Guy Ikokwu, chairman of the defunct Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) in the old Anambra State in the Second Republic, and a member of the Ime-Obi (inner caucus) of the apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, in this interview with ZEBULON AGOMUO calls for immediate change of the 1999 Constitution and total restructuring of Nigeria. Excerpts:
How would you describe the state of the nation at the moment?
Right now, we are in a situation that is very, very complex in Nigeria. We have a cabal that does not care after the interest of the people. We have a government in place that takes delight in piling up debts and mortgaging the future of even the unborn children. The debts are adding to the woes of the country. Nigeria has been classified as the poverty capital of the world, yet, people are gloating over it. These are the things that make our youths not to have good education, no employment. We have a youth population that is increasingly growing. Today, over 70 percent of Nigeria’s population is made up of youths that are between 30 and 40 years old. These youths are wasting away with a future. It was that reality that gave rise to the #EndSARS, and the elite in an attempt to water it down employed hoodlums to give the peaceful protest a bad name. Now, all the judicial panels of inquiry they set up all over the place will get to nowhere, and they know it. Look at the Lagos case, for instance; it is like a tinder box. The governor said he did not know how the military came to Lekki, but the military said he invited them. Look at the bullets used- live bullets, not rubber bullets. They switched off the light there and opened fire. There is no rule of law any more in the country. Once you erode the rule of law, everything goes bad. Nigeria has degenerated to a state of anarchy. Look at the palliatives, people broke warehouses to cart the things away. The police are no longer on the road. When you do not have a security in society, it is a state of chaos; now everybody takes responsibility for his own security. We have already taken a position; we here, meaning the majority of the ethnic nationalities in the country. We have made our view known on the things happening. Our position is that Nigeria must be restructured constitutionally not later than six months from now, otherwise, we shall all go down the precipice; it is as serious as that. We can no longer survive more than six months from now the way things are going; things have gone so bad. Look at us; Nigeria has a robust reproductive capacity, yet we remain a consuming nation. Our children in the Diaspora are so disappointed now that they have resolved that they will not, in the next one year, remit money back home; let Nigeria continue to print naira. We are ruining the future of the young ones, even the future of the unborn ones.
Politicians appear to be playing an ethnic card in the #EndSARS protest. The Northern governors said it was aimed at toppling the current government. What do you think about such a conclusion?
Of course, it is part of the old methodology of divide and rule. But I tell you, our people abroad do not have this ethnic mindset. If you go abroad, our people are united; you may see one or two insignificant ones that have some divisive tendencies. But at home here, we apply divide and rule tactic. But such antic boomerangs. It has a ‘karmaric’ (from karma) and boomeranging effects. There is the law of retributive justice; the law of karma. If you look at it, there is more hunger and insecurity in the north as we speak today. We cannot even think about saving our people from hunger and insecurity. The lives of our people do not matter anything. Look at what the Americans did a few days ago; they took all the risks to rescue just a citizen that was kidnapped in Niger but moved to Nigeria. They came into Nigeria, tracking the location where the captors were and successfully rescued their citizen. That is what it means to say that a government exists for the people. What we have is a dysfunctional situation in Nigeria. Nigeria can do better if we want. Look at the American election a few days ago, about nine Nigerians contested elections, a few of them won. Look at Europe, some Nigerians are in Congress. For Nigeria to move forward, there has to be devolution of power. The 1999 Constitution has to be totally scrapped, not amended. There must be a new constitution, because you cannot build something on nothing. A new constitution must be premised on the sovereignty of the people and not on the legislature. What they need to do is to go back to the National Conference of 2014; pick the report and pass a referendum. 1999 Constitution is a contraption of Decree 24 by General Abdulsalami Abubakar. He told a lie that ‘we the people…’ There was nothing like that. How can a constitution open with a lie? It is a Rogue Constitution. It must be changed. It cannot continue to exist after the Amalgamation of 1914 which elapsed in 2014, which was why we called for the National Conference to replace the Constitution. For five years, the APC government has been running round. They promised to restructure but reneged. They set up a panel headed by Governor El-Rufai, which has since submitted its report, yet nothing has happened. But we do not need the implementation of that panel’s recommendations, because it was not encompassing. It was a party thing. The National Conference of 2014 cut across party lines; religious and ethnic lines. It reflected the views of Nigerians across board. The Report of the National Conference was handed over to the then Senate President, David Mark and to President Buhari, but it was put into the dust bin as they said. So, what is federal about our constitution when we are running a unitary government? There are 68 Exclusive items reserved for the Executive arm of government. We must go back to 1963 Constitution and let the constituent parts begin to propose how we should live. We must not continue to deceive ourselves. You cannot employ a dysfunctional system to bring something that we should rely on. We are living in a situation of dysfunctional absurdity. It cannot work. We should learn good things even from Ghana and Ethiopia. Even the Chinese that are building our roads here are not dealing with us with sincerity. If you go to Ethiopia, the quality of roads they have, built by Chinese is far less costly than what they build for us here at high cost. These are realities we must face. We can no longer live in denial of these things. Today, we live in socio-political, economic and even military realities. The military should stop the arbitrary or indiscriminate killing of people. You do not throw stones in the market because you do not know who it may land on.
Whereas calm is returning to every other part of the country after the #EndSARS protest, Oyigbo in Rivers State is said to be under the occupation of soldiers. May we know your view on the state of emergency in Oyigbo and the excruciating pain the people are going through there?
I can just tell you that such a dysfunctional situation can only happen because of our faulty constitution. If Governor Wike was in charge of the security agencies, he would be answerable to the people of Rivers State. The Commissioner of Police is not reporting directly to the governor but to the IGP in far away Abuja. Once there is devolution of power, everybody in a state must take orders from the governor and not from somebody in Abuja. Whatever is happening in Rivers is one of numerous contradictions and the dysfunctional constitutional system in Nigeria at the moment. Wike is not in charge of security situation in his state, same as any other governor. Why should we pretend about the exponential realities of the constitutional system in Nigeria? We cannot be living in denial of essential ingredients of good governance. It is the people that have the sovereignty of governance; it is not the military. If you build your house with leaking zinc, when the rain falls, you become uncomfortable; you cannot live peacefully there. Nigeria’s situation is frustrating. A lot of countries are laughing at us, but we can change the negative narrative.
