Franklyn Isong is the Akwa Ibom State Director, Centre for Human Rights and Accountability Network, CHRAN. In this exclusive interview with our Correspondent in Uyo, he attributed the challenges facing Nigeria to faulty constitution. He also called for the scrapping of the one year mandatory National Youth Service Corps, NYSC. Excerpts:
Nigeria is faced with numerous challenges, what do you think is the root cause of these problems and how can they be addressed?
Faulty constitution! Nigeria is built on a faulty foundation which is our constitution, that is the genesis of our problem as a country. They have been amending the constitution but it hasn’t worked. Right from the days of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan to date, it hasn’t worked, even up till now.
How can you put about 68 items in the exclusive legislative list of the federal government and expect a good result? According to our constitution, for the State government to build a seaport or airport in the state, it must seek approval from the federal government.
The issue of legislative autonomy is far-fetched; look at what happened in Rivers State, the State Assembly had to go to court to tell the governor to release their funds. This is because we are having a very faulty constitution. Local government is also tied to the apron string of the state government and this is making them not to function effectively.
There is a call for the NYSC to either be scrapped or the Act amended to enable Corps members to serve in their states or region owing to insecurity, what is your take on that?
We have been championing that NYSC should be scrapped as it has outlived its purpose. The NYSC Act was given to us by the military and it’s having the same problem the constitution is having today, so there is need for overhaul. If you say the NYSC is for cultural integration, go to the North and talk, they will say it is blasphemy against islam, then in the south, the southerner will not see the northerner and feel free, everybody is seen as a suspect.
I don’t also support the clamour that the NYSC Act should be amended so that corps members can serve in their states, because it will be against the purpose it was meant for, which is cultural exchange and national integration.
So what is the forward?
Throw away the constitution into the trash can of history! Let us have a new constitution through a constitutional conference. Since we have our peculiarities and differences as a country, the government should allow the regions and the people to meet and come up with a document that we call a constitution that will address some challenges facing us as a country.
For instance, what stops us from having state police in our constitution? it won’t stop us from having federal police. How do we fight banditry which is completely a strange and new crime to the military and the Nigeria Police because you don’t ask the army to go and fight bandits, how do you fight them? Bandits are fighting a guerilla war and the Army is meant to combat war face to face. How do you expect the police to go and arrest them? We should be able to have forest guards, state police and equip them, they will be able to tackle insecurity.
The security votes going to the governors, what do they use it for? For the governor to mobilise police to quell crime, the Commissioner of Police must get order or clearance from the IGP before deploying officers. Same is applicable to the Army, the Commander must get clearance from the Commander-in-Chief.
When we have a constitution that says that any person who won election must finish litigations before his swearing in to avoid distraction, It will help to reduce the cases of using public funds to sponsor litigations and allow the person focus on governance.
Can’t we have a law that will make INEC to be accountable and fair to all parties? A situation where we have the party in government appointing the INEC chairman, appointing the IG, the judicial officers must go to him before sending the name of Chief Justice to the Senate, one man is somewhere appointing all the security chiefs, then where is the fairness in this? All these people are answerable to one man. There is a need to address this issue through the constitution.
Also, what stops Nigeria from practising true federalism where the States should be on equal pedestal with the federal government and the federal government will be concerned with defence and foreign affairs. It will allow the state government to compete among themselves and pay tax to the centre. Centre will become weak and less attractive and not for the state government to just wait for federal allocation before it does anything.
During former president Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, there was a constitutional conference but the outcome has not been put to use, don’t you think that the present government should go back to implement it?
What Jonathan did at that time was a political jamboree, we faulted the procedure, because it was a way to settle some stakeholders to achieve his second term ambition. There was actually an agitation for the country to be restructured at that time, he was trying to see how to get relevance, so he followed the popular opinion which was “restructuring.”
Jonathan began to appoint elders and chieftains from different ethnic groups to be part of the conference as a way of settling them. We came up with a group called Pronaco led by the late Anthony Enaharo and proposed a perfect constitution for the country. What we have today as a constitution starts with “we the people of Nigeria have agreed”. My question is, where did we sit to agree? I wasn’t there. Three Generals just sat at Aso rock and came out with the constitution and imposed it on us.
Let all ethnic groups nominate someone that will represent them at the conference then it will cut across everybody, not the government appointing people of their choice. Let us have a conference of National ethnic groups, so that we talk about issues burning in the society; every state has a minority, they have a right too, let them come out and express their views, you can’t wish them away, not people who are being paid to come and do the constitution.
If you study the history, those who did the US constitution trekked down and some used their bicycles to move down to the venue of the conference, nobody paid anybody, it’s seen as a service you are going to render, each ethnic group has their leaders and their representatives can come out, bring up their ethnic differences, the truth is that there is mutual suspicion among the ethnic groups and it’s trying to destroy the country, what the northerners want may not be what we want. We understand what each ethnic group, religion wants and then it should be reflected at the conference.
If we say we should split, so be it, if we say let’s make the regions become stronger, so be it, so that we have a premier in each region who will relate to the president who is merely a ceremonial president. The premiere will be connected with the realities on ground. Have you seen any president moving to all the states to know their challenges, they may only attempt to go round before election, after the election, that will be the end of it, except Obasanjo who tried to invite all the council chairmen to Abuja to know how they were faring, among other things.
As an Akwa Ibom indigene, are you in support of Biafra?
No, I’m not. Where is the map of Biafra? They sat somewhere in Enugu and drew a map bringing in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states- are we part of Biafra? That is the same problem we have about the constitution, few people sat somewhere and said this is it. For you to have a map, you must be able to have a referendum for people to vote at or through volition. Not when you have two members who are Akwa Ibomites or Cross Riverians in your group, you conclude that Akwa Ibom people are part of it. No, it’s not so. What I’m saying is that the Biafra thing is a political agitation that requires a political solution.
They should sit back with the governors and leaders of the various states and see how to go about it. The truth is that, not all the Igbos are in support of the Biafra agitation. The question is- are the Igbos willing to lose their assets scattered all over the country? How many of the Igbos who have assets in the north are willing to lose them? I think it is a political advocacy that should be handled politically. When the Igbos are ready to meet among themselves and agree on what to do, then they will make a headway.
But the leader of pro-Biafra group, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is still in custody, what is your take on this?
The idea of keeping Nnamdi Kanu is condemnable. Though recently, the Supreme Court has ruled that he has a case to answer. But the truth is that if you look at what the Federal High Court and the Appeal Court said, the way Kanu was extradited is wrong. Do you breach conventions and the rule of law to fight crime? Nnamdi Kanu is suffering the same fate as Ibrahim Elzazaky.
I want to advise the government to be sincere in handling some of these agitations, you don’t use a sledge hammer to kill a mosquito fly, what do you want to achieve by keeping these people in custody? Government should work towards achieving peace and unity. I’ve seen some sincere Igbo leaders approach the Federal government and request that they should be allowed to take Nnamdi Kanu on bail. So why won’t the government listen to them? What do you want to achieve? It’s not everything you must achieve by force.
Let me tell you, justice is not peace, it’s not everytime you go for justice, you can get judgement, ‘go and enforce it in a volatile state’. You need to get peace before justice, that is why we have Alternative Dispute Resolutions.
What has the Federal Government achieved all these years it has been holding Kanu? Nothing but a crisis in the South East. When you pursue justice, also seek peace.
INTERVIEW: Nigeria standing on faulty foundation, can’t work – A’Ibom CHRAN Director, Isong
