Falae: Political corruption spurs corruption in other sectors

• Southwest Divided, But United On Awo’s Welfarist Ideology
• Nigeria Must Be Restructured To Maximise Its Potentials

National Chairman of Social Democratic Party (SDP) and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Oluyemisi Samuel Falae, in this interview with LEO SOBECHI, x-rays challenges of Nigeria’s socio-political progress.

Shortly before the 1999 election you were to debate the presidential candidate of PDP, Chief Olu Obasanjo, but he was said to have traveled, only for you to go and catch him in a hotel room, did you apply extra sensory perception to discover where he was hiding?
I wish I had extra-sensory perception; no it was just a chance thing. I went to the arena, the venue of the debate and found that the seats were empty and I sat on one of the seats meant for the debaters.  Time for the commencement of the debate came and went and Obasanjo was nowhere to be found. Then the organisers came to me to say that Chief Obasanjo was not coming so the debate is cancelled. I said not on your life! It was supposed to be a two-hour dialogue, and implied in that is that each of us had one hour and he has forfeited his own one-hour, so you must interview me for one hour. They were not ready for that, they were confused; they started making phone calls. Eventually, they interviewed me for forty-eight minutes during which I answered most of the questions that were germane to the election and to the development of Nigeria.

I think some people used some influence to terminate the interview at 48 minutes, but by then the whole country were excited. I got feedbacks from most parts of the country, of people saying that was it this kind of president we were going to have, yes! So when they terminated the interview after forty-eight minutes, I went back to my suite and my security man said, sir, they are waiting for you. I said who? He said the party people that they are in Ahmed Tinubu’s suite. I said all right lead me to his suite. It was my security people that led me to the suite. When I got to the suite I saw security men in the living room and I said where is he? (meaning Tinubu) they said in the room. I opened the room and it was Obasanjo watching television! And I said sir; you ran away, why didn’t you come? He said you know the entire secretariat of PDP was for (Dr. Alex) Ekwueme, so when the letter of invitation came they hid it from him and that didn’t give him time to prepare for the debate. I left. That was exactly what happened.

Let me add that, of course, you should know that for three years when he was the military head of state, I was the permanent secretary; so we worked together for three years on a daily basis. So, we knew each other very well. I would have been surprised if he had agreed to debate with me because he knew my debating ability. So it was just a chance meeting. Later the organisers tried to drag me to yet another debate. A night to the date of the election, I said I was going to campaign, they said yes, they would send a plane to take me to Ota, the AIT studio at about midnight. I said I am sorry I should not be hanging around Lagos in the dead of the night a day to the election when I must have moved to my home base to prepare for the election.

Was it a mix up or that the people that wanted you to meet Tinubu did not know his suite?
You know a suite has a room and a living room. I said where is he, without mentioning who, and since it was a suite it meant the owner of the suite. They said he is in the room, meaning Obasanjo. They thought I knew it was Obasanjo’s suit, if not they would have told me he wasn’t there. I saw Obasanjo watching television.

Shortly after the election they flew the kite of appointing you a minister; what did you see that Bola Ige did not see in working with former military dictators?
I had a number of reasons for not wanting to be anybody’s minister. Remember, I was a minister before. I was also the secretary to the Federal Government from 1986 to December 1989, and then Secretary to the Government was one step ahead of ministers, because ministers reported through him. That was the system we operated, other people ran a different system. So, I was more than a minister. Later I became the minister of finance and economic planning. For me to become minister again, fourteen or fifteen years later, I did not see that as promotion. Secondly, I did not think I have anything to do with being a minister, after aspiring to be president. Thirdly I had worked with Obasanjo on a daily basis as permanent secretary, so I knew him very well and I didn’t want to get into that kind of relationship again.

The uninformed might take the risk, but I knew him very well. We parted with a lot of mutual respect, friendly because we had a lot of arguments. He was a military head of state and I was a permanent secretary in the civil service. Quite often, he disagreed with my advice, which he had the right to, and I will ask him to direct me on what to do and we have to agree. If I put three options before you, if you take A, I agree with you; if you take B I agree with you, if you take C I agree with you; because I consider ABC as viable options. But anything outside that I do not know about it and there is no way we could agree on something I do not know. But as my boss, you have the right to direct me, provided it is not illegal or unconstitutional, I was obliged to obey and execute it as my own idea. We had such disagreements, but at the end of our relationship, he thanked me for my loyalty, hard work and that I never told him a lie. But he knew my debating ability.

Given what happened in 1979, 1991, 1999 and 2003; regarding the electoral processes, what do you think makes the military always in a hurry to shortchange the due process?
Well, I think it would be fair to say that what you laid out is not true of all military regimes. I can say that the election in which I participated in 1999 was well organised by the military. But they already had a bias; they knew whom they wanted to be president. In fact, later events brought it to the public domain because military officers that appeared at the tribunal said they were victimized for insisting on the right things being done in opposition to Obasanjo; that since there were competent civilians to take over, there was no point giving the mantle to another military man to continue to rule Nigeria. But it happened that the military believed the only one they could trust is a former military officer. Then a former leader in politics said a sergeant was better than a graduate of the university. That’s the kind of perception that informed government supporting Obasanjo. Of course, I won; the whole world knew I won the election.

This was confirmed by former president Jimmy Carter, who was here as an observer; he and General Colin Powell. And immediately after the election, I was in Abuja and president Carter and Powell called on me and president carter said to me, please sorry you were denied of victory. He said because what his team witnessed was not what was announced but there were only two candidates. I said Mr. president thank you very much, but sir can you say the same thing to Nigerians? He said yes, he would. And he did. At the airport he said that the result he had as an observer was different from what was announced. He was a diplomat; in other words, he was saying Olu Falae won the election. I knew I won the election and went to the tribunal. My counsel, the late G O K Ajayi, made a brilliant submission, he established that I won by at least one million five hundred votes if all the disfigured results were discarded, results where the figures would say one thing and the words would say it differently; where number of votes cast was double than the number of registered voters. Discarded results were Obasanjo’s votes were more than the number of registered voters. Or where the result in a particular local government was written by the same person, the same handwriting and ink, or where the number of ballots used was three or four times more than the number of ballot papers issued.  If all those ones were discarded, then I won the election. He even proved that obasanjo signed a decree when he was military head of state that anybody belonging to a secret society should not hold public office.

On Election Day, gifts were given with his name on it; his counsel said there was no evidence that he knew about it. Again that on Election Day, there was an advertisement canvassing for votes, I read that and called the chairman of the election commission, late Justice Ephraim Akpata. I called his attention to it, I said sir page so-so on a national newspaper, I read an advertisement canvassing for votes for chief Obasanjo on Election Day, contrary to the Electoral Act. He told me, call me back; I will look at it. When I called he said yes, I have seen that; that was a legitimate ground for an election petition. All that GOK tendered them. It was clear that powers that were, had made up their minds that it was Obasanjo they wanted. Of course I accepted that; I went to the tribunal to demonstrate that I won the election.  I have never been an ambitious person. I have already been a public officer ready to serve; it is a unique privilege for anybody to serve and touch the lives of over 180 million people. Most people will never have that chance, so I cherish that opportunity and therefore once the system said no, I accepted and returned to Akure and to my farm where I am till now.

Based on your experience, where would you situate the incidence of electoral corruption more, is it on the military or their civilian collaborators?
I will say on both because in my case I cannot accuse the military of actively rigging the election, but there was benign connivance. At the collation, when you sort the results from the states and local governments, all the results were written by the same person, or the figures were different from the number of voters. The members of collation overlooked these things, so I cannot accuse the military of rigging. The electoral body should have spelt it out, but the decision was that it was Obasanjo they wanted. It happened in Imo State after results from 16 local governments I was wining by a wide margin, remaining two local governments, I went to bed; when I woke up, Obasanjo had won in the remaining six local governments with more than double what I got in sixteen. So all in that entire situation was not normal. It was not fair, but it was not violent. It all happened, because those who organised the election tried to be impartial, but they were interested.  When Obasanjo was the president, he was a candidate and the government. And so matters went beyond what you saw in 1999, there was terrible violence, disenfranchisement of voters and wanton use of violence. I felt very sad.

In 1993, I was an active participant in that process, it was peaceful, transparent and civilised. We thought Nigeria had arrived. But post-2000 elections became less creditable and more violent. Since then the country has not recovered; it so happens that whosoever was in power wanted a second term and made sure he got it, regardless of whether the people wanted him or not. It is unfortunate. That is because people are not in government to serve, they have their personal agenda. One man, in a country of 180 million, who am I to say it must be me? What have I got that makes me superior to the qualities of all other Nigerians? Nothing! Is it wisdom, education, experience or intelligence; whatever you have, there are others who have in abundance. There are hundreds and thousands of people who are better than you are. So, on what basis should I or anybody say I must be governor or president? No basis at all. Until we return to this kind of reasoning there can be no headway.

So saying, which do you think should precede the other; fighting political corruption or economic and financial corruption?
Once politics is corrupt it spurs corruption at other levels. If I used unfair means to become a governor or president, by using public funds to fight my election, I have no moral basis on which to stand to ensure that things are properly done. It first of all, proves that I am not a fair-minded person; I will use such unfairness in other areas. It also shows that I am not wanted by the people. So if my politics is corrupt it is sure to spur corruption. In real life you cannot separate the two. But if you can, conceptually fighting political corruption should come before fighting corruption in other spheres. But when people talk of political corruption, it is not just corruption in the election process. Corruption in the nomination process is worse than the main election. Within political parties, terrible wars are waged, won and lost. People are deliberately disqualified. I know of a case of a prominent governorship candidate in a state. Their party headquarters said the delegates should come to Abuja to nominate the candidate. All the delegates live in the state, all the aspirants live in the state, but they were made to travel hundreds of kilometers from their state to Abuja to nominate one among them.  So by the time most of the delegates could arrive Abuja, the candidate had been nominated; it was over. Such act of brigandry, it really happened. The person affected came to my party. So intraparty corruption is more vicious than interparty, the whole thing is personal. When institutions disagree it is not as bad as when individuals disagree. Then there is corruption in the bureaucracy.

In 2000, Obasanjo signed the bill on EFCC into law. During that regime we saw on the floor of the National Assembly sacks of money, popularly called Ghana-Must-Go, provided to the legislators to perform certain acts running into millions of naira. That was an open case of corruption and public officers can take their cue from it, after all, the money belonged to all of us. They too started doing what my generation never contemplated; they set up companies and started awarding contracts to those companies. Of course, if you are awarding a contract to your company, yourself; it could go for three or four times the actual price. And the public becomes the loser. It has become endemic; it is all over the place.

I have heard and read of very junior officers of pensions who packed several millions in their homes. I nearly had heart attack; I was permanent secretary, I never handled such money. I was Secretary to the Government of Nigeria, I only signed papers. I was minister of finance, every month I signed the allocation to states. So that a junior officer would carry billions of naira to her house is strange, how did she get the money out of the bank? Which bank authorized the release of such huge amount of cash? I saw a public officer who was being tried for corruption, smiling into the court. A very top officer! So I become so terribly embarrassed. I believe when the thing gets so bad, it would come a time when the internal processes will reverse. I don’t want to believe this Kantian phase when the antitheses will create crisis to produce the thesis or return to the kind of probity.

But in our days, if you bought a car for N800 and your car loan limit entitles you to N700, you will get a letter from the secretary of the Federal Civil Service Commission saying, it is observed that you are living above your income, to wit, you bought a car for 800 pounds while your loan entitles you to 700 pounds, would explain to this office where the difference came from within 48 hours? That was the procedure, not that anybody wrote a petition. So the idea of going stealing money in our days was unheard of, it didn’t cross our minds. We pray that the country would get out of the woods. The money stolen is important but the decisions taken are distorted, which means those decisions are suboptimal and would not give optimum benefit to the society.

On account of the pioneering influence of the late sage, Chief Awolowo, a lot of people look up to the Southwest for its ideological politics, but in 1991 there was a bitter fight between the PRIMROSE and old Awoists; later in your former party, AD, there was big schism in 2003; at what point did Southwest lose its unity on ideological politics?
The unity we had, because of Awolowo was more apparent than now, because chief Awolowo, who was the ideologue, many of his colleagues respected him and admired him. Most of them didn’t care about any ideology. When crisis came, a former supporter of Awolowo from his area said Awolowo was a mad man. When Awolowo talked about one man, one plot, he said it’s a crazy idea after all, that this is a capitalist society. What I am saying is that because of the force of his character and personal integrity, people acquiesced to what he was saying. The moment personal interests came, people gravitated to their own natural inclinations. That was a gradual process and when the military came, there was another episode. We saw people of very narrow education becoming rich and that weakened our resolve. The man who was a messenger suddenly turned into a contractor, supplying stuff because has friends in the military.

That contributed to eroding our commitment to ideology and so when I returned to politics in 1999, I would have to say that that election was clearly won, but when the clash of persons came; you know when there are schisms or factions, each faction would do whatever it could to survive. So when desperation came nobody cared whether ideology allowed it or not. It was gradual. But I want to say that even today, the welfarist ideology, which Awolowo imparted, is still evident in us regardless of which party you belonged to.  No politician in the Southwest would say that free education is haram. Everybody, it is like the Europeans with the Christian ideology, for centuries they were practicing and committed Christians, Industrial revolution came and they stopped being Christians, but the Christian values have permeated their culture and their legacies. So whatever they are saying listen to them, Christianity has been enshrined in their culture. Whether you are in this or that party you have imbibed that viewpoint of welfarist ideology. So yes, we may not be one single party now, but it is in all of us. In this state I think every politician sees me as leader. I have not seen anybody whether governor, senator or minister that does not see me as leader, because we have this common denominator the same Awolowo-propagated welfarist ideology.

Based on what transpired in the merger of some parties that gave rise to the APC and recalling the political battle between Awo and Akintola, do you think the Southwest is now in the mainstream?
I will never accept any mainstream or no mainstream dichotomy; it is artificial. Every major leader wants to be in power. In that generation, leaders like Awolowo were mission-driven. Whether you were Azikiwe, Sarduana, Tarka or Aminu Kano or Enahoro, they were passionate about developing their people. My understanding about Awolowo and Akintola was not about mainstream or no mainstream. Awolowo, I believe, thought that a government run by Zik and himself will develop Nigeria quickly and transform the society. Awolowo was passionate about developing this country, not mainstream or no mainstream; he didn’t see mainstream anywhere, he was a regional person. We had regional governments back then. If Sarduana thought there was a mainstream he would have joined the centre, but he never did. He sent his number two, which meant the concept didn’t exist; it was irrelevant.

So, it was a question of which combination would give Nigeria a better government. That was why Awolowo preferred Zik to lead so that he could be the minister of finance; that’s what he wanted long ago, handling the finances of Nigeria. Akintola on his part, for his own reason; I do not know whether it was debated in their party, whether to go with Zik or go with Sarduana. But my reading was that that was Awolowo’s thinking, but one might argue that politics was not quite right. Two southern leaders coming together to form a government to the exclusion of the north, putting the north in opposition was not good politics. Because at that time, Northern Peoples Congress never operated outside the north, so if NPC was not in government, the north was not in government. Some people questioned the validity of that premise. The motive was to rapidly develop the country, but the question was, would you have the stability to do that? That is another matter, I can write a doctoral thesis on that one.

Those were the issues at the time, not mainstream. Why the mainstream? Mainstream in a federal structure does not necessarily mean federal government. Because, every government in a federal structure is supreme within its own area or constitutional competence; if a matter is a regional matter, the federal government cannot dictate to the region in that area. But in other areas or where there was concurrent basis, federal legislation would prevail over state legislation, if there is a clash. That is the wire principle. Therefore, in that situation, regional system; talking about a mainstream somewhere, where tributes are going is anomalous.

Now, talking about APC and how they came about, my view is that Awolowo said in 1983, that he foresaw the collapse of the various political structures leaning on Kantian dialectics; and the coming together of progressive elements from various parties to form government of Nigeria. That system started, but is still ongoing. The polity is not at rest; it is unstable today and may remain for a long time. Various parties are tenuous; PDP is in disarray, APC, internally is in difficulty. There are fissures and fault lines that we can see: the Saraki group, the former PDP and other groups that are there, you can see original CPC; Alhaji Atiku has already declared his own intention to run in 2019. So there are three or four parties within that party! And the Tinubu group, the original ACN; they are there, held together only by power. Obasanjo used to say PDP was not a party, that it was only patronage that was keeping them together. That is exactly what is happening today. The fissures and fault lines in APC are more vicious and diverse than what was in the old parties.

So, the moment of truth will arrive when potential crises will be known by all. And as a politician, I am not unaware of all that is going on. There are elements that are in conservation with us across the nation from various political platforms. That is what I mean that the Kantian synthesis of Awolowo is work in progress, I am hoping that over the next ten years we have a polity that is at rest, where like-minded persons who are really sincerely committed to similar political tendency will come together and not opportunistic gang up for power. I repeat that, opportunistic gang up for power, that is what most of the parties are, chasing for power! When I launched my book, The Way Forward in 2005, in the book I described the ruling party, PDP, as no party at all, but a gang up for power and position. Prof. Jerry Gana that came to represent the president said at the launch he thought I was privy to the idea that we politicians in 1998/99 were just out to get the military to go; that we were not forming parties, any group that gets it we can form parties later. I said no, I will never subscribe to that kind of opportunism, because once you take power you cannot go and form party. You are a minister in a gang up for power, I now call you from outside to come let us form a party, if I go then I am crazy, I am comfortable here, which party do you want to form? If you form your party what can it achieve? Power! I am already in power, so I don’t need you. I hope that we are going to have crackups, blow ups for quite some time, especially if Nigeria is restructured, we would have a better chance for a stable polity, where a number of parties that will survive and endure would emerge.

Could it be that on account of a number of politicians in APC, the Southwest is no longer enthusiastic about restructuring, especially going by the recent utterances by the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo?
What do you mean by Southwest? Osinbajo is just one man, very important person, yes; but he is just one man! I disagree very strongly with him, he knows restructuring is necessary. He is an educated man; he must know that since international communism collapsed, the disintegration of the old Soviet Union, collapse of the Berlin wall, freedom of Poland, Estonia, Ukraine; and since all that happened, what has emerged as a dominant political force in the world is ethnic self-determination. It is like a moving train, you cannot stop it. A train is moving you stand in front what is going to happen? Look at central Europe, Czechoslovakia; the Czech Republic, nobody fired a shot. That is what I call the pro-change ideology. Czechoslovakians were sensible, they saw that change was inevitable and they went along with it. Yugoslavia is another model: Resist Change.

That started under Marshal Tito, the communist head, he held Yugoslavia together with his leadership skill and personal charisma. Where is Yugoslavia today? When Marshal Tito died, lesser men took over, when the agitation began; they said no, we shall resist change, in Czechoslovakia they went along with the change and managed it. The dam is breaking, you are holding the concrete; but when the dam broke, civil war broke out, millions of people died. Eventually, despite the no-change stance of the country broke into pieces, the change started; you now have Bosnia Herzegovina, Chechnya, Serbia, Montenegro, all to pieces! What am I saying? I am saying that people want to be themselves, manage it sensible leadership will manage such issues.

It is a new trend in the world. Let’s take Britain that colonised us. Britain homogenous people, English, Welsh Scott and Irish; these are the four people there, they are homogenous as to race they are all white men, as to religion, language, culture; they have been living under the same Queen and King for 300-400 years, since 1707. Despite all these commonalities and uniting forces, what has happened? There you have the Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly and the Irish parliament versus the de facto federal government in Westminster of London. If homogenous Britain has dissolved to de facto federation, how can a Nigerian say restructuring of Nigeria cannot happen? It is inevitable. It has proved inevitable in Yugoslavia, Serbia; now the British has moved a step further, Scotland says if Britain leaves Europe they are not leaving they are going to remain. They are going to ask for another referendum and in that one they would vote for independence. Northern Ireland, I heard the prime minister saying, there is no way they are going to leave Europe. Irish republic will remain in Europe and then the Irish would just ask that the boundary should be removed. With all these happening, how can anybody say, restructuring will not happen?

Whether you like it or not, it is inevitable. All that needs to be decided is whether we would adopt the Czeck republic or the resist change model. What I would recommend is that we manage the change model so that we feel freely, fairly, so that at the end of the day we have a country where most people are happy that they have their identity and are able to develop their resources at their own pace and according to their understanding. This is where we are going, that is where we will get to. I am sure if you take a poll in the Southwest, 95 percent would support restructuring. By the time Abiola’s election was nullified, the Southwest had become pro-restructuring, not break up of the country. Britain has pulled out of Europe, so restructuring must take place here!

There are speculations out there that given the looming power play in APC, SDP is being programmed as a fallback platform for the Southwest, how do you react to that?
I am hearing this for the first time, but what is clear is that nobody can programme me. They would not even try it. Principles drive my life. We formed SDP; I sought presidential nomination of SDP in 1991, along with late General Shehu Yar’Adua, Layi Balogun and others. People love the majority party, the entire Southwest, because that was the party with which Abiola won the presidential election, the military annulled the election, annulled the party in vengeance. Some of us said values and norms that brought us together from all over Nigeria were so strong that we would not allow the party die. That was why we went back to resuscitate the party. We could have been using the name SDP much earlier but because of the military ban placed on it. We wrote to INEC but they could not register us. That was until the late Gani Fawhehinmi and others went to court, the court pronounced that the only laws relevant in this country were the constitution and the electoral act.

Anything outside those two were irrelevant.   That was why we approached INEC to approve the party, its programmes and motto fortuitously, to help those who want to come back home. SDP is the home of 80 percent of Nigerian politicians; 90 percent in Southwest, 90 percent in South/South and Southeast. It was our common home. We have hoisted the flag, leaders who joined parties out of opportunism and are stranded, any of you feeling distressed where you are, should come home, not only from the Southwest but all over the country. What distinguishes this party from the others is that it is founded on welfarist ideology and blessed with good leaders who are unrepentant welfarists in south-west people like myself, Ayo Adebanjo, Olaniwu Ajayi; we are unrepentant welfarists we will not go and join any party to become contractors, it does not arise.

So that is what distinguishes us from others. In this party we follow our own constitution. I tell you a story; we were going to have an election for governorship and a lot of aspirants came to us saying that they gathered the party wants to impose Fashola. They now said we should not set up the state congress provided in the constitution to nominate one of them, rather that we should ask the state exco of 25 people to handpick one of them. All of them agreed. The state chairman of the party came to me to say, after all, all those concerned have agreed. I said the agreement does not change the constitution of the party. Meanwhile, leadership had agreed with those people, just wanted confirmation from the national leadership. In fact the people were waiting in the hall that day. He said how will I go and face them? I said, wait. I took a sheet of paper and wrote a report, saying that party insists that a congress be set up in accordance with the constitution with reference to sections so and so. Once I read it to them, they shouted. But that was what was done. After that exercise many of them joined the party. I just made the point that in this party we stick to the constitution.

To what extent did the exit of Chief Segun Osoba affect the party?
Well, we were in the old SDP together, he was governor under SDP. When he said he was coming I said, welcome back home. Again when we said he was going back, I said well, the door opens both ways.

Are you worried about the number of political parties, how do you react to the suggestion that INEC should deregister political parties?
That is one of the major problems of Nigeria. We are impatient; we want to force things. It is not necessary it is like in the economic domain; many people can set up factories producing the same soft drink. All of us could start producing coca cola; over time the market will vote for or against your product. Call it constructive destruction; that could happen, let there be a thousand parties. Do you know how many parties they have in Benin Republic, which is smaller than Oyo State in area and population? Sixty! How can you say we have so many parties, there are so many interests in the country. What we need to recognize is that every party needs not be a national party. You should be free to set up party for Udi, you want to control Udi local government. Other people should be given a chance to do similar thing, you want to be chairman of Udi local government council not even the governor of Enugu State. In America, most parties are local: Green party, in Britain there are more than 30 parties, but you hear only of conservation, labour and liberal party. You have heard of Green party, UKIP, have you heard of Raving Lunatics Party? Let every interest rear, in the contest there would be natural attrition. Parties should be allowed to die naturally. It is very expensive to maintain a party; when you cannot run it, it dies. Let the process be natural; who forced five parties to come together. Don’t deregister anybody; you are denying people the right to polit