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Ebun-Olu-Adegboruwa

Being the Chairman of the National Assembly, it was too much of an open declaration for the Senate President to give an impression that he is opposed to restructuring, because in that regard, what then are you supposed to be amending when you already took a position that you don’t support devolution of powers? Which is what the Nigerian people are expecting will come out of the constitutional review meetings. So, it is unfortunate that the person who is the leader of the National Assembly has betrayed the emotions and biases of the legislators, which then shows that this constitutional review is more or less like a pretence or charade.

In any case, with due respect to the distinguished members of the Senate, you hardly can find any National Assembly that has not embarked on constitutional review. It has become a traditional method of finding job for the boys. The way I see constitutional review is simply that people see it as an avenue to line their pockets because a lot of money is voted for the exercise in the tenure of every National Assembly. So, to me, it has become a traditional honey pot and that is the only reason they are embarking on it, even when they know that the exercise cannot birth Nigerian’s aspirations of a true federation. For me, any constitutional amendment that does not lead to breaking down the powers of the Federal Government over the major revenue platform of the country is a deception.

The truth is that the people who are claiming to be amending the constitution will not want to do it in a way that will make them lose their jobs. They won’t do that; 2023 is almost here. This current exercise is meant to calm frayed nerves and give Nigerians the impression that something is being done. Sometime ago, the APC claimed to set up a committee on restructuring, headed by the governor of Kaduna State. As we speak, nobody knows the outcome of that effort, in spite of the fact that they travelled all over the country. So, what the government does is that once it sees that there is collective agitation and it is gaining ground and the government is pushed to the wall and is getting chocked, it will just come out with one policy that will sort of pour water on the agitation, to create an escape route for itself. So, I see this constitutional amendment as an escapist route for the Federal Government through the National Assembly, which has never has the courage to look the executive in the eye in respect of any policy, since it came into being. This is a rubber-stamp National Assembly that endorses even the most ridiculous things. It is a National Assembly that endorses everything that comes from the executive. So, to that extent, they cannot do any fundamental or radical restructuring through the amendments that will not suit the purpose of their paymaster, which is the Presidency. So, I don’t want Nigerians to be deceived that there can be any genuine amendment that will birth the kind of federation that we all hope for.

What is your take on the argument that the 1999 Constitution should be replaced with the 1963 Constitution?

The challenge we have with the 1999 Constitution is that it is not a product of the free will of the people. It was an imposition by the military. So, whatever document we are going to adopt for this nation should go through a referendum, a discussion process. We don’t want to adopt the 1963 Constitution only to discover that there are also problems therein. So, the constitution should be put up for discussion. We should discuss the 1963 Constitution, 1979 Constitution, 1999 Constitution and others and then look at what best suits Nigeria, based on our collective understanding in a discussion that is no holds barred. Without a discussion I do not support that we should just go and pick a document and adopt it and then we go back to square one. The 1963 Constitution may be good, but it will be better for us to comb it afresh and look at some of the provisions that may not even be in tune with the modern day realities. We are talking about 1963, which is so many decades ago.

From your explanation of restructuring, it is obvious that the President will be stripping himself of powers and giving same to state governors. Do you think Nigeria can ever have a President that will be courageous and altruistic enough to embark on restructuring?

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I think it is just a matter of individual strength of character. He will stand in history to be the person that birthed the growth of a true Nigeria if this present leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, decides to genuinely embark on proper restructuring. I don’t think it is a difficult thing; it just depends on whether the person can be selfless and patriotic enough. You will recall that Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua was elected President after General (Olusegun) Obasanjo left power. And he (Yar’Adua) was a man of good conscience and said, ‘I recognise that the process that brought me to power is flawed. And I cannot continue to perpetuate that system.’ And he set up the Justice Uwais panel to suggest to him ways of improving the electoral system. But unfortunately, he didn’t stay long enough to implement the decisions of the Uwais panel, which has since gone into oblivion. So, we can pray to have another Yar’Adua, who probably benefitted from a fraudulent electoral system but was willing to restructure in such a way as to leave a legacy of free and fair elections for the people.

It is for this President to look back. At the time he was elected in 2015, when he defeated an incumbent President, the system must have been so transparent as to allow the incumbent power not to dominate; you cannot then get to power and then be scared of losing power, because you benefited from a system that was so transparent, that brought you in as an opposition. Otherwise, if the thing is to manipulate electoral contest every time, we will never have had General Buhari in power. So, it is a shock to us that having attained that power since 2015, it’s been so difficult for him even to improve on any aspect of the electoral system that he met. The National Assembly has been begging him to amend the Electoral Act, every time they put it before him, he turns it down. There is another amendment pending in the National Assembly and INEC is crying every day, ‘Amend this; let’s have electronic voting,’ but the President would not agree. So, I think that it is for us to just generally judge our leaders in terms of their patriotism. You shouldn’t individualise office, to say that you are losing power. No, you are building a nation. And I don’t think it is proper for the President to look at it like he is struggling for power with the states.

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This is the only country where the President is an executive dictator. He appoints the people who will conduct the election that will bring him into office; he has the power to hire and fire any Electoral Commissioner or INEC Chairman. It doesn’t happen for a President to become so powerful. There are 399 sections of the 1999 Constitution that mention the word ‘President.’ That constitution by the military imposed on us an executive dictator. I think the President should, in the interest of this nation, agree that that constitution should go and he should write his name in gold in history to be the one to midwife that process to a very logical conclusion and that will be in line with his covenant  when he was campaigning and he went to Chatham House in London to make a solemn covenant that he was going to embark upon fiscal federalism and devolution of powers and resource control. I don’t think history will be kind to him if he goes without achieving those objectives.

Due to the unwillingness of the Federal Government, the agitation for restructuring has slowly graduated into increasing secessionist agitations. Do you think further delay may lead to the country to a point where unity might become an impossible task to achieve?

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I think already, it is looking impossible to preach unity, if you go by what is happening in the South-East. It doesn’t take a soothsayer to know that law and order has taken flight from some parts of the country. In the North-East, in particular, terrorists hold sway, in the South-East, agitation for Biafra is ongoing; in the South-West, there is agitation for Yoruba Nation or Oodua Republic; the North Central has clearly declared that they are not part of the North and they also want their own autonomy. So, I think it is a proof of the saying that those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable. It is not the people of Nigeria that we will blame; it is our leaders, especially those who canvassed for votes and have refused to live by their covenant and promises to the people of Nigeria. For us, matters relating to resource control, for instance, there is no way you can suppress such agitation. It will come to a point when the people of the Niger Delta will say enough is enough, because the oil will soon finish. The tendencies we are witnessing in the country now will seem to give vent to the prediction by the United States that we are going to approach a situation of balkanisation, because the signposts are all evident across the land. People are disenchanted; everybody wants to take control of their destiny and resources within their regions or zones.

So, I believe that if we do not agree to work together, it will then mean that there will be an agreement to go separate ways, which nobody prays for. I think that this country has a lot going for it in terms of finding a level playing field that can birth unity and progress but people cannot continue to ride rough-shod over others, impunity cannot continue to reign while people pretend as if it’s business as usual. Unemployment has gone to the roof, inflation is climbing, infrastructures have decayed, education has collapsed, there is insecurity and they are mooting the idea of increasing fuel price to about 400 per litre. The indices across the land are very scary and it doesn’t look like there is anybody in charge of governance, which is why Wole Soyinka said we are approaching a failed state. For me, I desire that Nigeria should remain together if our leaders will listen to the agitations of the people but, of course, I cannot ask people to continue to keep themselves within the bounds of suffering and frustration in the guise of maintaining nationhood, if there can be other ways of enhancing the economy prosperity of the people within their locations or regions.

The burning of INEC offices seems to be calculated at incapacitating INEC to conduct next general elections. Can this possibly spell an extension of the President’s tenure if INEC is not able to successfully conduct election?

We are a nation governed by law and the most important one is the constitution. The tenure of the current President cannot be extended by one second; whether Nigeria burns or rain or brimstones fall from heaven. As long as we are still operating this constitution, the tenure of this president is predictable, it’s determined, it’s statutory; nobody has any power to extend it.  Even if election does not hold, that will not lead to the extension of the tenure of the current President. The constitution is clear about what happens if election does not hold.

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Having said that, there is no reason why election should not hold in Nigeria. The situation we have in the South-East now is not as bad as what we had in the North-East in 2015 and elections held successfully then. So, it is possible to isolate particular zones and areas where there may be violence for election to hold in other areas where there is peace and when there is a return of peace, we can always go back to conduct elections in those places.

 The time lag for transition is so elongated in the constitution that nobody can use that (South-East situation) to birth a third-term agenda for the current President. It will not work. Let INEC not sell that dummy to anybody. Whether there are fifth columnists within this regime that are being paid to go and orchestrate violence in the South-East by burning INEC offices and whether even INEC headquarters in Abuja is burnt down, this current regime will expire in 2023! No Jupiter can extend that tenure! So, if anybody is doing that for the purpose of getting any illegal extension, they should better have a rethink because Nigerians will not accept it. We will not accept an extension of the tenure of this regime, we will not accept a military rule; we will not accept anything that will elongate this wickedness, suffering and violence! And it is not a new thing for us to demand that the tenure of this regime should end; if the President will not reward us with good governance, at least he can reward us with integrity by sticking to the oath that he took on the 29th of May 2019 when he was sworn in for second term. There is no provision for being sworn in for third term, either by extension or failure to conduct election. So, for me, Nigerians are ready; we are not blind people and we are not daft. Whatever is going on in the South-East, in terms of INEC offices, all these press conferences that the INEC Chairman is holding and sending warnings, he is only warning himself; it doesn’t concern us as Nigerians. Whatever happens, this particular Muhammadu Buhari regime will come to an end in 2023. That idea (tenure extension) cannot hold water, nobody should sell it, nobody should dream about it, we will not accept it as a nation.

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