Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu
In this interview with JOHN ALECHENU, the first civilian Governor of the old Abia State and now a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, links credible elections to good governance
Where do you think Nigeria got it wrong in terms of leadership and how can we remedy the situation?
That is why we are concerned about free and fair elections. We need free and fair elections in order to elect leaders who owe their positions not just to a few persons who can sit somewhere and write results for them. If you remember, when we were elected in 1991, there were two parties; there was competition in the political arena. The electoral process then was done in a very free and fair manner. That election, I believe, is the best the nation has ever had. Then it was well organised, it was very difficult to manipulate the process. The electoral body allowed Nigerians to choose their leaders without any challenge. I believe that was why we had the kind of development we witnessed. Before then, all governors never had a common forum. It was during that time, in one of our meetings, that one of our members raised an issue – it was during a military regime and some aspects of the constitution were suspended but most part of it were not. In the constitution, there was the provision for how to look after those who leave office. Some of our members said no, that we should not even discuss it but rather we should be thinking about those who elected us.
Currently, you can see the selflessness and the determination to provide good governance and if we can have free and fair elections, we will see an improvement in the quality of governance and service delivery. This is precisely why the All Progressives Congress came into being because if you don’t have competition in the political arena, you can’t have free and fair elections. If one party is dominant and believes that no matter what happens, it will be in government, then anybody who is elected will not even bother to put the interest of the nation first.
Why didn’t you join the ruling party?
Nigeria is a nation where no tribe or religion is dominant. In most countries of the world, they have one dominant religion. In some of them, the dominant religion could have up to 90 or even 95 per cent of the population. Nigeria is the only country, where you have the two major religions of the world with equal strength. Our country is unique. That uniqueness did not happen by chance, God made it possible so that we can use it to promote world peace and development. What do I mean by that? The black race has suffered tremendously. If you check history very well, our people were ready to enter a development stage before we were interrupted by the trans-Atlantic slavery even though it was for a short period, it happened at a time of intense development. That was the time iron and steam played a key role in the development of the world. I feel that Nigeria can do for the black race what Japan did for the yellow people before the Second World War. I felt that one-party rule is not the best for us. I gave a speech at the Lagos State House of Assembly in 2004 and I spoke clearly – that was when the vogue was that the ruling party will be there for 60 years. Before then, I also spoke to the caucus of the then All Nigeria Peoples Party in the National Assembly. We had as many as 26 senators, several members of the House of Representatives and these lectures were serialised in the papers.
When I became the National Chairman of the ANPP, I was given the opportunity to speak to the leadership of the Action Congress of Nigeria. There was no way, with this kind of passion that I have, that I will go and join the ruling party. If my interest was to be in government, I would have joined the PDP but my interest is how we will use politics to improve the wellbeing of our people. Our desire in the APC is to create a new Nigeria where there will be peace and development. And you are going to see it now because when there is competition, anybody who wins the election will be a little more careful because if you don’t do well, you can be voted out.
What would you say motivated you and others in the legacy parties to give up your positions to form a new platform which is the APC?
Look at the history of this country, you find leaders wanting to stay in office longer than the constitution allows. Look at the civil service, I am not saying everybody but you see people who will go and falsify their age so as to stay longer but so many others and I in the APC gave up our positions as national chairman of our various parties to make the merger possible. Our desire for a better nation made us make this sacrifice. Don’t forget, I was in my first term as national chairman of the ANPP, I had just gone half way but I was very happy to relinquish the office because of this commitment.
The opposition today is a very serious one. If you look at the APC’s journey so far, there is no single step that some people did not express doubt about our commitment to this cause. Even on the merger, many people said it will not work, many said so because they had facts from history. The merger was unprecedented but it worked. The last was even when we had very strong personalities running for our presidential ticket. Most people said this will break the party and that the party will collapse. But we were able to do it successfully. Some argued that some of the parties which came to form the new party did not have a history of internal democracy and therefore said it will not work. They forgot that there were people within the merger who were very determined and we made sure that there was internal democracy and even if there was consensus we made sure that we still had elections. Our presidential candidate was chosen in a very transparent national convention which was transmitted live on television and was witnessed all over the world. What drives the APC is not just the members of the party. If you look at the party’s membership alone, you don’t have a complete picture of what the APC stands for. The APC is a movement; it gets its energy and strength from the desire for change. That desire is so strong that it is propelling the APC and the mobilisation that you see all over the country. We are hopeful that we will get the opportunity to change things for the better. It will be wrong for Nigerians to say because of the sad experiences they have had in the past, all politicians are bad. Why not try to give the APC the opportunity, try the APC if you find it unsatisfactory then you can go back until we all get it right.
Are you confident in the ability of INEC to deliver on its promise of credible elections?
INEC is independent. We want a situation where INEC will be properly funded because if you don’t give them sufficient funds, definitely they can’t perform. We will watch because we saw what happened in Ekiti and Osun, there was some improvement and we want that improvement to continue.
Why do you advocate that the elections should be held in one day?
The cost of elections will be drastically reduced and this uncertainty which was introduced by INEC, which was advised by the military to shift the date will not happen because if it’s a constitutional matter and you fix a date and say, every third Wednesday of every February in an election year will be the date for the election, no security man will write anything. Above all, you will respect the fundamental right of every citizen of Nigeria to determine who governs him because you will eliminate the bandwagon effect if you have the elections in one day. The benefits of holding all the elections in one day are enormous. If you hold the five elections on the same day, if somebody is not interested in who is running for Senate, he may be interested in who is running for the House of Assembly, if you are not interested in who is running for President, you may be interested in who is running for governor, the turn out will enhance participation
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