Elder statesman and scholar with diverse experience in public service, international relations, Professor Tunde Adeniran, was Nigeria’s Ambassador to Germany between 2004 and 2007 and later appointed Minister of Education. He speaks with DARE ADEKANMBI on the presidential race, campaign, blame game between the Federal Government and state government over local government funds, among others.
What is your assessment of the presidential race as it stands today?
Each time I reflect upon the trend and the way it is going, I feel worried. Worried in the sense that I thought by now Nigeria would have moved to a stage whereby aspirants who have now become candidates will be focusing on issues and less on personalities. The challenges being faced by the Nigeria federation now call for more sober reflection and thoughts about how best to resolve our various problems which are daunting. I believe seriously that by now we should be doing it in such a way that people will know we are a serious nation and we can’t be a serious nation unless we have serious leadership that will be able to carry the people along to be able to solve the multifarious problems in the country.
I believe that some people take the campaign as fun. Some people also take it as ‘yes, we are there because we have the money and the resources. So, let us dazzle Nigerians and just entertain them, deceive them and get what we want to be able to do what we wish with them.’ This is tragedy and it is not encouraging at all. It is worrisome the way the electioneering is going. We have passed through all forms and all kinds of dangers and problems in the past that we ought to have learnt a lot from what we have gone through as a nation. But it seems we really have not learnt much. Some of the candidates are just anxious to occupy the positions being occupied by other people to continue to do what those people have been doing to the detriment of the Nigerian nation, to the underdevelopment of the nation and of course with tragic consequences for Nigerians. By now, the signals should have been different from what we are getting. It is worrisome.
In terms of the issues you said they should be talking about, could you enumerate those issues you think should be on the front burner in discourse about 2023 electoral politics?
If you ask the average Nigerian, they are likely to tell you three things: they will mention the insecurity in the land, that there is the need to provide security. They are going to tell you the economy is in a shambles and should be addressed and, of course, they will tell you there is the need for national unity. There are two others, if we can just take five out of the many that ought to have been added and which to me are more important and to which we must draw the attention of the candidates and which we as individual Nigerians should be very mindful of. These two are: the problem of leadership. If we don’t solve the problem of leadership, we are going nowhere. It is the right type of leadership that will be able to address security challenges. If we get the right type of leadership, we will be able to deal with the issue of economy. We know that when we have a hungry population, we can never have a happy people and we can never have development and security. If we have the right leadership, we will be able to tackle other issues. Next to this is education. They are handling education as if it does not matter. For goodness sake, when universities are locked up for several months, you are truncating the development of the nation. When you undermine education, you are undermining the entire nation and destroying the future of the people. You are telling the future generation that there is no hope and no future for them. You are telling the nation that it is already in ruins because it is education that will provide the platform that will give the necessary foundation upon which to build and move forward. When you neglect education, you also neglect what will make people themselves the real human beings because when you talk about unity, without education, they will not understand what the concept means and even how to achieve it. The material resources you have will be made nonsense of by the lack of education because the bunch of illiterates and the characters that grow within it will ruin those natural resources generously granted Nigeria by God Almighty. So, these are the issues that I believe should really be addressed. I have listened carefully to many of the contending candidates that I have not been able to see sufficient proposition that indeed there is this competence, this capacity and commitment and the will to really tackle the issues. This is very important and of course the leadership that will lead us out of the present woes must be such that is self-disciplined with total commitment to the ideals of the nation, commitment to the people and to all that is edifying to nationhood and nationality and someone who will be able to have a clear vision that is not blemished in anyway, a clear vision that will take the country to the next level, liberating us from all those tendencies that tie us down currently and which are debilitating, making it impossible for us to actualise our potential as a people and our potential as a nation. These are issues that need to be tackled before we can go anywhere.
Some people have reasoned that no matter who becomes the president in February, as long as the person will govern the country with the current constitution, nothing significant will change. Do you agree with this view?
My view on the constitution has been made clear over and over, precisely that we do not have a people’s constitution. In other words, it is not a constitution made by Nigerians and as such, there are certain lapses in the constitution. What I had expected is that, because of the circumstances surrounding the emergence of the constitution, past leaderships would have been able to appreciate this and would have made it part of what would have constituted their main agenda and that this issue would have been tackled. Of course, fortunately, some people are able to draw it into the ears of past presidents. Some of them tried to do something about it. The one that strikes me most was the one that [Dr Goodluck] Jonathan did in 2014. He came about the confab that came up with recommendations agreed to by those who represented the Nigerian people. And when you look at that composition, it was able to produce a consensual agreement for the Nigerian people that will form the basis of a new constitution. Of course, it was very encouraging and it impressed many of us that the outcome of the confab was such that the unanimity surrounding it made it what could represent the views of Nigerians. But unfortunately, the political will to see it to fruition was just not there. To me as a layman, the recommendations fall into two categories. There are those that will require the National Assembly to take action and enact laws using them as guides. There are also recommendations that really would not require that. These are the recommendations that would have been part of our laws through presidential initiative. But then, everything was left in the archives and nothing has been done to give effects to the recommendations. And of course, people have now taken it to me that anytime we gather people to discuss issues about the country, they are just gathered for fun. They jaw-jaw and no action will come out of it, which is most unfortunate.
I believe that the constitution as it is, unless of course there is something that gives Nigerians a most inspiring and dedicated leadership that could now make the best out of a very bad situation because what we have now is not the ideal thing. I was hoping that before the elections, the National Assembly would have come up with what they are trying to do. But then when you have people who are self-seeking and self-serving, you will have this type of problem. But we have been lucky as a nation to have people who are ready to sacrifice their personal interest, agenda and goal in the interest of the nation and Nigerians. We should be able to get to where we want to get to. They will, no matter their own personal interest, be able to put together a package called the people’s constitution. It may not be 100 per cent ideal, but it would have covered sufficient ground to give Nigerians enough ground to be able to actualise their potential which has been lacking due to so many factors, including not having the right constitution. One example that I always cite is the fact that when you have some provisions that are so central to the soul of the nation and they are not justiceable, of what value are those provisions? These are issues that need to be considered and these are issues that I believe we need to consider when we decide to revisit the issue of constitutional amendment. It is very important and we have to be mindful of this. And of course, there are those people that say in the current circumstances, we may not be able to get a new constitution before the elections. If that is the case, we will still come back to the issue of leadership. The type of leaders that will be able to lead the country in spite of the weaknesses in the constitution, we have to be mindful of that. It is very important. Left to me, the whole constitution will have to be revisited. We have to do a surgical operation to what we currently operate with. But then there is this fear by some people who believe that if we make any attempt to come up with another constitution now, people are going to stalemate it and make sure they don’t even meet; unless and until they satisfy their own purely sectional and primordial predisposition, they are not going to allow Nigeria to have a new constitution.
What was your immediate reaction when you heard or read about the spat between the Federal Government and the state governors over allegation that the latter have been stealing council funds? The issue has taken a new turn with NULGE members picketing state houses of assembly and asking that they subscribe to local government autonomy. Help us make sense out of the chaos.
The blame game between the state and the Federal Government is unnecessary. Who is fooling who? They are all deceiving the people. It is a known fact, a hard fact that, all along, the local government system has been undermined, shortchanged because they have not been granted the necessary wherewithal to make them operate as a tier of government. Some will even argue that the councils are not a tier of government; that they are part of the state. But the constitution is so clear on it. Right from the Dasuki period in 1976 when we had a review and a reform of the local government system down to the current era, the local government is meant to provide that level of governance for the local people. But then, it is not just the withholding of the financial entitlements of the local government areas that is the real issue, the issue falls into two parts. One, these local government areas are supposed to be manned and administered by competent people, people with capacity for local governance, people like retired permanent secretaries, retired principals, lawyers and other professionals. But because of the transactional nature of our politics, the politicians, that is, the governors and others, just put their area boys and some other people who they just want to give assignment to go and be running the councils as chairmen. Only in exceptional cases do you really have people of substance being in charge of the councils. Even the little that the governors manage to release to them, managing it will be a problem. Now, this has been compounded by the fact when this money now comes, the nature and caliber of the people put in charge of the councils cannot challenge the governors or raise issues. Good enough that their union [NULGE] is now talking. But some of the errand boys, who are just holding forth there for chief executive officers of the states, won’t talk because governing the states is not something that is of much interest to them. They see themselves as just holding forth for the governors and for some principalities at that level, which is most unfortunate.
The battle will have to be at two levels. One, local government autonomy must be given effect and must be operated in reality and not just the de jure provisions. The second is that the right people must be there. If the right people are not there, of course, we are just joking and there will be no development in those areas. People who will bring about development must understand the concept of local governance and the parameters of choice available to them as leaders at that level. The question of leadership that I emphasised earlier will also come to fore.
In raising men and women that will run the councils, election is key and that is another gray area. During the time of President Olusegun Obasanjo, governors fought against moves to have INEC conduct council election. Don’t you think if something is not done in this regard, we will not get it right in terms of getting the right people to run the councils?
Why should states insist on conducting local government election? What reason do the governors advance other than the fact that they have cowed, subdued and subjected the local government system entirely to control? I have observed over the years the way the council election has been conducted and I know it is not qualified to be called an election. It is mere selection and waste of time and money. The governors only give semblance of conducting an election. The criteria that should be met to qualify it as an election have not been met. So, what we now get is governors appointing people to administer the affairs of the local government areas and now giving it some legitimacy by claiming elections have been conducted. I have had occasions to interview some of those who conduct some of these elections. Some of them feel ashamed about the role they are being made to play. Some of them went for the assignment with enthusiasm and excitement they would conduct election, only to get there discover that what they are doing is not an election. So, it is a tragedy.
This goes to show that we really need to have a total restructuring of the Nigerian federation. When we have restructuring, this will be part of the issues to be considered and by then there will not be this desperation for control. It is because some states are fighting back at the excessive control over them by the Federal Government that they too are now taking revenge on the local government areas. But when we restructure and we do not have this type of rigid federalism that we are operating, then of course it will be a different story altogether. Then, we will be able to get some people who will be able to exercise some freedom. So, it is a total package.
You were in charge of a political education body called the Mass Mobilisation for Economic Recovery, Social Justice and Self-reliance, (MAMSER) during the military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida. You related with the grassroots. But today, the grass roots people are disenchanted about the quality of governance being provided. In fact, it may be more difficult to mobilise them to support national goal and aspiration now than during your time. Tell us what can be done to get the local people to be interested in participating in democracy and governance.
I believe there is the need for the re-orientation of the people. Politics has been so monetised and poverty in the land weaponised to the extent that to get something out of the masses, there must be serious re-orientation. You can’t do this without the appropriate leadership because the way things are now, it pleases the potentate, that is, the leadership, the moneybags and those who have stolen the country to keep them there so that the poor will be looking up to them for survival. Then election period will be like harvest time for them to let the masses get something and they are all happy about it. It is not the prevalence of the opportunities for choice that really excites them. It is the possibility of extracting some little resources from those political heavyweights that may keep the thing going. Right now, the masses are at a very serious disadvantage to the extent that their own rights, future and interest are easily trampled upon without much care by them. It is done in their very faces simply because they are powerless and powerlessness being the antonym of power, you know the consequences when it comes to striving for the acquisition of power. Those who have been empowered through the very terrible system that we are operating use the opportunity to now deal wickedly, recklessly and I will say irresponsibly with the masses, putting the future of the country at stake, mortgaging not just that future, but even the possibility of liberation for the poor people or the masses who have been shortchanged by the current system.
INEC has been shouting that attacks on its facilities may jeopardise the 2023 elections. The body has also come under pressure to drop the use of technology for e-transmission of results from the polling units. What do you make of these?
I believe INEC is doing its very best. INEC is right is saying that attacks on its facilities could jeopardize the elections. If the facilities are not in place, we can’t have the type of elections that Nigerians can be proud of. We believe the attacks should be stopped because if they are not stopped, there is no way the outcome of the elections will not be affected because it means elections will not be conducted in some places and that is not good for our democracy.
On the people who don’t want INEC to deploy technology for the elections, I think such people are just being unfair to INEC. They should be giving a lot of credit to INEC and congratulating Nigerians that the country is moving forward. If anybody believes in development, he should be excited that BVAS and other technological devices are being deployed for the conduct of elections. We keep saying that we want to be like other countries that have advanced, but we do not want to do what it will take to get there. There is no way we will develop and grow without taking developmental strides. There are certain things people say and I just wonder and ask myself whether they actually know what they are saying.
For instance, some people say transmission of results electronically may not be possible anywhere. Is there any part of this country where people don’t receive credit alerts from banks or receive telephone calls? If there is a peculiar situation in certain areas, they just need to get the telecoms companies through Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) to address such. I don’t believe that because of the fear of the likelihood of a few areas not getting the transmission right, then we should not go ahead with the plan. It has been done and INEC did not do it overnight. It has been tested at different levels and it has worked. They should now improve and move forward and ensure technology is fully deployed. I believe we ought to have gone beyond the level that we are in now. I thought that by the coming elections, Nigerians in the Diaspora should be able to vote. That should be the next level. It is an insult to Nigerians for some people to be saying we should not use technology for the coming elections.
How do you think Nigerians, particularly the masses, should approach the coming elections, what should be their attitude?
With the present situation in the country and what has been happening in the various sectors, particularly education, economy, national security, issues of unemployment, poverty, name it, I believe Nigerians should reflect and look at how to solve the problems. People can’t move round in the country now because there is no security. People can’t afford to pay for food and other things. So, this should reflect in the way people will vote. They should think about the type of leadership that will be able to address these challenges. How do we get proper and appropriate solutions to these problems and think less of primordial sentiments and all other issues that politicians use to disinform and misinform the people? People should think seriously whether we are going to have unity in this country, whether we are going to overcome the problem of unemployment, whether our schools will remain closed or whether there will be development. What happens to the country in the future will depend on the choices that are made by the people at various levels in the coming elections. I think Nigerians will think of where they are coming from and where they are going and the people that can take them there and lead Nigeria out of the woods.
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