Should Soludo run for Governor? By Dr Dele Cole
Author: Dr Dele Cole |
Culled from The Guardian, Thursday, 18 Novemebr 2009

THE candidature of Dr. Charles Soludo, former Governor of the Central Bank, raises important questions about propriety in public service. There has to be some decorum and a sense of what is proper and improper in politics and the pursuit of political positions. One would imagine that having attained the level of Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Charles Soludo should have realised that the very last thing he should want to do, is to contest election, any election even that of a local government councillor.

The office conveys to the holder not only international status but an unrivalled information about our economy, the top bankers, and a slew of information which may be of such sensitive nature that it is dishonest for any holder to want to be in the political arena. His candidature will now force people to look at all he did from a jaundiced political standard. Most people dealing with the Governor of Central Bank would have looked at his action as governed by fairness, dignity, impartiality and governed by nothing short of the national interest. If the person who holds that post is suspected to have political ambitions then the reaction to his activities would be looked at entirely differently. How can we prove that his action when he was in office was not guided by his now revealed political ambitions?

Part of the problem is the structure of the PDP in allowing permanent secretaries, heads of parastatals etc as members of the PDP conventions - the idea being that the convention and the congresses are a loaded dice favouring the incumbent President or Governor or indeed - Local Government Chairmen. Nobody who is not in the good books of the State Governor or President can ever win primaries. Hence Charles Soludo's victory was predetermined long before the primaries.

Anybody who is politically savvy knows that politics is a very expensive business; the implication is that only exceedingly wealthy people can win primaries and elections. Even if Charles Soludo was not corrupt in office, people have the right to ask about where he got the money to be able to win the primaries. The point here is not that he was corrupt in office - I did not say so. But it does open the question about his stewardship at the CBN. Political crystal ball gazers have understood that Soludo's candidacy is part of an Igbo agenda which goes something like this. In 2015, the presidency is supposed to rotate to the South. If so, the Igbo should have somebody who would be presidential material; hence Charles Soludo. No sooner does one put these ideas to paper for the ridiculousness of the proposal to emerge.

It puts the Igbos in an unenviable position, pitting all non-Igbos against Igbos. There are obvious consequences to such scenario. In any case where did the Igbos meet to have chosen Charles Soludo to be the presidential candidate? Is there such a shortage of Igbo persons that they cannot find another candidate?

The issue of a rotation is a PDP understanding. Are we to follow the arrogance of the PDP? The other parties are not bound by the understanding of rotation. Who says no other party can win election in Nigeria? Can we have a Zuma/Mbeki political situation in Nigeria?

Let us return to the original point in this piece - are there jobs which once held preclude the holder from political aspirations? I believe that this is the issue to be addressed. As it is today, Maurice Iwu can, after he leaves INEC, contest election. Mr. Justice Uwais can similarly theoretically stand election. Is that the kind of country we want?

It may be retorted that Clement Isong, also a former Governor of the Central Bank, stood election and became the Governor of Cross River State. The argument raised above equally applied in that case as in the case of Charles Soludo. In the case of Clement Isong there was a period between when he was CBN Governor and when he became Cross River State Governor. I believe that early in the U.S., one Supreme Court Judge resigned and contested election. But never again. It is now a convention for certain office holders not to run for office. The point is that a convention has now been well established and in many cases conventions have become sometimes stronger than law.

I believe that it is impossible to contemplate Alan Greenspan, Paul Volker or Bernaike to want to join a party and go for electoral office. As stated earlier, Charles Soludo's candidature demeans the office of the Governor of Central Bank; it opens all his decisions to political interpretations. If he succeeds, no governor of the Central Bank will even be free from the taint that all his actions are political and therefore suspect.


Dr. Cole is a Consultant to The Guardian Editorial Board, and Nigeria's former Ambassador to Brazil.


Response

Soludo and Cole's lowly road
By C. Don Adinuba

CHUKWUMA Soludo, immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has not done anything to show that being Nigeria's president in 2015 or any other year is on his radar screen. All everyone knows is that he is keenly interested in contesting the February 6, 2010 gubernatorial vote in Anambra State, for which the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has thoughtfully chosen him as the flag bearer. It is, therefore, a conundrum that Dele Cole, editorial consultant to The Guardian newspapers, should launch a frontal assault on Soludo's imagined presidential ambitions, as he did in "Should Soludo run for governor?" (The Guardian, Thursday, November 19, 2009).

 
The article is marked by deep-seated prejudices, preconceived notions and intolerable contradictions. It is difficult to reconcile the thrust and arguments of the piece with Cole's status as someone who has been a good student of history, technocrat, chief executive of Daily Times, ambassador to Brazil, and now administrator of the Ibru Ecumenical Centre. He asserts forcefully that Soludo's involvement in the Anambra gubernatorial race is "part of the Igbo agenda" to ensure that there is "Igbo presidential material" in 2015 when the office of the president is expected to rotate to the southern part of Nigeria. Knowing full well the falsity of this assertion, Cole himself wonders if the Igbo had ever met to draft Soludo into seeking elective office. "When did the Igbo meet to have chosen Charles Soludo to be the presidential candidate?" he queries.

Cole's reasoning is, to put it mildly, extremely difficult to follow. He blows hot and cold simultaneously, or, to borrow an expression lawyers are fond of, he approbates and reprobates. In one breadth he claims Soludo's political participation is driven by a surreptitious Igbo agenda, and in another he states there has been no such meeting or understanding to this effect. The article is riddled with contradictions and illogicalities, but also sentiments which constitute an imminent danger to national security, national cohesion, peace and stability. On the supposed ambitions of the Igbo to have one of their number as Nigeria's president someday, Cole writes without any sense of embarrassment: "No sooner does one put these ideas to paper for the ridiculousness of the proposal to emerge. It puts the Igbos in an unenviable position, pitting the non-Igbos against the Igbos". It would be nice to know why it is asinine for an Igbo to entertain the idea that he could be Nigeria's president but a great idea for all other Nigerian citizens to think that the Nigerian president could come from their own midst.

Cole headed the PDP panel or committee which in 1999 looked into the credentials and qualifications of various aspirants seeking the party's presidential nomination. One of the major qualifications was that each aspirant must deliver not just his local government area but also the state to the party. Dr. Alex Ekwueme exceeded this requirement as the whole of the Southeast voted as one man just for his sake. But Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was well defeated all the way. Yet, he was not disqualified. This is the genesis of the reputation which the PDP has since cut: a party that does not abide by even its own rules. Cole, in case you have forgotten, was a key member of the Peoples Democratic Movement that spared no resources to railroad Obasanjo into Nigeria's leadership, a colossal price the whole nation will pay for long.

Cole's argument that Soludo, having enjoyed local and international status as the CBN Governor, is morally disqualified from seeking any office in the land is utterly strange. There is no office in the world which precludes the occupant from seeking another. Kurt Waldheim ran a high profile tenure as the United Nations Secretary General for two terms, still he successfully sought to be the leader of his small native country, Austria, a medium-sized European economy.

Cole gives the impression that there is perhaps no office in the land which enables the occupant to have as much information on the country as that of the Central Governor, hence the argument that whoever has held it should not seek any other post. This is fallacious. The Finance Minister probably has more information on the country's economic health. Yet, many finance ministers have become the presidents and prime ministers of various countries. No one in Nigeria or elsewhere raised an objection in the late 1970s when Clement Isong sought to be the Cross River State Governor. Cole's argument that years had elapsed between the time Isong served as the CBN Governor and the time he became the Cross River Governor makes little difference. No sooner did Adamu Ciroma complete his tenure as the CBN Governor than he went into politics through the Constituent Assembly and later contested for the presidential nomination of the National Party of Nigeria in 1978. Cole as the Daily Times chief executive then had access to the media, yet he raised no objections in the public space. But with Soludo seeking to be the Anambra State Governor, Cole has become a furious activist. There is certainly more to it than meets the eyes.

To repeat ourselves, there is no post in Nigeria or elsewhere which prohibits the holder from seeking another public office. Bola Ige's Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice between 1979 and 1983 when he was the Oyo State Governor was the late Adewale Thompson, a retired judge. The candidate of the opposition Unity Party of Nigeria for the office of the Senate President who lost to Joseph Wayas on the Senate floor in 1979 was Franklin Atake, a retired judge. Since the restoration of democracy in 1999, we have seen retired intelligence chiefs like Nuhu Aliyu, a former Deputy Inspector General of Police, in the Senate. In Russia, a former intelligence operative, Vladimir Putin, is now the prime minister; his presidency rescued Russia from the vice grip of the oligarchs, and the country has been having it so good ever since - to the chagrin of the West.

If we allow ourselves to be persuaded by Cole's facile polemic that a Central Bank Governor or any person who has ever held a position which made so much classified information and data available to him should not be allowed to contest an election, then, no president should be re-elected because he is a politician who has tremendous information at his disposal which could be used against opponents. Nor should any person who has been the Minister of Interior or even the Minister of Justice in any country be allowed to contest. It is curious that an informed person like Cole should be bringing up an argument like this in a country where a number of erstwhile intelligence chiefs but also ex-Heads of State are in politics. If, all of a sudden, the office of the CBN Governor now looms large in our collective imagination it is precisely because Soludo took it to heights hitherto unimaginable. Prior to his era, the CBN Governor was almost just another public servant. The impression Cole has tried to convey that a person who has been a Central Bank Governor anywhere is above partisan politics is awfully misleading. Is he blissfully ignorant that both Allan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke of the United States are Republican?

Cole has carried his prejudice against Soludo too far. He insists on calling the erstwhile CBN boss Charles rather than Chukwuma, which has been his preferred first name in the last two or three years, just as Cole now likes to be called Dele, instead of his European name of Patrick. As the cliche goes, what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. There is no furtive agenda in the Soludo quest for the governorship of Anambra State. If there is any secret agenda anywhere, it may well be Cole's write-up in The Guardian under review. Cole ordinarily engages in elevated arguments and postulations. The blistering attack on Soludo is different. It is a lowly road to take. I have read the article twice and it is far from elegant.


Adinuba is head of Discovery Consulting, Lagos.

Cole was a PDP bigwig. He is from the Niger Delta and Igbo or Niger Delta are expected to produce the next president in 2015. Na waoh!

to be honest the PDP benefits the Igbos and south east in general. People think pdp is a sw/north thing it isnt and its clear, so folks shouldnt be indenial. If i were igbo pdp would be the party to join.

This rotational power sharing is full of complications.
I hope south south governors have their own agenda.

The office conveys to the holder not only international status but an unrivalled information about our economy, the top bankers, and a slew of information which may be of such sensitive nature that it is dishonest for any holder to want to be in the political arena. His candidature will now force people to look at all he did from a jaundiced political standard. Most people dealing with the Governor of Central Bank would have looked at his action as governed by fairness, dignity, impartiality and governed by nothing short of the national interest. If the person who holds that post is suspected to have political ambitions then the reaction to his activities would be looked at entirely differently. How can we prove that his action when he was in office was not guided by his now revealed political ambitions?

Gbosa! Gbosa!! Gbosa!!!

Soludo has not told anypne he is contesting the presidency in 2015 although he has a right to do so as a Nigerian. So Dele Cole is a sectionalist looking to give advantage of 2015 to the south south. We have seen through his gameplan and we will match him. The CBN governor does not know the economy more than the minister of finance. Now remember that Adamu Ciroma was minister of finance and then contested for the presidency.
Clement Isong was also a former CBN gov and contested and won election as gov of Cross River State. Where was Dele Cole then?