Governors major setback to Nigeria’s democracy – Masari

Posted by admin Governors Friday, September 21st, 2012

The name Aminu Bello Masari, cannot be forgotten in a hurry. It was mentioned very frequently in the run-up to the 2007 election. As Speaker of the House of Representatives, he had an uphill task to either support the ambition of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to get a third term or work against it. He chose the latter and the rest is history.

It was also during his tenure that the controversial onshore/offshore oil dichotomy debate reared its ugly head, resulting in the search for a political solution, which gave rise to the passage of the Oil Dichotomy Act of 2005, which the Northern governors are currently demanding to be reviewed to reduce the quantum of money going to a few oil-producing states and to make more funds available to be shared to other states from the federal purse.

Bello Masari

As the debate over the controversial matter continues, Masari tells SONI DANIEL in this interview that there is nothing sacrosanct about the Act and that it should be reviewed in the interest of emerging realities.

The politician also speaks on other contentious issues, chief among them, Jonathan’s Presidency and his chances in the 2015 polls and compares his style of leadership to that of former President Obasanjo, ending with a knock for governors, whom he says, are the biggest setback to Nigeria’s democratic march. The interview is a must-read. Enjoy.

What he thinks is basically wrong with Nigeria

The real problems are with the actors. The country is not lacking in terms of laws. We are the problem because whenever there is legislation, a good citizen is supposed to look at the positive side of the legislation and see how it can be used to better the society. But it is unfortunate that in Nigeria once a new law is passed people look for loopholes to stifle it from serving any useful purpose.

So, in reality we can continue amending the Constitution and bringing new Acts into existence but as long as there is no goodwill and intention on our part to really use the positive side of the law to work for the progress of this country, we will continue to have problems.

In other words, the clamour for the amendment of the Constitution is an exercise in futility?

It will not bring the results because what we Nigerians are looking at is wrong. The law will not work by itself to solve the problems on the ground. The Act itself is only a guide, showing what we should do and should not do within the confines of the law. But unfortunately we are always looking for ways to break and not to make the laws to work.

Why he opposed Third Term for former President Olusegun Obasanjo

Whatever role I played against the plan is in the Constitution and I have no regret whatsoever. What I did is what I considered best for the interest of this country.

Obasanjo said the other day that he was not the one, who pushed for third term but he would have been a beneficiary of the deal, had it succeeded. So, it is left for Nigerians to determine and ask why third term was pushed so hard if there was no beneficiary in mind.

Some Nigerians often argue that Obasanjo would have used the third term to fix Nigeria’s problems

Those who make such arguments do not know what they are talking about. If you run a government for eight years, that is long enough to complete your programme. In Nigeria, Obasanjo had ruled for eight years and if he had any unfinished business, his protégé could have done that based on the programmes of the party in power or the records left behind by him.

A typical example of this is the Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola. Even if he did not go out to campaign for the 2011 election, he would still have won outright because he had performed creditably well and the record is there for everyone to see.

So, once you perform, you don’t have to blow your trumpet. I am sure even the governor’s enemies would concede that there is evidence of performance in Lagos. What was Obasanjo going to sit back and continue to do? We all know what this country was in 1999 when Obasanjo took over and we know what it was in 2007 and we know what it is today.

The current President was brought in by Obasanjo, who forced all other potential contestants out of the race, in order to clear the way for the late President (Umaru Musa YarÁdua) and the current one. Obviously in a way, you can say that Obasanjo is still in power because Jonathan was propped up by him.

And again, the country is still being run by the structures put together by him under the PDP, which won the election in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011. So, if Obasanjo did not continue his party has continued. So if Obasanjo was operating under the manifesto of the PDP one would have expected the late president and the current one to be doing the same thing.

How we can get it right as a country

We the people are the problem of this country. I say so because when right-thinking and forward-looking people are looking for leaders, they do not look for people from the ethnic groups they come from, religious affiliations they belong or the geo-political zones they come from. No, that will not take the country to anywhere. You look at their previous records of performance and other attributes of a good leader. That was why in 1999 even those who were not in PDP voted for Obasanjo because of the belief by many Nigerians that because of his past records as a former military head of state, who handed over power to a civilian administration and opted to play the role of an international statesman.

Fighting for good governance

He was at the forefront of fighting for good governance especially in Africa. Nigerians really believed that based on his past records, he would be able to provide good leadership to Nigeria. So, Obasanjo had all the credentials to become a good leader. If Nigerians see in somebody certain qualities of a good leader, they would vote for him. That was what happened to Obasanjo in 1999. The most credible election in this country was the one in 1999. After that one the standards have continued to do down.

But we have been having electoral reforms the last being the Justice Mohammed Uwais. Why is it that there is no improvement in the electoral fortunes of Nigeria?

If the Federal Government had accepted and implemented the Uwais Report as recommended, it would have drastically reduced the level of electoral malpractices in the country and stopped the governors from hijacking the political process. Look at what the governors have done to the judicial system. That is what we wanted to correct when at the PDP reform panel but the Governors Forum moved against us and we were at loggerheads with them over the issue.

How would you rate Obasanjo and Jonathan given your knowledge as a Nigerian politician?

Well, the two personalities are quite different for obvious reasons. If PDP had a manifesto, what we would be talking about today would be style of leadership between the two leaders but the fundamentals of the programmes remain the same. It means that the party in power has no programme. So the programmes are tied to the person in power.

Seven point agenda

That is why the late President came up with Seven-point Agenda but obviously I cannot say how many points agenda Jonathan has today. But one credit you must give Obasanjo is that once he is convinced about an issue he has the political will to follow it through whether it is good or bad.

He has the courage to do whatsoever he is convinced about. Obasanjo is completely different from Jonathan because of his military background and to be fair to Jonathan, the security challenges he is facing today did not start with him. It is an accumulation of failures on the part of leadership to address certain fundamental issues. Again, the problem was compounded by the way the insurgency was treated when it first broke out in Maiduguri. Extra-judicial killing and public executions without trial which even the United Nations Human Rights Commission also condemned, led to the present situation the nation now finds itself.

But the greatest undoing of the Jonathan government was to think that the problem of insurgency could be best handled alone as a government without taking into consideration the knowledge of the local community people where the insurgency is taking place.

If they were trusted and taken into confidence they would have done more if not stopping it. But certain utterances of the President are not also helping matters. You remember what he said when some militants under the aegis of MEND bombed Eagle Square on October 1, 2010 and claimed responsibility openly.

But the President said his political opponents who had threatened to make the country ungovernable if they did not win the Presidency, were responsible. As a result of this statement, even those people who would have wanted to offer assistance had to steer clear so as not to be wrongly accused by the administration.

When there is an issue, as the President and Commander-in-Chief even if he has information, let him use it wisely because if the President says he knows who did A and B, then he has foreclosed the matter and there is nothing the security agencies can do about it because they would not want to counter him.

On former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Umar Ghali Na’abba’s comments that the North would not back Jonathan in 2015

I am not a member of PDP and I am not in the same party with Na’Abba. However, I think that the failure of Jonathan is not only in the North. Like I said, I am not a member of PDP, I did not vote for Jonathan in 2011 and I am not going to vote for him even if he is going to contest in 2015. Na’Abba was part of the team that went round Nigeria to campaign for Jonathan and he has the right to say what he said. I am not a member of Jonathan’s party. I am going to vote against him in 2015. For me, Na’Abba’s statement is a plus to my political interest.

Jonathan will have it difficult in 2015 because his utterances are not unifying. He is dividing the people the more. And that is the danger of campaigning on a wrong premise and again he is just surrounding himself with people without experience of the country after emerging as a creation of destiny. He did not emerge as a President because he worked hard for it like others who had gone round the country campaigning on real issues to lead the nation.

Product of destiny

He is a product of destiny and his handlers should handle him as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and not the President of Ijaw nation, Niger Delta, South-South or Southern Nigeria.

Why did the House of Representatives under your leadership pass a bill that was at variance with the verdict of the Supreme Court on the oil dichotomy?

I think people are clearly missing the point. You see the issue of onshore/offshore dichotomy was first sent to the House between 1999 and 2003 but because of the various issues that came up one of them being the attempt to impeach Obasanjo, it was never taken.

It was reintroduced later after Bola Ige had gone to the Supreme Court. The late Bola Ige had said even before going to the apex court that whatever the decision of the Supreme Court the oil dichotomy issues needed a political solution. Go and check the records. Now anybody who wants to blame the National Assembly or Obasanjo on the issue of oil dichotomy is simply trying to play to the gallery.

At a time when it came, the littoral states were asking to be paid revenue for offshore oil taken from as far as 500 nautical miles. The Federal Executive Council, the National Assembly, the Governors Forum and the political parties then agreed to concede up to 200 nautical miles to the littoral states. It was a compromise position taken by all.

But any Nigerian has the right to ask for the amendment of the Act. So in asking for the amendment of the Act, no one should try to play to the gallery because I was the Speaker and I have the records. I know those who spoke to us and those who did not speak to us considering our position on the law. But an Act of the National Assembly can be revisited based on certain information that is now available to the public.

In seeking for amending the Act, people should not begin to talk about what happened many years ago. They should rather say based on the current realities certain sections of the oil dichotomy law should be amended.

Anybody who wants an amendment is free to do so because the Act is not sacrosanct. Even the constitution is amendable. But we must avoid playing to the gallery by calling some people sectional or tribal champions because it is the inalienable right of all Nigerians to seek redress on matters that are inimical to their well being and progress. We should talk as Nigerians and leaders and we know the role which certain persons played then. Anybody who has an opinion has the right to express that opinion.

Have we made progress legislatively since the inception of democratic governance in 1999? I am asking that because almost all the resolutions passed by the National Assembly have not been implemented by the Federal Government on the grounds that they are merely advisory and not binding.

Motions can be binding in a responsible government but our problem started with Obasanjo who had very little respect for the National Assembly right from 1999 till he left in 2007. He created that situation of disrespecting the motions and resolutions of the National Assembly. Sometimes he found it very difficult to implement the Act, which was passed by the National Assembly. Let me give you an example: There are some aspects of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC Act, which Obasanjo did not implement throughout his eight years in office.

This was a wrong precedent put in place by Obasanjo against the position of the Constitution that an Act of the Parliament should be implemented to the letter. It may not be possible to implement all resolutions of the National Assembly due to some developments. We passed so many of resolutions but most of them were ignored by the Presidency.

I would however like to say that we are still transiting and we need to ask ourselves whether we are making progress or not. Once the government is not accountable to the people it tends to misbehave as we are seeing today because our problems is that the electoral process has been compromised to the extent that we have no regards for the electorate.

The truth is that the resolutions and motions of the National Assembly reflect the yearnings and aspirations of the people who elected the members of the legislature and should not be toyed with by the Executive who have regards for the people. If there is a motion and the government refuses to implement, the best place to revenge would be the ballot box but the process had been hijacked by the same system and the people are helpless in Nigeria.

It appears to me that you have been frustrated having left the PDP for CPC to contest election and serve your people as a governor. Where are you now?

Well, it is not all about absolutely being in office. I think what we wanted to do or tried to do in PDP and form it into a political party and make it a good party that would make the people the focus of governance at all times. It was meant to return the power to the people so as to have impact on the opposition party. We had expected PDP to set a good standard but it failed.

So for me as a person, I feel contented because we had fought and we are still fighting for the overall wellbeing of the people. There was a time I was the only person from my state and I would have been a governor if I wanted.

Do you have any regrets leaving PDP for CPC?

As a politician I am not happy with the entire situation either in PDP or CPC. The problems in the parties are the people. They are not ready to play by the rule. So the problem in PDP is there in CPC and all other parties. The people are the same. The behavior is the same.

Their quest is to capture power and they misuse it. I don’t crave for power to misuse. In democracy there must be a winner and a loser. What the system should respect is that all participants in the process are contributors to the development of democracy and the country. We should avoid a situation where we make opposition an enmity where simply because you are seen as an opposition, the winner will come after you and your business or whatever you do.

So with this kind of attitude if you give governors state police, you will sleep with your wife with one eye open or they will come and carry you because what we are seeing in our areas is a reminder of the Native Authority system because the local governments are not functioning, the governor is the only who takes all decisions, no commissioner is anything, the state Houses of Assembly are not even up to rubber stamp, so we are seeing a sole administrator system in Nigeria today because of the overwhelming influence of the governors. Even the Native Authority System was much better because even before the colonialist left the Home Office was looking at the governors and the emirs but today nobody is controlling the governors.

Even at that time when there was regional power after independence, in the north here, that regional power was able to remove a very influential and powerful emir. But today, the governors are more powerful than the Native Authority and emirs of those days.

The Yoruba are asking for regional autonomy and a return to parliamentary system. Will this solve the problem of Nigeria?

What do they mean by regional autonomy? Look any talk about regional autonomy is an invitation to the breakup of this country. The issue if that if the country wants to practice regional government it should abolish states and run with the local government councils because the governors are messing up the Presidential system of government.

They have abused the powers in the constitution. But like I said, the Yoruba’s demand for regional autonomy is suspicious. To have regional autonomy is like planting a seed for dividing the country. So I don’t think it would work.

My main concern is, what we do with state governments. We must abolish the local government and leave the states and the Federal Government or abolish states and leave the federal government to operate with the local government. I am telling you where I come from local governments have been reduced to nothing. I think that governors have done more disservice to this democratic dispensation than any other group in terms of abuse of powers.

They decide who comes to the National Assembly, who should be commissioner and so on, what we have today is worse than the Native Authorities because there is no fear of God at the moment.

-Vanguardwp_posts

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Posted by admin on Sep 21 2012. Filed under Governors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry