The only remaining elder statesman, Mr. Anthony Enahoro, has in the twilight of his life drawn attention to Nigeria's worsening problems, saying the hole that has been dug now is more dangerous than any in the past. Simply put, he said Nigeria is in such a big mess that only a miracle can save her.
The National Reformation Party, NRP, founded by elder statesman, Anthony Enahoro, is definitely not one of the popular political parties in Nigeria with the potential of an impressive outing in the forthcoming 2007 general elections. But for the party, which is set to seize the limelight in the early days of the month of January, this new year, history beckons.
At the party’s national convention held in Benin City, Edo State, December 28, 2006, its national chairman and an untiring nationalist, Enahoro dropped the hint that rather than dissipate energy participating in the elections, his party would channel its energy, time and resources in a renewed struggle “to pursue the enthronement of the people’s constitution” proposed by the Peoples’ National Conference, PNC, in August 2006.
At the convention held at the Saidi Hotels, Benin City, Enahoro said a casual glance at the political terrain today would show even the most naïve observer that “we are at a crucial crossroads in our chequered journey to nationhood, such that what we do, or fail to do, in the next few weeks could define our continued existence as one political entity”.
Thus, in its six-point communiqué at the end of the convention, the NRP resolved that “in view of the nature and magnitude of the problems confronting Nigeria and its people, the solution does not lie in merely holding elections as that would further exacerbate the already charged situation where everybody feels short-changed”; and “that the 1999 Constitution with which the winner at the next general elections would be bound to work is a dubious compendium of a series of impositions upon which foundation the present faulty structure rests. Therefore, the more urgent concern is the replacement of that imposed structure with a freely negotiated one”.
The game plan is that by the middle of January, the draft PNC constitution will be presented to the public in Lagos at an elaborate ceremony where the monumental level of fraud in the 1999 Constitution will be highlighted and the people will be shown how this fraud had been cured by Pro-National Conference, PRONACO.
Enahoro, the elder statesman who is at the centre of it all, granted the magazine an interview in which he addressed the salient issues confronting the nation and why he thinks the next general elections will be an exercise in futility. Excerpts:
Sir, you have been very quiet for some time now. Why the silence while a lot of things are happening on the political scene?
We’ve been busy with PRONACO. We just finished. We are trying to wind up the affairs of PRONACO and, thereafter, we’ll go to town in the various states.
How successful would you say PRONACO was?
It was highly successful. Everything we set out to do, we did. As simple as that. We set out to persuade the country that we need the people’s constitution, which was strange to some people to begin with. Some other elements who thought that this was supposed to be something else found that it wasn’t. Otherwise, it was highly successful.
Nigerians are wondering where do you go from here?
Well, we are set to launch that constitution after all these holidays.
You held your party’s convention a few days ago and, contrary to expectations, standard-bearers for political offices for the general elections did not emerge. Instead you were canvassing other issues. Why?
Yes, because it’s almost pointless. What does anybody want to put up against the President, against the Vice President, against all these quarrelling people? What the country requires is far deeper than that. It’s diversionary tactic, I think. They are encouraging people to look at the individual they want to send in the hope that things will then be alright. But the structures are bad; the system is bad. It doesn’t matter who gets there. It will be a question of degree only. Is he as bad as the other person?
But elections have been slated for next year. What impact will it make if National Reformation Party, NRP, is not participating?
We’ve never set out to contest elections. We don’t think it’s the answer. We don’t think the presidential system is the best for this country. We don’t think that the structures are right. It’s futile pretending that the ethnic groups don’t exist. Why don’t we make the best of them? Look at what Europe has done after 2000 years of wars. At long last, they now broke up into ethnic groups, and then a unified Europe. That’s what we urge for Nigeria. I don’t think we can better promote it by wanting to be in the existing structure.
In other words, you don’t believe an election should take place as scheduled. In spite of this, the federal government is going ahead. So how does this PRONACO constitution come in?
Exercise some little patience. Within the next two or three weeks, we’ll start. You just watch events.
You moved the motion for Nigeria’s independence. Are you satisfied with what is happening in the country today?
Of course not. What is going on is completely contrary to what the representatives of all the ethnic areas agreed to after the lengthy discussions and negotiations before independence. Jointly, we all agreed that the best system for Nigeria was the parliamentary system. The military tore it apart. Nigerians have never been given an opportunity to pronounce on that. It was just, if you like, a non-military barracks. That is their concept of what a country like ours should be, and I think it’s wrong.
A lot of things are going on in the country today. Somehow, you have maintained some silence. What exactly is your assessment of the state of the nation?
Well, it’s difficult for anybody to describe what the nation is going through. Otherwise, other than, perhaps, people in Abuja, most Nigerians will agree that we are in a mess. The only point of difference is that some people think that if we can find some saints, things might change. I don’t think so. A system that is wrong, a structure that is wrong, you can’t correct it; it will be a question of degree only.
Do you see the feud between the President and his vice as a normal thing in a democracy?
I’m shocked at the language being used. To think that at the top level of public life in the country, that sort of language is being used is shocking. It’s a great surprise to me. I didn’t think things would ever really get to that low level.
It is believed in some quarters that at the point the Vice President felt he could no longer work harmoniously with the President, the best thing was for him to resign. Do you share this belief too?
Yes, the best thing is for either to resign, not necessarily one of them. But again, I don’t think we should over-stretch the personalities. They are fighting and quarrelling over issues, which, under the parliamentary system, would have been discussed in the House and all members of the House would participate. They would have tamed them, I think. They would have tamed them.
The PTDF (Petroleum Technology Development Fund) is at the heart of the crisis. Given the sordid revelations, are we really fighting corruption?
I think it all seems a surprise that the corruption war seems to be that all those who are against the administration are corrupt and if you are in good terms with the administration, you are not corrupt. You can’t be.
You must have followed closely the conventions of the various political parties. How would you assess them in terms of democratic principles?
I frankly didn’t read what they did or didn’t do or what they said or didn’t say. But I took a quick look quite often and finding nothing there, I put it aside. Most of the quarrels had been in the media on where the President should come from; not what he should do, what he should believe in or what he should offer us; but which ethnic group he should come from; which geographical area he should come from and so on.
The South-south geopolitical zone agitated for the presidency but they ended up getting the vice presidential ticket in the PDP. Would that assuage the feeling of marginalisation by the people of this zone if the party gets the mandate to rule?
Well, I have never attended any meeting of the so-called South-south. I don’t recognise the South-south as a unit in anywhere at all. People are just lumped together because figures elsewhere in the country couldn’t have stood close examination. Therefore, I keep telling people, I’ve lived most of my life all the way from Onitsha to Lagos. How am I supposed to now suddenly think that somebody on the Cameroun’s border is closer to me. I’m unable to feel that way. I keep asking people, if there is a South-south, where is the North-north? Where is West-west?
PRONACO’s draft constitution proposed 16 regions. How would they function?
Yes, we tried to establish principles. The main principle was that if there is an ethnic group, it should meet certain requirements, namely population, ability to (govern) self? Then it could be a region. But the smaller ones, they could decide which other small ones they want to work with, so that they could jointly be a region. I think probably that’s the outstanding contribution we’ve made. And therefore, you can objectively look at the figures, look at the maps. Almost everybody will draw same maps as we’ve drawn, if you apply those principles. For the first time perhaps, principles will apply. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the British, for all they did in the London Conference, I was there. They raised the issue, not us — I have to admit that. They raised the issue that “yes, today, you are having three regions. Supposing, in due course, some of the areas want to be regions, what do you do?” It suddenly occurred to us that unless we were going to quell such agitation, we must provide for this in the constitution. And they did provide that. It has already happened in the case of what was then the Mid-west region where we are now. And I had no doubt that in due course, other areas would have come up if we hadn’t run into coups.
You are trying to replace the Nigerian Constitution with what you have now. Is this not an invitation to anarchy?
No, no, no. We could have looked for friends — let’s call them so — who could have helped us to impose it on the people. That would be anarchy. We haven’t done that. All our meetings have been held in public. We are obeying the laws. We’re not imposing anything on anybody. We are going to argue it out. The public knows how and when we produced that draft constitution, who participated and so on. We shall be asking, “Who drew up the existing constitution. Who endorsed it? Who brought it out…?” That will come out when ours goes on. It will come.
What role is there for the National Assembly in all these?
The National Assembly is a creation of the existing military constitution. They will decide what they want to do but at the end of the day, it’s going to be what the people want. I am optimistic. It could be because as a young man, we the youths of the time, across the board, decided that time was ripe for us to be free. By and large, the elders didn’t see things that way. They thought gradually, perhaps. We weren’t going to wait for elders. We put it to the test and it came up. And we may be about to see something again along those lines if the public feels strongly enough when we put our case to them, strongly enough to say that this must be the way. It will happen. It will come about.
And you will carry the public along?
We need to; we must carry the general public along. It’s the only other option. Unless you get the military on your side and you impose it on the people. That’s not what we are after. You must get the people on your side.
Your aim is to work towards the collapse of the existing 1999 Constitution. Then what happens to the present administration?
(Laughs) It’s a government set up under the constitution that the country has and adopts. Under any other, anyone that is appointed as minister other than under the constitution that the country accepts, he better be a minister in his own house.
Are you not afraid of being arrested, especially at your age?
That is the last thing one would fear. It’s happened too often to frighten anybody. I don’t really see why anybody should be arrested. We are putting it to the public. Let the public decide. It will be a sign of weakness and of fear on their part that, perhaps, the public will accept this.
Are you not agitated that the Nigeria you toiled for is going down the drain?
I’m surprised that it took so long to come to that, frankly. Because all the elders of the nation, all the political parties, all the various groups which attended all the series of conferences where there were in-depth examination of what Nigeria really is, what we want it to become and so on. We took a number of decisions. One, that we must have a parliamentary system of government rather than the system we have at the moment. Two, that regions will be based on ethnic groups, among others.
And the military came and wiped it all out.
Since then, we are still paying the price. Unless and until some day the public realiseS, examines what we have put before them now, compares it with what there is now and adopts whichever, I have no doubt in my mind what the public will adopt. It could be well ours. I have no doubt also that as long as this system continues, the country is going to be more or less as it is now, probably even worse, worse in the sense that for example, look at the number of deaths now, more people have been killed than probably in whole period of battle against the British. People are dying every day, being killed. How much longer can we stand this?
For a very long time now, you have been an advocate of the parliamentary system of government. Why do you think this is being resisted?
The shortest cut to dictatorship is what you have now. As a matter of fact, every little local government chairman now is a dictator. It goes down through all the levels of government. They are not accountable to anybody. They just declare their wishes and that is that. The least trouble will be that you are in trouble. Quite easily, you find yourself in the grave.
When you talk at times, people wonder why you are complaining. They believe that when you were given the opportunity of being on the driver’s seat, you turned it down. NADECO sources said you were invited but you declined. How do you react to this?
That’s not true. The major, if you like, the major appeal made to me was by late General Abacha. He did invite me to join his government; he did invite me to run the government and I said, “Well, I must consult my colleagues in NADECO. And all he ever said to me was, “You are NADECO; why do you want to go and talk to all those people?” I told him, “I don’t expect you as a military man to understand why you should be the head and you have to consult somebody else”. He believed that the proof of headship is that you pronounce and that is law. I said we don’t operate like that. Yes, you may be the leader but you tell them and it is discussed and debated.
Was he planning to hand over to you or what role did he want you to play?
I don’t know because we didn’t go that far. All he said was “work together” and I said “let me consult my colleagues”. I think he thought I just didn’t want to work with him, which of course is true.
How accomplished are you?
Uh, yes well, I’ve done a few things that I look back on with pleasure; peased. But there are things also that I feel sad about, particularly the public sector. Perhaps, we gave way where we shouldn’t have given way, or we didn’t do certain things that we should have done. Then, you wonder, suppose you had done it, would it have worked that way? But by and large, we’ve come a long way since the early days. It’s just that finding oneself all alone, the generation is all gone, is a bit painful.
You have been toiling over the years for Nigeria to move forward and at 84 years of age, you are still struggling. What is the driving force?
It just was there, that’s all. It’s not something one sets out to do. It just was there. I am a great believer in destiny. If you are born to do certain things, and to go through certain things, there is nothing you can do to avoid it.
