It is indecent for former Heads of State to run for Presidency, says Shinkafi
He needs no introduction. Since the alliance of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the then All Peoples Party (APP) of which he was a major player did not make it to the presidency in 1999, he had seemingly kept largely to the sidelines. But lately, Marafan Sokoto, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi had been featuring somewhat remarkably in the political undercurrents-the background to a conversation he had with Group Political Editor, AKPO ESAJERE in Lagos last weekend. Excerpts.`
IS it true Sir, that you and your political group, Choice 92, are leaving the ANPP for the PDP?
No, I am not going to decamp, in the sense that decamping means jumping out of the ANPP into another party. But I am making myself available and watching the momentum of alignment of political parties in the country given that the parties as they are, have not stood the test of time. Along with other friends and well-wishers, I will not hesitate to move into a new political momentum that I think will serve the country better and meet the needs of salvaging the country. If you are thinking of a lone cross-carpeting exercise, I am beyond that.
But it was said that you were preparing to move over to the PDP...
It is completely out of the question. Well, it may be by way of my association with my friends who are in the PDP and which I respect their decision of joining the PDP and it never affected our friendship. We continued to interact with each other irrespective of party differences. That friendship has some restraining influence on me in the sense that every time I want to say something about the PDP, if I remember my friends in the party, I check my anger or my inclination to go public with condemnation or criticisms. That is not to say that I have abdicated the duty to offer counsel as an elderstatesman.
Is any re-alignment going on
There must be because the way the parties are now, there is need for forces to re-align in a more coherent socio-political structure where people can work together, overcome contradictions and resolve internal disagreements without resorting to extraneous assistance. Generally, for political parties in the practical sense to emerge, there must be an assemblage of people of like mind, attitude and approach to development, future and fate of the nation.
Your name had featured and continues to feature in the presidential race. You have to level with me on this, are you still running
I have to level with reality: If I answer in the affirmative, it would mean that I would be contesting. And that means that if all goes well, I will take over from somebody who is three months younger than me. I am three months older than Gen. Obasanjo is. He was born in March 1937, while I was born in January. That is one aspect that you may consider light-hearted.
There is the factor of the suitability of the vehicle available now for such a serious enterprise. I will rather concentrate on overhauling the vehicle before contemplating about the journey. For no fault of mine in spite of my affiliations with the North East, I have adopted the North West as my constituency and zone of origin. In the North West, look at what we have produced. Look at how kind the nation has been to the North West by way of an elected President. That alone is adequate for us to contemplate reciprocating the political goodwill and wishes to the rest of the nation. But there are others from the North West who are demanding for the office democratically. I think any aspirant from the North West must take this issue into consideration. That is one inhibition apart from the one I mentioned earlier.
The only thing that is clear in my mind now is that I have an idea of the kind of President I want to emerge. I have a better idea of the kind of President I do not want to emerge and I will raise more than a finger to make sure that the type I don't think is good enough for the nation does not emerge. So I know the kind of candidates I will support but I do not know whom yet because they are emerging everyday. However, of those who have emerged, I know the type that I should work towards preventing from becoming President whatever from the platform. Platform is not exclusively important. Many people in one platform work for candidates of other parties.
What kind of candidate would you support
By contemporary experience, performance, compliance with manifesto, respect for the constitution, ability of carrying the nation along, offering real assistance, uplifting the dignity of the nation in the comity of nations. This is what is on record. All we need is somebody who is going to market us further.
What is your attitude to the way retired military boys are dominating the polity and positioning themselves for the Presidency
The people positioning themselves are not military boys, but military elders. My quarrel with it is that anybody who has been Head of State, military or not, unless there is a national emergency, it is not morally and constitutionally right for him to go partisan again for the rest of his life. Not by the letter, but by the spirit. The constitution expects him to settle down and be a useful member of the National Council of State where he can make tremendous input into the governance of the country. Look at the input of Shagari and Gowon during the impeachment crisis in Obasanjo's first tenure. Look at how useful they were. The others were not even approached. That is bad. Some of them were even accused of being privy to the impeachment campaign. So that is what I am trying to protect them from and protect the nation from also. I am not saying retired military people should not participate in politics. Former Heads of State and I am extending it to whether military or not, public opinion, morality and the spirit of the constitution do not envisage that they should ever go partisan again, because there is a role. I concede that there is right, but I urge also that the duty should be recognised.
You were quoted recently as calling for a summit of politicians. Is it like the one held by politicians in the days of the late General Sani Abacha
That one was an answer to Sovereign National Conference (SNC). If you look at the SNC as an objective, I think we only started by way of political parties as they are. If all of them come together and dialogue on the journey so far, we might be able to at least draw the agenda of the SNC or a national conference, the modalities, the manner of representation etc. We should not talk of the SNC as if it is an island on the dark side of the moon. We are already on our way to a conference by way of the National Assembly, political parties etc. I do not want to ignore the first summit, which was a brave exercise that we should never ignore. At least for the memory of the veterans of that exercise such as the late Chief Adekunle Ajasin, who co-ordinated it, Bola Ige and others from other parts of the country who are no more. They bravely relished the idea and sought its implementation in spite of the disruption.
Where are the big politicians, all of you have gone under, why
Over the years, what the military did, including protracted transitions that featured the banning of the 23 presidential aspirants, and the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election were parts of the game to sideline the more experienced and substantial elements of the political class. They brought forth the so-called new breed.
Unfortunately for them, the new breed succeeded not only in giving them loyalty and taking it from the old breed, they have now taken on the old military class in politics and giving them a tough time. At the moment, the new breed has come of age and is about to take on its mentors and it will be an interesting skirmish because both sides have money, know the tricks of each other and are a little less scrupulous than the cleaner class of the old breed.
So, it is beyond sidelining. It is just out of decency. You do not expect me, for example now to start running against any of the governors of the ANPP. It is another generation at work and the best I can do is to co-operate with them to make sure they succeed. Even in the PDP, some of the governors are calling me Baba. So what do you expect me to do to such people
Are you satisfied with the way the country is being run
It will be hypocritical to say that I am satisfied because the President himself said he was not satisfied. He said there were times he cannot admit that he is in charge. In a moment of reflection, he admitted that things are not as he would have wished them to be. So, it will be hypocritical to say I am satisfied. However, there are some positive points. My satisfaction comes from some of the micro issues not the macro issues. The main issue that landed the transition on Obasanjo was the general fear in the military and perhaps in the rest of the nation that a strong unitary candidate, not a politician, economist or development oriented person is the best thing for the situation in which we found ourselves. The military were conscious of the injury they had inflicted on this country and were looking for somebody who could manage the terrain in an interregnum leading to democracy so that we do have a nation. In that, I could say that he is succeeding in keeping the country together. He also scored some successes in the international scene - ending Nigeria's pariah status in the comity of nations, development in telecomm, the apparently genuine attempt more recently to take on agriculture, constant emphasis on fighting evils of ethnicity and divisions etc. Obasanjo has succeeded in keeping a tensed nation, literally about to break up.
Do you regret about the role you played in 1999 in supporting the South West zone to produce the president in your party
I started quite characteristically by opposing zoning, especially as a national policy. I expected that a sensible party would zone to the extent it thinks it can win. So I respected that kind of spirit in zoning by the party but the kind of zoning that we ended up with in 1999 was not the kind of zoning I envisaged. When my party in particular adopted it and the rest of the nation was espousing it, I respected it and participated. Secondly, there was a very disturbing disenchantment in one of the zones, specifically the South West with the rest of the federation not necessarily the centre that took the decision of annulment. There was the need for everything to be done to terminate this alienation and one way was the manner in which a search for candidates zeroed in on the South- West.
The APP made the difference in a larger merger subordinating the outcome of our convention to the understanding between us, and the AD for an alliance. It was not a major political concession. An influential section of the APP did not accept the arrangement, but every aspirant of the APP then was aware that ultimately, no matter the outcome of our convention, we must revert to the national arrangement of zoning to jointly produce a candidate away from the North. Looking at the electoral pattern of that time, the South West was our best bet, since the South East and South-South had gone to the PDP.
In doing so, it looked like we had joined the bandwagon of people warming up to the South West but our reasons, our analyses were more altruistic, principled and rooted in mutual respect of each other and the two alliances. To that extent, that was the pact. Unfortunately, in the last minute they reneged on the understanding and we had the outcome whereby some of our principal officers were aloof to the exercise of presidential election even while there was disgraceful subordination.
Why did the alliance fail
Again national calculations of national interests came in. If it failed, the price of its failure would have been catastrophic because there were elements in the military who did not want Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar to hand over in any other way than the pre-conceived plot they had hatched. So if you say the alliance failed, I will not agree with you because there is a strong section of public opinion that thought we won that election of 1999 so also that of 2003. But winning an election does not mean the outcome of votes counted but ultimately who is the declared winner. We were not the declared winners. In 1999, after some point, we abided with the outcome. There were suggestions in some quarters that I was pushing Falae to go to court and he declined and other sorts of malicious insinuations. The truth was that both Falae and I were in London and we agreed that in the interest of the nation we were not going to appeal against the Court of Appeal judgment. Both of us and not him alone, decided.
It is said that the North, especially the North West would kick against seriously if the presidency were to go again to the South after Obasanjo. What is your comment on this
I mentioned how grateful the North West ought to be to the rest of the nation for the opportunities indigenes of the North West had to lead the nation - military or civilian. There was a school of thought, which said that Shagari got more support from North Central and South South than the North West. So there is this duty to constantly remember how kind the rest of Nigeria has been to us in the North West.
If you were to advise President Obasanjo on the issue of successor, what would you say to him
The person should be able to address more grave issues of hunger, poverty, national security, law and order. I believe we have gone far with issues of national unity. I believe there is more urgency for resolving the critical conditions of the ordinary people of this country. There is a lot of consolidation to be taken in this regard. These are the kind of criteria he should enumerate in his search for a successor. His approach should be objective and not subjective.
Where should the person come from
If he can find somebody in the Eastern axis.
What is Eastern axis
North East, South East and South South. I think it will reassure the nation better. Whatever name we call it, the fundamental campaign would be to work towards reducing alienation and enhancing a sense of belonging. I am not here talking about the national framework. We are mentioning Gen. Obasanjo because of his incumbency, but what I am saying really is telling PDP, ANPP and the remaining 28 political parties to concentrate their search for candidates on the Eastern axis of the country. In the search for a successor, as I said, Obasanjo unlike those who manoeuvred his option, whose motives were subjective must be objective. The most fundamental and crucial element in it is to restore dignity, fairness, public confidence and international confidence in Nigeria's elections and therefore, Nigerian democracy.
How is your N100 million-libel suit with Alhaji Umaru Dikko
It is still on. I suppose we are not allowed to talk about it. I am about to conclude my evidence. Let me just say this here; that I was not opposed to settlement. I did not jump to court just because I was maligned. We insiders ought to have a better knowledge of what happened and what was happening.`
The most important thing is to remove subjective considerations in his search for a successor. In other words, he should look for somebody who will make a difference and take on from where he stopped`
