(Interview) Fighting corruption is not the policy of government but a process of government — Goddy Uwazurike, Aka-Ikenga President

Chief Goddy Uwazurike, lawyer, President of Aka Ikenga, the think-tank of the pan-Igbo organisation, Ohaneze Ndigbo and member of the National Conference convened by the immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, in this interview talks about President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointments, 100 days in office and sundry national issues.

 

On President Buhari’s appointments

Well, I’m not a politician so I’ll speak on the non-political issues and as a lawyer I cannot avoid talking about the constitution. You know when a person is elected a president or governor, the person has almost three months to prepare. Buhari was elected in March and from that time to May 29, he had all the time to prepare, draw up all the list of appointees, get ready to send names to the Senate and so forth. And of course he had promised to hit the ground running.

So, I was gladdened when he was sworn-in and he swore the Koran to uphold the constitution and the constitution is very clear about certain things most especially section 14 (3), which states that appointments in the state and Federal Government shall reflect a federal character, in the case of the state, shall reflect state wide character.

And the present constitution went far to indicate that military officers, directors, permanent secretaries, public officers, members and management of government operations, that they shall reflect federal character. Now the question is, has Mr. President who swore to the constitution to reflect federal character been fair to the Igbo speaking people of Nigeria?

When the first sets of people were appointed, we shouted and people said ‘no-o just wait.’ We heard a reply also that they were basing all appointments on merit, and we asked ourselves so on merit Igbo do not qualify? As President of Aka Ikenga I can speak for Igbos. Now, this latest list of appointees, we got the answer recently at the Hausa Service of the BBC with the President saying he appointed only those he trusts. So there are no Igbo people among those he trusts? We heard the message and we cannot keep our hands folded and wait, we must speak out because we rely on the same constitution that Mr. President swore to with the Koran to uphold.

In this country, at independence, the regions were there, when you move down to tribe we talk of the Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, then the Ibibio, Anang and so on and so forth. But the constitution is very simple and direct, federal character. It does not envisage a situation where tomorrow I’m made President, I go and get only those I know who are probably from my village. That is one thing the constitution was guarding against when Section 14(3) made it very clear.

Somebody will even say it is super fraud because common sense should tell you that when you are a President of Nigeria, you are the President of all Nigeria and not some parts of Nigeria and that the moment the elections are over, you become the property of the people of Nigeria, which was why as soon as Buhari became President-elect, the then President Goodluck Jonathan quickly gave him Defence House, at that moment he had become the property of Nigeria and when he swore on the Koran he took over on the Koran, so anything he does we judge him by that oath he took on the Koran.

President Buhari’s achievements in 100 days

On whether he has achieved much, well I know that the 100 days mantra was kicked off by Theodore Roosevelt, one time American President. For him, the 100 days mantra was to let the Americans know that they should not feel so hopeless after the market crash, that America will survive again. So, Presidents since then try to use the 100 days in office to direct the people on the way they are going, otherwise they want you to know where they are going.

Now, start from manufacturing, what is the President’s policy on manufacturing? We don’t know. Import and export business, the decision on foreign exchange has even dealt a serious blow on that one and how traders will survive, I don’t know, because the goods we have now, when we exhaust them we cannot import. If you notice how traders import, they import when they have reached a certain level, so as at today, importation of essential goods will be a thing of the past soon unless government changes its method of allocating foreign exchange.

The question whether President Buhari has done much in 100 days, well, Bola Tinubu said 100 days is honeymoon, that the real work will start now. But most people forget that from March to September you are talking of six months. In other words six months after the election the President has not appointed his ministers, that is what he should have concluded three months before he was sworn in. When the cabinet is constituted, that is where people will know in which direction Mr. President is going. So, in the first 100 days, we don’t know where he is going.

On Igbos missing the position of SGF

I was greatly disappointed because from the description Mr. President gave in the Hausa Service the other day: those who have been in the party from inception, those he knows very well and those who were not motivated by positions or money; Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu fits into those descriptions. He has always been with All Peoples Party, APP, to All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, by whatever name and he has never left no matter the temptation. As a matter of fact, he was the only leader from the original party APP who did not jump ship, the only one left. Two, I know his relationship with President Buhari, and three, those who know Dr. Onu, is it education? He has PHD. Is it background? He is a former governor. And yet, the man remained where he was. Nobody knows him for extravagance and he has never pretended to be rich. So, when it comes to who Mr. President in real sense should trust I think Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu should be one. And some relationship existed between them which are not for the press and that relationship goes back a long way, long before any of them even talked of presidency.

I was also greatly disappointed that an Igbo man was not appointed because we have expected that to be the only real position in the executive for an Igbo person. Granted we supported PDP, that is not a crime. After all, in 1999 Obasanjo was not supported by the Yorubas, they voted for Olu Falae, yet Obasanjo still appointed Yorubas. In 2011, the far North, the core Hausa Fulani did not vote for Jonathan yet he appointed them in various offices including National Security Adviser, NSA. He never failed to appoint people based on federal character.

So, when somebody begins to tell us ‘only people he can trust,’ I begin to ask, does it mean we the Igbos do not have trustworthy people? In other words, All Progressives Congress, APC, members who are from the Igbo speaking area should ask that question of themselves: Mr. President said he appointed those he trusts and we were all there, so Mr. President doesn’t trust us?

Appointment meant to spite the Igbos?

It is still early in the day to say if it was deliberate or a mistake, but what I cannot understand is the defence of the indefensible. In other words, what he has done is contrary to the constitution, why defend it?

When we raised this issue the answer we got was, don’t worry there will be other appointments; and we ask ourselves, so the other appointments will be for the Igbos only? What about those who already have these appointments, will they also not get? Ministers will be done according to states and zones; will South-East and South-South get more than North West and North East?

Festus Keyamo’s position that the Igbos already have the best appointment

I think he is not well informed because Dr. Ibe Kachikwu came on board because America has the need to control our oil resources. Kachikwu was the man in charge of America’s most important investment in Nigeria, so his being moved from Exxon Mobil straight to NNPC was the way America demonstrated the control of our economic resources, make no mistake about it. He is not there because he is an Igbo man, he is there because he was the Chief Executive of Exxon Mobil, so make no mistake about it.

Yorubas and Presidential appointments

Well, I believe that former Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu who went with former Governor Bisi Akande, of course a day before we had Obasanjo, I’m sure they raised it in the right quarters because I know the expectations of the Yorubas, they are not there to play second fiddle and if today they can’t even play second fiddle then, they must reassess their position. Granted the mutterings are still subdued, soon they will become loud groans. I think what is fair is fair, as the Rotarians will say, “Is it fair to all concerned”? So in all the appointments, Mr. President should be asked, is he fair to all concerned?

The danger

The danger there is that trust, you know nobody has following in Nigeria like Muhammadu Buhari, he has the largest following, as a matter of fact during the election all that people needed to say is that Buhari will fix it. And now the trouble has started, first they deny the issue of a meal a day for school children, money for downtrodden and so on and so forth. There are so many things that were said, yes I know many of them were done without Buhari’s consent, I remember one particular APC leader from Enugu State, he will hold a rally and he will say “I’m reading a letter from Buhari, my dear people of Enugu,” after listening I knew that Buhari did not even know about the letter was about let alone write it. So, there were so many such promises made in Buhari’s name.

Now that Buhari is here, the ball is in his court. When we begin to see policy summersaults and then promise denials, believe you me, even his most ardent followers will begin to think twice. The issue of appointments has rubbed off on so many people, there are so many people saying ‘ah-ah what is going on?’ There are others who say ‘well he’ll perform.’ Yet people have waited for 100 days and they didn’t see anything they can hold on to.

He has not started the war on corruption; he is still posturing, if you remember. This is not a military government, it is a civilian government, and those agencies that are constituted to fight corruption will always be there. So, it is not for Mr. President to say ‘I’m here to fight corruption’ but to say ‘I’m here to support the agencies, what do you need, it’s provided’ and they carry on.

The biggest problem the agency has to fight corruption in Nigeria is evidence. Most of the times they address the press and describe what they have achieved and how they will deal with people, but when they get into court, it turns out they have no evidence. In other words, the grandstanding of the agencies will always be their undoing. So, Mr. President can look into that.

But governance is Mr. President’s job. Fighting corruption cannot be the policy of the government and this is where the Americans, the West in particular mislead Africans. If you are an African leader when you say I’m fighting corruption they will say, yeah you are our man, you spent your four years fighting corruption without making any move towards economic resuscitation. In Nigeria today, how will you create employment if you don’t pay attention to manufacturers, if you don’t make it easy for them to have access to loans, access to foreign exchange to buy the things they need?

Position on probe

Mr. President is not probing anything yet, he can do administrative inquiry, and under our constitution you don’t just get up and start probing, no. There is a constitutional procedure, when he gets an Attorney General, I’m sure they will put him through. Anything he says will pass through the Attorney General to vet. The President can only work according to the constitution. I know of an APC member who was a former minister who said that Mr. President should jettison the constitution and rule directly. That means they didn’t even do history, philosophy or psychology at all. The rule of law and the rule of man, if you go by the rule of law you survive, you go by the rule of man you perish. Mr. President yes is said to be angry with corruption, good, but that is not the function of day to day government. Government creates the economic mood that will create employment and lead to the growth of the nation. You project Nigeria in the next one year, what will be the needs, which areas do I focus?

I’m happy the Lagos State Chamber of Manufacturers is crying that many of the factories are moving from Nigeria. How do you stop it? There are some young men here who want to put up factories here, how do you encourage them? We have the Bank of Industry, they are there, how well are they doing? Now you ask yourself in the past 14 weeks has the Federal Government released any capital budget, no? What of those industries like road construction and people who are still expecting the money for the contracts given to them by government, and the money is not forth coming, what happens? They must stop and start counting their losses. So, government first, is a continuum and secondly, fighting corruption is not the policy of government but it is a process of government.

National Conference recommendations

If you look behind me here, you’ll see the reports of the National Conference, they are all here. And one good thing is that all the reports of past conferences in Nigeria we received all of them. One of the things we recommended was equity,  that power must rotate among all the zones in the country and among the three senatorial zones in every state. And those who were at that conference came from virtually every ethnic group. There are many groups you haven’t even heard of. It was at the conference I heard that the areas occupied by Boko Haram in the North East were all Christian areas and all those people they arrested and captured were Christians but forcibly converted to Islam. One particular woman, a school principal came from Chibok and I still remember what she said, when we had executive session we asked the press to excuse us, we were there with state security people. I still remember her shrill voice that Boko Haram were then recruiting women and training them as suicide bombers and that we must watch out. She gave graphic details of what was going on, even the nature of that Sambisa forest, she explained it. Of course, we passed on the message. By the time Boko Haram women were bombing everywhere, we already knew, state security had been told but nothing was done.

So, Mr. President having come in, it will be the greatest disservice for him to jettison this report. I know that there are two campaigns, those who are saying implement the report and those who are saying throw away the report. At the conference, those who are saying throw away the report came there to say we are not here to restructure anything in Nigeria, as it is we want it to continue, when we get to power we know what to do. They said so. Unfortunately for them majority at the confab said Nigeria must be restructured and worked on it. Including finances, for instance why are banks not lending to manufacturers? They broke it down there. Former accountant generals were there and they gave the reasons and suggestions. I can even tell you one of their suggestions: that Federal Government’s allocation of money should be done every two weeks. That if you give a governor allocation for a month within two weeks the governor has spent it, they gave an example that the foreign exchange will shoot up within that two weeks because most of the money has been turned into dollars. Now after two weeks of receiving that money, state governors will go to the bank to demand advance loans, repayable when state allocation comes. The bank manager will be very happy because he is going to earn interest and he is sure of the money. That’s because the bank is there waiting for the governors whose money is sure banker; they are not interested in manufacturers who are coming for long term loans.

Look at Customs, how can you go and get somebody from outside to head the Customs? What happened to all those who have been inside? This is a civilian government and not a military government. The Customs act is there; who can rise to the post of Comptroller General is there. Just like you have the Police, you don’t just go and bring somebody from outside and say you are now the oga. We urge Mr. President to take another look at that report, yes he will not implement 100 per cent of the report but he has to look into it. His predecessor sent it to the National Assembly, though towards the end of his tenure. If he had sent it earlier on believe you me the then House of Reps led by Tambuwal would have killed it on arrival. So we urge the present NASS to look into it. The members do not have to wait for Mr. President. We even drafted bills for any active member to just lift it, put it under his name and present it. So, we expect a lot but if this

government says it will not work, the record, history and the report are there.

We talked about parts of the constitution that are not justiceable, we said why? For instance that section that talks about free education, health and so on but you can’t go to court to enforce it, we said why? Why can’t we have free education, free healthcare in this country? These are the things we talked about. We talked about youth corps members, motivation for the soldiers and all those in uniform. We discussed with all of them. No country grows without business, how can Nigerian businesses grow? We just didn’t rely on our own wisdom. We invited the operators to come and tell us what the problems are. These are part of the things we discussed and we are asking Mr. President to please implement them.

Second Niger-Bridge

I smell conspiracy. First and foremost one person released the information that the project was going to be suspended and was emphatic that government has ordered work to stop. I wondered what he meant. Remember this was the same bridge Obasanjo went with some governors to go and commission the commencement of the contract in 2007. Live television was everywhere, everybody in jubilation. As soon as he left, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua came. When we got there, there was no file. He said no contract was awarded by President Olusegun Obasanjo. It turned out it was a deceit and you know that President Yar’Adua for obvious reasons didn’t do much due to ill health.

When President Goodluck Jonathan came, the same thing was also presented to him and he made a famous comment that one Azikiwe commissioned the first Niger-Bridge, this Azikiwe will commission the second one and he did it with fanfare. I praise the then Minister of Finance for even taking practical steps to get government’s 28 per cent contribution set aside and it was done so that government won’t talk of money or no money. The conspiracy that has come in now is that today you hear one person talking, the other person talking and Governor Adams Oshiomhole who now talks a lot since his marriage, I don’t know whether his marriage has had an effect on him, giving us fantastic figures. I can say as President of Aka-Ikenga, please Mr. President do not tamper with that contract, that is a public-private sector contract, he should remember that anything he does there has international implications. Julius Berger is there to work, the subsidiary of Sovereign Wealth Fund is there to provide their fund and the government has paid part of its 28 per cent, so why do you want to stop it?