Mr Bamidele Aturu is a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist. In this interview with Ayo Esan, he speaks about issues bordering on inequity and exclusion of the majority of the citizenry, the effect on the nation's security and stability, among others. Excerpts:
There is glaring insecurity in the country; the Boko Haram insurgency in the North, armed robbery and kidnapping in the South. The security agencies seem helpless. What is your take on these?
All of these reflect the fact that democracy is not working in Nigeria. It shows very clearly that many of our people are marginalised. In fact, an overwhelming majority of our people are excluded from the resources of the country and they don't see themselves as having a stake in the project known as Nigeria. This has fostered a selfish attitude and a system in which everybody fends for himself or herself and then the common tie, the common thread that used to bind us together as a people, as a community has been broken by the greed and apparitions of the ruling class members.
The consequences are what we see, an increased insecurity, in terms of what people now refer to as Boko Haram insurgency and kidnapping in almost all parts of the country, whether it is in the South-East, South-South, South-West and so on. Nigeria has become more unsafe than it was even say five years ago. The country has become more dangerous to live in more than it was five years ago. It has become tougher to live in than it was five years ago
So this progressive deterioration in the quality of living and life in Nigeria is responsible for what they refer to as security challenges. The truth of the matter is that our people are frustrated, dissatisfied and have lost hope. They now believe that democracy as I said earlier on is not just working. There is the need for something to be done urgently otherwise democracy as a project in Nigeria is imperiled and otherwise more anarchy looms. People have said that we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder but I think it is beyond that. If you are sitting on it, perhaps you have the chance of preventing it from exploding. But now the keg of gunpowder is already opening up and we are now witnessing the hissing stage before it goes up and explode. I think we are now right there at that stage. Any moment from now, there would not only be an explosion, the ruling class must know that there is fire on the mountain. If that is the way we can put it for them to know because it appears that they are still carrying on as if it is business as usual. They don't seem to understand the intensity of the challenges, the enormity of the crises that confront them and our people. The people would have to survive one way or the other. And so many responses would be worked out but I can tell you ultimately the goal will be to replace these very backward set of 'leaders' and put in place the government of the people in the real sense of the word.
The civil society of which you are part of fought for this democracy. What is the group doing to prevent our democracy from going down?
The civil society mainly fought to bring this democracy about. There is no question about that. That is clear to everybody. Many of the people today who are governors, presidents did not even come near the struggle for change in this country. They could not be bothered because many of them were just concerned about how to earn a living. But as soon as 1999 came and because many members of the civil society were more interested in creating platform for perpetuating themselves or for self glorification if you like,I think it is an error to have abandoned the political turf to the so-called professional politicians. I think that at the end of the day the civil society must get together and we must now do everything that we can to ensure that we don't allow this democracy to be buried. We should do what we can to deepen it and make sure we direct the way our country is going. Because if the country goes to the wrong destination, we are all going to get there with the country.
Nobody is going to say 'oh I said it'. So we have a responsibility, we have a task, an obligation to ensure that we don't allow people to misgovern our people. We should not allow them to continue to steal our resources, our institutions to be desecrated and public education, public health and public service generally to go to the dogs. We must meet, strategise and do whatever we can to ensure that we redirect the ship of this nation. It is a duty and in any event, it is a duty that is unavoidable, we have no choice. We must do it and I am sure we will get there.
How do you think this problem of insecurity can be tackled?
The problem is that we have a system where, as I said, selfishness is the moving force for whatever the people do and that is bad. If we don't create jobs, ensure that the resources of this country are used to provide social amenities, train our children, provide social security to the people, then we can't isolate the problem of insecurity and successfully deal with it.
Because insecurity is a consequence of the fact that people have been excluded and marginalised...the people don't have any future, they don't see any future. It then means that for the people who are leaving universities, polytechnics, secondary schools, we must be willing to create jobs for them. We must be willing to include them in our economic affairs. We must have social security net for those who are poor, the aged, the young ones, those who cannot care for themselves.
That is the only way in which government can claim to have the moral authority over Nigerians. If that is not done, then people who are already hopeless would then say they will survive by any means possible. That is the biggest problem that is facing us, not even buying guns and all sorts of that because the military agenda of buying armaments, hardware or crush them, maybe as they did in Baga or Odi and Zaki Biam has never worked. It is not going to work because you can decide to level everywhere but as long as you don't level poverty out of existence, people will find means of participating in those things you call insecurity.
Let me say this, very few people would want to be armed robbers. In any country, I think the population of those that would want to take to crime would be less than five per cent. People will only take to crime mainly because they are hopeless, jobless and society is not catering for them. They have been excluded from the economic affairs of the country. You must include them, we must have a policy of inclusion. A policy that will bring as many people as possible on board, show that the country cares about everyone, that there is equitable distribution of the resources of the country and people will see it transparently being done, not a policy that enhances or provides opportunity for a few people to buy private jets and many other people cannot afford to pay fifty naira to enter bus to the next bus stop. That kind of system cannot guarantee effective security. Those knowledgeable believe there is a serious link between the economy and the security issues.
Are you saying the idea of amnesty will not solve the problem?
Amnesty is a very lazy, knee-jerk reaction to a very fundamental crisis. It does not show that the people understand what they are talking about when they talk about amnesty. Now you talk about amnesty in the South-South and you see that people still kill policemen.
This is because people are used to easy money. People who have been excluded from the general economic platform and who have responsibility like you and I and who also want to ensure that they continue to reproduce for themselves on daily basis at least to survive would always do anything regardless of how much amnesty or money you give them. It is not about giving people money but fundamentally ensuring that they can survive and reproduce for themselves by engaging in productive work. If you give a man or woman money without putting that person within the system, that money will be finished in no time because it comes easy and goes easy. If you give a man a billion naira and he did not invest it, and begins to go to five-star hotels all over the world or on vacation, in the next one week or two the money will be gone. Even if he buys a big house, he can't maintain it. When the money finishes and the man still wants to go to the five-star hotels, then he picks up his gun and go back to the creeks. The same thing with Boko Haram. It is a very lazy way of dealing with a very serious problem and I think in a sense it is quite embarrassing because you know the cause of the problem. If you say immediately you give people money they would not go to the creeks or the Boko Haram will not kill, you are wrong.
You spoke about democracy not working in Nigeria. Would the coming together of opposition parties to form a mega party improve democratic rule in the country?
My perspective about the mega party is always that it is a matter of choice for those parties who want to coalesce or form a coalition as the case may be. For me it is also part of democracy that parties should be allowed to come together whenever they want and to also separate whenever they think they cannot continue to stay together. For me, it is allowed but what is important and what Nigerians should ask is whether there is a difference between these parties that want to coalesce and the ruling PDP.
That is the crucial question. It is not just about coming together. We have about 57 parties before INEC decided to yank off some of them though illegally in my view. Our problem is not about creating coalition, we have been creating coalition, but what is important is the vision of the coalition. In what qualitative way is the vision of this coalition different from that of the ruling PDP? If they share the same vision of privatising Nigeria then of course at the end of the day the people will not get much benefit. They may get some benefits here and there because they may want to make a difference in some areas but at the end of the day the differences will be largely cosmetic. We must know that the vision among the ruling class, the dominant vision and perspective among the ruling class is that of privatising everything in Nigeria.
It is the turning of the Nigerian resources to private funds and using these funds to enjoy themselves and not bother about what happens to the people themselves. That is the vision of the PDP. You can point to so many things that the PDP members do that some members of these other parties also do. Maybe at initial stage, they want to demonstrate that they are different, some of the benefits may trickle down to the people but it won't be fundamental. I am being honest here because I don't want to deceive the public. I think the public needs to interrogate these parties to know in what ways they are different from the PDP.
You see the parties are so accommodating that people move from party to party. People can move from the PDP to ACN and from ACN to PDP or even ANPP seemingly. They don't ask the question of would I be comfortable leaving this party for the other and so on?
People should not get carried away. I know one trend in Nigerian politics is labelling. They just say this one is progressive, this one is backward. It is sad that the media also buy these erroneous labelling of people. What do you mean when you say somebody is a reactionary? What do you mean when you say somebody is a progressive? Are you a progressive because you say you are a progressive? In what ways are you different? What is your view on education? Do you believe that Nigeria should have free education as the law says, that every Nigerian should have decent housing? Do you believe that nobody should own oil block, that the money that belongs to Nigeria should not be used to buy private jets? Do you believe that our roads should be motorable for the people? So if you don't agree with all these, what is the difference? You can't just say that, that man is bad so that you can take over. I don't think in this century I will fall for that.
But there is no doubt that the idea that the people are trying to come together represents some plus for our democracy that we are trying to build. At least the atmosphere, the system permits people to have a future. That is democratic but whether it is going to lead to the desired destination is a different matter altogether and that question can only be answered unless and until we interrogate their vision.
What is your take on the unfolding scenario in Rivers State where the Speaker is alleging that there was pressure on the five remaining members of the House after the suspension of 27 members to impeach the state governor?
It is not legally and factually possible for five members of the state assembly of a 32-member House to impeach the governor under Section 188 of the Constitution. If they do that it will just be an act of rascality and it is not going to stand the test of judicial challenge. I think that it is just part of the joke that we see in the run up to elections. You know when elections are coming like this, people just make themselves active and want to be seen to be doing something or for some of them to get some funds from their sponsors they think up all sorts of comic things just to make the system lively. That is the way I look at it otherwise it will be very silly for five people to think they can impeach a governor under a 32-member State Assembly.
What is your assessment of the Jonathan government in respect of the fi ght against corruption bearing in mind the pardon granted former Bayelsa State governor, Mr Diepreye Alamieyeseigha recently?
It is clear. I have said it before and I am saying it again the Nigerian governments have never fought corruption. So let us not single out the presidency of Jonathan. Nigerian state has been erected on corruption. That is the truth of the matter. Though it may have become worse under his administration it might have become something that nobody wants to talk about in terms of fighting. But the truth is that it has been corruption galore all along. If anybody comes and says to me that there is a war against corruption, I will say the person is deceiving the people.
There has never been any war against corruption; what they do once in a while is just to make people think something is going on by doing some razzmatazz in the press, charge a person and of course that person gets a bail and asks his lawyers to file notice of application for adjournments and objection to the charges and then the case dies naturally. You see th e people and their supporters coming out to jubilate. That tells you that we are just joking here..
And I think the pardon of Alamieyeseigha has confirmed that, because some of the presidency people have justified it by saying they only pardoned a sinner not a saint. I say well if that is the case, everybody in the prison is a sinner then go and open the gate. Let everybody come out so that we know that we are a nation where nobody can sin. But they know that is an incorrect thing they are telling the public.
They know that one of the worst decisions that any government has taken in the history of this country is the decision to pardon Alamieyeseigha I think the pardon of Alamieyesiagha is a statement to justify corruption. It shows that we are not interested in fighting corruption. That is why I have described the Nigerian state as a rogue state. It permits those who are corrupt to be the ones in control of the resources and the political powers in Nigeria. That is very sad.
National Mirror
Whatever factor they want to consider to ensure security let them do it. We just need a tight security to ward off dangers.