It was in the evening after his routine, that Alhaji Tanko Yakassai—first Commissioner for Information in Kano State and Special Adviser to former President Shehu Shagari on National Assembly Matters—spoke in his serene residence in Kano to KEHINDE OYETIMI and KOLA OYELERE about the state of the nation, the Northern alliance ahead of 2011, among other issues. Excerpts:

I f you are to look at the role of money, violence and thuggery in this nation, do you agree that Nigerian elections have never been the reflection of the wish of the electorate?
In most cases,  yes.  But I believe that the 1979  election was to a large extent, a true reflection of the expectation of the Nigerian electorate. To a larger degree, the 1983 election was. I can cite the example of Kano when in 1979,  PRP under the leadership of the late Aminu Kano, won the election in Kano hands down. They won state Assembly elections, National Assembly elections among others.  In 1983, three months after the demise of Aminu Kano, the PRP repeated the same performance. They won the gubernatorial election against an incumbent governor.  They won almost the same majority in the state Assembly and also in the National Assembly. Take the 1993  election where Chief  M.K.O. Abiola was also elected. That election also reflected the true wishes of the Nigerian electorate. There are instances where some elections in Nigeria reflected the true wishes of the electorate.

Definitely as we progress, the situation continues deteriorating. This is largely brought about by money-politics. Money-politics, whether we like it or not, is the legacy of  military rule. The massive corruption that we witness in the governance of this country today is the bye-products of the military.  For the simple reason that the period of 1979 and 1983, there was much talk about corruption and  so on. But if you look at the people who were in  government in those days, you cannot pinpoint the wealth that they accumulated as you can now pinpoint the amount of wealth that military rulers in this country were able to accumulate to themselves. It was easy for them because before then  others did it and nothing happened to them.

From 1975 to 1979, that was the beginning of the corruption by the military rulers. Gowon was in power  for nine years. You know who the principal actors were during Gowon’s regime. The civilian took over in 1979; they ran for four years and two months. The military took over; enquiries were set up all over the country.  As we go by the findings of Justice Ayo Irikefe who investigated the regime under Shagari, what he said of the Vice President—Alex Ekwueme—was that he joined government as a rich man and he left government poorer. The same thing with Shagari. They investigated him; he was in detention for almost two years. By the time he came out, even the common generator which he had was out of service. It took the sympathy of some friends of his to repair the generator. When he came out of detention, he had no business. He had to concentrate on his farm. But that generator was helping his borehole to provide water for his livestock and farm. It was because of his pitiful situation and that of General Gowon that General Sanni Abacha decided that former Heads of State should be given pension and gratuity. He went to the extent of visiting Shagari’s house and saw how substandard it was compared to the position of Shagari. Shagari was even better than Gowon. Shagari had a house no matter how modest it was but Gowon hadn’t got any. Out of pity, the government of Plateau State built a house for him. When Obasanjo came to power, they confiscated that house which was built for him. So he was unable to own a house until Abacha directed that they should indicate the spots that they wanted personal houses to be built for them free-of-charge. It was then Gowon and Shagari were able to get houses that you could say are befitting former heads of state.

The maniac for corruption in government in a massive scale started from Murtala/Obasanjo’s regime.

Fortunately or unfortunately for this country, it has never witnessed massive stealing of the highest magnitude as we have witnessed during the second coming of Obasanjo. I’m talking of 1999 to 2007. If  you listen to the revelation of colossal amount of money that was wasted or stolen as was revealed in the power probe of the House of Representatives and also the stealing in the Education Trust Fund that nobody would ever dream that people can commit such crimes and go away with it. Come down to the state governors, you would hear that a governor misappropriated billions of naira from the state. Look at the case of Igbinedion. How much he admitted in court through plea bargaining that he stole. But he was convicted for a short period of time.

Also and unfortunately, the judiciary is not helping matters. There are corruption cases now that are pending for over five years. The people accused are going about freely. If people can steal billions of Nigeria and hire 5 to 10 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, then get the court to set them free to go about their business, are we not supporting it? Only a man who has the fear of God will fail to steal when he gets to that kind of position. Punishing people is to serve as deterrent to others. But if people will commit an offence and go about their business freely, it would be an encouragement for others. It is true that Obasanjo created ICPC and EFCC but what happened later created doubts in the minds of many people whether he was generally sincere in creating those institutions to fight corruption; whether he did it to use them to fight his political enemies. It was because of that example of tolerance to stealing by government that the issue of corruption became a serious cancer in the body polity. No individual can tell you how we can overcome this even if he is a prophet. Of course, the thing is everywhere. The big people are doing it. The man who is handling fuel pump is doing it. Everybody now is a thief.

Are you saying that between 1999 and 2007, corruption was given the greatest boost?
Corruption was institutionalized in Nigeria. Go and get the reports and surprisingly nobody was arrested. Only a few. Look at the Halliburton incidence.

There are five key players in the North as we approach the 2011 elections—IBB, Atiku, Buhari, Gusau and Bukola Saraki. Do you believe that a Northern consensus candidate will work at this time?
A consensus candidate in the PDP, not in the entire North. Talking about a contest between Goodluck Jonathan and other contestants in the PDP. What people are saying is that if the northerners insist that this is their turn to get a northerner nominated by the PDP and that right is being usurped by Jonathan and if they are serious in trying to rescue the right of the their people, then it would not augur well for four people to be fighting for it. They agreed, they signed a document, they appointed a committee. Once it is decided, they said they would abide by it. They said they would collapse their campaign mobilization to help that person to succeed. We are not talking of a consensus candidate for the North. We are talking about a consensus candidate in the PDP to contest against Jonathan. Any other northerner can come out because it is everyone’s right. What we are saying is that in the PDP which is the party that promised northerners that if they vote for Obasanjo after eight years, the power would shift back to the north for another eight years, which is why we are saying there must be a consensus candidate in the PDP.

The North has held power for over  30 years out of a nation’s  life of 50 with almost nothing to show for it in terms of development in the North. Does the North deserve to continue again?
There are two answers. Number one, Southerners are saying power stayed in the North for a long period. They are deliberately ignoring the fact that this period was under military rule which everybody believed was an aberration. It was not through elections. Why did the power stay longer in the North during the military era? By the time the 1966 military coup took place, northerners in the military of significant ranks constituted about 75 to 80 per cent of all the men in the military uniform in Nigeria. When Ironsi was overthrown, those who staged the coup decided that Brigadier Ogundipe should be the head of state. They called him to take over power in 1966. Ogundipe declined. He said they should give it to Gowon because the majority of the people in the armed forces were northerners. So, he felt they would be more loyal if a northerner was given the leadership.

Number two: there is a saying in Hausa that a bird that calls for rain will end up being soaked by it when it comes. Anybody who calls for trouble should be the one to suffer the consequence. It was not the northerners who staged the coup in the first place; it was the southerners who introduced coup into Nigeria’s political system—Nzeogwu, Njokwu, Ifejuana and the rest. If southerners could stage a coup, then they should be prepared to suffer the consequence. They should not blame the northerners. If they were in the majority, they would have kept the power for a long time.

The number of Almajiris is becoming quite disturbing in the North. What is being done to help these children seeing that they are beginning to constitute a menace?
When the British came, they found the North to be predominantly Muslim. We had our educational system linked to the Islamic education. Instead of integrating this and because of their hatred for Islam, they decided to leave the question of education in the hands of the Christian missionaries. When they came they said the Christian missionaries would establish schools to educate the children. Our forefathers said no. How can a Muslim surrender his children to Christian missionaries? Today, we have seen the havoc it has created to the Muslims in the west. People like Akinloye, Akinjide, Adeniran Ogunsanya—all were from Muslim families but for going to missionary schools, they turned Christians, they bade goodbye to Islam. This was the beginning of this problem.

After our people took over power, there was no deliberate policy to address this issue. They hold the system of Madrasa in Pakistan. There they modified. The children don’t have to go round the town begging. They put it in manner that parents have to pay minimum to maintain the schools because the schools created vocational activities to generate some income to maintain the school. Originally the parents were paying token money; we call it laraba; as time went on the money was not enough to care for the teachers and the children. The children then had to go out to find the means of sustaining themselves. But to do away with this problem, we need combined efforts involving the federal, state and local governments, in fact, as well as philanthropists.

Let the statistics of the children be taken; once this is taken then their place of origin can be identified. Then we work out how much would be needed to maintain them. Then part of the money for education in Nigeria should be pumped into that system. But the curriculum in the school can be modified to include western education so that they would be running their Quranic education side by side western education. In a matter of a limited period of time, you will see that the problem would vanish. Bu there is no political will to do this by all our leaders. Nobody bothers.

Zoning has moved from the PDP to a national debate. Do you believe that zoning the presidency is democratic and that the nation needs it at this point of our democracy?  
I think it is democratic. Although, in Nigeria, NPN introduced zoning and rotation in 1979, it copied from the zoning system in Switzerland which has been going on for hundreds of years and no trouble…

…Why the trouble here?
Selfishness and shortsightedness on the part of those who introduced the idea in the PDP. A lot of them are my friends but they are responsible for this dilemma that we are in today. When NPN decided to do zoning, they put it in the constitution not only as matter of principle but they spelled out where the president should come from, where the vice president should come from, where the party leader should come from, where the senate leader should come from, where the speaker and the majority leader should come and all that, including the rotation. Everything was put in black and white. At least, members of the PDP are experienced and they know what happened in the NPN, most of them were participants at the 1994/95 Constitution Conference where zoning and rotation were institutionalized into our constitution, where the six geo-political zones idea was conceived and adopted. Sanni Abacha agreed with it; I was a member. It was there that we felt that there should be three vice presidents; there was to be the president, one vice president from the North, the other from the south, and an additional vice president from wherever the president comes from.

This was to be so that in the event that the president is unable to continue as the president just like what happened to Yar’ Adua, the vice president from his zone would take over. It was put at that constitution. In fact, Sanni Abacha, in his wisdom, went as far as wanting to create the position of  prime minister and deputy prime minister and insisting that they must come from the same region.

Won’t this have been complex to operate?
It was not complex. In Niger, Ivory Coast, France, all operate similar structures. The three vice presidents issue was a special case for us. In a democracy, you adopt a style of governance that reflects the peculiarity of the circumstance. That is why democracy in America is different from that of England. Even in Europe, democracy in France is different from that of Italy. The one in Germany is different from Italy even though they are similar. A Chancellor in Germany is equivalent to prime minister in Italy.

Are you saying that if we’ve had three vice presidents, the Yar’ Adua problem would have easily been solved?
Yes.  

But zoning is not in the constitution which gives Jonathan the right to go for another term.
Why was it introduced in the first place? They are hypocrites. Why didn’t they say so when NPN introduced it 1979? Why didn’t they say it when Obasanjo said it when he was president for eight years? In our constitution we agreed on the issue of federal character. Zoning is an extension of the federal character.

People believe that the issue of zoning and the federal character have the tendency of whipping up mediocrity.
In Nigeria, every village has a graduate. Today, it is nonsense for anybody to talk of that. There are unemployed graduates everywhere. We have people who can run this country.

It is believed that the INEC Chair will serve as stooge to some “interests” come 2011. Do you foresee any fairness in the elections?
I believe in the integrity of the INEC chairman. I believe in the goodwill created for him by the members of the National Assembly by changing the Electoral Act to make it possible for free and fair primaries. If the products of the primaries are not produced through transparent arrangements, forget about democracy.

So you are insisting that a free and fair playground would work against Jonathan’s ambition?
Free and fair elections won’t be in Jonathan’s interest. Free and fair elections will produce a government that will try to look into the misbehaviours of Obasanjo’s regime.

When Obasanjo was in power, he allocated plots to himself in the choice area near the CBN quarters. I did not count. My calculation is that they are about 20 blocks of flat. They may be more. He started building them and the project was halted for almost 20 years since he left office. When he became president, he completed them. Obasanjo raised N7 billion to build Obasanjo Library which Federal Government establishments like Port Authorities, Maritime Authorities contributed money including big government contractors and businessmen like Dangote, Otedola contributed billions. Who has ever done that in the whole world? Obasanjo today has a palatial house at the minister’s quarters. It is a new,  gigantic building. Obasanjo has farms all over Nigeria. He went as far as to perhaps Uganda to buy land to farm. This man is 75 and I’m 84 but I believe if you give me the CBN today, I can’t  eat more than what I am eating;  I can’t sleep in the kind of bed that I am sleeping. Why should a man at 75 be amassing such wealth like a madman? Obasanjo will not like a transparent government because it would probe him. No credible person will emerge through fair election that would leave Obasanjo untouched.