By Soni Daniel, Regional Editor, North
Chief Ameh Ebute, a lawyer and politician in the Peoples Democratic Party, was the Senate President in the Third Republic and has continued to play active in the current dispensation. He is the Chairman of the National Open University of Nigeria and a major stakeholder in national and Benue State politics.

In this interview, Ebute talks on a wide range of issues, chief among them, on why governors dictate Nigeria’s politics and why corruption is rising in the country despite the presence of anti-corruption agencies.

Excerpts:

Why are you supporting Jonathan in all your ways?

I am supporting Jonathan naturally because he is a very humble person, a minority like me, and I know that if given a chance, he would perform.

Senator Ameh Ebute

Actually, he has performed. Again, his emergence as Nigeria’s president is a clear indication that this country does not belong to any particular tribe or group, as some persons have tended to claim. It is not the birthright of anybody. God has crowned President Goodluck Jonathan to be our leader and he should be allowed to lead us. That is why I continue to back him.

You claim that Jonathan has performed but some have claimed that he has failed to address some of the fundamental challenges facing the country. How do you justify his performance?

Well, that performance can be segmented. You have infrastructural performance and administrative performance – that is being slow when taking decision.  You have insurgency that has just cropped up in the country and so on. But as far as I am concerned the infrastructural facilities that President Jonathan has put up since he came on board cannot be equalled by any other administration in Nigeria. That is one.

Two, people say he is slow in taking decision but I don’t believe that. This country is very large and it is not advisable for the President to rush into taking any decision when there are issues on the table. He should take his time, though that does not mean that issues should take three or four years on his table. But as far as combating insurgency is concerned, it is not the fault of the President.

Early enough, the president had deployed the military to counter the insurgents but unfortunately, because Nigeria had never anticipated this kind of attacks since the end of the civil war, our military was never prepared for it until recently. We did not even have the equipment to tackle them until recently. It is not the fault of the president that Boko Haram has continued to attack people in some parts of the North since the nation had never prepared for the kind of onslaught that has been visited on the nation by the elements.

Is the adoption of the president as sole candidate of the PDP not in contravention of the party’s constitution?

It is true but let me tell you that the administration of a political party does not depend entirely on the constitution of the party but also on conventions and practices. What is done in other countries can also be done here as a conventional practice.

So, this is the first time it has happened in Nigeria and I am sure in the future any other political party, whose president is in power, be it APC or PDP, or any other party, will never challenge an incumbent president because it is an act of disloyalty and insubordination to the president. Interpreted in African perspective, such an affront would mean that anyone trying to challenge a sitting president does not have respect for him and his office. How can an ordinary person be more popular than a sitting president? So, it is a new development that political parties should embrace happily. It would reduce tension within the party and the country.

But it looks like a defeatist approach to politics?

I don’t see anything defeatist about it. If Jonathan had been allowed to go for the primary of his party, he would still have won. Who would have been more popular and well-placed to have defeated him?

Nigeria is worse today than when you were the Senate President in the second Republic. What is fuelling the level of corruption in Nigeria today?

What is causing the problem is basically our value system that has placed emphasis on money rather than merit. Besides, the younger generation that now dominates the political scene in Nigeria has come with a higher taste than the older generation like us who grew up in the villages and were contented with simple lifestyles. Most of the present set of politicians grew up in the cities and have higher, complex lifestyle and tastes.

They need a lot of money to sustain the avant-garde lifestyle they are used to. Their quest for money is abnormal. During our time, senators were not allowed to go to the ministries to source for contracts. These days such stories are rampant. It is unfortunate that we are developing like this politically.

How did parties lose their grip on top officials in government that the president and governors now seem to be above the party unlike in your time?

I agree with you that in the second Republic, even up to the early part of the Third Republic, political parties were supreme because the governors who were in office in the Second Republic for four years never made enough money to assert their positions.

But as time went on, especially during the Obasanjo administration, many governors acquired so much money and used it to take control of the parties because of the prevailing poverty among the electorate. The governors took control of the party structures in their states by influencing the election of state chairmen who extended their tentacles to the local government level.

That was how the parties at the state level became the stooges of the governors.  I started fighting this during the Second Republic when one of the governors in the South-South refused to give allocations to LGAs. We went to court but unfortunately the case was not concluded before we left office. The parties lost grip on its members, particularly governors, because of money.

The governors acquired so much money and they became lords at the state and lorded it over everyone else; they were the ones who influenced the election of Senators, House of Representatives, and selected delegates for national conventions. They controlled and manipulated every level of politics and even wanted to control the president except Obasanjo. That is why I like Obasanjo. He did not allow any state governor to dictate to him.

Do you support zoning of political offices in Nigeria?

Of course I would support zoning for the sake of equity and justice. I would support zoning between the North and the South, zoning among the six geo-political zones that were created by Abacha. But let me tell you that the way zoning is being practised in Nigeria is not fair. It does not come anything near equity or justice. It is just a tool in the hands of people who have power to use and decide how and where power should go.

How is politics going in your state, Benue?

I want to say that due to the high level of injustice committed in Benue State, I do not seem to be very interested in its politics.

Why is that so?

Well, the truth is that Benue politics is always dominated by the Tivs, who are in majority. In the ministries they are there, the Tivs take control of everything. But now that politics is coming, I have to wake and fight for the people whom I want to be in office for the sake of the people. That is the interest that I have in the state’s politics.

It’s reported that in your local government the zoning arrangement stipulating one term for each representative of the Ado, Ogbadibo and Okpokwu Federal Constituency has been overruled by some powerful interests. How do you feel?

That is a piece of nonsense that happened recently because I am aware of the decision taken in 2010 to the effect that anyone who occupies the Federal House of Representatives seat in Ado, Okpokwu and Ogbadibo should only stay for one term so that the people of the three LGAs can have a sense of fair representation.

Ameh Ebute

But three people just sat down and said that they were the elders of the party and that they had a message for the elders of the three LGAs and that the office had been zoned to Ogbadibo. It is a piece of nonsense because the state chairman of the party, the minister of Interior and the Deputy Governor have no power or jurisdiction to zone a Federal Constituency seat to anyone.

If zoning is to be done, it should be the National Secretariat of PDP and not the state chapter or a minister and his friends. They cannot do it and it can never be done. It is just an illusion and a display of arrogance because some of them have stolen money and believe they can use the money to intimidate everyone. I am going to challenge them and my own candidate if different from the one they have earmarked, is going to contest the election.

Have you taken time to discuss this with the governor of the state and what has been his reaction?

The governor should have no say in this matter because he is not from that Federal Constituency. He has his own constituency and I am sure he is not going to dictate to the people of his constituency where the seat should go in 2015. So, I don’t need to consult the governor on this matter.

If the governor goes the way I don’t like, I challenge him. That is the function of an elder statesman. Even if it is the President who has done something that I don’t like, I would tell him, please sir, I don’t like this, with all due respect.

What the minister and party chairman did amounted to an illegality. It breached the principle of democracy that everybody must have a say. It was so bad that they connived and prevented me from getting the microphone to speak. All of them are my political boys.

The minister was my aide in charge of my office in the second republic, for two years. I employed him as my Legislative aide as soon as he finished his NYSC. I made him chairman of my LGA and he was there for nine years. It is just an act of disobedience that will haunt them for a long time to come.

I am not going to stand by that zoning and I am going to give them a fight. I am going to prove to them that I have not expired in that area of Benue State politically. They cannot do that and get away with it without consulting me as the political leader of the area.

What of the candidate you want to throw up. How reliable is that candidate?

The man, I want to bring is a man of integrity and can adequately represent us. He’s a well trained journalist and has good educational standing and moral character. He is a man who has been working privately for the people. I believe in him and he has the interests of the people.