Chief David Attah is a renown Journalist, a former Chief Press Secretary to late Gen. Sanni Abacha and former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar. He turned 67 few days ago after spending several weeks in an Abuja hospital for an undisclosed ailment.

In this interview, he bares his mind on several nagging national issues. Excerpt:
In our  52 years of  independence, Nigeria has been besieged by many challenges; Boko Haram, flooding, insecurity and the rest of them. What do you think  is the way out of these mind shaking issues?

Your question is very penetrating and it deals with the whole gamut of our societal problems. We are like a nation under siege. And when social policies fail like it has failed in Nigeria, we turn to God in prayers to salvage the situation for us.

Or else, how do you explain the extent of calamities? The road is not safe; the air is not safe; the sea is not safe. Waters are leaving their natural course; the margin of safety has become dangerously small. We need to repent.

If you look all around us, God is certainly angry. It could have been more but he doesn’t rush to punish; to show anger, but let’s attempt some inward personal assessment. Each time we take a step, we put the wrong foot forward. There is no way you will sow the seed of failure and expect success.

It’s foolhardiness isn’t it? God has blessed us in every kind of way; human resources, mineral resources, arable land, but we have grossly impoverished ourselves through mismanagement, under-utilization, greed,  corruption. That is not what will exult a nation.

Open the pages of our newspapers everyday and you see the number of billions being embezzled with reckless abandon. Nobody is ever apprehended or punished. Nigeria is the only country that I know where virtue is not rewarded nor evil punished.

This kind of situation has not engendered in the citizenry a sense of belonging to the Nigerian nation.

And that is why we are today enmeshed in so many anti-social behaviours. When you have a government whose social policies are socially satisfying, you are bound to have a responsible and law abiding citizens. But the contrary is the case, you are bound to have the kind of situation we all find ourselves in.

Today, there is need for attitudinal transformation. What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

Public officers should bear in mind that they hold whatever offices they do in trust for the people.

David Attah

Let them fall back to the dictates of their conscience. Is it fair to all concerned? Will their actions imbue better friendship and goodwill? Will their actions and policies be beneficial to all concerned? Leaders have to do this without being told. Self-evaluation which comes naturally with moral leadership.

This is not the Nigeria that I used to be very proud of. Things have gone gagas. We seem to have no sense of shame, no sense of outrage, no sense of shock. And the new generation of leaders will not fall down like rain. Let them evolve; let it evolve from the system. Very soon we will be electing leaders to the national assembly and the various states assembly.

I believe the electorates are not exacting appreciative pressure. We just keep our leaders and representatives on their toes so much so that they have no qualms about their stewardship. And I bet you those who try to be different will not return next time around. That is the name of the game.

And the operative political value is zero-some game. Winner takes all. There is no way you will have democracy in that kind of situation. Essentially, whatever brand of democracy you have, it is about the peaceful co-existence of different ideas.  Majority will have its way while the minority will have its say.

And the opposition is always waiting in the wings to take a bite anytime the person in power falls out of favour. Democracy is about people; a call to service; service above self. It’s not about personal aggrandizement. If my boss, Dangote makes his billions, it’s understandable, he has invested and he is in business to make money.

But when public officers make their billions, they have stolen and that is the truth. Me, I thank God I’ve served and I’ve served. I served two military heads of state consecutively.

I am humbled by this experience and that era is gone. I am glad the era of military rule is gone and if it were on you cannot have the same servant serve two of them consecutively. What does it mean? My responsibility was to my job and nothing else. I served beyond routine requirements. And I deployed the collective expertise of my colleagues, relations, everybody.

Think of what you give to your country and not exclusively what your country will give to you. Your country shouldn’t be treated like a cake that is made for consumption. It’s about development; it’s about the happiness of the generality of the people. We should not be tired of praying. Now that I do nothing but read papers, some of the columns and articles are very illuminating.

Sometimes I begin to wonder whether policy makers find time to read them. Otherwise, they contain ideas that are capable of removing us from the wimpiest mud that we are today entangled. I was a reporter like you; became a personnel manager; became general manager; went to the House of Representative; became a commissioner here; then served as the spokesman for Nigeria.

But if you have no money, nobody thinks about you. That is why I am surprised that you found something in me. The moment you are out of government you fall into disuse; nobody uses your experience. You are committed to the graveyard of history at the time that your maturity and wealth of experience should be brought to play for the benefit of the society just like those before you.

Considering the challenges we are facing presently under President Goodluck Jonathan, do you think it is appropriate for him to run for another term in 2015?

Power intoxicates and absolute power intoxicates absolutely. I think the philosopher who said it was Edmund Burk. He made this observation several centuries ago but they are more relevant today than when this statement was made. Put two and two together and say what you get in the attitude of human being who haven tasted power wants to cling to it even if citizen David Attah says it’s not proper. He won’t listen to me.

Most people are mad in office and to destroy them is calamity itself. From our experience, it is never late to quit. There has not been a smooth transfer of power in this country but regrettably, the ordinary man and woman is the victim of this callousness; of this power-drunkenness.

I wonder how much time they have to do some planning and reflection. As soon as one election is over they begin to gun for the next round. Haba mallam.  You haven’t finished one election and yet you are closing shop for another. It’s only in Nigeria that this can happen.

I want to see positive change in the way people react to their responsibility. There is need to de-emphasize self and give more premium to others. That is what leadership is all about. Think of our former leaders from the Nigerian experience; Chief Awolowo, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Aminu Kano, Tony Enahoro, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Michael Okpara, you name them.

This was not the foundation they laid. The way we are roaring today is diametrically opposed to the vision of our founding fathers. May God Almighty throw up virtuous leaders because it is even said that when the righteous is in the saddle the people rejoice. And this is a voice in the wilderness but we will never be tired.

If you are to advise President Jonathan about 2015 what will that advice be?
My advice means nothing; I can only analyse the situation. If he is doing well he knows; the people will oblige him; people will warm up to him. And if you are not doing well, why do you want to continue? You have very ably analyzed some of our major calamities.

Are they ameliorating or getting more complicated? Are they getting worse or better? Progressively I believe things are getting worse. That is why I said that people should look inward and appeal to the dictates of their Christian conscience. You don’t need somebody to tell you how badly you are doing before you know.

Having served under the military regime and now we in democratic period, how will you assess democracy vis as vis military rule?

It is a very interesting question but any attempt to compare the military rule with democratic rule is an exercise in futility because they are essentially different in nature and character.

One is dictatorship. Even me, a civilian working under the military, there is a natural tendency for every civilian to prefer the civilian government no matter how the military government has been benevolent.

They may try to build roads, bridges and so on because they don’t have anybody restraining their authority and influence. Decision making under the military rule is faster. The civilian is held by checks and balances. So, you can’t afford to draw parallel between the military rule and the democratic rule.

They are not comparable. As I said, they are different in nature and character and by their uniqueness, they produce different results. The Nigerian situation is what I am looking at. Go to Ghana, the civilian regime has done very well there. Go to South Africa, go to other parts of Africa. And that is why we are crying that we have got what it takes to have good governance and efficient delivery system.

Mother nature has blessed us abundantly. So, however benevolent a military regime is, it is still an aberration; not only in Nigeria but all over the world. And that is why in America, as mighty as the Army is, it still subordinate itself to civilian authority. Ditto France, ditto Russia, ditto Germany.

It is because of the genuineness of our situation that we have all these social and political experiments. And now the condition for take over is more than before but which military is going to come there now? The world system; the UN will not allow it.

Forget what is happening in the banana states; Equatorial Guinea, South Sudan and the rest of them. They are going through the processes that we underwent before stabilizing to this stage.

The last time we met with you, you said Boko haram is a riddle (cuts in)
right from the beginning, our reaction to Boko Haram was very feverish. Even at the time I was not feeling fine, I wrote an article on it. What is it? If you don’t define your situation, we won’t know what policy to adopt to confront the problem.

Precise definition of what it is; who are the people involved? What do they want? Are they a terrorist group, a religious group or a group of anarchists? And I warned at that time that unless something happens, the terrible phenomenon will infiltrate our security system before you know it.

And that has happened. Our reaction time is very slow. We take too many things for granted in this country we have double standards in this country. We have so many sacred cows that cannot be touched in this country.

So, by our official actions and neglect we encourage the development of things like that. It is just now with the support of some international community that we are beginning to deal decisively with them. Initially, the official response to it (Boko Haram) was very feverish.

Then you begin to wonder why they were afraid of the group. See how many casualties that have fallen. And you want to look at their effrontery and bravado; they attack armed people, they attack barracks.

You must be sure of your arsenal before you attempt to do a thing like that. These are things which you study carefully in the process of defining what kind of situation you are up against before you embark on action programme.

So, as I said, it’s a difficult time for all of us; the government, the citizens; you can’t go to your place of worship feeling confident that you will be back or you will do so in safety. You are traveling on the road; you don’t know what is ahead of you.

Let’s all join hands, put on our thinking caps and come up with something. Boko Haram is a strange phenomenon which defies all understanding.

You cannot even rationalize their actions. A group of people will arrogate to themselves the license to kill without provocation.