2014 Confab report will ease tensions in Nigeria, says Madubuike

Dr. Ikechukwu Madubuike

Buhari can tackle corruption without making it a cardinal issue

Second Republic Minister of Education and Minister of Health in the late Gen. Sani Abacha administration who was also a delegate at the 2014 National Conference, Dr. Ikechukwu Madubuike spoke with KODILINYE OBIAGWU on how the implementation of the reports of the conference will ease the tension in the polity. Excerpts
President Muhammadu Buhari’s fight against corruption
No one can rationalize theft, but the certain sense of triumphalism in the process can, like corruption, also destroy a country. When Buhari came to power in January 1984, he did exactly what he is doing now. He pronounced the political class guilty, detained them in prison. He believed all of us had stolen and we all had to prove our innocence before we were released.

The tribunal jailed people between 90 years and 200 years. Many decades later, it is still the same mindset. At a point in the country then, the people were complaining, there was hardship, the economy was in the doldrums, there was no food, people had to queue for their ration of essential commodities.
If he chooses to prioritise corruption, it will be because he is doing what his government considers urgent. It is left for the public to say what they want. His anti-graft campaign so far begs for some questions.
Have you used the recovered money to revitalize the economy? Are you building schools or industries, investing in human capital development or in agriculture? The money said to have been recovered is enough to pilot the national budget.
Previous governments have successfully tackled corruption without stopping to run the government or making it seem as if it were the defining issue of governance. I believe that Buhari can fight corruption without making it a cardinal issue.

Non-implementation of the conference recommendations

President Buhari should have a rethink about the implementation of the conference recommendations. Even when his party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) has said that the implementation is not part of its agenda, Buhari should know that it is part of the agenda of the people, so he has a moral duty to implement the report.

Most Nigerians want a change and implementing the recommendations of the conference should be part of that change mantra Buhari is touting. Restructuring the country should be part of that change mantra. However, if Buhari thinks otherwise, his successor might find the recommendations useful and implement them. It is unlikely that there will be another conference while this one has not been implemented.

Nigerians anticipate a change that will benefit the society not what will benefit only a section. A change that benefits a section is not beneficial. The tempo today is change, including political change, restructuring the federal structure, which is not working. Our federation today is not working; it is working for a clique in power, a minority but not for a majority. For example, something is wrong when the military brass announces over the radio about protecting the territorial integrity of Nigeria and that no section will secede. Are we at war? There will be a massive change because things can’t continue like this.

Restiveness across the country

The country is losing a lot to the situation of things in some areas. The South East and the South South are the most recent, but for the past four years we have been fighting another type of insurgency in the North East. That insurrection in the North East didn’t start four years ago; Boko Haram was there before 1914 Amalgamation. That revolt was as a result of not listening to the genuine desires of the people. It is costing Nigeria the lives of many citizens, money and opportunities. The cost is unquantifiable.

We don’t value the lives of our citizens and that is why when civilians are protesting, military might is dispatched to crush them. It is a monumental cost from that point of view. There are also the losses on the economy but what is the economic worth of a lost live?
We cannot develop without peace. The Avengers in the Niger Delta have realised that they can cripple the economy by blowing up the oil pipelines and other oil installations, if they continue, Nigeria will be crippled.

Restructuring and threat of breaking up the country

Nigeria cannot break up because of the certain level of freedom accorded to all the parts. The only thing we are saying in restructuring is that the centre will not be as restricting; it will not be playing the role of a headmaster, looking over everyone and supervising. There is still going to be a function for the Federal Government just as there is still a function for the Federal Government in Canada, United States of America (USA), Australia and elsewhere. When there is a breather, there will be less tension in the country and less pressure on the Federal Government. This will halt this habit of waiting till the end of the month to collect allocation, whether one contributed to it or not.

Political regionalism in Nigeria

Democracy is based on multi-party system otherwise it becomes autocracy. We cannot all correlate into one basket, and there is nothing wrong in regionalism as long as it is within the bracket of Nigeria. It can even lead to a more stable Nigeria where we have each section of the country competing to be as good or better than the other in terms of development; looking at how to deploy its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), energy and strength to bring out the best in the people and have a regional parliament where all the people meet and take decisions for the interest of the country, without forgetting the interest of where you come from. That is the kind of pluralism that will work. And not the pluralism where one section dominates all the time, it doesn’t make for growth, competition and development.
In the Nigerian Constitution, the Exclusive List outweighs the Concurrent List, giving extraordinary powers to the Federal Government; the powers of the Federal Government should be reduced to start with. When this is done along with the amount of money that it gets, the attraction to go and die in the federal legislature will be less and the quest to be president will no more be a do-or-die affair.

Marginalization of the South East states

The South East, given its autonomy, human capital resource, will develop faster.
Presently, its development is way below its potential. Most of its people are outside, applying their creative energies for the development of wherever they reside. If that energy is deployed back home, the place will be bustling with industries, small scale and big scale. Ironically, when the South East people finally develops those areas they reside, they are seen as a usurper, but the offense is increasing the value of wherever they reside, even where their hosts fail to do likewise. In many instances he has paid the ultimate price. Traditionally, the South Easterner is a migrant; the Igbo will always go out because of the ideology the late Nnamdi Azikiwe propagated as against that propagated by Obafemi Awolowo and the Sarduana. Where Zik was a federalist, who wanted a big Nigeria, Awolowo and the Sarduana were regionalists.

South East as the bride of Second Republic politicking

That was how Zik saw Nigeria. You have to put yourself in a position where the West and the North will be looking for you and you decide where you want to be. I will like the South East to have a party that unites them and represents their aspiration within Nigeria. That party should choose which of the partners – North, Middle Belt, South-South or South West – it wants to work with, form a coalition and pursue one interest. The other parties will look for you and if they don’t, you will team up with other parties. Every politics is local.

It is not to its interest that the South East has put all it eggs in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) basket, because we are still a minority in the PDP. The other people can unite and reject whatever we want. So, if you want to be a minority be a good minority. That is what is happening in Quebec. In Canada, there is a Sovereignist Provincial Party called Parti Québécois (PQ) and they have been looking for secession for over a century. They have not got it but the party had most of the times ruled the Quebec province. And because Canadians don’t want them to leave, they are doing a number of things to entice them including making sure that some of their children are Prime Ministers of Canada, those of them in the Liberal Party.
The South East is not the only secessionist group in the world today. But elsewhere, they have the political party that drives their quest for self-determination. It is not the same thing here. Ours is a grudge relationship. And one of the reasons the civil war was fought was to teach the Igbo a lesson. Now it seems that every government that comes in wants to teach the Igbo a lesson.