We ‘re facing the consequences of leaving the path of sanity – Ciroma

BY HENRY UMORU
Mallam Adamu Ciroma, 78, a journalist, administrator, politician and leader is a very strong voice for the North.  He was appointed Governor of the the Central Bank of Nigeria in 1976 and served as Minister of Industry, later Agriculture and then Finance. As a politician, in 1979, he was one of the National Party of Nigeria, NPN presidential aspirants; but he came third where former President Shehu Shagari got the ticket and Maitama Sule came second in the primary.

The founding member of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was the chairman of PDP Convention Electoral Panel that produced Prince Vincent Ogbulafor-led National Working Committee, NWC in March 8, 2008. Ahead the 2011 polls, he became the chairman of the Northern Political Leaders’ Forum, NPLF that produced Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as the northern consensus candidate against President Goodluck Jonathan at the PDP presidential Primary.

After the 2011 political scenario where the PDP jettisoned zoning, the Elder Statesman decided to go on recess. In this interview with Vanguard, the Potiskum, Yobe State- born politician bared his mind on Nigeria at 52, Boko Haram and the powerful nature of the governors among others. Excerpts:

NIGERIA is 52 years, are we where we ought to be?

We are where we are and there is no call to cry over spilt milk. If we have been different people doing things in different ways, we would have been somewhere else, but because of the nature of people here and the way events are being conducted, we are able to achieve what we have done.

You will become dissatisfied with yourself if you compare yourself with countries like Malaysia where in 1960 we are about the same state.

Ciroma

Today, they have become practically a developed country whereas you know and I know where we are today. We have no cause to blame anybody. We have ourselves to hold responsible for where we are.

Where did we get it wrong?

I personally will say that we started going off the track in 1966 with the military coup. Before then the law and doing things constitutionally and legally was the parameter for conduct of public affairs,the might was not the right, the right was the might.

Creating of disorder

In 1966, we abandoned that part and we started along the path of self destruction.

The military, the people who did the coup d’état accused the politicians of the First Republic of corruption and of creating disorder. After the coup, the military started accusing the civil service of being mindless because they disobeyed financial instruction, that is, the rule which governs how to spend public money.

With the breakdown of constitutional and legal order followed by the breakdown of the order of conducting the civil service and followed by the abandonment of the financial instructions on how to conduct public finances, gradually, we left the path of sanity and of good conduct.

We adopted the path of self selection of the rules we want to follow, of the general order we want to follow and of the laws we want to follow. Once you do that, the consequences become bigger and more serious as the years go by.

Apart from the military, what about civilians, who came to power in between?

After 1966, there was an attempt by General Gowon to restore the country to civil rule and he changed his mind and so the military went again, intervened to remove a military man in government.

To me, this is double jeopardy. Then, Murtala and Obasanjo outlined a programme for return to civilian rule which they implemented, but at the end of 1986, there was another coup, after the 1983 election, I repeat, after the 1983 election, there was another coup. So, you will see this occasional interruption and the return to unconstitutionalism and lawlessness has become the habit.

Even though we are in democratic regime

No democracy. You have to see the thing from 1966, military coup, military coup, return to civilian rule, and another military coup. In 1985, there was another military coup, so, it has become a habit. Series of interruptions, series of abandonment of the rule of law and to me, this habit of regular abandonment of the rule of law is departure from how to conduct public affairs.

How can we get it right?

Nigerian leaders especially at the top, federal and the state,  ought to be people who are morally upright; whose objective for being in government is the improvement of the economic and social condition of the ordinary Nigerian. That objective must be kept, focussed and constant.

The objectives of leadership should be the improvement of the condition of the led, the masses, and the ordinary people. It is not for the benefit of the leader or the politicians that his condition should outpace the condition of the people he is leading but in Nigeria, this has become the standard behavior and if you believe as I do that the condition of the leaders must not be too far away from the condition of the ordinary people but now the distance is too far.

What informed your your obvious silence after President Jonathan emerged as PDP candidate? Before the 2011 PDP Presidential Primary election you were very vibrant with NPLF where you were the Chairman.

We formed the PDP in the hope that PDP will be able to deal with the problem which I have outlined and politically, we got it right because we wanted a party that will be able to cover the whole country and that will give opportunity to people from all parts of the country. So, anybody who is capable can aspire to the leadership of this country, in other words so that we will be able to get one thing right, that is the issue of leadership.

And the party took position knowing the problem of the country; we agreed there should be six zones, three in the North and three in the South. Two, that the presidency should rotate between North and South, when it comes to the North, it can be any of the three zones, when it is the South, it should be any of the three zones and that was the position of the party.

The decision was firmly established and President Obasanjo was the president while the present president was the Governor of Bayelsa. They were all there when the decision was taken and when Obasanjo’s time was about to come to an end, he tried against the established position of the party to extend his rule, we all refused it and it didn’t workout.

Criticising  his decision

So, he then single-handedly choose Yar’Adua to replace him and we from the North did not contest his decision, we did not criticize his decision; we agreed with the position he took because the position he took was in conformity with the decision of the party.

Unfortunately, Yar’Adua died after he had done nearly four years and some of us argued that this issue ought to be examined and properly discussed so that we can deal with the situation which arose. The South had done eight years; Yar’Adua had done four years for the North, what happens to the remaining four years of the North.

Every problem has a solution unless you are not looking for it. We told them that we should discuss this thing and arrive at something which is fair and just. The leaders of the party made wuru wuru and they decided to abandon the position of the party and adopt a new one so that legally the acting president can become the president.

Let me tell you that nobody contested this position, we all agreed. We wanted the party to deal with the political situation which is the South has done 8 years and the North has done only 4 years.

They took a position to allow the president to continue to replace Yar’Adua and of course there are advocacy of situation where he should continue after that. I will not mention what took place and I from that time felt that this party has lost its way, lost the moral position of sticking by its words, of sticking by politics and that if you are going to change, you must discuss so that we can agree.

This party has abandoned that moral and legal position and from that time to now, I avoided getting involved in the affairs of the party because I did not want to adopt a moral and political position which I believe is not right, I don’t want to be seen as always been critical.

Won’t the present leadership of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur change things?

I took my position before Bamanga Tukur became the leader of the party.

But he is pleading that aggrieved members should please come back

I am saying no, that is the position I took before Bamanga Tukur became the chairman of the party.

Agreement and renegotiation

So, my position is based on moral position. It is based on sticking to agreement and the re-negotiation if there is need.So, nothing has changed.

On rising insecurity  and Boko Haram insurgency

The way forward is to find a away to bring insecurity to an end. Without security, law and order, the country can only become confused and disorderly and development of the  resources of this country -human capacity,  materials resources, minerals and others, in terms of petroleum crude and others may not be possible.

On synergy with governors in the North to address the Boko Haram issue

Last week, General T.Y Danjuma publicly complained about the powers of the governors. Some weeks before he had made similar observation and generally most of us agreed with the position he has indicated.

The number one problem of development and advancement I think is in the North where the governors have not been able to correctly identify what the problems of their states are and how to deal with these problems. Because of the total powers they have, General Danjuma said they have pocketed the Houses of Assembly and all other institutions.

So, talking to them, or talking to somebody like that may not be easy. I will confess that I have not, except on one or two occasions discussed this particular insecurity and the matter of conducting the affairs of Yobe State.

And the first issue I raised with the governor was that, he being the governor, irrespective of the party he belongs to, should know that he is the governor of all and  should be just and fair to all.  I made this statement relating to the distribution of fertilizers when they were available. They were giving the fertilizers to political party leaders who resell to the farmers and I told him that was wrong.

The second, some leaders in the state were identified as belonging to different parties and those local governments where they have influence were not paid their salaries, I told him that was wrong. There was no party that was in control of the state except the government party and so, it was wrong to identify certain people and refuse to pay them salaries because they belonged to certain political parties.

In other words, the issues I raised with him were issues of justice and fairness, not the issue of party, even when I was a federal minister I never influenced the state government because they belong to another party. If you want to be a democrat  you must act as one.

So, the origin of Boko Haram and insecurity as I see it is because of injustice and lack of fairness in the way the citizens of the state are treated.

When the leaders of Boko Haram were killed in Borno and they went to bury the leaders, some of the leaders were again shot and the way the police treated the murder issue, which was filmed and shown on television nationally and internationally showed that these people were unjustly treated and it is this that made them become anti-authority, anti-prison, anti-police, anti-emirs anti-chiefs, anti-traditional Mallams.

So, if you want to effectively deal with this matter, you must go back to fairness and justice. No outsider or the Northern leaders, who are not in control of the state, who cannot deal with the matter of Police and Army can solve this problem of Boko Haram for you, it is the duty of the federal government and state government. And how the state government has taken over the control of the local government, all these combined are going against the provision of the constitution.

What about dialoguing with members of the Boko Haram?  

You have to know your position first before you can dialogue with anybody. If the constitution says there should be democratic local government, that they should be elected, in what part of Nigeria are they elected? You said there should be revenue from the federation account to the local government, the revenue does not go there, the state government will hold unto the revenue.

The purpose of joint account was to enable the state government to add more before distributing it to the local government. Instead of adding more, they steal all. Everybody knows this, from the president, members of the National Assembly to governors, to all ordinary people. What is happening is in complete disagreement with the constitution.

The governors who were elected have abandoned the constitution, have pocketed the local government and in a situation where they do what they like, how do you think things will be correctly conducted? So, there are basic issues in this country that are not right.

Does that explain the fear that governors may hijack state police, if introduced?

I have refused to get involved in this kind of discussion. When things are done basically wrong or for the wrong reason, it is pointless taking a position.

On Constitution amendment

I believe that the review of the constitution should be done for the right reason to eliminate what is wrong, to put in place what is right and to ensure that the way things are run in this country is according to the constitution and the rule of law.

Since 1960, I know that Nigerians have been talking about how to review the constitution. But I am saying that it is not the lawb or the constitution that is wrong, it is the way people behave, it is the way leaders behave and that is the problem.

If you have good leaders, even if the constitutional document is flawed, they will operate it in the right way. Even if we have the best constitution in the world and you ask Nigerians to operate, they will find ways of going around it. So, if you want to put things right, you must do the right thing.

As a former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, what is your position on the proposed N5, 000 note?

I don’t know. Normally I only want to commend the Central Bank, I know that before it was proposed, it went through certain processes and then the National Assembly and other institutions opposed and the opposition found and overwhelmed the proposal.

The only right thing I can say is that those in opposition appeared to be more numerous and they also have arrived to talk about it, so, in that regard, we appear to be going about it in the right way.

Normally, how I know Central Bank works, they consider all sorts of things, clinical and intellectually upright way of doing things before they take a position because normally Central Bank avoids controversy. As I said, I don’t know enough to oppose their position. Instinctively, I should support Central Bank, but I don’t know if I am right.

Members of the National Assembly are not happy that Mr. President does not implement their resolutions and some passed bills not assented to and Impeachment threat handing.  What is your position on this?

The National Assembly is made up of a number of people with different backgrounds and experience and politically unimpeachable and some, but they have a constitutional role. What I will like to say about the people in the National Assembly is to stick to their rules in the constitution.

They should avoid sensationalism and doing things just for the noise of doing it or for some other reasons. If they do what they are supposed to do constitutionally, according to the law, they can then have the power to make or mar according to the law, but there are things with which we cannot understand.

There was a situation where a Minister entered into an agreement with certain other bodies, there was an enquiry, the National Assembly conducted an enquiry, and I think they reported to the government that that one was illegal. The Minister is still there.

There was this issue of oil subsidy, enquiry was conducted, a lot of other committees were involved, government dealt with the people involved and some people are still there. You don’t just know what is happening.

What we want to see is that things are handled in a transparent way. So, I urge the National Assembly and the executive and all institutions of government to do things in a transparent way so that they can attract the confidence of us the ordinary Nigerians.