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 Daily Independent Online.
* Tuesday, August 10, 2004.
Rotational
presidency will encourage mediocrity in governance -Etiebet
Chief Don Etiebet,
National Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) is still not
happy with the outcome of last year’s polls, especially the one that saw
President Olusegun Obasanjo return for a second term. He is also not
satisfied with arguments for rotational presidency. But more importantly,
the former petroleum minister is enraged by claims that he has been
settled by the presidency to compromise his party’s position on burning
national issues. A Lagos-based magazine actually claimed that Etiebet
collected N300 million to ditch his party’s seeming hard line posture, an
assertion that he vehemently denies. He spoke with Special
Correspondent, Haruna Abdulkareem in Maiduguri. Excerpts:
What
is your reaction to claims that you’ve been bought over by Aso Rock to
compromise the ANPP?
I
just came back from abroad after a medical operation when I saw the story
by the magazine on me that Obasanjo gave me, Don Etiebet, N300 million.
That was a great disservice to my own person. It was really embarrassing
to me. Perhaps this people don’t know who I am. I never worked for
government in my life except when I was appointed petroleum minister in
1993 to 1995. And I want all of you to investigate to confirm this from
Nigerian history. How many former petroleum ministers are chairmen of an
opposition party that are able to voice out their minds freely like I am
doing in this country today?
I was a founding member and a financier of PDP, and I took
Obasanjo round this country in 1999. I was the first person to take him
on tour. I left PDP because these people whom we put in the position of
power were derailing and I didn’t want to be associated with them. And
that is also why people like Alex Ekwueme had to retire as the PDP
chairman Board of Trustees. Since I came back, many people have made
contacts with me to ask about the damaging story. Just imagine this:
(brandishing the said magazine) ‘A N300million bribe story; Aso Rock buys
ANPP’. If you were in Abuja
I would have shown you the statement I made on 30th May before going
abroad. And do you think I would make such a statement against Obasanjo
and PDP after he had given me money to give ANPP? Obasanjo will give me
money to give ANPP when at the same time ANPP is in court against PDP? Do you think Obasanjo will be
funding us against himself? When you are doing your job as a journalist,
you have to report with responsibility; you don’t just go wild with your
report. Because where your freedom of writing and speech ends, that is
where my own begins. Freedom goes with responsibility. You have to take
responsibility for whatever you say and do! Just imagine such a story
written on me Don Etiebet. In 1993 when I was just a supporter of
politics, I didn’t joint politics then, I donated the sum of N54million
to the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC). Go and ask any
member of NRC, nobody in this country had ever done that then. I have
been supporting politics because I believe that it is in politics that
you will have the capacity to develop the country for the better. I travel a lot and I know that
politics is the only avenue through which one can help his people. No
matter how rich you think you are, there is nothing you can do to your
people outside politics; you can’t build roads, you can’t build national
heritage, you can’t give social insurance. It is only in government that
one could do all these. And that is why I have been supporting politics.
And in 1993, I was appointed minister of petroleum. My records are still
there for any one to criticize. For God’s sake, what is N300 million? Do
you know how much I spent in 1995 for the National Centre Party of
Nigeria (NCPN)? Have you heard me being mentioned that I have collected
money from any one? My successor in the petroleum industry, Dan Etete,
where is he in this country? Why is he not in this country today? And I
am here driving my car even in Lagos alone, going to buy petrol in the
filling stations and people applaud me and so on. And then somebody comes
and writes this rubbish on me. What is N300 million? That is just three
million dollars. And it was not even said the money was given to me as a
person, but to distribute to party members. That is ridiculous. Who does
not know Obasanjo here? Do you think Obasnjo will ever give you money to
run the opposition?
The
ANPP case in court over the 2003 presidential elections has lasted 14
months. Do you think the Nigerian judiciary has lived up to its
expectation?
Thank
you very much. That question is more of a theoretical question than a
practical one. But I will say that in this country and in any country in
a democracy, there are three agencies that are supposed to be 100% fully
independent of the machinations of government or the executive. These
agencies are the judicial commission, the electoral commission and the
police service commission. These are the three bodies in any country that
make democracy work. The executive is a child of a political party, and
the political party is a competitive body in a democracy. It is these
three mentioned bodies that will ameliorate the party developments and
their obedience of the tenets of democracy. Having said that and in
respect to your question on what the assessment of the judiciary as
regard our case in court is, I have a few comments to make. We have, for
a long time, finished giving our evidence; we’ve finished presenting our
case. It is now left for the defendants to give their own. But it is
clear that theirs is taking longer than the period we used in presenting
our case because of several adjournments and so on. And up till now the
case is still in court. And because of that we as a party is still
involved in the 2003 elections until it is concluded. Having said that,
you will also bear witness to the fact that there have been quite a lot
of court rulings in this country as regards political problems and they
were all commendable. But there are also quite a lot of them that are
very questionable; that are very nauseating to the sensibility of the
common sense. We had a very good case in one of the states up North here.
In all the cases we have heard, that was the only one the Judge said
there was some thing wrong in some local governments and as such the
election of the governor was abolished, and that elections should hold
again. You also heard the reactions of some of our nation’s leaders in
respect of the judge’s decision. Whether we are ANPP leaders, PDP
leaders, or AD, we are Nigerians and hence we are supposed to subscribe
to the tenets of democracy and the judicial system as the last hope of
the common man. But if the judiciary is abused by the system, then it is
a big problem. I cannot say the judiciary is 100 percent fair or they are
not 100 percent fair. But according to one saying, as long as we are
human beings we are bound to err. I don’t want to start mentioning the
case history, you all know them.
Could
you please clear the rumour making rounds that your party ANPP has
expelled your presidential candidate, Muhammad Buhari from its membership?
If
you have been following our position, right from when we went to court,
the decision of the party has been not to employ any confrontational
approach with the government. The national executive committee of our
party met in May last year and agreed that instead of mass action, we
should employ legal and democratic means in protesting the injustice that
was visited upon ANPP during the last national election. We are in court.
Buhari and ANPP are in court. And I go to the court to represent the
ANPP; and I have said it that until that case is disposed of we are still
in 2003 and until that case is concluded, Buhari is our child. If we go
on till 2007 and the case is still not disposed of, Buhari remains our
political product. But it beats my imagination when people confront me
and say there is problem in the party or Buhari has been expelled and so
on.
Yes,
you will agree with me that the party is a combination of so many people;
it is supposed to be a collection of like-minded people that are working
together towards achieving a common goal, whether in politics or sports
and so on. Nonetheless, being human beings, you still find some people
going astray and who could be used by external forces to create discord
within the system. No doubt, there are certain people in ANPP who are
fanning the embers of discord and distraction, such as spreading the
rumour that ANPP has expelled Buhari; or like Babangida has given ANPP
N10million, which I have no knowledge of. We are not in any way
whatsoever planning or even thinking of expelling Buhari. He still
remains our product as far as the 2003 election is concerned. And until
that case in court is concluded, ANPP cannot move an inch without Buhari.
After the court case is concluded, ANPP returns as a National Party to
prepare for 2007. If any member is interested in any elective post from
the ward level to the highest level, the constitution of the party has
given all the conditions of choosing candidates, which must be met.
What
is your opinion as regard this contentions issue of rotational
presidency? Which zone has the right to aspire in 2007?
You
asked for my personal opinion; I will tell you, but don’t distort it as
that of the ANPP. When this idea was being touted during the
Constitutional Conference organised by Abacha government, I said that the
system was going to bring about mediocrity in governance, it is going to
bring about selective development and, therefore, it may not augur well
for the unity and even development of the country at large. That was my
opinion in 1994. And the reason for saying that is - I even wrote it down
then, that development will be segmented, depending on the nature of
Nigerians who are very parochial, very selfish, and tribalistic. When you
get into public office, because it is your turn, you will employ only
your people, you will build roads only in your area, you will develop
your area and so forth; because you feel ‘yes this is my time, let me do
all I can for my people while others will wait’. By so doing, we would
not have laid a solid foundation for even development in the country; we
would not have laid a solid and progressive foundation that can build on
continuously the development of this country. The tendency will be there
to be selfish. Somebody will say that: ‘when it reaches my turn, I will
also do my own to serve my people’. And by the time it eventually reaches
his turn, 48 years after, by that time, he might not be alive again
depending on how old you are to see development in your area. And the
other side of it is that when another president comes from perhaps a different
zone, he will go to his area and develop it. Or rather if the areas that
were developed by his predecessor are in conflict with the programmes in
his area, he will cancel them or put them on hold. He is a human being
and therefore such projects will never continue, no matter how laudable
they are. Some say the positive aspect of rotational government is that
the whole thing will go round. Go round for what? We are all Nigerians, let us get
the best person to do the job; get the person that can unite this
country, that can bring prosperity to this country, that can bring jobs
to this country, that can revitalize our education, our hospitals,
improve the agriculture and give fertilizer to our farmers and create
employment for our teeming youths and not somebody who will say: ‘turn by
turn’ or ‘this is our turn’. This is highly hypocritical because any
person who is the head of this country and says ‘this is our turn’ means
that he is not ruling this country; he is just ruling himself and
therefore he is undermining the constitution! That was my personal
opinion as far back 1994 and I am happy to say that if you meet who I
talked to then, they will surely confirm it. But if we have somebody who
sees the whole country as one constituency and he makes sure that
development is even, opportunities are even, education is even and so on,
this country will not be in its present position.
• To be continued
tomorrow
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