Posted by Emeka Mamah, Kaduna on
AS chairman of the Constitution Review Committee of the National Assembly, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu, the Deputy Senate President has come under severe criticisms for 'working" for a third term plan for President Olusegun Obasanjo.
AS chairman of the Constitution Review Committee of the National Assembly, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu, the Deputy Senate President has come under severe criticisms for 'working" for a third term plan for President Olusegun Obasanjo. He was also fingered as being the brain behind the travails of Plateau state governor, Chief Joshua Dariye that culminated in the declaration of a state of emergency. But are these allegations not true? How is he always linked with such ugly plots if he has no hand in them?
In this detailed interview, Mantu reacts to these allegations and lots more. Enjoy it.
We saw a lot of youths carrying placards in Kaduna to attack your person following your role as the chairman of the constitutional review committee of the National Assembly. Even your colleagues, during the Northern Senators Forum in Kaduna, made a categorical statement that they are not going to make any amendment that will give anybody any third term. What will be the fate of your committee's work in terms of constitutional amendment?
First and foremost, my committee was not appointed by me. It's made up of membership from the House of Representatives and the Senate. Indeed, this committee was in place before I became Deputy President of the Senate. I was not the first chairman of this committee, the first chairman was my predecessor in office, the late Senator Haruna Abubakar and this committee was established in the year 2001 and like I said, I was also privileged to be a member of that committee representing Plateau because we had one person from each state of the federation on the committee in both Houses.
As a founding member of that committee, I can say that I know how it started and where it is today. Like I said to you, it is a joint committee of the National Assembly set up by the National Assembly and not out of my own prompting. It was the National Assembly that deemed it fit to set up a committee to review the 1999 constitution which in the view of most Nigerians including the National Assembly members, was hurriedly put in place. We believe that if you read the 1999 constitution very well, there are so many draconian clauses particularly section 305 which now gives the President the power to do anything he likes. We feel that is not in tandem with democratic practices throughout the world.
There are so many areas. Infact, the amendment proposals are over a hundred. It was felt that we need to give Nigerians a constitution that will stand the taste of time, a constitution that will endure and a constitution that will meet the expectations and aspirations of all Nigerians. That was the reason for the establishment of that committee. Like I said to you earlier, when Haruna Abubakar was removed as Deputy Senate President and I took over, because I occupy that office, I was not elected chairman of the committee as a person or because of any other reason, I just simply occupied the position based on the office I occupy today. If I cease to be Deputy Senate President tomorrow, the person who takes over from me will chair the committee. That is the arrangement. I think it is very important for people to know this background.
When the committee came into place, you're all aware that the relationship between the National Assembly and the Executive was actually very bad and to add salt to injury, I was now the chairman of the committee and since that time, you know that I was one of the worst critics of President Obasanjo in Nigeria. I was attacking him left, right and centre. For that reason, even though there was a provision in the budget for the work of the committee, the release of money for execution of any committee work coming from the executive, that is the ministry of finance, each time we had a budget, they would refuse to release the money for the execution of the work of the committee. Otherwise, this matter would have been history by now. It's one thing approving a constitution, it is another thing the money being released.
Because of my poor relationship and the general poor relationship between the executive and the National Assembly at that time, they were releasing the money (irregularly). As a result, we could not make progress. You're also aware that the President himself set up two committees, one I think was during the late Minister of Justice, late Chief Bola Ige's time. He headed one of the committees and we were fighting at that time that it was not the responsibility of the executive to amend the constitution but the duty of the National Assembly members. All the appeals fell on deaf ears at that time. Bola Ige finished his job and submitted a report to the President and the whole thing finished there.
They set up another one under Agabi who was the chairman, also to review the constitution. All these times, we were fighting, saying it was not the responsibility of the executive to review the constitution. At that time, the executive felt that they would be happier with the amendments being carried out by the people that they appointed rather than Assembly members since the relationship was not cordial. This affected the completion of that job in good time. Just before then, our tenure came to an end in 2003.
Now, it may interest you to know that the process of law-making is that once a bill is in place and the process for finishing with that bill is not finished within the life span of that legislature, it will lapse. So, when then the new legislature comes again, the whole process will start afresh. But because we were unable to finish the job during the life span of the first legislature, when we came back in the year 2003 as you will recall, many members did not come back both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. New ones came to replace those who did not return from their states on the committee. To carry them along, we had to start all over again, not only to just carry them along but because the law also requires that the whole thing had to start afresh. Now, we are working on that.
Then, pressure was mounted on Mr. President to establish a national conference and Mr President had to yield to the pressure and eventually established the National Political Reform Conference. Even though the two chambers of the National Assembly (both the House and the Senate) did not actually give legal backing to the national conference, as a matter of respect for some of the elder statesmen in their midst, we felt that we should not go ahead with the work on the constitution while they were in session because it would have amounted to some kind of confrontation and confusion in the nation. We suspended the work on the constitution, pending the completion of the work of the national conference because some of us believed that no matter what happened, at the end of the day, they might come up with some ideas that may enrich our own work. That's why we actually suspended action and waited for them to finish their job.
By the time they finished their job, Mr. President had come to terms with the fact that it is the responsibility of the National Assembly to amend the constitution. So, he submitted that report to the National Assembly in a joint session. The two chambers forwarded the report of the confab to my committee for further deliberations since it has to do with the review of the constitution. My committee has now received that one. By the time we received the confab report, our job in the National Assembly had virtually been finished. We now said since we have a draft copy of our own work, what was left was just the final aspect. We have sub committees on executive, judiciary, legislature and many other aspects of the constitution. We gave every committee the report of the confab so that they can see where we differ and asked them to catalogue all the areas of differences. Those are the issues that we have to require more information from the Nigerian people because we are privileged to be elected on behalf of the people; the other people were also privileged to be selected by the government as members of the confab but the greatest majority of Nigerians are not legislators either at the state or National Assembly and they were not also lucky to be selected as members of the confab.
Thus, we said these areas that we have catalogued, areas of differences, we want to go to the majority of Nigerians to find out what do they say to this, what is their own opinion. Today, we have civil society, NGOs and various interest groups and it's not like before when somebody can just assemble some wise men and produce a constitution for Nigerians without Nigerians participating in the process of that constitution making. We feel that since democracy is now beginning to take root in Nigeria, we must mobilise everybody so that the constitution will be a popular one and endure because constitution is not supposed to be changed every four years but should last for as long as possible. This is where we are.
Before this barrage of attacks, nothing has changed in the committee. Some people just started calling us third term (proponents) and so on. When we asked what is third term, they said that we are proposing third term agenda for the incumbent President. At first, one was dismissing it with a wave of hand because it did not make sense to me. No one person in this country out of 140 million people will get everybody to do his biding. First, the process of this constitution we are talking about is long. When the sub-committee submits the report to the main committee, we will go out for public hearing in all the zones of the federation. We will come back and then put together a report which we think will reflect what majority of Nigerians said. This is now taken to the two chambers again for deliberation line by line. Every member of the House and Senate will make his or her contribution before each house agrees on what they think should be the new constitution.
Even when that is finished, you will agree with me that there is bound to be some differences in what the Senate will produce as their final copy and what the House (of Reps) would produce as their final copy. When such a thing happens, since law-making responsibility lies on their two shoulders, we will set up a committee to harmonise our differences and then produce a clean copy which will be the product of the National Assembly.
When that is finished also, the same final copy will be sent to the 36 state Houses of Assembly for them to deliberate on it clause by clause and come back with their own position. When we receive their position, we will now see if there is a concurrent by 24 out of 36, then that means we have made two-third (2/3). Any issue that two-third members of the state Houses of Assembly agree upon and the National Assembly have a minimum of 2/3, is expected to have actually gone.
Amendments are over a 100 but people have just chosen the tenure which is just one item in the constitution to just mean as if that is the main job that we are supposed to do. What is happening is that people are suspicious because of their ambitions. They allow their ambition to becloud their sense of reasoning. They are completely blinded by their ambition and anything that they suspect may stand between them and realising that ambition is suspect, that is why many people who have allowed their ambition to becloud their sense of reasoning and objectivity decided to sponsor articles and to mobilise people to say there is a third term agenda.
We were hearing this thing like a rumour. This thing had been on and I have addressed the press on several occasions to say there is no any hidden agenda; that our job is done in the open, we don't do anything in camera, our deliberations are in the open. There is no way anybody can hide anywhere and come out with something. It is just these mischief makers that are actually doing this thing. Many of them believe that because I personally have a good relationship with Mr. President, they are saying that I am going to use that relationship and my position as chairman of constitution review committee to come up with some amendments that will enable him (Obasanjo) to continue in office.
You have watched Mr. President in many media chats several times. I have watched him on CNN, he has not told me in particular that he wants to extend his stay by even a second after 2007 and he has not admitted either in the media chats or press conferences anywhere in the world that he intends to prolong his tenure in office. Quite frankly, one does not know where this thing started. Like a small joke, it has become an issue of national magnitude. Like I said to you, I have not been told by anybody and even in the sub committee, I was not in the country but I heard that when the sub committee chairman was taken up, he swore by the Qu'ran that I did not talk to him. I don't interfere with what they are doing. As far as I am concerned, I am a referee, if you score I blow the whistle, if you don't, I shut my mouth up. You don't have to go to school to know that no single individual can actually manipulate anything in the Senate or in the House of Representatives.
In a democracy, you cannot force your own opinion on the people. Just as some people want certain part of the constitution to be amended, so others don't want certain parts amended. It is just the right of every Nigerian to say what he wants. At the end of the day, it is what the greatest majority of Nigerians want that will see the light of day. What is the hue and cry about something that will take such a long process, so much consultations here and there and something that will be done in the open for people to see what is happening? I have even said that if we are going round, we will like our activities to be covered live so that the whole nation will watch what is happening and even before we finish our work, people will begin to know the position of majority of Nigerians on this and that.
Quite frankly, to me, I see this simply as the work of enemies of democracy and they are creating unnecessary tension in the land. And tension should not be created at all. There is just no point for such insinuations. President and governors went for election for a period of time. They were elected for four years and their tenure will end in the year 2007. I cannot see how anybody is going to extend the mandate of any of them without going back to the electorate.
The fact that the National Assembly can make laws does not give us the power to extend the mandate of the people because that means we shall be usurping the powers of the ordinary people who voted them into office. Anything that is done in that way will lack legitimacy and anything that lacks legitimacy will have immoral burden. I don't know where these things are coming from but I know also that when people see that your profile is rising and see that you are a possible candidate to beat in an election, which I am, they believe that the best thing is to use my job to tarnish my reputation in order to clear me out of the race. If not so, I cannot see any serious thing, I don't see any reasonable explanation for what is actually happening at this point in time apart from the fact that my profile has been growing higher and higher and some people are just envious. I am a Northerner and as a Northerner, if the thing (power) comes to the North, am I not a beneficiary because I can also offer myself? I love Obasanjo, yes, but I love myself more than Obasanjo. What is my war with the power coming to the North when I believe that I am more eligible than all those people who are parading themselves.
For quite sometime now, Plateau has been relatively calm despite the fact that you were accused of hijacking cards during PDP's re-registration and distributed them to those that you feel should belong to PDP...
I believe that as a newsman, you know that those who snatched cards were arrested in Edo. I snatched cards from who? Has anybody reported that I snatched his card? I did not snatch any card from anybody and I think I deserve an apology because I am not a snatcher. On a serious note, everybody knows that there has been some problems in Plateau State. To start with, it is not me who put money in Dariye's briefcase to travel to London.
In Plateau, everything that happens is Mantu. If somebody is suffering from anything else, it's Mantu. When Dariye was arrested, they said Mantu arranged with the Police in London to arrest Dariye. Did I say he should carry anything that would make him to be arrested? The answer is no. If you had watched, they showed the cheques that were meant for Plateau State government. They called people, elders from the state, pastors and all of us stakeholders and said, ‘look, these are billions of Naira that would have gone to the state government but were lodged in the account of his son, an eight-year-old boy.' They saw all these things and instead of the people to do something about it, they came back and said it was Mantu who arranged it. You are aware that due to lack of good governance in Plateau state, there was a breakdown of law and order. Jos attracted so many people because it was a place nobody cared where you came from, nobody cared what religion you belonged to. We grew up in Jos with everybody looking forward to Sallah and Christmas anxiously because in every family, there were Christians and Moslems.
Now, all of a sudden, that town known for tranquility, peace and harmony, due to bad governance for the first time in the history of the state, somebody came and was preaching lack of religious tolerance, ethnicity and what have you and the place has become a danger zone.
You know the role I played in bringing Dariye into office right from 1999 to the year 2003. In 2003, I was the only elite left with him, everybody including Solomon Lar now with him, all of them abandoned him. I did that not because I was happy with what he did in the first instance but I thought that if God gave him a chance to come back again, he was going to be born again, learn from the mistakes of the past and then try to leave a legacy behind since that may be his last opportunity. But then these killings started and I advised him to do this, do that but he refused. When thousands of people were being killed in Plateau State, nobody knew where he was in the world. He stayed away for one good month and when he came back, instead of rushing to Plateau to see what was happening, he was watching foot ball at the stadium in Abuja.
The day the President went to Jos, I followed him. We met Dariye and we went to Yelwa together and he was also seeing the thing for the first time himself. Obviously, even if you're going to pretend to show sympathy, you should have done that. That was what happened. Since then, Muslims and Christians, even the natives have had to run away from their ancestoral homes. The people had to run to Bauchi and Nasarawa states for shelter. Yet, they are indigenes of the state. They were not just the so-called settlers. I am not a settler in Plateau State. I come from a ruling house of my own town but I am a Muslim by faith but it does not make any difference between me and any other Christian from Plateau State. What is good for the people is good for all of us. There was a breakdown of law and order and this led to the declaration of a state of emergency.
I had a choice either to say Dariye is my very good friend and I am the closest person to him, let me not do something to stop the further carnage and killings of people, or let me now stop the killing by exercising my constitutional responsibility to ensure that we bring everything to a halt. In the process, I had to support the declaration of state of emergency and that is my sin as far his people are concerned. Everybody that was working with him and suspended for that moment, they all ganged up when they were not getting their pay, to say Mantu caused this problem. They did not care about the thousands that died. When the administrator carried a census of these people who died, 54,000 persons died. I cannot create an ant but if I can do something to save one life, I will thank God for that opportunity. My sin in Plateau State is that I supported the declaration of state of emergency, and then Dariye was sent away and some people lost their jobs during that period before they came back. That is the problem of Plateau State.
When he came back, everybody that was in the system that had anything to do with me from my area was removed but I said no problem because no condition is permanent; after four years he will go and so I didn't say any thing. In trying to educate the people why I did what I did, I held series of press conferences. With God on my side, people have started seeing the light and when they now see that what I did was right, people started coming to my side.
Eventually, we had factions in the party. He (Dariye) sacked the chairman of the party because he was a Muslim and then put a Christian from the same area with him and I. We come from the same senatorial district. I said to him you are creating more problems because even when he came back we were still talking, but he didn't care and I supported that chairman to fight for his constitutional right because nobody can remove him when he was elected at the congress. That chairman had to look for an office and that's what gave birth to having two secretariats, one at Dadinkowa and the other one at Kalwa house.
At the end of the day, the national chairman of the party (PDP) dissolved the two factions and appointed a caretaker committee so that they will now create a level playing ground for a new leadership to emerge. When that caretaker committee was established, that was the time the new revalidation of membership of PDP was in place. The other faction refused to recognise the caretaker committee. The national secretariat handed over the materials to the caretaker committee that was recognised. The caretaker committee handled the congresses from the ward to the state levels. You might have watched me on television going to Solomon Lar's house, the Deputy Governor's house ensuring that I gave them registration materials to register. I am a Deputy Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigerian and so I am higher than a Governor in hierarchy but I went to Chief Lar and even the Deputy Governor to register them because this is a party affair. I felt since the Governor is suspended by the party for his own doing, the next person in command is the Deputy, so I did that.
How have you been feeling with your name consistently being linked with the rumoured third term agenda?
First and foremost, I must tell you this clearly: I am a politician. This is not the first time I have received brickbats. You will recall in 1990 when I was a candidate for national chairmanship of the NRC (National Republican Convention), the press came to me and said, now that you are almost the chairman, what will be your priority? And I said my priority would be to use my office to enhance the shifting of power from the North to the South because living together means the right hand must wash the left and the left must wash the right. That is the only way we can guarantee staying together.
I was saying so because of my experience during the war. I lost a lot of brothers at the war and I was left to take care of over 120 widows in Plateau State. When I remembered the problems we went through as a result of the civil war, I did not want anything that will actually create problem again. So, I felt that one of the things that will actually guarantee our staying together and peace is if everybody is given sense of belonging. It is like what we are now saying, power should come back. Don't forget that for quite a long time power was actually somewhere else and so if there were such agitations again you could have seen the problem. Thank God that was a military era and not a civilian era, so I am used to this kind of thing. I can only worry about something that I know I have done. When your conscience is clear, let the whole world be abusing you, you will just feel as if they are praising you. That is the way I feel because today they have made me to be so important, that I, Ibrahim Mantu, a single person, have the capacity of blind-folding everybody in Nigeria. That makes me so proud. Sometimes, I say am I the one that they are talking about?
There is this general apprehension in the country concerning the 2007 polls. Some people feel that there may be no election afterall. How do we get out of the tension?
You see, because people are prayerful, God always intervenes at the appropriate time in our problems. Sometimes, I say God is a Nigerian because there are so many things that I have seen that will actually disintegrate this country completely. Even the last national conference, we did not believe that we were going to finish in peace because people, before they came, were talking that they would not 'allow our money to go to the North again. We are the producer of oil, the money must stay, we want 100 percent, we don't want even 50 per cent." But they were able to finish in peace and have given us the recommendations.
I believe that this thing (apprehension and heating of the system) is the work of mischief makers. Look, if not because some people are just trying to take advantage of this situation and use it for their own selfish purpose, this tension would not have been there at all. Since that is not actually coming from their heart that they are trying to play on people's intelligence, God will not allow any tension at all because what the people of Nigeria want is to respect the constitution of Nigeria. If we respect the constitution and we respect what the greatest majority of Nigerians want, who will use them to fight. Most of these things that you are seeing are being organised by us politicians.