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• How Obasanjo plotted to make Nigeria one-party state
The Founder of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, has stated that recovering Nigeria’s economy would commence when President Tinubu decides to go after ministers and others who looted funds while serving in the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, Okorie, a former presidential candidate of the United Progressive Party (UPP), noted that President Bola Tinubu has a golden opportunity to make himself the father of Nigerian federalism. He also explained how former President Olusegun Obasanjo plotted but failed to make Nigeria a one-party state under the Peoples Democratic Party.
What is your view on the state of the nation?
The nation is in a very precarious situation. The signs are not so good. There is confusion in the polity. There is hunger in the land and the type of hunger is the type that can trigger off a kind of reaction that may overwhelm our security. This country is quite restive at this point with so many flashpoints.
The democratic process is nothing to write home about. Both the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the judiciary have put everybody in a very serious confusion as to what to believe anymore and the way to go. So, we are in a very precarious situation. Now, Christmas is around the corner. This is one period both Christians and Muslims prepare their families to celebrate, but the level of hunger is palpable. All of these things scare me as a person. As an elder statement at my age and years of exposure, I’m definitely scared.
The president we have now is a democrat in all considerations, having passed through the mills; having been in the trenches. His intention to make things right cannot be doubted, and that has led him into making certain bold statements that may not be popular but at the end of the day may have positive impact in our growth. He should listen to the opinions of Nigerians who are well meaning. I know he would do it because some of the decisions he was compelled by circumstances to take that received instant disapproval from the general public, he reversed them; whether in area of appointment of one or two aides to offices that were considered that they didn’t fit into, or policies. For instance, the policy of deducting 40 per cent from IGR of federal universities, he reversed it. He has given me the confidence that he is a listening president who is sensitive to public opinion.
But what is facing him is beyond his personal attributes. So, a lot more needs to be done. A lot more eggheads need to be brought on board to help out, but even if he is not bringing them on board to help out, let him have an avenue to synthesise genuine opinions that would help him succeed. He is in the saddle but at a very difficult time. I pray for our country, the signs are not good.
The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, last week lamented that Tinubu inherited a bankrupt nation from Buhari. What is your take on this?
There is no doubt that he inherited a bankrupt economy from Buhari. Everybody would see that the president has been very careful, being a product of the ruling party.
But was it not the same party that during the electioneering was singing praises of the then president for taking the country to Eldorado?
The president is trying to be careful, coming from the same party, but nobody could imagine or assume that he could have known the depth of rot before he came into office. He came into office and saw all of those things. Let me tell you what I told Buhari in 2015. I led my party, the executive committee of the then UPP; we were the first political party to pay Buhari a solidarity visit at the Defence House where he was living before he moved into the Villa. I put it in writing and said to him: ‘Have the courage to recover 25 per cent of the money looted by the previous government, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); that you would have enough money to carry out all that you promised during your campaign.’ I called it: ‘Recover all Recoverable’.
Buhari was so enthused with that aspect of our presentation. He said he would not forget that advice to recover all recoverable. Did he do that? He did not. When he saw those involved in those lootings, he was overwhelmed and he could not go after them.
I pass the same message to Tinubu now: “you have done the right thing by putting very eminent persons who are experienced in auditing account, like the young man who came from Pricewater that he put there to investigate expenditures and loot. He has a good Minister of Finance, very sound and he has a very respectable Attorney General. These three persons are all from his own side of Nigeria. With them alone, he can recover enough money to carry out his projects and promises without having to go and borrow.
He doesn’t need to come out to say, Buhari did this; Buhari did that. Let him go for those who stole money under Buhari. If he is protecting them, he would be ruining his chances of going on record as a good president.
Don’t you think that there is a way Tinubu would go against Buhari that it would be interpreted as ethnic cleansing because those alleged to have looted are from Buhari’s side of the country?
Even what Nuhu said is known by everybody, it doesn’t need to be emphasised. So, coming to give excuses of what Buhari and his government did is neither here nor there. What the president needs to do is go after those who have looted. Those of us who are not in government know that there is an Accountant General of the Federation, who is facing trial for nearly N100 billion misappropriation. You can imagine a civil servant misappropriating over 100 billion.
I heard that those he sent to investigate would report to him in the next few days. He has to implement those things, it is not about Buhari. I will be surprised if Buhari would one day say that you could have allowed my boys to keep the money they stole. I know he would not have the courage to do that because he gave his people the opportunity to preside over the commanding height of our economy in a very nepotistic manner, but at the same time I don’t think he told them to go and still. So, if he told them to go and steal, he would not be able to defend them now.
After all, on Sani Abacha loot, how many years now that he died, and his loot is still being recovered. If it was not the effort the president made in this PI&D case, we would have also been indebted to the tune of almost $11 billion. Recovering money has nothing to do with Buhari. If he decides not to go after Buhari if he stole anything, that is left for Tinubu, but nobody should be above the law. Outside of the former president, those he put in office who stole money and connived with others should be brought to book. Look at what we are hearing about wavers. The amount involved in waver; that is the amount that should have been paid into the federal coffers, but, it was waved and we are hearing mindboggling amounts of money involved. How would going after Buhari’s men be described as ethnic cleaning? If he is thinking of Buhari’s men and recovering our money, he would carry the burden that comes with it. He is now in the saddle, if he needs support from people like us who are in the opposition, I’m ready. My opposition is credible and friendly opposition to do criticism and not to run him down, but I have no business covering him if he is not doing well.
Tinubu told us that trillions are being saved now from the scrapped fuel subsidy regime, yet the government is borrowing more money. How do we explain this?
Quite frankly, you cannot defend some of the expenditures that have taken place. It is indefensible. I do not know what pressure that came on the president to approve some of those expenditures. I believe that he has a very good rapprochement with the National Assembly. I thought that behind the scene , he would have prevailed on the legislatures not go in the direction they have gone in getting for themselves the level of comfort they are appropriating to themselves at a time the overwhelming majority of Nigerians cannot eat twice a day. I’m not taking about three times a day. When we were growing up, we had about three square meals but today, so many people now don’t know that there was a time people had three square meals a day. Some people eat only once a day, including children who need nourishment to develop their brains. If you are talking about human resource capital investment, if the brains of these children are retarded, how would they even grow to become people?
Most of the expenditures of this government in areas of consumption cannot be defended; only the president and his handlers can tell us anything that would justify these expenditures. I will use this opportunity to tell the president to be conscious of the fact that Nigerians are not comfortable with what the government is spending, whether the government at the level of the legislature or executive in making themselves comfortable at the expense of the Nigerian people. I also commend the NSA for his intervention that made NLC to give the government another window to meet up with agreed terms in their trade union negotiations, but the government should not take anything for granted. Do what you have agreed that you would do so that we have peace.
In the last one week, the Appeal Court has sacked three opposition governors and it is swelling speculations that by 2027, Nigeria is headed for one party state. What is your position on this?
Nigeria is too big for one party state. Even Obasanjo tried it and he failed. He told me pointedly in his study, and accused me of committing political sin by bringing in Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu as the presidential candidate of APGA. He said he was already uniting the whole country; he has brought South West in, and PDP was controlling the entire north and that I now brought Ojukwu to slow down the process of unifying Nigeria under one party.
Obasanjo was the first that I know who nursed the ambition of one party. Former Secretary of PDP, the late Vincent Ogbulafor, whether he conspired with Obasanjo or not, but he was audacious enough to tell us that their party would rule for 60 years. It is not today that this kind of ambition or inspiration has festered, but this country is too large for anybody to even think of one party state.
My fear is not about one party state, but my fear is that if Nigeria is not restructured and the constitution is not put in a way that every federating unit is not given a certain sense of self determination, 2027 may mark the end of Nigeria because the way this particular INEC under Mamod Yakubu has handled our democracy is frightening. Yakubu has made Maurice Iwu eligible to be canonised a saint. What we have discovered is that the way Yakubu is going, and if he continues this way in 2027, political parties and politicians would set up private armies to be able to control their constituencies. This portends danger.
The idea to have one party state should be jettisoned if anybody is even contemplating it because there would be no Nigeria to witness that. Even those who are talking about restructuring are those who are on their way out; people in their 80s and 90s are still saying, restructure this country so that it can live longer. For somebody like me, I’m now in the 70s. I have already reached the threshold that God promised. If older people are pointing out restructuring, devolution of power and somebody somewhere is thinking of one party state, there would be no country for that one party to flourish.
How come APGA, the party you founded, didn’t do well in the Imo governorship polls even when the national chairman, Njoku, is from Imo?
It is the same thing INCE has continued to do. Has it obeyed the judgement of the Supreme Court? No. Has INEC even taken advantage of the 14-day window given by the court for its chairman to purge himself of contempt otherwise it would send the full weight of the law? But INEC has not done that and the 14-day ultimatum would expire Thursday this week.
It is INEC that has put APGA in this situation. If APGA that the Supreme Court recognised produced the candidate in Imo, of course I would have been in Imo to campaign, I know what I would tell the people of Imo the situation would change. I’m a thoroughbred Igbo man, I have been 47 years in Igbo struggle. I’m the youngest Igbo opposition politician existing today. Anybody who says he has been in opposition longer than me should step forward and be counted. I know what I would tell Imo people and the situation would not have been the same.
I was the person that made Nnamdi Kanu chairman of APGA in London; I saw him early and identified him as a passionate Igbo person and appointed him to that position in 2002. I was the one that introduced Ralph Uwazurike to Ojukwu in 1996. I have nursed and mentored many Igbo people who have lost confidence in Nigeria and now they are trying now to do other things.
If the country is put right and INEC is doing the right thing, by the grace of God I’m still around to be able to reach out to all of these people and then everybody will listen to me again. I enjoy a lot of respect amongst Igbo. To what extent has the system, even INEC allowed me to do that? I’m back in APGA; I’m not vying for anything anymore, I cannot be the chairman again after 21 years. All I’m doing now is to see how APGA can engage the rest of Nigeria and contribute to nation building, but they are not doing that.
How can the insecurity in Nigeria be tackled?
If the president wants insecurity in Nigeria to be resolved even before constitutional amendment, he should as commander in chief, direct the police authorities to deploy all police officers from the position of Divisional Police Officer (DPO) down to their states of origin and local governments of origin so that policing can be effective. How can you take an Igbo man to put him in Sokoto; a Christian who doesn’t understand one word of Hausa; he doesn’t understand the religion, he doesn’t know what he would do to be called blasphemy? How do you expect him to perform in that area? You bring somebody form the North to the South East, he doesn’t understand the language or speak English. He can only speak his language and he is there extorting money, not policing. So, you don’t even need these Amotekun, Ebube Agu and the rest of them. Send the policemen at that level to their places of origin where their policing will be effective and then come back and deal with the issue of constitutional restructuring of the security architecture.
Everybody is looking up to Tinubu to show that which he has preached before he became the president. He has a golden opportunity to make himself the father of Nigerian federalism if he wants to, just like Zik was the father of Nigerian nationalism.
