The controversy trailing the issue of zoning is not only overheating the polity, it is also tearing the country apart. Even the North that has been noted for political unity over the years seems to be divided on the issue of zoning. How do you think the matter can be resolved?

We have to understand first and foremost, the genesis of zoning political offices or by extension, public service offices in the country we live in. Going back to when Nigeria was put together by colonial powers, they were well aware of the historical, cultural, ethnic and even religious diversities of the country they put together and called it Nigeria. And this was the basis on which they premised the series of constitutions, from Richardson to date. Based on this diversity, and from experiences in various parts of world, it was clear that Nigeria could do better with a federal constitution which allows its various components to be as self-determining as possible. This was how they managed affairs, either locally or regionally. This is what we inherited. It is clear from the beginning that this basic issue of diversity made it mandatory for us to have a federal constitution in the first place. And this constitution took off with three regions––North, West and East. And I think it was in 1963 or thereabout that Mid-West came on stream. It then became the fourth region. Each region then had its own constitution. There was also a federal constitution. It was the apparent imbalance between the North as a region and the rest three in the South that continued to stress the political landscape of the country in terms of control of federal power. I think this among others culminated in 1966 in the first misadventure of the military. And the late Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi, when he was in power decided to abolish the regions and introduced unitary system of government. In fact, that generated the first reaction. Nigeria by its very nature can’t be governed under a unitary system. So the reaction was obvious and Ironsi was out and the federal nature of the country was restored. But then, Gen. Yakubu Gowon who took over from Ironsi also saw this as a problem. And series of efforts were made to pacify the various sections of the country in terms of what happened to each: the North that was unhappy about its leaders being killed, including military officers innocently; the East that was also aggrieved because the North reacted the way it did, including the mass protest that led to killing of easterners. So Gen. Gowon, after extensive consultations created the first 12 states. Nigeria is made up of over 300 ethnic groups. Among them, the largest three ethnic groups––the Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. So there must be so many minorities in different parts of the country. And it is the desire for self determination by these various ethnic groups that led to the creation of more states. We have moved from three regions to four regions, to 12 states, to 19 and today, 36 states, all for each of the diverse ethnic groups to make their local affairs felt within the context of the federation. This is how people develop. I attended three constitutional conferences, and the most central issue of all the debates I participated in was power sharing: how power would be shared so that Nigerians could be comfortable to feel they are part of the country no matter how small the ethnic groups are. This is really the basis of the various discussions on power sharing. Despite the creation of states, the northern states had always pooled together. And the other states continued to feel threatened by this political unity that existed because of northern history. At the 1994 conference, we agreed that rotation of power should be put in the constitution and the draft we produced during that conference included rotation of power. But the government that appointed us felt it should not be a permanent feature of the Nigerian state. It should be left to the parties to determine. We are looking forward to the time Nigerians will feel, irrespective of which ethnic group they come from, they can vie for any office based on trust.

There was rotation before now. The NPN-controlled government decided, based on the support they had then, that this is where this should go. In the Shagari days, the Vice-President went to the East, the President of the Senate went to the South-South. But most recently the PDP adopted zoning. I was one of the founders of PDP, not member. I sat with Obasanjo when he declared. When he declared he was not even a member of the PDP. We brought him in later. We agreed that the PDP should adopt zoning in its constitution. And zoning would be between the North and South. North takes its turn, South takes its turn. But later on, when geopolitical zones were created, if you look at the constitution there’s nothing like geo-political system, but an arrangement that would satisfy minorities both in the North and the South was adopted. That was how the current so-called geo-political arrangement came into being. Otherwise, it was basically rotation between the North and South. The party agreed but the debate that followed was: where does it start as far as the presidency was concerned? It was hotly debated. The North said no, but many of us, who had a lot of history behind us about ethnic groups’ relationship–and given the fact that we recently had the June 12 crisis–decided it should go to the South and specifically when it goes to the South, it should go to the South-West. Obasanjo became the first beneficiary. And the constitution says the term of any president is four years. It was later argued by Obasanjo’s second term supporters that since the constitution allows the sitting president to run for two terms, the zoning should continue in favour of the area he comes from. He got a second term based on the principle of rotation of power. Of course he tried to extend his tenure but he didn’t succeed. The issue that arose immediately was that the presidency would come back to the North for the same period. And it did. Umaru Yar’Adua became president and Jonathan, from South-South, became vice-president.

Let me tell you, there was a proposal in our draft that wherever the president comes from, there should be a vice-president, in case of eventualities like what happened to the late Umaru. In fact, we recommended two vice-presidents–one from the same zone with the president and other one from another zone, so that the zone of the president will continue its term under the second vice-president. Again the military rejected this. And here we are faced with this situation. Of course the constitution is very clear that in the absence of the president or in case of death, the vice-president takes over. For those of us who know the history, it is a very straightforward matter that need not generate any controversy. Jonathan was elected with a northern president for four years. They will finish their term in 2011 and it stops there, even though the North lost one and half years. But here we have Jonathan finishing that tenure. The argument dished out by Jerry Gana, Solomon Lar, Gemade and others that Umaru’s ticket and that of Jonathan are inseparable is nonsense. The presidential election is coming in 2011 and under the PDP zoning arrangement, the North still has four years to complete an eight-year term. And until the North completes its tenure, the zoning arrangement stands.

But the likes of Jerry Gana, Solomon Lar, Barnabas Gemade and many others supporting Jonathan to vie in the 2011 election are equally from the North. What do you make of that?


They were the same people who argued that Obasanjo should continue in office even after an eight-year period. They are usually called AGIP––Any Government In Power. This is what Jerry Gana has been all his life. And this is what Lar at this late stage in his life appears to be propagating. Gemade, I am surprised that this is coming from him. Of course he became chairman of PDP on the basis of zoning. And there was no election. He was handpicked by Obasanjo to replace Solomon Lar from the same zone, on the basis of zoning. Since Jerry Gana left the academia, where he worked with me, he has always wanted to be in the corridors of power all the time. And wherever he sees the opportunity, he jumps at it. So, I am not surprised. These were the same people who wanted a third term for  Obasanjo, but we defeated them.

One of the arguments put forward by them is that neither the North nor the entire country fared well under the leadership of most northerners, so opportunity should be given to someone from another zone. How would you react to this?


It sounds nonsensical to me. I told you how power sharing moved from 1960 to date. So the issue of the North being in power for many years without anything to show for it does not hold water. Jonathan would never have dreamt of becoming a vice-president let alone president under an arrangement that leaves out zoning, there is no way. And there are so many people of similar background like him that would never under the old system have dreamt of becoming vice-president or president on the basis of one man, one vote. And, apparently, this is being overlooked. And some people say when Jonathan becomes president Nigeria will transform into something that it wasn’t before. This is nonsense. Jonathan was elected with the late Umaru, what have they done? People should ask, what have they done as a team of president and vice-president? What is it that he’s going to do differently from what he and Umaru did together? Nobody will stop Jonathan from contesting election as president, it is a matter of personal choice. But it will not be the choice of the party to put him up as its candidate against the zoning arrangement. People argue that afterall, the late Abubakar Rimi breached zoning by contesting against Obasanjo. How could Rimi contest and get zero from Kano? This is impossible. It was due to the zoning arrangement that Kano voted Obasanjo instead of Rimi, its own son. The same thing with Gemade who got zero from Benue and Tiv land against Obasanjo or Umaru. It was the party’s decision that galvanized the forces that determined who won the primaries and eventually the presidential election. Our position is that, when we finish our eight years, then PDP can revisit zoning and say it is time to stop it.

South-South, the oil-rich region is popularly described as the goose that lays the golden egg but deprived of the benefits therefrom. Some opponents of zoning want Jonathan who is from that zone to run for president in 2011 just to make those long suffering people happy?


I say, where was the South-South in 1914? And where was the South-South in 1945, 1960? Where were the eggs being laid and hatched? It is in the record that, it was the farmers in the North that produced the groundnuts and resources that supplemented the various budgets of the West and East up till 1970. Recently, Adamu Fika put down the figures, year by year in terms of federal budgets and regional budgets and how much resources had to be wired from the northern area to other parts of the country to run their governments. Simply because some new ducks are laying eggs now, the chickens of previous years are no more important. The notion that the area of the country that produces the most resources each time should produce the leadership of the country is very nonsensical.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Solomon Lar at different times made public pronouncements that the zoning arrangement is not sacrosanct and was a situational arrangement to take care of the political crisis then. What is your opinion on their position?

It is because Obasanjo is an . It only takes an  like him to behave the way he is behaving. But thank God that everybody knows who he is or was over the years. Somebody who was picked from the gallows waiting to die there, the same person is casting aspersion on those that picked him up from the gutters of prison, brought him out, cleaned him up, pardoned him his crimes and decided to put him forward to lead this country; in the hope that he would perform. We thought, erroneously, that his government’s performance between 1976 and 1979 was his own. But as it turned out to be, we could see that it wasn’t his. It was the performance of people like Shehu Yar’Adua, T. Y. Danjuma and others that really kept the government together and made it to respect the pledge that power be handed over in 1979 to a civilian government. It wasn’t Obasanjo’s decision. I was associated with him from 1976. In fact, we were part of a lot of activities that took place at the African Leadership Forum, intellectually and otherwise. He again created an impression that he was a statesman, an honest man, superhuman and other things. But to be honest, how would Nigerians rank Obasanjo from 1999 to when he left office as president? Every record shows that there has never been as much corruption in this country as during that period. Records also show that this country has never received the kind of revenue or resources it got between 1999 to 2007. It is evident that Obasanjo received more revenue than those received from 1960 to when he became president in 1999. But where did these revenues go? There was no power supply, nothing worked with all the billions that the geese in the Niger Delta were laying. Where is the development in the country, including Niger Delta itself? And where is the money? The money was stolen by Obasanjo and his kind. There was no doubt about it, Obasanjo is unprincipled, both in terms of his social and moral behaviours. I’m not surprised that only a few days ago, he referred to members of the National Assembly as corrupt. And they reacted quickly and said he is the grandfather of corruption. And this is the truth. Here is a man who came out of prison with less than N20,000 in his entire account and today he is perhaps the richest man in Africa. And people are talking about corruption and Obasanjo is walking the street free. Who is deceiving who? Nobody takes Obasanjo seriously. Not even members of his family should take him seriously because of his immorality and general misbehaviour. He has no place to hang his shame, that is why he is all over the place trying to introduce this divide-and-rule system. He wanted to extend his tenure during his days as president. He organised all sorts of meetings merely targeted against the North, and this was where he got his votes.
When he was interviewed the day he was declared president I was there. I also granted an interview and I have record of this interview. I moved a few metres from where he was and advised those who were abusing him; because the West didn’t want Obasanjo. Go and check your record, the South-West did not want Obasanjo as their candidate, because there were more credible candidates from the South-West that should be supported. But we argued with them that Obasanjo is the man we picked and we want him to be supported. Though people called him a stooge of the North and so on, we voted for him. Of course, no sooner than he became president he turned the heat on us. He retired our military officers. He set ICPC and EFCC against us and some of the governors who disagreed with him. But the baseline is that Obasanjo is immoral and corrupt, so he does not have the moral right to speak on where power should be zoned to. He doesn’t deserve any hearing from any respectable person. Anybody that is sensible should run away when he sees Obasanjo because he is an added dirt to the environment. For Solomon Lar, I’m surprised that at his age he does not respect himself.

What is your opinion on Edwin Clark and others who have been clamouring for Jonathan to vie in 2011?

This is why I wrote him a letter to remind him. I wrote him a letter personally on why he should tread with caution. We visited Warri a number of times. We had several meetings with the South-South people–mainly Ijaws–in Abuja, and that is how we agreed that they will support a northern presidential aspiration. But they will also want a South-southerner to be the vice-president, specifically, in the words of Edwin Clark, an ‘Ijaw man’. There are several tribes in South-South but he insisted on an Ijaw man. It worked out in the end. I Hope Clark will remember all these. He is not guiding Jonathan along the path of this agreement or understanding that it would get to them, after the North would have run its eight years. And if things work out the way we plan, the South-South will take its turn in 2015. And by that time it is the vice-president from that zone that will perhaps, depending on how he performs, emerge as the president. That was our agreement. But now, they want to disown that agreement and still want the North to support Jonathan to continue as president. Something must be wrong with the way they think.

What do you say of some northerners who are clamouring for Jonathan to contest for president in 2011?Ribadu was in Kaduna recently and he openly condemned the issue of zoning. Rather, he said merit should be the yardstick for considering who is to be voted into office as president.


These are children and my former students. They have to define merit for us. If it is strictly merit, how does Jonathan merit being vice-president, not to talk of being president of this country? Merit here means qualification, experience, proven ability, proven integrity and so on. This is, I hope, the merit they are talking about. Then how does Jonathan, even as vice-president, become qualified considering the criteria briefly mentioned? And there are so many others. If they are referring to merit in terms of themselves personally––because Obasanjo brought them out and used some of them against other people––obviously more qualified than either Ribadu or el-Rufai or whoever. But he used them for a purpose. And these are the ones he wishes to present to people as qualified and as deserving of providing leadership for this country. Where is the experience of Ribadu? Where was el-Rufai before he was picked up as Minister representing a zone? They know they are talking rubbish. When you are talking about merit in Nigeria, each tribe has somebody that can be considered as deserving of being the president, minister, governor, permanent secretary, chief of army staff, and others. Each ethnic group will present who they consider as deserving for either an election or an appointment. So, if you go to the Constitution, chapter two of it which speaks of the fundamental objectives and principles of state policy––which I chaired during one of the constitutional conferences––it is very clear that because of the diverse nature of this country, no group or individual should monopolise either power or resources of this country. We must be seen to reach out to others. And this is the basis of this federal character thing which is not being observed in my view. Of course, we know that there are good people that could run this country and change its direction, but unfortunately, a lot of the good people that are talking now, are talking about themselves. If you hear somebody talk about himself, then you begin to worry. These people talking about themselves,  you don’t have to dig too far under the carpet to find who really they are as per their claim to integrity and competence.

Now that you are insisting that the zoning system be maintained, if PDP succumbs to pressure and gives it to the North, who do you think is credible and capable to represent the North come 2011?


I don’t have a candidate, my concern is that the principle of zoning be respected, that is all. After then, I can assure you that I will be interested in who becomes the president from the North, with good potentials and good leadership quality

If Jonathan eventually contests the 2011 election and emerges as president, what will those opposing zoning and his candidature do?

How would he emerge? Please tell me how. Maybe I will just say his name Goodluck has stuck with him, that’s all. Because I cannot see him emerging president in 2011, except, perhaps, the way he emerged as deputy governor, the same way he emerged as governor of Bayelsa State, purely by accident and good luck; as he emerged as vice-president again––just by mere accidental good luck. That is all I can imagine can happen.

In a few months Nigeria will be 50. As an elder statesman, do you see any reason why the Golden Jubilee should be celebrated?


No! Except, perhaps, for keeping the name Nigeria. The only period I wish to celebrate, to be honest with you, is when our parents managed the affairs of this country. Yes, I mean before independence, when the Chief Azikiwes, Chief Awolowos, Sir Tafawa Balewa and Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, governed this country. These are the people that deserve remembrance and celebration because when they took over the leadership of this country from the colonial masters, they performed to expectation. They took over government then from nothing, with nothing in terms of material resources for the government, manpower and others. In their days there was only one university, the University of Ibadan, which I attended from 1960 to 1964, and there were only 2,000 students across the country. So, there was no manpower for them as much as they wanted. And there was no back-up resources and manpower to use for development. But they went ahead and did so much in their respective regions and even at the federal level. Go to the West, we had free primary education and cocoa plantations. Palm products were what Azikiwe and the rest used to develop the East. In the North here, groundnut and cotton were what the northern leadership used to develop the region. But of course, they used every penny they could find and that is why they had nothing when they left us. So if there is any celebration, it is for us to celebrate the hard work of our founding fathers. Thereafter, there is nothing else to celebrate.

The fear of many Nigerians is the heavy use of money to buy votes and manipulate the electoral process. What do you advise be done to solve this problem of money politics?

For this group of Nigerians I call jiki magayi, they will get suffering in their bones if they submit to the whims and caprices of politicians who use them to either snatch boxes or rig elections simply because they are paid money that will last only a few days after elections. If they have been paid money to rig election, then they should be prepared to suffer another four years of hardship because the money they paid them will be recouped. They will empty the treasury and there will be no services in the country. If they are farmers, there will be no fertiliser and if they are sick, there will be no drugs for them in the hospitals. You will see people dying everyday because the leaders are insensitive to their yearnings. It is unfortunate that voters want to take money for three or four days and suffer untold hardship for more than four years. They also get poor leadership for mortgaging their political power for money. I want to suggest that a lot of public enlightenment be done to educate the electorate on why they should shun money politics and vote leaders with proven integrity and good leadership attributes. It is the responsibility of journalists and community leaders like myself to do this; it is our duty to make sure that people know the implication of accepting money to vote a wrong candidate or rig elections. We need to let them know that such leaders will wreck the country economically if voted into office, and the next thing is a breakdown of the social system. India was not too far ahead of us in terms of development when we attained independence. Today India is in space doing everything a proud nation should do. In Nigeria we cannot manufacture a needle; all that we use are foreign.  Corrupt leaders should be sent to prison if they have been proven to be corrupt. Take the United States for instance. President Clinton almost ran into trouble for using telephone from the White House during his campaign. His campaign was considered to be a private matter. If you see a sitting president campaigning with an aircraft in the US, it is hired; it cannot be from state funds. Today, Mrs. Obama is complaining about the bills she has to pay every month for food. They have to pay for every snack they eat privately. Everybody knows today that 99 per cent of Nigerian leaders are just preaching against corruption but they themselves are corrupt.

You were from the academia when the standard of education was something to be proud of, but today the story is different. How do you feel about this?

In our days, not only as a students, but even up to the time we managed some institutions, I was privileged to be the Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University. Any Nigerian graduate between 1960 and 1980 is a credible academic candidate all over the world. The moment he flashes his B.Sc. or B.A certificate in whatever field, irrespective of which country he goes, he would be given admission for postgraduate studies because the standard was known to be quite high. But of course, just like everything else, from power supply to road to water and so on our education standard has fallen. It is the same thing that has happened in the education sector. And unfortunately, for education the demand is increasing, from primary to secondary and tertiary level.  You either go for numbers or you go for quality, but, preferably, you should go for both. As you increase the number of enrolment and opportunities, you should equally provide the basis for high quality, standards. But what we have done particularly in the last 30 years is not encouraging. Nobody wants to send his child to a public primary or secondary school because the standards are not there.  You will find in a university, if you are studying engineering, no facilities for practicals; if you are studying medicine, you don’t have the cadavers to learn anatomy and other relevant practical courses. So many other courses have similar problems. The lecturers are helpless and want to stay on their jobs, so they make do with what they have. The result is: you turn out a graduate of zoology who cannot dissect an animal, because there are no materials to do so. Our standard of education has dropped, yet it is our standard of education that will determine the economic and technological advancement of this country. The implication is that we will continue to be consumers of products as long as our engineers are not properly trained and our technical people are not competent.

In the days of old, when you travelled in the Northern Region, you saw large farmlands where cotton, groundnut and other cash crops were planted. But today most of the land is empty and the few ones cultivated are done at small scale level. As a professor of Agronomy, what should be done to redress this?

The secret behind production is not necessarily mechanisation. In the days of groundnut pyramid there were no tractors, yet production level was high because the farmers were supported by good policies, technical information delivered to them through effective extension services, and there was an effective market arrangement that made a farmer plant ahead of time. He knew the price of one pound of cotton, a kilogramme of groundnut, so he knew the quantity of production to fit what he wanted. And backed up by this, fertiliser was available to the farmers at that time. But today, fertiliser allows bureaucrats to steal billions in the name of its importation. The only fertiliser plant in Nigeria was built in 1980 at Onne, Port Harcourt together with the first fertiliser plant in Malaysia. Today, Malaysia has 15 additional large fertiliser plants; our own, until recently when it was sold to Ibori, was not producing one tonne. And this is a country where they say agriculture is the mainstay. We gave Malaysia their first palm seedlings from Ibadan. Today they are the largest producer of palm oil in the whole world and they are already processing palm oil into petroleum product. I want the federal government to concentrate on agricultural research services and river basins. Of course, agricultural extension services, fertiliser supply and delivery are the responsibility of states and local governments but they have abandoned it. They are only anxious to receive subventions and share it. It is true that the North has abandoned agriculture, and we are going to suffer for it. It is silly to abandon agriculture. We have a large number of unemployed youths roaming the streets, looking for unavailable employment when they can go to the farm and make a living for themselves. I hope something is done to return the North to farming activities.

Don’t you think northern leaders including yourself should be blamed for not encouraging agricultural activities in the region?

Yes, including myself. There is no way I can exonerate myself. As a former director of an agricultural research institute, I did my job. Today, you go to Samaru, you’ll find shelves of technical information that will make it possible for our farmers to produce tonnes of maize per head, but they are still producing one. The best we can do in research institutes is to produce information and the government will take over that information and create policies that will encourage production. I can assure you that research institutes in Nigeria have done a lot. So, from that point of view I can exonerate research institutes. But the real crisis is political will to understand the issues and apply solutions to them.

At a point in time, you were an adviser to former president Obasanjo on food and security. What did you do then to ensure that agriculture was revived?

I was an adviser with one line budget of N7.5 million annually. There was nothing I could do. It included my salary, salary of my assistants, with operating expenses. The whole work they are using now is from my report.  Until we go back to reviving our agriculture and also synchronise our industrial development, we cannot forge ahead. We cannot stimulate economic and industrial development when the agricultural sector is comatose. There must be raw materials to be processed for industrial use, there must be adequate food supply for the economy to grow.

http://thenewsafrica.com/2010/08/16/jonathan-wont-win-in-2011/print/

he is not an issue.
pass.

hillsate:

he is not an issue.
pass.

Read the article, very insightful.

I agree with him on Obasanjo, but not Ribadu.

I guess he was wrong on the following comment :

If Jonathan eventually contests the 2011 election and emerges as president, what will those opposing zoning and his candidature do?

"How would he emerge? Please tell me how. Maybe I will just say his name Goodluck has stuck with him, that’s all. Because I cannot see him emerging president in 2011, except, perhaps, the way he emerged as deputy governor, the same way he emerged as governor of Bayelsa State, purely by accident and good luck; as he emerged as vice-president again––just by mere accidental good luck. That is all I can imagine can happen."


Appears Jonathan has won again because of goodluck ,

Why don't all these walking corpses just lie down and and stay dead?

I dey laf oo.