This is the most recent interview my uncle did

■ Says APC is a carbon copy of PDP

Dr. Walter Ofonagoro was the Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA )during the Second Republic administration of former President Shehu Shagari. He later served the military junta of the late General Sani Abacha as Minister of Information. The duo of TUNDE THOMAS AND OBIDIKE JERRY of Saturday Sun took him to task recently in his Lagos home on some of his controversial roles in the past and other national issues. It’s a no-holds barred encounter. Excerpts:

Let’s have your thoughts on some of the recommendations/resolutions of the national conference such as creation of 18 more states, six geo-political structure, etc.?

I think the people to ask about the confab would be the members of the confab. I am just an observer just as you are. So, whatever information I have about the confab is what I read in the papers and what I saw on the television. As regards the recommendation, I think it would be difficult to sit here and say this is what the conference recommended because the conference has not even wound up its work. They are still in session even as we talk. They have reached a consensus on 19 of their 20 issues.

What is remaining is that of the devolution of powers where they seem to be having some challenges. Until they resolve it, I think it’s premature to comment. But I just have an observation on what was reported in the papers over the weekend that they agreed on 18 per cent derivation for mineral producing areas (oil producing areas), five per cent for developing the mineral resources of all the states of the federation including the mineral producing areas so that minerals produced in these other areas can also contribute to the federation account. But the whole country cannot just be coming together once a month to share what comes from one product. And there’s no state in the country that does not have resources.

Why don’t we develop all of them and contribute to common pool so that everybody can benefit also from the resources of those who are benefitting from the common pool. Right now, the common pool is funded only by the oil-producing states and the states that are generating something by way of value added tax (VAT), Lagos, South South, and may be South East. And when it comes to allocation to local government, some of the states that contribute nothing take majority of the money. We can’t continue forever on that basis and they all agreed on that but when they came to present it to the plenary, probably some mistakes were made, the presenter said the five per cent was meant for the three northern zones. Of course, others kicked; why are you going to make special provision for the three northern zones. What about the three southern zones? They have similar challenges.

You have Bakassi-where people have been chased out of their homes through no fault of their own and they are now refugees in their own land. Not rehabilitated, not taken care by their government. What about the South East that fought a war and the war ended in 1970, 44 years ago? Up till now not much has been done to rehabilitate the people. What about Odi that was devastated by federal might, revenging what was said to be an attack on soldiers and up till today the people have not actually received any benefit. What about the devastations in Niger Delta from oil production? What about areas that have been devastated by flood and other ravages? That intervention fund was meant for all such cases not just as a pie for the North to serve as a continuation of a pattern that has become more or less a habit since 1914. On that sticky ground they raised a committee to look over it. That is not even the major problem I see there. The major problem I see there was what happened when they were coming with suggestions on what to do with their recommendations.

The conference was convened by the President exercising his discretion as our Head of state and commander-in-chief. He is in charge of exercising the executive powers of the government. And he could see there were problems arising from the unrelenting agitation of some people for what they call the people’s constitution and he thought maybe the time has come for the country to come together and look at these issues and resolve them once and for all. And hence the Conference in which the 492 members were nominated based on recommendations of the committee he set up to advise him on how to summon the Conference. Now, 492 of them are nominated. They are not elected. We are in a democratic setting in which the constitution of Nigeria defines very clearly who has powers to do what and in what circumstances. The constitution of Nigeria clearly divides Nigeria’s governmental powers into three broad arms. The executive powers, legislative powers, and judicial powers.

And who is exercising each of those powers. The legislature exercises the legislative powers, the president executes the law and exercises the executive powers, and the judiciary, through the Chief Justice and the Judges exercise the judicial powers. So, that being the case, when you now have a Conference which is making very far reaching recommendations bordering on constitutional change and the constitution specifies in very great detail the mode of effecting change to the constitution. How do you now translate these recommendations to constitutional change bearing in mind that the constitution has set up the bodies already that will effect the change? It is clearly stated in sections 8 and 9 of our 199 constitution as amended. So, how will you alter or amend the constitution without going to the National Assembly?



So the National Assembly must have an input?

Oh, yes because, remember that these people are nominated. That is the biggest drawback. They are not elected. So, at best they are advisers to the president. The president has the power to ask even the whole country to advise him. What he does with that advice again is subject to the powers available to him or his own appreciation of what he wants to do. He could file it away as many have done in the past. Didn’t former President Obasanjo set up constitutional conference in 2005? What happened to that one? All the recommendations are gathering dust somewhere. And were they given to National Assembly to look at again when they started amending the constitution? Am sure it was also given to the 492 wise delegates to look at again. At the end of the day, some are saying they are superior to the National Assembly, that what they are making is the people’s constitution.

I don’t think that we should even dignify such views. The constitution is already there. The constitution that people are deriding is what put the president there and he swore to uphold it. It is what put the National Assembly there. It is what put the judiciary there. And it’s what gave them (delegates) even the platform on which to come and talk in Abuja because if the president didn’t invite them to come and talk in Abuja, how would they get there? And with what resources would they sit down for three months or four months to advise the government? Without the constitution, you have a situation of anarchy. Nigeria is a country governed by law. It is a creature of law. And the constitution is the basic law of the land. If you don’t respect the basic law of the land, what are you talking about? Meanwhile, National Assembly is already amending the constitution. So, the best they can do is take what the conference recommended, send it to National Assembly and National Assembly will add it to what they already have.



In other words, you are saying the president should send it as executive bill?

It might be through executive or whatever. He may call a meeting of principal officers of the National Assembly, principal officers of the national conference and his own advisers and sit down and say how do we deal with this? Maybe they might say bring it through executive bill. In the executive bill, there might be give-and-take and it would go through the normal first reading, second reading, and third reading and what can be implemented will be implemented. But some people are saying let us go for a referendum. There’s nothing wrong with that but let me draw your attention to the Electoral Act. The Electoral Act is very specific on that. It specifies under what conditions you can use INEC for a referendum. Section 2 of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended says in addition to the function conferred on it by the constitution (which is conducting election), the Commission shall have power to conduct voters and civic education, promote knowledge of sound democratic election processes, and conduct any referendum required to be conducted pursuant to the provision of 1999 constitution or any other law or act of the national assembly. How many law making bodies do we have in Nigeria? It is the national assembly and beneath it you have the state assemblies whose acts are inferior to that of the national assembly. To have a referendum, there must be provision for that referendum by National Assembly. But if it is a referendum to alter the constitution, they cannot do that because the constitution already specified how it can be changed.

And referendum is not there. So, for you to now say you are going to have a referendum on this constitution, you must first of all alter the existing constitution by including referendum as one of the modes for altering the constitution. As I said earlier, the powers of the country is divided into three. The executive powers of the president, the president can issue them but subject to checks and balances of the national assembly. The national assembly can make laws but they cannot execute. The president must execute. However, the problem we have in our democracy is that the National Assembly wants to be the executive and the executive wants to be the legislature. The National Assembly wants to award contract, they want to exercise the power of a minister. If he/she doesn’t cooperate, they try to demand that he be removed. Take the case of aviation ministry, that the minister bought bullet-proof jeep or cars. Is jeep an aircraft? Did she take those cars home? Those are the property of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria. And these authorities have their managing directors, their boards of directors, who have power to carry out the functions of government. So, why punish the minister? She was one of the performing ministers in the government. It is unfortunate that they allowed her to be sacrificed with nobody to fight for her when she gave her best to the country.



Nobody to fight for her, you said?

Who fought for her? She was kicked out after two years and in two years she transformed 22 airports in this country. Is that the way to reward the loyal and hard working minister? I think it is very unfortunate. Nigeria should think twice about treating people like that. As far as I am concerned, I think it’s a shame on Nigeria that the way we reward loyal and hard working people is to throw them out. And the ones who are not so distinguished are the ones you keep.



Are you saying the president ought to have handled it differently?

He has his reasons. The president is the one with the power. He is the one that has been given the authority to run the country. And it is at his absolute discretion what he wants to do. But I wouldn’t dismiss my strongest and best ministers under fire. That’s why I should defend them and stand by them because they are working for me.



The confab recommended the creation of 18 states in the country. What is your take on that?

I think they should have done more. Well, it is very good actually. Eighteen new states will give us 54 states. What is wrong with that? It will actually spread development to the grassroots. You see, the states and local governments since after the civil war have become the means of having access to jobs and development opportunity. If you want to go into civil service today, your quota is based on your state.

If you want to have any job or reference to any opportunity even in your state, it depends on whether you have local government. Some states have local governments with few people and they have the opportunities. And in some other states you have few local governments with large population like Lagos. Lagos has 20 million people, 20 local government areas. But if they have more states and more local governments, opportunities will extend to more Lagosians. The infrastructure in Lagos is already developed, all it has to do is to build industries and create jobs.

But some argue that creating states is not good when some of the existing states are not viable?

Are they saying that it is not good to create jobs for the people? Which means only those who are fortunate to have jobs should be there? The purpose of creating local government is to bring development closer to the people. The clever ones, those who saw road before the others, quickly moved with long legs and got local governments and states for themselves. And then those who didn’t see their way through the military are now shot out. Look at it this way. Some local government areas have, maybe, 2,000 or 3,000 people. Go and check the records or population of some states in Nigeria. You find that those who didn’t find their way through the military in those days are the ones who are cheated in state creation and local government. When we got independence, there were three regions-east west, and North. But independence agreement was that 50 per cent of the houses in the national assembly, the seats should go to the North, and 50 per cent to the South.

And then, in the south, it was divided into two equal parts-25 per cent east and 25 per cent west. When Gowon created states, he created 12 states-six in the North, six in the south. That is, three in the east and three in the west. Just before the civil war when it was necessary to carry the south along. After the war, with victory in the pocket and Biafra thoroughly subdued, Murtala Mohammed bared the fangs of the caliphate. He created states in 1976 and moved the number of states from 12 to 19. And the north quietly took one and put aside. That is, 10 states in the north and nine in the South. In addition, he created a new national capital in Abuja which has the status of a state. That means 11 in the North and nine in the South, the inequality is getting entrenched. Then IBB and Abacha continued the trend moving the number to present 36 states structure plus Abuja. It is now 19 in the north and 17 in the South. The North now has two-state majority plus Abuja.

If there’s advertisement for job and they give 10 jobs per state, the few states you have the more limited the number. And the South East they wanted to punish got only five states. The total number of local governments we have in these five states is less than Kano and Jigawa states combined. And when you now base access to revenue every month on those numbers/ structures you can imagine how much they are getting compared to what comes to us. It is baffling. Our people have to leave home, go to anywhere to earn a living. Go to every corner of West Africa you find them. Are they going there with clear eyes? They are going to earn a living. But if you have the resources at home, you wouldn’t embark on desperate moves.

So, I am saying democratize the access to opportunity for people. When the ground is level for everybody then let us compete in terms of what you will do with your resources and not giving resources to some people and starve the others of access to resources and tell me they are not viable. When you go to an area where a new state has been created you don’t need to be told. Go to Asaba, the capital of Delta State and see. Since they created Delta State and made Asaba the capital you can ‘touch’ the development with your finger when you drive through the place. They have their own airport. So, what government has to do in addition to creating more states is build infrastructure-power, road, etc- so that the private sector will come in and develop the states.
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Old man with old brain, you better stay quite because all you are saying is nonsense.

Same old ,morally bankrupt deadbeats with their same old deadbeat ideas .

Reward someone who squandered /stole over $1 billion on 22 unviable and glorified landing strips ;most of them with less than 5 take offs and landings a day but would require far more in cost to maintain and operate?
I guess power stations and water works are less important.let's just repaint those airports for our private jet so that we wouldn't have to bother with roads.
More states?
Why is it so hard to recognise failure when failure is staring you in the face.if people are unable to differentiate between a need and a luxury ,what hope is there for the man on the street.
Nigeria has serious deficits in power generation ,but you would think that airports are the biggest problems.
No urgency ,no initiative nothing.
The only idea coming out is how they can parcel out the nation's assets amongst themselves.

i comment my reserve

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