…Gives reasons Nnamdi Kanu should be released without further delay
Sylvester Ezeonenwa, a lawyer, is the young, articulate and visionary national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
In this exclusive interview with Sunday Sun, he speaks on his blueprint and vision for APGA, his views on Nnamdi Kanu’s continued detention, subsidy removal, the problem with Nigeria and the need for restructuring the country, among other sensitive issues. Excerpt:
Congratulations on your election as the new national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). How has it been since your emergence, the battles and what you intend to kick off with as a priority agenda?
I assume here that the battle you are talking about is the legal battle?
Yes?
Of course, you know I have been on top of the legal issues considering my earlier position as the national legal adviser, and having been at the forefront by virtue of the constitution of all those legal battles, I can say it’s nothing new to me. As I have stated in my various interviews, APGA is one united front, and we need to make that point very clear and unequivocal. Some other person can be somewhere trying to lay claim to the leadership of the party or not, but the fact remains that the Supreme Court has said in a couple of cases: you can only become the national chairman of a political party through a national convention, courts do not enthrone national chairmen of political parties, but people always rush to court to claim one relief or the other. And according to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, INEC is mandated to monitor and regulate the activities of political parties. If you look at, I think Section 83 of the Electoral Act, you will see where the INEC is statutorily mandated to monitor the national convention or primaries of political parties and produce a report therein. I have always made it clear, if you say that you are the national chairman it means that you emerged through a national convention, show us the report, the certified true copy that INEC monitored your convention, otherwise you have no legal right or foundation to lay claim to such an office. The second point is the reconciliatory issue. Of course, like I said, APGA is one big family and like a big family being a political party everybody is welcomed into the party, but the most important thing is that we want to form a united front towards knowing how it will be possible for us to acquire political power in Nigeria. At the moment APGA is controlling only Anambra State and if you look at my manifesto, where I shared my agenda, I coined an acrony: DRIVE and that DRIVE is what fuels my mission for APGA. And what is that mission? It is to make APGA the number one political party within the committee of political parties in Nigeria. And the engine to actualize it is the DRIVE principle.
Let’s start with D, which stands for Discipline. It is a core mandate that will make all parts of the political party, members, officers come together in synergy to actualize the ideology and manifestoes of the party. The next one is R, which is Reposition. We want to reposition APGA as I said earlier to be the number one choice political party, for all progressives in Nigeria. And by all progressives, I mean irrespective of the divide, be you a man, a woman, farmer, peasant, civil servant etc, we want APGA to be that destination for every Nigerian. I always say it unequivocally that, Nigeria has been groaning under the grip of bad leadership for decades and we are trying to reposition APGA to be alternative platform for good leadership providing good governance for the country. I always make allusion to our national leader, and governor of Anambra State, Prof Soludo who will always say that the highest form of charity that anybody can engage in is public service, that is the highest level of charity, unfortunately, in Nigeria, it does not seem to be so as people now see political service or public service as a means of acquiring ill-gotten wealth and we in APGA, we are ready to change the narrative and that is why the ‘R’ principle is for us to reposition APGA. The next one is ‘I’ which is inclusiveness and as I said before, we want all members of the party at all levels, ward, local government, state and the national to synergise in such a way that someone at the national does not come to encroach on the powers and functions of party officers at the ward level, or any other level for that matter, so that means we must abide strictly with the provisions/ confines of the constitution of APGA in terms of functions prescribed by the party constitution for each party officer at whatever level.
The next one is visibility. Of course, despite your sound manifesto and ideology, you have to be visible for Nigerians to know that, yes, this political party has offered so, so and so. And to achieve this no matter how you modify the party, no matter the system you bring into the party if people don’t see you as a visible political party there is no way they will align with you. The last one is ‘E’ which is to expand. If you want to achieve much you have to expand APGA beyond your shores, we have to expand beyond Anambra, beyond the Southeast and be in all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria. That is what we intend to do and that underscores the core mandate of my mission in APGA. Like I said earlier, reconciliation is very important because we need a united front to achieve our great vision. So, whoever it is: Be it Edozie Njoku, be it Chekwas Okorie, and everybody who is really interested in the redemption of this country we need them on board. I always say it passionately; I belong to a generation that has never seen anything good in Nigeria in the sense that from the time we were born in the 80s till date, it has been from one form of maladministration to the another. Nigeria is specifically the only country whose past is far more greater than its present and we cannot continue in that way. We cannot allow this to be transmitted to us, the children, and it behooves on us now as young people to come out and say no, enough is enough, we need a change, a generational change. We can’t allow our leaders to continue toying with our destiny, and not just our destiny, the destiny of our children and children’s children.
Having articulated these brilliant vision, what is next in terms of action, your first practical step?
The first step we want to take is very simple, no matter the idealistic proposal, agenda or manifesto that you have for the party the first one is to make sure that officers that are working with you are in sinc, in alignment, agreement with your motive, your mission for the party because as they say, a tree cannot make a forest, so I cannot do it alone, I have a team of young men and women. Of course, we have equally older people also in the party, so you must first of all synergize with your team and the first step is to organize a retreat, so we are preparing for our inaugural retreat. You know if you fail to plan that means you have planned to fail. This idea is not just my idea alone, I brought together young men and women too, who shared the same position on the state of leadership in Nigeria with me. So, we agreed together on the things we need in present day Nigeria leadership. The next thing is to transmit same energy to zeal and the ability to satisfy the other team members in the national working committee of the party and then step it down for the entire party. We need to immediately commence a nation-wide tour of all the state chapters of the party in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT. I don’t think any leadership of the party has ever done that in the past. You see, the state chapters of the party groaning or labouring in isolation, so we need to visit them, all the state chapters to show them that we are one, that we care, that we are together in our political vision and that no one will be neglected in our journey for political power to salvage the country. If you look at the data in Nigeria you will see that over 85 per cent of Nigerians are under the poverty level, so it affects everybody irrespective of the divide. I want to start a revolution of young Nigerians who are ready to say: Enough is enough.
This country has been blessed with abundant natural resources and I think it is time to change the narrative, educate Nigerians to come out and make their vote count in whatever election. Of course, you can see what happened during the last election. What we saw, the upsets, was fueled by the desire for good leadership and I think that is the starting point. You can see a lot of fresh hands elected into the Senate, into the House of Representatives as well as in the various state assembly. You know the story of an Okada rider going into the House of Reps. It is for us to take our destiny into our hands and APGA is ready to offer that credible platform and I am very happy to be the driver of this vehicle.
Let’s move to Tinubunomics and your assessment of what President Tinubu has been able to do so far?
I will always be very quick to say this; it is too early to assess the Tinubu administration, but then I say one thing without any fear of equivocation or backlash. I think starting on the note of removing fuel subsidy is a very good one because I for one has taken an in-depth study of the massive criminal enterprise that is associated with fuel subsidy regime and what I expect Mr. President to do is not just the removal of fuel subsidy, but to set up an investigation to unravel what is there, and hold people accountable. This is our common patrimony that people have frittered away in the guise of fuel subsidy. What we witnessed is the height of economic sabotage, so President Tinubu should not just stop at removing fuel subsidy, but call a thorough investigation into the subsidy regime at least in the past 20 years and whoever is found culpable must be brought to book. They should be made to refund everything the country has paid as subsidy irrespective of the amount, those found guilty must refund it. The second one is to cushion the effect because the people that crafted the subsidy regime was to take away the only thing that Nigerians enjoy from their government. What does the government do for us? Absolutely nothing. Every single thing Nigerians do for themselves, generate their electricity, provide their water by digging boreholes, provide their security, name it. What are the things that you (government) are providing to cushion the effects, I mean palliatives? Where are you channeling the revenue so far made from the fuel subsidy removal? These are issues that you must address? What have you done on the hike in transportation? Have you provided mass buses? Have you provided low cost houses for the people so as to adjust? As it is in Nigeria today a civil servant who has diligently put in 35 years of service cannot even train his child in the university not to talk of to get a three-bedroom bungalow where he can retire in peace. That is the bane of leadership in Nigeria. I am happy the president is looking into the obnoxious naira swap by the CBN, but he must look critically into the economy because our economy is in shambles.
He needs a very strong economic team to look at the economy of this country. The president must cut the cost of governance and plough it back into policies and ideas that will favour the mass majority of Nigerians.
Are you satisfied with what is coming out from the National Assembly, the sharing of offices, the position of the Southeast etc?
Of course, as a member of APGA, okay, let me give this illustration. It is like when people go to hunt and together they kill a very massive bear, someone who was not part of that hunt cannot come and begin to dictate how to share what was killed. That is where we are limited as a party. But the ruling party must show example, show empathy to the people of Southeast. For the past 20 years or so, we have been shouting marginalization and it’s real. It is very clear and evident for anybody to see and I expect Mr President to address that. Look at the way the country is constituted. Look at the equity, you have the president, V.P, the Senate president and the Speaker, House of Reps, the head of the judiciary, the SGF, Chief of Staff; none from the Southeast and you ask yourself; what is the crime of the Southeasterners? That is why I urge every Southeasterner to unite under APGA, a veritable platform through which we can achieve much within the leadership positions in the country.
Speak on the continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu or you think there is nothing wrong about it?
We have said that a couple of times, in fact, as I speak to you, I have prepared an open letter to the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which will also be published in different tabloids in the next two-weeks. There is no two ways about it. Talk about the legality of the continued detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. As at the last count there are three or four judgment, asking the Federal Government to release him including the judgment of the Court of Appeal. Any country that is worth its onion must respect or stand on the rule of law and I call on President Tinubu to forthwith order the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from detention in line with the decisions of superior courts of records. Secondly, the only way you can solve the problem of insecurity in the Southeast is to have Mazi Nnamdi Kanu on the table. Why? The majority of those in various camps in the Southeast are camping there on the erroneous assumption that they are fighting a good course. Now, you have seen how the Southeast has deteriorated, what nobody anticipated in the last 10 years in the Southeast is now happening. People are being kidnapped on daily basis, terrorists are attacking communities on daily basis and people are dying as if they are no longer human beings. The primary responsibility of any government is security of life and property and that is why no matter what you tell me about President Buhari, I believe he was a monumental failure because he failed to secure Nigeria. After his infrastructural stride, of course, we thank him for the Second Niger bridge, but you need to be alive first to enjoy the infrastructure. Once you achieve this primary responsibility of securing life, every other thing will fall in line. And to achieve that President Tinubu should order for the immediate release of Nnamdi Kanu. This is also to ensure the security of lives and property in the Southeast. Bring him to the table…people are in various camps on the guise of fighting a just cause, but when you release him, you can then track down those with criminal tendencies hiding under the guise of freedom for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. The president must harken to the voice of the Southeasterners and release him. Another concern is on his health. We are not under a military dictatorship, this is democracy where people have the right of not just the freedom of association, but also the freedom of expression. Let Tinubu order for his immediate release and then the Southeastern leaders coming together and having a round table discussion on the future of the Southeast. I am one person that believe that the Southeast is blessed with abundant human and material resources and if we come together and quell this insecurity the Southeast can become a driver of the economic prosperity in Nigeria. I advocate the National Assembly to do more. Nigeria is said to be a federal entity and we know how true federation works all over the world. What we practice is unitary government that is designed as a federal structure. Too much power is concentrated in the centre, it’s time for the National Assembly in their constitutional amendment to devolve power to the federating units, so Nigeria should be properly restructured. Fiscal federalism is very important, so that each federating units will develop at their own pace along with the resources at their disposal. The president and the National Assembly should as a matter of fact move the police force from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List. There is no way the I.G of Police can secure the entire country from Abuja, it can’t work. How do I need a man in Abuja to secure me in Anambra? Let it be the responsibility of the state government to have their own police force, equip them to quell, and address the peculiar challenges of its state. The security challenges of Lagos state, for instance, is different from the security challenges of Anambra. Nowhere is safe in the country today, and the life of Nigerians is worth next to nothing now. We can’t continue this way.
Culled from The Sun
