What would you consider as the gains and losses for Nigeria in its chequered 57 years history as an independent country?
They are mostly losses because we are unable to organise ourselves properly and part of the reasons for this is that, in reality, I doubt that there is a nation called Nigeria, because it was a territory created by the British in 1914 and by 1960, they generated a political party that would take power. By 1966, the whole thing collapsed in a coup and from 1966 through the war, we have soldiers ending up with General Abdulsalami Abubakar that gave us a constitution, which is actually a decree. So, in reality, the people have not agreed on how they would associate. So, I associate it with a forced marriage where husband and wife did not agree on anything. Honestly, it is easy for them to quarrel on anything. What you see in Nigeria, all the crises, are as a result of this lack of agreement about what is our political destiny. So, I will say we have continued to decline in all the statistics: whether in the field of education; in the first 1,000 universities in the world, Nigeria is not there; even in sports, including football that Nigeria excelled at the Olympics and whichit used to excel, we are not there. In infrastructure, all the roads have broken down; unemployment is at its highest, almost 70 million Youths are unemployed. All the hospitals have broken down. So there is no independence success story and that’s the truth. I can’t point to any success story. Everyday, one grapples with the idea or thought what would happen. You are not sure; the country is too fragile. So, I would only hope that there is a break or reflection on October 1st, that our politicians would understand that they would need to give Nigerians a good deal. And the good deal can come in the shape of a new constitution, shaped by the people and not shaped by the politicians, in which the constitution will enable the relevant agencies to be relieved and Nigerians could feel the energy of their resources.
There are rising calls that the country should return to the 1963 republican constitution. Do you subscribe to such demand and why, given your call for a new constitution?
Conceptually, I do agree with the need to redistribute powers from the centre to the regions. Whether it is the 1963 constitution, it requires discussions. That is the point. But I accept in principle that the federal government is strong and it needs to cede some powers to the regions. How that would happen is what is required to be discussed and vote or put upon by a referendum of Nigerians and not the National Assembly.
There is no provision in the 1999 constitution on referendum?
The constitution of Nigeria, as far as I am concerned, is a dead document; it is dead because it tells a lie. It says ‘we the people’, but the constitution was made by Abdulsalami Abubakar in 1998 and so it is not my constitution. So I want a constitution that represents me and other Nigeriawns. So the National Assembly power is limited to three functions. First is passing laws; second, amending the constitution, and third is over-sighting public institutions. But the fourth one which people think the National Assembly has power to do is creating a new constitution and they have no power to do that. If we want to stay with amending the constitution, then the problem will continue, but if we want to create a new constitution, it will require the people to play a role and not the National Assembly.
But the lawmakers seem to believe we can devolve powers to the adjoining units through ongoing amendment of the constitution.
But devolution of power is not the only problem. If it were the only problem, then yes, but there are more problems than just devolving power. These include the nature of economic development, the nature of government: what type of government do we want? Who says that I want to be a Nigerian? Have I told you I want to be a Nigerian? We have to agree. So, the National Assembly cannot decide these questions.
But the authorities are saying the unity of the country is non-negotiable, that the issue was settled a long time ago?
That is rubbish; that is complete rubbish. You can’t force me into any relationship. You can’t force me to marry my wife? Both of us have to agree. So, you can’t force me to be a Nigerian; we have to agree, and the National Assembly can’t force me to be a Nigerian. It is when we as Nigerians discuss and agree, then we are Nigerians. This is something beyond the National Assembly. It is not about devolution of power alone. You can devolve powers to the regions and the problems would be transferred from the centre to the regions and there would be no difference. So we need a truly participatory people’s constitution. That is the way forward.
What do you think the country needs to do in order to achieve that objective?
We have just talked about that, because we have a president who has by virtue of section 5 of the constitution can create that process. Actually four presidents had tried it but they could not arrive at a solution, even military presidents starting from IBB to Abacha, to OBJ, and Jonathan. They tried through the national conference. If they had implemented the results of the national conference and they presented it for a referendum, that’s the people’s constitution. But they did not do it. So, it is a very simple process, but there must be the energy on the part of the president to want to do what I have discussed.
What do you think about the future of the country, in the light of ethnic agitations, calls for and against restructuring, rancorous atmosphere and misty political firmament?
It is bleak. If I’m a doctor and you come to me as a patient and I examine you, I will give you a result. So if I’m looking at Nigeria as a physician, I will say the process and diagnosis show a very sick country and its future is very bleak. Everything is scattered; nothing is working. There is no energy; no gas, no diesel; crises everywhere; political insurrection across the country. No one can point to the fact that things are going well. The federal government is broke; it can’t pay salaries. There are strikes everywhere; it is borrowing money at an unprecedented level; technically, the government is broke; it has no money at all. It is only surviving by selling treasury bills, but it has not funded the capital projects under the 2017 budget. So how do you expect things to change? How do you pump money into the system in order to generate productivity if the government has no money?
Some critics say the bane of the country is the rate of corruption among public officials, that the problem of the country is more about the operators and not the constitution?
Yes, that is partly the truth because at the end of the day, you have to have politicians who are mature and have ethics because you can have the best constitution, but the people who operate it don’t obey it. Then it would be useless. That’s why I said that let’s not think that restructuring is a magic wand and once we restructure, it would solve all our problems. Let’s not think that a new constitution, once in place even by the people would resolve everything. We need political pluralism: a strong APC that checks the excesses of the PDP and vice versa. Nigeria is a one-party state and there is danger in having such trend or situation. I’m talking about effective parties and not parties registered on the books of INEC. The only effective party on the books of INEC now are APC and PDP; that’s all. But PDP itself is in tatters. So we can only say in reality, there is only one party and that one party has no opposition. It is like imagining in America there is only one party and there is no opposition, or in the United Kingdom. So political pluralism is very important for building democracies and creating development. But once you have one party, then there is impunity. There are weak institutions.
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Nigeria, the pains, the gains, the prospects
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