Military, religion, money politics responsible for derailing democracy in Nigeria — APC Chieftain
Chieftain of All Progressive Congress (APC) in Kwara and a two-time House member and former House leader in the State House of Assembly during the Second Republic, Chief Stephen Wole Oke, here in this interview with SAKA LAARO, speaks on various national issues. While expressing his view points on the 2023 general elections, it was his opinion that military rule, religion and money politics have wrecked havoc on the Country’s democracy. Excerpts:
There have been ongoing talks over zoning for the 2023 presidency. Do you believe in zoning and which geo political zone should produce the next president?
One thing we should realise is that Nigeria is a developing democracy. Unfortunately, when we started governance in Nigeria, it was truncated by the military between 1960 and 1999 – there has been transition with civilian elements. Unfortunately, the military has not done good for the country. They have made things worse for democratic institutions in the country. If they had left civilians alone with governance since 1960, Nigerian democracy would have grown. It is not easy to get perfect democracy anywhere, not even in American democracy. The involvement of military in the government of Nigeria has really drawn our democracy back.
When talking about zoning, there is nothing bad in it looking at the level of development of our democracy. Again, it is bad on the other hand because of our diversity and our ethnic nationalities and looking at the structure of the country today. We have six geo political zones, each of the zones consists of different subnationalities. Even in the zones too, how are we sure one particular nationality will not rule over us perpetually? Considering the fact that democracy depends on number of votes anybody could earn and because of our development, because of our ethnic diversities, zoning has proven to us a necessity. In addition to that, is the result of our education: Take for instance you cannot compare high standard of education in the West and East with the standard in the North West or North East. If we have a country where things are normal; I wouldn’t support zoning where the best materials should be allowed to rule us. When talking of zoning now, it does not produce the best from each zones. What happens today in Nigeria is that a person who eventually emerges will be determined by how much he has been able to buy electorates. When we talk of zoning, you look within each zone. There is going to be another zone among the ethnic subnationalities who should be presented. The idea of zoning is right and good to have because of various problems confronting the country as a result of certain weakness, inadequacies, problems that relate with our culture, belief, our level of education. Therefore, zoning is good and desirable. However, I would like to advise that for parties, any zone from which they want to pick their candidates, they should please pick the best candidate we need to develop and move the nation forward. They should not let money influence their choice of candidate, rather, they should allow ability of such candidate determine the suitability. This will help the country. Money politics has ruined the country to a large extent. For instance, what happened in Kwara state; for over 40 years money politics has been the yardstick been put in place to pick candidates. It has not helped those of us in Kwara – it is God who really changed the situation few years ago: Where we now have a change of dynasty in the governance of the state. This is also true of other zones of the East, West, North amongst others. Religion also could be said to have contributed to the destruction of our democracy. Religious consideration is Nigeria is ruining us.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) recently elected its chairman from the North Central; this is being seen as pointer that its presidential candidate will come from South. Do you think APC should do likewise?
If you look at what happened in the last few weeks, APC is in power at the national level. President Muhammadu Buhari, is from the North, he is going to spend two terms of eight years. The simple logic, if we should carry everybody along in the development of this nation, is that if the present head of state is from the North, definitely the next head of state should be from the South – to balance things and if we want to treat everyone equally. So, if PDP picked its chairman from North Central, I think they are hoping to pick the presidential candidate from the South – although I’m not their part man, so I think, because weird things happen in Nigeria. But they must have had that at the back of their mind that they want to pick their candidate from the South. However, I wonder what one is seeing, for instance the manner some of their leaders are behaving and talking. I have a doubt especially for those from the South who want to be Vice President. They are rooting for president from the North – people like the Governor of Sokoto, Aminu Tambuwa, and Governor Nyeson Wike of Rivers. Such is surprising. The fact that they had picked the Chairman from the North Central has nothing to do with their presidential candidate.
Agitation by self-determination groups, how do you think it should be handled?
Honestly, if you look at the whole thing, it is unfortunate because I have been talking about this ethnic nationalities. Let’s look at it, the man in power, Buhari, belongs to an ethnic group and the ethnic group which he belongs wants to continue to dominate and control who is in power. They want to remain in power as they feel they are born to rule others. I don’t see what is wrong with the agitation or restructuring of the country. Look at the first republic, the North, South, West, East, and see the type of growth and healthy development through rivalry for a region like west. The Yoruba area would have been a Singapore or any of the European tigers. Restructuring is very essential, we need it for the progress of the country. If we had not had such in the 1st republic, what we live-in in the 1st republic, if those things had been in the 4th republic, that would have transformed the country to the level that the world will be looking at us in high esteem, but the army truncated that. So restructuring is good and essential, asking for self determination, we support it.
What do you think is the solution to problems Nigeria is currently facing?
There is nothing happening in Nigeria today that is unusual, particularly in the area of security. If you look at insecurity, kidnapping is far more conceived in certain parts of the country. Why? Because of the past, if their leaders have done the right thing in the past, they would not have any problem now. Those of them who are not in power, government empowered them, neglected their responsibilities. They are from Almajiris. Honestly, the type of happenings in the North East, North West, cannot happen in the West, at least in the sense of how can people be killing others? If they had helped them get the right education, if they had given them opportunities from the beginning, western education, that wouldn’t have been the case. Look at the numbers of out of school children, you are talking of millions. What is happening today is a tip of an iceberg, if they don’t take care of those children who are street beggers, Almajiris. So I agree with that problem, what is happening in the North you can never see it in the West. Can the government do anything when as a matter of fact there are political undertones with what is happening in the North, because some people if they can’t rule, they try to ensure they create problem for the rulers. If care is not taken it is far more concentrated in the North. Why? Because of the past order, leading to distracting the government. But let me add that what is happening in Nigeria is not exclusive to the nation. There are problems in other countries, each with its peculiarity. We are in Nigeria, that is why insecurity concerns us. But I believe and I want to predict this thing will go on for several years, but at the end of the day, peace will remain and the lesson we are learning will help us develop faster. Today, we should be competing with India and Malaysia. Can you believe that we are now importing, whereas we are the people they plucked some of the crops from. For instance, we import palm oil from Malaysia but Malaysia took palm kernel to plant and develop. What do we do, nothing but destroy them because of our cultural diversity. There is no national consciousness; for instance the North is no longer producing groundnut, because of the free money from government. They are no longer encouraging their people to concentrate on agriculture that can pull them out of poverty. So, I believe it is a problem that cannot be solved easily, we still have more years to suffer.
People are expressing fear that there might be no election in 2023 because of insecurity. What is your take on this?
Yes! We are all afraid of 2023. Why? Because everybody wants to lead, and they want to control politicians. Don’t be surprised, the next election will see the use of more thugs than ever in the history of this nation, because they want to dominate the country. Look at what is happening now, it is the outcome of what they did in the past – ISWAP/Boko-Haram, they used them for election and after election, they will let them lose. That is why we are afraid of 2023. There will be more involvement of thugs and rascals in the elections. So, I don’t know if they have begun praying.
There are calls for generational shift in leadership of the country . Do you support this?
It’s a foolish thing! Our people will say. “Elders are not in town, the town spoilt” – That means the youth take over the leadership. It is not done that way. What will be the age or at what age for us to have a youth as the leader. Look at USA,-the president is 78 or 79 his predecessor, 76-77 years. Look at other countries where they have people of advanced age. I don’t want to agree that youths should take over. The youths should learn. Whether you like it or not, they will one day grow old, but I feel they should start learning and gain experience like a Yoruba adage, “if a youth climb a tree top and the old man stands on ground, what the old man will see, the youth on the tree top will not see it.” That is a relevant proverb. Youths should begin gathering up experience, that experience is what they need to move the country forward. A man of about 25 years what type of experience do you expect him to have gathered to enable him perform successfully in leadership position?
What type of laws can curb insecurity?
It is not the duty of the legislature to execute laws, legislature are to make laws. They are not police or security agencies that will implement the laws they make. What I will say is that, security concerns should be everyone’s concern, from the president to the last person, especially our traditional rulers who are close to the grassroots and can point out the bad eggs amongst the community. Particularly, traditional rulers in the North, should not cover. Anybody, whoever they know is causing trouble should be handed over to the relative security agencies.
Some aspirants in 2023 wants Muslim – Muslim ticket. Will Nigerians accept this?
It was acceptable to us in 1993. Why it will not be accepted is because people are conscious of their religious beliefs. Any Muslim/Muslim ticket in Nigeria today is unthinkable. You have seen comments from Northern Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) that justified their fear – their churches burnt, members killed; that is what we have now a Muslim/Christian ticket. They asked why don’t we have a Christian/Christian ticket? We will only advise them to be sensible and reasonable. To have a Muslim/Muslim ticket at this time cannot work. If they believe their population is what they hope that can give them victory, then let us see what happens thereafter. In the best interest of the country, they should put that aside.
Asiwaju Tinubu aspiration as president. Do you think the North will accept him?
Why would the North not accept him? Because from all indication, he has not done anything anti-North. After all, he is a Muslim. He played a very big role in what we have as president of Buhari. The role he played resulted in APC winning all its elections. If he had not worked, if he had not laboured to ensure the type of coalition that brought about APC, Buhari might have never been a president. He attempted it several times, but failed: but when he and Tinubu worked hard to ensure that we had a coalition of several parties, that was what produced Buhari as president. For anybody to say Tinubu will not be accepted, I don’t know. After all, he is not as old as Buhari. Except he is seen as one who is intelligent and will not be controlled. The North might not want him for that. But for the sake of Nigeria’s development and growth, he deserves to be given a chance.
