My fears for Nigeria’s judiciary - Utomi

Pat UtomiPublic Affairs analyst and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the last general election, Professor Pat Utomi, in this interview with Assistant Editor, Niyi Adebimpe, speaks on a wide range of national issues such as the Niger Delta crisis, constitution review, President Umaru Yar’Adua-led government’s economic policies, among others. He also expresses his fears over the nation’s judiciary, stressing that the task of determining the array of petitions over the 2007 general election may turn out to be its albatross.

How would you compare the economy under former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Umaru Yar’Adua?
That is a big challenge. I am not certain whether one can say that the character of the Yar’Adua economy has taken form or not. I was at a conference recently with some speakers who came from the United States of America and they asked: What is Nigeria’s private sector aligning to, in terms of its visions for Nigeria. This is because you see so many visions; vision 2020, MDGs, seven-point agenda, etc and the answer that I got was that nobody is clear in his/her mind on where Nigeria is going. There isn’t a clear accepted blueprint.

Since May last year, everything has been very tentative. I do not think that many us have seen clearly, it does not mean it is not happening, what the economic thrust is. This makes it more difficult to compare the economy under the two of them. However, you can see some patterns. One pattern is a rejection of the triumphalism of a new private sector led growth that dominated the Obasanjo years. While this is an interesting paradox, of course, the Yar’Adua people will say that it is a continuation of the Obasanjo regime, but as you can see, they have systematically rejected everything Obasanjo did. They have been overturning everything Obasanjo did.

I think, and this is my opinion, Obasanjo may be called all kinds of names, but at least, we must recognise that there were some methods he adopted. In some areas, he did some concrete things that had concrete consequences. So, not because he did many terrible things, we should reject everything he has done. I actually was talking to a major leader in the power sector about six months ago before the power probe started. He was there during the Obasanjo time and he is still there now. I said to him “how are you guys doing?” and he said: “My brother, I am not sure we know what we are doing”. That was his reply. You may be shocked but I will not mention his name for decency sake, but he is a very senior person in the power sector. He said all we do is reject what was done before but we are not sure of what we should be doing. I thought that was a very instructive comment for somebody who was a player in government.

The Obasanjo years and the economic policy are capable in many ways because everybody knew him well. Everybody knew that he was a convert, he was into the private sector; he was a believer in privatisation. When he got converted, he became a zealot. Whereas other issues of public ethics and economic values of the time were there which I was very critical of in the view that there was never a democracy in the country.

Unfortunately for all of us, those things seem to have affirmed my position as right. Having said that, we must be very honest with ourselves, Obasanjo desires some kind of place in history. His problem was that he was his own worst enemy. I always believe that it was his split personality that worked against him. On the one hand, he was a man very passionate about his place in history and wanted to do something right for this place in history. For some reasons that I am yet to understand, he just kept sabotaging himself. But in the main, the economic thrust of the Obasanjo years were okay, it was just the values that were problematic and those values sabotaged the general economic thrust.

Compared to now, the problem is that I do not know what the economic thrust is, and that is even more dangerous, except that you see a slight indicator, frightening I think, that we may be returning to forthright, prebendal, lent economy where things are patronage-driven. If you look at the most challenging parts of our economy, the very technical kinds of areas, where you need the very best people to work in, today, many of them are manned by people who do not have technical expertise. In effect, the reason for this is political well-being and that is extremely dangerous. You could see that Obasanjo’s trouble were people who did not seem to have the technical competence. I pray and hope that this changes because if it does not then we are in serious trouble. There are some things in the power sector that are so fundamental. Any consideration for politics of where does this person come from will not help us we should try to get the best even if they are foreigners. I think we should learn lessons from countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Look at Dubai, they are moving, charging forward. So, who are the people who should drive these critical sectors? They should be the best guys from anywhere in the world who can do it.

Many countries in the world are making progress because they put the best guys from any part of the world who can do the job in the position to do it. To go and bring some guy because he comes from your village or some parts of the country or some place to run a very technical sector of the economy that has many troubles already, I think it is to have a limited vision of what the possibilities are.

Would you have done all these if you had won the 2007 presidential election?
To be an effective leader does not require you to be a genius. It requires that you are humble, that you know the best guys, that you have the capacity to inspire them by having a clear idea of where you are going and their place in getting you there. It requires your ability to check and determine where people are from and where they are supposed to be. The most important thing I would have done is to find the best guys who are Nigerians wherever it is in the world they are. If Yar’Adua wants, I can give him people, somebody he even knows from Katsina, who runs a major manufacturing concern in Florida, to lead the clear vision of rolling out industrial pacts across Nigeria. When you start to look around for somebody who helped you to rig elections or somebody who did this and that, you may be heading for the rocks. We must first of all have a clear view of certain combinations that will help us move forward. Is there a patronage economy? Do we have to appoint somebody because of politics, party and all of that? If you say yes, then you appoint that man as minister of culture. But the things that will make Nigeria happen and that we all desperately need are to get the best guys in the world, have a clear view of where you want them to go and provide them the inspiration to turn Nigeria around. The best way is to get the best guys, empower them and be a great communicator to the Nigerian people; to get the people to see how completely loyal to their well-being and not to myself interest or the interest of any cabal. Then use the cooperation that Nigerians would give to push your agenda to be so formidable that those called guys will find that things are working out very quickly and easy for them because they have popular support for those difficult decisions you have to make to move the country forward very fast.

Since you believe that the 2007 election was rigged, why didn’t you go to the tribunal to challenge the outcome of the presidential election?
I have responded to this several times. You see, we like to waste resources in Nigeria. If 20 of us go to court to pursue the same thing, that is a waste of resources. It is better in agreement from the beginning, to consolidate the suit because it is the same thing that will happen in 20 that will happen in one. To show my good faith, I gave my full support to the actions of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Action Congress (AC). In that sense, I was involved because they knew they had my support. I call them frequently to give them my opinion.

But with the outcome of the tribunal judgment, were you surprised at all?
Not at all. I forewarned several times before the ruling that we were endangering the judiciary. It is not proper to make the judiciary decide what should be political motions. It flows partly because we have the let’s find the Messiah mentality in Nigeria. We are always looking for somebody to bail us out; we cannot save ourselves, so it must be some Messiah. So, the first Messiah was the military. They got into the body politic and destroyed Nigeria and the military itself. We are worse off because of military rule today and the military as an institution is damaged almost irreparably in my view because of that.

Now, we have turned to the judiciary. So, when people were saying all sorts of things, I said we may end up with the judiciary the way we ended up with the military, destroying the judiciary and damaging Nigeria There were some states where the judiciary ruled and the people were happy; these people said the judiciary would save us. I told them to wait and see what would happen. The same people then called me and were shouting after the judgment of the presidential election tribunal in Abuja. Our concern is not that the judiciary has done right or wrong, it is just that it is an unfair burden placed on it. Solve the political problem politically. If the Nigerian people, a day after the election, said we knew election did not take place and that unless politicians got themselves together, we would not move forward, you would not have the kind of mess we have now. The judiciary is now being taken to a dangerous situation. One or two more judgments of this nature and people may lose confidence in the judiciary. Is that what Nigeria wants? In fact, somebody said to me it’s not so much that the judiciary gave an unfair judgment, it is that they did not even try hard to sound big about it. In 1979, for example, you could say that there was a technical argument about 12 2/3rd and all that, but these guys just said the elections were perfect. An election that everybody who had the capacity to think from different parts of the world accepted was not an election, but the judgment said it was more or less perfect. There are Nigerians I know who have said they will never vote for the rest of their lives; that there is no point, it’s meaningless to vote. And that is the kind of thing that a court can remain in contempt for and people may just hold the judiciary in contempt because it was obvious there was no election.

But how come you are saying this after the judgment of the presidential election tribunal?
I had taken a position before the presidential election tribunal judgment that it was not fair to leave this at the doorstep of the judiciary because it could damage the judiciary.

Do you think this proposal is realistic at all?
Yes, look at the Kenyans, they took a political track and solved the problem politically.

With your wealth of experience, will you be willing to work with President Umaru Yar’Adua if he invites you to serve in his administration?
Sometimes, people confuse issues that are very nuance. I got into this thing not because I was looking for office or position but because I thought Nigeria was in such an embarrassing mess and that the biggest tragedy of the Nigerian condition are people like me who pretend that this thing is somehow beneath us and so long as I can manage my small corner, make some money, drive my car, then let them be. And we are all sinking. I think it is hypocrisy. My decision to get involved stemmed from the fact that I am somebody. I believe I can make a difference. If many people like me say that to themselves, then we can begin to change things. So, to say now that the elections are over, come and take something would only amount to the tradition of the Nigerian elite.

What amuses me is that many of the state governors actually have a budget for the opposition. They just want to give something to all the political parties, so that everybody is pacified. How can a country make progress like that? So, I am not looking for any pacification, I don’t need anything, I am completely contented with what I have in life. And quite frankly, I do not think that a cabinet position in Nigeria will enhance me. If anything, it is more likely to reduce me. So, what really should matter is can we save our country? If there is a feeling that this country is a mess and one quiet evening, my phone rings. The caller says this is Umaru, I say which Umaru? And he says this is the president. And he says my brother, this country is dying before us, why don’t we have dinner and talk about it? He stops the phone, calls General Buhari and invites him to dinner to discuss the problems with the country. He calls Atiku and others and we all sit down and say these are the problems what can we do? He says we can quarrel about elections but this is our country, let us all work together. Then, the stakeholders can all come with suggestions and set a grand vision for all of us. It is this kind of thing that can move Nigeria forward. I may not even take a salary. I do not even care if I am not in any position and I am asked to suggest the ideas and tell people how to do things because all that matters to me is Nigeria.

Now, Atiku and Buhari have gone to the Supreme Court, do you think they will get justice there?
Well, it is their prerogative to go to the Supreme Court to seek justice. I have no way of guessing what the apex court will do except to say that the whole burden on the judiciary is one that worries me. So, if the Supreme Court overrules the Court of Appeal and says the election was a fraud, what does that mean? So, we will all say they have overruled the Court of Appeal and we will all say that the judiciary is useless. It is too problematic to be left to the judiciary in my opinion. If I were in Yar’Adua’s position, what I would have done is exactly what I have told you. I would have done it a long time ago and everybody would have come out to say let’s get the judiciary out of this. Our country has decided that this is the way we are going to move forward, even though we need to have a virile opposition, but because of the particular circumstance of this moment, the Governing Council of Elders are made up of these people and they would help re-plan the country.

In the course of answering one of my questions, you poured encomiums on former President Obasanjo and interestingly, you were on one of his committees in the build-up to the 1999 presidential election, but suddenly you parted ways. What really happened?
For me, it’s always a matter of principle. Not everybody either realises that or cares to pay attention to those things but I am dealing with him with principles. There is nobody, no one man alive that I hate or dislike. I don’t know what God did to me, I just don’t have the capacity to dislike a person. I strive to live by principle. But I am a very weak person even though I am able to hold on to some things. My best example to my friends is that people say I am a guy that has difficulty saying no. On campus, many of my friends smoked Indian hemp but I have never smoked a cigarette. I will be inside the room and they will be smoking Indian hemp but I won’t even smoke a cigarette.

It is just something about me that follows some basic principles and I tend to follow it. For some reasons, I was invited to be part of the process early before he became president. For some reasons also, in the course of the life of the administration, it seemed that we would not be going in the same direction because of some fundamental values.
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