Sani Zoro Mohammed, foremost journalist and former President of Nigeria Union of Journalists(NUJ), is currently a member of the House of Representatives representing Gumel / Maigatari / Sule Tankarkar/ Gagarawa Federal Constituency of Jigawa state. In this encounter with ABDULRAHMAN A. ABDULRAUF, the lawmaker, among other topical issues, descended on the forces of secession, hiding under the guise of restructuring, accusing them of destroying the regional system following the 1966 military coup.
At 57, the nation does not appear to be matching its resources with the level of development. What is your assessment of this situation?
I want to agree entirely. This can be glaringly seen between the very, very rich and the very, very poor. It is unfortunate that the gap between those who have and those below the poverty line is so wide and unacceptable in Nigeria.
This is a clear manifestation of Nigeria’s inability, in the last 57 years, to harness its resources and ensure justice to the citizens. It has not applied all the natural and human resources that would have made Nigeria a greater country that it is.
My own take has always been that Nigeria’s problem has always been leadership. First of all, upon independence, the British left behind the parliamentary system which to my mind, if we had kept faith with, we would have developed at a pace much more than we have witnessed. My confidence in the parliamentary system over the current wobbling presidential system, which we have experimented with, is by citing the example of India which has more of a cultural character and ethnic groupings than Nigeria and bigger challenges.
But India has marched on and the reference to it as the biggest democracy in the world is something that gives it a lot of mileage. Look at a country like Zimbabawe that has been maligned and that has come under lots of criticism, not only taking into account that it gained independence in 1980, 20 clear years after Nigeria had gotten its own, about 47 years after India had gotten its own, but because the parliamentary system is meant for countries like us. Look at how it has fared under whatever economic adversity as well as challenges.
Look at Ghana, at some point in time, Ghana also witnessed military rule, but when it regained its balance, it went into parliamentary rule and Ghana has taken away a bunch of Nigerian students studying in their own universities. Ghana has taken the shine off Nigeria within the West Africa community, it has moved on substantially, got oil and gas and has prouder citizens perhaps. So, my take is that we suffered from lack of leadership .
And when and where did this start?
This started when some misguided military elements ventured into politics, sabotaged constitutional democracy by staging a coup and murdered or wiped off the entire political and military elite of a regional government which made the whole coup a one-sided aff air. And to worsen matters, when the coup failed and Gen. Ironsi came to power, instead of him to do the needful, which were just two things: get those coup plotters arrested and tried according to military laws, he refused but wanted to do something else, and that gave the impression he was a collaborator. And secondly, he now operated a unitary government. Instead of allowing the regional government to continue, he imposed unitary government under Decree Number One.
And that Decree Number One, I have never seen a decree that has been so draconian and barbaric in the history of military rule. One, it referred and conferred the title of Supreme Commander on Gen Ironsi, and at the same time made the Supreme Military Council (SMC) subordinate to him.
In other words, under Decree Number One, SMC was just to serve as advisory body to the Supreme Commander. Because of the bad intention of the Aguiyi Ironsi administration , because of the bad standard exhibited by a faction of the Nigerian elite, which clearly was intended to sabotage the progress of a regional independence under a federal government, Nigeria slipped into a civil war, and under the civil war, strategies that were purely military in nature and undemocratic, had to be deployed in order to keep the country one, one of which was the creation of states.
While some economic measures were now deployed because Nigeria was now operating a war budget. After the three-year war, which was actually a war of resources, Nigeria again under the military, could not revert to democracy as there were coups and counter coups.
What was the consequence of all these?
The consequence therefore was the abandonment of all development plans and also brought to the fore the issue of the ethnic and divisive character of the Nigerian military itself, which also rubbed off on its civilian counterpart. It led to policy cancellations, reversals and summersaults .
That explains why our journey has been turbulent and in complete contradistinction to what the colonial masters left behind. They gave us independence as a nation state, but today we are calling ourselves as Biafara, Yoruba land, Hausa-Fulani, Nupe land, Niger Delta, some went and created wide kingdoms to show the extent to which identity politics has an upper hand over patriotism, over national consciousness.
So, by my own reckoning, Nigeria has been grappling with the problem of leadership and that is why its contemporaries that got independence almost at the same time, and even when hopes were placed on Nigeria because of its advantage in terms of size, location, resources, and in terms of its leaders, well-cultivated elite were stranded and detained by same issues we encountered some 57 years ago.
You appear to favour parliamentary system over presidential.So, is the problem with the system or the individuals within it?
Personally, I would rather blame the system than the individuals that practised the system. The parliamentary system compared to the presidential has more advantages and is likely to work more for a developing country like Nigeria; one, in terms of accountability, in terms of inclusiveness in government, in terms of legitimacy.
Now, when you look at the parliamentary system , you cannot for instance become a minister except you are elected into parliament and that gives you legitimacy as an elected member and a minister under the same government. There are certain practices like the parliamentary sitting at which the prime minister will come and give account of what his government has done every month or at regular intervals, the presidential system does not have it. In fact, the president under the presidential system plays God because everyone is his appointee and because it is executive presidency . In as much as the National Assembly is there to check him, but he wields so much power that it is near-impossible to be checked. For instance, under the Nigerian Constitution, there about 36 clauses or 36 items under the Exclusive List. So you can imagine if someone would wield just 45 percent of those powers, it’s rather too much, and without having to come to parliament for question time.
That’s why from 1999 to date for instance, even defunct Second Republic, there had never been anytime, I can remember, when the president went to parliament for anything except to lay the budget and even on occasions the parliament criticised the budget or tried to rework it , you will discover that the presidency will sabotage what the parliament has done and would go ahead to do what it intended doing originally.
Don’t also forget that the ministers under presidency are subordinates of National Assembly members by protocol because these are people who are appointed and National Assembly members elected . But the ministers exercise enormous powers invoking the name of president, and that is why they are able to sabotage the parliament.
There can be an appropriation act and the minister will go and do something else. In fact, the National Assembly will summon ministers, or even chief executives of parastatals or agencies of government and they won’t turn up. And because the president is in charge of the police, he is in charge of DSS and all what have you, because he appoints heads of these security orgainsations, an indicted chief executive by the parliament won’t be brought forward. They would only go by the body language of the president.
And this leads us into the controversial issue of restructuring. How desirable is this at this stage of our nationhood?
Personally, from a reflection, if we drive this agitation agenda beyond brief, I can’t see Nigeria surviving it. I say this with all sense of responsibility.
First of all, you discover that the recent international relation system is now undergoing a major change. One, it is due to the appearance of President Trump on the world scene. Before him, there were agitations, I won’t say breakup, that had signalled the breakup of political economic blocks that were heading towards merger, a very strong block like the European Union.
But Britain has exited from the European Union and so many analysts had predicted that eventually, other powerful countries in the forum would also leave. Now, because of the trend in the United States policy where white supremacy is placed above the values that defined and shaped the United States itself, and these things are in the open, that is why I say I fear for Nigeria’s survival eventually. One because there has been Niger Delta on the boil, now there is Biafra.
This issue of selfdetermination is something that is tricky, you cannot continue to suppress it without inviting the havoc and the kind of consequence that we have witnessed elsewhere because sentiment is politics and politics is sentiment. If care is not taken, we will reach a situation whereby these people who say they don’t believe in Nigeria and they want to go, what can you do? What can you possibly do? Unfortunately , there is elite double standard in a situation whereby politicians whose existential activities are being underrated by the Nigerian state. People like Senator Ekweremadu and Abaribe, as Deputy Senate President, that is deputy to number three political office holder in the land , his paraphernalia, include cars, body guards, the food he eats, everywhere he is secured. But this
man did not feel it was a betrayal for him to drive those bulletproof cars provided by Nigerian state, he went to prison to give succour, comfort and solidarity to a boy, who has said he is all out to destroy the Nigerian state and sponsor secession. This is the trend. Check it out. All those canvassing for Nigerian democracy to be undermined, either in the Senate or business circle, are actually beneficiaries of Nigerian government.
They acquired all their wealth through the support and encouragement of the Nigerian state, they are not more industrious than anybody. But today, they are fi ghting the Nigerian state. Let me also say that, if we do restructuring, because what they are now saying is that we should go back to the regional structure, but they sabotaged the regional structure, what guarantee do we have that it would not be sabotaged?
This is because they sabotaged the regional structure because they staged the 1966 coup in the first place. We have to locate why the regional system failed. People from the eastern region came and wiped off the political and military class of the northern region. They came and wipe off the prime minister, the premier, the first trained Sandhust military officer and lots of them.
They also killed the premier of the western region simply because he was an ally of a party from the northern region. And under the parliamentary system, it is about alliances of party because if you don’t have majority in parliament, you have to go into alliances. And after murdering them, they told lies that they were corrupt and so on.
Many decades after , the children of Sardauna Sokoto, Tafawa Balewa and so many northerners killed in the coup, everyone has seen them living from hand to mouth , they didn’t grow up to become anything because their parents left nothing for them, but children of their own political masters ended up being ambassadors, ended up having fat wills when their parents died and swimming in wealth.
So, they had sabotaged the first regional arrangement without any justifiable reason and without remorse. In fact, they were writing books branding themselves revolutionaries when in actual fact they were murderers. So, if we go back to the regional structure, what guarantee do we have they won’t sabotage it again? For me, that is why I fear Nigeria may not survive.
And to be frank with you, sometimes, I tend to say that I am in support of Biafra and I am also in support of those who want to continue with Nigeria. In other word, those who want to leave should do so in peace and those who want to remain should also be allowed. In fact, there will be extremists who will say a wall should be erected as done by Trump so that criminal gangs from the two sides do not clash, if you like. In the southern Sudan now, the prayer in churches now is for the return of Southern Sudan to the old Sudan which is not possible.
Don’t you think it is not about people wanting to go but the overconcentration of powers and resources at the centre. Can’t every state look inwards rather than the monthly flight to Abuja for sharing?
I think the attraction to the centre is not because the president has concentrated resources. No, he has concentrated powers. In a situation where the president appoints the IGP, Army Chief, Naval Chief, DG, DSS and all security chiefs, you are powerless. So, if it comes to security, intelligence and physical power, you don’t have it.
The IGP posts the Commissioner of Police to your state and he is answerable to him and he (IGP) is answerable to president. All past constitutions have always given control of mineral resources, including gas and oil, to the federal government.
The only thing is that it is the proceeds from Joint Venture that are to be shared on certain parameters or percentages. There is no Constitution around the world that I know that vests control of an oil well in you simply because it is behind your house or at your backyard. That will be sheer anarchy. Just like the law of the sea. It defi nes the extent to which a country controls its seaward territory, littoral boundary, but to Nigeria state as a country, just like same with the airspace. The attraction to the centre,
I don’t think that is the argument; they are only feigning the argument simply because northern Nigeria has a greater population and democracy is about population. Some of them go to the crazy extent of canvassing for same number of states, same number of local governments , with Abia and Kano, or with Bayelsa and Kaduna and so on, not minding the differences in geography, including population, landmass and so on and so forth. Otherwise, if you look at it, you will see that Nigeria is a balanced federation.
Nobody from Jigawa state goes to contest local government elections in Rivers. Nobody from Borno goes to Delta and runs for State House of Assembly elections.
There are local governments in each state, it is the indigenes that run for local government elections, State House of Assembly and the governorship. At the Senate, each state has three representatives, including Bayelsa where the entire state and local governments are not up to a senatorial district in terms of population and landmass. There is balancing there and they are represented like other states, according to true representation, even is the House of Representatives in the US.
