By Linus Obogo, Assistant Editor
Chief Albert K. Horsfall is an administrator, author and politician. He was a Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS) and ex-Chairman of the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC). In this interview with Assistant Editor, LINUS OBOGO, he criticises the involvement of the National Assembly in the ongoing constitution review, arguing that it exposes the lawmakers to the temptation of tampering with the organic law of the land to suit their own purposes. He also speaks on Boko Haram and sundry issues. Excerpts:
The National Assembly Committee on Constitution Review is conducting zonal hearings with a view to coming out with what could be described as a “people’s constitution”. What, in your view, should form the plank of the review?
The much talked about constitution review is a good idea. When the polity becomes unduly heated as it is at present, it becomes necessary to carefully examine the framework on which our relationship as a nation is founded in order to ensure that the organic law which governs these relationships is strengthened or modified to ensure that the system functions better. The First Republic constitution lasted for just six years when the Grundnorm was rudely removed by the 1966 coup. We did not sufficiently practice or experiment on that constitution which I still think was the best for Nigeria. When the 1966 coup happened I was a young ASP in the Police Special Branch. The Personal Assistant to the then Commissioner of the Special Branch, was Chief T.A. Fagbola of blessed memory, an outstanding statesman and leader. I recall what he said to me when I congratulated him following that coup believing as I did at that time that it was a good thing that the coup had happened and removed the ‘corrupt’ politicians from office. He said to me “Albert, we will be lucky to recover in 25 years from the tragedy and damage which has happened to this country by this military coup.” I did not really understand and I quietly felt within me a shock and surprise that my boss appeared to support the corrupt political dispensation at that time. Now I realise the truth of Chief Fagbola’s prediction, and it has sadly dawned on me that the damage caused has not lasted for 25 years but continues perhaps up to this date.
The military managed as best they could to pilot the affairs of this country, howbeit inappropriately and inadequately, and in the process of trying to sort things out and give us a fresh constitutional framework, introduced the presidential system of government based on the American model. The problem is, we have not been able to fully understand, follow through and effectively implement the American system of presidential constitution. We have actually followed it somewhat half way and allowed our background and orientation to drive our attitudes towards the presidential system in a confused way. For instance, at the local government level we have completely muddled up the practice as it works in America. Above all, our orientation based on our local background of chieftaincy, Obaship or Emirship, where the chief or traditional rulers as we call them own everything in the land, giving them the right to give to whom they wish and deny from whom they equally wish. That mentality seems to have taken hold on our political leadership at almost all levels. The average office holder in any arm of government – executive, legislative, and judiciary – sees his office as his personal fiefdom where he holds and wields absolute power and authority – including complete authority over public funds, the law enforcement authorities, and so on and so forth. He doesn’t seem to like the notion that the office he holds and the responsibility thereof is held in trust, and that he must be guided by the supreme law of the land, or any law for that matter. The average ruler actually sees the constitution and – the rule of law – as a hindrance to his authority and does his best to avoid using it as guide to perform his function.
The clear expression of my point is symbolised by the practical expression of our corrupt political situation starting from the local government level and even at the political party level. At the highest political level, for instance, the leader of the party – and there are only very few exception in this regard – controls and actually ensures the selection of candidate of his own choice, to go to the legislature at any level. He would in most cases if he were already in government, pay for their election expenses from funds usually available to him through the public purse. As legislators they are sometimes, aside from the regular emolument, paid special honourarium weekly or monthly and accorded other favours and inducements. Worse still, in some states before selection prospective candidates are ‘persuaded’ to sign up to some secret association or ‘cult’, and then finally when ‘elected’ such persons are placed under mentors who are usually senior party or cult members and they monitor their activities, behaviour, etc. to ensure that such ‘legislators’ toe the line prescribed by the leader. In effect, in many cases the emergent legislator’s words and activities are pre-circumscribed to ensure that he keeps in ‘line’. Those who dare not to do so are denied the various facilities stated earlier and marked out for premature retirement from party and perhaps politics altogether. At the end of the day, the average legislator has completely lost his freedom to perform based on his conviction or even on the declared party manifesto or credo. The other restrictive control measures that the top echelon of the political system appears to have embarked upon include the infusion into the judiciary of politicians’ cronies and family members. There is an evidently emerging trend where the family members of leading politicians are progressively emerging as judicial officers. This cannot be accidental or coincidental and this trend needs to be watched carefully.
In making a fresh constitution for Nigeria or amending the existing one, there is need for caution, especially against the prospect of ensuring that an emergent or amended constitution does not serve the select interest of a few over the ordinary Nigerian.
For instance, we are still hearing a lot of talk by those who will play the principal roles in amending the constitution about the issue of immunity for certain office holders. There are indications in a number of states of huge and unjustifiable pension schemes for retired public office holders which will draw deep into the resources of the state which in many cases will serve the interest of young politicians who after retirement will perhaps be on this side of the planet for quite a few more decades. The country is at present undergoing huge burden of corruption in public places. To land ourselves in a situation where a public officer may have abused his authority while in office and still chip in to the public resources even when he has left office, is to say the least, a major challenge to the public psyche. Especially when efforts are being made to ensure through immunity clauses and such other arrangements that errant public office holders will not be held to account for their excesses whilst in office. I did say earlier in this interview that the First Republic constitution which was rudely truncated in 1966 remains our best constitution. Even though a republican constitution it provided a parliamentary and cabinet system of government. The beauty of it is that at the appropriate levels the members of the executive arm are also in the legislature where they function as legislators and become used to the democratic system of operating their offices and particularly of accountability. This is a system where in parliament they would be confronted with facts in open debate and give public answers which the ordinary citizen has access to and be informed of the manner in which he is being governed. It is my belief that the national interest and the interest of the ordinary citizen will best be served under the parliamentary and cabinet system of government where the public officer will openly account for his activities.
Should the legislature make, review or amend the Nigerian Constitution?
My sincere views are that the legislators by themselves cannot be the competent organ to make or amend the Nigerian Constitution. We have all been crying wolf about the military made constitution. Bad as that may be, one can regard the military in the circumstance, as a disinterested party. Can the legislators be seen or regarded as such a disinterested party? For them therefore to be the ones to make, review or amend the constitution which is to be regarded as their guide for making ordinary laws and other regulations to my mind is clearly inappropriate. As such I will like to thank the legislators for their present initiatives on this matter but I would advise them to handover the matter of constitution making to the appropriate authority – the people. I wish to emphasise that neither the executive, that is the presidency, the legislature nor the judiciary who will be the ultimate instrument to implement, practice and interpret the constitution should be the body to make, review or amend it. Such attempt by any of these bodies will expose them to the temptation of tampering with the organic law of the land to suit their own purposes – which makes them masters and not the servants of the people! They should expose the process to a national referendum or a national conference of ordinary Nigerians who will produce the organic laws under which they choose to be governed.
One issue that has dominated national discourse in recent times is the clamour for state police. Is Nigeria ripe for the establishment of state police?
The Governors Forum made a statement through their chairman that it is their wish, and placed it on the table for constitutional amendment. The South West is known to be very strong proponents for state police, and to some extent the South East governors have taken a similar position as the South West. In the South-South the vocal minority seem to be advocating the same. I would like to sound a word of caution on the issue of state police. Many of those at the helm of political leadership may be doing so to serve some selfish interest. The truth is that the ordinary policeman is there to protect the average Nigerian citizen. You do not need to go far in order to confirm that even at present there is a tendency of the strong to use the police to oppress or suppress the weak. Such excesses are so far generally checked by the fact that the police is monolithic; with its hierarchy stretching up from the community level to the Inspector-General who is in the Abuja headquarters. Therefore the average aggrieved Nigerian citizen can start with the constable in his community to deal with his grievances at his community or local village, and without much cost can refer his matter from the constable to the DPO, from the DPO to the area command, from the area command to the state commissioner of police, from the state commissioner of police to the zonal AIG and eventually to the IGP. He can do all of these without much cost except the piece of paper in which he writes his complaints or the transport cost which will take him to all of these places to verbally lodge his complaints. The Nigeria Police may be accused of being plagued by a nest of corruption but its hierarchical arrangement offers some of the best opportunities to the under privileged Nigerian to make his case and be heard and indeed to ultimately receive justice. But when you remove this protection from the ordinary citizen you are further widening or stretching the thin layer of protection which the ordinary Nigerian citizen has so far enjoyed.
Judging from what the new breed of politicians have so far enacted from 1999 to date, it will be interesting to note that the tendency has been to consolidate power in their own hands and thereby give less and less room to the ordinary citizen to express himself and exercise his God-given rights of citizenship. During the period when in the South-South zone, for instance, cult and youth militancy activities evolved, the ugly gunfights, killings and operation of cult members and youth militancy which were taking place under the full glare of the governments of this zone; the police and other security agencies were there but could not take any meaningful action. This is because the heads of these formations had been intimidated or brought under the subjection of the local political leadership, and all these crimes were openly taking place with no one to counter them.
The enforcement and monitoring authorities were intimidated by the real or implied threats of one form of sanction or another and so connived, turned the blind eye or totally ignored their duty to the state and citizenry.
Even the media which during the Abacha era rose up stoutly to defend the interest of the ordinary citizenry were for whatever reasons, for almost three years, unable to effectively expose these ugly incidents of killing and maiming which were taking place extensively in some of these states. So the country and the outside world were kept in the dark throughout the embryonic stages of these ugly developments.
Many of our citizens of the present generation are not familiar with what went on in the First Republic when we had local government police, native authority (NA) police, native court, etc. In those days the political leader or some powerful Emir or Oba will direct the police – especially the NA police – to subjectively arrest a political opponent or anyone who insulted them or dared to question their excesses. For any flimsy excuse imaginable persons were locked up contrary to the law. In the North as in the West the powerful politicians and traditional heads held sway!
The NA, local government police and the native courts exercised cruel and crude forms of ‘justice’. There was the report, in those days, from one of these areas where the president of a customary court was in his bathroom, and having been informed that a prominent member of his party had been arrested and sentenced to three months in prison in another region, for which a revenge arrest had been made in his (the customary court’s jurisdiction), shouted back from his bathroom “I sentence the man you arrested to six months imprisonment.” He thus passed sentence on an alleged suspect he had not even seen! Let Nigerians and our present day politicians not forget that all these excesses and more brought about the crises which truncated the life of the First Republic and the series of unpleasant events which followed thereafter!
Even in the then Eastern Region where they did not have the local government police, the Nigeria police were under pressure to toe the line of the political leadership. But the situation in Eastern Nigeria compared to the rest of the other regions was generally different because there, the Nigeria Police headed by the CP based in Enugu received his operational orders from the Lagos-based IG. And depending on the stature of who was commissioner of police, the police force in the then Eastern Nigeria generally performed well and operated to protect the interest of all and sundry. One will readily recall the tussle for control of the police force in the then Eastern Nigeria between the CP’s office and the Premier of the then Eastern Nigeria. There were such tough officers like Ikeazor, otherwise called Keazor. Or the likes of the ‘No nonsense’ Commissioner Ibekwe of the Onitsha province usually referred to as ‘MA Natural.’ By the strength of such distinguished officers the interest of the ordinary citizen was generally protected and the law was applied somewhat properly in the interest of the common man in the then Eastern Region.
But come to think of it, the series of crises and violent eruptions since 2007 resulting in youth militancy and deaths sometimes based on tribal and religious lines; were these issues being handled by a state or regional police per se the resultant effect would obviously have been different and the breakup of the federation of Nigeria might have come sooner than 2015 allegedly predicted by the Americans. Nor would the country have adequately dealt with the emergent Boko Haram and the earlier situation of Maitatsine had we tackled them under the rubric of state police or regional police. I would like all and sundry to carefully consider this matter, especially the governors, some of whom are at present at the forefront of the advocacy of state police. Let me remind them that some of them may become the victims of the state police in the hands of the very individuals whom they may have installed as their replacement as governors, but who may thereafter become their political opponents and bitter enemies, and may like to have them in jail.
The House of Representatives recently threatened to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan over the poor implementation of the 2012 Appropriation Act. What is your take on this?
The impeachment threat by the National Assembly appears to have become a political weapon in recent times to shake-up the executive arm of government whenever it is felt that that arm is either not performing up to expectation or is not taking the legislative arm of government seriously. It was threatened several times during the Obasanjo administration. But as always, the legislators who all belong to one political party or another know how to find accommodation to resolve their differences. I am sure that even this time around they will come back together to resolve whatever differences they have with one another.
How do you deal with the political controversy between the North and the South-South?
The North and South-South had in the past formed close alliance on various national issues whether at election time, constitution making time, or collaborating in the Nigerian Civil War. In politics, Northern candidates for president or other national offices will normally always expect to get the backing of the South-South. Similarly, the South-South would usually expect to receive the backing of the North in political and other national issues that affect the South-South. For instance during the Civil War, Northern soldiers and politicians were the backbone of South-South support and creation of states. The North was our main ally that executed the Civil War in collaboration with the South-South and, of course, our close friends from the South-West. So the Obasanjo-convened National Confab was the first time when the South-south began to realise that the North was actually unwilling and unable to give political support to the South-South on the twin issues of getting a president from the South-South and on the issue of resource control which were the two main planks the zone agitated for at that conference. Delegates from the South-South were rather puzzled at the vehemence of the opposition of the North to their cause. Somehow, by providence and divine intervention, the South-South now has the president and the presidency in the person of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. The political election that led to his victory at the polls was free and fair and the candidate won the election roundly. There was no question about that. And thankfully the North actually voted enmasse for Goodluck Jonathan.
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