Jonathan Is the Father of New Nigeria- Uranta

Buhari cannot ignore confab recommendations, must restructure Nigeria- Uranta

Executive Secretary, Nigeria National Summit Group (NNSG), Mr. Tony Uranta, in this interview praised President Goodluck Jonathan for accepting the result of the presidential election and sets agenda for the President–elect, General Muhammadu Buhari among other salient issues. Deputy Political Editor, Jonathan Eze reports.

What are the expectations of Nigerians from the President-elect as he takes over by May 29?
It will be proper to begin by congratulating General Buhari for having true persistence and doggedness because I am still astonished at a general of his age repeatedly contesting for that office and not being deterred by the fact that he was losing consistently. So, he kept at it like they say Abraham Lincoln did and he is President-elect today. I will not restrict that congratulations to General Buhari alone but will expand it to include one of the best politicians Nigerian has, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who has created a national opposition party. I don’t know how well welded together it is, how sustainable it may be, but one thing we cannot write away is that Bola Tinubu has been able to put up a very credible fight and put in a new President in Nigeria and was able to win over nearly all the states that were opposed to the APC before. Having said that, I think the greatest applause has to necessarily go for the man who many have described as the hero of democracy in Nigeria but whom I want to modestly but in all sincerity acknowledged as the father of the new Nigeria, that is President Goodluck Jonathan. Because if Jonathan had not created and allow for the existence of an enabling environment, a free and level playing field, if he had not subscribed to and encouraged freedom of information, freedom of ‎discourse, freedom of association and protest on a level that we have never had in Nigeria, not even in the pre-military era. If he had not been such a democrat that he was even to be subtly supporting in some cases, individuals that did not belong to his party. For example, in Edo, Anambra, Ondo, he created a new atmosphere; the atmosphere ‎of come out, run and come out, vote, and know that it is one man, one vote and each vote will be counted and each vote will count. More than this, he went ahead and allow Nigeria to exist till this moment because the potency of danger which was about to engulf us, the reality that Nigeria may have been on the skid, about to break up, post-March 28, we cannot wave away. But by his (Jonathan) conceding and conceding in time and graciously, and compelling his party (PDP) not to contest the outcome of the presidential election, he did not only created such a first in Nigeria, but has gone into the annals of history as a leading African leader in circumstances such as Nigeria was finding itself then where the whole world led by the United States had even foretold our failure this year and were expecting it to start from the presidential election but he consciously calculated everything, held back and has allowed peace to prevail, that is the first thing we have to recognised. President Jonathan has shown that he is a man greater than even the office of the president of Nigeria.
As to what we expect of the general when he assumes office, the first thing he has to do is let us learn to stop calling him ‘General’. He has to shed that toga of him being the military whether benevolent, autocratic or brutal dictator. He has to become a truly democratic civilian President in the new Nigeria where peace, democracy, rule of law and respect for other people’s sensibility has to take control. We expect him, most of all, to focus on the restructuring of Nigeria. You will remember that the ‎Yoruba’s Afenifere and a great deal of people supported President Jonathan not because they liked his face, not because they necessarily liked his politics, but because they like the fact that he committed to restructuring this nation as it is needed and necessary if it is to sustainably continue as a united, progressive Nigeria. One of the biggest platforms on which he now created this ethos of restructuring is the platform of the National Conference.

Many of us, who were supportive of the National Conference and its recommendations, have been calling for the implementation of the recommendations of the Conference. If all that General Buhari does is to implement the National Conference’s recommendations, the President-elect would be a hero. But, he has already begun to win my heart by announcing that he will not nominate or appoint anybody into public office who has not sworn to declare his assets in Court, not just to the Code of Conduct Bureau. People should note the elements here: if you lied to the code of Conduct Bureau, you could be indicted and sanctioned, these are maybe’s. But if you swear to a falsehood in Court you are liable to be prosecuted for perjury. What Gen Buhari has therefore said is that he would only use people who are ready for us (Nigerians) to shine searchlights on them to confirm that whatever they say in Court as concerning their past is true. I believe that means he may be serious about appointing only non-corrupt Nigerians into office. I don’t know how many non-corrupt politicians we have in the county, but then he has said that even his transition committee will be filled with technocrats, so maybe he is going to lead this country with technocrats, which could be a welcome development. We must remember that one of President Jonathan’s major key-players, who also was a key-player under former President Obasanjo is Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a technocrat’s technocrat. Maybe with more technocrats, we will have less corruption, maybe. All that remains to be seen, but it is a welcome development and we are going to hold General Buhari to this. If anybody he appoints or needs to be appointed cannot stand up to the full glare of public scrutiny, we are going to shout and shout very loud.
Since we have all accepted the fact that the President-elect would take over on May 29, it follows that we all have to work with him to improve Nigeria. Therefore, I will be joining others to throw a very bright searchlight on him and his appointees, not for any partisan reasons, but mainly from the viewpoints of his own promises to Nigeria, through which, as Jega assures us, he convinced us that he is truly above board, patriotic and devoid of ultra-fundamentalisms, be they religious, ethnic, feudal or parochial, and that he is going to surround himself with people of the same calibre who are truly above board.
I applaud him on another issue, the fact that the General has said he would campaign vigorously to stop one the greatest abuses I have campaigned against for some time, the fact that governors sat down unilaterally and awarded themselves humongous retirement pension benefits, disregarding the fact that they have not been able, in most cases, to even pay minimum-wage-based salaries when and as due to the electorate of Nigeria. Now, that General Buhari has said he is going to work against those pensions and humongous benefits being collected by these politicians, many of whom performed far below average, is another very welcome development. We are going to support him in this.

Of course, very importantly, we will expect that General Buhari does one thing that everybody is expecting him to do as soon he assumes office; he must end the terrorism and insurgency in the North East as soon as possible because that was the key promise of his campaign-“we will stop Boko Haram, we know how to stop Boko Haram and we know who Boko Haram is”. Yes, that is his pledge. And, truly, since, we must admit, they have not attacked us so much since he won the election, I want to assume that once he ascends into power, Boko Haram will formally sign-out. But in reality, we know that Boko Haram has formally aligned itself with its cousins ISIS, we know that the Al-Shabab is increasing operations in East Africa, AQIM is expanding through North-Western Africa further south into Mali etc, Yemen is burning, Syria is exploding, so whether Boko Haram is going to die that kind of a natural death remains to be seen. But, having had the opportunity to work with him politically in the past, I want to believe the General is man of his word. If he does not put Boko Haram Out of business within the first 90 days of his being in office, Nigerians would be able to say to him very openly and frankly, “General, you lied to us”, because of his repeatedly assuring us of being able to make Boko Haram stop immediately he becomes President.
These are the imperative things General Buhari must do for us to within the first 100 days, to get us to welcome him and say that truly Jega’s Nigerians did not make a mistake; then we all will applaud him and say, “we chose a better leader by bringing in Buhari.

How do you think the opposition was able to warm its way into the hearts of Nigerians and do you think the PDP would be able to serve as a virile opposition party?

Again, I applaud mainly the Jagaban of Bourdillion as they called him, Bola Tinubu. He is a man whom I have had a lot of respect for long before he went into politics and social activism in the ’90s Senate and NADECO, even from his fledgling Chicago days as a friend of Otunba Remi Abdul. I respect his being able to weld together different existing political forces that were seen as existing parties and already held sway in certain regional enclaves in Nigeria. He welded them together and presented them as a formidable opposition and for the first time since the military took over we had a truly virile national opposition party in Nigeria. Anybody who does not give kudos to Tinubu for that does not know anything about politics. However, he did not win over Nigerians through the welding together of those enclaves or those parties, he putatively won the hearts of Nigerians by strategically positioning himself in the media both by owning, subscribing to and having controlling interest in many traditional media- radio, Television and Newspapers, while he very calculatedly and assiduously developed and encouraged the new/social media in Nigeria, helping sustain and create new blog owners dotted all over the cyberspace.

We forget that, at the end of the day, it is not just the truth that sets you free, but the truth that you know and do. He was able to tell us what he wanted us to know. For example, Jonathan was beaten in media space outright long before the election by the APC. Nobody knew any achievement of the president and we must lay that blame squarely at the feet of his so-called image makers, they failed him woefully; they are mainly my friends but they failed to market President Jonathan’s remarkable achievements, person and potentials adequately enough to NIgerians and the world. It is sad that Ifeanyi Ubah’s TAN did better marketing of GEJ in four months than all the President’s men did in four years. Tinubu and the APC managed to market themselves through the media, which as I said he owned, controlled and influenced greatly.

As to the PDP, I will not say that I am totally sorry that it has been rudely shaken awake and is currently being dismembered the way it is, because this will bring those people who are in that party to a realization that the era of ‘business-as-usual’ is for ever gone. All these loud talk, from the present leadership, about ‘we are going to re-jig ourselves’, is nothing but mere talk which is cheap; it is going to take some time for the PDP to get itself together.

But one good thing the PDP has going for it is that it is now being perceived as evolving a new ethos of patriotic integrity that is beginning to manifest. That integrity that was propelled by President Jonathan’s development of the enabling environment space for free and fair elections, and amplified by the President’s very gracious concession to defeat which has been copied nearly across board by all PDP leaders. Where PDP candidates have been defeated, they have acknowledged defeat nearly immediately. Even where the party said we would contest the results, the individuals have called to congratulate those they contested with. And in a unique case of Ekiti State, even where he is now confirmed as the governor by the Supreme Court, I heard Ekiti Governor Fayose say “if I have offended anybody forgive me”. That is a new spirit and people must not be ignorant of these things, it is a spirit that would probably not have been born if President Jonathan had said he was going to contest the result.

I must note at this point that it is very sad that APC candidates have not shown such a spirit of patriotic sportsmanliness, as they have not conceded defeat in anywhere. Is APC saying that it expected to win all 36 states, all 774 local governments? Something must be wrong with the psyche of the leaders of the APC if they are still thinking that way, if they are still thinking like ‘do-or-die’ military dictators; if they are not yet thinking like democrats; if it is a do-or-die battle for every seat; if, sadly, they have not still learnt that in a true democracy, you win some and lose some; and, if you are yet to learn that you are not the sole repository of knowledge, strategy, sophistry and even rigging.

What is your perspective on the voting pattern of the South-East and South-South? Do you agree with the notion that they played an elementary politics by putting all their eggs in PDP’s basket?

I think anybody who thinks that the voting patterns would influence the composition of government as to ethnic or religious biases, does not understand what modern nationhood is all about. General Buhari or any leader at the national or state levels cannot but be seen to fully carry along every member of their relevant electorate’s demographics (be they women, youth, elderly, disadvantaged physically, religios, ethnic etc) if they wish this nation well. They cannot say, for example, I am going to restrict governance to members of my party. General Buhari cannot for example say, I wont have Igbo in my cabinet, he cannot say, I will punish the South-East and the South-South for not voting for me or against me. If he does that, he would have fully played into the hands of his detractors. If he does that he would have laid the foundation for the crumbling of Nigerian unity, peace and progress within less than six months of his coming to power.

But more importantly, no one regional enclave voted exclusively for anybody. Even the Yoruba’s voted across the board and same in the East and South-South. The people who voted for APC in Delta, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Enugu and Anambra were not in a small number but the reality is we are all coming from a nigh-primordial level. This is a level where my family comes first, my tribe next, my region follows, and then Nigeria trails in last and least. This was what for example led to the slight imbroglio of sorts that nearly took place in Lagos where the Oba of Lagos reportedly made some controversial statements. I respect the Oba a lot and I have known him for a long time. But the point remains that the Igbo or the non-indigene component cannot be waved away, they are vital to the economic progress of the state. It is only in Nigeria that we don’t realise that the small and medium scale businessman is a real backbone of the economy and most of these non-indigenes are in the small and medium scale sectors; they are important to the economy. Yes, they may have appeared to prefer a candidate who is a Lagosian from Ikorodu if we come from that end. The candidate who finally won, our dear friend, Ambode, is not a Lagosian. If these groups chose a Lagosian to become the governor of Lagos, and you want to go beyond the choice level to now look at their demographic background and say it is because they are Igbo, the whole sense of ludicruity heightens. Jimi Agbaje is a friend of mine and does not even speak the Igbo, Urhobo or Ibibio languages. Even assuming, without conceding, that quite a number of Lagos residents may have prayed for an Agbaje’s-led Lagos, we should respect everybody’s right and freedom to vote his choice anywhere in Nigeria without fear of intimidation or foolish retribution. different people have their different reasons to vote for him. It is sad that quite a few non-indigenes of Lagos State did not vote in the April 11 Elections, out of fear of possibly-unwarranted perception of them as being anti-tradition or pro-Agbaje. I know a pro-Ambode family that didn’t venture out of their at all that day. That’s sad. We cannot be afraid in South Africa, and fear the same evil here in Nigeria.

Whether we like it or not, there are indigenous people and settlers in every part of Nigeria but we must not encourage this indigene and non-indigene dichotomy to keep on negatively building up in this country. This was one of the things the now late Ambassador Segun Olusola started fighting against when he wrote his seminal work, “The Village Headmaster” as far back as the early 1960s. We are looking for how we can unite Nigeria, not further divide it over silly partisan thoughtlessness and insensitivities. Every incoming government has to look at the demographics of its state or the nation snd include every member-group in its workings as much as is feasible. For example, I am not happy that Lagos had only Ben Akabueze, my friend, as Commissioner. There is no Ijaw man or woman. Do you know what the Ijaw vote does in Lagos? All these must be taken into consideration in tomorrow’s Nigeria, this New Nigeria that we are beginning to see being birthed before our eyes. The caveat here is that the New Nigeria is still at birthing stage, and we have to be very careful so that it does not come out stillborn. We all must watch, pray and work for a better Nigeria where opportunities are equal, rule-of-law is respected, fundamentalism is roundly eschewed and federalism reigns.