Why APC oligarchs must unite to avert implosion —Don

Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the Lead City University, Ibadan, Tunde Oseni, speaks to DARE ADEKANMBI on the ongoing constitution amendment and the crisis in the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), warning of dire consequences if the party is not careful.

What do you make of the ongoing amendment of the 1999 Constitution by the National Assembly? Some recommendations have been accepted and some rejected…

I think altering a country’s constitution is not exclusive unique to Nigeria. It is a global practice. The parliament is empowered to amend the constitution. In fact, the constitution says it can only be amended by the parliament. But because we operate a rigid constitution, the process of amending the constitution is always tedious and could be controversial. Although some of the amendment bills are desirable, some are at the same time desirable but did not scale through. For instance, some of the bills on gender equality and gender participation that could have given more women room for political participation.

Nevertheless, people have said and I have also repeatedly said it that the 1999 Constitution is being overly panel-beated because it is not that the constitution is bad in its entirety, but because of its source. It was handed over to the civilians by the military regime. So, it was inspired by the military and because it did not organically emerge from the people, it has become a document that needs to be jettisoned and we a new one done. You know that if we have used a particular document for almost 23 years now and the democracy that we have been practicing has not been fundamentally flawed, even though there are ups and downs, we can still say that it is a manageable document. But the fact of it being a manageable document does not mean it should not be tampered with. However, I go back to my point earlier that it is a written rigid constitution.

So, what the National Assembly is doing, particularly the House of Representatives, shows what we should continue to do for the document to be truly amended. Anything that scales through the federal lawmakers will still go to the state Houses of Assembly across the country and at least two thirds of them must vote ‘yes’ for the accepted recommendations. So, I think that whereas it looks like a tokenistic approach to a fundamental problem, the lawmakers also think that they can’t be there without being able to do something about the gray areas in the constitution, especially knowing that time is going. So, we just have to sympathise with them. At the same time, they also have to understand that Nigerians want a constitution that is truly federal and republican in nature because we call ourselves the federal republic of Nigeria. A constitution that will be useful to the prosperity and cohesion of the country must be truly federal. We have to make sure that more powers and responsibilities are given to the states. We have to also ensure that certain responsibilities are de-centralised. For example, let’s look at the issue of state police. Even in 2015 when the ruling party, APC, was campaigning, it was campaigning about federalism, state police and things that would make the country to be more governable. But if they are amending the constitution and those fundamental issues like giving the powers to the states to have their own police is not considered, then what they are doing is not fundamentally useful. The National Assembly should be bold enough to amend the constitution in the areas where Nigerians actually need amendment, that is if they can’t give us a new constitution.

 

Instead of playing political football with the issue of VAT, people are saying they should have taken on the issue of resource control to make the country a truly federal set up.

I think because amending the constitution is a grossly political matter and so when you try to amend it like they are currently doing, they also have to look at the composition of the parliament, the political geography as well as the political economy of the country. Majority of the people in the parliament are from the northern part of the country and most of the states that can’t survive if resources are controlled by states are probably in the northern part of the country. Of course, there are some states in the South that can’t survive too because they are not viable if resources are controlled by the states.

So, the political economy as well as the political geography of the composition of the parliament will suggest to us that, whereas it may be desirable to have resource control the way pro-restructuring people want it, but it may not be practicable in terms of voting for something that will not favour some people. Let us look at it that way. But notwithstanding, even if resource is being controlled by the states, we can still have a pool where 50 per cent of thereabouts of what was being realised as revenue in the First Republic with the 1963 Constitution was put in a central pool. But that central pool can’t take care of states that are not able to contribute to the pool. That could be a political solution. But it is still conjectural because it has not been practiced since 1966. So, people will buy the suggestion that if we do it this way, we may have a solution and that is why the political nature of constitutional amendment will not allow for certain things that are desirable and will make the country to be truly federal and republican. But I think democracy is about consensus building. So, those who are from the part of the country have has resources should know how to also negotiate their way with those who come from the part of the country where resources are not even available.

 

Given the proposals that have been accepted so far, do you feel advocates of restructuring have something to cheer about?

Yes and this is because even advocates of restructuring are not monolithic. Some people believe restructuring should be about resource control. Some say it is going back to regionalism. To others, it means creation of more states. So, there is not even a unified, monolithic concentration of advocates of restructuring. This means the arguments for restructuring are from all sides. Nevertheless, most of the advocates of restructuring think the current system is not working and that is why they think Nigeria should be restructured in another way.

But I think restructuring advocates have something to cheer about. I also agree that what is fundamentally wrong with Nigeria can’t be taken care of by amendments alone. It can only be taken care of by a new constitution that will fundamentally state ab initio how Nigeria should be run as a federal republic.

 

What do you make of the developments in the APC at the national level? Protracted leadership tussle close to the commencement of primaries. Do you see these developments hampering the time the party has to prepare for elections?

From 1999 till date, anytime election is coming, there has always been a kind of musical chair politics which is normal. But if it is not properly managed or controlled, it can lead to the fragmentation of the elite. Elite fragmentation is not the problem because the elite are bound to disagree with one another because politics is about interests. Permutations, disagreements, disharmony and conflicts are part of politics. But being the ruling party, APC will have to be very careful and guard against implosion. Once the party has an implosion in a pre-election year, it is dangerous. The election itself is like a referendum on the ruling party. So, if APC is not properly put in place in terms of not having a divided house, the opposition party will have the upper hand, even though the opposition party too is also enmeshed in some kind of musical chair politics in terms of where the presidential candidate should come from and who should be the candidate and you know the argument between the governor of Rivers State and the Atiku Abubakar side.

I think the fragmentation in APC, which is very funny anyway, about who is the chairman between Governor Buni and Governor Sani Bello, has also seen the governors of the party divided along two lines. The division must not be allowed to go on in a way that it will affect lead to their inability to hold the convention and also conduct primaries. INEC has released its timetable for elections and I don’t think INEC is ready to change that timetable. So, I think APC is in a precarious situation which its governors, NEC and the president who is like the leader of the party will have to manage. Everybody has been dropping the name of the president that he wants this and that. The party must be able to pull itself together so that in a pre-election year, it does not give room for an implosion which actually led to the defeat of the PDP in 2015, where we had the new PDP joining forces with APC. I think APC is having a crisis at hand, but it is their ability to manage the crisis, particularly among the oligarchs who include the governors and NEC members.

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