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Former Chief of Army Staff, General Victor Malu, remains no doubt one of the voices that has lent credibility to the on-going National Political Reforms Conference.
Former Chief of Army Staff, General Victor Malu, remains no doubt one of the voices that has lent credibility to the on-going National Political Reforms Conference. He displays his characteristic frankness in this interview with FESTUS OWETE. He undertakes an assessment of the Obasanjo administration and scores it low virtually on all fronts
How would you assess our democracy?
I am not sure that what we are practising is democracy. But certainly, it is worse than what we had in the military government. The total lack of respect for the rule of law, the recklessness with which things are being done, the rate of corruption in the country, the recklessness of the political parties, which are acting above the law of the country, if that is democracy, then I think I need to go back to school.
That is to say you are not satisfied with what is going on.
Totally, totally dissatisfied.
But now that Obasanjo's government has started the campaign against corruption, don't you think it is a right step in the right direction?
If government has decided to tackle corruption, corruption should be tackled in a way we believe the government is actually going after corruption. You can't select a few people to get popularity for yourself and say that you are fighting corruption. If you remember, there were very serious reports made of the (former) Inspector General of Police long before this case in which he is now being sacked. What happened? Government conferred on him a national honour. I am sure you are aware of that. So, unless we are saying that we have two different sets of people that anti-corruption should be tackling. In any case, if we were referring to the case in the National Assembly, in fact, I am surprised that those of you in the press don't say these things when you see that it is a selective thing that is being done. A senator, I think it was Senator Arthur Nzeribe, who accepted that he was given N300 million to share to the members of the National Assembly during one of the numerous threats to impeach the president. Where did that money come from? It could not have been from anywhere but the government coffers. How is that different from what Fabian Osuji did? In fact, in my own opinion, Osuji did something that he should have been commended for. I don't subscribe to corruption, but I think bribery is a thing that you do with the purpose of financially benefiting from it. Here was a minister, who because he did not play ball last year, lost N1.5 billion because he did not give money like the rest of the ministers did to get their approval. And as an individual, he felt that was a failure on his part as a minister, so he decided to play ball. If he wanted to bribe for him to get the benefits, he would not have gone to the directors to hold a meeting and ask that they should gather money together to get their budget fund. And the president went ahead to make a broadcast sacking a minister. Don't you have due process? People who have killed people and are caught red-handed are regarded as suspects until they are tried and convicted by law. So, what type of democracy is that? What type of tackling of corruption is that?
A proposal has just been made by one of the committees (of the National Political Reform Conference) that past military leaders should be excluded from contesting future elections. How would you react to that?
That is nonsense. Anyway, I have never been a leader; I have never held a political appointment. But that is a total contradiction of what democracy stands for. If a person was convicted, not just indicted by a court of law for corruption, the constitution says he should be precluded from holding public office or something of that nature. What are these people's offence that you are precluding them from elections? And why is it targeted only at past military leaders? I think the six years of Obasanjo is enough also for him to be precluded from further holding office as the president.
Even in the military circles, coup is an offence…
If we didn't try the person, should he try himself? If we didn't try the person, should we now make laws and backdate them so that they will be included among those to be tried? Will that be the practice? You don't make laws and backdate them so that you can include those who committed those offences.
That means you do not agree with Jerry Useni…
I don't agree with him. That was his committee's recommendation. When it comes to plenary debate, we will tell him why he is wrong. And we will start by convincing the rest that he is wrong.
Why do you think he is wrong?
He can make such a general statement to say anybody that held an appointment… In any case, if you knew about coups in this country; that somebody became a head of state of the country doesn't mean that he carried out a coup. Young men carry out coups and they look for somebody that could command the respect of the rest of the country and ask him to act as the head of state. I know there were many heads of state, who were reluctant to get to the position. They had no choice. If you caught me in the act of planning a coup, treat me like a coup plotter, charge me to court or to the military tribunal. If you remember, I just concluded one before the government of General Abubakar came in.
But the General Useni report was actually saying that coups will not be accepted and coupists should be dealt with. Don't you think that is commendable?
Coups have always been against the law. To include it in the constitution is begging the issue. If I were to overthrow the government, the first thing I will do is to suspend the constitution. Before I hand over, I would have written my own constitution, which will preclude that aspect. So, what you are saying in effect is that you are either asking those, God forbid, who in future want to overthrow the government, to stay permanently or quickly write the constitution that were not in existence so that when they are handing over to whoever, they have a new constitution that they are also handing over. It will become a bargaining chip.
What you are saying is that the constitution may not be an effective tool for containing coups?
What I am saying is that you cannot act alone to prevent coups. You prevent coups by good governance to make the public and everybody, the civil society, to rise up against the military that want to overthrow the government. The constitution is a paper. You can write it, you can delete it and do what you want with it. So, you can easily throw that away and write your own constitution, suspend the relevant parts that will make it difficult for you or will threaten you when you are handing over.
You assessed democracy earlier. Would you assess Obasanjo's government?
In few words, it is the worst government that I have seen in this country. And I am 58 years old. I have never seen a government that is so reckless in everything. It disrespects the wishes of the people, disobeys the rules or the constitution, disobeys court judgements, including the Supreme Court. I don't think it has happened before.
So, he merits the impeachment moves they are making in the National Assembly?
In fact, he should have been impeached much longer than now. It is not at this time they should be talking about impeachment.
You are from the Middle Belt. Umaru Dikko was saying some things about a gang-up by the Middle Belters and other people against the rest of the country…
No, no. I saw the letter he was referring to. The letter was written by somebody from Akwa Ibom. Personally, I don't think it is something that should have bothered him because all the things that were there were not facts. They were talking about the North trying to control everything. I am from the North but I am also from the Middle Belt and I am from Benue. So, even within the North, we have our various interests to protect. It is not the same interest that everybody has. There are things that we have suffered as part of the North and those are the things that we are fighting that they must be addressed. But to make such a generalised statement is not correct.
How do you see the intelligence report on Nigeria?
Whey you become a president or a governor, you have become a god. You can do whatever and go free. National security is above anything else, above any individual. For 34 years, that is the only job I have done. I am in a position to analyse a threat to a nation and convey it to those that should know. So, when you don't allow me to do that, that means you are not accepting that I am a Nigerian. And that is exactly what my president didn't want. My retirement from the army was on the basis of that, because Americans told him that as long as General Malu is the Chief of Army Staff, they would not be with him. So, he had to get rid of me and in the process, he had to sacrifice the other two service chiefs. They didn't do anything. I did something because I stood on my principle. Americans did not come here to train us for peace-keeping. They came to get their information on a country that despite all the sanctions on it, could achieve what we achieved in Sierra Leone. Fortunately, I was the one there. So, I talk from a very knowledgeable point of view. I didn't want to put government on the spot. There is a document; Ambassador Howard Jeter represented the American government on the Liberian crisis. He produced an official report. They never knew he would ever come to Nigeria. He sent two copies of that report to me and the recommendation was to the American government, not to anybody else, that in future, if they are contemplating assisting any of the regional groupings that has a peace keeping outfit like we have in the case of ECOMOG, they did not need to send soldiers, troops or anything else. All they needed was the logistics. Because he observed the operation of the Nigerian troops in Liberia and has rated them one of the best in terms of peace-keeping. We were walking on foot, carrying ammunitions on the head; we opened roads using cutlasses, hoes, etc. Which American soldier will come and do that in an African environment? Their citizens will not arrive anywhere. We were sharing our food. We were not doing all these things because we wanted a name. Those of them who were there saw what we were doing and commended us very highly. The number of troops from Nigeria was more than three-quarters. When we finished and came back, why did America come to train Nigerian troops? Why was it not Ghanaian or Sierra Leonean or Gambian or Burkinabe troops? They picked only Nigeria and said that it was the one qualified for military training. And when they came, instead of joining us for peace-keeping, they were interested in finding out the amount of ammunition we had and where it came from. Do they take part in peace-keeping operations? Are they going to burn villages? That is the direct role of infantry soldiers. I made this point over and over but nobody carried it because they thought I would be confronting the president. To be very sincere, I think it was the right time I left the service. I might have ended up in prison because I wouldn't have accepted a situation where I was the Chief of Army Staff and a small country like Republic of Benin or Cameroon came to display… And if it was an operation, that is exactly what could have happened. They knew we had nothing absolutely. We knew it, but because of the way we behaved, we got the respect of Africa. Can we do that now? Four years since I left, check with those in service, tell me what they have done. We are still using equipment that Shagari bought when he was the president. Check with the military, they will tell you.
So, you are saying that the US does not mean well for us.
The US doesn't mean well for anybody. They want things in their interest, that is why they protect their national interest. Unless we don't have interest. Whatever is your national security provision has to be guarded by your national interest. What are our national interests? You see, we talk about these things theoretically.
Saturday Punch, June 04, 2005