Posted by By Kenny Ashaka, Kaduna on
Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) during the Alhaji Shehu Shagari administration, Alhaji Shehu Musa, has risen in stout opposition to President Olusegun Obasanjo's government.
Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) during the Alhaji Shehu Shagari administration, Alhaji Shehu Musa, has risen in stout opposition to President Olusegun Obasanjo's government.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Daily Sun in Kaduna, Musa, the Makama Nupe, submitted that Obasanjo's government has lost focus because of its 'touch and go" approach to policy implementation.
According to him, 'the nation is off course because while anti-corruption, Universal Basic Education (UBE), poverty alleviation got good headlines, such programmes have gone under. It looks to me you touch this one (programme), it doesn't go; you go to the next one, you touch that one, you move. When will you touch one that you will finalise? I don't see how touch and go will help us".
He also said the Igbo should hold the military responsible for scuttling their chance of producing a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction, adding that the arrangement made by the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) to have Dr. Alex Ekwueme succeed Alhaji Shehu Shagari after his second term was not realized because of the intervention of the military.
'I am very much sad particularly given the quality of the person who would have succeeded Shagari; a first class man. What we are having now (clamour for Igbo presidency) would have been history. They would have gone through it and it would have moved to some other regions of the country. Quite frankly, it was a painful thing," he said.
Musa relishes his heyday of selfless service towards the development of the nation and says the approach to work by civil servants coupled with non clearance of permanent secretaries by the legislature was an ominous sign that things have changed in Nigeria.
For three years, Alhaji Shehu Musa was saddled with the task of sanitizing what he called the 'haywire" situation at the Ministry of Defence. The assignment completed, he was moved to the Ministry of Health as Permanent Secretary in an acting capacity. That was in 1974. By 1978, the General Murtala Mohammed/Olusegun Obasanjo government came up with a special assignment for him. He was assigned to run the Department of Customs, which then was one of the main revenue spinning sources for the Federal Government. He was also to streamline the department and a time frame of six months was allotted for this assignment aptly labeled 'special".
Unfortunately, General Murtala Mohammed did not live to see the report. 'General Murtala had been assassinated or murdered, whichever way you want to look at it," he reminisces. All the same, the report was accepted by General Olusegun Obasanjo and almost all the recommendations made were accepted.
But the shock and the circumstances under which General Murtala Mohammed, the man who handed him the assignment, died still haunts Alhaji Musa. 'As a matter of fact, the coup took place with me right there in Port-Harcourt. I went to recruit additional hands to train for customs operation in Rivers State. I was to go to Port-Harcourt and of course that day, planes did not land.
'But the story I was hearing over the BBC was so distressing to me in that there were gunshots around my official residence on Okotie-Eboh Road, in South West Ikoyi. It wasn't easy to reach the house by telephone, even though there was telephone. But somehow some other people, by way of radio in the Customs Department, were able to pass some information. It was something which shook me.
'However, since it was a continuous government, the coup succeeded only in terms of murdering the head of government. The military put their heads together and decided the number two should continue. And so there was no change of power and policy as it were."
Nigeria's civil service, not the best
For four years, Alhaji Musa was the Secretary to the Government of the Federation under Alhaji Shehu Shagari's administration. The pride in serving with a democratically elected government was evident while this interview lasted. In fact, at a stage, he couldn't help but tell Daily Sun that 'I was not secretary to a military government, I was secretary to a democratically elected government of Shehu Shagari."
How really was the practice of democracy during his period and how is it compared to the present democratic dispensation? As a wry smile played on his lips, he said: 'I would have preferred that you give me a whole new time to discuss this because it is a wide field and to touch it on the surface will not be doing justice to the subject.
'But suffice it to say that it was the Presidential system that was introduced, the Executive Presidency. The civil service was patterned after the parliamentary system, Westminister parliamentary system with ministries and permanent secretaries and what have you; a relic of the colonial system. And therefore there was constant need to harmonise the two systems.
'Permanent secretaries were always subjected to clearance by the senate. But up till this moment, permanent secretaries are not subjected to that. That is one difference. So there are those differences, not only in the style of running the government but also in the approach to work by these people. I believe the permanent secretaries in the Second Republic were direct off-shoots of those in the First Republic and in turn off-shoots of British colonial civil service".
Obasanjo's programmes got good headlines, but they have disappeared
Alhaji Shehu Musa is not too comfortable with the policies of the present administration. To him 'the nation is off its course." He explains it thus: 'What I have said is that the implementation of some of the things got emphasis; anti-corruption, Universal Basic Education (UBE), poverty alleviation, and so on, all got big headlines, but those headlines have disappeared because some other things have come into being.
'From there we went into reforms of local government, we went through Oputa Report and all that; those priorities seem to have been forgotten. Some other things are now the priority. If this government must have a focus, it should proceed to execute its programmes as originally promised the nation. Since we are not going that way, that is why I said the original course has been left and we are going to other areas to which government has good reasons to change course or gear. But we should be told why they are being relegated to second place priority as opposed to the original first priority given to them."
Obasanjo's programmes, not on course
Does Shehu Musa see light at the end of the tunnel? He answers: 'Some of us, maybe our level of intelligence in seeing through may be questionable. If that is the case, forgive us, O God. I don't see how changing course, changing from a given priority to poverty alleviation and others... I mean, some of these things are so funny to me. Like I said, it may be at my age, my Intelligent Quotient has gone down that I can't reason as well as the gentlemen who are in charge of the steering; who are piloting the ship of state."
Nigeria's Democracy
Six years after, will Shehu Musa stick out his neck and say Nigeria is in a democracy? 'Well we are but there are some elements of military coercion. I am not happy, for instance, with the performance of the military and the police during the elections and so on. This is a personal observation. I don't want to elaborate on this issue."
It will be recalled that Alhaji shehu Musa was a National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) till recently.
Shagari's government more benevolent than Obasanjo's
'I wouldn't say Shagari's government was better than this government because obviously I have vested interest in Shagari's government. I was right in the middle of it. But the comparison in terms of socio-political integration and understanding is very clear.
'It was possible to husband the political parties. There were about six by the last count in 1983. Although they produced stiff opposition to the government, freedom of expression and association was no doubt there. Aggrieved state governments sued the Federal Government on issues. The classical one was the one by Governor Jim Nwobodo and the LOOBO groups who challenged that agriculture - the very fabric of Shagari's campaign - should be left to the states, local governments and so forth. It was a healthy legal pursuit and at the end of the day judgement was given.
'Coming to the end of it, those who thought, claimed and accused the government of being inept in leadership and herded them into prison under dehumanizing conditions were unable to really prove those charges. Of course, they mounted Kangaroo courts, tribunals and internationally and nationally, everybody thought that those ridiculous terms of imprisonments passed down were just too high handed.
'From the beginning, there was stiff opposition and the people got on with it. There was no single occasion when any proposal came that Shagari should be impeached. He toed completely the path of democratic process. Now, it is left to you to compare and contrast what is happening since 1999."
Military scuttled Igbo presidency
Before President Shagari was overthrown, there was an agreement within the then ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) that he would hand over to his deputy. That would have meant handing over to Dr. Alex Ekwueme, from the South East. Looking back, how does Musa feel that the arrangement which was aimed at getting the Igbo reintegrated into the mainstream of Nigerian politics failed?
'I am very much sad particularly given the quality of the person who would have succeeded Shagari; a first class man. This is not my personal opinion because even President Obasanjo acknowledged the fine nature of Dr. Alex Ekwueme. During the launching of his book, the whole country showered encomiums on him. And if today, the military had not intervened, it would have been a plus; more bricks built on top of that arrangement. It would have worked successfully.
'What we are having now (clamour for Igbo Presidency) would have been history. They would have gone through it and it would have moved to some other regions of the country. Quite frankly, it was a painful thing. The idea was firstly facilitated by the media who praised the military for taking over; calling Shagari's government all sorts of names."
North/South dichotomy, bane of Nigeria's political system.
Even then, Alhaji Shehu Musa parried the question as to whether it is now the turn of the Igbo to take a shot at the Presidency given the fact that the South West has been in the saddle for eight years. He shifted the decision to the various political parties saying 'each party is free and we would not tie the hands of the party as to who they put forward as their presidential candidates.
'The Igbo has had one or two people put forward as in the 2003 elections by the political parties that were interested in putting them and which felt that they might win. So, to trash this issue, one has to take due cognizance of the role that the political parties can play. But the story that the PDP is telling us is that they want North/South rotation; not regions. First of all, I in particular, don't believe that we should be pigeon-holed into North Central State, I am talking about Niger State. Anybody who thinks he can do this is being undemocratic. Some of these geopolitical arguments are more of fictions.
'What has been the bane of Nigeria from the beginning has been North/South dichotomy. I am talking in terms of political arrangements, and appointments. And we have to address it. From the beginning in the first Republic, Zik was President, Balewa was Prime-Minister. In the number of cases in the military one is there in the North; one is South. That's how it has been. I believe if UPN had worked with the other party - the NPN - the scenario would probably have been different, who knows. But the UPN at that time chose to be in opposition. And it was an effective opposition which gave quality and effectiveness."