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The constitution remains the bedrock of democracy in any Nation where democracy is practiced. Today the amendment of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has taken the center stage in the country’s polity. Traditionally, constitutional review is a democratic process, which allows for an appraisal of the constitution. This process entrenches workable, applicable, acceptable and enforceable provisions into the constitution, and provisions that have outlived their relevance are expunged. This processinjects people oriented laws for the overall develo...Read the full article.

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2006/2/20 11:28:18

Chief Innocent Audu Ogbeh, former National Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is one of the founders of the Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD), one of the newly registered political parties. In this interview with Francis Ottah Agbo, Ogbeh bares his mind on the polity and declares only Option A4 as guarantor of free and fair elections in 2007.

Q:The third term plot is gaining momentum. Governors and big politicians have openly canvassed for it. What is your take on this?


A: When the Movement for the Defence of Democracy (MDD) and the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) alerted the nation about this criminal desire to elongate the tenure of elected office holders beyond 2007, not many Nigerians took us seriously. Aso Rock called us names. Thank God we have been vindicated. Every Nigerian knows that third term is real. My view is that third term is not good for democracy because it will draw back the wheel of progress made by this government. I am not one of those critics of General Obasanjo who say he has achieved nothing. Obasanjo has achieved a lot and I concede that to him. But I am afraid his third term bid will destroy everything he has achieved. Nigeria should have been the leader in Africa, but it will be at the bottom of the ladder if Obasanjo extends his tenure, because after the third term, he may gravitate to life president.

Q: Can you succinctly enumerate areas in which the Obasanjo government has achieved a lot?
A: Look at the contributory pension fund. It is populist and people-oriented. People believe that a pensioner has a right at the end of the month to ask : where is my reward?
With the increasing number of pensioners and the multiplicity of problems confronting government, it has become impossible to meet the needs of the pensioners. Government has a backlog of over N1 trillion owed pensioners. Today, it is a good thing that Obasanjo established a contributory pension fund. The funds are managed outside the treasury. It also contributes to a percentage of the GDP. That fund is also the reserve fund in the banks, which in turn provides access to larger funds as loans to the public at no interest rate. It will have a positive impact on the economy in no distant time. It is a wonderful decision that will guarantee the dignity of public servants at retirement. This is because, they can walk to the bank on a monthly basis and have their pensions paid without delay. This is a fundamental achievement. The second one is the Global System of Mobile communication (GSM). With this system of communication, we are organically linked with one another in a way that the people of Nigeria are major participants in the global village. This trend has improved the economic activities of the people, since people can now transact business through their mobile phones. Although Nigerians still wallow in unmitigated poverty, GSM has enhanced commerce in the land. The Obasanjo government has also opened up the fight against corruption. Critics, including me, still believe that the anti-corruption war is partial because the campaign is obviously selective. But at least he has started it. The theory of untouchable is gradually waning. Future governments will improve on it. Before now, people who felt that some people could steal billions and go scot-free now realise that everybody must be careful and hide. We were flaunting ill-gotten wealth in this country but today, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) beams its searchlight on all of us. But again, if the commission must earn the respect of Nigerians, then it must not be a monster. The EFCC officials must as well respect the laws of the land on one hand and be fair to all, irrespective of party affiliation. A situation where EFCC would freeze the account of a state government, brutalise public office holders or force people to sign documents is, to say the least, anti-people and Satanic. Obasanjo has travelled a lot and has tried to reposition our nation after many years of military interregnum. At least, today we are moving towards having mega banks in our shores, thanks to the bank recapitalisation policy of government. This has led to low interest rate and this is good for investments. Gone are the days when families owned banks exclusively. But General Obasanjo’s bad sides outweigh his good. General Obasanjo’s politics is very poor. He is deficient in managing democracy . His government keeps billions of naira in foreign reserves while Nigerians wallow in penury and disease. This government, more than anyone in Nigerian history, is the most insensitive to the yearnings of the citizenry. Obasanjo’s blatant disrespect for court rulings and his disregard for the constitution is dangerous to our nascent democracy. These issues are undermining his major achievements. No country progresses when its leader toys with the superstructure - politics, courts and constitution. If the superstructure is bastardised, the economy, which constitutes the substructure, will be comatose.

Q: In South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki’s African National Congress is in the majority. He refused the call to amend the constitution to extend his tenure. In Nigeria, the argument is that Obasanjo should stay beyond 2007 to ensure continuity in policies. Does this hold water?
A: It is unfortunate that younger democracies like South Africa are teaching us what to do. I think Thabo Mbeki was wise to say, I will not amend the constitution. It may be convenient to some people to say, let us amend the constitution for today and make the President elongate his tenure. If a future president comes, says one of the fundamental problems is desert encroachment and promises to build a forest belt from North-East to North-West to stop the desert encroachment, he starts planting trees in the first year. He tells you, I need 25 years for the trees to metamorphose into a forest because I am the only one who will guarantee irrigation for the trees. Is that acceptable? We are celebrating 30 years of Abuja now. The Federal Capital Territory actually began with General Yakubu Gowon. When he realised that Lagos had become too congested, Gowon then said, go and survey a central area in the country and see what we could do of it. And suddenly he lost power. General Murtala Muhammed and Obasanjo took over. They continued with the policy of decongesting Lagos because it was good. The actual construction of Abuja began in the time of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. The very first blade of grass was cut along Festival Road, in front of the International Conference Centre. After Shagari, Buhari came, did his bit and Babangida actually moved the seat of government to Abuja. King Solomon in the Bible had all the wisdom to rule till eternity. Why didn’t God say to our Lord Jesus Christ to stay on earth until all human beings are holy? He lived for 33 years and left his message for those who would believe to believe. Nobody was designed to live or rule till eternity. And once anybody thinks that without him the sun will not rise tomorrow, then something is fundamentally wrong with him.

Q: You once called for the adoption of Option A4 in the 2007 election year. What informed this choice?
A: First and foremost, it is time to talk as 2007 draws closer. Electronic Voting System (EVS) cannot guarantee a free and credible electoral system. And above all, it is very expensive to run in a country where a great percentage of its citizens are below the poverty level. We have 120,000 polling stations and each is expected to have at least one electronic voting machine. I was told each of them will cost between $1,000 and $2000. If my arithmetic is right, then they will cost $33 billion. The United States that has applied the EVS for the last three general elections is not even satisfied with it. India tried it two years ago, it took them two months to collate and conclude the addition of the election results. The Europeans have never attempted it because the EVS is not reliable. Nigeria is a country that has been trying over the years to evolve a credible electoral system. We are yet to find the system the people can trust. The closest we have had was the Option A4 introduced in the 1990s by the Babangida regime. Option A4 is cheap, it has little acrimony and most importantly, it suits our rural populace who are predominantly illiterates. This is true because, unlike the EVS that comes with automation and technicalities, Option A4 only requires that people should line up behind the candidate of their choice. And the votes are simply counted and winners publicly declared. Apart from its simplicity, Option A4 does not produce much litigations because winners are instantly known. Why should the government like to spend $33 billion, which is just one unit cost in the electoral process, to procure a system which would heat up the system and raise more doubts? If indeed we want to wipe out electoral corruption, if indeed we want to have a free and fair election, then we must opt for Option A4. Corruption is not about naira and kobo alone. Electoral corruption is as deadly a virus as the other one we are fighting. The other thing is that many Nigerians think democracy evolves by accident or by wishful thinking. If you elect senators or House of Representatives members and House of Assembly members and you leave them alone, without guiding, writing them, visiting them, making your views known to them, they will not represent you, they will represent big interests, they will represent cash, they will represent telecom companies, they will represent big banks and oil companies. Until you make them know that sovereignity lies in you, they can’t represent you. Even in the US, the debate is going on whether the congressman or senator actually represents his constituency or big interest. On every issue, the American or European does not sleep. They keep their governments on their knees on every anti-people policy. On every issue, the public is alive. The Americans don’t sleep, they are always reasoning and making inputs to government. And that is why theirs is a democracy woven around people. Nigerians think democracy evolves by what the Americans call happenstance (just let them do whatever they like and complain that our representatives are not representing us ). If you don’t talk, how will your representatives know what you think on third term, EVS, and the raging war against corruption? If you leave them alone and they go wrong, don’t blame them. Because they are under a lot of pressures, temptation of money, not only from the executive arm and other interest groups who want them to do their will, but from their constituencies, where every senator or representative is a chief launcher at every bazaar in the church or mosque or at every launching ceremony. In some cases, constituents visit the lawmakers without notice at 10p.m. in Abuja, look for where to sleep and the money to go back home. So when people blame legislators for chasing money, I don’t know what the way out is. I was a legislator. We are not allowed to be broke. We are not allowed to plead poverty. On both ends we burn like candles. The society must recognise that it must keep talking to its representatives. Like Aristotle said to the Greeks, the punishment for the wise who refuses to take part in the government of his people is to be ruled by fools.

Q: You once said it is third term that has retarded the growth of Africa. How exactly did you mean?
A: Take Gabon for example. The guy there awarded himself another seven years after 38 years in office. Gabon has a population equivalent to Nyanya and Karu, satellite towns in the FCT (about 900,000 people). It is the ninth largest producer of oil in the world, the second biggest exporter of timber in the world. Go there and see poverty. The man’s son is the Minister of Defence and the son-in-law is Minister of Finance. The story is not different in Uganda. There was a guy called Hastings Kamuzu Banda. He ruled Malawi for 40 years. Where is Malawi? If we don’t stop Obasanjo now, Nigeria’s case may be worse than Gabon or Uganda or Malawi, or all of them put together. Anybody who wants to lord it over his subjects until eternity should run for the traditional stool.

Q: So how can the pressure brought to bear on politicians be minimised?
A: As long as our poverty profile is very high, it will not stop. Our industrial output is almost zero. Agriculture, there are improvements, but young men are moving to townships in droves to look for easy life. But the rents and transport costs are rising on a daily basis, throwing up poverty.These problems are caused by bad economic policies over the years. We did not do enough research. You read the American publisher, Mr. Forbes, at ThisDay Lecture, who said, often the solutions imposed on Nigeria by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have worsened the economy of Nigeria. I am not an economist but I said the same thing in Abeokuta, Ogun State, in March 2004 during our party’s retreat. I said then that the Obasanjo government was practising ill-digested economic policies that would improverish our people. The situation now is that we allow ourselves to be led on helplessly by our so-called experts whose theories appear to be ill-digested and hopelessly out of tune with the dynamics of modern day economic reality. Don’t forget that unbridled capitalism is more penurious than bare-faced communism. Party men who were agents of full-blown capitalism were angry. The president himself was mad with me. But the truth is that you can not drag us into globalisation when we are not prepared for it. You can’t wake up and decree market forces overnight. Jeffrey Sacks, the famous economist who advised Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, warned that Third World countries should not have harsh economic reforms imposed on them without palliative measures. He said market forces are devastating to poor communities. The Obasanjo government wakes up overnight and imposes harsh economic reforms even though 80 per cent of the populace is weak with poor institutional and infrastructural development. If they say fuel prices are going up in Europe, it is correct. But Europeans have cheap trains to carry people from, say, Ketu to Victoria Island, Lagos. You only use your car when you want to go out with your family or when you want to look nice with your family. Otherwise, in Europe, you and your professor go to lectures in the same train, which is highly subsidised. But in Nigeria, we want to be more capitalistic than the architect of capitalism by embracing full-blown market forces with impunity even though we are very poor.
In Nigeria of today, transportation is responsible for nearly 25 percent of the general inflation rate. I hired a trailer from Lagos to Abuja and I was asked to pay N200,000. A mudu of garri in Jigawa State costs N200 because it is transported from the South-West or South-South. A mudu of rice in Jigawa is N400 and Jigawa is a very poor state. The high price is caused by transportation, because the rice is transported from Lagos. So why punish the people with harsh reforms? How then can you fight corruption effectively in the face of poverty and poor economic policies? With this reality staring us in the face, the Angel Gabriel operating in the Nigerian political system would be corrupt. Remember, this society does not forgive. If somebody walks up to his leader and says, help me pay my school fees and the leader says, I have no money , he may curse the leader. If a senator, for example, goes to his church and there is a fund-raising and he donates N100,000, they say it is a “miserable donation.” They want to hear N1 million so that they can clap. But nobody wants to know where the senator got the N1million. So if we must enjoy viable democracy, then we must boost our national economy. And we must intensify our industrialisation, boost agriculture and make the interest rate very low to have a buoyant economy. One of the issues I raised in my speech on 10 November 2001 when I was elected national chairman of PDP was the issue of interest rate. I said the current interest rate regime was too high, so much that it would not allow the economy to grow and will lead to failure of the political system. Today the interest rate has fallen to 45 per cent, as against 50 per cent when I became chairman. This and the shrinking of the banks into big financial institutions are areas I must commend this government. It is believed that this would result in giving long term credit to farmers and investors with a view to boosting agriculture and industrialisation and, at the end of the day, reducing the pressure on the politicians.

Q: Governor Joshua Dariye shocked the world recently when he said he used the N1.6 billion ecological fund to fund PDP election. As national chairman at the time, what do you know about it?
A: It is true that I was chairman. But I don’t know how they raised funds for election or who managed funds. If I had known, he would have mentioned my name.


Q: He did not mention your name. Critics wonder how a national chairman never knew how funds were raised and managed...
A: The strange thing is that, in the PDP I was the chairman; we had the National Working Committee that should ordinarily know about party funds, but we had others who said they were leaders of PDP even though there was no constitutional provision for the position of Leader. Well, maybe the leader arm-twisted Governor Dariye without my knowledge, because there was no way I could have allowed ecological funds to be diverted to electioneering campaigns. Please ask the PDP leader to account for the funds. The governor said he gave the money to some people on the orders of the leader. The revelation is a worrisome development. Again, if EFCC wants to be taken seriously, it should wade into the matter.

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"Many Nigerians would have been happier if the amendments were clear, unambiguous, demonstrably desirable and serve public good"
Can we honestly say that the this is true with the present enterprise?
1. CLARITY: Have Nigerians been properly informed about what aspects of the constitution are being amended? Have the excercise not being mared by confusion?
We have the recomendation of the constitutional conference. the sub-commitee of the National Assemble9which have been discarded) and The different regional groupings
2. UNAMBIGOUS: The excercise have been marred by allegations of third term. The truth is it would further be marred by protests and possibly riots. Have the principal characters made categorical and unequivocal statements to defuse the tension generated by the third term syndrome?
look critically at the nature and character of the public hearings slated for Wednesday and Thursday. Isn’t it curious that the public hearings will take place at the same time in the six geo-political zones? Isn’t it curious that the venues for the hearings are anywhere but the zones’ traditional political capitals? Why for instance will the Northwest take place in Katsina instead of Kaduna, or the Southwest in Osogbo instead of Ibadan, or the Southeast in Abakaliki instead of Enugu, or the Northeast in Maiduguri instead of Bauchi or the North-central in Lafia instead of Jos? More curious is the choice of those that would preside at the hearings. Senator Abubakar Sodangi will preside in Port Harcourt. Sodangi from Nasarawa State follows his governor Abdullahi Adamu, an ally and long time confidant of the president. Senator Oserheimen Osunbor will oversee affairs in Katsina. Osunbor is not just from Edo State, he is a political son of Chief Tony Anenih, chairman PDP Board of Trustees and Obasanjo’s destroyer. Senator Iyabo Anisulowo will be in Lafia; she would naturally do whatever the president wanted or Ogun, her state and Obasanjo’s may be politically uncomfortable. Senator Jonathan Zwingina goes to Abakaliki. Zwingina has a reputation of swinging with the current and floating for survival, either in Adamawa, his state, or in the politics of the country. Senate Leader Dalhatu Tafida from Kaduna, an unapologetic supporter of the president, will take charge of affairs in Maiduguri. And in Osogbo, Senator Ifeanyi Araraume from Imo will be on ground; Araraume is another political son of Anenih. With this line up is there the possibility that any thing will go wrong for Obasanjo?
3. DEMONSTRABLY DESIRABLE AND FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD: Without doubt, there are several aspects of the constitution crying out for amendment. It is however pertinent to ask; Why leave it till this late hour? why is ot being done in an election and census year?
Our Nigeria is often a case of the more you look, the less you see.

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The problem now is that they are not amending the constitution but drafting a new constitution for the country. Moreso, for a democratically accepted constitution to exist in a country it has to go through referrendum. Is this so called Democratic Constitution be subject to referrendum or is it only Mantu and those selected few that are to make presentation at the public hearing that will give the country an accepted constitution? Remember there is only 2 days for the public hearing to capture the opinion of over 120 million people and to be conducted in 6 places. Inaddition to that the public office holders and the tradition institutions are the once to make submissioin as said by the commitee.
I think the 1999 constitution represents more Nigerians than what is to be given by the Mantu commitee.

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Have we as a nation made full use of the potentials of the 1999 constitution? Is this new reform(Constitutional Amendment.) going to address the issues of funding for the police, the educational sector, energy and the other sectors of our economy that has failed or is failing? Who does this reform hope to empower (OBJ or the Governors)?
I believe in making the most out of what the present Constitution that we have and constantly improving on our current situation through change management and fully powers for the statutory laws of our land.
Would the nation have mentioned or had a cry for Constitutional Amendment if not that there is an issues a third term in office or the fact that the immunity clause in the Constitution has become an embarrassment to our legal system?
The present legislative powers have not been used fully to elevate the suffering of the Nigerian people it is we that are afraid of Constitutional Amendment. Why now when there is a talk for a third term in office, why? Hence the fear for Constitutional Amendment.