*Former speaker House of Representatives, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’ Abba does not need introduction in the Nigerian polity especially for his being frank and vociferous in national issues not considering whose ox is gored. In this interview with The FCT Post, the All Progressive Congress (APC) Chieftain shares his thoughts on the upcoming National Political Summit in which he is serving as the National Chairman of the committee. He also bares his mind on the recent national issues and controversies. *

Excerpts:

*What is the reason behind your acceptance as the Chairman of the planning committee of the National Political Summit? *

Well, I have always tried to work for my country Nigeria and I thought that this is an opportunity for me and for us to re-position our democracy since the past 16 years. We thought we could use our old influence to generate ideas, that will galvanize political activists to come to terms with the fact that we are operating a democracy and that we are supposed to operate it the way it should, because it has come to a situation whereby people are rallying round democracy in the effect that today, we are only operating a pseudo democracy.

Whenever you pull out internal democracy from election, then you are inflicting heavy damage on the polity. But today that is what is going on, and that is why we have so many economic and social problems. Because the polity is not growing, the economy is not growing and the society is not growing. So this is why I thought this platform has provided us with this opportunity to look at these things and then try to bring succor to our democracy.

*What is the response so far from different parties is it all embracing or are some parties seeing it as a responsibility or activity of a particular party? *

This is supposed to be all embracing, the Save Democracy Group-Africa is responsible for the national summit and then partners other organizations including APC, PDP, APGA, LP, NGOs and other political parties and civil societies. The aim of the summit is to bring a political consensus in our polity, whatever political party we belong to, there must be a consensus that we must work for our democracy. And that winners and loser’s must always be recognized.

When someone looses or a party looses an election, we must acknowledge the existence of the losing party and carry it along. Whoever the looser is must accept defeat and we want a situation whereby winning and losing will be fairly and freely decided, so that whoever wins, we know that yes, it is on merit and whoever looses, we will be sure he is not deprived of one thing or the other. So this is one of the aims of the political summit.

*Apart from the Nigerian parties in the summit, what is the role of other African leaders that will be coming and what is their basis for coming? *

As an organization responsible for the summit, the Save Democracy Group-Africa extends beyond Nigeria. It is everyone’s wish that Africa be democratized and we thought that if we are free, we must not be indifferent
to another's freedom elsewhere particularly in our continent. In Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, there are growing challenges of democracy.

You see, when you leave people with no choice, they will resort to violence, and that is why there is violence in many African countries, because people are being deprived of their right to choose their leaders. So, the SDG is out and it’s not just set to work for democracy in Nigeria alone but in Africa.

*Conferences and summits have been held in the past, and its aim has not been far from fashioning modalities for a way forward in the country, so what’s the difference between this particular political summit and similar ones that have been in the past? *

Well, I believe that most of the conferences and summits that have held in the past must have been organized in good faith with the objective of making our society better. Our own summit is also organized in good faith
but the difference is the gap between our thoughts. We believe that effort must be contributed, financially and otherwise for sustaining a structure like this, a lot of time is required and a lot of finance must be committed, and that structure must be funded. And that is why in certain developed nations, they have endowments, these endowments are funded by their governments.

For example, in the United States, they have what is called National Endowment for Democracy-this is funded by the government and it’s a body under a state department and it’s responsible for funding political institutions to achieve their objectives. It is this body that funds institutions like the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute. The role of these institutes in the political revolution of a lot of African countries cannot be overemphasized.

Even when we started this democracy in 1999, they use to come and put us in many aspects of democracy, from appropriation process to various ways of legislation. That continued until I made a personal effort to bring them to Nigeria on a more permanent base. That was when they established offices and had permanent bases in Nigeria. So, we would want the Federal Government to buy this idea of institute for democracy. It will be a means of examining some of this our programmes with a view to stabilizing and helping our polity.

*Looking at governance in our country today, many quarters have been crying foul over what they describe to be a threat to democracy, but do you really think our democracy is under threat? *

Well, my believe is that as long as there is no internal democracy in any polity, that polity is definitely at threat. People are underestimating the importance of internal democracy. It is within the structure of internal democracy that you know the souls. As long as we go about democracy disorderly, it has a way of hitting back and that is why we see that today, because of lack of internal democracy, we have many security issues such as insurgency, kidnapping, armed robbery, cultism and many others numerous to mention.

Whatever sector one is, ultimately, what determines whether you live at peace or war is good governance. Today, the premise within which people are recruited is faulty and out of sycophancy, so when people become sycophants, what happens is that the incentive is killed. Because when you are a sycophant and I see you are the only one making progress, I will convert myself into a sycophant too. I will not waste my time studying hard for me to be able to succeed. I will regress and come down to your level thereby killing my intellect. It is always unfortunate to see people that their intellect is questionable running the affairs of the government. We
are killing intellect in Nigeria through systematic subjugation of internal democracy.

*What is the assurance that the discussions and consensus reached in the summit will be implemented and what is the expected ‘Abuja declaration’ going to look like? *

Well, it depends on the level of cooperation we receive from the quarters that are supposed to use the materials that will emanate from the summit. After we collate, we intend to handover whatever we collate to the Executive, Judiciary and Legislative arms, even to the State Governments, so that at any given point, they know the state of democracy and how they will improve apparently. This is our idea; so long we receive the
cooperation required.

*The fight against corruption has been described by many quarters as witch hunting and vengeance against perceived political enemies and oppositions.
Please sir, what is your candid opinion on it? *

My take is that the institutions fighting corruption should be allowed to do their job independently, because a lot of times, the moment people begin to perceive politics in the prosecution of corruption cases, it weakens the institutions and I believe that with time, this must be addressed.

Secondly, the issue of fighting corruption, I believe must be carried along with the philosophy that emphasizes the fight against the things that bring about corruption. Because corruption is a social phenomenon, it doesn’t exist in isolation. When the majority of the people lack basic facilities needed for livelihood. Nigerians lack them because of institutional weaknesses and people resort to self help.

In a country where people have to own their own power source, own their personal water source and health source. People find it difficult to even own a roof of their own. I believe that fight against corruption must be
fought simultaneously against those things that bring about corruption.

Again, there is this thing about security. People want to be secure. During the Mohammed Murtala/Olusegun Obasanjo administration, a lot of civil servants were dismissed from service. This was a government that came out to say they are going to fight corruption.

They dismissed a lot of civil servants that were said to be corrupt. It was during that government that corruption became more entrenched because the remaining civil servants realizing what became of the civil servants, who were dismissed, tried to secure themselves against any eventuality.

So, this kind of things must be looked into, people must be made to be secure. In an environment of insecurity, people might resort to self help. Infrastructure must be provided as a means of nipping it in the bud and as the best source of fighting the root cause of corruption.

Source: The FCT Post - http://www.fctpost.com/2016/01/28/efcc-should-be-independent-naabba/