Elder Statesman, Chief David Attah served two former Military Heads of State, Generals Sanni Abacha and Abdulsalami Abubakar as Chief Press Secretary. In this interview with Vanguard’s Peter Duru he expresses sadness at the level of corruption, poverty and unemployment in the country and on why he has been out of touch with Mrs. Mariam Abacha, widow of the late Abacha. Excerpts:

LOOKING at the present administration under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan, do you think with his transformational agenda, he can take us to the promised land?

It is not words, we are not short of words, we are not short of paradigms or even methods but the will power and the sincerity, the moral fiber and strength required to do things differently to be positive in our mental attitude.

Our present mental attitude is too negative and too confrontational. It’s not confrontation but cooperation. We must solve our socio-economic paralysis with analysis and good action otherwise we will be permanently caught in it. There is no other way out.

It’s not Goodluck Jonathan, it’s about us. It’s a collective indictment, it’s a collective responsibility. It’s just that a man has to lead the nation. The responsibility of making the nation function belongs to every Nigerian.

How do you think the problem of insecurity as expressed in the activities of Boko Haram can be addressed?

Boko Haram is a very strange phenomenon. It’s incapable of any precise definition. I have been trying to understand what is the objective of Boko Harram; is it a social protest or is it a religious movement because it is hanging loose. Judging by what people try to interpret it to mean, that they are against anything western, (Western education is a sin or a taboo). For us as a country, having been engrossed in this system or culture of life, do we suddenly dismantle it?

Attah

So, meeting their requirement becomes difficult. Understanding their intention becomes difficult. So what do we do?

People are suspecting some individuals to be behind this Boko Haram insurgence. Well, I started saying that we must solve our socio-economic paralysis with analysis. And unless you dialogue, you cannot analyze. All the overtures being made in the direction of dialogue have met very stiff resistance. And I am worried about it.

Judging from Obasanjo’s intervention, his initiative in going to take the pain to want to go and talk to the people on the Boko Harram issue in Maiduguri is one thing I admire.

Sadly, you saw what happened overnight thereafter, the man was killed. And suggestions are being made that a committee should be set up consisting of such respected traditional rulers like the Sultan, the Emir of Bauchi and some clerics.

Part of the problems

Here again they (Boko Harram sect) are saying no that these people are part of the problems they are fighting. So, what do we do? It makes dialogue difficult, it makes negotiation difficult, bargaining almost impossible let alone talking about solutions. So, Boko Harram is a riddle.

You were two-time Chief Press Secretary to two former Military Heads of State. We want to know if you still visit with the families of these former Military Heads of State particularly that of Late General Sanni Abacha?

I haven’t done much in that direction because I myself, I have a lot of problems. I lost my beautiful wife. I needed to organize my life and everybody who knew Joy (late wife) and I knew that we were very close. After she died, things have not been the same. I almost became a recluse. I am only managing to hold myself together. So, I have not done much in the area of visiting Abacha’s family.

Again, I had a driver who was so close to me who I could use if I couldn’t go myself. He too died. I am one person who believes that if you take relationship out of life it becomes useless, void. It is out of office that I would want to develop true friendship. Friendship, the way I understand it is far from being utilitarian but something spiritual.

My friends mean so much to me and they know it. Goodwill for all, malice towards none. You will never find me criticize for the love of criticism or just because I want to be quoted or because I want to impress. God is love and we who have been created in the image of God should embrace love of one another. Even when we are aggrieved or we have been done under, we should forgive. Besides, this is an integral part of the Christian and Islamic faith.

There is this clamour now in several quarters to have the Senate President run for President come 2015. I don’t know if you are aware of this and if you are, do you subscribe to that? Is Idoma nation prepared for that?

Well, I am an Idoma. A minority group in the Nigerian scheme of things but there is one characteristics of an average Idoma man. He is not inhibited. He has a very big heart. Not just David Mark, including David Attah. Adam was the first man created by God and we believe that that Adam was an Idoma man. That is why we are the only people who answer Adam. Seriously speaking, you may be disappointed

with this point I am going to make. Zoning is a political expediency that will vanish from our body politics in the nearest future. When there is displacement, there is replacement. What value is going to replace it? Meritocracy. Whether you are Idoma, Tiv, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba or any other tribe, when you are within a system and you are qualified, you should be allowed.

Even our constitution allows it. Anybody can aspire to the highest position in this country without inhibition. So, I will welcome that day and may God hasten the day. That one day, we will acquire the right political culture that will make zoning unnecessary because in principle, zoning is to encourage participatory democracy in a plural setting, in a multi-cultural, multi-religious society.

It’s all part of nation building. One day, God will help us to achieve true national integration when each one of us will be a perfect substitute to the other irrespective of our tribe or clime. That is the way of the future; that is the way of development; that is the way of civilization.

We have started but going by the analysis we have been making, we are taking a critical look at ourselves to see the journey so far. But we have the potentials to get to our destination by changing many things in our attitude, in our institution that have become clogs in the wheel of progress.