•We need new constitution not patch-patch work
• Value system, fundamentals’ve collapsed
• Succession of military govts hurt Nigeria
• No Red line, punishment for wrong-doing
• Intellectual depth of our politics shallow
• I can’t tell if 2027 poll’ll hold
• Our system allows minority rule majority
• It’s time for six-year single term presidency
By Clifford Ndujihe, Politics Editor
El der statesman and a member of The Patriots, Professor Anya O Anya, 88, literally shot from the hips in an encounter with Vanguard where he shared his thoughts on the state of the nation and proffered suggestions on the way forward. Enjoy it!
On what led The Patriots to organize the summit on new constitution?
If you look at the way things have been going in Nigeria since the Fourth Republic in 1999, you will see that somebody will raise an issue over the constitution, we will run around, the National Assembly will try and patch up an amendment.
We cannot have a constitution that is patch-patch work.
Ultimately, each time you patch it up, a new leak or problem would arise. So, why don’t you look at it holistically and decide: Instead of this patch-patch work, why don’t the Nigerian people get back to how they want to be governed? What are the things that are relevant to them? What are the things they can look forward to as what will come from their leaders? Right now we are not in a position to do that.
Indeed, I try not to generalise because you can over-generalise to the point that you dabble into things you don’t know and create problems. If you look at the constitution we have now and the politics we play now, the intellectual depth is very shallow. That is why it is possible for all kinds of people to throw themselves up, and each one will deal with his interest, once he grabs what he wants he is gone. You don’t run a country that way.
There has to be a value system that people know. These are grundnorms on which you govern the country -these are things the people should expect, and these are things the people will not tolerate. In other words, there must be things that if you cross that line you are on your own and will pay the price.
Right now, there is no such rule in Nigeria. The value system has collapsed. Drugs and other problems are all there because the fundamental thing that holds Nigeria together has collapsed. So, patch-patch work will not be enough.
For intervention, it has got to a point where you need statesmen, people who have really sacrificed and worked hard for this country. The people you will entrust that job have to be people who are not looking for any particular thing for themselves and are in a position where they can only give their experience for the country to be a better place. That is what you have in The Patriots.
At what point did the value system collapse and what led to it ?
It is not possible to say it is this event that led to the circumstances.It has been a slow thing . When in 1963 we got the Republican Constitution, that was the nearest to the people’s constitution because not only did our leaders take part in it, the Nigerian people were consulted.
The 1999 constitution is not a constitution because it was a decree of the military government that brought it into life.
Section 2 of the constitution contains the fundamental things that a government is supposed to do, all the things a government should be aiming for. But because it was a decree that brought it into being it does not have the legitimacy that a people’s constitution should give you. And what is more, many of the people involved in it are only interested in what they get out of it. You cannot run a country that way.
Would you attribute these problems to military incursion that abrogated the 1963 constitution?
Let’s put it this way: once the military comes, their sense of governance and issues that are important to them are not the same issues that the ordinary people are interested in. In the military, once you are given an order you don’t go looking at whether it is good or bad you obey it first.
Given that kind of environment, the give and take that takes place in a democratic environment is not possible and each time you correct it and think you have corrected it, it brings a different problem.
So, to a large extent you can firmly say that the succession of military governments in our history has not helped us. It’s what prepared the ground for this other development of taking care of myself first rather than thinking of the country.
We operated the 1963 constitution when we had wild wild west. In essence, the first generation of our leaders could not operate the 1963 constitution very well. What is your take on that?
Yes or No. Yes in the sense that there were legitimate developments that made the possibility of a military coup possible. But if we had exercised a bit more patience, in a democratic system, the give and take, the negotiating and diplomatic approach to things, which are enforced finally allows you to get to a point where there is something most people agree with and can live with. That is the beginning of the value system.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said that our problem is not constitution but leaders who operate it. Do you agree?
Yes and no. Yes because the value system does not exist in a vacuum. There are principles that guide it. What Obasanjo is referring to is the fact that the people who come are not being guided by any rules and that creates an environment in which anything goes. Even if you take a saint and there is no value system that guides him, the Saint will become just an ordinary looter
With the 2014 Confab, do you think The Patriots Summit is necessary when you could have asked for the implementation of the Confab report?
I was deeply involved in 2014 Confab. I was a member of the Senator Femi Okurounmu Committee that President Goodluck Jonathan set up and said: Do we need a new constitution? What should we do?
It was that committee that went round the country and finally said yes we must have a meeting where all Nigerian peoples get together and decide what they want to do with their country. That led to the conference when Jonathan accepted the report.
The question of representation became an issue. It became clear that if you went to elect people as had happened once, it doesn’t work not because they are not good men but because there are too many conflicts in terms of the idea of being ‘elected.’ Like the current. National Assembly, there is nothing you tell them that they won’t remind you that they were elected. The people who elected you are telling you to take something into account but you have now become the boss.
How do you see the outcome of The Patriots Constitutional summit?
It is a good beginning. You can say that we have started telling ourselves the honest truth. Nobody can say that things are okay. Mine is to appeal to the National Assembly to create a situation where a new constitution that enjoys the people’s confidence can be made. Let them get down from their high horse of saying ‘I was elected’ and listen to what those who elected them are putting forward as priorities.
Could you assess President Bola Tinubu administration two years after?
There is too much noise in the system. Even if I told you what God himself has said, today, the atmosphere we have is not conducive to discuss what God wants us to take.
Give it a little time. This phenomenon of defection confuses many things.
On 144 political associations applying to 0the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for registration as political parties?
Does it make sense? People are being attracted to the opportunity it gives them to look after themselves. They are not looking at the problems of Nigeria.
What is your take on clamour for a six-year single term for president and governors?
Out of experience I will say the disruptions that come in the process of looking for second term are themselves morally intolerable. We cannot tolerate it. So, cut of that, increase the term so that, that great idea you have, there is enough time to fulfil it and go.
Taking the present crop of Nigerian politicians, there is nothing that you will do that gives them a second opportunity that they wouldn’t pervert.
So, let’s start afresh, do six years and go. If after six years you have not downloaded the great ideas you have, it means you have no idea.
What is your advice to Nigerians and leaders ahead the 2027 polls?
The way it is going, are you sure there will be 2027 election? Are you sure that there will be an election? The aftershock of the new people coming into the All Progressives Congress, APC, when it settles, I don’t think even leaders of the APC can predict what will come. You are creating a new environment, a new set of problems and you are not giving yourself time to reflect on what has happened. That is invitation to chaos.
How can we avert this?
One of the things we have not taken account of is: The INEC registered 93 million people to vote in 2023. Out of the 93 million people, less than one-third actually voted. Out of the one-third that voted, less than one-third voted for the man that was finally declared President. In other words, we have a minority President, and that is not consistent with democracy.
The fundamental basis on which you build a democracy has been breached because the minority is ruling the majority. Or to put it dramatically, of every three people that voted, one voted for Tinubu and two voted against him. But he is the President. He has to be the President because that is the constitution that we have.
The people have not looked at the consequences of Nigerians refusing to vote. Two-thirds of the people registered ignored the opportunity to exercise their right.
How can you have a democracy where the majority are ignoring the grundnorm? You have to find a solution. If you don’t we will be building castles in the air.
How can we address that?
Two things are going on concurrently. The National Assembly is touring the country asking people’s views. But they are asking as if we are dealing in a virgin land where nothing is on ground. They are not taking into account what the actual situation on ground is. Now, we have The Patriots and other people saying, no, we have to look at that.
In other words, we have to find a way of returning to democratic ideals. Under present circumstances, you cannot have two-thirds of eligible voters not voting and say you are practicing democracy.
However, the younger generation may do a better job of it because if you watch, some of them know more about Nigeria than we the older ones.
We often report the negative things about our youths.
In this same country, have you wondered why young Nigerian men and women are winning laurels globally? Even, take Dr Akinwunmi Adesina of the African Development Bank, AfDB; Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of the World Bank. A Nigerian woman, Kemi Badenoch, is the leader of the Conservative Party, the power centre of Britain. We should start looking at: What is it that God is telling us? Why is it that we are producing stars whose light is only for foreigners and not for us?
When you get to a situation like that in a country, go back to the fundamentals. That is What The Patriots are saying. Let’s go back to the fundamentals.
You believe those fundamentals will address insecurity, corruption and other problems of the country?
Ultimately, it will give you a path to the future. And as you discover this new path and follow it, these other things will be falling into place – the things that should be done to have unity, cater for your people, and things that ought to be done so that people are punished when they do things that are wrong. Part of our problems right now which is what leads to the situation of dealing with the youths is the fact that there is no punishment. They see people who publicly are said to have stolen billions of naira and everybody see it as ‘it is his time.’ A society like that is not a normal society.
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