Massive vote merchandising detracted from the Ekiti State guber election which was adjudged to be well conducted by INEC. What is you interpretation of the development?
My feeling is that the political class does not seem to appreciate the enormity of the challenge before them. Members of the political class just feel it is getting power that is important; they are getting it wrong. They owe it a duty to the society to create an enabling environment for meaningful democracy to survive. In other words, they should be concerned about the process, the rule of law and not just the Machiavellian way of acquiring power– the end justifies the means. There are those people who are coming behind and so they should think of creating a political process that will stabilize society to be rid of violence, manipulation and it will be done in such a way that politics will be edifying and become a celebration of free choice. The political class should learn to play by the rules and not take undue advantage of the people. No matter what party you belong to, it is time yet for us to really learn to do things the correct way.
Like you said, INEC is trying its best to make sure that they follow the rules, but the political class is not helping this country. They are self-seeking, self-serving and this will affect a lot of things, particularly the stability of the political process and, of course, ultimately, it will send wrong signals not only to those who are competitors, but also to the generations coming, because we think about the things we do, that are not correct, they will institutionalise those things and this will compound the problems we already have on the ground. The political class must rethink and see that it is time yet for us to do things right.
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Leaving the solution to the political class that is the greatest beneficiary of the malady will not take us anywhere out of this unwholesome development. Don’t the electorate also have a role to play?
When you talk about the greatest beneficiary, I think everybody is losing through it. You talked about the electorate having a role to play, but the electorate is at an all-time low in terms of the gradual, systematic, dangerous pauperization of the masses. Policies in the country and the politics on ground are not helpful. Nationwide, you move from one state to the other, you will see that not many of our states are doing sufficiently well to cater for the interest of the masses of the people, so that it becomes easy for politicians to turn them to victims of manipulation, to incentivise the process whereby they come in.
The whole thing must start from the grass-roots level, because we now have a situation in which people look up towards becoming delegates, not because they want to make a clear choice of good materials who will serve the country, but because they see it as business. They want to go there, no matter how short the time they will spend; they are looking forward to the huge money they are going to be given and they don’t care about the consequences. Whoever gives them the highest money, that is the person they will vote for. We should have a system whereby we build on what we had in the past. In those days, people with the intellect, preparation, training, background and experienced that will make them serve their people very well are looked for and encouraged to run. In fact, people contribute to enable them to carry out the responsibilities associated with campaigning and so on. There are some places where politicians went, then, in rural areas like Akaran and Omi Adio in Oyo State and by the time they would be returning to base, some of the farmers in the areas would give them plantain and other farm produce and all that, appreciating their presence. Nowadays, even for people to come out to campaign venues, they have to give them money. Some of these things are not done willingly. So, people should develop that attitude, the electorate should look forward to opportunities to elect people who will address their yearnings. They are going through some deprivations here and there and there are politicians who can solve their problems; politicians who mean well. They should look out again and not wait until they are bribed or given some stomach infrastructure, empowerment and all kinds of names that have been coined to describe what is destroying the process in the name of trying to encourage participation. You see, if the situations continue like this, it will get to a point where people will just go all out, those who are in office will go all out to loot so they can buy votes. There are people who will not even mind to rob banks, I mean bandits and all kinds of criminals will end up governing this country because once we now turn politics to be definable in terms of monetisation of the process, when we now make politics very attractive, if people are determined to continue to take undue advantage of the shortcomings in our system, then the system is in trouble.
Do you see a repeat of what happened in Ekiti playing out in Osun State where a governorship election is due to be held in about four weeks?
It depends very much on a number of factors. I think the political class really needs to do much. We blame the electorate because they will ask for some gratification before they can perform their civic duty. But if the political class will be selfless enough to stand their ground to say they are not going to corrupt the system further, because the system is already unduly corrupted, we may be moving away from polluting the system further. But because people generally are greedy in terms of being hungry for power, wanting to ensure that no matter what, they capture power. It will then mean that anybody who wants to serve the people will want to get there at all costs. So, what will be happening in Osun will very much depend on how people now see the future, what they want to do and what they should do, rather than what they political class want them to do. The system is bad, but not as bad as not to be irredeemable. It is still redeemable, particularly with the Electoral Act, which can make it better than before. It is now left to the politicians and when the politicians are serious and are committed to free, fair elections and are ready to follow due process, the security agencies will also cooperate to make sure that things are done properly. When the political class indulges in untoward activities to manipulate the system, of course they need partnership and the partners will readily come. When the political class decides to do the right thing, I am sure INEC will do better in terms of ensuring transparency in our elections and we will have elections that are not marred by some criminal activities and so on.
Presidential candidates have emerged in the various political parties. From your observation, is there any hope any of them can swing a magic wand to turn around the fortunes of the country?
From what I can see now, so much will really depend on a number of factors. I don’t see the field to be as exciting as it should be. But we should wait and see what will be unfolding in the next few weeks and months. For now, let us keep our fingers crossed and watch the various candidates and see what they are bring to the table and we will now relate this to their background, experience and social commitment.
Some Nigerians are tired of seeing the same old faces that have been in power corridors since 1999 and are looking for an alternative to the behemoth APC and PDP. But it does not look like a third force can be birthed, even though there is time. Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso are exploring the possibility of consummating something in that direction.
Certainly, the possibility of a third force is there. It depends on how consciously and conscientiously the forces that will make up the third force pursue their vision and their goal. I do not see a situation in which something will just happen by chance. It has to be pursued. My belief is that there are many dynamic and young people in this country who are waiting in the wings and who could spring surprises. You mentioned some people earlier on and during their various conventions, I saw quite a few of them, particularly, there was one that struck me from his delivery and certification, one Adewole Adebayo, then, of course, there is Kingsley Moghalu and then this lady. There are quite a number of them like that, young and bright Nigerians. So, anything can happen.
Whether form the young Turks you just mentioned or from the familiar candidates you just mentioned, whoever emerges the next president might not be able to do so much in terms of turning around the country, because it is founded on a wobbly structure, making restructuring inevitable for any meaningful move by the next helmsman.
I agree with you absolutely. To be able to do the change required, particularly the restructuring you talked about, we also need to bring in people or someone who believes in restructuring. You can’t bring someone who does not believe in it and expect him to carry out restructuring. It certainly won’t happen. But once we bring someone who not only believes in it, but who also understands the entailment, then, of course, we will be on the way to achieving it. And once we have a fundamental restructuring of the country, other things will follow. Then, it will be possible to have a new Nigeria, a new country with a good framework and, of course, driven by patriots and forces that are amenable to development. Performance will be possible in such a situation because with the present situation, things are unfortunately not working.
Do you subscribe to such restructuring to include taking a second look at the presidential system of government? You wrote a paper in 1984 entitled Four Years of Presidential Democracy in Nigeria where you highlighted some of the debilities of the form of government. It is overly expensive with unnecessary duplication of bureaucracies.
Yes, I did write the paper you mentioned. What we are doing in Nigeria is to mix up presidential and parliamentary systems and we have taken the worst elements, the worst ingredients in both and combine them to take the advantages of the presidential system without taking the responsibilities attached. We did the same thing with the parliamentary system in terms of the role relationship between the party and the government. So, we have to be mindful of what we are really taking. Since we have been sticking with the presidential system, then we should run it the way it should be. But then we have a situation in which there is limitation imposed on the extent to which the chief executive of states can really go out to recruit and bring in resource people, talents who can help them drive their vision and the goal that they have for development. So, those who are in the party positions and political drivers will feel that they are the ones that should be determining virtually everything. They feel hurt and rather hostile when some people are identified from outside and are brought in to assist to serve in certain capacities, which should not be.
Would you support that we have an amalgam of presidential and parliamentary as canvassed by some people?
Whatever we have, it is important that we understand whatever we are. In other words, if we have a parliamentary system, we should run it the way parliamentary systems are run. If it is the presidential system that we want, we should run it how it should be run, not mixing the two unnecessarily. And, of course, this has made the situation so unnecessarily expensive. The cost of governance in the country today is scandalous. When you take the presidential system elsewhere and you compare it with what we are doing, you will know that we have not been running it the right way. It is quite unfortunate.
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