By Linus Obogo, Assistant Editor
Senator Nasiru Ibrahim Mantu was Deputy Senate President from 2003 to 2007. He was Director-General, defunct National Republican Convention Presidential Campaign, 1993; National Chairman of the defunct Peoples Democratic Alliance and National Publicity Secretary, defunct United Nigerian Congress Party, UNCP. He was also Chairman, National Assembly Committee on Constitution Review. Senator Mantu, in this interview with Assistant Editor, LINUS OBOGO, went down memory lane on his alleged role in former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s botched third term project and expressed his views on President Goodluck Jonathan, among other issues. Excerpts:
One of the harshest criticisms today against your party, the PDP, is that it is heading a government that has elevated corruption to an art and as a cardinal principle of governance. Just like insecurity, is it not also a serious challenge to governance?
My friend, please say it louder. Indeed, let me say that it is corruption that has given birth to the insecurity in the country today. If we had not been corrupt, we would have been able to manage our resources very well, and in turn, provide social security to the nation’s teeming populace. It is this absence of social insecurity that has consequently given rise to the various agitations across the country.
Corruption, like you rightly stated, has been the foundation of all our problems. If we are able to fight corruption, and I can tell you that even if we are not able to solve all problems immediately, we will no longer have the kind of crisis that we are having today. If we sincerely and judiciously channel all our money that is being cornered by corrupt political officials, we will be able to have good roads, hospitals, schools, electricity and potable water as well as put in place social security for our people and make life worth living.
Sincerely speaking, anyone who is enjoying good life will not like to die. It is the absence of good life that is pushing the people to the wall to act the way they are acting. Corruption is the basis of everything that is happening to us today. No government has been able to successfully fight corruption to a standstill. It is only in Nigeria that when you are fighting corruption, corruption fights back. In fact, they have just been scratching the surface and paying lip-service to the war on corruption.
There is no denying the truth that today, every facet of our society is corrupt. From the judiciary to the executive and the legislature, corruption is pervasive. People have lost faith in the judiciary because of corruption. Why will you run to the judiciary when you know that the man whom you are taking to court will engage a SAN who is going to be given certain privileges by the judge simply because he is a SAN? The entire country is engulfed in various dimensions of corruption. It is so endemic in our system and I am of the opinion that we have not really got our act together to fight corruption.
The All Progressives Congress (APC), an amalgam of four opposition parties, has finally become a reality after the initial confusion that threatened its registration. With your party, the PDP, literally becoming a “Fuji House of Commotion”, how much threat does APC pose ahead of 2015?
For someone like me who has been around the political terrain for over three decades, I hope and pray that the emergence of the APC or the merger itself becomes a reality after all. I have witnessed three failed mergers in this country, and I pray earnestly that this latest merger does not go the way of others before it.
Recall that in the First Republic, the opposition came together to wrest power from the NPC which was the ruling party then, but when the time came to choose their candidate for the prime ministerial position, everybody wanted to be the candidate. When they could not agree on a consensus choice, the merger crumbled like a pack of cards.
The same scenario played out again in the Second Republic, and what appeared then like a foregone conclusion failed woefully. So, this time around, I am praying for them to succeed so that we can have a formidable opposition party as an alternative to the ruling party. I feel strongly that Nigerians need an alternative party to put the PDP on its toes.
The emergence of a viable alternative party will nudge the party in power from its slumber. That is the culture all over the world, and Nigeria cannot be an exception. Nigerians will have a well informed choice, if there is a credible and viable opposition party in the country.
But the only way an opposition party can be successful is to put national interest above personal and narrow interest. But I hope and pray that this time around, the merger arrangement works. Nigerians need an alternative party, especially when they are tired of the PDP.
Would you also subscribe to an alternative to President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, as Nigerians are tired of what they consider as his leadership failure, nearly three years in the saddle?
I want to answer your question by saying that Jonathan’s presidency is divinely ordained. Today, nobody can say with all sense of conviction that he was responsible for bringing President Jonathan to power. Only God can take that glory. Power is from God and not from man. If it was not the will of God, nothing any man or woman would have done to install Jonathan as President.
Frankly speaking, as I said before, Jonathan is a good man and he has a good heart. But people are taking advantage of his good nature by not carrying out some of the fantastic programmes he has laid down for implementation as he would have had them executed.
Part of the problem I have identified in the system is the fact that Jonathan is surrounded by ministers and aides who are not politicians. A lot of people are of the wrong notion that it is only when you go and bring those in the Diaspora in the name of technocrat to form your cabinet that your government can succeed. If I were an engineer and I have been practising in Nigeria, does that not qualify me as a technocrat? And if I were a lawyer and I have been practising in Nigeria all through the years, am I not a technocrat? Does the fact that you have been holed up in America or one European country confer on you technocracy? My answer is no. An economist in Nigeria and an economist in Britain are economists. The two are economists.
These are some of the problems that Jonathan is actually facing because he is surrounded by people who are not politicians and do not know how Nigerians live and survive beyond Abuja. The greatest problem of Jonathan is that he is surrounded by people who are supposed to implement his policies and programmes, but who are not doing that because they are not politicians. I really do not have any problem in bringing experts into the government, but they can be brought in as advisers. You will agree with me that not many of his ministers or advisers went out with him during his campaign for his presidency. So they may not be bothered whether he wins the next election or not because they are not politicians in the real sense of the word. Many of them do not seem to appreciate the fact that they owe the electorate an obligation to deliver on the President’s promises. But if these people were like politicians, they would know what it means by making promises to the people and not fulfilling them. As election is drawing nearer. I think the President must have learnt his lessons, and I am sure he is going to address some of these issues because we still need him.
Some of your staunch critics who think they have watched keenly your brand of politics tend to pass you off as one they jocularly would refer to as “Any Available Government in Power” or “Any Government in Power”. They cite your alleged role in the adoption of the late General Sani Abacha for the presidency and former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s botched third term, among others. While the label of “AGIP” may be untrue, would you be available for President Jonathan, should he need you as one of his foot soldiers in 2015?
Let me say that the greatest perpetrators of ignorance in this country today are the media. The media are expected to be better informed than any other segment of the society. It is only in Nigeria that the media will write anything and go scot-free. It does not happen anywhere else except in Nigeria.
Some media have accused me of going to Ota to lobby Obasanjo to contest election in 1999. It is not true. I was never in the PDP, rather I was in the ANPP where I contested for the Senate and won. So how would I have been part of the lobby group to bring Obasanjo to contest election in 1999? In 1999, we had our own presidential candidate. Therefore, there was no way I would have canvassed for Obasanjo or anyone in the PDP for the presidency.
With regards to the alleged third term bid, I will come to that presently. But of note is, when have I ever been in government in appointive or elective position in this country in my 35 years in politics? I have only been in government for once from 1999 to 2007 in an elective capacity. So, how many governments have I actually participated in to deserve the label, “AGIP”? I am asking you. If I were like my friend who has served so many different military and civilian regimes and is still serving, I would not take offence at the appellation.
My only presence in government has been the legislature which is elective and not appointive. Now you can understand that I have been in government only with the mandate of my people. Throughout my political career, I have never been appointed into government.
During the time of the late Sani Abacha, I remember forming my own party, the Peoples Democratic Alliance, PDA. Later we merged and became the Nigeria Centre Party( NCP). After the merger, I was elected as the National Deputy Chairman of the NCP. Three days later, I told them thank you and left the party. The NCP was not formed by Abacha. It was an amalgamation of 23 political parties.
So if you are following someone’s track record, you should follow him correctly in order to analyse him in correct perspective. That is what I expect of the media. For instance, if you had not come to interview me, you would have viewed me as “AGIP “. If you had not come here to interview me today, you would never have got my own side of the story.
I have been in politics since the First Republic. This was when Abacha had not dreamed of becoming the head of state. Even when he became the head of state, I was not a member of his regime. I have always followed my path as a politician, seeking elective office. I won an election as a senator during Abacha’s regime. In 1990, I also won an election as senator. I have never been minister or commissioner throughout my political career. I have always done it the hard way, contesting and winning elections so that I can open my mouth as wide as I want and talk on behalf of the people who offer me their mandate. I prefer to toe that path.
Now, on the issue of me going to Ota, the only time I went to Ota to ask Obasanjo to contest was during his second term bid. Again, this is one area that Nigerians have got it wrong and I blame the media in particular. In case you have forgotten, I was the Chairman of the National Assembly Joint Committee on the Constitution Review. In case you may have also forgotten, I took over that assignment from somebody. I was not the pioneer Chairman, may be people thought I assumed that position because of my perceived relationship with Obasanjo at that time.
Nigerians are quick to forget that in the entire National Assembly, nobody attacked Obasanjo the way I did. When I was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Obasanjo was my breakfast, my lunch and my dinner because I was always attacking him. My attack on Obasanjo was so fierce that former President Nelson Mandela was in this house to beg me to soften my attack on Obasanjo who was his friend. As if that was not enough, former President Jimmy Carter personally invited me to Hilton for a dinner with him where he pleaded with me to reduce my attack on his friend, Obasanjo.
When I was attacking him, nobody was clapping for me. No one remembers that. It is only when it comes to the issue of the third term that people are quick to remember. I became close to Obasanjo after I was elected Deputy President of the Senate. My election as Deputy Senate President was based on the fact that the National Assembly wanted somebody who was anti-Obasanjo. They wanted someone who hated Obasanjo with passion. To a very large extent, my perceived hatred for Obasanjo became part of my qualification for the Deputy Senate presidency. Owing to my position as Deputy Senate President, we were meeting with the executive weekly and that was the closest I came in contact with Obasanjo. For the first six months of our closeness during those sessions with the executive, both of us maintained our hostility to each other. But after a while, he came to appreciate the fact that I was criticising him objectively and not out of hate. One day, he called me and said to me that we should reconcile our differences. Nobody initiated it. It was Obasanjo’s own idea. He told me that even if I did not agree with his ideas or policies, it was good that I respected his age and office, and I agreed with him.
As Deputy Senate President, I was also the Chairman of the National Assembly Joint Committee on the review of the constitution. My duty was to collate the views of Nigerians on the clauses of the constitution we wanted to amend. The Speaker of the House of Representatives was my deputy.
The clauses we wanted to amend were based on the views expressed by Nigerians regarding them. By this time, people refused to differentiate my relationship with Obasanjo and my role as Chairman of the Constitution Review Committee. There were those who felt that Obasanjo must have appointed me. But Obasanjo had no power over appointment in the Senate or the entire National Assembly.
After collating the views of Nigerians, one of the committees headed by Senator Ham Batsa came back with a report to the effect that some Nigerians were of the position that instead of two terms of four years, we should have three terms of four years in the constitution. According to them, Nigeria was on the same economic pedestal with China, India, Singapore and Malaysia. And since these countries have leaders who have stayed so long in office, much longer than Nigeria’s, they have been able to make tremendous progress, while we remained where we were. They felt that we should give more time to our presidents to be long in office in order to fast-track our developmental strides.
We conceded to them as Nigerians to hold and express their views. There was nothing wrong with that. So we included that aspect under “Tenure Elongation” clause. After collating all the reports from the various sub-committees, I presented a report to the Senate, and it was accepted. From the moment my report was accepted, I had finished my job. The document presented became that of the National Assembly.
When I had concluded my assignment, many people felt that I was actually behind Obasanjo’s third term ambition. I have said this time and time again and for the umpteenth time, I will love that this be presented factually. Obasanjo did not tell Ibrahim Mantu that he wanted to continue in office. But in the course of my job as the Chairman of the National Assembly Constitution Review Committee, I received a report from one of the sub-committees on tenure elongation which I presented to the National Assembly public hearing. The assignment of my committee was to collate views of Nigerians, whether bitter or sweet. I was just a mere umpire or referee. And as a referee, if you scored or committed a foul, I blew the whistle. But my assignment terminated the first day I collated all the views of Nigerians and submitted same to the National Assembly.
The issue was that some people did not want Obasanjo to elongate his tenure, and so they started using the press. But in a democracy, no one has the right to deny another from expressing his own views. That is why I still describe the third term issue as a mere storm in a teacup. It was amplified by people who were more interested in going to Aso Rock than Obasanjo. People who were burning with the desire to occupy Aso Rock and at the end, they made us to throw away the baby with the bath water. One of our recommendations was to have two vice-presidents, one from where the president hails and another from the vice-president’s zone. The thinking was that if the president dies, the vice-president from the president’s zone will be sworn in as his replacement to complete his term.
What was wrong in anybody saying he wanted Obasanjo to continue? Even after saying that, was that enough to have made Obasanjo to continue after his second term? If Obasanjo wanted a third term and he subjected himself to the due process of the constitution, what was wrong with that? As long as anybody subjects himself to the constitution to seek for what he or she wants, as far as I am concerned, I have no axe to grind with that person.
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