MY ACTION ON SECTION 207(2) IN 1978 NOT ANTI-AWOLOWO:

BUT A SEARCH FOR JUSTICE AND LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR ALL

Professor Omo Omoruyi

I recall the visit to me in 1993 of Senator John Wash Pam, a colleague in the Constituent Assembly and later Deputy President of the Senate in the Second Republic. He in the presence of my staff called me "Section 207" and I laughed at it and called him "point"

When he left, my staff wanted to know the meaning of "Section 207" and why I was called by that name by Senator Pam and why I simply responded "point"? I could not go into history. I simply told them that as colleagues in the Constituent Assembly in 1977/78, John with Chief Sam Mbakwe was the Whip of the Caucus Group, the Majority Voting Group to which I was a member in the Constituent Assembly. Of course, I told them that "Section 207" was a landmark issue that bore my name in the Constituent Assembly. I told my staff that in the US such a piece of legislation would bear the name of the promoter. Calling me "Section 207" was the closest approximation of the US practice.

Today, looking back, I am happy for what I did through that effort even though the Supreme Military Council deleted it before the final Constitution was promulgated into the 1979 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Another Military Junta, the Armed Forces Ruling Council had reason to revisit that piece of legislation in 1987.

I later directed my staff to add the document from the Constituent Assembly of 1977/78 to the list of items the Librarian of CDS was collecting. Once we had some of them, I assigned Volume Three of the Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly to a Research Assistant to find out how Section 207 came about and how I was associated with it. He came back and exclaimed, "Oga you did many things we do not know and you do not talk about it!" My reply was, "I thought over time our Universities would subject some of these things to analysis and come up with books". It never happened. That is why people like Mohammed Haruna in a country of the blind are waxing strong with the power of distortion. As a way of getting around this distortion, I was advising Mohammed Haruna to go to the record in the public domain and stop the distortion of what was part of my history and of the history of Nigeria.

I received many letters on the piece of history in my reaction to Mohammed Haruna’s wanton distortion of my past in the politics of Nigeria. Some commended me and some used the opportunity to ask other questions. I would have liked to respond to all the questions. But to do that I would be writing a book. However there is one that I would like to respond to. What was involved in the issue around Section 207(2) of the Draft Constitution of 1977/78?

Since my rejoinder to Mohammed Haruna’s distortion of my place in Nigerian political history, I have been inundated with requests that I should expatiate on the correction of facts I provided to what Mohammed Haruna said about the Section in the Draft Constitution as it affected Chief Obafemi Awolowo. That had nothing to do with me in 1978 and since then except in Mohammed Haruna’s imagination. Since Chief Awolowo’s name did not feature in the debate, I will not comment further on the matter. For the interest of readers, I am aware of the communications between Chief Awolowo and General Obasanjo. Specifically I read some that appeared in the Nigerian newspapers on December 12, 1979.

For the interest of those who pleaded with me that they would like to know what was the issue between the two eminent Yoruba-Nigerians in relation to Section 207. All I knew was that it started with the letter of General Obasanjo to Chief Awolowo. General Obasanjo literally called Chief Awolowo an "ungrateful person" because it was he, General Obasanjo who caused the amendment to be effected in the Draft Constitution, which would have excluded Chief Awolowo from the presidential race in August 1979. In reply, Chief Awolowo fired back as follows:

I will not comment further on these communications between General Obasanjo and Chief Awolowo because they had nothing to do with me and with what happened in the Constituent Assembly, as far I knew. Also let the relationship between Chief Awolowo and General Obasanjo in 1978-79 be a matter for the archive and not in the public interest or academic interest for me to comment on. When Mohammed Haruna brought it into his comment, he just wanted to make it an issue in the politics of 2003 in Yorubaland. The way he smuggled it into his comment it was obvious to me that he was up to some mischief.

SECTION 207

Mohammed Haruna alluded to Section 277 and I corrected him that what he was referring to was Section 207(2) of the Draft Constitution of 1077.

I also said that my motion for amending Section 207(2) was approved by an unprecedented and overwhelming majority of 121 to 16 that cut across the known divide of ethnicity, geography and religion in Nigeria.

What I did not say was the respect I earned from all sections of the country because of how I failed to yield to pressure, temptation and threat during the period of the two days in 1978.

Finally I directed Mohammed Haruna’s attention to Volume Three of the Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly 1977/78, which was a public document and freely distributed in 1977/78. I am sure it is still in the major libraries of Nigerian Universities and Newspaper organizations.

I am at a loss as to what one commentator is asking me to do. He challenged me to say more about the Section 207(2) and not hide under the usual argument that the official documents are available when actually I know that they are not. They are. They are not privileged documents.

What I shall therefore do in order to answer the challenger are two. I shall state (a) what the Section is and (2) the use the contribution from a member could be put to demonstrate how popular the measure was in 1978.

In the end, I shall name some of the 121 members who voted for the measure from different parts of the country. The purpose of this is to confirm the geographical, ethnic and religious spread of those who supported the motion. If one wants to adopt ethnic explanation of the pattern of vote from the roll call, there was equal number of Yoruba voters for and against.

In the end it would be demonstrated that the measure had a national mandate to it from the geographical spread and number of members of the Constituent Assembly who voted for the Amendment.

Another Amendment initiated by Dr. Chuba Okadigbo that was widely supported also suffered the same fate. I am referring to Amendment that would have fundamentally restructured the armed forces was deleted.

One would have thought that for a measure that enjoyed such a widespread support, the Supreme Military Council headed by General Olusegun Obasanjo should not have altered the Amendment.

This was why another military junta revisited the matter in 1988. For the information of Mohammed, I was in the University of Benin as the Deputy Vice Chancellor when a Decree was promulgated debarring certain persons who held offices in the past from contesting election and debarring for life those who were found guilty of corrupt practices in the past. The effective date was October 1, 1960. It applied to certain civilian officers listed in Schedule 2 who held offices from October 1, 1960 to January 15, 1966 and from October 1, 1979 to December 30, 1983. I am referring to the Participation in Politics and Elections (Prohibition) Decree 1987 also called Decree 25 of 1987. Did anyone accuse the regime then it had somebody like Chief Awolowo or Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in mind? In 1987, Omo Omoruyi was not in any official position then to be so labeled as trying to stop this or that.

For the interest of readers, Section 207 was a Transitional Provision in the Draft Constitution that would be effective only for the period of the series of election in 1979. For the person who asked me where it could be found in the 1979 Constitution, I‘d say it would not be there because the 1979 Constitution was supposed to be for the new civilian government that was established on October 1, 1979.

It had two parts. Section 207(1) lists the offices that come under the penalty of debarment during the first election in succession to the military regime in 1979.

Section 207(2) specifically says as follows:

My Amendment was meant to alter the effective date in Section 207(2). It was not meant change the substantive ethical and moral basis of debarment of persons. My Amendment was to substitute 1^st October 1960 for 15^th January 1966 as the effective date.

In moving the motion I said as follows:

This was the action I took in the interest of my people whose interest within the national interest I was watching in the Constituent Assembly. I am referring to the former political leaders of the old Midwestern Region led by the late Chief Dennis C. Osadebay. They came to see me; I was visibly shaken with what people of the old Benin and Delta Provinces went through in the old Western Region. They raised the critical question, how long were the minorities going to be discriminated against in Nigeria? The minority plight was my plank in the Constituent Assembly and they knew it.

They then educated me on how they would suffer as they suffered in past in the hands of the majority ethnic nationalities from the decision of the military to make the effective date of Section 207(2), January 15, 1966. They were not against the act of ensuring that only politicians of proven integrity were made to take over from the military. They did not claim to be saints; their case was that the effective date discriminated against the politicians of the old Midwestern Region, as they were the ones who were affected by two highly political Tribunals such as the Tribunal on the "Politics of Owegbe", a secret society and the Assets Tribunal. Both found against most of, if not all the top leaders of the new Region after January 15^th 1966.

The Owegbe Tribunal affected my people in Benin, especially Chief H. Omo Osagie the Iyase of Benin who was very instrumental in my election to the Constituent Assembly. The new Federal Military Government that took over in 1975 did not know the genesis and the mode of operation of this or other societies in Nigeria. That was why the attempt to define and ban secret societies in Nigeria by decree and later in the Constitution failed.

On the Asset Tribunal, there was clearly a case of discrimination against the people of Bendel State. I share their quest for justice and a level playing field. It should be noted that the West commenced an Asset Tribunal but it was quickly disbanded. There was nothing like that by the Federal Military Government and in the North and in the East.

Why did they have to come to me of all Members from Bendel in the Constituent Assembly? I was not an at-large-Representative of Bendel State. There must have been something that they found in me after discussing with most Members. Yes, I listened to them and I saw injustice and I thought I should fight it. More critically, it could only happen to a minority people in Nigeria from the south that had no voice in the Federal Military Government. It was my feeling that the political impotence of the southern minority was an issue that would rear its ugly head in future.

After a series of meetings with them, three options were identified that were:

My investigation told me option 1. was unacceptable to the military regime and to most members. One could not make the argument that past morally depraved persons should be allowed to succeed the military. This was why I dropped the plan to push for it and I told my political leaders from the old Midwestern Region so, that it would not be feasible to push for outright deletion. As Legislators in the US would say, "the votes are not there".

I then toyed with option 2. My argument was that if the military was interested in cleaning the political terrain of corrupt persons, we should go to when the then current military regime came to power with an agenda of wiping out corruption. And that was July 29, 1975. My investigation also showed that January 15^th 1966 was not a popular date with many people in the north understandably, being the date of the first military coup in Nigerian history. This was why I originally filed a motion that the amendment should be July 29^th, 1975. This turned out to be unacceptable to certain persons who were interested in supporting my motion. I filed the date July 29, 1975 nevertheless. Again, it was obvious that the votes were not there.

Finally I settled on Option 3. How I did it is something that has not been explained in writing anywhere. I settled on that few hours before the matter came up and I discussed it with Dr. Chuba Okadigbo that he should add his oratorical skill to what I shall say and he agreed and did it beautifully. This can be verified from the Proceedings that he spoke immediately after I made my speech supporting the Amendment. How did I do it?

On the floor of the Constituent Assembly I took advantage of the Standing Order that governed the debate. This was one saving grace in the operation of the Constituent Assembly and I am sure with all legislative houses that knowledge of the rules of debate can bestow some advantages. I knew the Standing Order inside out and I took advantage of this knowledge. If one read the Proceedings, one would see how I maneuvered the rules of debate to get the matter on the Order Paper and took the Assembly and in fact the country by storm.

In accordance with the Standing Order, I first of all had to seek the permission of the Chairman, which was the standard procedure for any plan to amend ones original Amendment. This was what I did. I stood up on the floor, sought the permission of the Chairman, which he routinely granted and amended my original Amendment by changing the 29^th July 1975 to 1st. October 1960 for the reason given above. It is true that all Nigerians in the North and South including the Midwest would be subject to October 1, 1960 and that any other date would have been discriminatory.

The political leaders of the Midwestern Region, especially those who were affected by the various Tribunals following the Murtala/Obasanjo 1975 military regime were initially not happy with me. But when I explained to them why outright deletion or going to July 29, 1975 was not feasible for the reasons given above, thy felt satisfied so long as the new plan would give them justice and a level playing field. Some of them who were experienced parliamentarians understood that that was the best that could be achieved in the circumstances that did not have a majority political party that could readily be organized behind a measure.

I never contributed to the debate after the few words I uttered when I moved what turned out in retrospect to be a historical motion. I never spoke to anyone about the Amendment during the debate. I never offered any explanation for one thing or the other about the Amendment. I never tried to persuade anybody.

The Amendment was not one of the issues discussed by the caucus to which I was an active member in the Constituent Assembly, which was the Majority Voting Group in the Assembly that was associated with the major decisions out of the Assembly. For the record, it was this Group that fought for the entrenchment of the Presidential System and the Geographical Spread in the election of the President and other landmark provisions in the Constitution. My forthcoming book drawing on the records of the Assembly dealt with some of these issues.

The Amendment was one issue, which I thought should have been allowed to be considered on its merit. I thought that members should be allowed to vote on the Amendment in accordance with the conscience of the individual members.

My view was that there was wisdom in the bowl of the Assembly; Members should be allowed to express themselves on the matter. This was why the debate on it took two days compared with just one day devoted to resolving the Sharia issue. In the end, Members were able to vote one way or the other on such a landmark issue according to the dictate of their conscience. This was what they did and in the end it was supported by a majority of 121 to 16.

I never succumbed to pressure when the issue to which I believed in was at stake. The Benin people through the Oredo Local Government Council who sent me to the Constituent Assembly in 1977 told me to act in accordance with my conscience and in the national interest. Resisting pressure was one way of carrying out this mandate. Making sure that a level playing field was established for all competitors was another.

I resisted the attempt from the most distinguished Chairman, Justice Udo Udoma who appealed to me to withdraw it since the conscience of the members had been awakened to the matter. He, in fact, assured me that he would send a brief to the Supreme Military Council on the matter that the debarment should be deleted from the Constitution. That would have been the No. 1 of the three options above. Did I believe him and did I believe that he could give my people justice and allow all Nigerians to have a level playing field? I was weighing these issues when he was holding a meeting with me around the Chairman desk on the floor of the Assembly when the Member for Kano Alhaji Shehu Abdullahi sought the permission of the Chairman to speak.

Alhaji Shehu, a Lecturer, College of Education, Kano, was one of the Members from the north who made many valuable contributions from his conscience in the Constituent Assembly. So when he and others sought the permission of the Chairman to speak, the Chairman quickly recognized him. Also he never discussed with me what he was going to say before he spoke. Quite unrelated to what the Chairman thought he was going to say, Alhaji Shehu started his contributions with the following words:

Did Mohammed Haruna know of this? What would be his interpretation of Alhaji Abdullahi's characterization of Omo Omoruyi? Would he agree with Alhaji Abdullahi that I deserved the nation’s respect, which led to the overwhelming support for the Amendment in 1979? Maybe Mohammed would not agree with that?

I will leave what I went through in the night after the first day’s debate to the imagination of readers. All I can say here is that I did not sleep in my house in the Satellite Town. I had too many visitors canvassing one thing or the other and making one kind of gesture or the other. I had to escape from my house and went to my good friend the late Dr. Obi Wali of blessed memory. I had to sleep in Dr. Obi Wali’s House and avoided all the pressures mounted on me to withdraw the Amendment. The pressure to withdraw was the one I felt most. I did not have the pressure to keep the matter on the Order Paper. One could imagine where the pressure was coming from. Why was the withdrawal so critical? A knowledge of the Rules governing debate would be an answer to this question.

Under the Standing Order spelling out the rules of debate in the Assembly, only the Mover of the Amendment could withdraw the Amendment. Knowing what was happening, Dr. Obi Wali and I discussed the matter and we both agreed that I should allow the wisdom in the bowl of the Assembly to determine the outcome of the matter. Meaning that I should not speak on the second day on the matter and that I should allow individual conscience to guide the outcome of the Amendment.

On the second day, in fact, I did not take the usual first bus I used to take to the Assembly. Instead, I took the second or the last bus. When I alighted from the Bus, a member whose name I would leave out of this discussion ran to with the expression, "I hope everything was all right". I had no idea of what he meant by "everything". I just replied, "Chief no problem". But he made another statement, "please do it quickly". I asked myself, "do what quickly?" Later, my interpretation was as follows: since I had got what was purported to have been sent me and I was satisfied, they were expecting me to get up immediately the Chairman took his seat and withdraw the Amendment to Section 207(2) standing in my name.

It became clear to me and to the Chairman and Members of the Constituent Assembly what I resisted the previous day and what the Chief was referring to. This was when Alhaji Shehu Abdullahi dropped the bombshell as follows:

What would Mohammed Haruna have done if he were in my shoe? Mohammed Haruna knew that in 1978 reporters around the Constituent Assembly demanded money before they could report stories about some Members. I was a newsmaker and I did not need to bribe a reporter to report me or use my picture in the newspaper. This was why Mohammed and his friends used to visit me in the Constituent Assembly for background briefs. Those who cared to ask me of the debate, I readily spoke to them. At no time did I tell anybody that we or I had a person in mind on this matter.

Would Haruna vouch for a fact that reporters would resist "brown envelopes" from members of the Constituent Assembly so that their pictures could appear in the newspapers? Would a newspaper reporter resist the "gift" of a bicycle in 1978? I resisted the gift of two Mercedes Benz cars and other goodies that Mohammed should have reported in his newspapers. I cannot recall whether he did. That was not newsworthy. Did he ever read the Hansards of the Assembly? Why did he not recall the attempt to bribe OMO OMORUYI with MERCEDES BENZ in 1978 and how OMO OMORUYI refused and stuck to his determination to ensure JUSTICE FOR ALL? He would have been on a safe ground by citing the information from Alhaji Shehu Abdullahi.

It is sad that he could not recall this and use it today; but he could only remember the gossips about who would be affected by the Amendment that stood in my name.

ONLY OMO OMORUYI FILED AMENDMENT ON SECTION 207 (2)

I was surprised that Omo Omoruyi was the only one who filed an Amendment on Section 207(2) in the Constituent Assembly. According to Dr BN. Amalaha (Isialangwa) of Imo State,

Dr. Amalaha, a fellow academician wanted to tell Members that we from the Universities had a higher standard. I was surprised when he tried to impress on the Members of the Constituent Assembly that that was at the root of my Amendment when he said as follows:

Other Members like Alhaji Shehu Malami Sarkin Sudan of Worno in Sokoto and Alhaji Shettima Ali Mongonu of Borno pleaded with the Chairman that the "Question be Now Put", meaning that the debate should come to a close so that the Assembly should vote one way or the other on the matter. Instead of putting the question as demanded by Members the Chairman for reason known to him decided to strike out the Amendment.

This unilateral action of the Chairman created an uncontrollable situation that was not resolved even with a one-hour break. The Chairman sensing the situation decided to reopen the matter as follows:

In the end, voting by "roll call" system was ordered. A geographical representation of a sample of the 121 who voted for the Amendment gave the following picture:

Members came to the Assembly as individuals; it did not stand to reason that one person no matter how gifted would be able to rally 121 eminent Members from all over the country to vote one way or the other. This was the power Mohammed attributed to me. I did not have it. These were eminent Nigerians; if they were not satisfied that it was in the best interest of Nigeria they would not go for it.

Mohammed saw some kind of conspiracy on the part of the 121 Members who voted for my Amendment coordinated by Omo Omoruyi. This was not the way the Constituent Assembly worked.

One could also ask a simple question, could all these eminent Nigerians such as named above be united and acting and conspiring to stop one person, Chief Awolowo? For conspiracy to hold the Members should be meeting around an issue. Could that issue be on how to stop Chief Awolowo?

Let me categorically state that all the 121 Members never met; they did not share information on who would be affected. From the composition of the 121 Members, I can vouch for it as of fact that they did not belong to the same political caucus in the Assembly. From the sample of the supporters of the Amendment above from various parts of the country, one could infer that that Amendment was what Nigeria wanted at that time.

I did not know what was the motive behind the action of the 121 Members who voted for the Amendment. It would be arrant nonsense to think that it was meant to stop one person in the 1978 Presidential race. The reaction of some Members during the debate and after the action in Assembly might have sensitized some people to wonder who was or was not affected among the known political leaders in the country.

What should be noted is that none of these Members ever had a word with me on the matter. Beside the few words I uttered on the day I moved the motion to amend the date, none of these eminent Nigerians ever asked me question about my motive. It would appear that they all acted from the purest of motive and in accordance with their conscience and not on my persuasion on the need to vote for the Amendment.

Of the 16 Members who voted against the Amendment, 14 were Yoruba one was from Bendel (Professor Ambrose F. Alli) and one was an Igbo (Chief CC Onoh).

Professor Alli and I were colleagues from the same University and from the same State and shared the same long seat in the Assembly. Throughout the two days, he never raised the matter with me. At the end of the debate and voting, he never questioned my motive because he knew that our people in the old Midwest had approached him too.

Chief CC Onoh shared the same Street with me in the Satellite Town and caucused with on many political issues. He never asked me why I moved the Amendment because he knew that those who approached me from the old Midwestern Region were of the same political party with him in the First Republic, the NCNC. In the end, he never questioned my motive.

What happened that day is a matter of record and should not be left to speculation. Nigerians including Mohammed Haruna and all others who are asking me to expatiate on what I meant when I called his attention to the Proceeding to the Constituent Assembly are lazy. One even accused me that I was referring people to "secret documents" of the military that did not exist or had been destroyed. I cannot win!

For goodness sake, the Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly of 1977/78 should be in all the libraries of reputable Universities in Nigeria. I recall University of Benin Library had a set. The accuser can also go to the National Library of Nigeria. As the former Chairman of the National Library Board of Nigeria, I know that law makes the National Library a depository of all such government documents. I recall the National Library of Nigeria routinely go after documents even when the law says that publishers should send copies to it.

My accusers can also go the Members of the Constituent Assembly in 1977/78 from their areas and check what I have just quoted. In fact, I recently sent for my copies from Nigeria when I was writing an account of how the Sharia issue was resolved in the Constituent Assembly in 1977/78. On how other matters were resolved is part of the subject of my book due to be released to the public in Nigeria soon.

There are other matters that some inquirers want me to respond to such as the meaning of certain feats associated with Chief Obasanjo compared with other political generals in the past. One even went on to accuse me for giving the credit of ending the war in January 1970 to General Obasanjo, "a mere" General Officer Commanding instead of to General Yakubu Gowon, the Commander in Chief. Maybe I should remind the inquirer or accuser that the Hero of Wars is not usually the political head as President but the General that prosecuted the war. The Gulf War is the latest. When Americans talk about the Hero of that War, they do not refer to President Bush. They refer to General Colin Powell or General Norman Schwakopf.

General Obasanjo had account in writing of his various activities starting with his positron as a Commander and his stewardship as a military Head of State culminating with his position as an elected President of Nigeria. These are the three lives that the man has since 1970 lived in Nigeria. Anybody can award contracts and so on. Up till today one still cannot read about General Gowon’s stewardship in his own words in writing for Nigerians to read. So too one would say of General Buhari, General Babangida and General Abubakar.

I SHALL TELL MY STORY OF WHAT I DID IN THE PAST

I should be spared of further debate on some critical issues of the past. This should be left to historians. I decided to respond to the issue of Section 207(2) because the original accuser, Mohammed Haruna did not even know the correct Section. Worse still, he even proceeded to distort what happened during the two days of debate in the Constituent Assembly. For those who thought I was hiding under some mysterious privileged document, I had no reason to do so.

I decided in this essay to quote extensively from the official record of the Constituent Assembly for one reason. It is meant to teach my accusers that what happened in the Constituent Assembly should make my accusers accord OMO OMORUYI, in the words of Alhaji Shehu Abdullahi "respect" for "resisting" the "pressure" and "temptations" and for turning down two Mercedes Benz cars in 1978.

Above all, OMO OMORUYI deserves "respect" for refusing to withdraw the Amendment that from all indication had a national appeal and in the national interest.

May 2002