26012020 - How bad an example was set in Zamfara

SUNDAY VANGUARD, JANUARY 26, 2020, PAGE 25
How the North will decide
Buhari’s successor
—Sen, NEF leader
• ‘Nnamdi Kanu is the main stumbling block to Igbo’s chances'
P
rofessor Yima Sen is the Director-General of Northern Elders Forum, NEF. In
this interview, Sen says successive governments’ inability to secure lives and
property is giving rise to self-defence among other issues of national interest.
Government but I think the person who made
that statement is the Attorney General, who is
a lawyer. I am not a lawyer, I am just talking
about my reaction as an ordinary citizen of
the country that if you bring to me the logic of
self defence which is allowed in decent and
civilized societies, it will be very difficult for
me to oppose a well organized vigilante group
which can also be monitored by security
agencies.
I have read statements by some people who
said this is a prelude to secession or that it is
an attempt to raise an army or all of that. I
am not sure if I will go with that kind of
reasoning. I have lived in the Yoruba
communities in Nigeria and I don’t think
they are really interested in a war in this
country.
The region is insisting that they
will go on with Amotekun...
It is obvious that something led
to the formation of Amotekun. If
you want that mechanism to be
discontinued, has the situation
improved? Has the insecurity
which they are responding to
been removed? I think
Amotekun is to respond to a
weakness in government’s
ability to secure lives and
property. So, if you have not
improved on your ability
to do that, do you really
have a reason to
discourage them?
Do you think Nigeria is a failed state?
Not at all! Nigeria is a traumatized state
but not a failed state at all. What has happened
really is that Nigeria has not lived up its
potential. The potential of Nigeria to be a great
nation is enormous for it to perform the way it
is now and, this year, Nigeria will be 60 years
as an independent country. You want to
compare Nigeria with Rwanda and what
Rwanda has done in the last 15 years, then
you can say Nigeria has underperformed, it
hasn’t failed. Maybe if you have a better
quality of leadership, you would do better.
How do you rate successive governments
since after independence? Do you think they
have also tried in putting Nigeria on a better
pedestal?
Nigeria has not seen his best.
Do you hope for best? Do you think it will
ever come?
There are potentials for leadership in
Nigeria. The problem, really, is that there is a
class that has come to dominate power and
politics in Nigeria by taking over the economy
and governance and creating hegemony and
this hegemonic bloc has not been able to
provide the kind of leadership that you have
seen produced in Kaigame’s Rwanda or in
Morocco or maybe in Algeria or in Ghana or
maybe in Botswana and in few other places in
Africa.
In specific terms, how can Nigeria actually
reclaim its place; move to prosperity?
You need a counter hegemonic power
arrangement where you have progressive,
enlightened, proactive and patriotic
leadership. That has not happened in Nigeria
yet. I am giving you a combination of factors.
Some people may be patriotic but they may
not have the capacity in Nigeria. Some people
may be committed to leading Nigeria but they
may not have the ability to do so but they will
not believe you and then you have to deal with
this question of power blocs, people that are
called cabals. It is not only during this present
period that you have them. They always come
and hijack power for selfish and personal
interests. Political scientists call that kind of
politics prebendal politics and it has to do with
politics and until we get rid of prebendal
politics, we will not take Nigeria anywhere. I
think what Kaigame has done in Rwanda is
that, yes, you will not give him an A in human
rights or give him an A in probity but you
certainly will give him an A in development.
So you have to give something to the people
because we know that, as humans, you must
be deficient in one thing or the other but what
you give to the people must be in excess of
what you take from the people.
Going back to the issue of Amotekun, the
governors of the south western states are the
ones spearheading this and most of them are
of APC and the Federal Government is also
led by APC; do you see a clash coming?
Where they disagree with the Federal
Government, what do you think will happen
eventually?
This question suggests that the problems of
Nigeria transcend partisan politics and I told
you earlier about this class dynamics of Nigeria
and politics. The people who are behind the
scenes of power in Nigeria and are wealthy
and are in the commanding heights of the
Nigerian economy and the people who are the
frontline politicians can be aggregated into
one class called the ruling class. Now, they have
common interest and this interest goes beyond
partisan politics and when they are threatened
or when their communities are threatened and
they put pressure on them and the pressure
that is put on them is pressure that threatens
privileged positions, they will have to appease
their people and protect their interest.
Miyetti Allah has warned the South-West
that if they don’t drop the idea of Amotekun,
2023 presidency may elude them. How may
you react?
Is Miyetti Allah a political party? They are a
community group. They are engaged in
pressure group antics.
Where do the Northern Elders Forum, NEF,
stand on Amotekun? What is their position?
The organization has not taken a stand on
the issue. If it is discussed, you can be sure that
my opinion will be that if government, the
Federal Government in particular and of
course state governments, has failed to provide
security for the people, then they should not be
averse or should not oppose community
initiative so long as it is not unconstitutional
and I think that there have been those types of
initiatives by various communities. I am
talking about hunters in the North-East; I am
talking about Hisbah police. There are all sorts
of private security guards around the country
that are protecting people’s businesses and all
of that; I think they are registered with
government. And Amotekun, if it is constituted
by state governors, I imagine that they will
find legal framework to backup what they are
doing and I also believe that the Nigerian
security and defence forces should be in a
position to monitor what these people are
doing. I think that we should be able to convert
some of these things which are seen as threats
into issues for national development.
President Buhari recently pledged to exit
office in 2023 but was silent on which zone
to support although there are agitations and
interests. How do you read that?
The issue of going away after 2023 is
constitutional. He is just stating the obvious.
But on whether he can determine which zone
or who succeeds him, you ought to look at
whether he has the interest or whether he can
actually do it or whether that is really his
responsibility, we have to look at those factors.
From my own analysis, 2023 is open. Now,
there are people who will lay claim to the
principle of zoning that it should come to
them. I know that there is a strong claim
coming from the South-East but the problem
with the claim of the South-East is that we
have to deal with whether they are going to
listen to Nnamdi Kanu or to politicians from
that community. Because that is a major
distraction or it creates a lot of confusion. Of
course, the presidency of the country has
stayed in the North for a long time either
military or non-military, either elected or
unelected. There are people who would say
that with the presidency staying in the North,
what has the North benefitted from the
presidency staying in the North? The bigger
question really is that does the ethnicity or
the state of origin or even the religion of the
president matter? If the person is objective,
caters for all and he is seen as the father of the
nation, do you know that Paul Kaigame, the
Tutsi President of Rwanda, that his people
constitute only 16% of that country and in the
civil war, the Tutsi were the target of the
genocide, they were called cockroaches? And
like I said somewhere else, today a cockroach
is leading that country and the people who
were in the forefront of this attack were the
Hutus who were the 82% of the
population of that country. That
is an overwhelming majority.
There is no group in Nigeria that
is 82% of this country, yet in
Rwanda, a minority has been
accepted by the whole country
and he is leading that country to
prosperity.
The NEF is an important
group going by its name but it
does appear that these elders
have not actually spoken up
when it comes to 2023 politics
and the presidency; why
haven’t they spoken?
No, it is too early but certainly
we shall speak on that but we
cannot speak on that until we
consult with our people and we
do plan we will have a major
assembly which will discuss that
kind of issue. It was planned for
early this year and when it does
hold, we will take a stand on
these kinds of issues.
Do you see the forum
supporting the South-East or do
you want to retain power in the North?
I shouldn’t pre-empt things.
But what is your own position?
I am not opposed to it but there are
problems of how you organize yourself for
leadership of a country of this nature and the
present problem from the South-East and, as
I said earlier, we don’t know if the voices of
secession will overwhelm the voices that want
to be integrated into Nigeria.
I know that there
is a strong claim
coming from the
South-East but
the problem with
the claim of the
South-East is that
we have to deal
with whether they
are going to
listen to Nnamdi
Kanu or to
politicians from
that community
•Professor Yima Sen
Assuming the National Leader of APC,
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, comes up to contest
for President in 2023, would you buy into his
ambition?
I am looking forward to a leader of Nigeria
that will give Nigeria qualitative leadership
irrespective of where the person comes from. I
am concerned about the failure of Nigeria to
develop up to its optimum since independence.
As a scholar and an analyst, I have written
so much about that, that I am even tired talking
about it. But, personally, I am a revolutionary
and I believe that and I have inferred during
this discussion that the class that has led Nigeria
since independence has failed to maximize or
convert the quantum of the resources of
Nigeria into prosperity for the citizens of
Nigeria.
The other problem is that the alternative
forces, let’s say, for example, leftists or
socialists, are also not well organized, so we
have a problem there.
PDP leaders recently staged a peaceful
protest against the Supreme Court ruling that
sacked former governor of Imo State, Emeka
Ihedioha, and brought in APC leadership in
the state; what would you read of that
Supreme Court judgment because many
historians, analysts, critics are saying that
no, they didn’t go in the right direction. You as
a person, how would you read that and then,
the attendant protest?
I can only talk about that as a layman. The
legal argument, sometimes, you have legal
acrobatics and, sometimes,
ordinary logic is superseded by
legal logic. I think even some
lawyers are also confused about
this issue because, sometimes,
the law is interpreted by certain
lawyers differently; a judge may
interpret it differently from a
lawyer. So this is a whole new
legal mystery. At old age, I am
not going to read law. I am not
interested. I have seen the
arguments for and against that
and I think it looks a bit weird. I
know I am not competent to
comment on it professionally
because that is not my
profession. I am amazed at what
has happened but, in law, they
will set their precedent, they will
say this has happened before
and this interpretation was
introduced and all of that. So I
will leave that to lawyers and to
other analysts. But in terms of
the reactions to it, I think people
are just exercising themselves
within the ambit of democratic
practice. I don’t know whether it
is medicine after death or
whether maybe it is political
masturbation.
But as far as I am concerned, democracy in
Nigeria, as I see it, has not fulfilled the people’s
yearning for progress and prosperity. And you
asked me earlier whether Nigeria has failed,
Nigeria has not failed, maybe the practice of
democracy in Nigeria is failing, I think really
my concern is that Nigeria has
underperformed.