A Professor of African History, Peace, and Conflict Studies at the University of Ibadan, Isaac Olawale Albert, was a member of the Presidential Committee on the Review of Defence Policy in 2014/2015. He speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on the rising calls for a transition to a parliamentary system of government for Nigeria and whether this will address the country’s existing multi-layered socio-political problems.
RECENTLY, some lawmakers called for a return of Nigeria to the parliamentary system of government. But in your own assessment, do you think this will solve our current problems?
Well, at the 2014 National Conference, we recommended that Nigeria should consider the parliamentary system of government largely because we believe it is less expensive than the presidential system we are practicing now. Under the parliamentary system of government, the Prime Minister is chosen from the parliament and can be recalled easily by the parliament. Also, the government is easier to manage, and it is not as expensive as what we are practicing now, which is a bicameral legislation system. You have the Senate and the House of Representatives, which are both doing the same thing, while the president appoints ministers and all. So we believe that the parliamentary system served Nigeria very well in the First Republic. And so, we thought that in a bid to bring governance closer to the people and also make it less expensive and flexible, it would be better for the country to return to the parliamentary system of government. Unfortunately, our recommendation was turned away by the Muhammadu Buhari administration for reasons that are yet to be explained to us. But I believe people are recommending the same system now given the entire crisis that is bedeviling the country currently. And I feel that is the direction we should go.
But do you think this political transition will effectively address the multi-faceted problems afflicting the country at the moment?
Well, I don’t think we should be too expectant on this, because the Nigerian situation is a very complex one. Truthfully, the parliamentary system will reduce our cost of governance and even bring governance closer to the people. And I believe this is a strong reason we need it. But as I said, we have several problems with why the country is not making progress. Corruption is one of them. If we can adopt the parliamentary system, I think it will deal with a few of the problems, but not all. In other words, it will not remove all our problems as a country. It will only remove some.
In an attempt to address the country’s problems, the 10th National Assembly has begun another Constitution Review Process, but many observers have heavily criticised this, saying it would consume a huge amount of the country’s resources, but yield very little result. How true can this be?
It is on record that since 1999, the NASS has been amending the constitution, but the question is: what changes have we experienced as Nigerians? They have spent heavily on constitutional amendment, but at the end of the day, we have got nothing. So to me, I don’t think it is the NASS that will give us a new constitution. The president has to devise the whole of society’s approach to the management of the problem. To be frank, I don’t see our parliamentarians as being ready for any drastic change in this country. I simply feel they are not truly ready to relinquish power. This is because the parliamentary system of government is saying that the present system will be scrapped and we will have a new system. But many of the Nigerian lawmakers are looking forward to their second and third terms in the federal legislature because they are not ready to leave the place. So we can’t rely on them to drive the change we are talking about in this country. They cannot because the current system serves their interests, and they will want to keep all the benefits they enjoy in it.
But is it true that the 1999 constitution is very faulty and cannot be amended to better serve the people’s interest?
I have consistently been saying that the 1999 constitution was not imposed on us as many people have claimed. It will be recalled that General Abdulsalami Abubakar had less than one year to plan a transition from the military to civil rule for the country. And what he did was to take several reports from the Constituent Assembly at that time and put them together, which gave us the 1999 constitution. Mind you, there was no place where General Abdulsalami said the 1999 constitution should not be changed after he left office. So what he did was to simply give us a constitution to take off with civilian rule with the hope that if any part of the constitution was later found to be defective, the parliament would amend it for the constitution to run properly in the interest of the country and the people. But our politicians since 1999 have not shown any clear interest in any radical change. They have noticed several gaps in the constitution, but have failed to also correct them. That is why when many of us see people blaming Abdulsalami, we believe it is not fair because the man is being demonised for no reason. He gave us a successful transition in 1999. If he had decided that the military would not leave in 1999, there was nothing Nigerians could have done to him. But the man shepherded the 1999 constitution and left. Even if that constitution was given to us by the Devil, what I think Nigerians ought to have done was to sit down to say, okay, this constitution is not good enough, how can we truly amend it such that it will address our problems. But this has never happened. If you ask me, I think 20 years is more than enough for us to give ourselves a better constitution. But our politicians are just not deeply interested in birthing any progressive change that will lastly solve our problems.
Since 1999, the National Assembly has initiated different attempts at amending the constitution. But why haven’t we had headway all these years?
We have not made headway, because the unfortunate political class in Nigeria are not interested in any change that will move this country forward. Immediately President Olusegun Obasanjo came in, several international agencies and human rights commissions helped us to have an Oputa Panel. What was expected was that people would come before the panel, testify, and give detailed accounts of the problems we are having as a country. The belief was that the outcome of the Oputa Panel would be used to amend the 1999 constitution. But the panel sadly did not produce any results. In 2005, the Obasanjo administration also organised a conference expected to give a number of recommendations that would also enable us to amend the 1999 constitution. But it was another total waste of time, as nothing came out of it.
Similarly, in 2014, former President Goodluck Jonathan called a National Conference, which I attended. We came up with beautiful recommendations, and we also called the government’s attention to some calamitous sections of the 1999 constitutions that should be amended according to the agreements we reached at the conference. But our report was later thrown into a waste paper basket. So our politicians are just deceiving us. They are not interested in any change. And it is unfortunate because Nigerians are getting very tired like other Africans. People have continued to ask: for how many years are we going to continue in this suffering? Everything that we have as a country is collapsing. When the military left in 1999, I don’t think a dollar was up to N100. Today, it is moving towards N2000. Our schools have collapsed. Our judiciary is in a total mess. People are hungry and angry as they can no longer go to school without the fear of being kidnapped at random as we have been seeing. The kidnappers also don’t hesitate to ask for ridiculous amounts of money to be paid as ransom. Is this what we call democracy?
But with President Bola Tinubu in power, what do you think he can do that others before him haven’t done to impact Nigeria?
I think Tinubu is conscious of the problems because he has been preaching the “Renewed Hope Agenda”. He has said that he met Nigeria in a helpless situation and Nigerians in a state of dejection and abject penury. He has then decided to take the country out of the current political darkness, which we have been battling for many years. He is making efforts, but I think the problems are just too many, even though he is attending to them. But as you know, when you are attending to too many problems as the president is experiencing, you are going to be in a volatile environment that is complex and ambiguous. When you are working in such an environment, it will be difficult for you to make decisions that will produce quick results and the people you are working for may not have the patience to appreciate what you are doing. And I think this is what President Tinubu is going through.
I think the most important problem that the president is facing is that his political party contributed significantly to the present state of hopelessness in Nigeria. And I don’t think the president is bold enough to fight those responsible for where we are today because if he doesn’t, it’s like he is telling Nigerians and the international community indirectly that he belongs to a party that didn’t do well in the past. So the load that the president is carrying is very heavy. He is trying his best, but from the outside, we can see that the man is struggling. But I think the high level of deprivation in Nigeria today makes it difficult for Nigerians to appreciate all that the president is doing.
But if the country must consider the transition to the parliamentary system of government, what form should this take in terms of approach?
Well, we have two choices. The first choice is for the president to call a national meeting, whether conference or whatever. It will be a national dialogue process where the leaders of different groups will meet and agree collectively on the parliamentary system of government as well as outline how that will be done. That is one track. The second lane is for the National Assembly to act altruistically, honestly, and nationalistically by saying and accepting that the system we are practicing is very wasteful and we don’t have the resources to continue on this part of destruction, so let’s give Nigeria a parliamentary system. By genuinely accepting this path means they would have admitted that none of them would come back to the house in the next general election. But I think this would be a classic suicide that the lawmakers will not want to commit as they will want to continue to remain in the federal legislative chambers without minding whether that is killing Nigeria or not. That was why I said the political class is not interested in any drastic change in Nigeria. And the more we walk on this path of perdition, the more I think we are contributing to the destruction of Nigeria. There is a limit to human endurance. When you see the things happening across West Africa, you will see that people are losing patience, because democracy is supposed to be contributing to human development. But here in Nigeria, democracy is causing poverty, deaths, and lack. It is making our existence impossible. So we just pray that things don’t get worse than we are currently experiencing.
and then