Mr Dayo Adeyeye is the Director of Publicity and Research for the Alliance for Democracy, AD, (Chief Bisi Akande’s faction). He spoke to Vanguard against the backdrop of developments in his party and the polity generally. Following is an excerpt of the interview.
In recent times, the Alliance for Democracy has been rocked with the party divided into two factions and people feel it is likely to be the end of the party. Is there going to be a moment to transform the party?
Yes, I have to answer you in the affirmative that AD is in a position to transcend the present problem and emerge as a very strong and viable political party. The problems of AD are externally induced, although, I must also acknowledge that we created the situation which the external forces exploited.
The Yorubas have an adage that “if there is no opening on the wall, the lizard cannot penetrate”; so, we created the situation which the external forces exploited but I want to say that we recognise, and the rank and file of the party also recognise, that this problem is externally induced. The problem we have had in the party since the year 2000 was caused principally by the attempt of the ruling party to take over the South-West and they believe that the best way to do that was to destabilise the party in 2000 and we‘re yet to recover. We thought we were going to recover after they took over the South-West in 2003 and we thought at least they would leave us alone, but as you can see, they did not.
If you look at the genesis of this problem, the former chairman, Abdulkadri, who was recognised by Obasanjo in year 2000, left the party and resigned and took up the government job, he personally handed over the party to Chief Koleosho, the party chairman. It was then the responsibility of Koleosho to organise a new convention and he did a very nice and honest job.
There was a convention committee which was set up and this convention committee was doing its job when all of a sudden, Abdulkadri came back claiming that he did not resign but that he only stepped aside; and he reclaimed his position as chairman and he was disturbing the work of the convention committee. And this is what led to the two conventions, when some other people saw that this is Abdulkadri still trying to claim the party, people said no, we are not going to allow it, this led to the two conventions. Unfortunately, some people allowed themselves to be used by Abdulkadri and this is where we find ourselves today. So, we had two conventions, one in Lagos and one in Abuja. That is what led to the crisis and that is why I said that the problems of AD are externally induced.
So, what is the position of things today?
The position of things today is that we are moving towards a continuation, we are moving towards having one party. If INEC were to be objective, they know which group they ought to have recognised, of course this matter is now in court. We have confidence in the judiciary and we hope that this matter will be resolved outside that court, and if not, the court will judge. In year 2000, they did not waste time when they recognised Abdulkadri at that time, there were no two factions. As of today, I can say confidently that more than 80 to 90 per cent of members of the party belong to one particular group.
The base of this party is in the South-West, and if you look at the South-West, majority of the members in the South-West belong to one particular group and because we are irritated by the idea of factions, that is why we do not want to make any pronouncement. In the last local government elections, we did not have problems fielding candidates in all our states, except in Ogun State where the powers that be are in control of the state and thereby exploited the opportunity of denying candidates contesting on the platform of AD. I know that there are moves right now to organise a new convention to finally resolve the matter, whatever decision is taken, I believe that the court will uphold the mandate of majority of the party members and we‘ll have one party. Then, we'll put this problem behind us, that is all I can say.
The problem with AD is that people think right now they do not have a grip on the levers of power and that politics is hoisted on power levers and that this is likely to leave a little distortion. How do you react to this?
Let me make that area perfectly clear, I‘m even one of those who theorised the form, one of the writings I did in 1996. At that time, I posited that the experience in Nigeria and in fact the whole of Africa, that it is only elections that are organised by an impartial arbiter, may be colonial authorities or in some cases, military authorities that have semblance of genuineness, but other elections organised by the ruling party are always fraught with inadequacies and of course rigging is the order of the day, those elections are actually no elections and this was my position in 1998. At that time, my argument was that we should try as much as possible to beat the government at the centre in order not to repeat what could become an historical trend in Nigerian politics that the ruling party will always force on the others in subsequent elections. At that time, it was so in 1983, it was so in 1964, 1966 and now we have experienced it in 2003 and so you‘re right to say that absolutely.
There is a tendency for people in the opposition party, if they don‘t want to be primarily opposition parties, to want to be ruling parties and you see the cabinet from the smaller parties, to the big ones, but even though I agree with this theory which has been borne out of practice, I believe that the dynamics of Nigerian politics will create a situation in the which there will be alignment of forces, in which today, the ruling party has been made an octopus which will break into pieces, the opposition parties will fall out from them and also pick themselves together and ultimately, two or three parties also will be asking questions which is the process that will unfold in the next two years or so. And we will see to the unfolding of this process come next year when there will be some conventions at certain places. Ultimately, it may take a little while, but at the end, we‘ll see Nigeria having two or three strong political parties.
Do you foresee a possibility of AD being an anchor of one of them, do you foresee the possibility of the AD holding another convention this year?
It is a very real possibility, in fact we have made moves for the party to have it. The party believes that the only way to resolve this crisis is to have another convention which will be transparent, open, free and fair; and we believe that people will accept the outcome of that convention. Although, there are imaginary forces who just want this crisis to continue, who say ‘no, they shouldn’t have any convention’, and I cannot say that Afenifere or any other group will be able to resolve the crisis in the future. So, people said the practical solution to this crisis is to let all of us in the party have another convention, just at the national level, there are no problems in the state; so let us have this convention and resolve this matter once and for all, let it be open, transparent, let everybody have members in the convention planning committee; let us invite other external bodies to come and monitor and help out in certain cases so that people can accept the outcome.
This is a very popular period in the party right now that affects the segmentation, those who have had themselves to be used to destabilise the party are refusing it. If you have confidence, if you know that you have support, why should you resist having another convention, I mean why? If you`re sure of yourself, go for another convention, but I`m so disturbed by the fact that some people feel that no, there is no other convention, it is the present condition and they`re happy to live with it, not minding the rank and file of the party.
Let‘s put aside AD for a moment and let‘s look at Nigeria. In your own view, do you think this is sufficient and do you think only a thorough-going National Conference can settle the issue once and for all?
There‘s no doubt about that, we have said it on several occasions, that all these attempts to amend the constitution will result to nothing. It will not yield anything. So far, they have spent four years to amend the constitution, they have not succeeded. I even want to believe that there is no sincerity of purpose on the side of the Federal Government, the so-called effort of the Federal Government. There is no sincerity of purpose, if there was a sincerity of purpose, somehow, one or two things would have been done by now. So, I believe that the efforts of the government to amend the constitution are mere reforms, I believe it‘s a belated and insincere response to the agitation of a sovereign national conference. What Nigeria needs and which would give Nigeria a permanent solution to the present crisis, is a thorough-going sovereign national conference and I would give you the reasons for this.
I believe that right now, Nigeria has no constitution at all because the present constitution is illegitimate, it is illegal, it was not made by Nigerians, it was not approved by Nigerians, Nigerians did not deliberate upon it, we did not know anything about it.
And even the President, I must confess, did not see a copy of the constitution until about two or three days after he had been sworn-in, I believe this is fraudulent on the nation, the fundamental law of the nation ought to have been not only made by the people, but debated upon by the people and it is only then we can say that this is the constitution we have made for ourselves.
Even when you form an ordinary club, the people who are forming the club will agree on the rules and regulations or on the constitution of the club; and even when you want to make an ordinary law for the country, it should be debated, how much more the constitution which is the ground norm of the country, that nobody debated, nobody saw it; a group of people just sat down at night, concocted this document and gave it to the nation, it cannot even be amended, you cannot amend it legitimately.
But the country is being governed by it...(cuts in)
Well, they accepted it, the politicians accepted to operate under it but without the vast majority of Nigerians to whom the sovereignty properly belongs. But of course the military, they come in and even take oath of office. When a military man seizes power, he would want to appoint governors for all the states, he takes oath of office, what we‘re saying is that Nigerians have the right to the constitution, this is a fraud and an illegitimate thing in the nation.
Do you think the National Assembly can constitute a sovereign national conference?
The National Assembly cannot constitute a sovereign national conference. It‘s true that they have power from an illegitimate constitution and therefore because they continue to operate within the ambit of that constitution, they cannot override the constitution. If the National Assembly had done away with the constitution totally, then they would become objectionable, so they would have to operate within the ambit of the constitution and the best they can do is to say they want to amend and you see, that cannot resolve the problem because the constitution is fundamentally flawed in several aspects; no amendment will cure the defects of the constitution, the terrible defects, you will see so many areas of the constitution have been contradictory, because nobody cared for the sovereignty powers conferred in one section or other sections.
The political structure of this constitution gives to Nigerians the most affordable anywhere in the world, because the constitution has created what is called three tiers of government, the federal, the state and the local government.
I do not know the political underpinning for that because I know that the 1960 Constitution and the 1979 Constitution were based on the theoretical foundation of a federal state which is federalism; the theoretical foundation was federalism, therefore, we created two tiers of government, the federal and the state and I know that as a student of political science, that in a federation, there are only two tiers of government, that is the central government and the unitary government.
Nigeria has to tell us the path to bring out a new conference. You can see that fundamental flaw, local governments are basically the state government's responsibility because two states come together to form a federal state. There is no other third party to it, the creation of local governments is up to the state government, the federal government has nothing to do with it. Between the unitary government and the central government, it is now left for the central government to create the local government and find sourcesd of revenue for these local governments. But because, and this is important, why some people are resisting a sovereign national conference is because they know that they have an unjust system and they want to continue to reap the fruit of that injustice.
I will elaborate. The military that appeared between 1985 and 1999, these local governments which were created at the local level ought to have been created at the federal level; so local governments were created at the level of the federal military government and the number was tripled as at then. And there was no executive criteria for creating these local governments, the local governments were created arbitrarily to satisfy their own selfish interest; and it is the root of the crisis in the Niger-Delta area. Having created these local governments, and because it was in the favour of a particular section of the country at the expense of others, and they want to continue to enjoy all these injustices, so that nobody can alter that system; it cannot be possible.
Today, Kano has 44 local governments and people are against Lagos which has 20 local governments to create more local governments and that is why they say no, you must deal with this injustice.
Unless we correct this injustice, unless we correct the fundamental errors in the country, the injustice will continue; and so, Nigeria will continue to go back. We must do things properly in order to move the nation forward.
But there are still some complexities in the actualisation of a sovereign national conference....(cuts in)
There is no complexity. I will tell you that these are the issues; we are not fools; why must any government refuse the citizens their rights which even the British accorded them. In 1955, they started organizing a national conference and they allowed Nigerians to participate and start deliberations on what they want, the kind of constitution they want and they allowed people like Chief Obafemi Awolowo to bring about the ideas of federalism. The British did not believe in this but when they started reasoning with this, Nigeria established a true federal state. The 1959 Constitution really established true federalism for Nigeria with adequate power to manage their own affairs and resources.
But subsequent military governments have violated that constitution, and what you now have is for all purposes, the military system of government. Now, I believe that Nigerians can still come together and have what it was in the colonial era without any rancour.
