Hon Ahmed Madaki Gololo is a member of the House of Representatives and a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, from Bauchi State. In this encounter with IGNATIUS OKOROCHA, Hon Gololo raised the alarm over the current upsurge in campaign for elective positions ahead of 2015 and warned that unless INEC takes concrete steps to stop the act, it might pose a threat to the growth and sustainability of democracy in the country. He bared his mind on other issues of national importance. Excerpts:
Why is it that politicians in Nigeria don’t accept defeat in elections, and don’t you think that the situation is the result of the vices in the electoral process such as thuggery, rigging, etc?
Well, this particular issue is common. You cannot point accusing finger towards one political party. If all the political parties have the opportunity they will do the same thing. You see, this issue of thuggery, using the youth to molest opponents, we are not helping the situation; we are trying to destroy our future generation. If I am vying for an election, I recruit youth, give them money to go and buy necessary drug and ask them to go and molest my opponent, abuse him and even some times give him thorough beating, it is not correct. Assuming that I am in PDP, I can do it in my constituency because I have my strong support there. Another person may be in ANPP or another party. He can do it in his own locality because that is where he is the strongest contender. So, my advice is that we should play politics without bitterness, to fear God because it is not our birth right to be in power all the time. This is a democracy. It is not a military regime where we use gun to take over government by force. This is government of the people. We have to allow the people to decide who will be their leader. Then another thing is about the INEC officials. They should fear God because the office is given to them to be fair and just. They should be fair to everybody. They should not be partisan. They should not connive with anybody to rig election because I cannot rig election without the connivance of the INEC officials. They should always allow free and fair election to take place. If this is done, we can protect our democracy from serious danger especially as we are approaching 2015. We are just half way into 2015 and there is already a lot of heat in the polity. It is too early. They should allow government officials to do their work. Let us wait till 2014; by the end of 2014, we can now decide who will be the President, who will be the governor, who will be the senator and so on and so forth.
Recently, the PDP elders from the six geo-political zones of the country endorsed President Jonathan as the party’s candidate for 2015; their decision too early?
Their action was too early. They should allow Jonathan to do his work because he just presented a two-year report to Nigerians, and many people are still making comments on that report. Let us be fair to the people, allow them to make their comments. If there are areas the president made mistakes, from the analysis people are giving he can make correction. But now there are people who are endorsing Jonathan, and there are others who are anti-Jonathan and at the end of the day there will be a lot of confusion in the country and there may be a breakdown of law and order.
Some analysts say that this democracy has produced more corruption than the military rule; do you agree with this claim?
Well, it depends on the way you look at it. Under the military regime, one person will spend funds and make announcement on it; one person will make a budget for the whole nation and read it from his office. Nobody is monitoring implementation; nobody is monitoring inflow of revenues, because one person has absolute power to do so without receiving a query from anybody and everybody is servant to the person. But in this democracy, the National Assembly has brought a lot of difference. The parliament is putting a lot of checks on the executive arm. There is a lot revenues accruing from the MDAs running into billions of naira. We also supervise them to know how funds appropriated to them are being utilised. Chief executives of MDAs do come here to defend their budgets. The Public Accounts Committee of the House is doing very well. They are meeting almost every day to consider the audit reports of the various government establishments, and a lot of funds are being recovered for the country. Under the military nobody can do that. Right now, they are going to form an association of public accounts committee involving members of the National Assembly and state assemblies. The motive is to provide effective checks on the executive. Again, effort is being made to remove the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation from the Presidency so that it will be independent. The constitution review committee has already made this recommendation in its report and I believe that the House of Representatives will pass the bill to this effect unanimously. So, in answering your question directly, you can see that the democracy has a lot of mechanism in place to check corruption as opposed to military dictatorship.
We have just seen half of the tenure of this administration and so much politicking is already going on for 2015; what is your advice to politicians and the electorate to ensure that we enjoy a progressive, uninterrupted democracy?
Well, my first advice is to the political parties because that is the primary point of all we do in politics. The political parties should always allow free and fair primary elections. They should always allow the members to decide who will be their flag-bearer in any election. The issue of automatic ticket should not arise in the interest of peace and stability of this country. It is only when the people are allowed to choose their flag-bearer that the party can be ready to face other political parties in an election. It was the Board of Trustees, BOT, chairman of the PDP that proposed the idea of automatic ticket for the President and others. But the question is how you assess their performance, which should be the basis of judgment for their re-election by the electorate. For instance, the lawmakers in the National Assembly and state assemblies, if you give them automatic ticket, is your judgment based on their contributions on the floor of the House or their performance in their constituencies? It is possible for people to contribute on the floor of the House but they are not visiting their constituencies. So, how do you assess their performance? And when you give automatic ticket, you short-change those who are working and ought to merit the ticket. Once this happens, obviously, they will leave your party and go to other political parties and get ticket to fight your party. So, the best thing is to allow internal democracy to prevail. Let the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC be strong to say no to automatic ticket. They should insist that every party must conduct a free and fair primary election. I will give you example of what happened in Kaduna State. Some people were sworn in during our inauguration; after twelve months or so, they replaced them with another set of people. Now, court has also ruled that these ones should go out and be replaced with another set too. This is happening because of lack of internal democracy. There was no fairness in the primaries. So, parties should allow their members to choose their flag-bearers; no automatic ticket.
What is your impression on 14 years of democratic rule in Nigeria?
Thank you very much. Today, we have run our democracy for fourteen years, and I can tell you that there are several achievements on ground to justify the struggle Nigerians made to transit from military rule to democracy. For instance, we now have freedom of movement and freedom of speech, which were lacking under the military. Nigerians can now freely express their opinion on issues affecting them. Under the military, it is only one person or a group of people who makes policies and implements it. But in democracy, you have three arms coming together to form one government. You have the legislature, the executive and the Judiciary. You also have the federal, state and the local governments. So, every geo-political entity in the country has representation at all levels of governance. In the National Assembly, we have 360 members that form the House of Representatives and 109 Senators in the Senate. In the executive arm, you have the President and the Vice-President. They also appoint ministers. The Constitution stipulates that each state must produce one minister. At the state level, you have the governor and the deputy governor. They have commissioners and advisers, and so on. In the military regime, you cannot have so much number of ministers. Under the federal executive, the ministers do meet and formulate policies for implementation by their ministries. In some instances, they bring it to the National Assembly for legislative input. When you look at the budget, the President cannot sit down alone and say this is the budget of the nation in any fiscal year. He has to bring a proposal to the National Assembly, which has the power under the constitution to scrutinize the budget, make input; make amendment by way of increasing, decreasing or even amending some things at the committee stage. So, every nook and cranny of this country is directly or indirectly represented in policy making and implementation.
In which sector of the economy do you think that this democracy has made the greatest achievement in the last fourteen years?
Well, let’s look at them one by one. In the area of road construction, before 1999 some of the local government areas in my state, Bauchi, did not have good roads. But now all the local governments now have roads; they also have electricity and pipe borne water. There are now many tarred roads in the local government headquarters and in the interiors. People can now move freely. Again, if you look at power supply, before 1999, the state of power supply in Nigeria was very unstable. But there is a lot of improvement now. There is so much progress made in generation and distribution particularly under this regime. When you look at the health sector also, a lot of hospitals have been established by both the federal and state governments and equipped. Old ones are renovated and equipped. When you look at education, just last year, we approved the establishment of nine federal universities. A lot of federal polytechnics were also established. In addition to the nine universities, a university of petroleum was also established under this administration. When you go to these tertiary institutions, you will see a lot of infrastructural development. Definitely, Nigerians know that there is a lot of improvement. Take our airports for instance; they are being remodeled to meet the international standard. In addition to the existing airports, most state capitals are building their own airports in this democracy unlike in the military regime.
What do you think is the greatest challenge of our democracy?
The greatest challenge of our democracy is that people don’t accept defeat when they contest election. That is our major problem. People should understand that when two or more people contest election, only one person will emerge. So, those people who when they lose election, after going to court and court passes judgment, they still refuse to accept defeat; they start accusing the Judiciary that they have received bribe to subvert justice, such people should learn to accept defeat. We should be sincere to ourselves; we should accept defeat. If we run for an election and we are defeated, we have to accept it because that is the wish of the people. Let us join hands with the person who won the election and we will move the country forward and wait for your turn next time. Another problem facing this democracy is the relationship between the Executive and the Legislature, not only at the national level but also at the state and local levels. Those in the Executive don’t look at those in the Legislature as part of the government. They feel that we are just parasites in the government which is not correct. They should know that we are one government. The three arms form the government, and no single arm can function effectively alone.
How does the legislature see the executive, as parasite too?
Well, the Parliament doesn’t see the executive as parasite because it is the Executive that is holding the money. The executive is seeing us as parasite because they are the people generating the revenue and implementing projects. So, any release to be made to the National Assembly, they are the ones handling it and they always consider it to be too much, and that should not be so. Then those of us in the legislature should be sincere to ourselves. We should look at the executive as our partners; they are not our enemy. Even if you are from the same father and mother with somebody, sometimes you have differences. We should accommodate each other. Let’s come to the round table, discuss our differences, and agree on one thing so that the country can move forward. But when we say that we have power on this and the executive says we have this, through that way we are trying to destroy the democracy. If this happens, the future generations in Nigeria will not forgive us.