Daniel Kanu
National Chairman, African Democratic Congress (ADC), Chief Ralph Okey Nwosu, has always maintained that President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government has brought Nigeria to its knees with its style of governance that is not in the citizens’ interest.
This, he said, has negatively affected all institutions, insisting that while the legislative arm of government is amateur in its actions and inactions, the judiciary seems to be lost.
He analysed the Nigerian condition, its problem, and solution during the encounter with Sunday Sun. Excerpt:
The courts are now overturning most of the elections conducted. What is the implication of all this…?
(Cuts in) The truth is that most of the democratic institutions that are supposed to play their various roles so that our democracy will become much more dynamic, more successful and deepened to have strength have been compromised. They are all not doing well from the executive branch that we have now which is most horrible. The National Assembly is too amateur and the judiciary appears to be lost, so we have a serious crisis, crisis of confidence, crisis of competence and crisis of leadership. All these put together no doubt will affect the outcome of elections and by extension our democracy.
So how would you react to the criticisms against some of the court rulings?
Remember, I said all the various branches have their serious challenges. You see, when the executive becomes so meddlesome, for instance, when the executive will go chasing judges in their houses, then you have violated that arm of the tripod, that arm of the system ( in terms of separation of power). The moment that tripod is violated and nothing happens, the National Assembly becomes complacent by not saying anything and then the Nigerian people that all of them are supposed to be serving and the media, etc, everybody is playing hide and sick, then we have the kind of system we have now. It’s unfortunate, but then, for us in the ADC, we have resolved not to complain any longer. What we are doing is to package how we can deliver Nigeria and that is what we are focused on now, but the system has gotten to rock-bottom.
What is your take on the deregistration hammer that hit over 73 political parties?
Just as I said, the democratic agencies that we have appears to be like an anti-democratic octopus, INEC has become an anti-democratic octopus. They fail in election conducting, look at the registration of the political parties. Before the election INEC went ahead to register I think close to 50 or more parties, is that not madness? What do they have in mind? In one year INEC registered over 50 political parties, so INEC brought the problem. However, I know that INEC has some top-quality public servants, good technocrats, we have them there, but they are not the political appointees. Part of the problem we have in INEC is the political appointees because the political appointees are working as if they are dealing with the system to produce results that are favourable to their parties. You know that all of them belong to parties or they are tied to the apron of the executive, that is the problem with INEC. So, why did INEC register all the large number of parties a few months to the election, so that you now deregister them immediately after the election? INEC is always operating with one agenda, always plotting, one of the agenda we heard is that the executive branch has directed them to reduce the number of parties to about five. The plan is that if you reduce the number to let’s say five political parties; some of the ones deregistered will be forced to come and join the APC. That is one of the scripts. The other script is that they are deregistering because they want to register another 100 parties, so they are the ones causing the confusion. I know that in INEC they have alternative dispute resolution office and officers, in addition, we have IPAC, which is like the association of the political parties. All of us are working for our democracy to be good, all of us want a great country, so when you jump to national television to announce the deregistration of parties why wouldn’t you use your different offices to call a meeting of political parties and have what I call authentic conversation. You can let all the political parties meet and you tell them, come, 90 political parties appearing in the presidential ballot, etc, will not give us clarity. That although we have documents that say parties must win this and win that, but that if you are a party and you are not winning election then of what essence is its existence? You convince them by asking them, can some of you (parties) merge? Can we have this 30 parties come together under one name? Can this five parties, can you all go and arrange, we give you three months, we will work with all of you to see that your constitution, your manifesto and your ideology are put together, so that we can do five strong parties, have conversation with political parties, you don’t go to TV like in the military era and say, I hereby de-register political parties. That is madness and that was why the judge and the court treated them as if they don’t exist. It is because of our democratic set-up that INEC was set up, if anything happens INEC will immediately go under, so there is the need for authentic conversation. As a matter of fact, where we are in this country, if the executives want to be sincere, because I heard that the executives are waiting until whatever agenda they are hatching matures, otherwise, it’s time for all the different arms and political parties as well as critical stakeholders in this country to sit down for a serious conversation, how do we move our country forward? This is because the country is down on its knees, lives and property being destroyed daily. On a daily basis, more people are killed in Nigeria than in any country where we have a civil war. So, it’s time the legislature, executive, judiciary, the political and all the critical stakeholders in this country sit down for serious talk to save our country because Nigeria is almost gone.
Will it be in the nature of another national conference or what?
We have advised this government so much, but they will not listen, at times, if you do the best you can do and they (govt.) start showing an interest we will advise them the best way to go about it.
You just mentioned the issue of the security challenge, do you really support the emergence of regional security outfit like what we are witnessing in the Southwest with the establishment of its regional security code-named Amotekun? Do you think they are in the best interest of the country?
Almost every region has it now, all of them have, not that they will still be thinking about what to come out with. As a matter of fact, it is now beyond Amotekun, Ogbunigwe, and Shege Ka Fasa, etc, the state governments are coming out with their own, the youths are coming up with their own, the market association are coming up with their own, etc, so it will become an amorphous thing, there’s need to be order in the country, but because the government has failed and they are equally holding this erroneous view or appearing as if they are this big masquerade that cannot be touched, that they can bully everybody, people, everybody is now doing what they feel they need to do to be secured, etc. If a market can have its own security to protect their market what is wrong with that? We have systemic decay in the country, therefore, the executive branch is fighting the shadow, they have lost it.
But the Federal Government has continued to insist that they are on top of the security challenge, winning the war on insurgency?
(Cuts in) They are talking nonsense. Which war are they winning? Nowadays who do you think that Nigerians and the international community listen to? Who do the world listen to, to know about security truth? They listen to the Commander-in-Chief of Boko Haram more, they listen to Shekarau more because it appears he is the one that gives authentic news and no longer the Commander-in-Chief of the country. Shekarau will show you the video of what they are doing or have done so that you don’t doubt him. It’s a shame that we are in this mess. When people want to hear authentic information about our security they don’t listen to any of our security persons or personnel. When they are there in the Villa fighting and the president is not saying anything….You say you have degraded the insurgents and they are even more ferocious in their atrocities, and showing us the clips, it’s sad. Its Shekarau, the Boko Haram commander that Nigerians listen to for more authentic news in as much as it is sad news, but they take that as more authentic.
Are you worried that the regional security outfits being advocated when they come into full force may lead to the balkanization or break-up of the country?
Is the country not already balkanized? There is no leadership in place; they are just trying to flex muscles, there is completely no morale in the military because some excellent officers with credentials are being retired on daily basis, some military men, well trained are being sabotaged at war fronts on daily basis, so the military is factionalised. There is no military in place because the leadership has gone under. The agenda of the people who are running the executive arm of government at the federal level is different or seem to be against the interest of the Nigerian federation, so there is a major crack.
There was a time former President Olusegun Obasanjo raised the alarm that there is perhaps a Fulanisation agenda?
I have been talking about the agenda of the people in the Villa being different or seem to be different from that of the interest of the people in the country, so how else do I need to say so. The agenda of some people in the Villa in the executive arm is different from what is in the best interest of this country. So, what is that agenda?
Let’s zero down to the issue of zoning, concerning the presidency and the zone you expect to produce the next president?
(Cuts in) You see, this country is for all of us and there is value in a country that has the kind of diversity that Nigeria has and good people and good leaders must always take advantage of what is inherent in a diverse society and have leadership values to promote our diversity strength, but if any group feels that they can dominate others that is where you have problem. You can see what is happening, it is like since this government came to power its attitude is that of we have come to dominate others and that is where you have a problem. Come to think of it, people are being killed everywhere, the Northeast has become like war front, most of the Northwest you can’t even go there so that hype to dominate everybody is dangerous. Let our different values come to the board and we form a very robust country. Diversity is critical and values of diversity is inclusion, don’t dominate, let everybody have a sense of belonging and the moment you have it you have a more robust system and if the country is working well it’s good for everybody, you won’t even know where you are from anymore. If all the Nigerian youth will be able to get a job without anybody going to stand for them, if you go to our roads and you see wonderful roads, rails moving everywhere, no armed robbers disturbing anybody, everybody will be happier and you won’t know if you are Fulani or Yoruba, Bayelsa or if you are Igbo, but we need to, first of all, cultivate that inclusion, give everybody sense of belonging. All of this dichotomy you see they are just small greedy groups fanning it not even any region. You heard the Sultan say the other day: what the hell is going on. You heard the Emir of Kano recently condemning what is going on in the land. Even the late Rimi had said come, the more the North continues to hold power they will remain disadvantaged, it’s in their interest too to build an inclusive system. For me, I stand for inclusion because it will privilege our country and for us in the ADC, I want to say this: that our vision is clear, our trajectory is also clear, a superpower Nigeria is possible in 20 years, within 20 years of our party being in charge the kind of leadership flow we will bring will make Nigeria a superpower because Nigeria has all the ingredients to be a superpower. We have the population, the resources, we have God’s gift of being the most populous black country, therefore, God has made them unique. The moment our leadership is right and we build our infrastructure and build our human capacity etc and you put our youths to work in less than 15 years that ADC takes over you will see a complete transformation. So, we are working on this clear mantra that a superpower Nigeria within 20 years is possible.