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By Sunday Ani
A public affairs commentator and lawyer, Chief Maxi Okwu, has described President Bola Tinubu’s less than 80 days in office as hellish for Nigerians. He noted that what the Americans refer to as political honey which is normally the first 100 days in office for Nigerians under President Tinubu has been a disaster as they have suffered untold hardship within the short period.
In this interview, he took a holistic view of Tinubu’s administration and its renewed hope mantra, the removal of fuel subsidy, the ministerial nominees and the Senate’s screening, and the government’s disposition to fighting corruption, among others
What is your take on Tinubu’s administration and his renewed hope agenda?
First of all, Tinubu is president de facto; and whether he will become president de jure is still at large until the Supreme Court ultimately decides. As president de facto, he came equipped with a college of mentees and experience as governor of Lagos State and as a politician. So, I am surprised at some of the hiccups we are experiencing today, considering his level of preparations for the position of the president, unlike former President Muhammadu Buhari before him. First of all, the ministerial appointment that is time bound, he barely breasted the tape, and still had to jump the tape and put in some more; I am surprised. I thought that he would have, from day one, had his cabinet ready.
Number two, some of the gaffes were unavoidable. The gaffe on his inauguration day when he said subsidy was over. He shouldn’t have said such a thing. It was a statement most ill-advised. Yes, the subsidy could be over but he didn’t have to announce it and create a panic. We suffered and are still suffering from that gaffe. He also did a U-turn on the initial N8000 palliatives for 12 million households. So, the level of flip-flop is a bit shocking for a man with his level of experience. So, by and by, it has not been going well. We have gone South; deep South. Everything has gone down South. Nigeria is haemorrhaging politically, economically, socially and otherwise. And there is a trending quest in an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) project which will serve Nigeria no good. It will be fatal for Nigeria to jump into Niger leading the so-called ECOWAS military offensive. So, by and by, Tinubu has shortchanged us so far. His honeymoon has been a disaster. Normally, in America from where we borrowed these things, there is what is called a political honeymoon for a new administration; it is usually the first 100 days. This is almost 70 days of Tinubu, but the roller-coaster ride has been worrying; it is disturbing and the future doesn’t look bright. But, there is a silver lining in the sky that the Supreme Court would do something that will change the game.
Is there any hope of saving Nigeria from the imminent collapse, considering the realities on ground?
Yes, all eyes are on the judiciary. The judiciary could save us if they uphold the law. I am not asking for favour. I am not asking them to bend the law. Let the Supreme Court apply the law. They should give the law its weight and life. I believe there are enough facts on ground to set Nigeria free. So, I say again, “All eyes on the judiciary.” It is possible. That’s the only way for now in my own humble opinion.
Last week, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, told his colleagues that the Clerk of the Senate had sent a token into their bank accounts for their holiday allowance. He quickly withdrew the statement and said the senate president has sent prayers to their mailboxes for them to have a safe journey for the holiday. What is your reaction to this ‘token’ joke by Akpabio?
It is part of the cesspool of corruption and the illegalities that go on. We thought we had seen it all with Ahmed Lawan-led Ninth National Assembly but one can predict that going forward, the Akpabio-led 10th National Assembly will be worse than Lawan’s Ninth Assembly. This is because, as it is said in layman’s language, Akpabio has taken rubber stamp to pro-max level. He wears a cap with Tinubu’s logo. I understand that during the screening of the ministerial nominees and a nominee was at the verge of being rejected by the Senate, he quickly adjourned and rushed to the presidential villa with his large convoy, which is unnecessary anyway, to seek guidance or instruction; that is a disaster. Akpabio ought not to have been the Senate president. Going by the way he emerged, and all the cases levelled against him, Tinubu seems to have perfected the art of laundering people with questionable credentials in terms of moral standing. Akpabio has done some quips so far which have shown his level of insensitivity. The first one, “Let the poor breathe,” was a motion which he took, made a joke of it and laughed while he was doing that, and then this quip again about a token. You see, the question that Nigerians should ask is, that token or whatever it was (because I am sure you don’t put prayer into anybody’s account), where was it appropriated? He can’t just spend public money as if he is in Akwa-Ibom State, where he was called Father Christmas or paymaster. This is a National Assembly where things are a bit different. Where was the money appropriated? And under the law, where did the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission make provision for a token for holiday? That is the question that Nigerians should ask. And you can find that there is no genuine or legitimate answer to that. They are paid as approved by law. All these tokens, where are the funds coming from? Is it from the National Assembly funds? Was it appropriated? Who approved it? So, it is business as usual. We thought we had seen it all during Buhari’s administration, but we are seeing the worst this time round. We have just moved from fire to frying pan.
The ruling APC appears to be comfortable with corrupt people. Former Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje is now the All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman and over 90 percent of the ministerial nominees have corruption cases; is the party really out to destroy Nigeria?
Never; Buhari came and talked about corruption, saying that if you don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill you, but what he did was the greatest u-turn from the corruption fight. In fact, corruption went numb with Buhari. And I remember I argued early in his administration that you don’t sloganise about corruption; you set examples. It is not a mantra; it is not a slogan. It is an action; something which you act upon. It was a joke. Nobody was fooled; I wasn’t fooled. The citizenry were never part of it; they were not taken along. So, it was just a slogan and you are moving from the APC administration to another APC administration. In a developed democracy, there is no way the APC could have returned at the federal level because Buhari’s administration was a total failure; an unmitigated disaster. It is most unusual that you returned a failed administration because Buhari is APC and Tinubu is APC. APC is succeeding APC, what good has that done to Nigeria? Nothing, except taking us down South in every indices of development and governance.
How can you describe the way and manner the Senate handled the screening of the ministerial nominees?
It was a total disgrace. It was another Nollywood; theatre of the absurd as far as I am concerned. I had argued earlier that until we begin to assign portfolios to nominees, we will continue to joke with this screening by committee of the whole. We like to borrow but we won’t like to follow it to the letter. In the US, where we borrowed from, the president assigns portfolio to the nominees, so you know whether they qualified for the job or not. You don’t just, on the swearing in, day jump in and they give a portfolio that a person can’t cope with. Remember the case of Adamu Adamu, the former Minister of Education, who said he didn’t know anything about education. The Minister of State under him was a professor in the university. But, he was there as education minister; if he had moral standing, he would have turned the offer down. But, they don’t go there to serve; they go there to ‘eat.’ Without assigning portfolios, how can you screen somebody? Look at the level of fake or ‘Oluwole’ certificates being bandied around; it has become a national culture to forge certificates. There is a racket of forged certificates all over the country, from states to national. Somebody has two papers in WAEC and he is a lawyer; how did he become a lawyer? It is only in Nigeria that such things happen. So, if they are given portfolios, the screening will be done by various committees in charge of various ministries, after which recommendations would be made to the committee of the whole. Each committee takes a nominee and grills him or her for days and not this take a bow and go thing. They should scrap the entire thing because it is not useful to Nigerians. I saw the way they were praising Wale Edu from Ogun State. The senators from Ogun State praised him to high heaven. Occasionally, the Senate president joined in praising the nominees; is that what Nigerians want? It is a waste of time and resources; they should stop and just approve the nominees directly.
Do you think that the various election petition tribunals, particularly the presidential election petition tribunal, can discharge their functions creditably?
They ought to do that because they have all the materials they need, except the will; the human element. That is what we cannot predict. But, everything is in their arsenal to do their duty as they swore during their oath of office. At the lower tribunal, I know that laws are usually followed but the Supreme Court is where the problem lies. The Supreme Court being a court of ultimate jurisdiction, not only talks about law, but also looks into public policy. It is a nebulous term – public policy. You have the Hope Uzodinma judgment in Imo State, which you cannot rationalize using the law. You have the Ahmed Lawan judgment; you have the Akpabio judgment. They are all judgments of the Supreme Court which you cannot explain easily. It started from the two-third of 19 states in Shehu Shagari and Obafemi Awolowo case, which was another policy judgment. So, whereas it may look good at first and second instances, what the Supreme Court will ultimately do is that there will be a mix of public policy. Is it in the interest of the nation that we do this? And that is the argument of Tinubu’s lawyers that it will lead to chaos if their client is disqualified. They are now introducing the element of public policy into a judicial process. It is not illegal, but like I said, public policy will be for the interest of Nigerians. What the court will determine to be in the best interest of Nigerians is what we can’t predict. But, let’s see how it goes. Nigeria is on trial; the judiciary is on trial.
What are the priority areas you would like the 10th Assembly to focus on for better policing of Nigeria?
Let us not mix roles now. The executive executes, the legislature legislates. I think the initiative to bring policy is with the executive, while the legislature legislates. The legislature fine tunes legislation in some areas but basically shun up all garbage. The issue before the country is primarily economy and security. The economy is collapsing and security has gone haywire.
Right now, I am in Enugu and even though the IPOB, the government and everybody says no more sit-at-home, nobody is coming out. Do you know why? It is because they don’t believe in any public statement/announcement. They are treading on the side of caution; I don’t blame them. Where is the security? For example, if you go to the street of Enugu now, you will see policemen and soldiers within every 100 metres, but here in Oji River where I am, there is no police or army. So, how would I be protected? What should I do? I take it easy; I am cautious because I don’t want to be a statistics. People are now treading on the side of caution, not wanting to be made the statistics of the government’s inaction. As Section 14 (2)(b) of the constitution says, the welfare and security of the people shall be the primary purpose of the government. But, in terms of security, governments at all levels have failed the people. A man goes on national television brandishing an AK 47 rifle, and claiming on public television that he has a private army, a mercenary gang and he has not been arrested. The same person was at the presidential villa the other day, standing in front of the coat of arms, and making pronouncements, and you tell me that I should feel secure. So, I will be cautious because if I die, nobody cares, except my family. Having said that, the national assembly could see how it can tighten up our security laws but that is if the executive will execute. Like I said, it is one thing to make laws, and another thing to execute the laws. Execution is for the executive but right now, people in the national assembly bring contracts, bring projects and all that; those are not for the legislators. It is for the executive; so let us see each section of the three arms do its job. As for the 10th National Assembly, let them firm up the laws, block the loopholes, and improve our laws. And when they are passing the budget, they should look at welfare, education and security; these are priority areas. We must be productive. What do we do to improve our laws on economic activities? These are the things that are important for now.
What do you think would be the implication of Nigeria, possibly, spearheading the war against Niger, especially with the impression that foreign powers are urging Tinubu to do so even when the Nigeria Senate has kicked against that, and even against the realities of Nigeria’s relationship with Niger?
I have said that we should avoid it at all costs. We can’t afford it in the first place. The country has collapsed. Buhari has sold us to China and other lender countries. We don’t have the money. Our economy is right there in deep red.
What is your reaction to the removal of fuel subsidy? There is an argument in some quarters that there was never anything like subsidy; do you agree with that?
If we extract crude, export for refining and the finished product is brought back to us, where is the element of subsidy? So, where is the subsidy coming from? The tragedy is that Nigeria is the only oil producing country that has no functional refinery in the world. Isn’t it a tragedy? Something is wrong somewhere. They spurned us with a yarn that Dangote Refinery would be ready. After we have spent money helping one man to build a refinery, which he cannot maintain, then the man pushes it back some years further and he is given a license to import refined fuel. Don’t you see some elements of government magic involved? So, I would believe that the first thing the government should do is to do everything possible to have one or two refineries working in Nigeria, so that this story about subsidy or whatever will cease. Let us get at least one refinery to meet at least half of our local demand or more. The oil marketers have told us that with the crash of naira against the dollar, that we should expect an increase in the price of fuel. I see fuel going up to N1000 per litre. That will be crushing, but we are inching towards it because in the black market, a litre of fuel is sold for N750 to N800. So, getting to N1000 per litre is not far-fetched. The issue is a time bomb ticking, and the earlier the government tackles it, the better for the country.
Looking at the pervading hardship being experienced by Nigerians, do you foresee the possibility of a revolution, or will Nigerians continue to endure the hardship?
Well, I don’t think revolution is possible in Nigeria because the ethnic configuration of the country is against a popular nationwide revolution. That is my take from my experience in the field. If it starts from the north, the people from the south will say it is their headache. For instance, there is already a problem in the north, because some northerners in Kano are protesting. Down south, people will look at them and ask: how does it concern us? Look at all the demonstrations and protests against former President Jonathan on this same issue of fuel subsidy, but did you hear even a beep during the Buhari era? The answer is no because everything was calm. The things that Jonathan couldn’t get away with, Buhari got away with them. So, a popular Nigeria-wide revolution to me is not on the cards. The ENDSARS protest was killed up north. So, we would continue to suffer in silence. We are the happiest nation on earth. But, there could be pockets of local resistance or activities, which would not translate into a nation-wide push because of our ethnic and tribal configuration.
Are you still a member of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)?
No; right now, I have left partisan politics. I am on sabbatical from partisan politics because I can’t see any progress in that field. For example, if you go to the national assembly, the major party is the APC, but do you see any counter move by the PDP, LP or other small parties? Everybody is on the same page. In Enugu, we have the LP majority state assembly, and we are hoping for some difference. But to me, it is business as usual; there is no difference. So, I begin to get frustrated because I cannot play establishment politics. And I believe that there should be some major formations, an alternate platform contending with the major ones, so that people can have a choice. It can’t be the same picture all round; I find it difficult to handle. Though you expect to see a difference, there is no difference; it is all personal agenda. There is no programme by any political platform showing differences, and I am worried, so I am watching. What I have done is that I have gone local. For example, I have always complained bitterly against the monotony of Enugu politics where the PDP has been dominant for 24 years. So, I went home, I am from Achi in Oji River Local Government Area of Enugu State, and I helped to destroy and dismantle that PDP hegemony. We have two LP candidates, one for the federal house of assembly and the other for the state house of assembly against the establishment, and hopefully if the tribunal does well for us, the LP candidate will go in as Governor of Enugu State. Let there be a difference. We cannot continue to have one platform rule us for 24 years. Lethargy and contempt, if not outright complacency and fatigue, set in. So, when you contest, after eight years, a new set should come in like what we have in the US and the UK. It will give a different approach to governance and people will benefit from that. But, when you have 24 years of one party, it is a disaster. So, I am happy that locally, we played our small roles; the yeoman’s roles in dismantling the PDP at my local level and even my federal level, and I am hoping for the state level too. I am not in the LP for example, but I am pro-LP. I don’t carry the card of any political party now, but I work for the LP, and I hope they can take Enugu State. Let us for once have a difference from the PDP that has become tired.
