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NEW AGE ONLINE
May 4 2005
Allowing Obasanjo to midwife a new constitution dangerous’
Mr FESTUS OKOYE, national chairman, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) and former national publicity secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) argues that the recent circulation of a draft constitution from the executive arm of government among national conference delegates is an indication that the Federal Government has a hidden agenda.
The former chairman of Kaduna Branch of the NBA also describes the recent alliance between the leaders of the South-South and Middle Belt as a motley crowd of fortune seekers, in this interview with TONY AKOWE in Kaduna.
There is a renewed effort towards fighting corruption in the country. But there are those who believe that the fight is going nowhere. How far do you think President Olusegun Obasanjo can go?
I think that we have to thank God for little mercies in view of what is going on in the country. It is true that concerns have been raised about the selective nature of the war against corruption. Concerns have also been raised against on whether the president is genuinely interested in waging the war against corruption. But I think that our attitude should be such that everyone against corruption should be such that everyone should support move every move against corruption. That is why presently, we support the war against corruption the way it has gone.
What we are saying however is that the war should be waged in a holistic and consistent manner. The war should be waged with some level of fairness and equity. It should not be waged selectively and in a discriminatory manner. It should not be waged in a manner that will give the impression as if the war against corruption has ethnic, religious and other biases.
So, if we wage the war against corruption consistently and with a level of fairness and responsibility, Nigerians will back the war. But the moment Nigerians notice that it is a war of vengeance, a war of attrition against the enemies of government or of the President, they will not support it and it will just become an empty slogan.
The fight seems to have started from the National Assembly. Do you believe that this is an indication that there is a subtle plan by the president to cage the lawmakers?
The amount of money accruing to the National Assembly both from the national budget and their own expenditures are an infinitesimal portion of the amount of money accruing to the Federal Government and federal agencies. But corruption is corruption wherever it manifest itself. We don’t want a situation where the president will give the impression as if the National Assembly is the only institution where corruption thrives.
Corruption thrives in various government institutions and Nigerians know that corruption also thrives in the various ministries under the president and his cronies and he knows it. So, we believe that while it is important to wage war against corruption, in the National Assembly, that war should not be waged in such a way as to rob them of their oversight function over the executive arm of government. The war should not be waged in such as way as to damage the integrity of the National Assembly completely. So that it can no longer perform its legislative functions effectively. But I think that more fundamentally, the National Assembly must move quickly to reclaim its credibility, its competence, its mandate and re-establish a new covenant and a new contract with the Nigerian people. As at now, most Nigerians do not trust the National Assembly, neither do they believe in the National Assembly as institution? The Nigerian people also believe that the National Assembly has not succeeded in asserting its independence. They need to reclaim their credibility and also reclaim their lawmaking function as well as their supervisory function in order for the Nigeria people to have trust and faith in them. But as at now, Nigerians believe that the National Assembly, as an institution, has not lived up to expectations. The problem is that there are quite a lot of people in the National Assembly who are just contractors. Their main interest and business at the National Assembly is not to make laws for the peace and good governance of this country. Their main function is to use their distinguished mandate and presence to bid for and secure contracts.
Secondly, there are people at the National Assembly with very dubious past and the president has access to security reports on these people with dubious credentials and dubious past. Therefore, some of these people will not like to rock the boat because the moment they rock the boast, their dubious credentials will be exposed. There are others who are bloody cronies of, president who are in the National Assembly. Those who are really in the National Assembly to serve the Nigerian people, the interest of lawmaking and engage in the oversight function of Federal Government Agencies are very few and the voice of these few people are always drown in matters of this particular nature. So, it is a combination of all these things that has made it difficult for the National Assembly to look deep into the excesses of the executive and into the corruption within the executive arm of government and also to make an attempt to shake the president by way of censor, motion or impeachment. So, if anybody is expecting any motion for impeachment or any impeachable offences against President Obasanjo as at and now, I think it is just a mirage and it will not work. This is because a lot of members of the National Assembly do not have the capacity and competence to wage the type of war we are talking about. So, that is the type of National Assembly we have as at now.
A member of the National Assembly and retired Deputy Inspector General of Police claimed that a lot of people in the National Assembly are those he personally detained for criminal offences while in service. What do you think should happen to such people who found themselves in that hallowed chamber?.
I believe that Nuhu Aliyu owes the Nigerian people a responsibility to name those people he believes have very dubious past. He has the responsibility to draw the attention of security agencies to some of these people. If these people have wiped out some documents from the court or form police and have tried to clean up their image using subterfuge and using corruption and corrupt influences, Nigerians deserve to know about all these things and the security agents deserve to know about all these things. So, I think that he has a responsibility to the Nigerian people to exposed them, not jus for the purpose of grandstanding. If it is for the purpose of grandstanding, it will not go anywhere.
If he really believes in this country and likes it and wishes this country well, he has the responsibility to expose those people because we cannot have crooks and people with dubious credentials and dubious past making laws for the generality of the Nigerian people. The type of laws people like that will make will not be for the peace and good governance of this country. They will be laws for their own selfish interests and to cover up their past. So, I think he owes Nigerians the responsibility of naming these people and draw the attention of security agents so that they will be arrested.
There is the news of a draft constitution circulating at the national conference. Does this justify the fear of the civil society before the commencement of the confab?
Right from when the National Political Reforms Conference was set up, the Transition Monitoring Group organized a press conference in Abuja and we alerted the Nigerian people of the existence of an already prepared constitution by the Federal Government. Unfortunately, there was conspiracy of silence as the press refused to give prominence to that particular press conference addressed by the TMG where we drew attention to this constitution. The TMG said there was no need wasting Nigeria people’s money on constituting a national political since the government already has an already prepared constitution. They should just send the draft to the National Assembly for deliberation. Alternatively, if they don’t want to send it to the National Assembly, that they should give a copy to the national confab to deliberate on it rather than send the Nigerian people on a wide goose chase; giving the impression that they are deliberating on all facets of the Nigerian society when in actual fact the government has made up its mind on the type of constitution it wants. So, that particular constitution has shown very clearly that the Federal Government really has an agenda which it wants this conference to assist it in implementing. I think that conference must be weary of the machinations of the Federal Government and the type of manoeuvring they are doing. History will judge all of us one way for the other if we lend our names, credibility and our past to an agenda that leads to the perpetuation of a single individual in office. History will judge us very badly and I think that is what is manifesting itself now. People should be very careful and look beyond the immediate to see that the government has an agenda to implement and resist that agenda because it is not a Nigerian people’s agenda.
It is a very dubious agenda and an agenda that will lead to very serious problems of lawlessness and civil disobedience in this country. A third term bid by President Obasanjo is part of the bid package because if they succeed in bringing about a constitutional coup that will bring into force this constitution, the issue of the two terms the president has served will become a none issue. We have the experience of the former governor of Kogi State to buttress this particular point. We also have the Segun Osoba issue to buttress this point. Those people were in government before and they went to court for the interpretation of the constitution and the court said it cannot be interpreted retroactively. So, I think there is a danger in allowing this regime to midwife a new constitution because the moment a new constitution comes into force, that new constitution cannot be interpreted retroactively.
The Federal Government is carrying out both economic and political reforms. What do you think about these reforms?
Most of the reforms of this government do not have a human face. They are reforms that are not grounded both in reality and economic indices of this country. The constitution makes it clear that the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should take charge of the economy. The constitution never asks the government to sell off the Nigerian people’s interest in the major sectors of the economy. But what this regime has done since it came into power was to divest its interest from companies that were built and financed with the Nigerian people’s money. Houses that were built for low-income earners, the government has appropriated them and is selling them off. All government institutions and parastatals that are at the heart of the Nigerian economy, some of the institutions that were set up to cushion the hardship of the Nigerian people have been sold off to big people, their cronies and to themselves. In other words, the government is pursuing an agenda that is against the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The constitution says that the economic polices of government should not be run in such a ways as to concentrate the major sectors of the economy in the hands of a few individuals or group. That is exactly what this government is doing. This government is out to satisfy the interest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other agencies.
Just recently, the South-South and the Middle Belt came together at a conference in Abuja and asked that the 2007 presidency should be conceded to them. How would you react to the conference?
I think what we should do now is to sit down as a people and as a nation to agree and tackle the problems of this country. I believe that the problems of poverty and incidence of poverty have not geo-political colouration. What has geo-political colouration in this country is the sharing formula, which the ruling class used in milking this country.
So, the agenda should be on how to institute programmes and policies of equity for the ordinary people. Those people who met as Middle Belt and South-South leaders are the ones holding the ordinary people in those zones down. They are the people who collect money for derivation, pocket it and use the money to buy choice property within and outside Nigeria. They make things difficult for the ordinary people whose environment has been destroyed. These same leaders of the Middle Belt are the same people who have been in power for many years.
s They produced generals, but you cannot point out concretely how their long stay in government has benefited the ordinary people. Rather, they have used their knowledge to increate mayhem in places like Plateau, Nasarawa and Benue states. So, these people are not for the ordinary people of this country. What they are doing is to raise their voice and position themselves for political appointments and for elective offices not to debate and deliberate on the interest of the ordinary people of these geo-political zones. That is an alliance of oppressors and those who hold this nation down. |
