Home/Politics/Interview:Absentee governors should be impeached –Itse Sagay

Absentee governors should be impeached –Itse Sagay

By PATIENCE AKPURU (onyenmapat@yahoo.com)
One of Nigeria’s foremost legal practitioners, Prof. Itsejuwa Sagay (SAN) does not see a happy future for Nigeria with its present crop of leaders. He is worried that government institutions have been turned into personal properties by those elected to guard them. Sagay is especially saddened by developments in some states where some governors have absconded from their duty posts without warning.

What are your expectations for Nigeria  this year?

Well, I am not optimistic about  this year or even the year after this one which is 2014  or even 2015. It’s because the behavior or the general orientation of the political elite is discouraging. So without them acquiring some level of political maturity and sobriety, I don’t see a happy future for this country.  When you read the newspapers, you will see what I am talking about.

For example,  northerners are saying ‘power must return to the north.’ South-easterners are saying ‘Igbo presidency is not negotiable.’ South-southerners are saying ‘my son, my son.’ You see, what is common among these three zones is that they are not looking at the quality, character, record, etc of persons who are  to take on the responsibility of government.

They are looking at it from the point of view of ethnic orientation . They want power donated to an ethnic group and so they can bring any nonentity, any person of ignoble character to  oppress the country, loot the treasury and get away with it. That is my main complaint. The whole orientation is contrary to the interest of the country, our development and our improving the standard of living and welfare of the people of this country. That is the first major problem that I have with this country.

Governor Chime

What we should be looking at is some criteria which anybody who aspires to lead must meet. I am talking about qualifications, records, principles and programmes, etc, but nobody is talking about that. The way I see it, if the next ruler is my fellow villager, it doesn’t make his bad role less painful, less destructive, and less negative in the interest of the country. So we shouldn’t be looking at that.

It does seem that we do not have the right orientation about politics.

Yes, people go into politics for the wrong reasons. People want to get in someone they know so that he can appoint them somewhere and then they will get their hands on state assets and use them for some personal purpose. It’s just the old degenerate conduct that has ruined this country.

Right now, for example,  we have the case of  three governors who left the country and gave no indication of how long they have been away or  whether they are even away so that the constitutional requirements can be met. That way, the deputy governors can act for them.

In a country where a person in office does not see that office as an institution; is not used to operating in a democratic setting, he sees himself as an Oba, an Igwe who cannot be replaced and for whom nobody can act. That way, he views any opportunity or situation in which somebody holds his office for three days as a threat to him personally. It just shows that we are not yet fit to run a modern state.

Those are purely material things. Power generation and supply  are inadequate  and  insecurity has overwhelmed this country. There’s Boko Haram in the north, kidnapping in the south-east and south-south, and then armed robbery all over the country. The state of the nation is very depressing and there is no likelihood of any improvement. You see  northerners talking about sharing the oil resources with the south-south that produces it at the same level; complaining that they are not getting as much as they should  from another person’s resources which the constitution forcibly allowed you to participate in the sharing.

The net effect of that is this: the northerner and possibly the people in other parts of the country will not consider making efforts to generate funds  to exploit their own resources and  generate funds to run their government. They have become used to doing nothing and then going to Abuja every month to collect allocation based on resources from another part of the country.

That is why they are not developing, that is why they have problems; that is why the whole country, particularly the north is so backward. They don’t realize that. So we are in a very chaotic, untidy and backward state right now. The future is very bleak.

Talking about the three governors, you know that they are Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors. Remember also that the PDP recently lost a governor in one of the northern states. Some people may feel that there is a jinx  in the party because at a point, the PDP even called for prayers. Do you think that it is retribution coming the way of the party?  

No, I don’t think so. The reason it appears that they are the ones most affected is that there are about 27 PDP governors out of the 36 slots. So if lightening is going to strike a gathering of governors, the PDP is more likely to be affected. All the other parties have about nine governors; the PDP alone has 27. So it’s a natural consequence  of the number they have accumulated by rigging and fraud and all the other dishonorable things that the PDP is known for. I don’t think that it’s a  spiritual phenomenon. It’s just natural because they have the largest number of governors. So, if a stone is cast at governors, it must hit a PDP head.

The way their cases are being handled is  worrisome. And it started with the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s illness. What is wrong with saying: ‘I’m indisposed. I am going for medical treatment. My deputy will act until I come back?’ Why are they so insecure? I don’t understand it. My view is that it shows that they are not fit to operate in a modern system.

There is no political maturity in their mentality. They are not politically mature; they are infantile. Why are they so frightened even with their deputies that they selected themselves? Why are they  afraid? In the process, they are breaching the constitution and distorting the whole philosophy of governance in the country.

Governor Chime, for instance, has been away for more time than the constitution even prescribes. What do you think should be done in the case of these absentee governors?

Initially I thought  these people need to be educated.  They  need to  understand that government is like a factory producing goods and that a governor is a piece of  merchandise  on the conveyor-belt. You enter the conveyor-belt at one end and then it takes you to the end of its line, and then you go off the conveyor-belt. Then another person will enter. It’s not a personal thing. It’s an institution in which you play a part. It should  not be personalized at all. They must realize that there is no way they can be in government for ever. The minute you enter, your days are  numbered  just like coming into the world. They need to be educated.

Secondly,  Chime’s case is getting out of control. It’s  even more disturbing and outrageous that a lady who is the chief of staff is exercising the powers of the governor because she is close to the governor. The deputy governor is just left high and dry; being scorned, ill-treated and disrespected by commissioners all over the state. That is total distortion of the constitutional arrangement. I think Chime’s case is serious and he probably needs to be impeached.

Or should the doctrine of necessity be applied?

That could be done too. It’s a more moderate approach to allow the deputy to act until he comes back. But I think him leaving Enugu without a head of government is an impeachable offecse.

What  do you think can make a change in the PDP?      

Well, I believe in prayers because I am a Christian, but you don’t pray and then offend what God stands for and expect your prayer to be answered. That is the problem with the PDP. By their conducts, they are not people whose prayers can be answered because they are negative. They are not operating in the interest of the people.

They operate for personal interests; promoting their interests at the expense of the rest of the country and the masses. They are not managing our resources well. There is a lot of looting and plundering of our resources going on. Even where they act legally, they abuse their offices by voting amounts that are out of this world to themselves.

They make government so expensive that 70% of the annual budget is devoted to  payment of salaries and other overheads for those in government. So, less than 30% go to the  capital vote. The result of that is that the country cannot develop. They have completely destroyed the country because of their greed and immaturity and total lack of service orientation. They are just there for self service   all of them in power, but for a few exceptions. We can see the difference in places like Lagos, Rivers and  Edo.  A few states like that are showing the way, but the rest of them are not yet following.

Talking about Lagos, Governor Babatunde Fashola has said that he is not working on a successor. Many people are not happy about this. How do you feel about that?

The thing is, in a situation like this, he is not going to come out and say ‘this is my successor.’ I mean, not to the public, but within his party, which is ultimately responsible for nominating a successor. He probably would have indicated to them something like  ‘look, this is the best person to replace me.’ He was chief of staff to Asiwaju Tinubu and it was Tinubu who recognized his hidden potentials. Hidden in the sense that the world did not know, but Tinubu saw it when he was his chief of staff and brought it out and we are all beneficiaries of that today. I am sure that he, himself will be quietly doing that; pointing it out to his party men without telling the whole world.

A recent report described Nigeria as the worst place to be born on earth. How does it make you feel?

No, I don’t agree with that. Yes, Nigeria is a bad place; there is no question about that. In every index they use in measuring welfare, standard, poverty, wealth and all those things, we rank very low. We are not completely at the bottom, but we are very low. But if it is compared to our wealth, then it becomes outrageous. I think we are around the 60-something richest country in the world, but when it comes to the welfare index, we are around 142.

I agree, Nigeria is not a good place to be born, but it is not the worst in the world. I mean, it can’t be worse than Somalia, for goodness sake. It can’t be worse than Syria and Pakistan. I won’t agree to live in Pakistan, for instance for everything in this world. So, it is not fair, people are used to bashing Nigeria internationally. We are everybody’s punching bag. Anybody who wants to let out steam, will bring Nigeria into it and hit us. So, it is not fair. The situation is bad, we appreciate that we are low, but we are not the worst. That is wrong.

Whether or not we like it, people are already talking about the 2015 elections. This year, there will be a level of preparation for the next general elections. Given that the 2011 election was largely adjudged free and fair, do you expect a better outing in 2015?

Well, I want to start by saying that I don’t think that the 2011 election was as good as people have described it. No, there was a lot of fraud in that election. I have done a very detailed analysis of the results of that election and  the outcome is that there were a lot of things wrong with that election  particularly in the south-south and the south-east. In the other places, it was still reasonably okay, but in those two zones, the results were just totally unreliable. There was a lot of fraud and rigging there.

Yes, it’s better than Maurice Iwu’s 2007 election; definitely better; but nowhere as good as some of the other elections we have had in this country. It was not as good as the ones we had in 1979 or 1993 or even 1999. So, there is a lot of room for improvement. I believe that if we truly want it to be better, we should go electronic. We should adopt the system that Ghana used; where they had this equipment that looks like an I-pad and all the electoral officer does is to hold it. When a person wants to vote, the voter will touch the equipment. When you touch it, your face and your finger prints and every other detail about you will be displayed  if you have been registered. After that, you will be allowed to pick up a ballot paper and then vote. The equipment also records your vote automatically.

The advantage of that is you cannot rig the election. You cannot vote more than once. In fact, if you do that, the machine itself will cancel out your voting. You cannot rig the election and the result is almost immediately available. Within 24 hours, the results are known everywhere.

We should learn from Ghana. Let us watch the debate about what form our election will take. If you see anyone running away from electronic voting, that is the person who wants to rig election because ballot papers are the easiest way to rig election. But those who support electronic voting; particularly the Ghana type, those are the ones who mean well for this country.

We should use the Ghana type especially, because there are some electronic voting types that are not as good. Those ones can be manipulated. There is a particular one where you are given a card that you can swipe. When you swipe it, your name will come out. But you can go swiping all over the place. It doesn’t have the advantages of the Ghana type.

It will not show your name and you can be using another man’s name. So we have to use the right one. The Ghana type is fraud and rigging proof; as you touch it, everything about you shows. Then you’re automatically given the right to vote. After voting, the machine also records your vote automatically. And it cannot be repeated anywhere else. That is the advantage.

The last election, as I said earlier, was not well organized because they did not do what is called affix – after they  finished registration they could have cleaned up the register – eliminating those who had done double or multiple registration and those who are under-aged. So, after they have reconciled the figures, instead of the figures going down, they even increased because every state was waiting to see what the other will record. Kano was waiting to see what Lagos would record. They always want to be more than Lagos. And if Lagos records something, gbam overnight, you will see the figure in Kano will jump. Look at the case of Niger State that suddenly from nowhere had over 900, 000 people. So, the whole thing was a mess. We need to do a proper job. The voter’s register should be cleaned up so that we will have one man, one registration. And that in turn will ensure one man one vote.

The PDP is still the largest party in Nigeria. Efforts at reaching an alliance by the other political parties keep suffering setbacks overtime. How will these other smaller parties arrive at a workable alliance in order to wrestle power from the ruling PDP?

From what I gather from the papers, the alliance between the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has almost been concluded. They will formally announce a merger into one party in June. I don’t know the details of that agreement and what will come out of it. We are all waiting to see.

From experience and like you rightly said, one should be very cautious before welcoming it because something can happen and overnight, we could be back to square one. For example, someone is nominated as a presidential candidate and the others will say ‘No, it should be someone from our own former party’ and so on.

In negotiating, I think they should also negotiate on who is going to be nominated and how they are going to manage power in addition to administering the party. Otherwise, it would crash. If they could really come together firmly and come out with a good programme; particularly a programme which will include removing some powers and resources from the centre and transferring them back to the states; and allowing fiscal federalism to operate, that would be great.

That way, states will generate their own funds and pay tax to the federal government for running the centre. If they can do that sort of thing, then that is a major breakthrough. Right now, the north tends to want a very strong centre. The result of that  is that the centre doles out funds to everybody whereas all the three southern zones favour a very weak centre and strong states. That way, they can develop without being held back by the weaker parts of the country. So that issue has to be resolved.

Personally, if a party is not strongly in favour of decentralization of power; of true federalism, I can never vote for it.  Right now, as we are speaking, the only person who has hit the nail on the head is former Vice President Atiku Ababukar who has said that he was going to campaign and advocate for 100 per cent resource control. The states will then pay tax to the federal government. He is the only potential candidate that has really hit the nail on the head. I hope others will join him.

And we hope he also means it…?

I hope he also means it. Thank you, because you are right. One should take his words with a pinch of salt because of what he did to most of us who supported him in 2007. He came into ACN and everybody supported him. But as soon as he lost, he went straight back to the PDP. It was really shocking. I have never recovered from that. So, I can really, frankly not trust him again because of that. But what he has said so far about his manifesto is the most welcomed thing so far, as far as I am concerned.

I agree with him on that programme, but I don’t agree with him on the percentage he said should be paid to the federal government; he advocating for 70% to the centre. That is quite extreme. That is not the basis on which we all agreed to come together to establish an independent Nigeria.

The basis is contained in the 1960 constitution; 50% for the producing state governments, 20% for the federal government and the remaining 30% in another account from which it is redistributed like in the federation account to every state; including the state that has contributed.

There will be contribution, but the bulk of what is produced in your state will stay in your state. Then everybody will get up and work so that the culture of laziness that has overtaken this country, where you collect money from Abuja and go and blow it and then wait for the next one would cease.

 

For example,  northerners are saying ‘power must return to the north.’ South-easterners are saying ‘Igbo presidency is not negotiable.’ South-southerners are saying ‘my son, my son.’ You see, what is common among these three zones is that they are not looking at the quality, character, record, etc of persons who are  to take on the responsibility of government.

They are looking at it from the point of view of ethnic orientation . They want power donated to an ethnic group and so they can bring any nonentity, any person of ignoble character to  oppress the country, loot the treasury and get away with it. That is my main complaint. The whole orientation is contrary to the interest of the country, our development and our improving the standard of living and welfare of the people of this country. That is the first major problem that I have with this country.

What we should be looking at is some criteria which anybody who aspires to lead must meet. I am talking about qualifications, records, principles and programmes, etc, but nobody is talking about that. The way I see it, if the next ruler is my fellow villager, it doesn’t make his bad role less painful, less destructive, and less negative in the interest of the country. So we shouldn’t be looking at that.

It does seem that we do not have the right orientation about politics.

Yes, people go into politics for the wrong reasons. People want to get in someone they know so that he can appoint them somewhere and then they will get their hands on state assets and use them for some personal purpose. It’s just the old degenerate conduct that has ruined this country.

Right now, for example,  we have the case of  three governors who left the country and gave no indication of how long they have been away or  whether they are even away so that the constitutional requirements can be met. That way, the deputy governors can act for them.

In a country where a person in office does not see that office as an institution; is not used to operating in a democratic setting, he sees himself as an Oba, an Igwe who cannot be replaced and for whom nobody can act. That way, he views any opportunity or situation in which somebody holds his office for three days as a threat to him personally. It just shows that we are not yet fit to run a modern state.

Those are purely material things. Power generation and supply  are inadequate  and  insecurity has overwhelmed this country. There’s Boko Haram in the north, kidnapping in the south-east and south-south, and then armed robbery all over the country. The state of the nation is very depressing and there is no likelihood of any improvement. You see  northerners talking about sharing the oil resources with the south-south that produces it at the same level; complaining that they are not getting as much as they should  from another person’s resources which the constitution forcibly allowed you to participate in the sharing.

The net effect of that is this: the northerner and possibly the people in other parts of the country will not consider making efforts to generate funds  to exploit their own resources and  generate funds to run their government. They have become used to doing nothing and then going to Abuja every month to collect allocation based on resources from another part of the country.

That is why they are not developing, that is why they have problems; that is why the whole country, particularly the north is so backward. They don’t realize that. So we are in a very chaotic, untidy and backward state right now. The future is very bleak.

Talking about the three governors, you know that they are Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors. Remember also that the PDP recently lost a governor in one of the northern states. Some people may feel that there is a jinx  in the party because at a point, the PDP even called for prayers. Do you think that it is retribution coming the way of the party?  

No, I don’t think so. The reason it appears that they are the ones most affected is that there are about 27 PDP governors out of the 36 slots. So if lightening is going to strike a gathering of governors, the PDP is more likely to be affected. All the other parties have about nine governors; the PDP alone has 27. So it’s a natural consequence  of the number they have accumulated by rigging and fraud and all the other dishonorable things that the PDP is known for. I don’t think that it’s a  spiritual phenomenon. It’s just natural because they have the largest number of governors. So, if a stone is cast at governors, it must hit a PDP head.

The way their cases are being handled is  worrisome. And it started with the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s illness. What is wrong with saying: ‘I’m indisposed. I am going for medical treatment. My deputy will act until I come back?’ Why are they so insecure? I don’t understand it. My view is that it shows that they are not fit to operate in a modern system.

There is no political maturity in their mentality. They are not politically mature; they are infantile. Why are they so frightened even with their deputies that they selected themselves? Why are they  afraid? In the process, they are breaching the constitution and distorting the whole philosophy of governance in the country.

Governor Chime, for instance, has been away for more time than the constitution even prescribes. What do you think should be done in the case of these absentee governors?

Initially I thought  these people need to be educated.  They  need to  understand that government is like a factory producing goods and that a governor is a piece of  merchandise  on the conveyor-belt. You enter the conveyor-belt at one end and then it takes you to the end of its line, and then you go off the conveyor-belt. Then another person will enter. It’s not a personal thing. It’s an institution in which you play a part. It should  not be personalized at all. They must realize that there is no way they can be in government for ever. The minute you enter, your days are  numbered  just like coming into the world. They need to be educated.

Secondly,  Chime’s case is getting out of control. It’s  even more disturbing and outrageous that a lady who is the chief of staff is exercising the powers of the governor because she is close to the governor. The deputy governor is just left high and dry; being scorned, ill-treated and disrespected by commissioners all over the state. That is total distortion of the constitutional arrangement. I think Chime’s case is serious and he probably needs to be impeached.

Or should the doctrine of necessity be applied?

That could be done too. It’s a more moderate approach to allow the deputy to act until he comes back. But I think him leaving Enugu without a head of government is an impeachable offecse.

What  do you think can make a change in the PDP?      

Well, I believe in prayers because I am a Christian, but you don’t pray and then offend what God stands for and expect your prayer to be answered. That is the problem with the PDP. By their conducts, they are not people whose prayers can be answered because they are negative. They are not operating in the interest of the people.

They operate for personal interests; promoting their interests at the expense of the rest of the country and the masses. They are not managing our resources well. There is a lot of looting and plundering of our resources going on. Even where they act legally, they abuse their offices by voting amounts that are out of this world to themselves.

They make government so expensive that 70% of the annual budget is devoted to  payment of salaries and other overheads for those in government. So, less than 30% go to the  capital vote. The result of that is that the country cannot develop. They have completely destroyed the country because of their greed and immaturity and total lack of service orientation. They are just there for self service   all of them in power, but for a few exceptions. We can see the difference in places like Lagos, Rivers and  Edo.  A few states like that are showing the way, but the rest of them are not yet following.

Talking about Lagos, Governor Babatunde Fashola has said that he is not working on a successor. Many people are not happy about this. How do you feel about that?

The thing is, in a situation like this, he is not going to come out and say ‘this is my successor.’ I mean, not to the public, but within his party, which is ultimately responsible for nominating a successor. He probably would have indicated to them something like  ‘look, this is the best person to replace me.’ He was chief of staff to Asiwaju Tinubu and it was Tinubu who recognized his hidden potentials. Hidden in the sense that the world did not know, but Tinubu saw it when he was his chief of staff and brought it out and we are all beneficiaries of that today. I am sure that he, himself will be quietly doing that; pointing it out to his party men without telling the whole world.

A recent report described Nigeria as the worst place to be born on earth. How does it make you feel?

No, I don’t agree with that. Yes, Nigeria is a bad place; there is no question about that. In every index they use in measuring welfare, standard, poverty, wealth and all those things, we rank very low. We are not completely at the bottom, but we are very low. But if it is compared to our wealth, then it becomes outrageous. I think we are around the 60-something richest country in the world, but when it comes to the welfare index, we are around 142.

I agree, Nigeria is not a good place to be born, but it is not the worst in the world. I mean, it can’t be worse than Somalia, for goodness sake. It can’t be worse than Syria and Pakistan. I won’t agree to live in Pakistan, for instance for everything in this world. So, it is not fair, people are used to bashing Nigeria internationally. We are everybody’s punching bag. Anybody who wants to let out steam, will bring Nigeria into it and hit us. So, it is not fair. The situation is bad, we appreciate that we are low, but we are not the worst. That is wrong.

Whether or not we like it, people are already talking about the 2015 elections. This year, there will be a level of preparation for the next general elections. Given that the 2011 election was largely adjudged free and fair, do you expect a better outing in 2015?

Well, I want to start by saying that I don’t think that the 2011 election was as good as people have described it. No, there was a lot of fraud in that election. I have done a very detailed analysis of the results of that election and  the outcome is that there were a lot of things wrong with that election  particularly in the south-south and the south-east. In the other places, it was still reasonably okay, but in those two zones, the results were just totally unreliable. There was a lot of fraud and rigging there.

Yes, it’s better than Maurice Iwu’s 2007 election; definitely better; but nowhere as good as some of the other elections we have had in this country. It was not as good as the ones we had in 1979 or 1993 or even 1999. So, there is a lot of room for improvement. I believe that if we truly want it to be better, we should go electronic. We should adopt the system that Ghana used; where they had this equipment that looks like an I-pad and all the electoral officer does is to hold it. When a person wants to vote, the voter will touch the equipment. When you touch it, your face and your finger prints and every other detail about you will be displayed  if you have been registered. After that, you will be allowed to pick up a ballot paper and then vote. The equipment also records your vote automatically.

The advantage of that is you cannot rig the election. You cannot vote more than once. In fact, if you do that, the machine itself will cancel out your voting. You cannot rig the election and the result is almost immediately available. Within 24 hours, the results are known everywhere.

We should learn from Ghana. Let us watch the debate about what form our election will take. If you see anyone running away from electronic voting, that is the person who wants to rig election because ballot papers are the easiest way to rig election. But those who support electronic voting; particularly the Ghana type, those are the ones who mean well for this country.

We should use the Ghana type especially, because there are some electronic voting types that are not as good. Those ones can be manipulated. There is a particular one where you are given a card that you can swipe. When you swipe it, your name will come out. But you can go swiping all over the place. It doesn’t have the advantages of the Ghana type.

It will not show your name and you can be using another man’s name. So we have to use the right one. The Ghana type is fraud and rigging proof; as you touch it, everything about you shows. Then you’re automatically given the right to vote. After voting, the machine also records your vote automatically. And it cannot be repeated anywhere else. That is the advantage.

The last election, as I said earlier, was not well organized because they did not do what is called affix – after they  finished registration they could have cleaned up the register – eliminating those who had done double or multiple registration and those who are under-aged. So, after they have reconciled the figures, instead of the figures going down, they even increased because every state was waiting to see what the other will record. Kano was waiting to see what Lagos would record. They always want to be more than Lagos. And if Lagos records something, gbam overnight, you will see the figure in Kano will jump. Look at the case of Niger State that suddenly from nowhere had over 900, 000 people. So, the whole thing was a mess. We need to do a proper job. The voter’s register should be cleaned up so that we will have one man, one registration. And that in turn will ensure one man one vote.

The PDP is still the largest party in Nigeria. Efforts at reaching an alliance by the other political parties keep suffering setbacks overtime. How will these other smaller parties arrive at a workable alliance in order to wrestle power from the ruling PDP?

From what I gather from the papers, the alliance between the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has almost been concluded. They will formally announce a merger into one party in June. I don’t know the details of that agreement and what will come out of it. We are all waiting to see.

From experience and like you rightly said, one should be very cautious before welcoming it because something can happen and overnight, we could be back to square one. For example, someone is nominated as a presidential candidate and the others will say ‘No, it should be someone from our own former party’ and so on.

In negotiating, I think they should also negotiate on who is going to be nominated and how they are going to manage power in addition to administering the party. Otherwise, it would crash. If they could really come together firmly and come out with a good programme; particularly a programme which will include removing some powers and resources from the centre and transferring them back to the states; and allowing fiscal federalism to operate, that would be great.

That way, states will generate their own funds and pay tax to the federal government for running the centre. If they can do that sort of thing, then that is a major breakthrough. Right now, the north tends to want a very strong centre. The result of that  is that the centre doles out funds to everybody whereas all the three southern zones favour a very weak centre and strong states. That way, they can develop without being held back by the weaker parts of the country. So that issue has to be resolved.

Personally, if a party is not strongly in favour of decentralization of power; of true federalism, I can never vote for it.  Right now, as we are speaking, the only person who has hit the nail on the head is former Vice President Atiku Ababukar who has said that he was going to campaign and advocate for 100 per cent resource control. The states will then pay tax to the federal government. He is the only potential candidate that has really hit the nail on the head. I hope others will join him.

And we hope he also means it…?

I hope he also means it. Thank you, because you are right. One should take his words with a pinch of salt because of what he did to most of us who supported him in 2007. He came into ACN and everybody supported him. But as soon as he lost, he went straight back to the PDP. It was really shocking. I have never recovered from that. So, I can really, frankly not trust him again because of that. But what he has said so far about his manifesto is the most welcomed thing so far, as far as I am concerned.

I agree with him on that programme, but I don’t agree with him on the percentage he said should be paid to the federal government; he advocating for 70% to the centre. That is quite extreme. That is not the basis on which we all agreed to come together to establish an independent Nigeria.

The basis is contained in the 1960 constitution; 50% for the producing state governments, 20% for the federal government and the remaining 30% in another account from which it is redistributed like in the federation account to every state; including the state that has contributed.

There will be contribution, but the bulk of what is produced in your state will stay in your state. Then everybody will get up and work so that the culture of laziness that has overtaken this country, where you collect money from Abuja and go and blow it and then wait for the next one would cease.

Source:Sunday Sun