Junaid Mohammed’s Bombshell! : Northern Governors Are Irresponsible

Dr. Junaid Mohammad, a medical doctor, I is the Convener, Coalition of Concerned Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen. The Second Republic member of the House of Representatives and national chairman, Peoples Salvation Party (PSP) believes that Northern governors, since 1999, have failed the people of the North.

In this interview, the social critic speaks on the underdevelopment of the North; sovereign national conference, review of the revenue formula, impending revolution, among other issues. Excerpts:

What informed the formation of your group

The incompetence and irresponsibility among some of the 19 Northern governors and our system of governance informed the decision to form the new group. There were clearly delineated areas of responsibility between the various levels of government. But what became obvious was that under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), especially since 1999 to date is that most of the state governments in the North have failed to deliver and those who have delivered did in the areas that are not directly very relevant to the welfare of the people. For example, it is clear that every state in the North has problems with strategic infrastructure: roads, railways; agriculture which is the mainstay of the North is in tatters, there is no investment in agriculture; the farm mechanization system has collapsed. We used to be a net exporter of groundnuts, cotton, hides and skin, and many other things, but today, we are importing all these things. So it is really shameful, when you have an economy so badly managed for so long by one single party that you found yourself in a situation whereby you begin to ask: who is really in charge? Who can be held responsible for the devastation in the North? Without a very serious marshal plan, without a complete re-arrangement of the fiscal system, of the way the revenue is shared, the North is going to go under, period.

The states in the North are poorer, yet they are pressing for free education and what is on ground is that everything inherited and which made us proud as Northerners by then Northern governors have been reversed by the PDP government and we are in a state of where a few mediocre who came to talk about shariah misled the people.

Let me make it clear to you, our own group, the coalition of concerned Northern intellectuals and professionals is here because we realized that there is a problem and we also realized that the governors on the ground are either unprepared for the onerous task of governance or are there to compound the problems and we cannot continue there to compound the problems and we cannot continue to watch ourselves reduced to such level we have found ourselves now.

Look at the results of the examinations being conducted - the West African School Certificate and the National Examination Council Examinations, how many candidates passed the examination from the North? And these are the people who would form the manpower and the leadership of tomorrow. Indeed, the North is really in a mess as it is.

Why do you say the North is in a mess

Because it is badly governed and everything is clear about that. Isn't it obvious? Isn't it self-evident that there is no system of governance in the North? People simply come, collect the federal allocation and share it among their friends, do one road or one bridge in an obscured corner of his state, and then that is the end of the story. Governors are so irresponsible in the North, such that they cannot even collect taxes. When'you ask someone to go and collect tax, what he does is to collect the money and put it in his pocket!

You talked about governors collecting revenues and pocketing same. But the same set of Northern governors are asking for an upward review of allocation accruable to the Northern states, so that they would have more money to develop their states.

I may not like the governors, but the fact is that they have a solid case by asking that the revenue allocation law be revisited, because the North was, ab-initio, short-changed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and it was a deliberate slight on the part of Obasanjo against every system of governance in the North.

The heart of the matter is this: we are talking of democracy but there is no democracy without the rule of law. If we have a democracy which is underpinned by the rule of law, then that democracy must be the one that listens and acts in accordance with the dictates of the judiciary.

The revenue allocation formula was supposed to be based on a Supreme Court decision. The Attorney General of the Federation then, late Chief Bola Ige took the attorneys-general of the states before the Supreme Court and asked the apex court to decide who owns what in our sources of revenue and the Supreme Court came to conclusion that we are signatory to the law of the sea convention which stipulates the cardinal principles of international law that is supposed to guide the allocation and resource control on the high seas.

I declare that Nigeria's territorial sea is 12 miles; it doesn't exceed 12 miles. From that 12th mile up to 200 miles, you can say 12 minus 200, that is what we call the exclusive economic zone of Nigeria. Within that, anything found, like oil, condensate, gas, gold, even sand, beyond that 12 miles belong to the entire Nigeria. Whatever is found is not the exclusive preserve of the oil-producing states. And those states which are deprived of their share of whatever mineral resources so found have the right to demand for their rights.

Secondly, there are two decrees, in 1969 and 1970 and those laws are still part of our legal system; which say: that any mineral anywhere within Nigeria belongs exclusively to the Federal Government, which means it belongs to all of us.

The agitation for a review in revenue formula is polarizing the North and South.

I don't want this issue to be polarized between North and South or between North and South-8outh. The issue is: is it legal, is it practical to have a nation whereby on an average, one person earns per capital over 20 to 30 times what the other person gets? The whole of the 19 Northern states get less than what Rivers and Bayelsa states get, can you build a nation on that basis? Who is really fooling who? Are we serious about Nigeria? Can they survive on their own?

We may not like what we have today, but let me tell you, what we have today may be eminently more preferable to war. I believe that peace is better than war because life is better than death. That is my own position.

As far as I am concerned, nobody should hold this country to ransom and what they are doing is holding Nigeria to ransom through this bogus revenue allocation formula, which they knew was concocted by Obasanjo.

Why are you so hard on the governors to the extent of referring to them as irresponsible

If you do the right thing at the right time, you are responsible and if you don't, you are simply irresponsible. Forget about the language, the fact is that what is on the ground indicates that the people have been short-changed and it happened in connivance with the governors and we cannot run away from that and I have no other way to describe it

You want to accuse me of being too harsh on the Northern governors, what has the governors in the South-South done with the huge amount of money that accrued to them, trillions of naira? Nothing. I should know because I am supposed to be a development expert in the South -South. When I went there in 1992, I took over all the abandoned projects and got most of the contractors to finish the jobs. Here we are today, these people are getting trillions of naira and they are doing nothing with it. A large chunk of it is stolen. In the North, it is shared and in the South-South, it is stolen. In the past, they come to Lagos to collect allocation and disappear, but now, even local governments collect allocations and go into a hotel and share it and disappear. They don't come to work; you see them only when they hear the news that allocation is ready for collection.

So, if I am harsh on the Northern governors, I should not spare the South-South governors. If you condemn corruption on the part of the Northern governors, you must do equally with the South-South governors. While the Northern governors are irresponsible, the South-South governors have more money than they have patriotism. The South-South governors are only good at agitation; inciting their people to agitate, whereas the money they have for their own people are tied down in private bank accounts in the Western world.

In what specific areas have these governors failed the North

Education; it is the biggest challenge and you cannot wish it away. Education is the most important human investment. If you give a child life and you fail to give that child education, that is tantamount to child abuse. They have denied a large number of people in the North today going to school, not because they do not want to go to school but because their parents cannot afford to give them education and that is tantamount to child abuse and millions of children are being abused in the North by these governors and you said I should not call them irresponsible.

We are not saying that they are irresponsible because we hate them, some of these people are our friends, some are our in-laws and close associates, but the issue of education is so important that nobody should be spared. I can see the results and they are stark reality, so what do you want me to do? 'To say there is no problem? No, there is a problem and somebody must be held responsible and these are the governors and I find them, from 1999 till today as irresponsible, irrespective of their political party affiliation.

In some areas, some of the PDP governors have done so marvelously well while the so-called opposition governors, especially the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) governors, have done disgracefully poor. In a nation where many people cannot afford decent three meals per day, you start talking of shariah, what are you talking about? If you are healthy and you are not in a position to send your child to school, is it right to cut your hand because you have stolen something? And can Nigeria be a so-called Muslim state?

Nigeria is multi-culture, multi-ethnic and multi religious and nobody can change that. So, when I say people are irresponsible, I chose my words with care, they are irresponsible, simple. And look at what is happening in health care, most of the hospitals that are under the state governments in the North are not functioning.

It is the same situation across the entire Northern region of Nigeria. In the case of the North East, some of the states are worse. Look at Maiduguri; it is today a ghost town, the whole place is in tatters. The same thing with Damaturu in Yobe, because of this Boko Haram insurgence; but even before Boko Haram came with their bombing activities, the situation was so bad and it was clear that something has to give way. My preferred choice of changing the situation in Nigeria is having a revolution, but Nigerians are not prepared for revolution.

The revolution you are advocating for should come in what form

Let me give you my own definition of a revolution. A revolution in common parlance is sudden change of power from the existing organs of government to new organs and actors of government. That is what I want to see in Nigeria, but I don't believe Nigerians are ready for it now. And as a democrat, I cannot force people, but the current set up perpetuates injustice, but if the people want to continue to follow the system, it is up to them. But I am looking at a revolution where those who are governing now would not be able to govern, because they are incompetent or irresponsible or both; at the same time, those who are being governed, the people, refused to be governed the way they are being governed, because they have realized that the whole thing is a farce.

This is the situation and I don't believe we can continue to deceive ourselves forever. And this democracy, as it is being practiced by the PDP is in peril. And if we don't do anything about it, there is going to be a lot of problems.

I must say, for example, that all the governors are not doing so badly. Those doing well, we must commend them. Babatunde Fashola is doing well; I have known Lagos since the 19608 and I know I have seen changes which are good and I applaud the changes. In the South-East, I don't know any governor I can say is doing well, nobody. In the Niger Delta, one can see Rotimi Amaechi and Godswill Akpabio, at least the two of them are doing a lot, but outside that, many of the governors in the South-80uth are equally irresponsible. And according to the EFCC, governors in the South-80uth are the most irresponsible and corrupt in Nigeria.

And If you call the governors angels, the people they govern know the truth and know that they are Irresponsible, so what are you deceiving yourself about

I would like to mention the fact that agriculture has been on the decline in the North and whether you like it or not, the North is the food basket of not only Nigeria, but the whole of Africa and when we found ourselves in a situation whereby we cannot feed ourselves, whatever we say about security is nothing but a huge joke. Because the first security you need is the security of life and property; after that you think of putting food in your stomach, because without food there is no life. The North has the capacity not only to provide enough not only for Nigeria but the entire African continent, but there has been no visible investment in agriculture. We set aside billions to buy fertilizer at the federal, state and local government levels, but it is only shared among some people and by the time it gets to the local farmers, the price has gone up by at least 600 per cent Do you think we can afford this kind of indulgence? We cannot. And also, where the states offered to buy the fertilizer, which does not come from overseas, the money is transferred out of the country and kept in personal bank accounts. If I have my way, every commissioner for Agriculture in Nigeria would go to jail and particularly, every commissioner for Agriculture in the North, would go to jail, because corruption cannot be tolerated under any circumstance. When you concentrate your corruption on those who can least afford it to sustain your corrupt practices, then there is trouble and that is the situation in the North and in most of states in the South as well.

Why is the security challenge defying all forms of remedy

We don't have security in Nigeria today because there are vested interests, individuals and organizations and some elements in the Niger Delta who don't want peace, because they benefit from the kind of chaotic situation we have found ourselves nationwide. The present government of the day is not keen about peace; the government is keener about declaring the Boko Haram a terrorist organization.

There had been times when the security organizations came close to arresting the head of the Boko Haram sect, and orders from above came that they should leave the individual alone. I am aware also of two occasions when they were pin pointed to security agents, and the location could have easily been helicopter-bombed, but it was never done.

There is no peace today because some people have more to gain from war. You can imagine 25 per cent security vote which is not accounted for by anybody and they can bribe their way, which is the pattern of doing things in the PDP' they can go to the National Assembly and give them what they want and as long as the status quo continued, peace would continue to elude Nigeria. Those who are interested in ensuring that there is no peace in Nigeria are the ones in charge of the government, so what else do you want? Are you saying that you can give a thief something to keep for you?

April 10, 2012