http://odili.net/news/source/2009/may/30/510.html


Saturday, May 30, 2009

Ordinary Nigerians prefer a very strong central government, in spite of pontifications about and agitations for true federalism and devolution of power to the federating ethnic components.



•Militants in the Delta
Photo:Sun News Publishing

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Former Minister for Petroleum and two- term senator, representing Adamawa Central, Senator Jibril Aminu dropped the bombshell in an exclusive interview with Saturday Sun.

The former Nigerian Ambassador to the United States disclosed that the relish for a unitary system, as against the advocacy for a weak centre, informed the dependence on the Federal Government by the states

‘But if you like, you can talk about federalism, ordinary Nigerians do not like federalism, they prefer a very strong central government, unitary system which I have advocated and I might not live to see it, but I know that we are going to get there. This country will get to a unitary system’

Excerpts:

Nigerians are worried that the constitution review has not taken off because of the stalemate of the JCCR; what is the way forward?

Well, I agree with you, we seem to have got stuck and you are quite right, there is some element of stalemate, arising from the artificial problems created between House and the Senate over this particular issue and I am sorry to say so far as I know, the problem did not start in the Senate.

I have always respected the House of Representatives and I always follow the history to say that. in the United States the House comes before the Senate and the House is strictly representational and the Senate in America used to be first of all, by nomination then by election, even now you have two senators per state.

So, there is a state I always give example, where the population is so small that they have only one ,member of the House of Representatives, but with two senators; one of them Joe Byden, is now the Vice President of the US. So, I respect the House a lot and I know they are very young and dynamic, but you see they should also understand the Senate has responsibilities over and above the House: the screening and appointment of people for ministers, ambassadors, others, like declaration of war, declaration of peace-- things like that.

Now, I also know and I always say it, I have seen distinguished members of the House, vying to become senators as promotion; I have not seen anybody from the Senate, go to the House.

So, I do not see why all of these things should happen, but I agree with you that it seems to me to be a problem about sharing and co -sharing and whatever and why the people are waiting, I do not think we can afford that, in the National Asembly and I am quite prepared to play my own role in bringing this about, if requested, or if it looks like that is the only way.

The review of the constitution is extremely important; mark you between you and I even if the Senate and the House are working on the review, it does not make the review any easier, what it does is to enable us to do our job. It may help, but I still look at the clauses there and look out there and the interest of various parties, particularly, the state government and the state governors and I know, it is going to be very difficult.

For example, immunity. We have had this in the days of President Obasanjo, he wanted immunity removed , he even offered, I understand, to have his own removed., but it was not successful. The governors did not agree and I do not expect them to agree now, particularly with the EFCC clause hanging over them; they would not like immunity clause removed, but I think it must be removed, if we are going to have a meaningful constitution, a meaningful system.

Secondly, the question of local government reform. Unfortunately in 1999, I am sorry to say this, the constitution amendment was very shoddy, it was not the one we handed over to Abacha in 1995. They doctored it and altered it and made that section on local government vague, to the extent that the governor and the house of assembly in each state can give whatever interpretation they like and the local governments, to carry a long story short, are they now functioning? It is because they are not getting their money and the houses of assembly, they deal with them, as they like.

Look at Adamawa, they say they have given the chairmen only one year. So, the local government is in a mess, but because you require two thirds of the houses of assemblies to agree, I doubt, if you can get it, because they look at their interest.

Number three, the state State Independent Electoral Commission . The cry now really is that the local government elections conducted were all sham; but I do not believe that they were sham in Adamawa, but people believe they were sham and really we need to … although it sounded good for the state to handle this and that, but it looks like, in the contest of Nigeria, if you want any semblance of transparency, regardless of the complaints made about INEC, I think it still should be handled by INEC.

Also, the local government are taken into account, in determining, if somebody loses or wins, president, governor or senatorial seats. So, there is no way you can draw a line and say, local government, ward down, give it to SIEC, and house of assembly, up should be INEC . It is very artificial.

But the submission of some people is that, if you give local government elections to INEC, you undermine federalism?

No, you don’t undermine any federalism. But if you like, you can talk about federalism, but ordinary Nigerians do not like federalism, they prefer a very strong central government, unitary system which I have advocated and I might not live to see it, but I know that we are going to get there. This country will get to a unitary system .

But a lot of Nigerians will frown at what you have just said…

[ cuts in] No, people like it, the state government depends on the Federal Government, on almost everything. Everybody is calling on the Federal Government; if anything is wrong with your school, in your area, you are calling on the Minister of Education.

That is why the constitution is very defective…

[cuts in] No, the constitution is not defective in that respect, because the nation is very defective in some of the things I am trying to tell you. Then Revenue Allocation; can you imagine, if you re open the subject, Revenue Allocation. Some people want hundred percent, some people want fifty percent, while some derivation.

So, this is another area, where people will argue. Then devolution; now we are coming back to where we talk about federalism, devolution and true federation and all that kind of thing. You will re open this and you won’t get anywhere, but muddle up the country! So, it is a very unfortunate situation. I have a solution, which I can’t afford to say in a media interview. So, these are things which make it very difficult to amend the constitution, even if the House and the Senate were working.

So, you people in the media and the rest of the general public, do not say the problem lies in the frosty disagreement between the Senate and the House of Representatives, the real problem will come out, when they agree and begin to work, but some of these problems I know are not insurmountable.

It has been alleged that a particular section of the country, actually used the House of Representatives to stalemate the constitution review, knowing full well that all these issues will heat up the polity.

It is not the North, I hope, because everything that happens, they say, it is the North; they allege, because the North is sitting on top of Nigeria and the only way the north is sitting on top of Nigeria, is if you have the map hanging on the wall !

Then, you see the northern states on top of the southern states; that is the only thing!! We are not on top of anybody; that is a ridiculous charge and it has nothing to do with us .When people are stuck… tomorrow, if you can get agreement between the two houses. Who is stopping the constitution review? Is it David Mark or Aminu, because I am a member? Who is doing it? Emirs or northern governors, or President Umaru Yar’Adua? Nobody is doing it, it is a lie!

Then, what does the North has against constitution review ?

The North even likes the constitution review; there will be argument. If the North is going to be affected by the revenue allocation formula… look, south east how much oil do they have? Will they not be affected by any revenue allocation change?

Your argument is that Nigerians want a strong centre, but it seems that is against the grains.

No, it is not; you are pretending that the north is the only one that likes a strong centre. No!

Well, the rest sees it as the only beneficiary of a strong centre

Nonsense! Everybody is a big beneficiary, if we did not have Nigeria today, in whose hands would the oil have been? Do not let me say things I do not want to say; that is not fair!

The Niger Delta appears to be almost a war zone now; what successive government has done for them has been dismissed as tokenism— whether through OMPADEC, or NDDC…

]cuts in] There is something you do not understand; the government has been acting strictly according to law. Even if you want to change revenue allocation, you cannot do it, right now, because that is against the constitution and remember you also have the rest of Nigeria and the Federal Government is responsible for the rest of Nigeria.

But having said that, look at what they have tried to do, when Obasanjo came. Look at what he tried to do with NDDC; that was the second bill he took to the National Assembly, the first was ICPC. Then, he started preparing some kind of master plan for the Niger Delta. He engaged the people to a talk; remember he even sent an executive jet to bring militants who in other countries would have been called terrorists to go to Abuja to have a meeting.

Now, look at when Yar ‘Adua came, look at some of the things he did, including, not as a replacement, but in addition a Ministry for the Niger Delta and put very, very seasoned and excellent public officer, Ufot Ekaette as the Minister. I think Nigeria has tried, within the law and within its responsibilities to the rest of the country.

If something happens to a federal establishment in Lagos, they make a lot of noise, but the federal government still diverts time and responsibilities, but things happen over the rest of the country. I don’t understand all these talk over lack of constructive engagement. The government has really tried and I believe they are not going to stop, but all I can say is that there are also a lot of good people within Nigeria in different parts of the Niger Delta ; people who value Nigeria more than they value oil and I think we are going to get there.

So, how do you reconcile amnesty to militants with deployments of troops?

So, what you are saying is that the federal government should do nothing about it? I don’t think they want to send troops there, but tell me what else could you do, after all of these efforts have been made? I am sure, even now, if they see any sign of serious desire to bring about peace, I am sure nobody will like to be using force.

What do you make of the alleged tampering with the Justice Uwais report? People are disenchanted that a government that made such an enormous commitment to reform the electoral process should have made the report public.

No, you people should learn to be fair and not follow, doggedly your desires and wishful thinking. This government set up this committee, by itself. The government did not say, ‘let us go to the public and discuss the terms of reference and composition of the committee’.

The committee did its job, it probably did it well and submitted it as in the law, to the body that set them up. You do not like that; you want it submitted to all the papers, so that it can be discussed, militant lawyers can have a field day.

But government said., we set up this committee they did their report, they sent it to me .

Number three,why do you call it a recommendation? Why not call it a law, or decree ? Why must I set up a body and you are saying that I must accept every aspect of that body’s recommendations? That means I am not serious. Under what system does that work? That the President, because Uwais was a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, he has done something, therefore the government must accept its recommendations. I am sure, even the committee members know that will not happen. No government will tolerate that , anywhere. Every white paper, you write your recommendations and you write government views underneath.

If government had made up its mind, why set up a committee, that will be tossed around?

Government didn’t make up its mind, they made a lot of recommendations, most of them were accepted. There were some that you wanted; you wanted the President, not to appoint members, why ? Why did the President appoint ministers, appoint ambassadors? Why not say everybody should go and appoint ministers as if it was a town meeting thing. Common, the President must be trusted to do a fair job and that’s why he was elected. So, you can’t say he cannot appoint members.

We must try to be reasonable . How can you say I appoint a committee, they made recommendations, I accepted a lot, but I have to accept everything, because some defeated politicians find that this is the way, by which they can maximize their chances. It is not so.

What the President did and the cabinet did, would not in my opinion prevent any free and fair election, if our people want free and fair election.

As things stand, do you think INEC is independent ?

INEC is independent by law, in their financing, in their system, in their staffing. How people decide to behave, because they can behave anyhow after their appointment. But if you want them to behave normally,  I am not saying INEC people are not behaving normally, because there are a lot of unfair accusations against poor Iwu, because a lot of people are not being fair to him. That is not even the issue; the issue is that INEC law, even as it is now, will allow free and fair election, if only people are serious and this goes right down to the ward level. We have to learn how to behave as a people.

Why do you think government jettisons Uwais committee recommendation that NJC should nominate those to preside over INEC?

Why should the NJC, which should deal with the behaviour of judges and legal people now take up the job of nominating people for elections? Where will you see that? Why not say the committee of vice chancellors should nominate; that is equally made up of very responsible people. Why not even the NLC? Why should it be the NJC? I don’t understand that and I don’t accept that.

You can’t stage a coup by a committee. The President was elected and the constitution gave him the power to do this thing; he created a committee to do this thing and you insist it must be changed today, even when the constitution has not been changed. That is ridiculous and I don’t see anything wrong with the President appointing members.

Bialegend:

http://odili.net/news/source/2009/may/30/510.html


Saturday, May 30, 2009

Ordinary Nigerians prefer a very strong central government, in spite of pontifications about and agitations for true federalism and devolution of power to the federating ethnic components.

Where the hell did he get this from?

The North even likes the constitution review; there will be argument. If the North is going to be affected by the revenue allocation formula… look, south east how much oil do they have? Will they not be affected by any revenue allocation change?

This man must be a ram!Why is he more concerend about revenue from east than easterners?So oil is his issue?Who told him that southeast does not have oil even if oil is supposed to be the only revenue there.

Niger Deltans should be grateful. They are in the right hand and enough have been done for them.

The honourable Senator is very correct.

the old bastards that ruined nigeria are still in power and the ruins continue and u muppet say he is correct.
I SAY SHOOT THEM ALL

But frankly after getting 13% Share of oil Derivation plus the normal Gross Statutory Allocation, these Niger Delta States should be looking @ their governors and not the FG most of the time.