement with Yorubas. What can you say on this?
Honestly, I didn’t know whether Buhari had any agreement with Yoruba before winning the election. If he signed any agreement, I wasn’t aware. We’re not privy to know. Our position is simply that the party we’ll embrace or the candidate we’ll support will be a candidate of Northern extraction. If Buhari had gone into negotiation or signed an agreement with any particular tribe or section of the country, we are not aware and it’s left to him.
Do you believe with notion that the major obstacle of President Muhammadu Buhari is the dominance of cabals around him?
Well, the ultimate responsibility for governance, good or bad, rests with the head. So, for me, I don’t want to really over-flog the role of cabals or ministers. At the end of the day, the buck of responsibility and judgment will be on the head of the government. Therefore, if there is any success people will not be talking about cabals. If government succeeds as a collective, then it is usually the head of government that takes the credit and perhaps, share it with his team. We should begin to appreciate that government is not a one-man show. No matter how evil or clever you are, you cannot run it alone. Government is a responsibility. That is why it is called government. But government has shared duties with those in governance right from the apex to down the line. They are all part of government. If there is failure in government, the first person to be held responsible is the president. Coming back to your question of whether cabals are the problems or not, the performance of this government is wide to say, yes or no. They have done much in some areas and done little or nothing in others. So the judgment of the performance can be best given by the people. We, in the civil society group are Nigerians and interested in seeing good things happening. Where the good happens we appreciate, where bad happens we indicate our unhappiness.
In 2016, Northern Elders Forum complained that the North was shortchanged in the budget with not much development projects allocated to the geo-political zone, Are you still complaining?
Sorry to say that I am not a member of National Assembly. Northern Elders Forum is not part of the executive arm of government that is responsible for drafting appropriation bill for the country. It’s true that in both years, we have read a lot in the papers that there are complaints of marginalization, which you know is a common complaint in this country. We have seen places where, by our assessment, a lot had gone to in 2015, yet they complained. In fact, it is common to complain. Complaint of marginalization was even done by people who seem to be favourably disposed with resources of the country. So it’s a human factor that things are never enough. Obviously, we are looking at this very critically in terms of what our assessment will be, in terms of basic objective that North should never be shortchanged in the political set up in the country, whether social, political or economy. We’ll soon make analysis of all what has happened. We‘ll make a categorical statement to where the North has received an equitable share of what should be due to it from this administration. Also, Nigerians are free to make their complaints. Recently, some groups from South-east, South- south, South-west and even part of the North had complained of certain things. This is quite common in the Nigerian state, There has been always a situation where some people feel uncomfortable.
APC governors recently endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari for 2019 presidential election. How do you see this development viz-a-viz the sustenance of internal democracy that could pave way for the emergence of other interested aspirants?
Well, democracy has very elastic definitions, depending on which part of the world you come from. In Nigeria, good democracy is the one that favours you either as a person, a tribe or religion as the case may be. Northern Elders Forum does not belong to any political party as I told you earlier. But in terms of opinion, obviously, we want to see flourishing democracy in Nigeria. Flourishing democracy in the sense that it allows for full participation of general citizens even at the party level. Because it’s this participation at the party level that gives people a sense of belonging and trust to the party that will ultimately lead to winning election. In our days, I contested election as governor of Kaduna State under the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Of course, I won but I was denied by the then military regime. We had insisted that primary elections must be direct, every member of the party should participate in the elections of the candidate as councillor, state and National Assembly, governor or president. When Shehu Yar’Adua contested elections under this arrangement, l covered South-south for his primaries. All party members came out queued and votes were counted at all wards. Eventually, Yar’Adua won outright, leaving NRC in crisis between Adamu Ciroma and Umaru Shinkafi. Subsequently, the military government cancelled the elections for reasons best known to them. I believed that we’ll not have a good selection of candidates as long as we have delegate system. The present delegate system in operation is open to obvious abuse by people who have cash. People with money will invest by buying delegates to vote for them. You see, all the delegates are happy because they know all aspirants will come and pay money. At the end of the day, how they share the votes or which candidate wins is immaterial. It is a corrupt system that throws in corrupt candidates who will end up being corrupt leaders in government. Therefore, I strongly support that any serious party should subject itself to a system of elections that is participatory for all members. Internal democracy here, to me, refers to party subjecting its members to a process that will be through popular election, not just a system that is controlled by party leaders on the question of who is the highest bidder in terms of emergence of candidate. It’ll be unfortunate if, in 2019, elections end up with this ugly system that will throw in corrupt leaders in government. We have complained about the corrupt practice of stealing billion of naira by some ex-governors, ministers and DGs from government, and we are trying to repeat same. If adopted, direct primaries will reduce corruption and maneuver by incompetent candidates who want to get their way into elective office. Honestly, direct or open primary elections is the best, and it’s not true that the system is full of confusion and expensive as its critics are saying. On the issue of endorsement of President Buhari by APC governors, I see this as corruption and it’s sad that we are fighting against corruption and we render ourselves to it. In fact, this the first place to fight against corruption. With this endorsement people are afraid of contesting elections in their states. Some governors are promoting this. A governor pays some people money to endorse him as governor and Buhari as president. Other members of the party should be given chance to participate in open or direct primary to cast their votes for candidates of their choice. This is democracy in the real sense.
Following President Buhari’s age saga and health status, Some politician began to re-launch the issue of 65 years age limit for any persons wishing to contest for position of president in this country. What is your view on this?
I don’t agree with this view in totality, because from the records we could see that the greatest thieves in government in recent times are mostly people within the age of 40 to 55 years either as governors, senators or head of government parastatals. Honestly, I don’t see age as qualification or disqualification. What matters most is that the persons who offers himself for the presidency must be fit enough to withstand the rigour of the job. Other countries in Europe and America including our sister nations in Africa are effectively lead by aged persons. In fact, many are above 70 years of age. I think the elderly aged should be an advantage qualification for being president of a country. Someone at the age of 70 years will not bother to steal money because he knows that his time in life is coming to an end. Instead, he will concentrate on bequeathing a legacy to the people, not amassing material wealth for himself. This is unlike the younger ones who are looking for opportunity to become billionaires to build big hotels in New York, Hawaii, Dubai and so on. These are young men who steal our money and keep it in foreign banks. Presidency is not boxing tournament or field race. What is important is the intellect and ideas as well as partners with mixture of good age groups. If you look at the First Republic, for example, our former chairman, the late Maitama Sule was appointed minister at the age 29 because the old hands were there to groom him in the right direction and he performed wonderfully. This is what we lack today and we are trying to revive it, which some people are saying is wrong. We have to have elders to guide and lead the society. Unfortunately, look at those that are running local governments today, you find that the chairmen are mostly people between the ages of 35 and 45, and they are the ones we accuse of stealing. Go to state, the oldest governor should be 65 years. Many are below 60 years. My opinion is that in most cases, young age has little to do with integrity. If I am to give advice, I will say anybody who wants to be president must attain the age of 70 years and above.