THE TWO 'HOWS': RESOLVING THE CRISES OF CITIZENSHIP AND FEDERALISM IN NIGERIA.

I am grateful to you all, especially the organizers (Chukwu Azubuko, Segun Awosefaju, Josephine Erewa, Udom Smith-Udom and Biodun Sobowale) who thought it fit to invite me to your annul ceremony to join you in the merriment. You also thought it fit to allow me to say few words from the way I feel as your special guest. You did not ask me for my paper or for the subject I was going to speak on to determine whether it would fit into you agenda or whether it would spoil your dinner and merriment.

I shall not abuse your hospitality and the opportunity given me to address you to spoil your night. If in the end you have problems living with what I have to say, please be rest assured, that I mean well and that I never intend to make you uncomfortable. Please do not use it against me. Of course, please do not forget me next year, if I am still in the country because of what I shall be saying.

A

s distinguished Nigerians in Diaspora and interested in what the international community thinks of our country, I thought I should start this short address with an examination of how the international community looks at us and at our President on the occasion of October 1, 2001. As subscribers to the international media, let me take two media for obvious reasons, the BBC and the CNN. The BBC because Nigeria was created by Britain; the CNN as the measure of how the US sees Nigeria. This was why I picked the BBC and the CNN.

I was shocked with the following rendition of the President’s Independence Address to the Nigerian people on October 1, 2001 in the international media:

The BBC says "Obasanjo Admits ‘Enormous’ Problems".

The CNN says, "Obasanjo says Recurring Violence

Disgraces Nigeria".

The BBC says, "Obasanjo struggling to Solve Nigeria’s

Problems"

They came to this conclusion from the way the Independence event was observed in Nigeria. Obasanjo decided on the low-key celebration because of the "Dismal Reality" in or of the country. President Obasanjo’s solution should not be to throw his hands up and tell Nigerians not to celebrate. President Obasanjo should not tell Nigerians to reflect without guiding them as to what they should reflect on.

This is President Olusegun Obasanjo’s confession after two and half years, with one and half to go in a four-year term. The excuse the President gave was that, like the excuse he gave when he could not deliver on the electricity promise that he did not know the situation in Nigeria was that bad when he made the promise.

On October 1, 2001, President Obasanjo had just come to appreciate, after two and half years in office with one and half to go, ‘the dismal reality’ of the country he took over in May 1999. After two and half years with one and half years to go! Thank you Mr. President for admitting ‘the dismal reality’.

(a) Is President Obasanjo saying that he had the wrong diagnosis of the problem in the past two and half years?

(b) Is Mr. President saying that he is not up to the job or that the job is too much for him?

(c) Is he saying that the outgoing military junta tricked him with the handing-over notes on May 29, 1999?

(d) Is the President saying that Nigerians should not blame him but the past military junta, the usual whipping boy, Abacha. For how long shall he continue to blame the Nigerian woes on Abacha?

(e) Is he saying that he had been lying to the Nigerian public since he became the President?

(f) Is the President saying that he needs more than one term to turn the Nigerian problem around, which in effect means that the remaining one and half years is not enough for him to make a difference?

(g) Is he saying that the country go for a new election under this "Dismal Reality" in or of the country?

(h) If the past two and half years is a visionless period, does such a President deserve a second term and under what vision?

(i) Is he saying that the system is not working contrary to what he thought when he took over in 1999?

One would have thought that the President would have called on Nigerians to answer the above questions. Instead, the President as he did with the approach to the issue of resource control, jumped the gun with a prescription. He has only told us that Nigeria is sick; he has not told us of the kind of ailment. And he has not told us the signs or symptoms.

As he did with the crisis over resource control, he simply jumped to another Federal control. Why should he on October 1, 2001 proffer solution in terms of another Federal Agency called the Presidential Commission on Security?.

What President Obasanjo told Nigerians on October 1, 2001 reminds one of the sad confession of the last British Colonial Governor General, Sir James Robertson in 1974 after 14 years of British rule in Nigeria when asked if he had any regret with what Britain left behind in Nigeria. He was frank enough to say in his memoir, Transition in Africa (London 1974) that ‘Britain underestimated the strength tribalism in Nigeria’.

What Sir James called the strength of tribalism is what some would call the ‘crisis of citizenship’ and the ‘crisis of federalism’, which I shall choose to call the two HOWS in this address.

One draw back in the administration of President Obasanjo is that after two and half years with only one and half to go in the first term, President Obasanjo still has not told Nigerians what he called ‘the dismal reality’. He has not accepted that what we have in Nigeria cannot hold or to put it in the words of the renowned Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, because the center no longer can hold!

You, ladies and gentlemen have taken the role of the various government in Nigeria through your remittances through the Western Union, because the various government from the Federal to the local levels have failed to deliver goods and services to your folks back home. I can see the presence of the Western Union in this hall; this is the right thing to do accord recognition to the sources of succor of people back home. How long can you continue this? An oil rich country that is suffering in the midst of plenty! The oil has become a doom for the Nigeria masses, especially in the Oil producing areas while the elite from the non-oil producing areas wallows in opulence from oil. General David Ejoor painted the vivid picture of this difference in his memoir, Reminiscences.

The Problems with Nigerian in the past and in the present is that we tend to run away with the dismal reality that the center no longer holds. This is the first lesson for us all. We must accept the fact that all the problems that Nigeria faces today can be attributed to two aspects of the ‘problem of citizenship’ and the ‘crisis of federalism’, which I call the two HOWS. They are how the Nigerian ethnic/religious communities can live together and how the plural society is to be governed. These are the crisis of citizenship and the crisis of federalism respectively in a plural society.

If Britain failed to do this after 46 years of British colonial rule (1914-60) and Nigeria rulers mostly military failed to this after 41 years (1960-2001), then something is basically wrong with the approach so far since 1914 or since 1960 or since 1966.

Who do we blame? Should anyone be blamed? Should we not stop blaming the colonial ruler (external and internal)?

My view is that we should stop blaming the past rulers, whether the external colonial rulers (British) or the internal colonial rulers, (the geo-ethno-military-ruling-clique). They had come and gone. We should no longer be victims of the past. We should take our future in our hand and come to terms with the ‘dismal reality’ of Nigeria. Nigerians are only one formally but not one in reality. It is a federation in name but a unitary under the Imperial Presidency. It is not working; we do not know how Nigeria is to be governed.

Does it not occur to the President that we should get back to the drawing board? Does it not occur to the President and the National Assembly that this is why people are calling for a National Conference to deal with the twin problem of HOWS?

The impression one is left with by the above international media in the international community is that President Obasanjo after two and half years had failed woefully. This means that after over half of his first term in office, he is still unable to deliver on his promise to resolve the Nigerian problems. This is what one could make out of the content of the President’s Independence Address to the Nigerian people.

This was why the President asked Nigerians not to celebrate. It would appear that you are in breach of the President’s advice by what you are doing tonight, celebrating.

This is why the President asked the Nigerian people to reflect on the country’s problems. Yes, reflect over what? One would have thought that as the leader, he should have set the parameters within which to embark on the reflection. Nigerians expect his leadership in the process of reflection.

The President’s Independence Address was no ‘soul food’ as the late Congressman, Adam Clayton Powell would say. Despite this admission, one wonders why the prognosis? How could he prescribe remedy for an ailment he did not know its cause?

President Obasanjo should stop working from the answer. This was not the first time that Nigerian rulers worked from the answer instead of working from the question. This seems to be the practice of Nigerian rulers since the self-styled ‘evil genius’ of the Nigerian military, General Babangida unceremoniously aborted the transition program and schemed for his true successor to emerge in the person of the military strongman, General Abacha;

It is part of Nigerian history how this ‘evil genius’ encouraged General Abacha to embark on the self-succession project as a ‘solution’ to the issues in the annulment. He was playing God. But the evil genius plan did not provide for the devil, which came to the show through the ‘prostitute’. The ‘evil genius’ thought he found an answer temporary, it could be to the aftermath of the death General Abacha in hands of prostitutes. I knew he was up to some mischief right from the day he paid unceremonious visit to General Obasanjo after his release from the military Gulag. In fact, I told two respectable Nigerians after the Memorial Service for Chief MKO Abiola in Washington DC that they should watch out for the fall out. I can read him like a book; this turned out to be part of his scheme to mastermind the transition from the junta under General Abubakar to General Obasanjo. He did it in grand style, like a coup plot.

The northern political leaders are today regretting how the ‘evil genius’ tricked them to adopt General Obasanjo as their candidate in 1998 for two reasons. One, General Babangida thought he found an answer to the agitation for the actualization of June 12 in Yoruba land. Two he thought he found a modification to the northern quest for a candidate of their own, which could come about through someone who did not have to be from the north but someone from the southwest, who could promise to rule in their name. This is what is called the ‘Mistake of 1999’ within the northern circle. The northern leaders, instead of turning against General Babangida who had since the overthrow of General Buhari been on a tricking spree in the country, are misdirecting their venomous cry of marginalization on President Obasanjo. General Babangida is even leading a campaign against Vice President Atiku and even asking President Obasanjo to drop the Vice President as a condition for a 2003 support. This arrant nonsense and I hope the President and the Vice President on the one hand and the northern leaders on the other know so.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I can speak authoritatively that just as General Babangida was wrong in his approach to the issue of June 12 and in his decision to pave way for General Abacha, he is not being proved wrong on both counts in his political venture of 1998 since 1999 as President Obasanjo turned out neither to be a solution to June 12 nor a stooge of the north but his own man, the true son of his father. God bless President Obasanjo’s soul and may his shadow never grow short for proving the ‘evil genius’ of the military wrong on both counts.

All these are matters, which I wrote about in the past but which are of public knowledge today. I hope the Obasanjo’s Oputa Commission on Human rights Violations would refocus its search for the root cause of the human rights violations involving many of the political generals to the linkage between the catalog of human rights violations and the June 12. The denial of human dignity to General Obasanjo and General Yar’Adua was possible because of the fact of the abortion of a democratic transition, which would have been concluded in August 1993. The attack on Chief Alex Ibru and the death of the wife of the winner of the June 12, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola and the son of the former Attorney General, Dr. Onogoruwa occurred because of the abortion of a democratic transition. Of course, the arrest and detention unto death of Chief MKO Abiola can only be explained within the anti-democratic act of the ‘evil genius’. This, in effect, means that there would have been no General Abacha or General Abubakar if annulment of June 12 had not taken place. The death of Chief Abiola was an openly placed before him if he stuck to his mandate since 1993 by the ‘evil genius’ of the military.

As for the plot to eliminate me, I would not go to the Oputa Commission. I was able to trace what the police called ‘the unknown assassins’ to the junta. The plan was hatched immediately after the annulment partly because of what I knew about the June 12, partly because they could not guarantee that I would keep my loud shut and partly because it was the only way the junta could continue to lie that the election was inconclusive and did not produce a winner. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have since forgiven IBB. I leave him to his conscience.

What the ‘evil genius had been doing are examples of working from the answer instead of allowing the Nigerian people to raise, discuss and resolve the issues. Of course, we are seeing the results today. This is what the President is unfortunately and unwittingly doing with his decision to set up the Presidential Commission on Security.

The decision as to how Nigerians would live together and how Nigeria would be governed ought to be the focus of the President. The President merely talked of the enormous problems or of the recurring violence’. He failed to diagnose the issues in these problems. Maybe he does not understand that these problems are symptoms or manifestations of the deep-seated uncertainty plaguing the country arising from the two HOWS.

The President’s decision to set up a Presidential Commission on Security is working from an answer; it is not from the knowledge of the question. The setting up of this Commission is not an admission of knowledge of the source of the ‘enormous problems’ or of the ‘recurring violence’.

The President further compounds the answer, when said that from October 1, 2001 he would get tough and would not brook any nonsense from any community. Is he saying that he had been lax since 1999? Is this what the Presidential Commission would be asked to do for the administration? My view is that the President is only responding to the manifestations of problems yet to be identified.

Nigerians and the international community saw the emergence of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 as a welcome relief to the military mismanagement of Nigeria. A welcome relief is not a solution to the deep-seated uncertainty in the country; his emergence only afforded Nigerians a breathing space hence a ‘bridge’ or a ‘space’ within which the Nigerian people would raise, discuss and resolve the two issues identified above. Which are the two HOWS.

The President should not have thrown up his hands on October 1, 2001 as if the two HOWS have no solution.

The President should not have complicated the two HOWS with yet another Government Agency called Presidential Commission on Security.

In the lectures I delivered in the US after the election in 1999, I argued that Nigerians did not vote for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)b, but for President Obasanjo because Nigerians and the international community believed that he would be a ‘bridge’ between the military misrule of the past and the creation of an environment for the commencement of a democratic order.

No Nigerian, certainly not in the southwest, voted for President Obasanjo because as the agents of the evil genius argued, that he produced him as a solution for the issues in the annulment.

I argued then that there was only one function, which Obasanjo’s emergence was meant to serve for Nigeria. I argued then that ‘a President Obasanjo’ was meant to serve as a ‘bridge’ between the past and the present. Has he successfully served this function when the political generals of ignoble yesteryears are still defying constituted authorities, such as the Oputa Commission into the past human rights violations, in which they were key violators?

‘A President Obasanjo’ period would have before the completion of his first term set in motion the modality for tackling the twin political problems identified above. Why is he not doing this today and instead dealing with the symptoms and manifestations?

As a result of the inability of the past leaders (civilian and military) to come to terms with the twin political problems, Nigeria is faced with their manifestations, such as:

(a) The various ethnic/religious clashes in the north and in the south;

(b) The cry over marginalization in various parts of the country;

(c) The quest for fundamental restructuring;

(d) The Igbo question in Nigerian politics;

(e) The politics of resource control;

(f) The politics of the armed forces;

(g) The arms and drug trafficking;

(h) The politicization of religion; and

(i) The violent crimes and general insecurity in the country.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is where you as enlightened Nigerians with a commitment to the future of your fatherland should do something beyond the Western Union remittances you make every month.

You should, instead of celebrating, mobilize your resources, human and materials to mount pressure on the President, the National Assembly and the Political Parties that they should listen to you;

You should tell them that their function is to lead Nigerians to come up with how Nigerians can live together and how Nigerian can be governed;

More importantly you should tell the President to stop his policy of unilateralism because he alone cannot solve these problems.

You should impress on him that the setting up a Presidential Commission on Security is no solution to a problems with wrong diagnosis;

You should tell him to be original in thought and in deed, because the Presidential Commission on Security is an attempt to copy the US President’s Homeland Security Department in the White House, which in the US would be the domestic counterpart of the National Security Agency.

You should tell the President from what you know in this country, that the US unlike Nigeria had identified the source of the problems;

You should impress on the President that the setting up a Commission is not a substitute for accepting that the two HOWS as the problems of Nigeria since 1960;

You should impress on the President that the solution should be a round table conference with the two subjects on the agenda.

Let the President know that he should not drag the traditional rulers into his politics of survival. The use of the traditional rulers has never been a solution to the political crisis in the past as many of them have been part of the problems since 1960. They love military rule and hate democratic rule because a democratic rule challenges their basis of legitimacy. Anyway the traditional rulers fall under the category of the proverbial AGIP-Any Government In Power.

‘Petition your Congressman’, as the Americans would say. You should petition your members of the National Assembly and impress on them that the National Assembly cannot deal with the two HOWS through the normal legislation as the two HOWS are too fundamental and critical to the national survival, which they could only to ignored at the nation’s peril.

You should impress on the national Assembly that it would only hang on to the military-dictated Constitution at the cost of national decay. It is a matter of public knowledge that the National Assembly has since 1999 been in search of a role under an omnipotent or the Imperial Presidency.

You know from what you know of a political party in the US, what we have in Nigeria at the moment cannot qualify as political parties. They were merely called political parties, as no name could be ascribed to them. They were actually used merely as transition contrivance. We do not have one yet in Nigeria. The party-system is still emerging; it will take time for Nigeria to have political party system, as we know it historically. My prognosis would have been a complete scrapping of the three so-called political parties and starting all over again- a two-party system.

You know the requirement for a free, fair and credible election. This is what we call ‘political atmospherics’. Does it exist now or in the near future-2003? This leads to the next questions. Can what we have today lead to an election in 2003 and have peace after? What would emerge after the 2003 would be frightening to contemplate.

You should tell the President that another Government Agency no matter what it is called, Presidential Commission is another fire fighting mechanism and it is jumping the gun.

Impress on the President to accept the twin problem and then allow Nigerians to dialogue on the solution.

 

2003 reminds one of what Nigeria passed through in 1964 and in 1983.

What is common in the three dates is that a government in power with its party shamelessly set out to achieve maximum power at an election when the country was crying for a resolution of the two HOWS.

It will be unrealistic for Nigerians to proceed to the 2003 election with out resolving these two problems.

The year 1964 was my final year at the University of Ibadan and I knew what happened in 1964 succession election organized by the Northern Peoples Congress-dominated Federal Government. To correct General Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian crisis of today involving the two HOWS began with the first succession election and not with the first coup of January 1966. That coup was just the consequence and not the cause, as General Gowon would want Nigerians to believe. The first succession election led to the first thirteen long years of military misrule in the nation’s history.(1966-79)

In 1983, I was a partisan politician; so I knew what happened during the second succession election in Nigerian history organized by the National Party of Nigeria. The pattern of rigging was just like the 1964 election. The consequence was the second longest military misrule in the nation’s history.(1983-99).

The same forces are at work leading to the 2003 succession election. This time around, we would not have a military rule as the consequence because the Nigerian people are different from the Nigerians of 1966 and 1983. They are more enlightened and they knew the harm done to the country by the political generals who are running away from their ignoble past at the Oputa Commission. Of course the world has no room for any political generals. My fear is that what we may have would be no war and no peace leading to irreversible political decay. A succession election embarked upon by one party where these two issues are still in search of solution and manifesting themselves in many ways is frightening.

You as enlightened Nigerians should make your voices heard that the political class led by the President should search for the solution of the two HOWS today. They should have used the October 1, 2001 as an opportunity for the Nigerian President to lead the Nigerian people to reflect on the two HOWS. Could the 2003 be approached without resolving these two issues? This is an issue for all of you to handle.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to bare my mind on the issues germane to the future of Nigeria, as we celebrate the 41^st anniversary of Nigerian Independence.

God Bless Nigeria.

OCTOBER 6, 2001.

Being an address delivered at the Nigerian Independence Celebration organized by the Nigeria-American Multi-Service Association (NAMSA) of Boston on October 6, 2001.