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Why we lack virile opposition
� Gov Nnamani�s aide
Chief Sam Ejiofor is the special adviser
to Enugu State Governor Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani on Political and Local Government
Matters. He is also the president of Enugu Progressive Club. In this interview
with Assistant Editor; JUSTUS NWAKANMA, he speaks on politics, Enugu
State and other interesting issues. Excerpts:
HOW do you feel about Nigeria�s democracy?
I have been in office as special adviser
to the governor of Enugu State, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani on Political and Local
Government Matters for five years.
I served him during the first tenure and I
was reappointed. By profession I am a teacher and a politician, because I read
political science.
As a teacher, I have looked into Nigeria�s
educational system; as a politician, I have equally looked into Nigeria�s
political system. And I have come to discover that there are lots of issues that
are responsible for the problems our nation is experiencing in our political and
educational sector, the problems of political instability and non-functional
education.
But the matter at the moment is the issue
of democracy in Nigeria. We are clamouring for democracy, because whether you
like it or not, there is no way you can compare the worst elected government,
with the best military government. It is very very clear that any nation that is
aspiring to be counted among the comity of players in the global sphere today,
will have nothing to do with a military regime.
So, there is that need for every Nigerian
to make serious contribution and ensure that our democracy is sustained. On our
own part in Enugu, I make bold to say that the leadership of Chimaroke Nnamani
is a model of what democracy should be. A model in the sense that in Enugu, we
believe in participatory governance.
Participatory governance in the sense that
when you look at politics globally, you can liken it to a football game. In
football, you have the actors, you have the spectators, you have the umpires,
all of them come together to ensure that the game of football is as popular as
it is today.
But when you look at this critically, you
see that the main actors are just few, about eleven on each side. And there is
no way you can compare them with the spectators who fill the stands depending on
the nature of the competition.
And when you look at it again, you see a
few persons determining the fate of the two teams playing to the admiration of
the spectators who are just enjoying the game. So when you come to politics, it
is the same thing. You have the actors � they are those who go into the field,
win elections and form the government. There are other participants � the
voters, constituting the majority. And the moment the voters vote, a few come in
and take control to determine the fate of the whole lot.
In most cases, as soon as the election is
over, so many people are forgotten. Even the party members who helped in putting
somebody in office are not even looked after. That is why in our political
system, we have tension. Because every citizen is a participant in the
government, when you sideline these people, they create problems for you here
and there. So, the summary is that what we have presently in Nigeria is not
democracy.
What we are practising in Nigeria is
�self-to-cracy� � the politics of self. If you look at the lawmakers, look at
all their demands, look at even their debates on the floor of the house they are
self-centred. If you look at the executives, whose duty it is to enunciate
policies and execute the policies in the interest of the masses, you find that
most of those policies are also tilted towards self.
And when you look at leadership, a leader
must have good ideas to sell but from the policies they formulate to the
execution, most don�t work because of self. Even when you are in office, the
advice people will give you is "look oh, opportunity comes but once. Make sure
you don�t come out of this place empty handed". That is why we have much
conflict in our political system.
Are you satisfied with the performance of
opposition in Nigerian politics?
We don�t have a constructive opposition in
Nigerian politics. The opposition we have in Nigeria is still people who because
they lost an election or because they were not given appointments decided to
fight the government, not to fight the government because they have reasons to
fight the government but because they are seeking recognition. When they are
recognised, they become part of the government and nobody hears from them again.
You claim that Enugu State practices
participatory democracy, to what extent are both the opposition and ordinary
people in the street involved in governance?
In Enugu, we believe that positive
participation plays an important role in politics. The voters who stood under
the sun, under the rain to cast their votes should get something in return, to
induce them to go again and vote. Look at Nigeria�s political system. When
people talk about rigging, many things are responsible for rigging. If you go to
the polling stations, people will not come out to vote because they are
disenchanted with the system. They don�t even have hope of gaining anything.
What is the essence of coming out to vote? And when people do not come out to
vote, what do you want the politicians to do, if not to manipulate the votes to
their own advantage. If people have the knowledge and orientation of coming out
to vote in an election, then there will be no avenue for rigging.
One of the allegations against some
state governments is they have not done much in the area of infrastructural
development. What is the situation in Enugu?
In Enugu, we have a lot of programmes on
the ground for the electorate. Today in Enugu the fact is that no community, no
electoral ward, no local government will say they regret voting Chimaroke as
governor because of the infrastructure on the ground. For instance, in the first
dispensation, we embarked on the construction of a lot of roads. Enugu embarked
on rural electrification, about 300 communities were electrified. You talk of
water, it is virtually in all the local governments.
As of today that I am talking to you, we
have a network of roads that makes it possible for one to visit the entire local
governments within a short space of time. When you come to the urban areas like
Enugu, Nsukka and so on, the era of digging shallow wells has been reduced
because a lot of work has been done in the area of provision of portable water
supply.
How well has the Enugu government done in
the education sector?
Before this time, people were not sending
their children to school again. When they cannot pay in the private schools,
they send their children to hawk because the public school system was totally in
disarray. But since the regime of Chimaroke Nnamani, we have had a continuous
non-stoppage school system, from primary to tertiary institutions.
Even in the face of other universities in
the federation going on strike, the Enugu State University of Technology (ESUT)
has not gone on strike. The same thing applies to our primary and secondary
schools. And so people can now say exactly that they have a government.
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka is an
off-shoot of ESUT. Today, the university has a permanent site, but ESUT has no
permanent site.
But as I am talking to you now, within the
next one year, ESUT will have a permanent site. Everything that is required for
this is on the ground. Enugu as an urban area is congested. Removing ESUT from
the heart of the town will reduce the issue of cultism.
What is Enugu Progressive Club which you
preside over all about?
Concerning political participation, if you
are doing it alone with your commissioners and may be other appointees, without
the contribution of the members of the community, there is no way people will
say you have done it right. And so, we decided to have a body that is all
embracing; a body that will create opportunity for more political participation;
a body that cuts across political parties, a body that can give non-politicians
opportunity to be part of government, because there are people who, because of
the problem they have with politics, the moment you mention a political party,
they run away.
There are people by law that cannot take
active part in government. And there are people who don�t even live within the
state, who live outside the state but are still citizens of the state who have
one or two contributions to make for the survival of the state. They can not
pack and come to Enugu and do that.
In Nigeria, our orientation concerning
party politics is quite different. If Mr. A is in party A and Mr. B is in party
B, there is a mind-set that there should be no meeting point. The moment you are
in party A, they will say you are an enemy of party B and you antagonise each
other. And so we looked at all these things and I said, let me, as the political
adviser of the governor, put together a platform for political participation of
our people from Enugu State to hand democratic dividends to them; to allow them
to look at what government is doing critically, so that they can help in
proferring constructive criticism as to the way of moving Enugu State forward,
or even praising the person that is doing well.
In Nigerian politics, we are only good in
criticising. Rarely do you see people praising somebody that has performed. It
is not good politics. If somebody has performed, there is need to praise him, if
somebody does not perform, there is need to criticise him. But in Nigeria, it is
negative criticism all the way. So we formed this Enugu Progressive Club, as a
non-partisan organisation. As far as you are an Enugu indigene, you are free to
belong to it. Government doesn�t fund it, it is self-funding. The aim is to
sensitize the people about the programmes of government.
It was rumoured recently that Gov Nnamani
intends to quit politics in 2007, how true is that?
We heard it just like everybody else. He
has said that he will quit government by 2007 and go back to his medical
profession. But since we all heard it, we in Enugu have been taking it with a
grain of salt; we have been trying to persuade him to change his mind, but you
see, what he probably had in mind in joining politics or being in government,
that is, elevating the living standard of the people, is not what he is seeing
today. A lot of people are just out to sabotage the efforts of good people like
him. But considering the enormous good work he has done, it will be a great loss
to Nigeria if he should quit government.
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