Bolaji Abdullahi is the National Publicity Secretary of the
ruling All Progressives Congres, (APC). In this interview by Senior
Deputy Editor, TAIWO AMODU, on the occasion of the 19 years of Nigeria’s
democracy, he says it will be uncharitable to compare the 16 years
under the erstwhile ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP),
with three years under the APC.
19 years of democracy; what is your appraisal of our democratic transition?
I think the fact that we are celebrating 19 years of uninterrupted
democratic practice is itself an achievement. It is worth celebrating by
itself, given that it is the first time in our history as a country
that we have this long stretch of democratic practice going to two
decades.
We should congratulate ourselves as a country and continue to work
hard to build democracy, regardless of its imperfections, believing that
it is the only form of government that can best serve the interest of
our people.
Now having said that, if you look at some of the defining progress
this country has made, it has happened in the last 19 years. Whether it
is the revolution in information and telecommunication technology,
whether it is the entertainment industry, the movie industry, you can
look at the broad range of the social revolution that has happened in
Nigeria in recent times, they have all happened under democratic rule.
These are the non tangible benefits that democracy brings to a
country, because people will have the liberty to express themselves;
enterprise will thrive and that’s what has happened.
For me, I believe that we have every reason to continue to celebrate
democratic rule in our country. 19 years is nothing in the life of a
country. As a matter of fact, 50 years is nothing in the life of a
country. If you look at other advanced democracies that we admire for
what they have achieved, they have been in existence for 100 years or
more. I think we are making steady progress. There are issues; there are
challenges, some of them that require immediate solutions: issues of
poverty, health care, education. But as long as we continue to work on
this, I believe that definitely we will be able to deal with some of
these issues.
You have enumerated the achievements that we have had as a
nation under democratic rule. What is your take on the perception that
we haven’t fared better in terms of fidelity to democratic ethos? Some
are of the opinion that yes, we have democracy but we don’t have
Democrats.
I don’t think so. If you read the work of Professor Ali Mazrui, you
will see clearly that one of the pathologies of post-colonial Africa is
that the choice tends to be between dictatorship and what may sometimes
be regarded as anarchy. If you look at countries that have had longest
periods of one party rule, or military dictatorship, they tend to be the
most stable— whether it is Libya you talk about or Cote D’ Voire until
recently. Some of the countries that have one party rule or have
outright military dictatorship are the ones that tend to be most stable,
while those ones that have had longer interactions with democratic
practice tend to be the ones that appear unstable. And why is it so? It
is very simple.
Dictatorship is repressive, it tends not to allow or permit
opposition. It doesn’t allow dissenting opinion; it doesn’t allow views
and ideologies to compete or contest. It is command and control. Viewed
in this context, you find that what you call stability is actually
stability of the graveyard and that’s why when a strong man leaves the
scene, the country tends to collapse completely: whether it is in Libya
or Cote D’Voire. That tends to be the case, but when you see countries
like ours that tend to prefer democratic practice you find that because
of the weakness of our democratic institutions. Like I said, they are
still very weak, given the relative youthfulness of our country as it
were and you tend to have all kinds of contending forces. So I have no
doubt in mind that after the election of 1964 in the First Republic, if
the military had not intervened in 1966, despite the sheer anarchy of
the election of that year, Nigeria would have achieved so much progress;
it could have achieved greater stability. Those parties would have been
stronger, the democratic processes would have been stronger, the
national parliament would have been stronger. The Federal Electoral
Commission, (FEDECO) at that time would have been stronger. If we had
taken that into 1979, maybe the same political parties would have been
in existence up to the Second Republic. But if we have had that long and
consistent practice of democracy, we would have had a more robust
practice, a more assured stable democratic practice.
I think if we are looking at the discontent or the problems that
exist within the democratic space, we have to look at it from these
theoretical points of view and look at how things could have played out
differently if we didn’t have the kind of military intervention that we
had and allow democracy to be practices for as long as we have existed
as a country.
But in the last 19 years, can you really say we have tried to build strong institutions?
Certainly. Even you will agree with me today that the kind of thing
that was possible in the political arena, especially regarding elections
in 1999 is difficult to happen these days. Why? For the first time in
2015, we had a sitting president defeated in an election and he conceded
defeat. That’s a remarkable achievement for our democracy.
It used to be that whenever there was an election, people would just
snatch ballot boxes and papers and go and stuff them. Yes, some of those
things may be happening in isolated cases, but the introduction of the
kind of electoral system that we had in 2015 had revolutionised the
voting process to a very large extent. Now, we are talking about
everybody going out to collect their Permanent Voter’s Cards, (PVCs). I
think whoever wants to rig elections is going to have a herculean task.
It is still possible, but what used to happen in the past that people
would sit down at one corner and write results is now extremely
difficult.
Coming to governance, in the first four years of governance in 1999,
we had four Senate Presidents. But by 2011, I think we had only one
Senate President, David Mark, up to 2015. Now since 2015, despite all
the issues that surround the election of the Senate leadership, we have
had only one Senate President. That’s evidence of stability, that’s
evidence of maturity of our democratic practice.
I believe if we look at our democratic journey and we see it half way
and you ask me, whether it is half empty or half full, I will tell you
without equivocation that it is half full.
But there is a school of thought that concedes the abstract
achievements of democracy like free speech and right of association, but
they have also argued that our democracy hasn’t actually translated to
economic growth and development for Nigeria. What is your take?
Look at the sheer size of our economy before democracy and I give you
one seminal indicator: the liberalization of some key public
institutions like the Nigeria Telecommunication Limited (NITEL). I
remember that up to 1999 that we started democratic rule, we used to
hear stories of how market women in Ghana had mobile phones. It was a
major achievement to own a mobile phone, but a tangible benefit of
democracy was that the liberalisation of the telecommunication sector
led us to where we are today and the effect it has had on so many other
things.
Don’t
forget that we say we have 10 million out-of-school children. But the
introduction of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) came with democracy.
The launch of UBE in 1999 brought more children into school than any
other time in our history. That’s a major achievement of democracy. So,
you can count so many others like that. If you look at a lot of things
that started in 1999 in terms of governance reforms and reform of some
of the key institutions of government that we have today, then you will
agree with me that we have made a lot of progress.
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) was a creation of
the military but even back then, despite military rule, we had more
issues to deal with in terms of drugs and narcotic control than we have
to deal with today under civilian administration since 1999. We have
made some progress. It is possible for us to look at the challenges and
say nothing has happened; nothing has changed. A lot of things have
changed. If you left Nigeria in 1998 and came back today, I am sure even
you will be amazed with the level of progress that Nigeria has made.
But what is your take on the argument that we should prune certain
institutions so as to reduce the cost of governance? Some have argued
that we don’t really need bi-cameral legislature in Nigeria.
That’s a constitutional issue and I don’t have an opinion on it. I
don’t even think we should look at it from the point of view of cost
alone. Without prejudice to cost implication of the bi-cameral system, I
think our founding fathers that gave us bi-cameral legislature knew why
they did so and I think we shouldn’t take that kind of decision whether
to return to one cameral legislature, based on consideration of cost
alone.
If you want to prune cost, there are so many other things you can
look at. Like someone said, for forms of government, let fools contend,
whatever is best administered is the best. I think the question we
should ask ourselves is why the need for a bi-cameral legislature. Can
our people be best represented if we have a uni-cameral legislature? Can
they be best served if we have bi-cameral legislature? I think these
are the questions we should ask ourselves.
There are some who have advocated for the scrapping of local
governments, that we don’t really need three tiers of government. The
question we should ask ourselves is in terms of bringing development to
our people, do we need local government? If the answer is yes, then the
first consideration shouldn’t be the need to cut cost. We should have a
philosophical reason, looking at all the issues around our democracy. I
don’t think such fundamental life-changing decision should be taken out
of consideration for cost alone. No, I don’t think so.
Nigerians are anxious to see the ruling party implement
recommendations of its own committee on true federalism. It has since
been submitted by Governor El-Rufai who chaired the committee. How soon
will this be done?
Well, as a party we have played our part. We have taken the bull by
the horn, inaugurated a committee and it has done its work and submitted
its report. Now, we are at the level where the party is no longer in
control of what happens. We have submitted the report and the report is
being considered; the appropriate authority will decide on when and how
to proceed with the exercise but it is something that we are committed
to as a party. We have demonstrated that commitment with the work we
have done.
But where is the report as we speak?
The last time we considered the report was at the national caucus of
the party and I think a committee was set up by the national caucus to
translate it to a brief that the president would take and call the
leadership of the National Assembly to look at. I am glad that the
leadership of the National Assembly is saying that it is revisiting some
of the issues, even though it has almost concluded with the
constitutional amendment. They are willing to go back to the issue of
devolution of power, the issue of state police and all that.
It shows that these issues are not foreclosed; so our hope is that we
will be able to come to a quick conclusion on how to proceed on these
matters. Unfortunately for us, the electoral process is catching up on
everything but I believe that if we still want to do something there is
still time.
Is that feasible between now and next February?
I don’t know; it depends on how we are able to keep it on the
priority agenda of the government. For us, we are committed to it and we
believe that it is one of the issues that Nigerians will continue to
ask our party. We believe that the presidency is aware of this, the
National Assembly is aware of this.
You were a big player in the erstwhile ruling party, the PDP
and you are also playing a big role in the APC. If you have to assess,
which of the two platforms has actually inspired the confidence of
Nigerians, in terms of delivery of democracy dividends?
Well, I don’t think I understand the essence of your question. If I
understand it to mean whether the APC has done well in terms of
delivering the dividends of democracy, my answer of course will be an
equivocal yes. I will be saying this in due consideration of the major
challenges that we have faced, not only in terms of the economy, but
also the issue of the political challenges that we have faced. I believe
that we have done well. The most important thing is that it is easy to
take it for granted, but if you look at the direction the country was
going before 2015, I believe that if we had continued along that line,
only God knows where Nigeria would have ended. We went into a recession,
APC didn’t drag the country into recession, and it was an inevitable
development of the state of our economy. We are out of recession, the
economy is picking up again. I believe because of the situation that we
have found ourselves with the economy at the time we are coming in, it
is wrong to say some things aren’t happening that are supposed to have
happened. But I think if you take the aggregate of everything I believe
that we have made significant progress.
However, I think it will be an unfair comparison to compare a party
that had 16 years being in power with a party that has barely three
years being in power. I think if you want to make comparison, then you
have to wait until we have also done 16 years.
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