Last year two incidents made me to re-open the debate I initiated in 1983 about the intention of the founding fathers of the 1979 Constitution when the institution of the Council of State was provided for in a democratic order. I was one of the founders of that Constitution. My view then was that the members of the Constituent Assembly did not anticipate certain incidents. The first incident was the decision of the new President to make the former military Heads of State the Chancellors of the Federal Universities. The second was the conduct of the former Heads of State to divulge the matters discussed in the Council of State. My view then was that President Obasanjo did not owe them anything to make him provide for them in a democratic order.

I raised the matter in 1983 under the Presidency of Alhaji Shagari in the context of who actually was the predecessor in office of the Executive President?

I took these three issues to form an essay, which was published by the Guardian in Nigeria and the African Market in New Jersey in 2000. Now that there is a renewed call for the withdrawal of General Buhari from the Council of State because of his recent incitement of Muslims against non-Muslims in politics, I thought the Council should exclude Islamic Jihadist. I am sending my original essay on the composition of the Council of State out again unedited with the hope that those who are involved in the review of the Constitution would consider the issues raised in it.

"SEARCHING FOR ROLES FOR FORMER PRESIDENTS AND HEADS OF STATE

by

Professor Omo Omoruyi, mni.

There seems to be a desperate search for roles by President Obasanjo for the former Presidents or Heads of State for reasons, which I am not going to discuss now. My concern has to do with the recent actions of the former Presidents or Heads of State over the Sharia issue and the concern of many Nigerians. Nigerians are asking the pertinent question, what did the founding fathers actually have in mind when the institution of Council of State was introduced into the 1979 Constitution. I was an elected member of the Constituent Assembly that brought about the institution. What we had in mind then was that the inclusion of the former Presidents or Heads of State of former Chief Justices who are Nigerians would provide advice to the elected President in his onerous duties in the national interest.

The institution of the Council of State was meant to provide for continuity in the functioning of government. It was the view of the members of the Constituent Assembly that there was wisdom in the Council of State and that that wisdom would be made available to the new elected President as he ponders over the affairs of the State. It was the view of the founding fathers of the 1979 Constitution that the former Heads of State would be in a position to advise the new President on the basis of how they handled identical matters before as a guide to the current officers of the State. This advice was to be taken seriously. It was also to be in confidence. It was not supposed to be for the media, even if the President decided to reject such advice.

This was the intention of the founding fathers of that Constitution, which seems to have continued during the aborted 1989 Constitution and recently in the military dictated Constitution of 1999. It should be noted that the institution of the Council of State was not used during the military administration for obvious reasons. The institution is a democratic contrivance; it was provided for by the founding fathers of the 1979 Constitution for the functioning of a democratic order and not for a military regime.

COMPOSITION AND FUNCTION

The Council of State consists of the following: the state governors, the former Heads of State or Presidents, former Chief Justices of Nigeria who is a Nigerian, the leadership of the National Assembly and the Attorney General. The President and the Vice President shall be Chairman and Deputy Chairman respectively of the Council. For the interest of readers and for the interest of those who are concerned with the issue today, which led to this paper, the Constitution says the Council shall among other functions ‘advise the President whenever requested to do so on the maintenance of public order within the Federation or any part thereof …..’. This was what the President did when he invited the former Heads of State when the nation was faced with the Political Jihadists and plot by fundamentalist Islamist Governors to declare Islamic republics of their respective states.

WHAT WAS ANTICIPATED

The founding fathers never anticipated certain developments, which later arose and became obvious after the promulgation of the Constitution into law in 1978. Let me cite two cases. One, the founding fathers did not anticipate that a former Head of State would still be a partisan politician. Two, the founding fathers did have in mind some qualification as to the manner of emergence of the Head of State. It did not anticipate that we would be dealing with military or appointed Head of State. It had in mind elected President. These are the two issues that would be discussed in this paper.

FORMER PRESIDENTS AS A PARTISAN POLITICIAN

On this matter, I raised a question in 1983 in an academic forum, whether Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first and only Nigerian CEREMONIAL President in the nation’s history then could rightly be called the predecessor of the first elected President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari. This matter was violently rebuffed by my Ndi Igbo brothers who did not want the matter to be raised at all. And if it was to be raised at all, it should not be by a former Chief scribe of the party, which had Dr. Azikiwe as its party leader. Unfortunately the matter became a series in the Sunday Times, which took many weeks of accusations and counter-accusations between me some Ndi Igbo followers of the former President who did not want to contemplate the fact that Dr. Azikiwe was only a former ceremonial President. The question I raised was a genuine one, which I thought would have engaged the minds of lawyers and political scientists and not necessarily of politicians. The responses to my question were mainly from the Ndi Igbo part of the country and of course, instead of addressing the issues I raised, I was called all sorts of names. I never raised the question to undermine the position of the revered Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in the nation’s history. What bothered me then could be summarized in the following way since I cannot lay hands on the series of newspaper debate, which the question generated in 1983.

I argued then that the position of President under the First Republic was different from the position of the President under the Second Republic. The first was an appointed one; the second was an elected one. The first was a ceremonial one; the second was both ceremonial and executive. I then argued that Dr. Azikiwe was only occupying the ceremonial arm of the position of the new President, who combined in himself both the ceremonial and the executive. To that extent, Dr. Azikiwe could be called the predecessor of Alhaji Shagari with respect to the ceremonial aspect of the office and could not be the predecessor of Alhaji Shagari with respect to his executive aspect of his office. I then raised the question whether the new President, (ceremonial and executive) could actually be said to be the successor of the ceremonial President. My argument was that argument was based on my understanding of the intentions of the founding father of the 1979 Constitution that Alhaji Shehu Shagari as an elected executive President was to the beginning of a line of democratically elected Presidents. This meant that President Shagari did not have a predecessor; it also meant that President Shagari would later be the predecessor of other elected Presidents in future. Today to this extent, Alhaji Shehu Shagari would be the only predecessor of President Olusegun Obasanjo, as both of them were elected and came to office by the ‘will of the Nigerian people’ and NOT through the bullet. By the qualification of the ‘will of the people’, President Obasanjo would be taken as the successor of President Shagari and the second in the former Presidents. This also means that other military President or Heads of State would also call themselves successors or predecessors of one junta as the case may be.

DR. NNAMDI AZIKIWE AS ‘FATHER OF THE NATION’

In fact, many Nigerians were surprised to see Dr. Azikiwe coming out of his retirement and joining the race in 1978. The northern leaders had criticized Dr. Azikiwe that as ‘the father of the nation’ he should not have come into partisan politics having resigned from partisan politics in 1959 and handed over the leadership of government in Eastern Region and of the political party (NCNC) to Dr. MI Okpara. As a matter of history, he actually renounced partisan politics as soon as it became obvious he was going to be the first Nigerian Governor General. Why did he decide to abandon this?

It should be noted that, as the National Secretary of the Nigerian Peoples Party, under which Dr. Azikiwe ran for office, I knew how and why Dr. Azikiwe had to come out of retirement in 1978. He rejected the notion that he was the ‘father of the nation’. He told the NPP leaders that the late Sardauna of Sokoto gave him the ‘title’, ‘Father of the nation’ when he was a visit to the north. He told us that he did not accept the title. Subsequently he argued in his maiden press conference in December 1978 when he announced his intention to be the Presidential candidate in the 1979 Presidential election that the overriding reason was that he ‘never ruled this country for one day’. Dr. Azikiwe notion of ‘ruling this country’ was as the executive Head of State or President and not as the ceremonial Head of State or President. Dr. Azikiwe as a Political Scientist knew of the distinction. His experience in 1964 further taught him the distinction if he was under any doubt.

Dr. Azikiwe’s decision to seek the exalted office of the President of Nigeria in 1978 on the basis that he never rule this country for one day meant that he did not see himself as the former President of Nigeria as provided for under the 1979 Constitution. This means that Dr. Azikiwe’s notion of Alhaji Shagari’s predecessor would have had an executive component to it and would have a popular mandate to how it emerges. These two qualifications were never discussed after Dr. Azikiwe became the presidential candidate of the NPP.

What I was trying to argue in 1983 was that Dr. Azikiwe as the ‘father of the nation’ as he was popularly referred to was in a world of his own. He could not be in the same status with Alhaji Shagari or of the Prime Minister under the First Republic. Even the elected Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was the predecessor of Alhaji Shagari with respect to the executive component of his office. For those who would want to know of the experience of Dr. Azikiwe in 1964 should refer to the plan of Dr. Azikiwe to give some interpretation to the ceremonial title of Commander in Chief during the crisis after the Federal election. Readers would recall how Dr. Azikiwe wanted to flex his muscles by refusing to call the winner with the majority seats to form the government. When Dr. Azikiwe as the ‘Commander in Chief’ wanted to summon the Service Chiefs and Police, he was rebuffed. The Service Chiefs and the head of the Nigeria Police let it be known that for operations purposes they were answerable to the Prime Minister. Dr. Azikiwe was saved by the timely intervention of Dan Ibekwe and the former Chief Justice of the federation, Justice Adetokunbor Ademola. Some of us lived through this phase in 1964.

The decision of Dr. Azikiwe to be a candidate in 1979 raised another critical issue never anticipated by the founding fathers of the 1979 Constitution. Assuming the founding fathers of the 1979 Constitution did not think of the distinction between the two types of former Presidents, how could the founding fathers have dealt with the new situation created by the status of Dr. Azikiwe as the defeated Presidential candidate of the Nigerian Peoples Party? The debate in and the proceedings from the Constituent Assembly did not provide any help in resolving this problem. It is still a problem today.

Did the founding fathers of the 1979 Constitution ever anticipate that a former President whether ceremonial or executive should still remain a member of the Council of State once he renounces his status of a former President and joins the fray of partisan politics? Could Dr. Azikiwe, a defeated Presidential candidate of the opposition party be an adviser to a President who defeated him? Could the former ceremonial President- turned Presidential candidate be in a position to give advice to an elected President of another party when faced with critical issues affecting the State where his party or governor from one of his party states is one of the factors? This was the issue that came to light after the 1979 election.

After the election the state where Dr. Azikiwe secured majority votes were under the control of the party that sponsored him, the NPP. In keeping with the decision of the President’s party, the party of the President NPN took a decision to take over those states including where Dr. Azikiwe was resident, which also produced the Vice President to Alhaji Shagari. This was why the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) of the elected President was determined to take over the NPP controlled states in Ndi Igbo land. What was going to be Dr. Azikiwe’s advice to President Shagari in the Council of State when faced with many Federal government measures detrimental to the NPP controlled states?

There were many security issues where NPP states were involved. A typical one was what to do with the dispute between the Police Commissioner under the control of the federal government and the Governor of the State of Anambra? Was the former ceremonial President, who later turned a partisan politician and a defeated Presidential candidate of the party of the Governor be in a position to advise the new President who saw the action of the Police Commissioner as proper and in the best security interest of the country? President Shagari and Governor Nwobodo are still alive and could discuss the crisis over the police in Anambra during this period. Is this not the situation that President Obasanjo faced recently when three former President or military Heads of State assumed partisan garb and openly disagreed with President Obasanjo’s call for caution on the politics of Sharia and a return to normalcy and to the status quo ante? Just as Alhaji Shagari refused to take to the Council of State security matter involving the states where Dr. Azikiwe’s party was in control, would a situation not arise when President Obasanjo would decide to take off the table matters involving the north in the Council of State? What use will they be then? Does this not mean that as long as the former Heads of State are still actively in partisan politics or in support of a position inimical to the national interest, the President should not take them into confidence? What use are they therefore as members of the Council of State?

PRESIDENT SHAGARI AND PRESIDENT OBASANJO

It should be noted that it was General Obasanjo as the military Head of State who handed over to Alhaji Shehu Shagari as the elected President in 1979. It should be noted that they are the only two elected Presidents in the nation’s history so far. President Obasanjo as an elected President was looking forward to another former elected President to join him in upholding the new democratic order. He was disappointed.

The recent episode over the Sharia openly exposed President Shagari as not only a partisan politician but as a regional leader. President Shehu Shagari in a public statement, unprovoked and without respect to the man who looked up to him for support when the country was on fire over the Sharia disappointed the new President.

It is sad that a member of the Constituent Assembly when the decision to introduce the Council of State disputed the critical role of the Council of State by giving a restrictive and narrow interpretation of the power of the Council of State in time of serious security situation. President Shagari ought to have known or should have known that the collective advice to the President by such a collection of Nigerian leaders, including the state governors and traditional rulers from the 36 states was as good as binding law on the President. Alhaji Shagari was wrong to argue that the Council of State could not give binding security advice to the President to enforce on any part of the country. Thus President Shagari was wrong to have disputed the status of the Council of State in giving a binding security advice to the States and their Governors. This was wrong as the issue of national security was the exclusive preserve of the President and he could use any machinery of government to bring about normalcy. If he called the Council of State, where all States Governors were members, this was perfectly up to him and he could use it. President Shagari out of protocol warned the new President that the advice of the Council of State should not involve the use of the Federal Government to dictate policy guideline to states under the Federal Constitution. President Shagari was acting as if he was a constitutional lawyer trying to educate the new President on the use of the Federal institution. His statement was given wide publicity in order to embarrass the new President and appeal to the northern leaders and the masses that they have a defender and leader in Alhaji Shehu Shagari. Was he not acting as a northern leader out to defend the special interest of the north against the national interest, which the Council of State was out to defend? Is this not a partisan activity, a qualification, which is no different from Dr. Azikiwe’s with respect to the government of Anambra state? Does he qualify to be a member of the Council of State as the predecessor of the new President? These are issues, which should be further examined.

As if that was not enough, Alhaji Shagari let it be known by the north that he was their leader by later initiating another anti Obasanjo meeting in Kaduna of the northern leaders to raise questions about President Obasanjo’s conduct. He called the meeting, which included the former military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, who had the opportunity to listen to the President Obasanjo during the meeting of the Council of State. Alhaji Shagari also mobilized most Northern traditional rulers to join him in the campaign for the continuation of Sharia and in effect, against the new President. In this meeting, Alhaji Shagari voiced another interpretation as to the cause of the riots in the various parts of the country. The participants at this meeting called themselves, the northern leaders. The meeting concluded that Sharia was not the cause of the riots, but they did not state what was the cause of the riots.

The Alhaji Shagari’s meeting then opined the feelings of the north that the issue of Sharia was a constitutional matter that should and could be settled through the instrumentality of the Court. They were in effect saying that the matter should not have been taken to the Council of State, thus buying the original position of Alhaji Shagari. The Shagari, clique, as this meeting came to be called was in fact saying was that the issue of Sharia could not be unilaterally dealt with by the Executive arm of the Federal Government. They knew the composition of the Supreme Court and what the likely attitude of the court on religious matter would be. They knew the views of President Obasanjo that he would not go to court because either way, the ruling of the court would be disputed by the pro and the anti Sharia Nigerians. They also knew that President Obasanjo had argued and he was right that the Sharia matter should be resolved as a political issue and not as a legal one. They also knew the issue of ‘locus standi’ raised by the Federal Attorney General in reply to the Northern members of the House of Representatives who had called on him to take the matter to court for adjudication. Were these former Presidents honest in their advice to the new President? Were they not acting as partisan zealots to disqualify them as members of the Council of State?

THE BUHARI ANGLE

It is a matter of record that General Buhari still harbored some grudges against the new President from the General Obasanjo campaign against his authoritarian rule when he (Buhari) was the Head of State to his decision on the Petroleum Trust Fund (farmed out to him by Abacha), which he President Obasanjo planned to cancel as soon as he took office. In fact, General Buhari believed that one of the arguments IBB used to mobilize against his administration was from the speeches made at various times by General Obasanjo. There are some elements of truth in this. I had the opportunity to listen to some of the military officers who said that General Obasanjo spoke their minds on the high handedness of General Buhari and IBB and his co-plotters did not have to search for how the nation would take his overthrow. They took the speech of General Obasanjo on (date) to mean that there must be a change of guards. General Buhari believed that it was General Obasanjo who actually called on the troop to remove him from office as he virtually called him a disgrace to the armed forces by his lack of humane treatment of Nigerians and by his inability to come up with a political program. It is a matter of record that there were many members of the political class including the former President and his deputy and the State Governors who were behind bars. It is also a matter of record that Head of State, General Buhari did not think of a transition program was necessary even though he called his administration a continuation of the Murtala/Obasanjo regime what ever that meant. In fact, the military officers even said that whenever General Obasanjo spoke, they usually believed that some changes were in the offing.

(NOTE: IBB used to tell to watch out for General Obasanjo’s speech as he did not want a fall out whenever General Obasanjo spoke; his speech usually formed a subject of our meeting. A confession is in order here that I managed his handling of the fall out from some of the speeches of General Obasanjo in 1992 and 1993. I can refer to two instances such as the policy statements on November 17 1992 and the policy statement of May 17 1993).

Of course, the events surrounding the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under General Abacha headed by General Buhari and the subsequent decision of General Buhari to resign as soon as General Obasanjo was elected President should be understood within the above context. There was bad blood between the two Generals dating back to the period leading to his overthrow in 1985. General Buhari who is a sworn enemy of General Babangida who overthrew him in August 1985, the day he hung his ram and awaiting feasting on a Sallah day suddenly found himself in the same camp with IBB with Sharia as a political tool.

But he could not be part of the northern leaders called by Alhaji Shagari initially because Shagaro would not be able to manage the relationship between him and IBB. It should also be noted that the followers of Alhaji Shagari, such as Alhaji Umaru Dikko would not want Alhaji Shagri to openly fraternize with General Buhari, because of the way he treated them after the coup of December 1983.

(NOTE: This has changed since the introduction of what President Obasanjo and the Attorney General Bola Ige called the Political Sharia and the consolidation of the northern leadership under the auspices of the Arewa Consultative Forum).

General Buhari who is not known to be a member of any of the three political parties thought the time was ripe for him to wrestle with IBB and others for the political leadership of the north. One way to do this was to hit President Obasanjo below the belt using the Sharia as the platform. One wonders what he would later do when normalcy eventually prevailed.

(NOTE: He assumed the national Presidency of the Pastoral Group made up of the Fulani Cattle Rearers. Does he want to use the auspices of Islamic religion to compete with IBB for northern leadership? Does he feel he now wants to take the place of the late Sheik Abubakar Gunmi who once told Nigerians in the highly provocative interview that non-Muslims and women and southerners could not be President of Nigeria?)

I was not surprised with the action taken by the former Head of State, General Buhari who was invited to the meeting of the Council of State by virtue of being the former Head of State. Of course, we knew the highly publicized position taken by General Muhammadu Buhari, a former military Head of State. He was at the meeting of the Council of State. He had the opportunity to voice his displeasure with the way the new President was dealing with the matter. He had an unlimited access to the Vice President, a fellow Muslim and a northerner to be briefed at anytime on the issue. He was in a position to give the new President the benefit of his advice as a Muslim and as a northerner. He failed to do so.

General Buhari knew how the northern Governors who worked with the Vice President resolved the matter. The Vice President announced the agreement of the northern governors with the Vice President to the full Council of State. It was shocking that General Buhari went to the international media not only to distort what transpired in the Council but also to voice his disagreement with the President. In a BBC statement, he dissociated himself from the position taken by the Council of State, which the northern Governors agreed to. Why did he decide to speak through the Hausa Service of the BBC? Was this not an attempt to appeal to the conservative northern leaders and their followers that he was their man and could be counted upon to defend their interest at such a critical time? He, even in that BBC interview sanctioned the amputation of hand before it was done. He went on to castigate the Christians to mind their business as the arm to be amputated would be that of the Muslim and not that of the Christians. Should such a person be an adviser to the President? From his background as dictator and a partisan zealot, does he qualify to be an adviser to an elected President?

(NOTE: Today he now wants Muslims in Nigeria to vote for Muslim candidates in future election in Nigeria. This is his new platform in addition to the Fulani cattle rearers. This is a dangerous development in Nigerian politics. What is further disturbing is that the other northern former Heads of State (Gowon, Shagari, Babangida and Abubakar) are keeping quiet again as they did under General Abacha).

LONG LIST OF FORMER NORTHERN HEADS OF STATE.

Did the founding fathers anticipate that there would be a long list of former Heads of State from the north when they were naming the former Heads of State as members of the Council of State? The answer is no.

At the time the founding fathers came up with the institution of the former Heads of States as members of the Council of State it was anticipated that there would only be one former military Head of State after the 1979 Presidential election. That was General Olusegun Obasanjo. The other former military Head of State, then Mr. Yakubu Gowon as he was called then having been stripped of his title of General. General Gowon had some problems with the military under whom the Constitution was put together. No provision was made to accommodate him for obvious reasons.

The founding fathers of the 1979 Constitution only had General Obasanjo and Dr. Azikiwe in mind as the former Heads of State to be members of the Council of State. They did not anticipate the situation, which led to so many former military Heads of State as we have it today.

It was obvious that President Shehu Shagari, Generals Babangida and Buhari allowed their ethnic, religious, and regional considerations to dictate their positions. They support the Jihadist position of some northern states and they oppose the elected President Obasanjo for partisan, regional, religious and selfish reasons. Did the founding fathers envision the situation that former Presidents and Heads of States would openly disagree with the reigning President on a sensitive issue as the nation faced in March 2000?

It is a matter of record that President Obasanjo failed to honor the selfish positions taken by the former Heads of State as confirmed by the accusation of marginalization by the northern political leaders to which they are part. It is a matter of record that they are members of the geo-ethno-military-clique that organized the emergence of the new President with some understanding that he would protect the ramparts the north had been guarding since 1960.

It is well known that they are unhappy with the President for obvious reasons. This was confirmed recently by the spokesman of the north, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule. He lamented the decision of the north to agree to ‘power shift’. He voiced what many Nigerians know as the recent source of unhappiness of the north that the new President, installed with the support of the northern leaders was working to protect the interest of the Yoruba. According to Alhaji Sule, President Obasanjo was implementing the Yoruba Agenda. He, speaking for the northern political leaders even called President Obasanjo a ‘hypocrite’ as distinct from the attribute of diplomacy, which he originally thought the Yoruba and by extension President Obasanjo possessed.

WHAT TO DO? REVIEW STATUS OF FORMER HEADS OF STATE.

From the foregoing, may I suggest that the new President should take a hard look at the institution of the Council of State and take the matter to the National Conference. The present composition should be reviewed to prevent the situation just described above.

The notion of former President should be qualified to exclude those who are still in partisan politics such as Alhaji Shehu Shagari. It is well known that he is the leader of the ‘conservative’ wing of the northern leadership. It is well known that he is a leader of a pan-Northern organization, the Turaki Committee named after him as the Turaki Sokoto. It is well known that he is committed to the defense of the northern interest in Nigeria. His role in the international defense of the anti-democratic act of the military annulment of the June 12 is part of the history of that period. Alhaji Shagari was in the leadership of the northern leaders who campaigned for the self-succession bid by the late General Abacha.

I observed Alhaji Shagari’s campaign along with some African-American leaders in the US to change the US leaders’ attitude towards the self-succession bid by the General Abacha. I observed that he was in the US campaigning in the US few weeks before the death of General Abuja in 1998. His closest legal adviser, who did every legal tricks to keep him in office in 1979-83, Chief Richard Akinjide, who also served him as the federal Attorney General had to voice his disgust with the position of his former boss on national issues. He was upset that at a time when he should be playing the role of a national leader and an elder statesman, he has become a regional leader, defending regional interest against the national interest.

EXCLUDE FORMER POLITICAL GENERALS

By Political Generals I mean those military officers who were made Generals by virtue of their different roles in politics. All the former military Heads of State or former military President from 1966 to 1999 (Generals Gowon, Murtala Muhammed, Olusegun Obasanjo Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Abdulsalami Abubakar). They are those who came to office by the ‘will of the bullet’ and sustained their rule by force. This means that former military Heads of States, Generals Gowon, Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida, and Abubakar should not be members of the Council of State. From their mode of coming into office and their mode of rule, they could not work to sustain a democratic order. Since they did not have democratic experience, they could not be made to advise a democratic President on how to maintain order in a democratic situation.

EXCLUDE INTERIM HEADS APPOINTED BY MILITARY

The Council of State should exclude those who were appointed by the military on an interim capacity such as Chief Ernest Shonekan. The record is clear that Chief Shonekan was technically Head of ‘a Government’ in Abuja with no control over the Defense matters based in Lagos under General Sani Abacha. His experience in public life was very limited and this was under a military regime. Most seriously, he had no record of participation in political life to be credited with experience of how he dealt with security issues, which could arise from partisan issue as the politicization of Sharia in 2000. Chief Shonekan today does not therefore, possess the qualification of an elected President that comes to office through the ‘will of the people’. He does not possess the qualification of a former military Head of State that comes to office by the ‘will of the bullet’. These are two ways of becoming the Head of State historically in Nigeria. His was an aberration not contemplated by the founding fathers.

Therefore, Chief Shonekan does not possess the advice that would be made available to the new President or any President who comes to office on the basis of the ‘will of the people’ through his participation in the Council of State. This does not mean that he could not advise the President on how to deal with business issues, which he spent all his life managing on behalf of the British private interest. Maybe the man who kicked out of his interim administration General Abacha knew his qualities hence he named him the coordinator of his economic program.

IN RETROSPECT

We have no Dr. Azikiwe in the list of former Presidents or Heads of State to contend with. May His Soul Rest in Peace. What I said about him in the past when I raised the innocuous question in 1983 which elicited so many violent comments from many Ndi Igbo leaders as if I was bent on denigrating the exalted status of the revered former Governor General and the former President. If we remove the sage from the long list of former President/Heads of State, my argument would still be valid today.

What I said then about Dr. Azikiwe in respect of his partisan posture after his tenure as President could today be used to deal with the exclusion of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, a former elected President of Nigeria between 1979 and 1983. The former leaders of the military regimes in the past have nothing to impart to the new democratic regime. Because a military regime is a ‘fraud’, as General Babangida puts it, the leaders of all military regimes who came to office through fraudulent means and sustain their regime through fraudulent means should not be allowed to pollute the mind of an elected President. We should not allow them through some institutionalized means such as through the Council of State to pollute the democratic order. They should not be allowed to offer advice to an elected regime.

Now on the vexed question on the politics of continuity, the regimes of northern political/military leaders are bankrupt in democratic ideas and ideals and should not be the predecessors of President Obasanjo. From the feelings of the south arising from the conduct of the former President, Alhaji Shagari and the former military leaders, they should be excluded from the Council of State.

The review of the Constitution brings me to the issue of pension provided former Heads of State by the departing Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar in May 1999, which runs into sums of money. Having established that they have nothing to commend them as the predecessors in office of an elected President, the National Assembly should immediately rescind the handsome pension provided them and allow them to collect pension due them as military officers where necessary.

The present democratic dispensation should be seen as a watershed and the beginning of democratization in Nigeria. This means that only the elected Presidents beginning with this dispensation under President Obasanjo would have the right to qualify for positions in the Council of State from now on. But if he should continue his partisan position after his two terms, he should have no right to be the ears of his successor through the Council of State.

FORMER DICTATORS AS UNIVERSITY CHANCELLORS

Let me end this paper by commenting on the recent decision to send the former dictators to the foremost Nigerian Universities as Chancellors. It is an irony that the same President who was humiliated by these former military Heads of State is bending over backward to rehabilitate the former military Heads of States by making them Chancellors of the six major Universities. This is a tricky policy. Most of these Heads of State are from the north except one (Shonekan) who was an appointee of the northern military Generals. Another issue is that all the Universities in question except one (Ahmadu Bello University) are located in the south.

It is a matter of record that these southern Universities suffered many years of misrule in the hands of the northern political generals. Why does President Obasanjo want to humiliate these southern centers of enlightenment, the Universities by sending to them northern military dictators as the personification of these Universities? Nothing qualifies them for this position; just as they should not be allowed to stay in the public sphere after their ‘fraudulent’ political career. Mr. President, Universities in the south are centers of liberal thought from my over 30 years in the Universities of Ibadan and Benin. Why are you sending these dictators to the citadel of liberal thought in the south? Does the President recognize that the liberal environment of the south abhors authoritarian profile of the former military Heads of State or of the conservative former President".

(The addition to the original essay was the NOTE and italicized in three places).