Obi Anoliofo, a delegate at the National Conference is chairman, Forum of Former House of Representatives Members, which nominated Ghali Umar Na’aba, Chibudom Nwuche, amongst others, to the conference. In this interview with EMEKA NZE, he examines the composition, organisation and critical issues emanating from the plenary and committees, concluding that years of impunity have stifled the country’s development
Many old people at the confab
There was a primary school song we learnt when we were growing up which says, “make new friends, keep the old; one is silver, the other gold.” Even the few of the youths who are delegates to the conference laboured to attack the involvement of these elder statesmen and perhaps the aged in the group, believing that the floor should have been left open if not only for the youths but for the preponderance of the youths. But explanations were made. In Igbo, there is this insect in the cricket family which says its prayer thus, “let the aged not to die all out because if they die out, little kids would roast it believing that it was edible, believing it to be cricket but it isn’t.”
What have I said by this? Nigeria, North and South Protectorate were amalgamated in 1914. Some of these gentlemen and ladies described as the aged now who should have been set aside for the youths to come in were involved in the growing up of this nation. So I don’t see that it will take only the youths to mend this country. By the way, one would want to ask like former President Obasanjo on one of the events he had and they were talking about youths and he said, “Which youths are you talking about? Is that these youths that I’m looking at? You guys have to change otherwise I am not going to hand over to you.” What I am saying is that even our youths today are as bad when you are talking of the polity, as their forebears.
Pastor Tunde Bakare’s call for suspension of plenary
I will call that statement of Bakare,“grand standing”, and this was what I called it in a private discussion with the people who I sat with at the conference. The federal government in its wisdom had programmed this, nominated 492 wise men and women, so tagged, to come and discuss Nigeria’s problems. Who said we don’t have problems? Because something happened in a part of the country which was unfortunate, yes, nobody liked it, you said we suspend and go home. If you suspend it and go home, would it resolve all the problems we have in this country? I am not saying that this conference is going to solve all the problems of the country but the president said “come, be open, be frank, accommodate the views of one another and look at all these intractable problems that beset this country year in year out, regime after regime. We have had conferences, we have had recommendations yet we are not even stationary but we are retrogressing, I have tried to bring everybody from all corners, everybody who have been shouting, you are social critic, you are lawyers, you are estate surveyors, engineers, come together for goodness sake and see what is the problem of this country. You know the problems tell us what we do to solve the problems”. And you said let us suspend it and go home.
First it is defeatist, second, it is grandstanding. Here is somebody who contested for Vice Presidential ticket of one of the political parties in the country and you know your country is beset with problems. Somebody also suggested that let us suspend it for only one day. That sounded more intelligent, more practical, more pragmatic. Yes, for the sake of the people that died in the bomb blast, let’s go home for one day and resume the next day. It can be done but not kill the entire conference. All the money sunk into it, gone?
Is the conference frank and open?
My brother, I will be a soothsayer if I can read the minds of people to tell you that they are frank or speaking from both sides of their mouth. Yes, before the conference was inaugurated during private discussions, people expressed certain views and they were not unexpected. The south east for instance kept crying over the years for at least one more state to bring them at par with the four other zones. Don’t forget there is still a sixth zone that has seven states and you don’t share revenue and perquisites of this country when you talk about federal character on the equality of zones, you share on the equality of states. When one zone gets seven the others minus south east get six, south east gets five. So we have always said this is an opportunity to talk to the Nigerian nation through this conference to the President to please tell us whether Nigeria/Biafra war has not ended. But if the war is still on let us know.
It is obvious that you don’t fight wars only with guns and bombs. It is like the Nigerian state is still fighting a war against the people of the south east. We haven’t stopped saying it, we are still saying it and we are carrying it to the conference. Like us like other zones like the South-South will talk about revenue allocation formula, will talk about ownership of resources, the south west will talk about the Yoruba nation, the north equally knows that it needs everybody to survive. The south east cannot go it alone in the comity of nations, the south west cannot, the south-south cannot, equally north east, northwest and north central. We have recognised that in the interest of every zone, we need one another to succeed; we need one another to make a mark in the comity of nations.
Agreed, the population of each zone will add up to perhaps more than the population in many European countries but by whatever stroke, we have become one country. Let us see how we can really be one, nation indeed. It is possible at the end of the day people will really talk frankly and be able to appreciate one another’s point of views. We are now in the committee and it is like people are beginning to see the other person’s point of view and if we are able to agree at the committees, I don’t see what problems there should be, when you come to the plenary it is a question of adopting what has been recommended in various committees, making amendments where necessary.
Trivial cry of marginalization at the conference
As far as I am concerned, it is. You used the word “trivial”. Well if I adopt that word, I may be offending my Muslim friends. I would want to say that that complaint is part of the Nigerian problem. If we had nurtured this country to see that we have room to appreciate that we are a country, one wouldn’t be looking at whether you have the Muslim mark or you are carrying the cross of Jesus Christ. Why am I saying this? 1992/93 presidential elections, we had a Muslim/Muslim ticket, Chief M.K.O Abiola of blessed memory of the SDP was a Muslim, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe his running mate was also a Muslim. No Nigerian looked at these two people and warned Christians “don’t vote for them, they are both Muslims.” I don’t see why this agitation will come about. Again, who really nominated who? You have the Nigerian Society of Engineers; they went to their meeting either at the Executive committee or plenary level and brought their president. If their president was a Christian, would you say no, no, no, let us send a Muslim if the policy was that their president should represent them, the same with NMA(Nigeria Medical Association), the same with Estate and Quantity Surveyors and the same with most of these professional bodies, so it depends on where you are coming from. In my group, former House of Reps Forum, I am a Christian, Sekoni is a Muslim, Kareto is a Muslim, Na’aba is a Muslim, Elayo is, I think a Muslim , Chibudom Nwuche is a Christian. You now have two Christians and four Muslims. I have never until now sat down to say ah! among the former House of Reps members, we have two Christians and four Muslims. How can?. It is part of the bane of this society and this is what the conference by God’s grace should be able to address.
Way out of present security challenge
Where I will want to come out hard and very hard just like when discussing the president’s speech, part of my contributions was that I had a dream of a Nigeria where corruption shall be punished and be roundly punished. On the floor of the conference in chambers, perhaps more than one person had the courage short of naming someone to say who said we don’t know the sponsors of Boko Haram and mentioned between one year and another when a particular governor instituted a group that he used for the realisation of his political ambition. Now they became groups that consume the person that invented them, but today he said that he can longer go back to his state but walking the streets of Abuja and he has so many aircrafts, personal fleets that he uses.
This illustration is to say that if like many people in government have said that they are amongst us, they are with us, we know them, I don’t know them but one commercial jingle in Lagos sometime ago would say, “Armed robber no be spirit, na human being; he lives amongst us, he lives with us.”You see, a gentleman who sleeps when everybody has gone to work; he does this day in day out. In the night when people are coming back, he goes out. Before long, he is riding one kind of car and he is entertaining this bevy of friends and you don’t ask questions, “Who is this? What does he do for a living? If we know them, let there be no sacred cows; punish them- Boko Haram, kidnappers, armed robbers -they have their style of life. The security agencies themselves, especially the police, State Security Services(SSS), DMI(Directorate of Military Intelligence), they have been trained to access information on people.
We need the political will to deal with insurgency. I am not talking about discussing with them, you don’t discuss with faceless people. But the point is If we say they are in government or they are amongst us, then the question is who are they? And If you say you know them, bring them out, punish them. Only a few months ago, the former president of Italy was punished for wrong doing, is it somewhere in Asia, a former prime minister was sent to jail for wrong doing. Why should we always be pandering to and pampering wrong doers in this country. As long as we allow it happen, too bad. I made a joke, it looks like we will put together 5000 most corrupt Nigerians tie them at stake and shoot them then confiscate the property and wealth they amassed to the state.
And you think that will solve the problem?
I don’t know but Ghana is cleaner since it was tried.
You think sentiment will not come in?
Yes, my people, my brothers has been killed for doing nothing. You remember the first coup, notwithstanding that “Why we struck”, was written as a book and those who were behind it were named. The first coup was code-named somebody else’s coup when young men who felt things were not going well the way it should go, let’s do this and they did it. If you heard what I said, that’s why I called it a joke, hell will be let lose, even young men from that zone would be asked to go and kill the other people.
Where does this leave us if do not do the needful?
I have said this; the answer is simple; let there be the political will; the law is there, the constitution is there; whoever does this should be subjected to this kind of punishment and this kind of reckless grant of state pardon should be stopped. It is like talking about expunging immunity clause from our statutes books. In the same way, we might even have to have a second look at state pardon, somebody does something heinous, was jailed, then less than a month after discharge, you say state pardon. Of course, that takes us to the judiciary. Every sector in this nation should be sanitized. The way to do it is, you have done something wrong, you are my father. “Daddy I am sorry, you pay price, the law says six years imprisonment; my father should go to jail. People will come to my house and say, “Obi why?” I will say, “did the other person I sent to prison the other day not have some children? This is my father; I didn’t send him to commit crime; even if I sent him, I should be sacked from the bench, then I and my father should be jailed.” That’s all. Political will, people should be punished for wrong doing.