JONATHAN, KWANKWASO’S VERBAL WAR DISAPPOINTING - Prof Jibril Aminu
The National Conference is into its second month and it will soon be over. Would you say so far, it has been able to achieve anything meaningful?
Nigerians are impatient; that is one major problem with us. You cannot really tell we have not achieved anything until we’ve finished. If we are able to finish our job and pass our recommendations to government, then I believe we’ve been able to achieve something, that we’ve succeeded. The rest is with the president; he’s the one who set us up, it’s left to him what they do
Former Minister of Education and delegate to the on-going National Conference, Professor Jibril Aminu took a swipe at political leaders urging President Goodluck Jonathan not to extend the state of emergency in the North East. The Peoples Democratic Party chieftain also spoke, in this interview, on the attitude of delegates to the National Conference, the exchange of words between President Jonathan and Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in Kano, and his worries for Nigeria
with our recommendations. It’s when we are not able to finish our assignment that I don’t think we’ve succeeded.
At the inaugural address of the president for this conference, you said this conference is not like that of 2005 or even that of the late Gen Sani Abacha. In what respects is this one different?
Of course, I said this one is different from that of 2005 because I wasn’t there. I was at the 1995 Constitutional Conference and it wasn’t like this in many respects. The preparations made for the Constitutional Conference were different. The rules were different. We went there to write a Constitution for Nigeria and we did, and that’s the one we are using now, no matter what anybody says.
But with this present one, they seem to have their own ideas about the scope, responsibilities, mandate and powers of the conference. This is what I have noted and I keep on repeating anytime I have the power to speak - and it is not every time you have the power to speak there - that we don’t have those powers of the Constitutional Conference.
Somebody got up to say a lot of the conferences were before Independence and did not have the powers we have. But they had; they had British rule. The British were ruling and they had the power to accept or reject whatever those nationalist leaders at the time were asking for.
I believe we have to stop lying to be clever and accept that this conference has a lot of expectations, more expectations than ever before. But we don’t have the powers, the powers have not been given to us. We are still more or less an advisory committee to Mr President. He set us up and whatever paper we produce we give to him.
Still, that doesn’t mean we cannot achieve a lot; of course, we can. A lot of things are in the Constitution that we could look at. When people agree among themselves, they can do anything. I hope that the delegates will agree among themselves to make powerful recommendations to the president, recommendations he would find difficult to reject or he would be very happy to accept.
That is the situation for now. It is too early to start discussing whether we’ve achieved anything.
Further in line with your explanation, if the June 12 saga informed the convening of the Abacha conference and the Third Term controversy that of 2005, what would you say informed the convening of this conference?
There is no powerful or compelling antecedent for this one. In Abacha’s time, we had the June 12 problem. Our most important task was to draft a Constitution that would consider immediate events and address those issues bothering the nation.
I think we did that. It was a difficult assignment, but we had the military government at that time and there indeed were issues. We had the problem of June
12, we had the problem of rotation, we had the problem of revenue allocation, we had the problem of federal character, we had the problem of bringing about peace.
People were demanding a new Constitution that would address devolution of powers. We had all those problems but we were able to do our assignment successfully.
There was really no crisis to inform this ongoing conference; that’s what I meant by no compelling antecedent. Even when there is no compelling antecedent, too many people are trying to create such antecedents. With some of the delegates, what’s not our business is being made our business. So we just have to go to the conference to listen to what they are saying. And when you listen to them, you have to pray on what the exit would look like.
I am not very happy. It is not the fault of the president, nor that of the conference. One thing you can blame the president for setting up the president. Apart from that, you can’t blame him for anything. The delegates at the conference are mature, some of them older than the president. So we ought to know the right thing to do and what not to do. We’ll all rise up to the occasion and behave properly.
There are serious complications. Look at the kind of things going on in internal security. Even if there had been no security challenges in the country, this would still have been a difficult conference because of the expectations and attitudes of delegates,
In Nigeria now, every day, there is a colossal disaster. I hope the Nyanya bomb blast would be the last one. All these complications are not being effectively addressed.
That security challenge is one. Another is this murky political atmosphere politicians create every day. Look at what happened in Kano. I never thought we would reach a point where the president and the governor would be slinging mud at each other. They were publicly accusing each other of embezzling money and withholding of funds.
I was very worried about our leaders’ attitude to governance now. I have never seen this kind of thing. We’ve had a lot of disagreements between the president and political leaders. When Alhaji Shehu Shagari was president, there were disagreements in governance, but it never degenerated to a situation like this. We should appeal to them to put a halt to this kind of thing.
This kind of attitude does not impress voters. If they think what they were doing would impress voters, they were making a very big mistake. Voters want peace, they like peace. Voters want things done for them. Voters want to feel that their country is safe for them. They are not interested in politicians abusing each another.
Elections are still some months away, but see what the political atmosphere is already. The president goes to a place and in a kind of macabre humour, the local politicians take up brooms and begin to sweep away the sand where he walked. Are they saying he has no right to be there? What were they saying by sweeping his feet away, that he had no right to be there? It’s his constituency, much as it’s the constituency of the governor.
I remember Alhaji Shagari reminded Alhaji Balarabe Musa when the former governor said the president should
People come to a conference to show how much they hate you, they have come here to show you
how much they look down on you, they have come to show you how much you contributed to every bad thing that happened to them, they have come to show you they believe the best thing is if
everybody goes his way
not come to Kaduna State. The former president told Alhaji Balarabe Musa that that was a lie, that Kaduna State was the governor’s constituency as much as it was his. So Kano is Kwankwaso’s constituency, as it is also Jonathan’s. People should understand this that nobody can lay a territorial claim over the other. The drama made me very sad. I am very sad.
You said you are sad. Many Nigerians believe it’s a cause and effect thing, that what Nigeria is going through is a result of bad leadership over the years. Would you admit that past leaderships, of which you were an active part, threw Nigeria into its present spin, in terms of leadership quality, or lack of it, and should be held responsible for its current crisis?
(A long pause) I know what you want me to say. But whoever you think might be responsible, all of us are to blame, because people have put politics ahead of governance and government.
The moment you put somebody in a position, he is looking for a higher position. He doesn’t do the work he is there for. The moment he gets there, the job becomes irrelevant; what’s important is the higher position. You put a governor in a place and he is looking to be the vice-president or the president. You vote somebody in for a first term, he is not thinking of that first term, he is looking towards the second term. All the friends he makes are related to how they treat, how to achieve his ambition.
We’ve stopped governing, all we are doing now is politics. And this politics we are playing very recklessly. I don’t know what will happen to this country if we continue like this. The masses who voted you into elective offices did not do so so you can go there and push your ambition. They voted for you so you can do something positively meaningful for them.
This atmosphere has got to be improved. People must address their assignments most seriously. It is not politics all the time. It is not ‘my ambition’ all the time. It’s not adversary behaviour all the time. People in this country are entitled to peace.
If you think that what’s happening now was not caused by all of us, then you are very much mistaken. We have to learn how to love this country; this is what is missing. Every time you go to a place like the conference, it is so glaring people don’t love their country. We don’t love one another.
People come to a conference to show how much they hate you, they have come here to show you how much they look down on you, they have come to show you how much you contributed to every bad thing that happened to them, they have come to show you they believe the best thing is if everybody goes his way.
We have the responsibility of deciding for about 140, 150 million people, but everybody is just busy pursuing his own political chicanery. We are not doing the right thing.
Some Nigerians believe the president constituted the National Conference in pursuit of his 2015 re-election ambition and that he is, in fact, pushing the National Assembly to empower him to do a new Constitution. How do you react to this?
That’s adversary behavior; I don’t believe that. It’s just that the atmosphere is not healthy anymore.
Talking about political maturity, less than 48 hours after the Nyanya bomb blast, the President was dancing away at a political rally in Kano State. Many Nigerians are still condemning Mr President’s jollification there as insensitive. Would you agree?
He wanted to go to Ibadan but he didn’t go…
But he went eventually. And that was after over 100 girls had been abducted…
Ok, ok. If anybody wants to make an issue of that, he can. What did people expect the president to do? To sit down after the blast and not do anything? I expected him to take all the security measures that he can, and I believe that was what he did. He may not be able to do everything, but he would do what he can and carry on with his work with as much dignity as he can.
Are we all going to sit down weeping? The president is expected to take positive action, to direct people to look for whoever were responsible for the blast. That is the most important thing for him to do, not carry about a handkerchief weeping. If people want to accuse you of callousness, people will always do that irrespective of what happened. It is all just political chicanery.
All those who are accusing, didn’t they have their lunch and their dinner? Did they deny their families any pleasure? That is what I meant when I said that with government, we are just playing politics. But we can’t afford to go on like this. We are far behind the world in many, many ways. We should show deeper, more seriousness to national affairs.
The president needs to go and address the conference again. He needs to reposition, to refocus the conference. There is a concern on matters that should be the responsibility, the job of the National Assembly. We’ve been given a specific assignment to achieve within a very short time and I believe that’s what we should do.
Are you saying the delegates have not been doing that?
I am not saying that. I am only saying what we should be doing. Now that the
committees have begun their work, they should do what needs to be done. We should not concern ourselves with certain matters that are the responsibilities of the National Assembly. We don’t represent the people. Those who represent the people are in the National Assembly. Some people may not agree with me, but I feel very sincerely about this.
Would you agree with the talk in some quarters that if participation at the National Conference was to be by election, most of the delegates would not be there, either because they can never win the votes of their people or they just aren’t qualified to participate in such a talkshop?
But in actual fact, some of us just go there to have some rest. They go there to say they are the only nationalists. What have they been doing for the country? How much risk have they taken? How many times have their lives been threatened? It’s all easy to open their mouth and talk. That is the kind of nonsense I don’t want to hear.
The conference reeks of so much religious and ethnic cleavages. Delegates deviate from the professional callings which took them to the conference and start posturing as religious and ethnic champions. Wouldn’t this affect their assignment and final report?
Exactly. That’s why I said the president needs to come and address the conference again and ask the delegates to refocus. This has happened a number of times. General Obasanjo, I remember, came back to re-address the Constituent Assembly. That was in 1979.
Whenever there is this kind of development, the leader always finds it necessary to re-address the delegates. With the way things are going now, it will be very helpful if Mr President can visit the conference again and ask them to refocus.
Some days, we would spend the whole day discussing minutes of the last meeting or whatever. Some would raise a lot of hell over who moved what motion. All what this is revealing is how much we hate each other, whether it’s real or drummed up.
This really worries me. I believe the chairman and his vice are doing their best to steer the conference well. But there is a limit to what they can do - and they are responsible to somebody.
The state of emergency the president declared in three states in the North East will be expiring this weekend (yesterday). Some elders in the North have been calling on the president not to extend it. Do you agree?
What is their alternative? Should the president just fold his hands and allow things to get worse? Even if you don’t do something with 100 per cent effectiveness, at least you must be seen to be doing something. If they were in his position, would they just be looking on while the situation deteriorates? Would they just sit by and eat suya? That is not right.
We’ve never had a crisis of this dimension without the declaration of a war. We are in a war but we are not behaving like there is a war. It is a war. We are not fighting students or political enemies. We are confronting a very
If we are able to overcome what’s really worrying us now, there will be peace. Sooner or later, we will realise that the issue is not whether we would be staying together or not, but that we are betraying
this country. Some of us think the best thing to always say now is, ‘let’s go our way.’ We don’t have
any responsibility for anything
powerful organization with very powerful international connections.
Look at Afghanistan, the whole of the Soviet force went there but had to leave in haste. Look at Vietnam, the United States of America put into it everything it could, they had to leave the place in a mess. Look at Somalia. We have to look at the power of the people we are fighting. We are fighting a strong people with a strong motivation.
They said they are Boko Haram. They said they want to convert everybody in Nigeria to Islam; that’s not a small motivation, it’s not a small ambition. This issue is very serious and I sincerely hope that we begin to find what the Hausa call bakin zaren, that is when you put up a thread to put it in a needle, you must find the mouth of the thread first.
There is no way we can solve this problem without sitting down and refocusing on what exactly we need to do, both at the government level and the conference.
Everybody is confusing the war with their grudges. They are interested in their grudges, they are not interested in the war. People are more interested in their longterm political demands.
That is not what is worrying this country now. If we are able to overcome what’s really worrying us now, there will be peace. Sooner or later, we will realise that the issue is not whether we would be staying together or not, but that we are betraying this country. Some of us think the best thing to always say now is, ‘let’s go our way.’ We don’t have any responsibility for anything.
All these people shouting, they have never seen a gun firing. I remember the late Prime Minister (Abubakar Tafawa Balewa) was always saying “none of all these African nationalists shouting has ever held a gun not to talk of fire one.”
President Jonathan once accused North East leaders that their people are not sending their children to school and this is why there is the Boko Haram scourge. As a former Minister of Education, how true would you assess this?
As I said, we are doing more politics than governance. People are already campaigning. Maybe the president has a reason for saying that. Parents are not sending their children to school? If you look at the Constitution, you’ll see education is the responsibility of the federal government. I think he should work at eradicating illiteracy in the country. If he does, he is not helping me, rather he is helping the country.
But I believe it’s the atmosphere. It wasn’t entirely his fault. The atmosphere is very foul and nasty.
Would you tie the extent of poverty in the land with the terrorism scourge?
One of the consequences of poverty is terrorism.
Would you say President Jonathan has performed well enough to deserve another term?
I believe President Jonathan will stand for election next year and I believe those who will decide on him are not me sitting down in my little sitting room. It is the voters.
I believe with the enormous odds, he is trying to do what he can. All of us are capable of doing more than we are doing, so President Jonathan is capable of improvement.
I won’t sit down here and assess him. What I want is to see him succeed in controlling the problems of this country. Anybody you bring to lead this country at this time will have the same problems.