Why Nigeria is still a dream not realised -Magaji Dambatta

Early political life I contested elections twice. The first was one was in 1951when NEPU was one year old. It was not a direct election where everybody would go and cast his ballot. It was indirect elections where you go through primary elections, where those who emerged would go to secondary elections and then intermediate […]

Early political life

I contested elections twice. The first was one was in 1951when NEPU was one year old. It was not a direct election where everybody would go and cast his ballot. It was indirect elections where you go through primary elections, where those who emerged would go to secondary elections and then intermediate elections. And those who emerged would go to provincial elections. It was at that provincial level that provincial members would be selected or elected into the Northern House of Assembly. I contested that one in 1951. We emerged at the Kano urban area. We defeated the NCP, which had then come into being. There was NEPU and NPC. The Kano Urban Area, which was the Kano municipality, had four representations after the three stages in the Provincial Assembly of 120, from various districts. Kano municipality had four. And the four were all NEPU. Malam Aminu Kano, Malam Abba Mai Kwaru, our president-general at that time, Bello Ijumu, our secretary general and myself. Of course, we were overpowered.  That was my first contest.

Why I left NEPU for NPN

I contested again in 1979. I contested one of the five senatorial seats in Kano. There were 19 states at that time and every state had five senators not three as it is now. I was one of the five senators of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

I should have been in the PRP. But PRP didn’t exist at that time. In 1978, the military under General Obasanjo promulgated a decree that politics could start after the Constituents Assembly recommended a constitution and the constitution opened up political space to resume and political parties to be formed. And by 1979, NPN, Unity Party and Great Nigerian Peoples Party (GNPP) were formed. There was no PRP at the time. At that time we were all at the National Movement, which transformed into NPN, including Malam Aminu Kano.

You remember that all political parties were disbanded in January 1966 after the first coup. So there were no political parties between 1966 and 1979. New political parties were established afresh. In the mean time, we all concluded that regional parties had no place in political development of Nigeria. We wanted pan-Nigerian parties that cut across regions, tribes and religion. So NPP, GNPP came into place.

But for some reasons which needed another explanation, Malam Aminu Kano and some of his supporters, decided to bolt away from NPN to set up PRP. But some of us felt that was not right for us because we would have been going back to the same factional, local and regional politics. We considered Malam Aminu’s decision not proper having committed ourselves to the formation of a pan-Nigerian political party. We remained in the NPN.

Radicalism is to act according to certain principles you believed in and to stick by them. But if circumstances changed, to either make these principles redundant or to produce better principles, then why must you be dogmatic or be enslaved to principles which are irrelevant or unreasonable. Our idea of having pan-Nigerian political parties was more reasonable. Remember that when we started NEPU, NPC, Action Group, NCNC, they were all regarded as regional parties.  NPC had branches in the south only among northern Nigerians. The same thing with NEPU, of course we allied with the NCNC. It was purely a northern party. Action Group was a western party. It didn’t have branches in the other regions. In fact, it didn’t make effort to cultivate the people. They were preoccupied with this idea of a Yoruba nation. It has been much in them since then. The NCNC tried to be a national party but even in the south, the party was dominated by Igbos. And the great membership was Igbos. But they captured the Niger Delta people largely. And even in western Nigeria it got a lot of Yoruba support. NCNC had wanted to come to the north but the north was a shut out entity right from colonial days purposely to keep us apart from the rest of the country. NCNC couldn’t easily penetrate. The party was able to penetrate to the north through NEPU and NEPU is not a big party.

But time was over for regional parties if at all we wanted to build a united country. But to me, that dogma of being radical or conservative didn’t matter. What is important is to rally around our brothers and sisters from all over the country to build a nation. Having fought against colonialism and feudalism, we should also fight against disunity. We were doing our bits in our localities to fight against colonialism and feudalism and independence was won, then what else? Are we going to turn ourselves against ourselves? No. We should turn ourselves towards enlightening the country, to fight injustice, corruption, disunity and ensure harmony. And we can bring harmony only if we integrate each other.

False pretences of progressive and conservative politics

Rightists and leftists, to me in politics, don’t apply. I don’t share the idea of being conservatives or progressives. Who are the conservatives and who are the progressives? It is simply a semantic people give themselves to portray certain false appearances.  Let me tell you, the people who are in the political parties then and now, the people who are conservatives and traditionalists, actually have been marginalised. It was the emirs and their children, who were the privileged few. But all others that came on board from Shehu Shagari to Shehu Musa Yar’adua to Namadi Sambo, they were all sons of the ordinary common people. They were only privileged because they went to school.

Even in southern part of the country, Awolowo was not a son of Oba or Azikiwe the son of Obi. The same thing applies to President Jonathan, who is not a son of a chief among others. They were all children of the ordinary people who were lucky to go to school including myself. Then, what makes us conservatives? What makes me different from Abubakar Rimi? What makes me different from Sule Lamido? We went to school and we were lucky to be in public service. It is your tendencies. You are either having a character of service to the society or a character of service to self.  It has nothing to do with political parties.

How military rule arrested our development

During the second military coup, when Buhari sacked Shagari’s government, I lost faith in Nigeria’s political development. I was very much a witness to the first coup and a student of its aftermath. I saw the damage the coup had done to this country, to the orderly development of Nigeria politically. Here was a country in spite of its failings, sets on the road to independence with elected governments running the show under agreed constitutional settings- with all the ups and downs involved in a young democracy, inexperience and all the interference of western powers. They gave us independence but never wanted any good for us. They wanted to control us by remote control.

So, the influence of neo-colonialism in Nigerian politics was evident. People who knew how any colonialism works could see, they wrote, advised and requested that we should not hobnob with western powers. Let us rather try and deal with them on equal footing without becoming too stubborn and overbearing but at the same time not becoming submissive to their wishes if it went against our interests.

Alas, five years and three months after independence, the military struck. Now consequence of the first coup was to disrupt orderly development.  If that coup didn’t take place by 1983 when the second coup took place, we would have developed into a nation more tolerant, more experienced and more focused. We would have gone through our difficulties. In fact, nothing would be achieved without going through difficulties.

By now, our democracy, the parliamentary system of government would have served this country well. The reason why it should have been far better was that take Obafemi Awolowo, Sardauna Sokoto, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mbadiwe, Bode Thomas, Akintola, Rotimi Williams and Ekotie Eboh. Here in the north you take Makaman Bida, Ribadu, Shettima Kasim, Achimugu and so on. In the east, Azikiwe of course, Professor Eyo Itta, Mbadiwe and so on. These people would have got certain experience from 1966 to the 1970s. Then young people behind them like Amaechi, Waziri Ibrahim, Maitama Sule, Fani Kayode, J. S. Tarka would rise and fill the place of these leaders. And under them, another young crop of leaders would emerge and get experience. That is learning from the top, where young people learn from their experienced elders. Not rushing, saying they know everything.

That is the tragedy of Nigeria: the head was cut off, the middle was scattered and the bottom was left with young military of age 28 to 33 that came. The military right from Yakubu Gowon down to Hassan Usman Katsina, it was only Odumegu Ojukwu and Ejor that were 35. All others were 33 down to 28. When they came they got rid of the experienced people, and those in the middle were scattered and they didn’t want to deal with them. They would deal with young civil servants, very young in age like them, their playmates, their drinking mates, their card playing mates, their partying types and so on. Government was reduced to unseriousness. I was there and I was involved.

The politicians would spend sleepless nights planning and formulating policies and programmes of free education at the primary level or building secondary schools here and there, developing agriculture and industries. During the day, they are in their offices studying proposals. During meeting days, they meet in their various councils and analyse the proposals with money backing. They don’t undertake projects without the money to back them. They know their limitations, not only in monetary terms but in execution capacities. They were planning according to their capacity, need and utilisation. There was seriousness, vision and planning. They were all disbanded.

It came to the turn of the military. The big tree has been cut off, the trunk and branches have been cut off. We were left only with shrubs. There is no shade and the soil has been eroded. There was no rain; sun shine has dried all the grasses there. We stayed there from 1966 to 1979. About 14 years under the military part of it was the destructive civil war. It followed by years of extravagance. Money was coming in but they didn’t know what to do with it. There was no capacity, no planning.

Until within themselves they fought and decided to hand over to civilians. The civilians came but again they were not allowed to experience the ups and downs of politics. And mark you; we were still being faced with foreign interference under the military just like under the civilian administration. Our experiment in the Second Republic was frustrated by foreign powers. If the history of this country would be written with thorough research, you will find out how we succumbed foolishly to the machinations of western powers. By then it was a colonial administration with the brute power of Her Majesty or King of France or whatever. It is now manipulation. Again in 1983, the journey was disrupted before the journey even started.

After the second coming of the military we had another republic. Then in 1999 when we returned to civilian rule, where are we? If you tell me we are making progress, then I will tell you to think again. Why? This is because Nigeria which we fought for its independence. During Nigerian independence, I was there at the Tafawa Balewa Square when the Union Jack was pulled down and Nigerian green-white-green flag was pulled up. We were optimistic and confident that Nigeria would be the greatest black African nation in the world in no time. Ghana, which has been independent some years earlier, was making waves at that time with Kwame Nkrumah’s dogmatic, purposeful and determined policies and programmes of anti-colonialism.

So Nigeria with its population, experience and we are not destined to lead Africa but we are the saviour of black man in diaspora. The American black people some of them came to Nigeria’s independence celebration. They were happier than Nigerians. They believed that Nigeria was going to rescue them from racial subjugation. This is because the black populations of America are still being largely discriminated against. That was why Nigeria was seen as the saviour of the black man. In the process we are still being treated with the highest regards and sit on the high table with other nations in international diplomacy. That was how we thought Nigeria would become. We were saying give us some few years in 1960, thinking that by 1970s, we would have liberated all the black people in America. And Africa would be under our command with good leadership, harmony and brotherly relationship. That was how we thought Nigeria would be.

50 years after, Nigeria is still nowhere

But what happened now?  We cannot even fit to be in any serious international roundtable. Look at the G20. There was only one time that Nigeria was invited into the G20 meetings. But South Africa is always being invited. Even in the last two weeks or so, there was the G20 meeting and South Africa was there. But Nigeria is nowhere. Nigeria, with the population over 160 million people, the biggest black nation on earth and heavily endowed with resources-human and natural and very educated and enterprising people, but what we lack is motivation, cultivation and direction.

There are efforts by President Goodluck Jonathan administration to enlist the country among the 20 best economies in 2020. Are you not optimistic?

Vision 20:2020 was espoused during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration. In 2005, I was a delegate to the Political Reform Conference.  Vision 20:2020 was there. The programme was espoused almost nine years ago and we have not done much. Instead, we are going back in almost everything. And in the next nine years what magic are going to do to get there? When you talk of 2020 you think the other nations would stay on the same spot waiting for us to catch up with them or drop out. Or the other nations that are not there now would stop doing anything and refer to Nigeria, saying Madam Nigeria move forward we would catch up with you. Or even those nations already there, would drop out and make a space for Her Majesty Nigeria to take a seat among the top 20. We are kidding ourselves.

This is at a time when unemployment is rising to alarming extent; when investments from abroad are not forthcoming; when local people with wealth have repatriated their wealth abroad and when those  that struggle hard to make money have no facilities to make them is so daunting.  The moment they put in their money it disappears.  When our industries over the years are dead; when power and electricity, which we have been talking about year in, year out, we have not made any significant progress on it.

In the political reform conference, I was a member of the social services committee. And among other things discussed is power in Nigeria. In 2005, South Africa with population of about 50 million was producing about 40, 000 megawatts. While at that time, Nigeria we were producing about 2500 megawatts. South Africa was not only self-sufficient but it was also supplying Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.  And it was planning to link with Congo Democratic Republic to set up another dam on Congo River to produce another 40,000 – 50,000 megawatts to feed east Africa.

But here we are in 1999 when Obasanjo came with Bola Ige of blessed memory; he was the first minister of power under Obasanjo. The first thing he said when he came because power was the headache of the country was that black out would be the thing of the past in six months. I remember this vividly. That was in 1999 or early 2000. That was 11 years ago. Obasanjo came and went. Power was neglected. In fact we were told at that committee that Obasanjo was trying to sell out the power company and because he was trying to sell it, he was not ready to pump any money into it because it was waste of money. Again, nobody was ready to buy it the way it was. Uptil now we are only deceiving ourselves.

I happened to be a member of the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC), which Jonathan made immediately he became acting president. He appointed us to advice him. He saw the wisdom in doing that to seek our candid advice. And also, perhaps, to make the political situation stabilised. Again, in that committee we were divided into sub-committees and I happened to be in power sub-committee with Professor Barth Nnaji, the current Minister of Power as our chairman. We discussed and invited all the stakeholders from the power company, ministry of power, former ministers of power and power independent suppliers. Why didn’t they supply? Why they failed the nation and so on. We invited 11 of them. Up to that time there was no power being pumped out they were all in the Niger Delta. After investing huge sums of money, nothing is working. Up to now, we are still talking about selling the power company, getting investors to invest and so on. In another five years.

Five years is enough to change things as other people are doing. Obasanjo came in 1999, Yar’adua came five years ago and nothing happened. And Jonathan has been in office for over a year now and yet we have not seen the blue print. Instead, we have been having conferences and seminars in big halls with big men in smart suits and ties talking only. We are good at talking. The words we turned out every day are enough to fill the Library of Congress, Britain, India, and France and so on. The words we turned are capable of making a big road from here to Algeria for vehicles to ply on.

So when you talk of vision 2020, the ground work has not been set. We can produce visions but there are so many conflicts. There are so many personal interests and interferences, if someone can’t get anything in it, then it must be disrupted. This country has all the resources to make it big as well as saviour of African people. It can also give the African man, Nigerians in particular, the self-respect, dignity that God has endowed to human beings.