Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi is the Secretary of the Restructuring Committee constituted by the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with newsmen, he shed light on the essence of the public hearings being conducted by the APC committee and declares that the committee’s report will not end up on the book shelves. Group Politics Editor, Taiwo Adisa, presents the excerpts:
My little understanding of what the Committee was asked to do was to give an opinion of what the APC as a party is to put forward to Nigerians as its understanding of restructuring. Will the audience be members of APC alone or all others will be part of the meeting you are going to have?
First and foremost, we must recognise that the work of nation building is an ongoing process, in which every stakeholder has a role to play to make his own contributions, in which case, the APC, as a national political party, is an institution that has a role to play in making its own contributions and this exercise is its own way of making that contributions. And it felt that it’s necessary, not just to think amongst ourselves, but to actually ask members of the people, what do you actually think and that is why everything that this Committee is doing is not about its own opinion. It’s about harvesting the opinion of the ordinary people that we want to talk to in order to form an opinion. After all, no political party exists just by itself. It exists by the mandate of the people.
Are you inviting non-APC members to your forum?
We have put up a public announcement calling for memorandum and calling for members of the public to meet us at designated venue without any discrimination. So, it’s an open invitation to all Nigerians to attend and make their views and their voices to count.
The Northern Governors Forum are planning for similar….across the northern states. Don’t you think there might be clash between your gathering and their own?
The Northern Governors Forum as stakeholders in the development of Nigeria, have every right to consult people on the future of Nigeria. I don’t think it’s a matter of monopoly and I think that is the attitude of the APC. Every opinion is welcome. The Committee will do its work. The challenge now is for all of us to be positive because what we are looking for is solution.
It appears the Committee has broadened the scope of the mandate given to them. I am wondering if there world not be clash between the Committee and the National Assembly because based on what you are saying, its looks like the Committee is talking about constitutional amendment. As a Senator, won’t there be a clash between the Committee’s work and the National Assembly to the extent that the Committee might abandon the work?
This committee is an APC committee. In other climes, you see a case where the opposition sets up its own committee on the same issue. A situation where you are going to consult the people who are either from the ruling party or from the opposition party, in a situation where there is a divided opinion on it because if your submission is different from the belief of people from other groups, how will you manage this?
There is no monopoly of ideas and the party felt that in view of the ongoing discussions in the country about state of federalism, it’s good for the party to understand exactly what its role is and its definition of the issues are in doing so, the party felt in its wisdom that public consultation is necessary and that is what we are doing and it does not foreclose any other body within the country to do its own work. That’s why somebody referred to the Southwest. They’ve just consulted and put something into the public domain. That’s a body of information, it’s a body of knowledge from which ideas can be gathered in the best interest of the country.
The issue of conflict with the National Assembly does not arise because this exercise is not trying to make laws. It’s trying to understand what is the popular demand of the people that the party can use to advocate within its membership in the National Assembly for necessary constitutional amendment ideas. And don’t forget that constitutional amendment is not a one in a lifetime opportunity. It’s once in every four years. So, the fact that the National Assembly is going through a process does not foreclose public discussion and debate on what should happen and there is always a timetable and opportunity in the future to take such ideas and turn them into necessary laws and what have you by the National Assembly.
Will you say that the party is trying to second-guess the mind of Nigerians instead of going for referendum. Will the Committee’s work stand in place of a referendum?
If this comes out as part of the responses of public consultations, it will surely be reported. You know I said at the beginning that this is a subject in which the Committee itself has no opinion. We are not canvassing any opinion as a committee. As a committee, we are interested in harvesting opinion, in order to inform the party on what the public is saying concerning these issues such that the party can do its own work effectively in such a manner that it will respond to the popular opinion of people.
The APC as a party did not participate in the National Conference organised by President Jonathan. These issues were adequately dealt with in the report of that conference. Will you be consulting that documents, considering the fact that you rejected that conference earlier?
I don’t think there is anything called rejection of that conference. The report of the conference is in the public domain and it is available as literature for the work we are doing. Not just that. You have the 2005 political reforms report. So, we are looking at all of these in order for the APC to understand what exactly its role should be in the way forward. The question you raised about the fact of divided opinion, I think the critical issue we have a different conception and understanding about what the issue is and assuming we are able to strike a balance and get what we call a national consensus, it’s a dynamic issue that in the next one or two years, it will assume a different connotation. So, it’s something that has a life in itself, and for many of us in the party, we believe the issue of restructuring is not a new debate. It’s a debate that has existed almost as old as Nigeria itself. What is important is to find a bearing in which as much as possible, issues that are dear to the minds of Nigerians can be aggregated and some recommendations bordering on the issue of governance and the issue of legislation can be worked out.
As a political party, it can take initiative to direct different representatives to act accordingly. The important thing in terms of the public hearing is that there is nothing that has been foreclosed and we are therefore inviting everybody who believes his or her opinion will help shape the future of Nigeria with respect to the different issues in the debate, to feel free to come forward and present it. I think that is the issue.
I was thinking that at the level of drafting the manifesto of the party, the party should have had a clear-cut idea of what is restructuring. But it appears you are practically being pressured to start taking a look at it. It’s just like corruption which is one of the manifesto of the party. Maybe you now say you want to consult the entire country on what corruption stands for. So why now if it were there? We expect that the Committee that drafted that manifesto should have had a clear-cut idea of what it means.
In terms of the debate about when the party manifesto was being worked out, I think everything was debated. But we must be honest to acknowledge that at the time in 2015 when the manifesto was being worked out, the content of the debate was not as it is today. In 2015, nobody was drawing maps. Today, maps are being drawn. And in 2015, there was a level of nationality. So, you can assume some broad recommendation and that was what went into the manifesto of the APC and that is the point I made that it’s a dynamic issue. Because we acknowledge that there are new elements to the debate, new anger has set in, we are opening the frontiers of the debate and inviting even people with anger to come and express their anger and we hope to make things out of it in such a way that everybody will locate his or her bearing.
During the last broadcast of President Buhari, he said he only recognises that the statutory body to look at reservations about the state of the Nigerian structure and what have you is the National Assembly and the Council of States. This coming from the chief executive officer of Nigeria, does it not foreclose whatever will be the outcome of this report?
On the issue of statement of Buhari foreclosing the debate, I don’t think that is the case. If he says the National Assembly has powers to take decision, I think he even opens the frontiers. We have representatives in the National Assembly. If today there is a position in the party, the party can call its members in the National Assembly and direct them to act accordingly. A constituent can also direct their representatives. So, there is nothing foreclosed. I will take the statement of President Buhari to mean an acknowledgement that the issue is open for debate.
As interphase between various segments of the society, we cannot under any circumstance foreclose dialogue, public consultation to understand issues as a basis of interventions and that’s exactly what the party is doing. Whether it ought to have done it earlier than now or not is open for debate. But the principle of asking the public what do you think, what’s your view, what’s your opinion, can we hear you out, is not something that we should shut down in any democracy. And coming from a political party, it is something that we should encourage and promote and advocate and when results of such consultations become open, it’s something that the media should feast on and say this has come as a product of public consultation. That is exactly what this exercise is all about.
Do you think under the atmosphere we have in the South East, with the clashes between the military and the IPOB youths, do you think APC can really carry out this exercise?
We are in constant touch with our local teams there and they don’t seem to be raising the kind of alarm that you seem to be suggesting. We are watching the situation. Again, you must remember that we had election under almost worst situation in the Northeast. So, I think we should not discourage ourselves.
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