How would you react to the just concluded Anambra State governorship election vis-a-vis INEC’s assurances and display of confidence that the commission was prepared with its latest technology?
I think so far we should still commend INEC because it is not easy to organise an election. Of course, we know that it is their job to do it and they have to do it as perfectly as possible, but election is a phenomenon that is achieved by the actors and INEC is just one of the actors. You have the political parties, the political actors themselves, the electorate, the media, and the security agencies, among others, but so far, I think what we have witnessed has been a reflection of what the people of Anambra wanted. In other words, you recall that before the supplementary one that took place at Ihiala, not less than 100, 000 votes were attributed to Prof Chukwuma Soludo, and the other political parties were trailing with 50, 000 (PDP), 40,000 (APC)and there about, so far as I said, the election has reflected what the people of Anambra wanted. Nevertheless, there are two key issues. The first one is the technical inadequacies; these technical inadequacies are not unique to the Anambra election. We had it in 2015, we had it in 2019, which means that technologically speaking our electoral process is still not where it should be. So, INEC still has a long way to go, in terms of technology, card-reader and people have been talking about the electronic transmission of results. When you cannot even get the card-reader to work adequately, some of these new innovations may be difficult in terms of technological development. The second one is the voter turnout. The voter turnout is so low, of course, we know that anywhere in the world not all voters come out to vote, nevertheless by the time when the supplementary election is over and you add everything together probably, they are still going to have less than 400,000 people, but that one is not uniquely a programme of INEC, the political parties should mobilise, the people must be sensitized and the media too have a role to play. So for me, I think the hitches that we have had in Anambra are not enough to cancel the merits of that election.
How do you feel when some critics say that the country is at a tipping point?
I think that people have the right to freedom of expression and they can actually describe what they feel the way they feel or the way they want people to see it, but in my thinking, there is no country or community that is perfect in terms of its economy, in terms of security or in terms of political stability, etc. Of course, some countries are more stable than others. Probably, why people are saying that about Nigeria is because Nigeria has been in some kind of precarious and turbulent stage for years, whether under military rule or under civilian rule, but I do not think we should be pessimistic all the time, I do not think that we should be cynical all the time. It is good to put the government on its toes, they have to fight banditry, fight terrorism, fight corruption, fight every evil that is affecting the development of the country, and you also have to make sure that people trust you as a government because government is a continuity. In 2023, when the Buhari administration leaves, are we still going to sit down and be complaining? Under President Jonathan, people also believed that Nigeria was going to collapse. Even the way we talk about the country Nigeria itself most times seems pessimistic. On the part of the people, we must not be extraordinarily pessimistic in terms of our expectations of those in power. Those in power have a limited time to spend there and whatever they can do they do, if they can’t do enough we replace them. But it is not only those that are in power other stakeholders have a part to play. As civil society, our associational life, at the family level, in churches, in mosques, etc, and so little effort by even people who are not in power is what makes a country great not those in power. Those in power are only there for a period of time. However, that does not mean as I said earlier that we should not put them on their toes because they get into power on the promise that they will secure the country and make the economy work and provide jobs, among others. But we should not always think about our country in terms of what a temporary government executive will do in four or eight years, we have to take the country serious and we have to build bridge across the country, we have to work for cohesion and this starts from the families, and education institutions, religious institutions, etc. So, I do not share the opinion that Nigeria will break or that Nigeria is at the brink of extinction. Let us not erase the fact that there are existential challenges particularly at the security level, but those things happen in other countries and they tackle them. So, what we should do is: what can we do as individuals and what can the government do and we also have to make sure that it is not all about the politicians alone. You know we have development in other sectors of life: business life, infrastructure, corporate world, banking sector, entertainment, etc; there are so many things that constitute parameters for development beyond the political. By the time we look beyond the political, even those in the political world will know that they are the ones being left behind.
Do you think that without restructuring Nigeria the country will not be stable?
I believe that every situation needs some kind of restructuring, whether you talk about the electoral system in America, people have been calling for restructuring, whether you talk about the electoral system in the United Kingdom or you talk about whether Scotland should be part of UK, people have always been talking about restructuring even globally. Even in the United Nations (UN), people have been saying that only five members should not be permanent members of the Security Council. So, reforms and restructuring are natural and they will continue to be natural because no system is going to be perfect ever, inasmuch as no system is perfect people will always call for restructuring of some kind. In the case of Nigeria, advocates of restructuring are not even in a single boat because there are people who believe that restructuring means that we should have a regional government, going back to the 1963 constitution. There are people who believe that restructuring means creating states adequately, evenly among the geo-political zones. This to them means that you create an equal number of states in each of the regions and not that Southeast will have five states, North-central you have six, Northwest you have seven, etc, so for these advocates they want equal states in each political region. There are also people who believe that restructuring means freeing some of the responsibilities of resources (Resource control), for instance, from the centre to the 36 states of the federation. There are also others who believe that local government autonomy is a form of restructuring, so it’s not a united voice if you like when it comes to what restructuring means. But I think every individual who talks about restructuring wants a better Nigeria, therefore, my own take has always been, even if it is in every five years whichever government is at the centre should always call for some kind of political reforms or political dialogue conference, carry the people along, feel the pulse of the people, the chiefs, traditional rulers, the civil society, the media, youths, etc. All political parties should be part of that conference, it doesn’t matter which political party is at the centre. This is because if you want to bring about democratic development, it is the job of everybody and so it shouldn’t be partisan. So, for me, restructuring is good, but it only depends on who is defining or determining restructuring. Those who want restructuring that there should be regional government are not going to agree with you that you should create more states. Those who want local government autonomy will not talk about restructuring that will cancel the local government councils. So, restructuring is multi-dimensional, it depends on what kind of restructuring they are talking about and so if we are clear about the kind of restructuring that we want then we can now build consensus across the country to push the agenda, but I think that because of the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic nature of Nigeria there is no special restructuring mode that will be satisfactory to all. None because any kind of restructuring that you propose, for instance, in the Southwest will not go down with the Northwest, the one in the Northeast will not go down well with the Southeast and the South-south people will always talk about restructuring in terms of the control of resources because 70 or 80 per cent of foreign exchange comes from oil and they think that if Zamfara can be controlling its gold why can’t they control their oil. So, restructuring is multi-dimensional as I said earlier when we push it particularly at the legislative level we must build consensus. Another way of having restructuring is probably to take all the issues of restructuring into consideration so that everybody will be happy. Politics is not just about making people happy, it is also about doing what is possible because it is a game of numbers. Those who will do restructuring are those who will amend the constitution, those who will amend the constitution will not amend it in a way that will affect their own people. So for me, restructuring is good, but we have to be clear on what we mean by restructuring and how to carry it out.
Do you have any fear the way Nigeria is going in terms of governance?
No, I think the main fear for Nigeria is the inability or some kind of lack of capacity on the part of the elite to give consensus for national cohesion because if the elite have self-interest and the elite should have self-interest, but they should have enlightened self-interest. For instance, you want to be president, governor, senator, etc, over who? And over what entity? So, they must always look at the cohesion of the country in terms of even the power that they seek, it will be in a united, prosperous country that you can make impact. The fear is that most elite are not thinking in terms of the existential existence of Nigeria in terms of how do we build consensus and cohesion. And once you don’t have any consensus around national cohesion you are going to be having a country that will be swimming in one problem or the other. There is no country that does not have a problem, but it is the capacity of the elite, I mean the power elite to reason together beyond partisan consideration that this country belongs to us and that if we did not build it there is no way we can even exercise or wield power that we seek.
Some critics condemn the President Buhari-led government that its appointments are skewed…?
(Cuts in) Definitely, when there is no justice there can be no progress, there can be no development and justice, even political justice is a form of justice, apart from natural justice and social justice and these things are interwoven. The constitution is also there. It says that you should have a federal character in appointments, in terms of how you carry people along, so by the time you flout the constitution you also flout the rules of social justice and political justice, then people are bound to kick because they will think: Why are we here? Why are we part of the system if the system will only concentrate attention on a particular segment so the people will agitate, it is normal. That is part of what the power elite should think about regularly that if you do not carry people along the way they should be carried along, you cannot blame them when they kick and they can kick positively or negatively. That is why it is important to make sure that everybody has a sense of belonging in terms of appointments, in terms of who gets what, when, and how because politics is about who gets what when and how. When that process is skewed in favour of a group and you give another group the impression that there is no political justice, no social justice, so people will be justified if they are negative or when they go against the state. That is why the Nigerian elite at the centre and at the state level should be careful. At times some people complain about what is happening at the centre, but they perpetuate even worst atrocities at the state level because every state has constituencies too. So, we have to make sure that it cascades to the state level and even local government level so that what you call consensus democracy and what you call social justice, political justice can permeate into the Nigerian fabric. So, it is important that everybody is carried along and the more you try to carry the people along the more they begin to reason along with you that they should be part of the system and they will work for you, for the good of the system.
There is no doubt that there is a huge security challenge in the country, but the government has continued to say it’s on top of it. Do you think that the government has done enough to give the citizens the hope that they are safe and secured?
The way Nigeria is structured it is the Federal Government that is in charge of internal security across the country and so the onus lies on the Federal Government to ensure that the police, the army, the Civil Defence, etc, all those security agencies, that their works function effectively, but at times when you look at it by the time you add up their numbers together, you know that they are overstretched. It is when you are not stretched in terms of security that those security agencies can actually function; when you are stretched looking at the number of police in a population of over 200million there is the likelihood security will be ineffective. The ones on the road may even run away when they see individuals with better ammunition or more sophisticated ammunition. There is a correlation between the level of your security as well as the capacity of your security agencies to function. If you look at it in the last three to four years the insecurity level is so high, the security agencies are over-stretched, the army is overstretched by Boko Haram and banditry, I think banditry and terrorism are more or less the same thing because of their mode of operation. You also have challenges of armed robbery and some other organised crimes. So, it, therefore, means that it is either we go totally federal in terms of how we are going about our security apparatus. What do I mean by that? It is only Nigeria and we have done the study that is a federal country that has a central policing system. So, you need a multi-level policing system so that what is happening now like in Borno State with the JTF or with Amotekun in the Southwest, and those other security networks other political regions like the Southeast or South-south is going to come out with will be some kind of relief for the centrally-controlled police system. Once you have a multi-level policing system these individuals are likely to know their terrain and when they see a stranger with bad intension they easily know. That is one. Then number two is to also make sure that the governors who also get what they call security votes which are not questioned by anybody should also use that security votes for security, not for something else. You know that the security and welfare of the people are tied together. At the national level, I do not think that the Federal Government will admit that it has not performed enough because that will be like shooting itself in the leg, but everybody knows that the security situation in Nigeria has not improved rather it has retrogressed in the last five years. So, the Federal Government must do its job, state government must do its job and local government must also be security conscious so that once we can get the security right other things will follow.
There is this issue of zoning where different geo-political zones are angling to produce the next Nigerian president in 2023, particularly the Southeast seems to be citing equity, fairness, and justice…?
There will always be a need to build consensus in politics, there will always be the need for the bigger political parties, particularly the APC and PDP to sit down and say; if we zone it to this place, are we likely to win because it’s a matter of strategy? But beyond strategy, let me go back to my earlier point on national cohesion, they should be able to know…if we do it this way will it promote unity? If we do it this way will it promote national cohesion? If it is going to be about consensus-building then we must know that the presidency must always go round. Nevertheless, because politics atimes is not about asking and answering moral questions, so it is also now important for political parties and political actors to sit down and ask: How can we get this thing done that will lead to less or no rancor, less or no violence, less or no agitation on discrimination, etc, so that is very important for political parties to do. Zoning is there whether legally or not. You see recently when the PDP did their national convention they zoned positions of the national executives. APC is doing the same thing, zoning is not something that you can deny, but circumstances always change the way zoning is done. Zoning will determine the voting pattern, national cohesion question, unity, sense of belonging, etc, all these things are very crucial when it comes to national political integration.