George Onyejiuwa, Owerri
Elder statesman, Chief Mike Ahamba, is not given to frivolities. The Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) was a close ally of Muhammadu Buhari for years before he emerged president in 2015. In fact, he was his (Buhari’) lawyer during his numerous attempts at the presidency before he eventually won in 2015. Ahamba spoke to Sunday Sun on the state of the nation; particularly insecurity, the suspended Ruga programme, his relationship with Buhari and the way forward for the country. Excerpts:
What are your thoughts on the seeming intractable insecurity in the country?
I want to say this with all sincerity that the country has been overtaken by the state of insecurity. There is no safety anywhere and I believe that nobody can count himself as safe unless those who may have state apparatus with which they are protecting themselves. Ordinary citizens are no longer safe. When you cannot drive safely from Abuja to Kaduna, you can’t drive safely from Port Harcourt to Warri; you can’t drive safely from Enugu to Makurdi. Where do you go? The situation is very alarming and anybody who says that he is not alarmed by what is happening should tell the nation the reason for that, and that he can’t be affected by what is happening. The insecurity situation is so bad that nobody knows the next victim. It is very unfortunate and the Federal Government should do something to arrest the situation before it is too late.
One of the major campaign promises of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 was to handle security having accused ex-President Goodluck Jonathan of being ‘weak’ in tackling the Boko Haram menace. Four years after, don’t you think that Buhari has lost grip of the situation?
I don’t think that the story will be new to you if I say that President Buhari and I worked together for a period of eight solid years in this country and the purpose of that unity was to make Buhari President of Nigeria and the basis of the belief that Buhari should be President of Nigeria, was because of the belief that he will deal with the insecurity in Nigeria decisively. And I must confess that I am full of disappointments and that he has now become president even not under my watch and that insecurity has taken a stroll into our streets uninhibited; I am really worried about it and sad. So, he has failed the nation on this point, if there is any other point where he has done it well in Nigeria; I don’t know. But on this very point of the issue of security; he has failed the nation and failed me.
Would you agree with some people argue that heads of the security agencies are simply incompetent?
I wouldn’t want to talk about the competence or otherwise of the heads of security agencies because they were appointed by somebody. So, if you appoint somebody to do a job and he shows manifest incompetence and you failed to remove him, you are part of the incompetence. President Buhari has the power to remove them and appoint those who would do the job because anarchy is a dangerous pastime, it is nobody’s friend.
Obasanjo in his recent open letter to Buhari again, raised the alarm of the looming anarchy in the country if the current state of insecurity persists. Are you not worried too?
Well, I have heard about the letter, but have not read it yet. But you see, I had sounded my own alarm earlier on when the crisis in Benue was raging, at a time when the former Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, was ordered by President Buhari to go to Benue State to take care of things, but he did not go and nothing happened; that was when I raised my own alarm and it was published. I had said that what is happening couldn’t have been an accident. The Minister of Defence had earlier told a bewildered nation that those who were doing the killing came from other West African countries, which means that strangers had crossed our border into the centre of the country and, that seemed to be their justification for the horrendous killings that were taking place in Benue then and President Buhari capped it by saying that they were escapees from Libya. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces said that they came from Libya and I just couldn’t understand it why that should be so. For me, that should be a reason they should wake up because it means they are admitting that the country has been invaded. But the most worrisome is that no one has been arrested both in the past killings and the recent ones. I warned in that document that people should not be allowed to resort to self-defence because if people are pushed to the wall, they are bound to react the best way they can even if it requires them to use sticks to fight the person with a gun, they will do it rather than being slaughtered like goat. Let us not allow it to get to that stage in this country. But unfortunately, some people are developing so much courage with more impunity, saying my cattle must graze in your village whether you like or not. We are talking about who are terrorists in this country. IPOB was proscribed as a terrorist organization, but they’re not known to have threatened the life of anybody or killed anybody. But Miyetti Allah that justifies killing and threatens to kill because of cow, nobody is talking about them. If we are a united country of the same people, things wouldn’t be this way because there are a lot of disappointments in the way and manner the country has been administered in the past four years.
What is your reaction to the proposed Ruga programme; its suspension and others?
That is exactly what I am saying, the Miyetti Allah now believes that they are bigger and stronger than the Federal Government and that is why they have given such an ultimatum to the Federal Government to do what they want or they would cause anarchy in the country and already they have been trying to wipe out some people and nothing has happened. Let me tell you, no group has been able to wipe away any people in history. Things have changed and nobody should deceive themselves of the advantages of yesterday as things have changed. You don’t create a war with many sectors, and this is what some people are trying to do in the country. Who are these Miyetti Allah people who are telling the president of the country to reverse what he has said? If the president refuses to call Miyetti Allah to order then it would appear to be an executive collusion. If Miyetti Allah is not called to order in this country they will start a war that they cannot end.
Does it not give credence to what Obasanjo said of the alleged agenda of Islaminazation and Fulanisation of the country by the Buhari government?
I wouldn’t talk about Islaminazation. Although when you think of Federal Government acquiring lands for the Fulani herdsmen across the 36 states, it would be read by people as an occupation of land army. And I think it must be avoided as indigenes of the communities would rather die than part with their lands for the establishment of Ruga or whatever it is called. There is a proverb that a tree that makes noise before falling does not kill anybody. This particular tree is making so much noise and; are Nigerians willing to allow it kill them? It is not right because things are not done in this manner, allowing one ethnic group to lord it over other ethnic groups is not possible. So, let them not even try because when the trouble breaks out, it will be difficult to reverse when there are casualties. In Rwanda today, there is a museum were thousands of human skulls were displayed for people to see the consequences when a people of a nation decide to kill themselves. May God never allow us to experience anything like that!
Do you agree that Buhari is simply witch-hunting members of the opposition in the name of fighting corruption?
As far as I am concerned, the allegation that the administration is not really fighting corruption cannot be assailed and it is very clear. I said it in my previous interview with your newspaper. It is not possible that the only people who are corrupt or committed an offence are those who are not in APC, it looks ridiculous. So, in APC they don’t commit offence? Those who were accused of corruption by this administration and immediately they joined the APC, that would be the end of their alleged corruption charges; it is too obvious and not right. I want to tell you this; if there is any man who feels very hurt of what is happening today; it’s me. I spent eight years with my erstwhile friend and leader, General Muhammadu Buhari and put everything I had and even risked my life, but then Shakespeare said that there is no act to read the construct of the heart on the face. He was a gentleman in whom I had absolute trust in. If this mistake was an error of judgment, then I’m not alone because many Nigerians had supported to remove Jonathan.
There is this allegation that the Fulani herdsmen unleashing reign of terror in country were actually brought into country from across West Africa for the purpose of 2015 general election to cause mayhem if Jonathan had won. Have you heard something like that?
I don’t really have any fact on this. You know I am a very conservative lawyer and I cannot say something that I cannot prove. It is a probability. Somebody has said and also said of trying to take them away. If that is true, it then means that the country could be taken over one day because a section of the country has no border. Anything can come in from the northern border of this country; it is only in the western and southern borders that you find Custom men and immigration, but if it is up there, anybody can come in. There are many people even in Owerri today that you can’t account for them. You go to the junctions there; you find the girls who were born here with children; now where are their husbands? Now, these children are not going to school even when primary and secondary education is free in the state and so very soon we shall have Almajiri here which in itself will create social problem. I think that anarchy is a pastime that does nobody any good. And nobody should seat back and think that when anarchy comes that they wouldn’t be affected. Prevention, we Nigerians must realize, is better than cure. I also wonder why the United Nations chose to come when things have terribly gone bad. Does it mean that they don’t know what is happening in Nigeria? Can’t they advise the leaders of the country not to take actions that would breach the peace rather than coming when things have already gone bad?
But Nigeria is a sovereign country?
This is the more reason they should call our leaders to order, especially when human rights abuses are being perpetrated because if a section of the world is in problem, it would certainly affect the rest of humanity because this is a global village. So, the United Nations should come into Nigeria to stop what is happening by speaking about it in New York; Britain that colonized this country would they say that they have not heard or seen what is happening in Nigeria? What have they done? Patience Jonathan made a very important statement and people began to trivialize it- ‘there is God ooo”.
Obasanjo has called for a national conference; don’t you think that the recommendations of the 2014 confab organised by ex-President Jonathan should be implemented by this administration?
The national conference organized by President Jonathan witnessed the collation from people from all segments of the nation although I know that they had no enforceable authority, but they had a suggestive authority and most of the recommendations were unanimously agreed. But I think that it is not possible to carry all the over 600 recommendations which are emotionally driven. But we have to divide the recommendations into three; those that can be done with executive fiat and the other that can be done through legislative activities and act of the National Assembly, the third can be done through the constitution, if it is looked at in the right way. We always talk about constitutional amendments when it talks of alteration of provisions. So, for me, what we need is to set up a constitutional conference not a national conference. What is important is how we live in Nigeria. We can organize a national conference that can create a forum to review the constitution giving a chance at referendum as stated in that act. Look at the American Constitution, the Congress initiates an amendment to the constitution and the National Assembly can do that. But our problem really is not the constitution because if we can implement the way they are written, we have no problem. It is the breakdown of institutions in Nigeria that should implement what we have in the first place, that is the problem and not the document.