TEXT OF SPEECH BY GENERAL MUHAMMADU BUHARI, GCFR AT THE AFRICA DIASPORA CONFERENCE, HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, TUESDAY, 5TH MARCH 2013
Protocols
1. May I thank the organizers for inviting me and my associates to this
conference which, if I may say so, is growing in influence by the day.
The presence of many Nigerians and distinguished Britons on these
historic premises testifies to the importance and to the high
expectations of this occasion. At the end of today’s proceedings many of
us hope to have a better understanding of our problems and perhaps
identify more effective solutions to those problems.
2. My
contribution today is based on reflection and practical observation
rather than on studious research or scholarly presentation. It is a
soldier’s and politician’s broad observations on democracy and economic
development in my country, Nigeria.
By convention one usually
would like to talk about his country outside its shores in glowing terms
extolling its virtues and defending its values and interests. But the
situation in our country is so bad and no one knows this better than the
international community, that it would be futile to take this line
today.
Furthermore, it would be counter-productive to efforts
we are all making to understand and accept our shortcomings with a view
to taking steps towards a general improvement. If you continue to be in
denial, as Nigeria’s government and its apologists are wont to do, you
will lose all credibility.
DEMOCRACY
3. There is no
point in rehearsing all the text-book theories of democracy to this
august gathering. But in practical terms there are, I think, certain
conditions without which true democracy cannot survive. These conditions
include, but are not limited to, the level of literacy; level of
economic attainment; reasonable homogeneity; rights of free speech and
free association; a level playing field; free and fair elections;
adherence to the rule of law and an impartial judiciary. But these
imperatives are not applicable to all countries and all climes. India
for example, suffers from great poverty and diversity but its efforts at
running a democracy are exemplary.
4. Democracy can best flourish
when a certain level of educational attainment or literacy exists in the
society. The vast majority of the voters must be in a position to read
and write and consequently distinguish which is which on the voters card
to make their choices truly theirs. In recent elections in Nigeria,
many voters had to be guided – like blind men and women – as to which
name and logo represent their preferred choices or candidates to vote
for. When one does not know what the thing is all about, it is difficult
to arrive at a free choice. It will be even more difficult to hold
elected office holders to account and throw them out for non-performance
at the next election. Under these circumstances, democracy has a long
way to go. Our collective expectations on a democratic system of
government in less advanced countries must, therefore, be tempered by
these realities.
5. Nor must we discount the role of economic
development on the democratic process. An even more compelling
determinant to human behavior than education is, I think, economic
condition. I will return to this topic when discussing elections, but
suffice to remark here that if, for example, on election day, a voter
wakes up with nothing to eat for himself and his family and
representatives of a candidate offer him, say N500 (£2) he faces a hard
choice: whether to starve for the day or abandon his right to vote
freely.
As the celebrated American economist, late Professor J.K.
Galbraith said: “Nothing circumscribes freedom more completely than
total absence of money”.
6. For democracy to function
perfectly, a reasonable level of ethnic, linguistic or cultural
homogeneity must exist in a country and this applies to all countries
whether more developed or less developed. In the US, which like Nigeria
is a federation, Hawaii and Alaska send two senators each to Washington
as do California and New York. In our own country, Bayelsa with a
population of less than two million elects three senators to the
National Assembly in Abuja equal to Lagos State with a population of
over ten million. Nassarawa State with about two million people and Kano
State with over five times the population also send 3 senators each to
Abuja. Such dilution clearly negates the intent and spirit of democracy.
7. Central and critical to democracy is adherence to the rule of law.
That is to say, no individual, institution, not even government itself
can act outside the confines of law without facing sanctions. Executive
arbitrariness can only be checked where there is respect for the law.
Other desirable conditions of democracy such as freedom of speech and
association can only flourish in an atmosphere where the law is supreme.
Law does not guarantee but allows a level playing field. In the absence
of the rule of law, free and fair elections and an independent
judiciary cannot exist.
8. As a result of the virtual absence
of the rule of law, elections in Nigeria since 2003 have not been free
and fair. As a participant, I can relate to this audience my experiences
during the 2003, 2007 and 2011 Presidential elections. Hundreds of
candidates have similar experiences in State, Federal legislature and
Gubernatorial elections. Under Nigerian law, these elections are
governed by the 1999 constitution, the Electoral Law and the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) acts of 2002, 2006 and 2010.
Ordinarily, an election is an occasion when contestants will join the
electorate in celebration of freedom, because the will of the majority
has prevailed. Winners and losers alike come together to work in the
interest of their country. But this happens only if the elections were
deemed free and fair. In 2003, INEC, the body charged with the conduct
of elections in our country tabled results in court which were plainly
dishonest. We challenged them to produce evidence for the figures. They
refused. The judges supported them by saying, in effect, failure to
produce the result does not negate the elections! In a show of
unprecedented dishonesty and unprofessionalism, the President of the
Court of Appeal read out INEC’s figures (which they refused to come to
court to prove or defend) as the result accepted by the Court. The
Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, said this was okay.
9. In 2007, the violations of electoral rules were so numerous that
most lawyers connected with the case firmly believed that the elections
would be nullified. I will refer to just two such violations. The
Electoral Act of 2006 stipulated that ballot papers SHALL be serially
numbered and voters result sheets must also be tallied on serially
numbered papers. INEC produced ballot papers with NO serial numbers and
also used blank sheets thereby making it well nigh impossible to have an
audit trail. At all events, at the final collation centre the chief
electoral officer, after 11 (eleven) states (out of 36) were tallied
excused himself from the room – apparently on a toilet break – and
announced the “final results” to waiting journalists. He had the
“results” in his pocket. At the time, several states had not completed
transmission of their tallies. As in 2003 the courts rubber-stamped this
gross transgression of the rules. Some election returns confirmed by
INEC stamps included, 28th April, two (2) days before the election, 29th
April, a day before the election and astonishingly, 31st April a date
which does not exist on the calendar, illustrating the farcical nature
of the election. The Supreme Court split 4-3 in favour of the
Government.
10. In 2011 all pretences at legality and
propriety were cast aside. In the South-South and South-Eastern States,
turn-out of voters was recorded by INEC at between 85% - 95% even though
in the morning of the election the media reported sparse attendance at
polling booths. The rest of the country where opposition parties were
able to guard and monitor the conduct of the Presidential election
turn-out averaged about 46%. In many constituencies in the South-South
and South-East, votes cast far exceeded registered figures.
11. Which brings us to the need for an impartial Judiciary in a
democratic setting. The judicial arm of the government, properly
speaking, should be the interpreter and arbiter of executive and
legislative actions but the Nigerian government since 1999 has
successfully emasculated the judiciary and turned it into a yes-man. An
independent and impartial judiciary would have overturned all the
Presidential elections since 2003. In addition, hundreds of cases of
judicial misconduct have marred elections to Local Government, State and
Federal Legislatures. The Judiciary has run its reputation down
completely since 2003.
12. Here, I would like to say a few
words about the international observers. In 1999 the greatly revered
former US President, Jimmy Carter walked off in a huff at the conduct of
that year’s Presidential election. But compared to what took place
afterwards, the 1999 election was a model of propriety. I am sure many
Nigerians like me feel gratitude to the international community, notably
the Catholic Secretariat who deployed over 1,000 observers in 2003 and
the National Democratic Institute in Washington for their work in
Nigeria. In 2003 and 2007, all the international observer teams, along
with domestic observers concluded that those two elections fell far
short of acceptable standards. The Nigerian government, along with the
international community ignored those critical reports. Some members of
this audience may recall the trenchant criticisms by the UK and US
governments on the Zimbabwean elections held about the same time as
Nigeria’s. Now the Zimbabwean elections were very much better conducted
than the Nigerian elections as the opposition party in Zimbabwe actually
was declared to have won the parliamentary elections.
13. Yet
Western Governments turned a blind eye to Nigerian elections and an
eagle eye on Zimbabwe’s and its supposed shortcomings. No better
illustration of double-standards can be cited. Accordingly, in 2011, the
international observers, having seen their painstaking work in earlier
years completely ignored, took the line of least resistance and
concluded after cursory examinations that the elections were okay.
14. So it is quite clear from these brief recollections that many
preliminary elements of a democratic set-up are missing in Nigeria
namely: level of educational development, level of economic development,
homogeneity, level playing field, rule of law, impartial judiciary and
free and fair elections.
15. As observed earlier, democracy cannot function optimally without a certain level of economic attainment.
16. Economically, Nigeria is a potential powerhouse, a large
population, 167 million by the last official estimate, arable land, more
than 300, 000 square kilometers, 13,000 square kilometers of fresh
water. In addition, the country has gas, oil, solid minerals, forests,
fisheries, wind power and potentials for tourism and hosting of
international sporting events. It is a miracle waiting to happen. The
lack of leadership and policy continuity has resulted in great
under-achievement.
17. Many Nigerians in the audience today
will relate to the situation of our countrymen and women. More than 100
million of our people live below $2 a day according to the Nigeria
Bureau of Statistics and many internationally recognized estimates. We
lack security, are short of food, water, live in poor shelters with
hardly any medicare to speak of. Small scale farmers, foresters, micro
businesses such as market women, washermen, vulcanizers, tailors, street
corner shop-keepers and the like lack both power and meaningful access
to small scale credit to ply their trade and prosper.
No
wonder, the publication, “The African Economic Outlook 2012” under the
auspices of the United Nations lamented that poverty and
underdevelopment were on the increase. In fact, GDP figures in the raw
or in outline tell little about the spread of wealth, employment levels,
infrastructural development and the effect of socio-economic programmes
such as schooling, health care, and security on the generality of the
population. You may sell a lot of oil in an era of high oil prices and
boost your GDP and boast about it. But there is nothing to boast about
when 100 million of your people are in poverty and misery. Life is a
daily hassle; a daily challenge. It is under these circumstances that
many a voter is tempted to sell off his voting card for a pittance on
Election Day.
CONCLUSION
18. We now come to crux of
the matter by attempting some answers to the very pertinent questions
which the organizers of this conference put to me. How stable is
Nigeria’s economy? The short answer is that it very much depends on the
international oil market. The failure over the years to diversify and
strengthen the economy or to invest in the global economy has left
Nigeria perilously at the mercy of global oil prices. Instead of using
the so-called excess crude account which in other countries goes by the
name of Sovereign Wealth Fund to develop major domestic infrastructure
such as Power, Railways, Road development, the account has been
frittered down and applied to current consumption. There is no magic, no
short-cut to economic development. We must start from first principles –
by developing agriculture and industries. Sixty years ago, we exported
considerable quantities of cocoa, cotton, groundnuts, rubber and palm
kernels. There were sizeable incomes to the farmers. Indeed in two
years, if I recall correctly, 1951 and 1953, Nigeria produced a million
tons of groundnuts. Today, other than a few thousand tons of cocoa,
hardly any cotton, rubber or palm products are exported.
19.
Until and unless serious budgetary attention is paid to agriculture, the
vast majority of rural population will remain on subsistence basis and
will eventually wither away by migration to the cities and increasing
the stress on urban life. What is required is applying today’s
technology, primarily improved seeds and seedlings, irrigation systems,
use of weather forecasts, and above all, substantial subsidies and
access to cheap credit. In Nigeria, the basic tools for agricultural
take-off, the Six River Basin Authorities were wantonly scrapped in 1986
under the disastrous Structural Adjustment Programme. They are the best
vehicle for our country’s agricultural revival and expansion.
INDUSTRIES
20. Next to agriculture, government and railways industries are the
country’s biggest employers of labour. Industries are vital in absorbing
urban workforce. Nigeria’s burgeoning industrial growth was brought to
an abrupt halt by the Structural Adjustment Programme which massively
devalued the naira under IMF harassment and bullying. Uninterrupted
Nigeria’s capacity by now would have been able to produce basic machine
tools, bicycles, motor cycles, car parts, parts for industrial machinery
and the likes. But alas, the car industry is down; tyre manufacturing
is down, both Michelin and Dunlop have closed; battery manufacturing and
sugar industries are down; cable industries all but down: all in the
wake of the Structural Adjustment Programme. The last 14 years have
added to the misery due to red tape, high interest rates, power
shortages and competition from developed economies under World Trade
Organization (WTO) imperatives. Subsuming all these problems is the old
and ever-present devil: corruption.
Corruption has shot through all
facets of government and economic life in our country. Until serious
efforts are made to tackle corruption which is beyond the capacity of
this government, economic growth and stability will elude us. On
corruption, don’t just take my word for it. The Chairman of one of the
bodies charged with the task of fighting corruption in Nigeria, Mr. Ekpo
Nta of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offensive
Commission (ICPC) was quoted by the Daily Trust newspaper of 14th
February, 2013 as saying that there was no political will to fight
corruption in Nigeria.
21. A second fundamental question asked
by the organizers is: Can Nigeria as presently structured
administratively and politically emerge an economically competitive
nation? I believe it can. There is a lively debate going on in our
country about the need to re-structure the country. What shape this
reform is going to take is uncertain. Even the most vocal advocates of
re-structuring the country, although long on rhetoric seem short and
vague on details. We have tried regions and this was deemed lopsided and
a trap to minorities. We tried twelve, nineteen and now thirty six (36)
states and there is clamour for more. I firmly believe that state
creation has now become dysfunctional, as disproportionate amounts of
our meager resources go to over-heads at the expense of basic social
services and infrastructural development. Moreover, I also believe that
Nigeria’s problem is not so much the structure but the process.
Nevertheless, I believe a careful and civil conversation should be held
to look closely at the structure.
22. But how do we go about
it? Go back to the Regions? I do not think this would be acceptable;
except perhaps in the old Western Region. Try the present Six
Geo-political Zones as federating units? I believe there will be so much
unrest and strife in South-South and North-Central; this is not to say
that there will be no pockets of resistance in the North West and North
East as well – the consequence of all these will unsettle the country.
Go back to General Gowon’s 12 state structure? Here too, entrenched
personal or group interests will make collapsing and merging states
impossible to operate in a democratic set-up. It is only when you come
face to face with the problem you will appreciate the complications
inherent in re-structuring Nigeria.
23. However, once a
national consensus is reached, however defective, the environment will
facilitate political and economic stability. At long last we can look
forward to Nigeria finding its place among the BRIC nations and instead
of BRIC, the media would be talking of BRINC nations: Brazil, Russia,
India, Nigeria and China. I sincerely hope this happens in my lifetime.
24. The third question put to me by the organizers is: Can the present
electoral body in Nigeria guarantee and deliver credible elections that
will strengthen the nation’s democracy in 2015?
25. All the
present indications are that INEC as it is presently constituted would
be unable to deliver any meaningful elections in 2015. I have gone to
some lengths earlier in my talk to describe INEC’s conduct in the last
decade. The Electoral Body has developed a very cozy relationship with
Executive and Judicial arms of government that its impartiality is
totally lost. In the run-up to the last elections INEC requested (and
received with indecent haste) in excess of 80 billion naira (about
£340m.) a hefty sum by any standards, so that it could conduct the
elections including organizing bio-metric voters data specifically for
the 2011 elections.
26. But when opposition parties challenged
the patently dishonest figures it announced and subpoenaed the
bio-metric data in court, INEC refused to divulge them on the laughable
excuse of “National Security”. INEC’s top echelon is immersed deep in
corruption and only wholesale changes at the top could begin to cure its
malaise. What is required is a group of independent minded people,
patriotic, incorruptible but with the capacity to handle such a
strenuous assignment of conducting elections in Nigeria. It is not
difficult to find such people but whether the Government and the
National Assembly have the inclination to do so I am not so sure. The
only way I and many more experienced politicians than myself expect the
2015 elections to be remotely free and fair is for the opposition to be
so strong that they can effectively prevent INEC from rigging. I would
like, here, Mr. Chairman to repeat what I have said time and time again
at home in Nigeria with regards to the election aftermath. Some
commentators and public figures have wrongly pointed accusing fingers at
me for inciting post-election violence. Nothing could be further from
the truth. I have been a public servant all my adult life: a soldier, a
federal minister, a state governor and the head of state. My duty is to
Nigeria first and foremost. Post-election violence was triggered by the
grossest injustice of election rigging and accompanying state
high-handedness.
27. Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I will attempt to
address the two very important questions you put to me namely: How can
the poverty level in Nigeria be reduced? And How can the masses
generally benefit from the nation’s vast wealth? As remarked earlier,
there is no short cut to poverty eradication than to get people to work
and earn money. Poverty means lack of income. If serious efforts are
made to support agriculture through states and local government
apparatus in the shape of inputs, i.e fertilizers and pesticides,
extension services and provision of small-scale credits, agriculture
will boom within 5 – 7 years. Farmers will generate more income to
enable them to grow the food the country needs and to look after our
environment. In addition, the drift to urban centres will be greatly
reduced. Equal attention should be paid to the revival of
employment-generating activities such as Railways, Industries, notably
textiles and other land and forest resource based industries to absorb
urban labour to tackle poverty, reduce urban stress and crime and at the
same time boost the economy. However, these two major policy
initiatives can only succeed if there is substantial improvement in
power generation. As remarked earlier, adequate provision of power will
help small scale business to thrive and link-up with the general
economy. Power is the site of the legion, in other words, it is central
to all economic activity.
28. May I, Mr. Chairman, conclude
this presentation by referring to the distribution of income in Nigeria
today? No better illustration of the huge income disparity can be quoted
than the statement of Malam Adamu Fika, Chairman of the Committee set
up by Government to review the Nigerian public service. In the course of
presentation of his Report, the Chairman pointed out that 18,000 public
officers consume in the form of salaries, allowances and other
perquisites N1.126 trillion naira (£4billion) of public funds. The total
Nigerian budget for 2013 is N4.9 trillion (£20 billion). This is the
worst form of corruption and oppression. A wholesale look at public
expenses vis-à-vis the real need of the country has become urgent.
29. Mr. Chairman, the Honourable Members, Distinguished Guests, I thank you for your patience and attention.
General Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR
London – United Kingdom
Tuesday, March 5th 2013.
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