NIGERIA A FRAUDULENT JOKE – Ex-presidential aide, Akin Osuntokun

Akin Osuntokun, former managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and political adviser to ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, has lamented the poor commitment exhibited by the topmost political elite to the survival of the Nigerian nation.

Osuntokun is worried that Nigeria is on the verge of destruction, but some of the elite with vested interests are not disposed to finding solutions to the crises caused by the the country’s warped constitutional structure. In this exclusive interview with The Nigerian Xpress duo of Abdulfatah Oladeinde and Lekan Adeniran, the journalist and public affairs commentator examined the 2019 general elections, the security crisis in several parts of the country and other governance issues and concluded that only restructuring could save the nation.

 

Not too long ago, we had the general elections. We’ll like to have your impression of the polls. Compared to 2015, did we fare better or we had gone back to Egypt?

I have to qualify my answer. You have to understand that I experienced the elections in a dual capacity. I was directly involved in it as a partisan campaigner and the spokesperson of one of the major presidential candidates. And, of course, you know the position we have taken on the elections. We took judicial notice, particularly of the shortcomings and inadequacies. We are directly a victim of that, because it was mainly a contest between us, the APC and the president. So, from that standpoint, you already know our position on that.

You are also right that I am a student of the Nigerian politics, a journalist, a researcher, beyond my partisan identification. I don’t think anybody can make that claim that it compares favourably with the 2015 election. I don’t think those who won the elections even made that claim. The more we know about the elections and what took place, the less you have regard for it. I hope no lawyer would be crooked enough to use any of what I say here. One of the conspicuous complaints that we made or the plea that we filed was that there was an actual distortion of the result.

The result that they announced did not correspond or did not tally with what was in the server. What that suggests is that there was collective conspiracy between the INEC and APC or its presidential candidate to undermine or subvert the authentic result. This is a new one. We thought that with greater technology, election rigging or fraudulent in election would be of reduced dimension.

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But unfortunately, it now seems that, as it is with everything Nigeria, we were perfecting the negative uses rather than for the intended objective of containing electoral malpractices. And then of course, you see what happened in Lagos. The election does not in any way compare to the 2015 exercise. And even though the 2015 exercise at the level of the presidential election, not only did the former president, who lost the election concede even before all the results were in, and of course, having conceded, you don’t go to court. You just left it at that level.

And it was his government that supervised the election. And of course, the measure of the credibility of the election is that a sitting president can accept defeat, even though, in an ironical sense, many people believed that the results were manipulated against him. In any case, that is that. Not only did the sitting president concede, but he conceded to the candidate of an opposition party, which was a significant development within the context of politics in Africa. It was an advance political development in Nigeria itself. It has never happened before, let alone in the fashion in which it happened. If you take all these together, there is even no basis to compare the two. Look at what happened in Kano, for instance, and Rivers.

These are test cases. In some of these places, it had to take the threat of violence or mass rejection for INEC or the authorities to concede to the authentic votes of the people. I want to use Rivers as an example. The reason that Wike won was that any other announcement was likely to result in large scale or uncontainable violence. Look at all their actions. All through, there was this persistent, possessive intention to subvert the election in the state, right from the presidential to the governorship. Look at the margin of the defeat. That margin is the authentic result. What that margin suggests is that there should not even have been any kind of tension. Tension exists in a situation where you have two keen contestants.

Then you see things that are counter intuitive, places in Borno State, in Yobe, places where there you have emergency breakdown of law and order. And then, you are telling us that you have a greater percentage of voter turn-out in those places than where there was peace and stability. That is illogical. Then, you have pictures of underage voting. But the thing that surprised me most about this election is the behaviour of the international community.

It was downright hypocritical. How they could rush to certify and endorse that election was a bit surprising to me. In their report, there was a deliberate effort made to legitimise the election by either minimising or totally ignoring incidences that contradicted the legitimacy of the election. We didn’t see in any of their report bullion vans of the Central Bank seen within the premises of the national leader of APC. It is significant enough for them to bring it up. Then the breakdown of law and order between the Igbo and Yoruba should be something that should worry them

Maybe they were trying to avoid crisis?

That doesn’t mean they should not take note of it. You have said it. Their ultimate objective was not the finesse and credibility of the election, it was what in their own thinking, had the greater potential to promote political stability in Nigeria. If looking the other way and allowing the ruling party to do as it wished with the election was the price for political stability in Nigeria in the short run, the impression they gave was that they were willing to take it.

I am not saying that they should reject the election, but the haste with which it was satisfied and endorsed and the deliberate dismissal or lack of acknowledgment of these conspicuous instances that contradict the provision of the electoral process is what I found worrisome. There would have been nothing wrong with some silence. And then when you are going to endorse, do it with some measure of restraint.

Unfortunately, this contradicted the posture they had, prior to the election. The impression they gave was that they were going to hold the government accountable, the way they did in 2015. But they didn’t. We even had a very peculiar situation in 2015 in which the American government was actually coming down almost as a partisan figure in the election. Remember the Secretary of State then, John Kerry issuing keenly veiled threat while results were being announced. It was a different ballgame today. You could see there was a difference in the position they took.

As I said, prior to the election, the impression that was given, especially by the Americans was that they were going to hold the government accountable in all respects. And you remember what the governor of Kaduna State said, threatening them with violence and things like that. The totality of the election is not good for the country.

But you see, we are just running away from the reality. The failure to hold free and fair election, bad governance and things like that are symptoms of a deeper malaise. Those are not the causes of the problems that we have. The problem that we have is with the constitutional structure of Nigeria, which is called federalism, but is anything but federal. It doesn’t qualify to be so called. It is pseudo-federalism, unitary federalism, whatever they call it.

That is really the problem of the country. Why it is the problem is that the present structure that we have has proven to be, especially the centre, the way it is in the constitution, has been the most destabilising factor in our politics. To get power at the centre has become totally consuming and obsessive for everybody because of the room for impunity that it brings, the degree of resources and power that are resident there. So, you have this desperate race to control the centre at all times. With that, contest for election has become a renewal of that potent source of political instability in Nigeria. You are renewing it each time it comes, probably with greater vigour, with the exception of situation like 2015 that dispelled it. It’s like a renewal of the capacity, the potential of the structure that we have in Nigeria to destroy the system.

But some of our leaders, particularly from the North don’t agree with your opinion. For instance, we just had an interview with Tanko Yakassai not too long ago, and he said that those who are talking about restructuring should come out and say what they actually want, because he doesn’t understand you are talking about.

Tanko Yakassai is above 90 years old and you don’t really know where he stands at times. I am not sure, but I think the last time he made comments on restructuring, it was positive. When did he say that he does not understand restructuring.?

He said he does not understand what you mean by restructuring?

Anybody who says that is either being mischievous or incapable of appreciating Nigeria’s constitutional development. If he tells you he doesn’t understand what restructuring is, he is either being mischievous or the person is ignorant. You can call a dog a bad name in order to hang it. The irony of what we are saying here is that those of us even calling for restructuring, what we are calling for is restoration. Who were those who took Nigeria from four regions in 1967 to 36 states now? So, first and foremost, anybody who doesn’t understand restructuring, tell him that is restructuring. It is that kind of restructuring that we are against because it has subverted the development of the country theoretically and empirically. It is something you can see.

Compare the phase of the First Republic 1960 to 1966 to where we are now when the structure of Nigeria has been mutilated and distorted. There is no rhyme and reason to it. We can have ideological differences, but don’t say you don’t understand what it means. It you don’t know what it means, then, you should not be talking in the first place. Just because we call it restructuring is not a license to deny it. You can call it what you want. For me personally, it is not restructuring. It is restoration of the federalist framework within which Nigeria attained independence. Somebody destroyed something and then we are calling for its rectification and then you said you don’t understand what we mean by that.

But they are also arguing that it is almost impossible to go back to regions from the 36 states structure that we have now…

That’s ok. But agree in principle first that something is wrong. When you agree we will work out the details. I will not be stupid enough to say that you go back to the same thing. My own worry is the framework. There is a federalist framework within which Nigeria is projected to work and to develop. The moment that is violated, the result is the kind of problem that we have.

You cannot have an accident and say that accident should become the norm. What happened in 1966 was a violation, it was an accident. So, you are now saying that since we have an accident, that accident should remain. We shouldn’t do anything about it. The Independence constitution was a product of deliberation by those who created Nigeria, the founding fathers of Nigeria; the British government, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and Nnamdi Azikiwe. It took them years to arrive at that constitution. This is what people like this are dismissing.

If it was not relevant, why was that the conclusion? That that is what will make you develop. The British government who created this country probably knows Nigeria more than any of us. In conjunction with those three, they looked ahead and said, look this is what best guarantees your development. Along the way, six years after you threw it away and you are asking me that why do I think that that thing is good for us? The thing that you destroyed? And on the basis of that destruction, we have had problems. It is not as if things are working. It was Aristotle who said ‘let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.’

Nobody really cares about models and theories. That is not the issue; those are means to an end. If you have dictatorship today in Nigeria and the country is like South Korea, why would I complain? If you have unitary constitution in Nigeria today and we are like China or even Ghana or whatever it is, nobody would complain. But now, you are on the verge of destruction, you are pushing me more and more and you are asking me not to suggest an alternative, not to suggest that we should go back to where the rain started beating us, there is something wrong there.

Except one is blind, all of us must realise that where we are now is not where we are supposed to be. Now some people are insisting that we should not go back to where we were coming from, that we should just continue. Where would this lead us?

The answer is simple. If you keep doing the same something and you expect a different result, that is the definition of madness. Where it would lead us is what you see on a daily basis. If you see Nigeria getting better on a daily basis; electricity, infrastructure, the naira, whatever it is, if it is getting better on a daily basis, this is where it is taking us. Look, before the end of the year, I am not a soothsayer; the naira would have to be devalued.

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The pump price of petroleum will have to be increased. That is a rational statement. It is impossible to pay the N30,000 minimum wage unless you devalue the currency, which would mean that in effect, there is no increase in the minimum wage. Once the currency is devalued, what you have relatively has come back to nothing, but those two things are going to happen.

How would Nigeria look then? Look at what took place in Kano. That was how Boko Haram started. It is one thing for a presidential candidate to rig at the level of presidential election. At the level of the governorship election, what happened in Kano is not going to stop at that. You have banditry all over the place. Look at Zamfara State. What started in the North-east is fast spreading all over the country.

Look at the indebtedness of Nigeria today. What are the kinds of things that you would look at and say that Nigeria has good prospect. One of the critical conditions in the Independence constitution, even this one, is that for you to create a state, it must be self sustaining; self responsibility when you are created. If you want to be created, you must show that capacity. That was how Midwest was created in 1963 or 64. Look at the 36 states we have now.

They were created on almost opposite of that. You are created so that you can have another basis to be going to the centre to get money. Economic devastation is not the problem of Nigeria. Humanity since the beginning of time inevitably comes across challenges. That is the nature of life. It is normal. It is not that you don’t have challenges, what you should pray for is to have the capacity, the commitment to overcome that challenge because they will come. Look at Germany. With all the devastation that they suffered in the second World War, you would not believe the level of development there by the 1960s.

What you need here is first a mind that has the commitment to Nigeria as a state, as a country, not a mind that is at war with it. Majority of Nigerians today, they are Nigerians not voluntarily. So, that is the root cause of your development. The attitude today among almost 99 percent of Nigerians was what Rotimi Amaechi was recorded to have said; the way he sees the country. You remember what he said. That is the mind of everybody.

That is the mind of the topmost political elite in Nigeria. This is what they think about the country. That is the precise indication of the magnitude of the problem that we have, if a man at that level is thinking like that. There is no commitment. Everybody expects Nigeria to fail. And it is almost becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Today, the definition of a patriot or a Nigerian nationalist is somebody who doesn’t talk, who goes to Aso Rock to praise Buhari, get your own and get away. It is not people like us. It is not those who are saying that things are not going well. That is the greatest fear I have for this country.

With a section of the country against restructuring, what is the way forward. And is there any possibility of Nigeria breaking up?

Restructuring is inevitable. The alternative is what you have just said. The narrative is one, you can do it in a proactive manner. In other words, we seize the initiative now and do it ourselves. Or you have a situation of what they call force majeure, like a situation will force it on you, an explosion. It could be comprehensive economic collapse, large scale mutiny or whatever. That you are not going to do it, perish the thought. Of course, there is the third option.

You see, for us to sustain what we have now, you need a large resource base for bribery, to buy protest, complaints and things like that. By the time you don’t have that, you won’t be able to satisfy the genuine complaint of the people. You are talking about the amnesty in the Niger Delta. Suppose the government doesn’t have the money to do what they are doing there now. What do you think would happen? But there is immediate prospect that you are not going to have it. Niger Delta amnesty within the context of Nigeria is something you throw money at (to maintain peace). When you don’t have money to throw at it again, what do you think would happen?

The ruling party sometime ago set up a committee on restructuring headed by Governor El-Rufai. It came up with about 21 suggestions, but since then, we have not heard anything. But recently, one of the president’s spokesmen said that the Presidency was waiting for the party to take a decision on that before they now do something. What do you see in all this?

To be fair to President Buhari, he has never expressed any commitment, at least that I can see publicly, to restructuring. And lately, he made a similar statement that restructuring is not the problem of Nigeria, that the problem is the restructuring of the economy. Even those who made the commitment, you can see that they are reviewing their position. I am referring to people like Osinbajo and the Yoruba APC faction that used to be the champion of restoration to true federalism or what they called restructuring. Today, you hear them speak from both sides of the mouth, saying they too, they don’t know what restructuring means again. We heard the vice president talking about geographical restructuring.

The el-Rufai committee, was I the one who set it up? What you are telling us was gimmickry. You are telling us that we should not take you seriously when you say you are going to do something. That is the rational conclusion from that. And then, as I said, you hear functionaries of the party, speaking against it. You have the president speaking against it. So, you can add two plus two together. When they had it in their manifesto, they didn’t do anything. When there was pressure, they set up the committee and two years after, nothing has happened. Rather, increasingly what you hear from the top party elite and functionaries is criticism of restructuring as a concept, is the dilation almost meaningless of saying that what you need is the restructuring of the economy.

There is this belief that President Olusegun Obasanjo, being a strong leader should have done this thing, more so when Afenifere reportedly went to him to sell the idea. And then we had President Jonathan. It is also said that only a southern president could restructure Nigeria?

First and foremost, when you are talking about southern and northern president, then it shows how far we’ve gone as a country in the first place. But, you are correct. That is the reality of the Nigerian politics. To be fair to Obasanjo, he never believed in restructuring. There was nowhere he ever committed to the idea of restructuring. I don’t agree with his position, but he never gave anybody the impression. As a matter of fact, he speaks against it.

His own disposition towards restructuring is rooted in his background as a military man who took the Biafran surrender, who became the president of the country three times. Those are the people I refer to as ideologically opposed to it. His own opposition is not mischievous. It is not ignorance. It is just militarist perspective of the Nigerian politics. That’s where he stands.

Somebody like Jonathan was persuaded on it to the extent of him setting up a national conference. Atiku would have done it. There is no doubt about that. He took a gamble. You have to credit him with that; standing by it, even when it’s not popular with his geo-political base. He never shied away from it. He would have done it and he is not from the South. It’s just what you called enlightened self interest. Restructuring is not a partisan agenda.

What Nigeria needs is a design, a formula that can constrain, re-orientate the thinking of Nigerians to be sacrificial; that you are responsible for your own development and apply that same self responsibility to the country. Something that constrains the minds of Nigerians away from seeing Nigeria as a country you take something from without giving anything in return. How is that kind of formula against anybody? Not at all. The totem of America was no taxation without representation.

What they are saying is that I cannot be working for something, you cannot build something on my sweat and ignore my opinion. I am from Ekiti State. Ekiti State runs probably on 99 percent subvention from the centre. So, the govern or goes to Abuja every month to collect money. He doesn’t derive what he uses to run Ekiti State from the people. So, that set the citizens and the governor on this pedestal. From the governor, I don’t owe you any responsibility. To the people, oga, there is nothing I can do whatever foolish or profligate you use it (money).

It is an exchange at the level of mental psychology. If the revenue of government in Ekiti State is derived from taxing the people, 80 percent of it, no governor would have the effrontery of having a convoy of 10 cars. The people would come on the road and protest. But since it is not their money, you look the other way. It is something that you can simplify to the lowest man on the street. That’s why you see Nigerians in the villages relying on getting handouts from politicians. Nobody believes the concept on which basis society develops in Nigeria again.

And that is that there must be a positive correlation between hard work and reward. The moment that is broken or distorted, that society is broken until you find a way of recreating the linkage. It is not only at the level of us speaking grammar, the man in the village may not be able to articulate it the way I am doing, but that is the mentality now. When overwhelming majority of Nigerians believe that you do not need to work to eat or get income, then the country has broken down.

When Awolowo was going to introduce universal primary education in 1955, he taxed the people of the Western region for it. The programme started in 1957. That taxation aggravated people so much. It was so difficult and painful to the people that the Action Group lost the House of Representatives election in 1956. In 1957, 1958, when the people started seeing what he did with their tax; they rewarded him with a mystic status. That is how society develops. All are responsible for development. Bring N10; what you get in perpetuity is millions in return.

Some Nigerians believe so much in the present government, that we are being led right. All you have said now will look like you are blowing grammar. They are saying that Buhari is here to correct the mistakes of the past and is doing well; that we are moving in the right direction?

You should answer that. Are we moving in the right direction? I don’t define the problems of Nigeria in terms of the leadership failure that we have now, not at all. We have a dysfunctional system that would not make anything work. Why do we need to spend so much on election? The country has become a fraudulent joke. How many billions did INEC collect to conduct the election? The amount of money they took is an indication of the sickness of the system; to produce this result that we have. INEC could be budgeting for jets, helicopters for the police, which police already have.

If INEC is investigated today, it would be worse than most of the people they are actually trying for corruption. Why did the president we are talking about refuse to sign the electoral bill? But, there is a limit to which you can even blame him (president). If, according to the theory of those who are talking, he is good, what about the people around him, what about Amaechi?

That is the response to the answer. Amaechi is his minister. He was director general of his campaign. Was I the one who said what Amaechi was saying? You see, something is wrong with our people. May be they cast spell on some of them that they cannot think straight again. Well, like I said before, leadership failure is not an issue. The root cause of our problem is what I have told you. Those people that are saying that, let them go and attack Amaechi, not me. What did I say that he didn’t say?

The argument again is that we’ve had corruption in the past and it is that corruption that has brought us to where we are and that Buhari has come to cleanse the system.

What is the record after four years? All the international agencies, without exception, who are neither PDP or APC, including Transparency International that has been grading every country on a yearly basis, came out with a report that indicted this government as worse that what we had before. So, who is deceiving himself? Look at the MO Ibrahim report, the Carnegie Foundation; look at USAID annual report, who authored that? Was it written by PDP or me? Tell me one international organization that has said that Buhari is fighting corruption.

The aides of the president will point to awards for the president by the African Union (AU).

The president’s special assistant on corruption is in the newspaper that he forged his certificate. The House of Representatives panel said so and he has not disputed it. He is still there today. In future, you will get to know. It is easily the most corrupt government that we have.

But people said there is no money to steal now, unlike before…

So, they are borrowing the money to steal. The president said Abacha didn’t steal any money. Two months to the election, they got $312 million Abacha loot from Switzerland. That is why I don’t want to talk about individual governments or individuals.

Finally, what message do you have for Nigerians based on what you have analysed and Nigerians not seeming to understand the problems that we have?

I have no message for Nigerians because I don’t want to pour water in a basket. Let us just hope one way or the other, it would be well. Nigeria trained me; my education was a big investment Nigeria made on me. And saying the kind of things I am saying is repaying that investment; not to collude and steal money. We got the best education in Nigeria. This country invested in so many of us. But what are we giving back in return? First and foremost in life, I am accountable to my conscience and my God. So, if somebody did you well, how do you pay back?

We have failed, but I don’t count myself as failing the country. What Nigeria trained me to do, I’ve been doing it. I have accounted myself very well, even beyond criticising government or partisanship. Let everybody take the same position. You cannot but be angry. But Buhari is not likely to succeed. Even if he wants to, the structure will not allow him. Can he control the governors?

The governor of Zamfara State spends nine months in Abuja. Has he removed him? Does he have the power to remove him? Is he in Delta, Lagos or anywhere to monitor how people spend money? Who is deceiving who? Look at what is happening in NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation). How is it possible for Nigeria to consume 60 million litres of fuel a day? And this is what this country pays for.