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Prof Ihechukwu Madubuike, is a two-time minister and an outspoken elder statesman who has been in the vanguard for the restructuring of Nigeria. In this interview with IHEANACHO NWOSU, he lamented the worsening security situation in the country, accusing the government of doing little to halt the tide.
Some Nigerians are concerned about the state of affairs in the country, are you also worried?
I am not just perturbed, I am alarmed. One of the things I said in my book, Nigeria and the Lugardian Hubris, which I wrote since 2012 fits in squarely with the issue of security and restructuring. One of the greatest ideas of the last century is the idea that power belongs to the people. It is indeed the greatest idea of all time, politically speaking. An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by anybody if the people are determined to carry it through. We have seen it happen in ancient and contemporary societies in countries quite close to us, where the people decided to overthrow corrupt regimes, which no longer cared about their aspirations.
One of the greatest gifts of mankind is the ability for effective communication and dialogue. It precedes and better than the war option and if man is rational at all times, he will never choose war as the solution to human problems. I said this in 2012. It can be said again today in contemporary Nigeria, where the trumpets of war are bellowing.
People in sane societies have never accepted a bad government as an option or as an ally. Take recent examples around us, the Central African Republic, for instance, where it was reported that Fulani herdsmen wanted to take over the country because the head of the country, from what I learnt, was a Fulani. The people resented it and overthrew that government.
In Mali recently, the same thing happened. The Oto Thoma communities, the Bambara and the Dogon, autochthons of the land, fought the herdsmen to a standstill until they were driven out and forced to abandon their supremacy theory with the notion that they alone were fit to rule. We should learn from this. We should not wait until it gets to that desperate situation.
Without a doubt, one of the basic issues menacing this country is that of security of life and property, one of freedom of association in a manner that is not exclusive but inclusive. Menace has assumed an alarming proportion because of the desire to rule without being right, the notion that power is might. No one man has all the right to rule all the time and that is the basic reason why Nigerians are resisting policies of government, which are not well-thought through before implementation, or which the implementers believe cannot be resisted. There is a saying that you can deceive the people most of the time but you cannot deceive the people all the time. The tension in the polity is because of the insecurity brought about by impunity and the debasing of the rules of engagement in a plural society.
It’s been 50 years since we fought the Biafran War and the same problems are still there. From these flow other important issues: issues of exclusivity, issues of reluctance to accept the views of others, issues of imposition of authority, issues of divide and rule. Nobody is born with all the knowledge to rule. Indeed, God did not create anybody a minority in this regard. This minority-superiority syndrome is a political freak. And freedom is not a relative value.
Have we really reached a precipice as some people claim?
I don’t think we have reached a precipice and I don’t think we need to wait until we reach there. Nigeria has always been like this most of the time. It’s been a country where rulers don’t want to listen until there is a serious implosion, and then we begin all over again to reinvent the wheel.
Before we got to the war in 1967, we had this kind of situation. It started from the West where we had what they called Operation Wetie, a situation of anomie and breakdown of law and order.
It was one section of the country aligning with another section of the country and a group of young military officers trying to bring about a regime change, which they thought would resolve the political impasse of the time. But it backfired and everybody went to war, and those with authority then thought that it was a police action. The war lasted for almost three years. We have not fully recovered from the aftermath. The optimistic ones thought we had.
The war ended in 1970 but since we have not made permanent peace, the war has not ended. It may have ended in paper or in theory, but actually, what we are experiencing now is because we have not properly ended that war. We have not addressed the issues that led to that war. Other parts of the country are now experiencing what those in the Eastern Region experienced in those days. There cannot be peace where injustice triumphs.
Are you saying that from the time the war ended till date, our leaders have not learnt any lesson or didn’t learn much?
You have been a student and I’ve been a teacher. The outcome of every teaching is measured by the way you conduct yourself after the learning situation. The way we have conducted ourselves since the end of the war hasn’t shown that we have learnt much, and those who learn nothing from history keep repeating its mistakes. The essence of history is that you learn from it. When a government comes up and says as a matter of policy, don’t teach history in schools, what is the intendment? Don’t teach history about the war, about your past. That’s why many people don’t know how the war was fought, what caused the war and what are the remediation.
What should we do so as not to allow another war? The terms that led to the peace in 1970 have been observed in breach. When America fought its own civil wars, for instance, it took certain remedial steps. There was a martial plan, which helped the defeated to bounce back to reckoning. The Germans came back and their economy rebounded; the Japanese came back too. They were helped by the victors to rebound. But in post-war Nigeria, the determination of Nigeria is to keep the defeated perpetually in a state of penury and regret. The conqueror feels that he hasn’t conquered fully, so his enduring policy is to churn out policies that will enable him to achieve the ultimate, which is complete, absolute domination. The country is weeping today because the target has broadened. They are no longer solely directed against the East. The policies we see in the military sector, and the paramilitary agencies, seem to justify that domination theory. Only people from one ethnic group, a minority ethnic group for that matter, dominates the sensitive organs of security in the country. No other input from other sectors, no cross-fertilization of ideas by bringing people who can think differently from you and bring other points of view to reflect a different option than the one that those in power and those who patronize them project to the public. That’s what is happening. Arbitrariness in governance has become incestuous.
There are people who, maybe rightly or wrongly, feel that the current insecurity in the country didn’t start today, that the signs have been there for a long time but past leaders refused to do the right thing. Do you share that sentiment?
Insecurity started the day the world was created. The day God created the world and let man begin to live alone, insecurity started because the devil came in. If you are a Christian you are likely to believe in that viewpoint in terms of creation. But we were given recipes for handling that insecurity. The books gave also rules of engagement because even within families, there are tensions. So, we have to follow those recipes, since we know that there must be conflicts and since we know that we are living in a Hobbesian state where the rule is the struggle for the fittest––the rule of the jungle.
We have rules that negate those rules of the jungle and countries that have imbibed those rules to a large extent are relatively peaceful. It doesn’t mean that conflicts have completely disappeared but they know how to handle issues of jungles. Do unto others as you like others to do unto you. Apply the principles of fairness. He that comes to equity must come with clean hands. In heterogeneous communities, you must play it by fairness. You must be fair to all. When you refuse that, then man by nature will resist arbitrariness. As an American politician said, where the state refuses to obey the principles of good governance and rule of law, resistance becomes imperative.
Is it applicable in Nigeria of today?
It’s applicable everywhere in the world where people refuse to learn from the wisdom of history and past ages. Now, you said you want Ruga, for instance, outside the provisions of the country’s Constitution, without referendum, without appreciating the culture, the peculiarities, the sensibilities of the people and you want to restructure the population because that’s what it is. Ruga in its raw application and concept is a demographic restructuring. You bring a set of people whom I have not been living with, people with a different worldview and you say you must create a kingdom for them in my domain. It’s never been done in the country. Reasonable people all over the place, and we are reasonable people, will resist that type of arbitrariness. We think it better to live in the 21st century like the progressive peoples of the world, than in the 17th century. It is a tragedy to think otherwise. You suspend it instead of scrapping it entirely. The matter hasn’t been resolved, because it can be resurrected tomorrow in the same or different format. It is insanity gone too far.
After former President Obasanjo’s letter, the Presidency reacted and said some people are politicizing the insecurity and that they are not patriotic. What do you make of such position of the government?
The duty of every patriot is to speak truth to power, no matter how leviathan, how powerful. Our country is regressing to a police state and, before we know it, into a state capture.
First thing to understand is that President Obasanjo has every right to express his opinion about goings-on in the country, just like every other person has. Whether it is by writing a letter or going to the press and talking to a group of people or whatever format he uses, he has the right to do so, as long as he hasn’t refused others to also respond to his criticisms or his views.
Epistles are effective means of communication and probably very lasting ones because they go beyond the tenets of oral communication, which you know can be very fragile. Apostles Paul and Peter wrote epistles to various countries and their disciples, communities. Epistolary communication is a genuine form of message impartation, of conflict resolution and of contestation, political or otherwise. So, you give it to Obasanjo for doing that and for choosing his genre. Now, calling those who expressed their views, political or not, as unpatriotic, is in itself unpatriotic. It’s unpatriotic when you refuse others to express genuine heartfelt feelings or grievances and ask for reconciliation of views, ask for modalities to bring peace, what can be more unpatriotic than that? We are witnessing in this country a growing complex of asymmetric relationship between the ruler and the ruled, where the ruler seems to have developed hatred for those who put him to power. That is part of the power paradox in politics and other spheres of human relationship.
Were you surprised that the Northern Elders Forum recently asked Fulani residing in the South to return? Would you say such order sets the stage for war?
I’ve been in some meetings with the leader of NEF, Ango Abdullahi, especially before the elections and, together, we had articulated some opposing views to the government’s style of governance at that time. I still believe in those views that we commonly shared, that the government should change its style of governance and be more inclusive, among other things. I was in an elders’ meeting where we took these decisions together, less than a year ago here in Abuja. We were tying to build a platform for unity and a less fractious polity. So, it’s very surprising for me to hear that he said what has gone viral in the communication sector. Either it’s a political statement to find out how the South will react to it, or sheer malarkey. There have been many reactions and very few, I dare say, have been supportive because the call will definitely not solve the insecurity problems of the country.
Do you think security summit being canvassed by the Senate and some eminent Nigerians is the solution to the current insecurity? What is your take on the recent comment by President Buhari that the security challenge is in isolated places, not in every part of the country?
If I may start with the statement about “isolated security challenges”, has the president resolved those so-called isolated challenges? Don’t they require solutions? A sore that is not healed develops into a gangrene. If it’s on your legs, it can lead to amputation. We must make hay while the sun shines. We cannot delay for one day any situation that can take the life of a human being.
I served under Abacha’s regime and the man said any uprising that lasts more than one day or 24 hours, the government is aware of it. He was talking about immediate solution. We cannot be like Nero who went drinking, an act of debauchery, when Rome was burning. Or like that boy, the first son who went chasing rat when his father’s house was burning. It doesn’t matter from what point that fire starts, whether it is isolated or not, go and stop it. Fire burns.
Take Boko Haram that we are talking about for instance. Some people think that Boko Haram started during the time of Jonathan. As I said in my book, Boko Haram has always been there. Even before we became independent, there has been a resistance by a group of Muslims, starting from Sudan, who has been against Western form of education, which literally is what Boko Haram is, but Lugard and his people suppressed them. They went underground. That is part of what my book, The Lugardian Hubris, is talking about. It resurfaced when the time became opportune for those who held that ideology and today, it has grown almost out of control. See what it has done to Nigeria. They are still a real danger. Those who support the theory of decimation, argue that before Buhari came to power Boko Haram was in Abuja, they bombed Nyanya, they bombed here and there and the narrative has changed and Abuja is today safe. Yet there is a counter argument. Every military General knows that once a strategy or tactic is discovered, it is no longer profitable to continue with that strategy. That Boko Haram doesn’t bomb places today doesn’t mean that they’ve been conquered. No. They’ve changed the style of operation. They are still kidnapping people. Those they kidnapped, they have not returned them. People are still being killed in and around Abuja. There all unresolved murder cases all over the place. So, we need a strategy for peace and conflict resolution that is sustainable. We know what to do, but there is what you call lack of political will to do it.
If you hold another jaw-jaw without implementing the earlier resolutions from earlier parleys it will just be jaw-jaw. I remember this American philosopher who said if you want to play with a serious issue, set up a committee. There was a committee set up by Mr. President on conflict resolution/insecurity, which recommended, among other things, state police, that has been with the Presidency for months now. Nothing has been done about it. You and I were at the National Conference in 2014. Some 70 recommendations were arrived at through consensus. These recommendations have all been rejected by the incumbent regime. That’s lack of the political will to do the needful. We need in this country, a President who will govern by the will of the people , one who respects what the people say they want. Do it and see what happens. You cannot know more than the people all the time. We can repeat this severally for emphasis, because power belongs to the people.
There was a summit in 2017. They held another one in 2018. They want another one this year. What has changed? What has changed is that nobody has implemented the results of these summits. So, if you go and hold another one, what are the guarantees? There must be a clause somewhere that if you don’t implement these resolutions, this and this will happen. We don’t have that, so it looks like jamboree. When I was in the National Constitutional Conference set up by Abacha, it wasn’t a jamboree for me and other like minds. We took it serious. We produced a draft constitution. We did almost a similar thing in 2014 but under a different format, because when some people said no you are changing the constitution, we said okay this is the old constitution, here, side by side are the changes we want to incorporate based on the conference decisions. But what happened?
For many years, you’ve been harping on restructuring. There are several others who also feel the nation should restructure. What are the implications of not restructuring?
If you live in a house that is constantly leaking, won’t you restructure that house so that it stops leaking, or will you leave it so that, from that single leakage, which you know can affect the entire house and the structure, and then the house gives in. Is that the best option? Definitely no. The fact is that Nigeria is not doing well and it’s very clear to everybody. A situation where you are rated as the poverty centre of the world by people who know better and who are well meaning, will you continue to live in that poverty cesspool? No, you would want to do better. You would want to do something to be like others. In a situation where the corruption index puts you, maybe two or three notches above the lowest in the world, when there is number one, will you want to continue to be the least? Can’t you aspire to be among the first?
In a situation where 67 percent of the country live below the equivalent of two dollars a day, will you like to live in that country? Bill Gates came here last year and said this is the worst place to be born. Does it make you happy as a Nigerian?
Recently somebody called me on the phone and told me that South Africa has said that people from Ghana don’t need visa to come to their country. A medical doctor called me this morning and told me why he is not happy to be carrying Nigerian passport. What was his reason? We went to the US, stood in immigration line to be cleared and when it came to his turn, they told him to stand by and cleared others before they came to him. He was embarrassed. A lady and a man came to him and said ‘who are you and what do you do for a living’. He said “I’m a doctor.” They said what kind of a doctor. He said ”I am a gynecologist”. Then the lady said “oh, my mother is also a gynecologist. We stopped you because of the passport you are carrying”. They apologized when they realized that he was a gynecologist. But before they could get to that, his passport had said it all. You come from a mad country. That’s the kind of image and perception that people have about Nigeria, which is not commendable at all. We must return to the 1963 Republican Constitution, build platforms for true federation, platforms for completion, platforms for genuine unity without uniformity.
Did this image actually start with this administration?
Excuse me, we are not accusing this administration. We are x-raying the country. I get a little bit pissed off when people say oh, this administration didn’t start it, then it continues. Because your father didn’t go to school, is that why you will not go to school? That’s what that question implies to me. When I hear some journalists ask that kind of question, I begin to wonder what kind of answer they want to get. Government is by perpetual succession and inheritance. That’s the first thing I learnt when I entered politics. If your father owes N200 million before he died, won’t you pay it? There is an Igbo proverb that says ‘a child who eats his father’s kola nut must pay the debt’. What do you expect the administration to come and do if they don’t resolve the issues of the moment?
Are you worried by the widening dichotomy between the South and the North?
It’s a cause for worry. There is something to be gained from being inclusive and being big. If you continue to bicker when you are big, then find a solution that will still make you big without rancor every minute. That’s why we are talking about restructuring. This supremacy tendency, this we must rule tendency, we can rule without you is not in tandem with the civilized option. If you live with a woman in a house and you tell her every day, I can manage this house without you, that woman cannot be happy. The servant master relationship, the horse and rider relationship is not what this country needs and that is why we are crying out. We are not ready to be anybody’s slave in this country. It doesn’t matter where you come from. The age of slavery is gone and it’s gone forever. That is what we elders in the South are saying. Reasonable voices in the North seem to understand what we are saying. But it is the tiny but powerful minority elite that says no to change. They are the statusquoists.
Some people also feel that it is also not too good pinning a tag on Fulani as bad people. How do you react to this?
There is no smoke without fire. Racial profiling has never gone well anywhere in the world. When Hitler started the theory of the so called ARYAN race, people ignored him. In fact, the Western elite ignored him until he took over the section where the Jews were and began to kill them. The ultimate was when Jews were burnt in gas chambers. Hitler did not stop with the Jews. The sight of the blacks nauseated him. He pulled out of the German Olympic stadium when in 1936, Jessie Owens a black athlete from the USA, excelled in the field events of the day. It could be argued that racial profiling led to the first and second World Wars in the last century. Profiling either says I am the higher race, the superior race, and that you are the inferior race. Profiling is never good anywhere. Once it starts it is difficult to change. There is a rising anti-semitism in the West today. That is why we must be careful on how we react to others.
When a group of people say we must dip the Quoran to the sea, we must rule you, I must select my own people to be in governance and not the others and these people are in a country that is not yet a nation; a parchment of people who have been compelled by circumstances to live together, by Lugard and his people and are asking for a different kind of equation so that they can live together, profiling becomes an albatross.
In my mind, I don’t hate the Fulani person. I have Fulani people who have been my friends. Sometimes we joke. One of them calls me Nyamiri, I call him a cow shepherd and we laugh over it. We remain friends because we know that these are negative profiles that mean nothing to us, that don’t go beyond name calling, that doesn’t mean hatred. After that we, eat together. But the people at the lower echelon of the societal ladder don’t rationalize this way and that’s why it becomes dangerous for the elite to continue to rationalize the matter and politicize it.
If the government does what is needful and strikes a balance, you appoint a Fulani, you appoint Idoma, you appoint Itsekiri man, you appoint an Igbo man, Yoruba , you see all of them eating together, working together, what happens? They become brothers. But when you say it’s only your own people that will govern, holding important political positions in the country, that’s what aggravates the issue and leads to tension and name calling. Even in your own family or in your community, if you are the only rich person, you will naturally attract resentment. Recall Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob. It’s a natural thing. So, what you do is you give this person, you give that person. Yet we must always strike a balance in a heterogeneous community.
