2011: Nigeria is sitting on a time-bomb –Iyorcha Ayu

I issued a statement on behalf of the Northern Leaders Political Forum or the G15, of which I am a member. The statement was based on our own observations that the tactics the present government is using are the same as the tactics of the Olusegun Obasanjo government. Obasanjo excluded those of us who are […]

I issued a statement on behalf of the Northern Leaders Political Forum or the G15, of which I am a member. The statement was based on our own observations that the tactics the present government is using are the same as the tactics of the Olusegun Obasanjo government. Obasanjo excluded those of us who are the founding members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).  Even within the party, things were not done fairly. All we saw were harassment, fraudulent elections and impeachments all over the place. His was a time when six out of 30 members of a House of Assembly would impeach the governor.

This government is returning us to that era. What we are seeing today were the tactics that Obasanjo used to conduct elections to please himself and to try to achieve his third term project. Today, President Jonathan, who is professing a free and fair election, is employing the same tactics. There is no internal democracy in the party and members are complaining. Up till now, former vice president and founding member of the party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who did so much when we were building the party, cannot even get a waiver. Jonathan who is professing a free and fair election, is now sending the EFCC to harass governors who are supporting zoning which we in the G15, also want retained. EFCC’s onslaught is very selective.

Why is he not going for those supporting his aspiration? Nigerians should be warned. Some say President Jonathan is a good person. It is not enough for him to be good. He has a huge collection of people around him who are travelling along the line we have seen but do not want to see, namely harassing the opposition. The free and fair elections he has promised can’t be achieved in the atmosphere of intimidation that we are seeing. We want to see his free and fair election in action, not words.

What would you say about a governor who would empower his son to build a one-billion naira house?

We’re in no way supporting any corrupt governor or anyone else. But if the EFCC wants to tackle corruption, it should do so comprehensively. There is hardly any governor in this country whom you cannot trace to corrupt practices. Dealing with only governors in the opposition to Jonathan’s will is what we can’t condone.

But the EFCC goes after people against whom there are petitions.

No state exists where there are no petitions. Besides, the EFCC has its own way for people they want to hunt down to achieve certain purposes.

Are you afraid that aspirants you are predisposed to would not have support during the primary election?

All aspirants will get support. Supporters of certain aspirants would only be more than certain others. What we condemn is selecting people to hunt down. When you do that, you are not sowing the seed of democracy because democracy accommodates opposition.

The EFCC says it has always done its job, that it cannot go and sleep now just because some people are complaining.

We are going into an election and some governors have been targeted.

The EFCC can’t go after all the governors at once.

It should not go after just those who oppose the attempt to drop zoning

What is the G-15 doing besides the statement you issued?

We are educating Nigerians on the dangers ahead. When the third term fever caught the country, we rose to point the danger of the possibility of a third term. We said it was Obasanjo’s shot at life presidency. Many who didn’t realize the plot for what it was, later saw it and joined the fight that eventually shot third term down.

What is happening is another attempt at term elongation. Obasanjo is in the background leading the present moves by the presidency through the EFCC. It’s amazing that a board of trustee chairman of a party would gather his zone to endorse a particular presidential hopeful who has not even formally declared intention to run for the presidency.

Obasnjo has a hidden agenda to cover something, part of which is already out, with the arrest of someone you could call his son. Bodunde who is number one on the list of people involved in the Halliburton bribery scandal was like his son who did a lot for him.

We place so much blame on Obasanjo. Jonathan who is now the president should be able to say, ‘look, this is not the turn of the South, so I am not contesting!’

Jonathan is a willing accomplice. His attitude has shown him as a willing accomplice in this move to violate the constitution of his own political party.

You worry that the 2011 elections would not be free and fair. Your worry finds no bearing in some steps that Jonathan has taken so far, such as the appointment of someone widely believed to be nonpartisan, Professor Attahiru Jega, as chairman of INEC. Jonathan has also signed the Electoral Act into law.

Doing a credible election does not lie with the chairman of INEC, or even the commissioners of INEC. We are talking of a huge country of 36 states and Abuja as well as 774 local government areas. We are talking of thousands and thousands of polling booths and collation centres. Security agencies are also central to the conduct of elections. When you have a leadership that is dedicated to the subversion of the people’s will, you have a problem. When this leader who controls the security agents uses the agents to harass the opposition, you have every cause to worry. Jega alone cannot sit in Abuja and make everything work all over the country. Jega has to be very careful.

This must-win president may ultimately taint his excellent record. He needs highly experienced people of high integrity all across the country to help him in the enormous task ahead. He has already complained of a short time span, which is a problem, really. I understand, for instance, that some of the critical machines for the registration and conduct of elections are just being ordered. Some of these machines are not on the shelf. Some need as long as six months to be manufactured. Situations like this make us wonder if things may not go the way of the past era. So, I think Jega needs to be very, very careful.

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But Jega and his team must have considered the situation you have described before asking for the money that has been advanced to them.

Credible election is not all about money. You need other logistics and you need a credible personnel. You need security agents who will do their job professionally and not pander to selfish interests of anybody or political party. You need a government that is tolerant of the opposition. Money alone may not give you good elections.

The presidential primary election is to be done in the different states. Do you believe it would affect the credibility of the election?

I personally believe that it should be done the way it has been arranged. Considering that our roads are bad, it would be expensive and dangerous to move delegates from all over the country to Abuja for a central form of election. In the United States, they do not even do primary election in one day. It is spread over a number of days and people are encouraged to do their primaries in their respective states. Doing it the way the National Assembly has worked it out would also make it difficult for moneybags to buy delegates and influence voting. It is also easier for INEC to ensure that state congresses are done transparently.

Talking about moneybags, what do you say when some people complain that politicians are often a reason why election loses credibility, as they employ all manner of crude methods, such as snatching of ballot boxes.

Yes, I blame desperate politicians. There are politicians who have no electoral support in places where they are seeking votes. I contested the Senate election covering seven local government areas. I didn’t use a single thug. I couldn’t, even if I had wanted. I didn’t have the money to hire any thug. But I won the election in six LGAs. In the local government area of my opponent which I didn’t win, I had over 45 percent of the votes.

That was when elections were conducted using the option A4 which General Ibrahim Babangida introduced. I blame desperate politicians who try to subvert the people’s votes but it is the responsibility of the people to cast their votes and defend it.

It is the responsibility of the security services and relevant organs, like INEC and the EFCC, to be neutral arbiters in all elections. Most importantly, the key person who commands the security services should not start on the note of harassing the opposition. It raises serious questions about the possibility of organising a free and fair elections.

In this country, issues of politics rarely include what must be done for the people. Youths come out of schools every year and have no work to do. Why is this issue not getting the attention it deserves?

This is the question you members of the press should be asking candidates. As published very recently, the population of Nigeria is growing very rapidly. They said Nigeria’s population in the last 20 years has grown by 60 million people. They are projecting that by 2030, Nigeria’s population will be 230 million. Of this size, they have calculated that 70 percent would be of working age, that is young adults. It is alarming because these young adults would be coming out of school to stay five, 10, 20 years and not get jobs.

People are even beginning to question the relevance of any education at all. The danger in this, as pointed out in the report of population growth, is this: three-quarters of the world’s crimes are committed by young male adults. All wars, whether formal wars or insurgencies, like what we are experiencing in the Niger Delta, are carried out by young male adults. While rapid growth can be an asset to Nigeria, it could also pose serious threats to security if we don’t give them productive employment. I agree that we give so much time to politics and ignore issues of development.

Take the current government as an example. Jonathan has not made pronouncement of any serious policy issues apart from much talk about power supply. Even the other aspirants to the presidency, none is addressing the serious issues affecting us today.  Those of us who are aspiring to lead this country must begin to think seriously about what we must do for the who youths are coming out from schools into the world where they must work if they are to live decently. We must begin to look at what we must do outside oil. Although oil contributes so much to our domestic product, it employs a tiny percentage of the people. We are not developing agriculture.

We are importing rice, we are importing sugar. Take sugar, for example. Since 1964, the Dutch surveyed and established that there were 11 major sites for sugar production in the Savannah area. Nothing is being done. We have comparative advantage in paper production. Nothing is being done. Even the few paper mills we had have ran aground. It’s the same thing in the iron and steel sector. There are critical areas that if you don’t develop, you can’t develop as a nation. The danger is that we are relying too much on oil, which we would cease to have by the year 2050. The only thing we would have is gas, because we have gas reserves that could last the next 100 years.

The only productive asset we would have would be the population. The estimate is that by 2030, Nigeria would be the sixth largest population in the world. This would be after China, India, Indonesia, United States, and Pakistan. Other populations, particularly in northern Europe, would be declining because they are not having kids and are therefore, worried that they would be having an ageing population and dwindling labour force. On the other hand, Nigeria’s population could be having the largest productive section in the world. We can export this labour. This labour could be useful for domestic production. But we are wasting this labour because we are not expanding the real sector of the economy.

Our monetary and finance policies are wrong. How can you run an economy where banks are lending at 30%, 40% interest rate? You can’t borrow for construction, you can’t borrow for agriculture. The gestation periods of these ventures are too long for bank lending here. It was for this reason that when I was minister for industry, I established the Bank of Industry. I saw what Brazil was doing.

I saw what Indonesia and India and so on were doing. Brazil’s Bank of Industry was lending at five percent. And you don’t pay for five years if you borrow. There is a moratorium of five years. You pay nothing back till after five years. We establish the Bank of Industry to play this necessary role. But nobody knows what they have been doing. They are not putting enough resources in there. We are not developing such areas of the economy that can generate labour openings. We are actually sowing the seed of destruction because our surplus productive population would ultimately be used for civil strife

You are promoting the presidential aspiration of people like ex-military president Ibrahim Babangida and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar. These people have seen it all before. Are you confident that they can make any difference now?

I am not promoting any candidate. We came together as a group because we felt that the agreement which some of us participated in making in 1998 when the PDP was formed was being jettisoned at the expense of the northern part of the country. That is the common ground. Every aspirant has his own programme. Luckily for me, I am not a member of anybody’s presidential group. They are all responsible for their respective campaign programmes.

Come to think of it, you are not known to be aspiring for any position, like governor of Benue State…

I was president of the Senate, number three citizen of the country. I cannot now be struggling to become state governor. A younger brother served me as a director when I was minister of education. I assisted him to be governor. I can aspire for other things when the time comes.

Like the presidency?

Every politician is a potential aspirant. You read situations, you make consultations, and then take a decision. I have not arrived at that decision to aspire to be president. When I arrive at such decision, you will be the first to know.