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| Dr Paul Unongo |
Considering the presidential election of June 12, 1993, would you say democracy in the country has developed, particularly in the area of credible election?
The people who say MKO Abiola won the freest election in the history of this country are either talking with their tongues in their cheeks, or are secessionists, or they have vested interests, because I don’t know what was free about an election that was held under the military. While we slept and deceived ourselves that we had a system that was democratic - I wrote about it in a book entitled: “Tiv Heritage” that the military had given us a kind of aphrodisiac - they implemented a programmed political system in the country.
They were testing it out. It has worked up till today. It is the same system, called democratic system, which we are implementing, that is very exciting to some people. This is a system the military imposed on the country; for their surrogates, military apologists, so that they would consolidate it as they watch from behind the scene.
Those who see any serious value to what we have today in our so-called 14-year democratic system are just jokers, because there is not a single difference; it is the same military system that we are practising today. So, as far I am concerned, Nigerians slept while men in uniform perfected a system which they wanted to impose on the country.
That military system protects the interests of the ‘monied’ men of Nigeria, beginning with the military, who made a lot of money and wealth. They allowed a few civilians to make money as well. And they formed themselves into the most formidable political alliance, pretending and deceiving us up till today.
Nigeria has not attended to the military-imposed political system. When they attend to the system and change it, then one can make a comparison. You can’t make a comparison with the way the left hand handles the right hand and the way the right hand handles the left. I submit humbly that the same system we are practising today may have been the same system that produced Abiola. That is the system that subsists today. The military didn’t do anything different from what is happening today.
I never was fooled. I still am not fooled. No difference, nothing has changed. And Nigerians are so scared of going on revolution. They are afraid. When anything gets near, something will change everything and so, they shy away. You were thinking this was going to be temporary, some of us were shouting, but it is a well-thought out political system.
That was the system that produced Abiola. That was the system that produced Jonathan. That was the system that produced Obasanjo, who was part of the people that produced the system. So, I don’t see anything excitingly different between Abiola’s election, Obasanjo’s election and Jonathan’s election. Nigerians have done nothing about what has been imposed on them.
If that is the case, when do you think we will have true democracy?
When Nigerians want. What is the meaning of true democracy? True democracy implies transparency; it implies respect for human dignity; it implies proper election, when one vote is one vote and two votes are two votes, when a person beats you with one, it’s one. Is that what obtains in your country today?
It is so ridiculous; nobody has written as many constitutions within a short time as Nigeria. They deceive themselves that writing constitutions and changing constitutions would solve their problems. It will not. Look at the system we have. As a small elementary kid, 65 years ago, to us, one plus three always made four, and four was lower than five. Today, my heads of government, only 35 human beings, running the fate of this country, allowed camera to record the thing they called election. Everybody was watching. These are the chief executives who are supposed to drive and institutionalise and solidify the democratic process: Rotimi Amaechi, 19 votes; Jonah Jang, 16. Not a single person complained. No fight, nothing. Everyone was happy. Nineteen has always been more than 16, but they tried to say 16 is greater than 19, and they wanted us to stand behind them. Our heads of government, 35 of them, could not agree that 16 has always been lower than 19. They are jokers. What are you teaching our children? So, I don’t see any difference in what has happened to Abiola and what has happened now. Abiola claimed he won; Babangida, who produced the system together with his friends, said no, you didn’t win. Okay, Amaechi felt 19 is greater than 16, and he claimed that he won. They said, ‘we sack you; we want to show you that 16 is greater than 19’.
What is this kind of nonsense in this country? My God! We became independent on October 1, 1960 and we have been a country for a hundred years now and we cannot even count? We say we are democratic and we cannot say somebody who had three votes, out of 35, higher than a man who had 16, is the winner.
What is wrong with us? Kenya had an election, but because of the history of that country, we expected the people to fight and kill themselves. They declared that Ofinga didn’t win; that Jomo Kenyatta’s son won. The electorate expressed their wish: they declared the person with higher votes the president. And an older country than Kenya cannot conduct a small election among 35 people. They want me, Paul Unongo, at 77, to sit down and watch a debate that 77-year-old can sometimes be younger than one-year-old. So, if I have a child today, he may be older than me? This is the problem; there is no democracy here.
But there is crisis within your party...
When I formed the PDP, I had an ideology in my head. I repeat, quote me, when I formed the PDP, it was a liberal democratic party. PDP was people’s democratic party. It was supposed to be based on the principles of liberal democracy. I registered that party with N100,000. I defined the philosophy for anybody in Nigeria. Then, I called some people and showed them the idea I was developing. I told them I had developed this system and I was going to push it to Nigerians. If we can, we should work to push Nigerian political system, to take advantage of the military interregnum in the political process, where they decreed two political parties. Let’s have two parties that are big, a little to the left, a little to the right and stop canvassing for votes from Nigerians on the basis of our tribes. We should start canvassing on the basis of principles of governance.
If we become government, we will use liberal democracy as our philosophy. We will use the interest of the majority as the principle of our action. We will provide for the ordinary people. We will fight poverty not with mouth, but by empowering the people and making facilities like health, water and electricity available to them without taxing them. They had nothing to be taxed anyway. So, I was excited. I felt I am a philosopher. After all, I have been writing constitutions in Nigeria since 1957. Now, I will put it in practice. And I called two young men and told them I had already submitted it to INEC and had been going to meetings with the commission for three months. I don’t know whether they panicked. They are still alive.
They took my ideas; they took two copies of what I had already presented to INEC. That night, one of them produced a car and they put one person, unfortunately for them, that person was my cousin. They gave him a brand new station wagon. He drove all the way to Kano and gave a copy of this thing to Abubakar Rimi, begging Rimi that he should run to Abuja and register their own thing also called PDP ‘because this madman’, that is me, ‘doesn’t know politics. He is not even interested in winning election. He can’t even win election, he just talks. So, this is a good idea; this is a good thing, let’s do it, let’s take it’. And when they took it, we had a crisis and INEC said, ‘this thing has already been registered by Paul Unongo. He has attended three meetings in the last three months’. So, some of them said well, ‘look at us, we are the greatest people, we are the biggest men in Nigeria, that man has no money’.
They didn’t know what to do. I said don’t worry, look at the name of registration and tell these big men that are all my cousins and friends and former political people that what is the quarrel? Can we have a dialogue and agree on a philosophy? The easiest thing is, since you all are the heavyweights and I saw my former president and vice president in that formation, who am I to go and fight them? I want democratic politics. If you I agree on the principles of PDP which I have already formed, I’m prepared to surrender the name. I did not even want to be a candidate. I told them what I wanted to be was chairman of the party so that I can direct it ideologically.
I now went and talked to the chairman of INEC then, you know who he was. I told him all my masters, employers and friends are in the formation that Rimi had brought called PDP, refund my N100,000. This is history, it is factual. I was disappointed in the two people that I revealed this thing to because they are my cousins from Benue State. And they consolidated the fact that they didn’t want me in the formation, but assured me that when we got to conference, they would make me chairman. The Benue people decided that the philosopher who produced PDP, who produced governance in NPP, including Solomon Lar, that his people didn’t want him. I wrote the constitution of NPP in a manner that the secretary of the NPP was like the secretary of the communist party, the chief executive of the party. I said Solomon was with us in UMBC and I put him as governor.
Because I was a Benue citizen, Benue citizens felt I was inferior to Solomon Lar. They didn’t even tell me when the meeting was going to take place. They lied to me. I packed 10 vehicles, packed Benue citizens and went with them to Abuja. They held the meeting. I was sitting in my hotel. One of them kept assuring me: ‘as soon as the meeting starts, we’ll ask you to come.’ But he never did until the elections were held. Then, somebody came to us and said, ‘oga sir, we have been sitting here and the PDP convention is taking place there and is on television. Can you turn this television on?’ The television was turned on. I called this man and he said, ‘ah-ah-eh, sorry sir, we’ll come and explain to you’. So, I left PDP and joined other people and we founded ANPP. So, when Obasanjo and my Master Ali came and begged me, I knew they were deceiving me.
Do you see the emerging mega opposition party wresting power from PDP in 2015?
Are they different from the people in PDP? They are the same people binding up, going round and round trying to wrest power from these people. But the question is: if they wrest this power, are they likely going to be committed to the ordinary people? Are they going to give us freedom? Or will they do the same thing that our party is muzzling everybody now? Governors that deceive themselves; that you cannot express your opinion. When you express a contrary view, including Paul Unongo, they deal with you. This PDP of mine does wonderful things.
Do you support the call on President Jonathan to re-contest in 2015?
No, I don’t just support people. I cannot sell my conscience by telling him that I’m going to support him when I don’t know his programme. I like some of the things he is doing and I don’t like some of them. I am not a kid. I belong to an organisation known as Northern Elders’ Forum. We are a political organisation. We want peace, stability and the progress of Nigeria, particularly the northern Nigeria, because the stability of the country is the North, because it is a huge land mass. If there is peace and stability in the North, which is two-thirds of Nigeria, there will be peace and stability in the rest of the country. So, I am loyal to the Northern Elders’ Forum. I am the deputy leader. I am the spokesman. Whatever decision is taken by the Northern Elders’ Forum as to whom we should support for president, we know that person will win. We feel the North has not been treated well and we have statistics right from the time Obasanjo became president. We are talking about structural allocations.
As a member of the Northern Elders’ Forum, you met with the president recently on the security situation in country. What was the discussion on the subject and how would you appraise developments do far?
We have been advising the president. In Nigeria, everything is secret. They don’t take Nigerians into confidence. We of the Northern Elders Forum were very worried that the security of the country was so threatened that living in it became too precarious and people who were too scared were taking off. We understood that. We have taken steps to bring the situation back to normal. Together, we believe if we contribute our quota, we will solve the problem. So, we made copious suggestions to the president. In fairness to him, he granted us audience when the thing became too much. He saw us face-to-face.
By constitution, the president swore to protect every single Nigerian and the territorial integrity of the country, and whether it his political opponents that created this thing is completely immaterial. The thing was threatening finance as almost everywhere was running out of control. We told the president, ‘this is a very serious situation and the approaches should be multi-faceted’. He agreed. Our position is that the president swore by constitution to protect us and give us security in and proceeded to swear to defend the territorial integrity of Nigeria. If anybody starts appropriating some parts of the country and telling people, ‘I’m going to declare this part of Nigeria part of Chad, part of Niger and part of Mali, he should blast that person to hell. So, we are not opposed to the president declaring a state of emergency.
Source: Tribune
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