As part of Nigeria’s 59th independent anniversary celebrations, Executive Director, African Centre for Parliamentary and Constitutional Studies, Mr Emmanuel Anyaegbunam, spoke on issues hindering growth and development of the country including squalid infrastructure and multiple taxation. Sanya Adejokun monitored the interview on Channels Television and brings excerpt.
You made a distinction between the state and government. Can you expatiate?
When we talk about the state, we are talking of the encompassing setting of territory, population, the government itself and the sovereign power but what we are talking about government, we are talking about a temporary thing who comes now like we have the Republican party presently ruling in the United States of America. Here we have the APC. The PDP has gone. But when the government assumes the status of a state, it now takes an imposition of all of us. Until we are able to distinguish between the state which has a permanent feature as different from the government will the government be guided by the rule of law and see itself as machinery and an institution of the state and not the state itself.
So who are the people expected to foster the existence of the state government after government?
When the institution of the state now have their independence, when INEC is able to perform its role without any interference and when security agencies work without interference of external persons and central bank lives up to its role then the state functions. Local governments will have their autonomy without any manipulation, having its funds directly remitted to it without any manipulation and then when any individual steps beyond the boundary of law, he faces the consequences of sanctions as established by the state then we will have the rule of law and the constitution now becomes supreme and have that overriding power over every individual, over every institution or whoever is under the state. When we come to that then will have the Nigeria of our dream. And that is what we are clamouring for and that is what is expected of each and every one of us as at the moment.
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How can we strengthen the institution of state away from the government?
We can do that in many ways: basic education is important. Our institutions are no longer there and nobody says anything. The civil society and the press. The state must live up to its billing. Right now, in many states, civil servants are not paid their salaries. It is only at election cycles that even when workers are being owed four years arears of salary that some amount is released to cover a few months. Then they hail you for that moment and after two terms of eight year, the state government will now set up a fund recovery commission to ask you to account for the money which you didn’t even keep properly in the first place.
What we are saying is that in these institutions like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for instance, since Abdulkadir Ahmed left the CBN, no other staff of Central Bank has mounted the saddle as governor of the Central Bank. Then you think of the career progression of staff and realise that that best they can aspire to is deputy governorship position because you go to private commercial banks that they are supposed to oversee and appoint Central Bank governors and that has brought a lot of trouble.
So, when we have robust population, people now owns that state. The sovereign power belongs to the people and that is why it is a democracy. When we achieve that through good education and institutions that are up to the standard, then we will now have a difference between the state and the government and whoever comes in knows that he is a servant that is accountable to the people that is at best a steward and not a commander-in-chief in the real concept of democracy.
Which arm of government can help us to achieve it?
We can achieve this through the education of not only those who are in formal schools but the populace because the driving force is the political party, if you go by Nigerian Constitution. Right now, if you go to the headquarters of the various political parties, you will see that they are virtually moribund. This is sad because state policy has to come from them because they give birth to those who form the government.
President Barrack Obama said when he came to Ghana that in the 21st Century, capable, reliable and transparent institutions are the key to success. Independent legislature and judiciary, honest police force, a vibrant civil society are what gives life to give life to democracy, these are what matter in people’s lives. We need strong institutions, not strong men.
What we are saying, in essence, is that civil society and Nigerians should collectively come to bear. Each and every one of us should constitute ourselves into whistle-blowers to help our collective treasury. Imagine that we are still flaring gas in the 21st Century which is a strong force in causing climate change. We have institutions that are neither accountable nor transparent. These are the issues.
The 21st Century binds all of us as owners of the country and once we do that, we will be able to leave the primordial sentiments of religion and ethnicity and start making progress which will make this country work. Six decades is already gone and we are still toddlers by every estimation.
How can we correct things?
It an inherent problem which started from the colonial days because the colonial masters did not see a difference between government and the state and then our leaders had the best of us from their selfish interest by leaving the institutions of government and trying to entrench themselves as the state. I say that the state is permanent and government, when it comes, has a tenure and in the course of the tenure engages in manipulation. That is where problems arise. When they manipulate the institutions of the state to suit their tenure, to suit their own personal interests, the state then suffer.
We should be able to liberate the state from these manipulations through government. When you are a government, you have taken oath to defend, observe and protect the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria and asked the almighty to help you. It means that you will abide by the rules, you will be able to enact a law and abide by it.
Minimum wage is a law but we are still struggling over the new Minimum Wage Act. The four refineries in this country have not worked for many years. We are still a major importer of petroleum products while we are a leading exporter of crude petroleum. As at 2005, PDP was telling us about 9,000 megawatts of electricity. As we speak today, billions of dollars have gone inside that project and we have nothing to show for it. We are now being told again that metering is the issue, then new tariffs will be introduced, we will pay more VAT and all manner of things. We are subjected to an endless litany of taxation. Meanwhile, dividends of democracy are not there. Roads are all in dilapidated condition. Minister of Aviation has told us that there is an upsurge in air transportation traffic because everybody who travels by road is afraid of either being robbed, being kidnapped or being involved in an accident. We must make sure that whatever is allocated to local government councils must get to them. It is not for the governor.
Once we get these sorted, regulatory authorities must be able to do their work conscientiously. Right now, the police force has gone to sleep. We had a situation where a kidnapper arrested by the police was released by the military and we are still dilly dallying over that. How many Inspector Generals of Police have we had since 1999? When will they have time to settle and have stable programme to execute?
How can we preserve a situation where individuals are stronger than institutions?
Let me flash back to pre-independence days. Our first political party was formed by Herbert Macaulay’s Nigeria National Democratic Party (NNDP); he took over Lagos. Then the constitution then gave only three seats to Lagos and one to Calabar. Within 10 years of its grip in Lagos, the Lagos Youth Movement, which later became Nigerian Youth Movement, came up with a vibrant setting and snatched power from it. At that time the patriotic drive was visible because in the battle that broke, the NNDP, Samuel Akinsanya aligned with Ernest Ikoli while Nnamidi Azikiwe went his way. That was not based on ethnic considerations. When NCNC came up, it was due to the colonial masters’ issue of the Second World War and King’s College. Macaulay joined force with Azikiwe and they were propelled by a nationalistic fervor. This continued until 1951 when the McPherson Constitution came that Action Group and the Northern Peoples Element now came up, thus creating a three-dimensional setting for political parties
Even then, we must respect some of them who lived up to the bearing that Nigeria is what we called for. NCNC then shed its nationalistic toga and became an eastern regional entity because Azikiwe lost out in the Western Region over the same ethnic setting. Although there was nothing to bind us together, we nevertheless groped into independence in 1960 with divisive tendencies which was not regarded as a bad thing then. But when the military came, they tried to reverse the trend and created 12 states.
After the 12 states were created, the next trouble surfaced that we had not solved the problem of ethnicity. From that 12 initial states, we finally arrived at 36 states but the problems persists because we have not been able to resolve the basic issue that when I am in Abuja, I am still seen as somebody from the East. And this is happening when a black man was elected president of the United States of America and held office for eight years.
and then