By Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye
In an interview on Arise Television’s, The Morning Show, former External Affairs Minister, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi expressed his disapproval of a recent retreat organized by the Nigerian Governors Forum and facilitated by the UNDP in Kigali, Rwanda. He criticized the retreat as a “shameful” event that brought humiliation to Nigeria. Akinyemi suggested that the retreat should have been organized within Nigeria by local institutions, rather than relying on external facilitation. He also accused the UNDP of having hidden motives and called for the governors’ powers to be limited through the Supreme Court.
Akinyemi warned Nigeria in 1987 about its foreign policy and believes that South Africa has shown that Nigeria is its enemy number one. He advises Nigeria to embrace MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey) as an alternative to BRICS. The BRICS bloc recently agreed to admit several new members (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates), in a move aimed at accelerating its push to reshuffle a world order it sees as outdated but Nigeria was left out.
Let’s make sense of what is happening now as regards the situation of going to learn from Rwanda. Same Rwanda and when I say saving “Rwanda” I’m sure you know the full story sir?
Let me start on a joke, because I’ve heard talk about Egungun and it reminded me of MKO Abiola’s advice. He said to those being chased by an Egungun, they shouldn’t worry as they get tired; so the Egungun gets tired. He puts it in Yoruba which is even more appropriate.
You know, when you think things cannot get worse, then they do get worse. I can’t believe we will fall into the pit of shame by 19 of our governors going to Kigali Rwanda to learn how to govern. You know, in any case, if I say things can’t get worse next week, then they will get worse.
First of all, what is the UNDP up to; are they sending a signal to Africa that they prefer development to democracy? Is that the message they’re sending to Africa? And is that the message our governors are going to Rwanda to embrace?
You know, maybe we should have foreseen this when joining the campaign. Our politicians, some of whom are now in office, kept going to London, going to Paris, having meetings there, about how they will configure development and progress and reconciliation in Nigeria and some of us spoke out loudly. We called them out. We criticized them. It made no difference. They still continued.
I am of that age, when I remember Chief Awolowo, Sardauna, Balewa, Azikiwe, in all their campaigns, once we became independent, they never went to London, or Paris or the United States, as part of their campaign. They never did. During the Second Republic, Shagari, Awolowo, Aminu Kano, again, never left the country as part of their campaign and now we have a crop of politicians.
You know, we criticize the old school but the old school seems to have more values, more patriotism, more integrity than this present lot. And when with all due respect to you guys on the programme, when you young people criticize the old school, I’m starting to wonder where this young school, the new school got their values from? Definitely not from the old school.
When I was a minister, it was a battle to stop people even attending embassy parties because at that time, you will have many ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, we will find them attending receptions not even given by the ambassador but atimes given by your attachés and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will send out notes upon note. IBB whom I served under would issue cautionary notices at cabinet meetings about not demeaning Nigeria by flocking to these embassy parties.
And now we got a better class of politicians, of rulers, governors, going to Kigali of all places? Yes, I do admit and I concede that the president of Rwanda inherited a terrible situation when he took power. Whether he had a hand in what happened or not, is a debate, a narrative for another day but you inherited a terrible situation. And he came up with his own system of dealing with that terrible situation. And what did he come up with? Clobbering the head of the opposition, not alive for human rights? Not alive for civil rights, a one man rule, a one man narrative? And, yes, we could talk about it. Whether when you are dealing with internecine conflict in a country where there are so many ethnic nationalities, whether frankly it should be a one party rule, which is a euphemism for a one man rule, whether that is the solution. But he came up with that and it seems to be working in Rwanda.
But a word of caution here. We saw really a one man rule in a lot of the Francophone African countries, and when the strong man died, be it in Cote d’Ivoire, or somewhere else, it descended into civil war, but maybe we should be the last one to talk about people descending into civil war, since we also had our own civil war.
But I think the answer is still out there about whether it is good to have a successful experiment in Rwanda; our governors have no business going there. The UNDP has no business taking our governors there. In any case, the UNDP has no business putting on a training programme for our governors. What is NIPSS there for? The National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, is it not there? We have several training institutions, the Nigerian War College is there, the Nigerian Defense College is there. These are Nigerian institutions that could put on training programmes, a retreat programme for our governors. They didn’t need to humiliate us by going to Rwanda and forgive me if I won’t go into a deconstruction of the communique; it is not worth the paper in which it is written on. What are we doing to this country?
Some people might disagree with your position on the Nigerian governors going to Kigali because the reports from there is that it was an opportunity for Nigerian governors to see the milestones of the Kagame-led administration and how far Rwanda has come since 1994. And perhaps there are some lessons to be learnt by being there. Do you not think that the world being a global village, we cannot govern in isolation; we must be exposed to other styles, systems, success stories to help to bolster our own system of governance and government. Again, what others would also say is that the taste of the pudding is in the eating, having come back, will the governors implement some of the key take home lessons from going to Rwanda. Is there really a problem in going to learn from people who have succeeded without looking as if you are weak?
Well, thank you. I welcome disagreements. I’m a scholar and scholars flourish when being engaged, you know, having disputations over issues, so I always welcome disagreement; it allows for you know, ideas to develop. But the narrative you’ve put forward as an alternative to mine, I don’t think is one that I will say applies to us because you look at the foundation of the house that is being built. If that foundation is what you want to copy, then, as I’ve said, you are emphasising development over democracy. Is that what you want? If that’s what you want for Nigeria, then let us say so and then let us abolish our Constitution.
But the Constitution we have in Nigeria is not comparable to the Constitution in Rwanda. That is the sub-structure and if this sub-structure is different, the superstructure cannot be the same. And that is the point that I am making. And in any case, will our governors learn, learn what when even … You said you were going to put on something about a state where the governor and the deputy governor are at loggerheads. That is a kind of problem because that is not the only state where this is. Have you asked yourself why is it that since the 1999 elections, principals and deputies all the way from the top, because don’t let us forget Obasanjo versus Atiku that went all the way to the Supreme Court? Why is it that principals and deputies have never got along? Is it in our character? Is it in the Constitution? These are the issues which I thought our governors will be faced with. But of course, if they go to Rwanda, they will learn the one man rule and what he does to his deputy. So I suppose maybe that indicates to us a path they want to go.
But on a serious note, we’ve got to sit down and decide what we want to make of Nigeria, and that will take me to I think, it was the intro by Rufai on BRICS. We were not invited to join BRICS. The vice president at least has clarified one point, which is that we didn’t apply. I have read somewhere by one of our eminent former ambassadors, that actually, you don’t apply to join BRICS, you are invited. So whether we then applied or not, is not the case. The issue is that you know, and that’s the language that Ramaphosa used okay, we were not invited.
Why is there a deficiency in the kind of people elected into political office in Nigeria? Is the problem with the Nigerian people or the system itself? Despite being intelligent, educated, well-trained, and well-exposed, why do elected officials consistently fail to implement the lessons they have learned from traveling and observing leaders in other countries? What exactly is wrong with Nigeria? Is it the people or the system?
The question you’ve raised, probably should be directed…because you do get some of these people on your table from time to time. I think you should ask them. I’ve never been elected to an office. So I wouldn’t know. I think it was my friend, your colleague, Dr. Abati who wrote a book about the villa. Whether there’s some demon in the villa that takes over,that even if you put the pastor there, what you are going to get will amaze you. But as a scholar, I mean definitely all of us know we can do better. That is not rocket science. We can do better than we are doing. And I think that part of what has been wrong has been what I would call an elementary interpretation of functions by some of the institutions that perhaps are supposed to provide part of the checks and balances within the system. Some of those institutions are not doing what they should be doing.
As an illustration, in clipping the wings of the governors, one of the mistakes we’ve made in this country, is we seem to have over focused on the presidency, on the executive there and ignored the fact that in fact, the power that have accrued to the governors make the president look weak. The governors are gods unto themselves in their states. Now, their wings could have been clipped by the Supreme Court. And yet, not only are eminent lawyers not taking some cases that they should take to the Supreme Court.
I praise Agbakoba for example; he’s gone to court over the issue of federal character admission into secondary schools. But what I would have expected of him and of other eminent lawyers is to ask the Supreme Court to rule that if money meant for local government will not go to local government, that money should be kept at source by the Federal Government until the money can go directly to the local government. Because in destroying the local government, the governors at states have taken over the powers, the function, the responsibilities of the local government onto themselves. They’ve become Caesars in the states. If those wings could have been clipped, I’ve just used the local government as an example, they are in other areas, we could have reminded them that they are humans and that they’re only there for eight years. And after eight years, they will come back like us and be part of us. So institutions have themselves to develop what I would call an intellectual basis in interpretation of their functions and interpretation of their laws.
I’m sorry, our Supreme Court seems to be really elementary in the way they interpret their functions and their constitutions. I missed the times of Oputa, Kayode Esho, you know, Erikefa, etc, etc.
So, in a way, there’s nothing wrong with us, there’s nothing wrong with our people. When you look at the United States now, how can we say that you know we are even bad at what we are doing. But the judiciary because when the legislator that is supposed to perform its function has been taken over by the executive, it is the judiciary that can clip the wings of the executive both at the national and at the sub national level, and they are not doing that.
Those people we’re talking about were chairmen or members of state assembly and from there, they become chairman of the State Assembly or speaker of the State Assembly, then they become governor, then they become senator and they remain senator for life. So, they really don’t come back to us?
But you thank God for BVAS, is it BVAS you call it, because this last exercise, has shown the power of correction; how many of the governors failed to get into the Senate because BVAS was used? And that is the glimmer of hope we have that power belongs to the people. Maybe at the next election, to Governor or to the Senate, you are going to see more of this rejection politics by correct use of the BVAS. So there is hope there and we should look forward to the next set of elections.
Okay, can you quickly wrap it up with a BRIC conversation for us? The fact that a lot of people will say hey, were not invited by the BRICS, does it mean that our international posture is not as great as it used to be before?
No, no. What has played out in the summit in South Africa, is what some of us had anticipated, as far back as 1987. I was the minister at that time. I warned Nigerians that the anti apartheid struggle was basically over. And Nigeria will have to redefine its foreign policy and know that there are going to be competitors for the status. Nigerians didn’t listen to me at that time. That is when I propose the concept of medium powers. You know, BRICS is a variation of the concept of medium powers. Nigerians rejected my proposal, even though foreign countries that we’ve invited, accepted that proposal. If Nigeria has embraced and pursued that policy, we will be the one in fact, who will have been determining the fate of South Africa, not South Africa, determining our fate. What’s played out in South Africa is let me call a spade a spade; normally, I’m diplomatic in my language. South Africa has simply shown itself as an enemy of Nigeria, that is determined at all costs to checkmate Nigeria, wherever it gets the opportunity to do so; whether it is the xenophobic attacks on our people there. South Africa thinks ahead, it already has its eyes on the election to the Security Council of the United Nations. Now it’s got BRICS, it’s got two of the super powers on its side and intends to use that to checkmate Nigeria. And yet, this is the time when we are saying we should be closing down embassies. Our embassies are badly financed. There are good people in that ministry. There are good ambassadors who are prepared to do their best but you cannot clap with an empty hand, you cannot perform your functions when you are not properly financed. South Africa continues to open embassies and continues to provide funds for relief. We are the ones who have become our own enemies and what has played out in the BRICS invitation even though it’s a setback for us. It provides us with an opportunity if we are going to grab that opportunity and what is that opportunity. There are more states outside BRICS now than there are in BRICS. You’ve got Chile, got Turkey. You’ve got Indonesia. You’ve got Pakistan and so on. These are also countries that are important; these are countries that Nigeria could approach and bring into an organization that is not going to be against the West or against the East. This is an opportunity for a clever application, again of a new concept of medium powers. Are we going to grab it? It’s up to those who are in power. Okay? This is not an advert but on Saturday, the Academy of International Affairs is having an open zoom town hall on BRICS, opportunities and can’t remember the rest of the title, to which all professional leads, those who are thinking about foreign policy are being invited to join and we hope to examine the ABC of the opportunities that the rejection in BRICS means to us.
We’ve been talking about BRICS, have we forgotten or done away with MINT? So we MINT countries of which Nigeria is part. We have Indonesia, we had Turkey, we had Mexico. So MINT means Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey, is that now a forgotten concept, is the way forward BRICS. What’s your take on this?
Thank you. MINT is the way forward. That’s why I referred to countries that are outside BRICS who in fact may also feel that they’ve been snubbed by BRICS; MINT is there, but somebody’s got to grab that and pursue it as an initiative.
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