* Insists June 12 would have been annulled with or without IBB
*’Why politicians distrust one another’
*’How we got stuck with Obasanjo’

This second part of the interview with Dr. Iyorchia Ayu which we started last Sunday reveals how the forces which wanted the annulment of the June 12 presidential elections succeeded in rendering the then military President Ibrahim Babangida helpless.“Yes, IBB was the military leader at that time but let me tell you the truth, General Babangida was helpless, whether Babangida wanted it or not, June 12 election would have been annulled; there was nothing he could have done about it. “My only problem with him and the unfortunate thing is that he has not been able to come out and tell the truth about what happened.  As a military commander, he couldn’t come out and say he was helpless.“But I say it again, as somebody who knew what went on at that time, I think that the forces that nullified the June 12 presidential election were as of that particular time much stronger than their commander-in-chief”. Why and how was Obasanjo who never formed part of the embryonic Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, smuggled in as presidential candidate? How did Ayu himself become the Director General of Olusegun Obasanjo’s campaign team in 1999? Why did Obasanjo sack Ayu in 2000? Read all these here. Excerpts:

By Jide Ajani, Deputy Editor

After all that you went through during the June 12 crisis, and especially how the Babangida government hounded you, when you now sit at a meeting of the Northern Political Leaders Forum with an Ibrahim Babangida, talking about fairness and equity, how does that make you feel – because this issue of zoning or no zoning is about justice, fairness, equity?
As an insider, who knew so much about what went on at that time, let me tell you, I respect General Babangida for one thing: for owning up for all that happened that time.  This is because as he said, the buck stopped on his table.  Some other Nigerians would have come up to tell us the truth just to excuse themselves, that ‘I was helpless’.

But he was the President, Commander-in-Chief?
Yes, he was the military leader at that time but let me tell you the truth: General Babangida was helpless.  Whether Babangida wanted it or not, June 12 election would have been annulled; there was nothing he could have done about it.
My only problem with him and the unfortunate thing is that he has not been able to come out and tell the truth about what happened.  As a military commander, he couldn’t come out and say he was helpless. But I say it again, as somebody who knew what went on at that time, I think that the forces that nullified the June 12 presidential election were as of that particular time much stronger than their commander-in-chief.

Coming from you and with what you went through, it beats me.  Can you give an example of how the forces operated?  Prof. Omo Omoruyi in an earlier interview said Babangida had thought that he could reverse the Sudan-like structure of Nigeria as handed down by the British, which would make the north be in power permanently and the south, always playing a second fiddle, could be addressed through the process of a free and fair election but the forces you mentioned took over?

You see, managing a polity like Nigeria is a very complex thing. It requires a lot of social and political engineering, which Babangida thought he was doing by involving a lot of intellectuals, extremely brilliant people like Prof. Omo Omoruyi and others, who were helping to manage the complexities of the country in balancing sentiments and sensitivities; balancing politics in the military; balancing geo-political forces; balancing class and ethnicity.  This was always going on through the rigmarole of General Babangida and, perhaps, may be he also enjoyed it and for him to have juggled it for eight years, he must have enjoyed it.  He loves some little intrigues.  May be he enjoyed it but it was also a very risky thing to do.

But as time went on, and no matter how good you are as a juggler in Nigeria, the forces will at some point overwhelm you.  It happened to General Yakubu Gowon.  After some eight years he suddenly discovered that the centre could no longer hold.  In his own case, he was removed via a military coup.

If General Babangida didn’t want that election to hold at all in 1993, he could have done so; but he balanced the various forces and the election was held.

Did you ever ask him if he intended to leave and handover power?
Yes!  I remember I went to him before the Jos Convention of the SDP several times and I said ‘sir, are you sure you want to hand over – three different occasions’. And he would tell me ‘absolutely, I want to hand over’.

I again once asked, ‘are you sure you are not going to nullify this thing the way you stopped the presidential aspirants and disbanded their political parties the previous year’?

And he would say ‘no, no, no; the primaries will go on, the parties will have their candidates and the elections would go on’. So, I believed him when after Jos, we actually saw Abiola emerge as a candidate; we went on to campaign across the country, he didn’t stop it.

Elections were brilliantly organized and I was proud to be an academic with the performance of the team that was put together (Prof. Omoruyi and Prof. Humphrey Nwosu and others).  I believed that a lot of pressure at every point was brought to bear to stop the process until the elections held and the results came out and it became evident that Abiola was going to take over and the centre could not hold. So, whether he liked it or not, that thing would have been nullified.

And what happened ultimately, the only area where I blame him is that ‘you knew your colleagues in the army and if you knew that you seriously wanted to hand over, why didn’t you retire all of them before they became so powerful that you could not control them’. This is actually what happened; I think he’s a soldier and a honourable man. I’m not supporting him in any material particular.

There are some contradictions that I have observed. How come we are using geo-political zones as determinants of power sharing arrangement when, in actual fact, the states are there and they are recognized by the constitution? The position of the Northern Political Leaders Forum is not in tandem with what the average Nigerian wants.  What the people want is just good governance and not the tribe and tongue of who is in charge. So, at what point shall we stop this geo-political arrangement?

I’ll give two interesting examples: One from the United Kingdom and the other from the United States of America.  The UK is one of the oldest democracies; old also by way of western civilization and you would expect that by now, people there would not be talking about north and south, Wales and English, Scots and Irish.  Yet, this is still a problem which the UK is struggling to contend with. In 1983, an English professor published a very successful book entitled: THE BREAKUP OF BRITAIN and if you remember that was the time the Irish problem became hot again and the book tried to analyse the basic contradictions in the British society, along the lines of the Scots who feel marginalised, about the six counties in Northern Ireland that believe that they should be returned to the part of the 26 counties in the south which were arbitrarily cut out in 1922.

The Welsh, too, had their own problem of promoting Welsh nationalism.  Today the Scots have their parliament; the Northern Irish people now have powers devolved to their parliament.  Nations grapple with peculiarities in their own polity for stability and for progress.  Even within the English themselves, you have contradictions between north of England and south of England – the Yorkshire man believes that the southern English man is dominating him.
In the US, the first President, after over 200 years of history that ignored the question of north and south was Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who picked his running mate from neighbouring Tennessee.  In the past, if the president came from the north, there would be a southern vice president and vice versa, just to try and balance the peculiar nature of the American society – the south, more agrarian, more conservative; the north, more suave, urbane and all that.  They have states in America too, 50.

In Nigeria that is a young democracy, of course the six geo-political zones are not in the constitution but states, 36 and the Federal capital territory, FCT, are recognized.  Some political leaders came together to say, wait a minute, based on a certain grouping, based on political history and background.  Even after the abolition of the regions we had before, there are still organizations and institutions that still exist to make reference to and preserve those regional structures – Oodua Investment, Bank of the North and so on.

People, by long association come together to give vent to this thing: Northern Governors’ Forum; Southern Governors’ Forum, South East Governors’ Forum; South South Governors’ Forum and so on. You can not put everything in the constitution it’s the basic things that are there.  Certain political arrangements are worked out.  And as you amend the constitution, you begin to take care of those things that were not there before and that is why in America you hear of the First Amendment, Second Amendment and so on.

This is Nigeria’s First Amendment now and it will continue – even though we have written and re-written many constitutions.  As political leaders, you discuss, you agree and disagree.  So far, we have done very well because we are talking.

However, rather than move forward, what I see some people attempting to do now is to move us backwards to those things that are likely going to create a major problem for us as a nation.  We should move forward and not back and forth.

Please answer this sincerely: What is wrong with you politicians that you do not trust one another?  It is so bad that the people do not trust you and even amongst yourselves, suspicion is the watchword?
Professor Billy Dudley, one of the best intellectual minds that we have produced in this country wrote in his inaugural lecture that skepticism is a political virtue.

In life, even as human beings, we are suspicious of each other, we doubt everything and when it now comes to the issue of organizing for political power, it’s like war.  You suspect everybody and it is on the basis of those mutual suspicion that you begin to discuss and reach agreements.  As you discuss, you agree and you disagree but you move forward.

Even all these fuss about Jonathan, the man has not come out to say he wants to contest?
Yes, he has not come out to say he wants to contest but he has also not come out to say that he would not contest. Utterances of his aides and his own body language, his interview with CNN and his recent comments in Canada, particularly, where he said those opposing him are bigots, more than declares his interest in contesting and some of his own rabid supporters have gone to the extent of saying there has never been anything like zoning. Yet, they were part and parcel of those who voted, democratically, for zoning at an expanded caucus meeting of the PDP in Aso Rock Presidential Villa. He may not have declared, but his body language is antithetical to the very thing he benefitted from.

In which way?

He did not become Vice President by merit.  He was not the best qualified person in the south to be Vice President; he benefitted by zoning because Yar’Adua could have picked anybody from the south.

Politicians brought us to where we are today.  When Obasanjo was first sold to you people, what was your reaction?
My own reaction or….

I mean the reaction of the group that was preparing to form the PDP.  How did you people react when the military people sold the idea of Obasanjo to you?

Well, let me explain something to you. In the G-34, we had our political friends with us – late Bola Ige and a few others, they were there with us. When General Abacha died and we came together to form a political party, most of our friends from the South West were with us.  In fact, I’m sure you know that Chief Bola Ige was the chairman of the constitution drafting committee of what became the PDP.

We had key people we were looking at who would emerge as candidates from the south.

We also had the chairman of the G-34, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, whom we respected tremendously and there were some of us who were looking up to him.  Mind you, when forming a political party, you do not have a homogeneous group; you have pockets of groupings and in the case of the formation of PDP, five different groups came together – seven people per group.

Each group was also looking for its own candidate and we kept on talking and discussing.  At a point, our friends from the South West pulled out of the formation.

They first went and formed the All Peoples Party, APP. Then they broke away again and formed the Alliance for Democracy, AD.

I believe that if they had not pulled out – those key actors, I mean of that our party at that stage, if someone like Bola Ige was with us, I doubt very much if Obasanjo would have emerged as the candidate of the party.  As of that time, Obasanjo was still in prison, he was not part of the formation of the PDP. We were 37 and he (Obasanjo) was certainly not one of us.

Along the line, as we kept consulting, two tendencies emerged.  One was made up of those who were in support of Dr. Ekwueme.  Ultimately, there were those who were looking at Obasanjo who was in prison, released, pardoned and was funded principally by Ibrahim Babangida and T Y Danjuma – they raised money from their friends or from wherever for Obasanjo I don’t know and in any case I had no money – decided to support Obasanjo.  His financiers were all from the North because Obasanjo could not have financed even a local government election at that time, just coming out of prison.  They sold the idea of Obasanjo to us, we the politicians within this new party, the PDP, which we were just putting together.

So, you people fell for Obasanjo?
With his antecedents yes! He handed over power, he remained a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, member of many bodies in the world. Nigeria’s image was battered so much that we needed somebody with that stature to help out, he also made pretensions to being an intellectual – he was writing books; he also ran a forum at Otta.  Every thing recommended Obasanjo.

Everything but Obasanjo recommended Obasanjo?
Even the South West said he is our son; but he’s no good; we do not recommend him.  Privately and publicly they told us and by way of election, they rejected him. It was the North that saw his then sterling qualities and adopted him as an orphan and made him look good to the rest of the world.  This was what happened. It was these two groups that emerged at the Jos Convention – the one for Obasanjo and the other for Ekwueme. It was the North that made Obasanjo president in 1999 and 2003.

The Obasanjo you know is referred to as the cause of Nigeria’s problems today because between 1999 and 2007, many people believe that Nigeria lost it because Obasanjo bastardised the internal democracy in the PDP and even misapplied the constitution?

When you say I know Obasanjo, I wouldn’t say I knew Obasanjo that closely before 1999.  What I knew of Obasanjo was what every other Nigerian knew about him in the public domain.  He was a critic of all his successors and created the impression that if he were there as president he would do better.  He criticized Shagari, he criticized Buhari, he attacked General Babangida and was a relentless critic; when Abiola was elected he said he was not the messiah.

So, how did you become the Director General of his campaign in 1999?
My close association came in 1999 when I was approached by my friend, Atiku Abubakar, who said:  ‘please, they say Obasanjo is a very difficult person and they need somebody with equally strong personality to manage his campaign’.
I told him that there were so many other people with strong personality but Atiku insisted that it must be me. So, I joined his campaign after consultation with my colleagues in the party, particularly in the North Central Zone.  That was when I actually started working closely with him as DG of his campaign. We started off very well; two of us have similar personalities any way and so we disagreed from time to time.

Was there anything you appreciate or appreciated about him?
He is very hard working.

Everybody seems to agree on that.
Obasanjo!  He is a tireless worker.  He doesn’t get tired; he works very, very hard and you must give him credit for that.
The only problem was that even during the campaigns, he presented an image of somebody who knew more than every other person.  It would take a long time to convince him that the line of action that he was taking was very wrong.
Obasanjo is temperamental – very temperamental. After we finished the elections, the quality I appreciate in him most is the hard work. He’s intelligent, alright; but he complements it with tremendous hard work. I was one of the few ministers he appointed twice

But we fell out later.  He sacked me but in the build up to the 2003 elections, he tried very hard and made up with me then re-appointed me in 2003 as Interior Minister and we worked together.

There is also this I know-it-all attitude which people complain about?
I noticed that in him while we were in government.  The military streak in him was too strong.
Initially when he came in, in 1999, he wanted to be a democrat.

Whenever you took anything to him he would always show you the constitution which was always beside him and he would point it out to you that what you wanted to do was unconstitutional.

But somewhere along the line, he lost it. He derailed off the democratic line and I guess this started when he started nursing the idea of being a life president, what people call Third Term and at that point he started having more sporadic running battles with the National Assembly.

The attempt to remove Ghali Na’Abba and the constant interference with the operations of the legislature became a major problem. In a democracy, it is the legislature that makes it work. The president can be a dictator but so long as the legislature knows its duties very well, then that democracy would thrive.

His attempt to destabilize the National Assembly was an undemocratic disposition. Secondly, this is a federation that we are managing and his attempt to bring the state governors under his direct control was another major problem that almost destroyed everything.

He capped it by trying to change the constitution.  His attempt to change the constitution was a major set back.  Look at other African countries like Zimbabwe, Uganda and the rest of them who have done that type of thing.  Where are they today and how are they faring?  Although he denied the allegation afterwards that he did not want it, we know what happened.

He started very well, given his penchant for hard work, being initially serious about issues that would bring about development, like power and infrastructure, but once politics took centre stage and gave way to governance and that politics was geared towards one man every other thing was bound to suffer.

Rather than contribute meaningfully to the development of democracy, he contributed negatively, especially the do or die politics.  The imposition of Yar’Adua and Jonathan on the party and the way he was imposing state governorship candidates all worked negatively to destroy our democracy.  He also destroyed the independence of INEC. Today, people are abusing Maurice Iwu but INEC was destroyed by Obasanjo. The thing became war and every state had to be captured and once you reduce politics to that, then you are not being serious.

The problem we are in today in Nigeria is all because of Obasanjo and history will trace it to him.  Rather than laying a very strong foundation, Obasanjo fell far short of the expectations of the people because people modeled Obasanjo after Mandela.

Obasanjo destroyed Obasanjo, to go back to the issue of ‘everybody recommended Obasanjo but Obasanjo himself.  Today, rather than being respected in the world, he is despised.  There was an Elders’ Forum in South Africa, Obasanjo was not invited. He destroyed himself.

What led to your removal as minister?
Obasanjo doesn’t like it when people oppose him.  It’s a command and control situation, so you have to just do what he wants.  He came from the army but I came in from the university and we argue; we discuss.  I was one of the ministers who could stand up to him, about five of us in a cabinet of 40 something. Obasanjo never liked that.  It was in 2000 when the issue of privatization came up and I opposed the privatization of Benue Cement Company, BCC; he didn’t like it. He sacked me from the cabinet and I was glad to leave.

This world view of yours, how did you come about it? To some, you could be regarded as a dangerous politician, some would say you are steely, others would say you must be troublesome?
I come from a republican background. We the Tiv people, we are republican and we believe in fairness and we do not like injustice.  We like a society that is reasonably equal and even in the villages people live life like that and I was born into that type of community.

I grew up into the politics of the United Middle Belt Congress, UMBC, against the domination of NPC which was about justice.  I was very much educated by that struggle and some of the allies of the UMBC were AG and NEPU.  Up till; today, most of my friends are people who believe in that order. Sule Lamido, the governor of Jigawa, whose heritage is NEPU remains my very good friend; Bola Tinubu, very close associate of mine, his heritage is of AG and there are many others like that.

As I grew older, my wide reading of societies across the world and of the history of Nigeria, the practice of governance and how people have struggled for emancipation, either in Russia, China or the United Kingdom and I was very fortunate to be a student of history and social sciences and I admire the way people fight for justice and I admire the way earlier generations of Nigeria fought for our independence.

I feel I have a responsibility to my immediate community and to Nigeria to stand by the truth.  Some times as a human being, I may not live perfectly by that but I constantly remind myself of where I am coming from and where I am going.

Back to the Northern Political Leaders Forum, what would you say stands the body out, from the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, or even the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, or Dr. Olusola Saraki’s Unity Forum?  It’s all more of the same, pushing the same agenda; so why the multiplicity of groups? Is it to create a sense of broadness in the demand for the presidency?
What is going on now at the Northern Political Leaders Forum is just a coming together of politicians and this is not the first time it would happen. When Obasanjo wanted the Third Term, the northern political leaders came together, including General Muhammadu Buhari and we worked together to stop Third Term. We lobbied people in the National Assembly to stop Third Term and lobbied other leaders and ultimately, we succeeded.

ACF, like Ohaneze and Afenifere are basically cultural associations with some social and a little bit of political involvement but there primary aim is to articulate their interests and forge cohesion in the context of Nigeria but I don’t think they are partisan political association.  The Unity Forum you mentioned is also there and it is political but aims at uniting the north.

What is going on today is not a permanent grouping called Northern Political Leaders Forum but we come together like this to address specific political problems.