Senator Abdullahi Adamu, former chairman of the All Progressive Congress, in this interview with Dan Agbese, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, MayFive Media Ltd, and Soji Akinrinade, Executive Editor of NewswatchPlus, reviews Nigeria’s return to democracy nearly 25 years ago and declares that it has fallen short of expectation. Excerpt:
NewswatchPlus: What has been your experience in terms of governance under our democracy in the past 24 years?
Adamu: Well, when I was contesting for the executive governor of Nasarawa State, I had a very clear mind that my election, my coming into office, is a by-product of the fact that I am being elected by the people to govern and the governance must be for the people and we the elected members of society would govern for and on behalf of the people. So, I had a very clear mind that I am a product of a doctrine of democracy, which stipulates that democracy is the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I didn’t have any doubt about that at all. What that tells me is that whatever I do, I must bear in mind that I am a product of that doctrine and how it is supposed to be in practice. I also appreciate the fact that as I go into governance, I am not going to be a loner.
Yes, I am chief executive, and I was chief executive. I appreciated the fact that the buck, whatever I do in government, stops on my table. I appreciated all that. And I am not unmindful despite the belief that there are interests that have to find a way, find a point where they are in harmony in their thinking, in their expectations, and in the role which democracy also assigns to them, for us to be able to have a way of agreeing with their perception of what government should be at any point in time. Now because that means that I am not a lone ranger as a chief executive, there are interests that I should try to harness or try to solicit to work with my government, which is supposed to be government for the people. It means I alone cannot actually deliver the entirety of the interest of the people if I am not able to get these people to also play their part, so that together we deliver on the promises of the doctrine of the government of the people, by the people, for the people. So, where there is no harmony in political thinking and political behaviour, to ensure the success of democracy and therefore the success of the government at any point in time,, then something is wrong. And quite a lot of things have been going wrong with us, unfortunately.
Deliberately we are not good players in the arena, to the extent that people don’t see anything good in government if they are not part of that government, even though as citizens they ought to be part of it. But in terms of participation where they don’t see themselves as part of the government, they would do whatever they can do to undermine the efforts of government. And so, often, the chief executive officer, that is the president or the governor, is the focal point of blame, if there is failure. Now because of the responsibility thrust on the shoulders of the president or the governor, he or she, in that office, has to take that burden. But often the failure of the government is not necessarily a product of the performance or lack of performance of the chief executive. There are issues where people do not see themselves as players to ensure the status of the government or players to ensure that the government does not fail and because we don’t behave in that spirit, a lot is lost from the fortunes of the government, and often the government fails because of this. Of course, I am not saying that because one is governor or president he’s always right in what he wants to do. He has to have an open mind, a mind that is tolerant of views even if those views are not on the same plane with his/her own as the chief executive of government. It is a give-and-take relationship on the issues and decisions in government.
NewswatchPlus: Some rules must be obeyed in democratic governance and one is for the people to be able to institute governments of their choice at any level. One is participation in bringing out those they elect to offices in the executive and legislative branches of government. But a major problem with our democracy is that we have not been able to obey this in full. In other words, we have not been able to conduct credible elections such that the people are proud to say that the government that emerges is a government instituted by them.
Adamu: I think we are putting two things, maybe three together at the same time. While I appreciate the fact that election is supposed to be the route through which you can get to head a government at whatever level in a democracy like our own, if the election was not conducted in a manner that satisfies a majority of the citizenry to be governed by the products of that election, then something goes wrong. Most election commentators will tell you no election is good. For civil society groups, no matter what you do, they will probably come out with contrary views if the person or persons they want to win elections fail to win. Of course, that has its problems that it brings to the government. Once you create the impression, rightly or wrongly, that this is not good or that it does not represent the opinion of the generality of Nigerians, then ordinarily or psychologically, you have a government that would be limping because it has been christened as not been a product of a fair election.
If on the other hand, you can mobilise the opinion promoters to say it was a good election irrespective of whether it was or it was not, then you are sowing the seeds of discontent with the government. That is why you now get people who, once they fail to win an election, are looking for this kind of platform to express themselves. They’ll say they have no confidence in the product of that election. So, for every election, you have a pocket of opinion that is a negative opinion of whatever product comes out of it. That becomes a shadow that follows that government, no matter how long it lasts. Unless the people who lost against it have a change of mind, they perpetually see the people governing them as not having a legitimate mandate to do so.
NewswatchPlus: What would make a good election, in your view?
Adamu: It depends on what you make of it. Ordinarily, a good election is one that has acceptability in respect of its outcome. But a situation that has now become a norm, a tradition, that once you lose an election then it is not a fair one and when you win it is a fair contest, then you have a problem. It goes just beyond saying that you’ve conducted a free and fair election. I don’t know a perfect election anywhere in the world. It is just that in some climes, the results are just more acceptable than in others and the acceptability of the outcome of elections is also dependent on the enlightenment of the people, political enlightenment, attitudes, and culture for accepting or rejecting the outcome of elections. America is the home of democracy today, yet there have been complaints about elections. And till this moment, and three years after an election some people still do not accept that President Joe Biden was properly elected. There are cases in court as we talk today. Despite their civilisation, despite the level of perfection of their system, those who say the election was stolen are still bent on that. They’ve not given up on that. But if what has happened in America has happened here you and I will have sleepless nights.
Despite the disagreement on the outcome of the election in America, the government is running. All the criticisms are just side attractions of democracy in the United States of America. That is not the case here. Here the criticisms take centre stage. I am not being defensive about our electoral system. We have our flaws here. Our electoral body, INEC, has its own shortcomings and people have been talking about them. I have been a beneficiary of elections conducted by INEC; I was chairman of a ruling party and till tomorrow people are picking bones about the last elections. I believe very strongly from what I saw and what happened, we had a free and fair election. So, sometimes, it depends on which side of the coin you are, or you find yourself.
NewswatchPlus: How do we get to the stage of acceptability of outcomes of elections?
Adamu: I said earlier on that we need some level of tolerance. We need some level of understanding of what democracy means. What elections mean. I don’t believe there is any perfect election in the world, in any democracy. But the attitude of the democrats has to be complementary. There is no way everybody would see things the same way at the same time. If we can inculcate in ourselves accepting the outcome of elections, things will be better. The umpires of our elections are not angels, they are people like us and as it is said, people produce the leaders they deserve. Nigeria is no exception. So, we must develop the right attitude. That attitude is not just to accept the outcome of elections, but we must endeavour to play fair in our conduct of elections. Yes, I want to win an election, but it must not be a do-or-die affair. That’s not the right spirit. I don’t subscribe to that at all.
NewswatchPlus: Are you satisfied with the level of participation by the people in governance?
Adamu: For me, I am satisfied. Where 50, 60 percent of voters turn out to vote, and I am not thinking about states that exaggerate the level of participation, that is not bad. I am just saying in principle, from my personal experience, yes, I know what it is to get people to go and vote. I have solicited their support and I just did early this year. I have done that virtually all my life. I do believe that people do go out to vote sincerely; they get mobilised and they go out and vote. But I also believe that in the mechanics for getting out to vote, there are some weaknesses in the machinery that ensure that people get the kind of voting culture that will be acceptable to them in principle. Here you have a person who wants to vote, but he is about 6, 7 kilometres from the polling station, he has no means of transport, and voting is a difficult proposition for him. If we can estimate the number of people with this limitation, then you will appreciate how many people are lost in the electoral process. So, it depends on where you are, and what personal experience you have had, but I believe, in principle, there are issues, there are problems connected to some elections that need some attention.
NewswatchPlus: What are some of those problems?
Adamu: For example, most of the voters we are talking about live in rural areas. The voting power of rural dwellers far outweighs that of metropolitan voters. But because the city people are educated, they can make noise; they know the journalists and they can talk to them and you can sell whatever they think, despite being in the minority, where the majority is, no such opportunity exists. This is an area we must look at and correct. We still have not gotten that massive response. Some countries are clocking, 70, or 80 percent turnout, we are nowhere there yet and that is what is forcing people to go and falsify figures. So, all these hues and cries, if people don’t summit themselves cheaply to truncate the electoral process the problems will be minimal. But people are playing along and when they lose, then they start crying and get people to support them to the extent of even taking the law into their hands to try to ensure that they stop the presumed victor from enjoying the fruits of his labour. This is an area that we must address, seriously. I appreciate that we are still virtually at the starting blocks, maybe we shouldn’t be there, after all, we got independence in 1960 and we are talking about some 63 years now. We shouldn’t be at the starting blocks
NewswatchPlus: Why is it impossible for us to move?
Adamu: We have not been able to jettison the wind from our cultures and traditions. Obasanjo said recently that democracy is not working in Africa and some people started getting hawkish about what he said. Whether we like it or not there is some truth in it. Democracy is new, the tenet of democracy is new. The issue of elections the way people conceived it and the way people contrive to make them fail and then blame INEC, there are a lot of things that we need to do. There are certain traits of democracy that either we don’t accept or we accept half-heartedly and we are not putting everything in to ensure that it succeeds.
NewswatchPlus: There is the issue of internal democracy. Are you satisfied that there is internal democracy in the political parties such that all members are given equal rights and the field is wide-open for a contest?
Adamu: To be honest with you, the intention of every political party, if you take a look at the constitution of every political party, you will see that objective. Every member of a political party has a right to enjoy equal rights with the others. But unfortunately, as we get along, what we are experiencing at the local government level, at the state level and national level is: he who pays the piper dictates the tune. That’s where we are. Any pretences to get off that just harms our position. The fact of the matter is that no state governor wants to lose an election in his state and different governors have different ways of wanting to win that election. For instance, how many local governments in this country today, that you can beat your chest, are practising democracy? Every governor wants to ensure that every local government is under his armpit, no matter what he does. If it just doesn’t happen, he’s not comfortable. So, he may have to suppress every opinion to get that. And then they will blame INEC. I don’t see why INEC is guilty of that. INEC does not determine who goes to what party, at what time, or what is happening on a routine basis in all the parties around.
Even though INEC is supposed to be the umpire of the healthy condition of the political parties to qualify to contest elections, there is a limit to what INEC can do in terms of monitoring behaviours, daily. If there is a local government or ward election to nominate people, INEC will be there to witness but INEC can only witness what it has seen. They can’t witness what gave the product that they are seeing. And we know that if you are not in tune with what the governor wants, you are out. If you are running for councillorship and you are not in tune with your chairman, you’re out. You see less of that at the national level because some states can do things against the wish of the president, in terms of his political thinking or leadership. But when you go down the ladder, it is not as foolproof as one would want it to be. In the end, you go grumbling. That’s all. But the fact of the matter is what the governor wants is what he wants.
While I was in the Senate, just to digress, we passed a bill on local government accounts, the independence of the accounts for the local government. Who defeated it? It was their governors who made sure the bill failed. And the same local governments were complaining of no funds. It was some of them that were used to oppose a bill that was supposed to make governance better for them. So, what do you do about that? That’s Nigeria for you.
NewswatchPlus: It seems as you painted it, that the fault is in us.
Adamu: As citizens, yes. That is why I am telling you that we, the people see the Constitution being raped and we do nothing. It is business, as usual. I don’t want to sound like I am instigating anybody but the fact of the matter is, if you take the percentage of the rise in the price of bread, it is astronomical but who is to oppose it, it is you and me. You don’t do it and I don’t do it you can’t blame the president or the governor. We can’t be crying Thomases. We can’t be sleeping on our rights and complaining and having side talks, backbiting, and calling the president or governors names when we fail to assert our rights, and take our positions in our democracy. The rights that democracy has given us, we are not using them. If we ever do, we don’t use it properly, unfortunately. So, we are in a terrible vicious cycle. And anybody who is a ruler finds that the ruled allows himself to be ruled anyhow and he has a field day and he will make the best of it.
NewswatchPlus: That’s an important point because there are rules in the books. The Electoral Act has tried to block some of these leakages in the system, but still, the act is being raped.
Adamu: It is still back to square one. Who is raping it? Is it INEC?
NewswatchPlus: The political leaders are the ones raping it.
Adamu: Who is allowing them to do so?
NewswatchPlus: The political leaders, particularly since many people don’t know their rights.
Adamu: Is it my fault that you don’t know your rights?
NewswatchPlus: As my political leader it is your fault
Adamu: I’d like to see the book where you’ve found that. You as a citizen, don’t know your rights and you allow your rights to be infringed and you want to blame me for not knowing your rights! No. I disagree with you on that one.
NewswatchPlus: You said people allow themselves to be used. Is this a product of a lack of education?
Adamu: It depends on who you are talking about. Take it from me, if people who are educated, people who are supposed to know their rights inside and out compromise their rights, what do you want the illiterate to do? How do you protect the illiterate? You talk about political leaders, who are the political leaders? Each one of you here is a political leader in his own right, where he finds himself or herself. If you find things being done wrongly and there are so many abuses of the rights of the citizenry, why don’t you go and educate him? Why do you want the person who is taking advantage of him to be the one to educate him or her? That’s my point of contention. If the political leaders, if we know who they are, are abusing these guys or circumscribing their rights, why don’t you give the right opportunity, and the right knowledge to the people so they can know their rights and follow them and protect them? Who is the beneficiary of any weakness in the system that would want to teach you that he’s cheating you? We have a system that is not necessarily our own and we have not given ourselves the time, or the attention to understand this thing we call democracy.
If democracy is like in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and France you’ll have to realise that till tomorrow they are still fighting to perfect it. I am not too ashamed to say that given the time we started, and the time they started, if those are given as base periods, I shouldn’t be ashamed of this, but I appreciate that yes, we can learn from their mistakes, but you have already concluded that the politicians are the ones that are supposed to be the teachers, it doesn’t add up. So, those who have taken it upon themselves the role of enlightenment, the role of the protectors of these democratic norms and institutions in the interest of the public, if you are talking about a way to empower them to do more, I don’t see anything wrong with that.
NewswatchPlus: What is the role of government in educating people about this?
Adamu: It is a general one. The government has a role in providing education in what they call human capital development. It is now how far and how deep the government can go to get these people educated. But that is general education. But the civil societies are there, they are there in the institutions of higher learning; they are there in the primary schools and secondary schools. They can perfect their communications systems to ensure they can deliver education
NewswatchPlus: Does it disturb you that at every election cycle, we have a plethora of litigations? In the 6 years ending 2023, we have over 5,000 cases. This year alone we’ve had more than 1,700 cases.
Adamu: I am more than disturbed. And that should tell you to what extent we have accepted democracy as a system of government. I am very disturbed. And look at it, the failure of politicians is now being blamed on the judiciary. But again, if there is no buyer, there will be no seller. If the politicians did not go to the judiciary or a judicial officer, there is no way the judiciary would be corrupt. I am really disturbed by the way we are going. People are now saying that you can only win elections through the courts. It shouldn’t be the case. Yes, the courts are there to adjudicate if there is a miscarriage of justice, but where the entire system appears to have been abused, it is a cause for concern and almost every election is being challenged. Only about 10 percent of elections into the Senate or House of Representatives were not challenged, and even the Houses of Assembly. If the percentage being challenged is above 50, something is wrong with the elections. Either it is just that we don’t accept defeat as a culture (I don’t believe that is the case) or everybody has a bone he wants to hold on to just to say this is why I failed to win this election because there is a “miscarriage” of applying the rules of the game as stipulated by the law. It is either the nomination is wrong, a pre-election issue or the election itself was tainted. It is really terrible and I am not happy at all.
NewswatchPlus: Has it got to do with the perception…
Adamu: (Jumps in) I am telling you that we have still not been inculcated with this democratic doctrine, the fine edges of democratic practice. We must be tolerant. We must have some spirit of give and take in this whole thing. Where more than 50 percent of the offices available for the contest are being challenged and the courts are supposed to be the arbiter, something is wrong.
NewswatchPlus: You are right because the courts have now taken over from the people the right to institute their government. We want to draw your attention to the case of former Senate President Ahmed Lawan. The Electoral Act is very clear about participation in the process of nomination before you get to the election. In this particular case, the gentleman did not participate in that process, yet the Supreme Court says he’s the candidate of his party. Is it the right of the court to determine who the candidate is?
Adamu: It is not for me to criticise the Supreme Court at this time. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter. And the next person you go to after the Supreme Court is God himself. That’s my response.
NewswatchPlus: What does a situation like this do to the system or our belief in the system when we see certain things that ordinarily should have gone any other way but didn’t? How does it affect our perception of the system we are operating?
Adamu: I am not saying that every negative perception is wrong. I am not saying so at all. But when you pick a specific case, I know what went wrong, I know what happened. I was the national chairman of the APC, and there have been misrepresentations about this. All that is being said is that Lawan contested for the presidency, when did he now contest for Senate? You have to go to the basics. He has a constituency and he is not the only person in this country who contested for the presidency and then came and contested for Senate. The current Senate president contested for president and there are some others too. If there was a gap that they capitalised on, if they acted within the period, you cannot deny them their right. If they were smart, it is okay and if they fail that is it. You can’t deny them provided they did so within the time stipulated. The fact of the matter is if there was no leverage, he or his people wouldn’t have capitalised on it. You’ll be surprised that his people, people from his constituency, went to court not him.
NewswatchPlus: Are we in danger of going into a one-party system?
Adamu: You people in the media you have a way of putting these things. I believe that there are challenges, but I don’t believe that we are going into a one-party system. I believe we can do better. But it all boils down to Nigerians. You leave one party for another and when you find that your fortunes in one party are not materialising, then you jump ship and go to another party. Part of the litigation we have been talking about is a product of this. People are not so confident. There is a genuine crisis in political parties as it happened to us while we were in the PDP when we had the nPDP that ended up in this APC. That’s a whole chunk of about five, or seven states. In the end, only 5 or 6 states ended up in APC. You can’t say because you fear a one-party state it shouldn’t happen. We have rights. Some are right to stay in a political party or leave it if the condition under which they are leaving is contemplated in the constitution.
NewswatchPlus: There is a section of the constitution that stipulates that if a legislator dumps his party for another party, then he loses his seat. It says nothing about the governor dumping his party and going into another one.
Adamu: You see, it is not going to be appropriate that I will condemn such an act. We are dealing with adults who know their rights. Anybody who is mature in age to contest an election is going to be an adult. And if a person would put his own right in jeopardy and the people who elected him will stand idly by, how do I stop it from Abuja?
NewswatchPlus: In doing so he breaches the constitution.
Adamu: Which constitution? Unless you quote that part, I don’t know it. I don’t know a part of the constitution that says under any circumstances you cannot leave a party. If a party is factionalised he can leave.
NewswatchPlus: What is the role of money in all this?
Adamu: Of course. It is the root of all evil. That is my answer. I don’t know those who don’t love money. I love money but I don’t want to go about it criminally. What I know is that the love of money is the root of all evil. I’ve known that through different stages of my life.
NewswatchPlus: You’ve talked about tolerance, particularly in election matters. Are there reforms that must be undertaken to help us achieve this?
Adamu: I think we are being very evasive of our true situation. The Nigerian and I say this with all respect, has a knack for seeing an obstacle and not wanting to deal with that obstacle. We like going around the obstacle and it doesn’t matter how many more obstacles we create along the way. This is the Nigerian I have seen in my life so far. We have a knack for changing laws once we find out that a particular law, at a point in time, is not favourable to our interest. The Electoral Law everybody is complaining about now, with all due respect to my colleagues at the National Assembly, we made the law and when we were doing so we said: watch it, watch it, for you might be taking a knife and stabbing yourself. That’s why all these litigations are taking place. At the time, and I am sorry to say this, some people thought that the obstacles to the success of their political careers rested with their governors and they must prune the wings of the governors or the influence of the governors in their parties regarding the electoral process. That’s what brought all this.
In the process of doing so, we have created laws that we now have problems implementing, unfortunately. There is a need to go back to the Electoral Act and work on it again. You see, we did it out of fury. One of the fundamental rules of legislation is that you must never make a law just to protect yourself. If you do, it goes into the category of bad laws. This is what would appear to have taken place and there is now a rethink among National Assembly members already. They are seeing this. Some of them got re-elected just by whiskers. They were just lucky. Go and see the rate of attrition at the National Assembly. It is about 65, 66 percent now. How do you have stability in the political system when at every election you have a new set of people? That is why I have said that to a large extent, we have to take most of the blame. I believe that very strongly. We have to take most of the blame for what is happening.
NewswatchPlus: All of us?
Adamu: Yes, all of us. Me and you! I believe it strongly that we, particularly the so-called elite must take the blame. People talk about politicians, but who is not a politician? I know people who are not in partisan politics who are more of political animals than me and I have had a period of 40 to 45 years from non-partisan to partisan politics till I left as the national chairman of the All Progressive Congress, APC. We need to be a little more honest with ourselves but we are not, unfortunately. We need a little more honesty of purpose. We need to make more sacrifices if we are going to develop this thing called democracy. We have to now take another look at it and see how we fit into it, not democracy fitting us, then maybe we can make some progress.
NewswatchPlus: In nearly 25 years, how would you rate our journey in terms of democratic governance?
Adamu: I believe we should have done better. The reason we are not doing any better is that we are the architects of our failure. Democracy depends on us to succeed; and to be the grundnorm of our politics since we have accepted democracy as the institution through which we can get into any elected office. If we don’t do it right, we can’t get it right. It will not get itself right, we have to operate it. And when I say we, I don’t mean those of us who are privileged to be in government only. There are people who are not in government that are stronger than people in government. I know this as a fact. There are those who are beneficiaries of this hues and cry about politicians and they even benefit more than the politicians. I know this as a fact. The weeping child is a politician to the extent that I begin to wonder who the politicians in this country are! I am not denying being one. But I appreciate that there are more who point accusing fingers at politicians who are more political than them. They are the beneficiaries of the ills of democracy.
NewswatchPlus: Why have we not got it right?
Adamu: I don’t know how to answer that question. It is a matter of practice. If you don’t do the right thing you cannot get the right answer. If you say two plus two is not four, unless you want to do mathematical jugglery, the fact remains that in this noble political calling (that is what it is to me), if we do it right, we’ll get the right answers. But at this point in time, I don’t see how we are doing it right. Whatever we do, the accusing fingers are still pointing at us, Nigerians. Nobody is coming to get it right for us. We are the ones to do it right if we choose to. And as long as we don’t choose to do it right, we cannot get the right answer.
