The 52nd
annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) held in Abuja, has come
and gone. But the memories of the conference will live longer in the
subconscious of conferees who had the opportunity of listening to the Catholic
Bishop of the Diocese ofSokoto, the keynote speaker
Kukah, as usual, pressed it on participants at the conference, including
President Goodluck Jonathan, who sat next to him on the table, that Nigerian s
democracy is not secure, as elections are still massively fraudulent in the
country.
Kukah, who spoke at the just concluded 52nd annual conference of the Nigerian
Bar Association (NBA) held in Abuja, warned that Nigerians should not take it
for granted that her democracy is secure.
He stressed that elections in Nigeria are still massively fraudulent, adding that the level of success in the country is not commensurate to he standard of international best practices.
The Cleric, who delivered a keynote address on the topic: "Nigeria as an Emerging Market: Redefining our Laws for Politics and Growth", also remarked that the Nigerian democracy remains risky, volatile and vulnerable to internal and external shocks given the very little evidence of changes in the lives of the Nigerian people.
His words: "Evidence suggests that countries in transition remain quite prone to backsliding and failure.
"This is why we must never take it for granted that our democracy is secure. We may pride ourselves with having survived four back-to-back elections and create the illusion that our democracy has been strengthened.
"This is misleading because first, the elections are still massively fraudulent and our level of success is not measured by international best practices as such.
"Secondly, with very little evidence of changes in the lives of our people, our democracy remains risky, volatile and vulnerable to internal and external shocks.
"For example, empirical data on transitions to democracy show that democracy can be expected to last for 8.5 years if a country has a per capita of under $1000, 16 years if it is up to $2000, and 33 years if it is up to $4000.. .above $6000, democracy becomes the rock of Gibraltar.
"The study concludes that democracy has not fallen in any country with a per capita income of over $6000! This data is generous because up till ate, we have not come anywhere close to the per almost $3000 per capita income that was bandied during the Shagari era."
He stressed that elections in Nigeria are still massively fraudulent, adding that the level of success in the country is not commensurate to he standard of international best practices.
The Cleric, who delivered a keynote address on the topic: "Nigeria as an Emerging Market: Redefining our Laws for Politics and Growth", also remarked that the Nigerian democracy remains risky, volatile and vulnerable to internal and external shocks given the very little evidence of changes in the lives of the Nigerian people.
His words: "Evidence suggests that countries in transition remain quite prone to backsliding and failure.
"This is why we must never take it for granted that our democracy is secure. We may pride ourselves with having survived four back-to-back elections and create the illusion that our democracy has been strengthened.
"This is misleading because first, the elections are still massively fraudulent and our level of success is not measured by international best practices as such.
"Secondly, with very little evidence of changes in the lives of our people, our democracy remains risky, volatile and vulnerable to internal and external shocks.
"For example, empirical data on transitions to democracy show that democracy can be expected to last for 8.5 years if a country has a per capita of under $1000, 16 years if it is up to $2000, and 33 years if it is up to $4000.. .above $6000, democracy becomes the rock of Gibraltar.
"The study concludes that democracy has not fallen in any country with a per capita income of over $6000! This data is generous because up till ate, we have not come anywhere close to the per almost $3000 per capita income that was bandied during the Shagari era."
Posing
thought provoking questions, Kukah asked: "Does redefining our laws
necessarily guarantee an end to politics of the belly?
"Will the new politics in Nigeria end the regime of thugs, godfathers and mothers, cronyism and clientelism?
"Will the new politics end our demo-feudalism, that is, a government in which the political class merely uses their offices to share power and resources with pre-bendal institutions?"
Worried that Nigeria lacks sincere and competent tools for measuring governance and its effectiveness, Kukah asked: "For example, how many are we in Nigeria?"
He argued that beyond the guesswork, few political actors know their constituencies beyond the major Local Government Headquarters or the exotic country homes of their political cronies.
"Our projected growth has often been measured by what I call, Power Point civilization. This was a favourite toy of the Obasanjo economic team. Discovered by the United States military, we are daily inundated with dazzling, me smer izing and psychedelic slides that project growth in Road and Railway mileages, megawatts and kilowatts of electricity which never leave the screens. Billions of dollars later, the Consultants pick up their briefcases and return to Washington or London leaving us with more death traps and darkness."
He wondered why Nigeria is still talking about an emerging democracy after 50 years, why Nigeria does not have a constitution after 50 years, why almost 80 per cent of the Nigerian population is still living in poverty after 50 years, and of course, why after over 50 years, Nigeria is still far from the goal post of free, fair and credible elections.
...Nigeria: Flying without a black box...
Perhaps, for lack of the appropriate words to describe the sorry plight of Nigeria, Kukah simply described Nigeria like an aircraft flying without a black box.
"There has been a nagging concern as to how and why our country has found itself in this state of immobility and decay. This is not the place to reel out the statistics concerning our rot. Everyone, young and old, in the city or in the remotest part of the country knows and feels the pain of what is wrong with our country.
"How do we explain the fact that after over 50 years, we are unable to generate and distribute electricity, supply water to our people, reverse the ugly and avoidably high infant mortality, set up and run an effective educational system, agree on rules of engagement for getting into power, reverse the circle of violence that attends our elections. contain corruption, instill national discipline and create a more humane and caring society?
"It is important that we treat our malady as a symptom and not a disease. What is most disheartening is the fact that these ugly indicators are actually the fruits of an investment in a theory which a scholar has referred to as the instrumentalisation of failure.
"The idea behind this reasoning is that even though things are not working; in reality, their failure is an investment. The popular argument is the correlation between our failure to generate and distribute power, process and refine our crude oil and the rental political economy that we have adopted which feeds only a few.
"Nearer home, the failure of our electoral system has thrown up a lucrative culture of electoral tribunals which have now become the latest cash cows in our democracy. Many lawyers and judges are now making fortunes from our electoral failure in the same way that the coffin maker benefits from death.
"The fact of the matter is that we have never really exited from the stranglehold of the military state that displaced our post independence experiment with democracy.
"The period of military rule must be held responsible for a significant phase of the tragedy that is Nigeria today. For, although in the early 60s and 70s, Nigeria was at a higher rung in the ladder of development than the Asian tigers, over 30 years later, those nations have since found a seat in the comity of respectable and developed nations. They were all under dictatorships of sorts, but their dictatorships Eroduced results and while •eedom may have been in suspension, their leaders laid a foundation for
Sowth and development. ere. we lost both freedom and development."
He continued: "We are a nation that seems to despise our history and heroes/heroines. I am not aware of any country that despises its leaders the way Nigeria does. In a way, we are reaping what we have sown over the years. This is because, today, we do not have a coherent history of our country that can serve as a take off point.
"Globalisation has caught us offguard and it is hard to tell what our cultural identity and future will look like, 50 years or so from now. We now have over 17m Nigerians in Diaspora not to talk of the children of our elites from Nigeria, who do not speak their native languages and also do not think about Nigeria in the way an Asian in the diaspora might think or feel about their home country.
"The lack of both cultural roots and a sense of nationhood or patriotism are now testing our resilience. For example, a friend shared his frustration with me recently. He is a Nigerian-American. He said when he introduced his first son, Obinna to his guests back in New York; they gladly greeted him in Igbo, but the young man said to them: That is my father's language. They said, aren't you from Nigeria? He said, No, that is my father's country. I am an American!
"We have the greatest turnover of leadership anywhere in the world. For example, most African and Asian countries who gained independence at about the same time as Nigeria have an average of three or four Presidents.
"For example, Singapore, Botswana, Malaysia for example each has produced just four Presidents since independence. Nigeria has produced a staggering 14 Presidents, harvested over ten military coups, and not counting those who were aborted by failed coups. Propelled by greed, these laicf a foundation for a nation that I refer to as flying without a black box. Thus, today, we have nothing to draw from, no inspiration about the past to engender sacrifice and patriotism."
...The military legacy and its consequences...
Kukah remarked that the nature of the military legacy and its cumulative impact on Nigerian polity has never really been studied.
He said that some military apologists find this interrogation to be akin to hatred of the military and they also argue that so much time has passed and therefore the military should not be held responsible.
Perhaps, according to him; "If the military had left us with working institutions and infrastructure, as the apartheid regime did in South Africa, these institutions would provide some mitigating circumstances.
"More than anything, it is the negative cumulative impact of their legacy and the persistence of the rot that makes it imperative for us to address this issue. This is important for two main reasons; first, it will help us to identify the weaknesses or strengths of the legacy and secondly it will provide us a means of redemption, correction or consolidation.
"The Nigerian military did not vacate the scene voluntarily. In a way3 General Abdusalami Abubakar's spectacular show of patriotism, an appreciation of the frustration and a sense of fairness and moral rectitude enabled him to guide the military out of the Augean Stable into which they had turned the nation.
"This is what turned General Ibrahim Babangida's stepping aside into a shunting aside. Our transition was not the Eroduct of negotiation, argaining, trade-offs and elite consensus.
"We set out on a road with no clear maps, with a controversial Constitution given to a motley crowd of greedy businessmen and political contractors and a coterie of individuals who had honed their skills in manipulating the levers of power and could survive either under the military or civilian administration. To this extent, what we had was a transition from the military but not necessarily a transition to democracy.
He further opined that the military left behind a country severely fractured by a bitterness engendered by coups, a rash of human rights violations, a wounded, compromised and weakened judiciary, and a prostrate intellectual and academic community.
"Significant portions of the Constitution were suspended. Tribunals and Decrees replaced the rule of law. Other security agencies were subordinated to military culture with the Police force losing most of its respect.
"Without a Constitution, the threads of nationhood, the institutional mechanisms of restraint began to give way to individual caprice as rule of man replaces rule of law.
"Today, post military Nigeria is paying a high price for overcentralisation of the threads of power in the hands of the military dictator.
"Today, most of the frustration of the political class with this baggage finds expression in the debate about various shades of federalism.
"Corruption was rife not because the military was made up of a band of thieves. No, there were quite a lot of good men and women in the services and there are still many.
"The growth of corruption under the military was the direct result of the destruction of such institutions of restraint as the National Assembly, the muzzling of civil society and the media, among others. The Sovereign governed with abandon and was accountable only to a tiny circle of like-minded cohorts."
"For Nigeria to turn the corner, win public trust and consolidate its gains in our fledging or emerging democracy," Kukah stressed that: "there is need to unbundle not only power supply but take the nands of too many bandits who have held the economy captive, those who are growing while the country is diminishing.
"Strict laws relating to the attainment of a people oriented budgetary system, removal of the veil of secrecy on such areas as public procurement, contract awards and so on will help us deal with corruption and open us up for international business and investment, a key guarantee for growth.
"We should work hard to open up the political space and free our political processes from the throttle of carpetbaggers who continue to compromise the system by using slush funds to dilute the political process."
...Institutionalising a democratic culture...
Speaking on the need to institutionalise a democratic culture, the Catholic cleric said: "We need to appreciate the fact that Nigeria did not have a transition to democracy. Our transition route was simply connected by nocturnal trips between the Villa, Yola prisons and Ota farm. When the deal was struck, General Olusegun Obasanjo was released from prison with the sole Purpose of being the resident of Nigeria.
"Everything else that was done in the name of a transition, from forming political parties, funding the elections and so on was all tailored to fit that outcome.
"Even the birth of the largest political party in Africa was choreographed to meet this end. The result is that today, even the PDP knows that it is a unity of takers but not a party founded on any conceivable or perceived ideological commitment."
He stressed that transitions are always a contested concept. Citing the examples from Afghanistan to Exodus, he said that the possibility of backsliding is the greatest threat to democracy.
He maintained that Nigeria was not really ready for a transition, pointing out that the inability of Nigeria to create the necessary environment for the emergence of a democratic ethos accounts for why it is still unable to emerge from dictatorship to democracy.
"The result is that rather than growing, our democracy is sliding into a florifiea dictatorship. hings have piped down now out not because the politicians have imbibed the principle of democracy. Rather, we are enjoying some respite now because the politicians have gradually learnt the philosophy that in Abuja; You do not talk when you are eating' and secondly, that there is an agreement that it is our turn to chop and if you are patient, your turn will also come.
"Political parties are the foundation pillars on which the architecture of democracy is built. However, the story of political parties in Nigeria is a manifestation of the corruption in our system.
"Political parties are run by and funded as private fiefdoms. In the course of our work with the Electoral Reform Committee, we discovered that most of the 60 political parties which had been registered ahead of the 2007 elections literally vanished after the elections.
"Individuals and groups had registered these parties simply to gain access to state resources. Those parties in power are also largely funded by state funds. A leaked letter from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, some two or so years ago, instructed all Ministers to make payments into the coffers of the party. Is there any wonder that elections still generate so much anxiety in Nigeria?" Kukah asked.
He also stressed that: "Godfatherism and cronyism have destroyed and are destroying Nigeria. Today, it is almost impossible to convince any young man or woman that a first class degree can guarantee you a job anywhere including the areas in which you have excelled.
"Right now, we are faced with an uncertain future in which, some 10 or so years ahead, we shall have a generation of young men and women running the bureaucracy or in public life who owe their future to a godfather, not a country that offered them a chance to excel.
"This is dangerous because what we are doing is investing in an unproductive system of clientelism which destroys excellence, stunts national cohesion and compromises our public ethos.
How can we have a country in which the future is being mortgaged on the altars of prebendalism and feudalism?
"How can the President preside over a country in which his children rely on others for their wellbeing and welfare?
"We are going to end up say, 20 years ahead when we shall have Ambassadors, Permanent Secretaries, Directors, Ministers, Governors and Presidents who came to
Erominence not by dint of ard work or the transparency of their environment but men and women who will be running a country that is not the primary basis of their allegiance.
"The reason is because they were pushed to a job with no qualifications other than that they came from a list presented by a man or woman with connections."
Kukah remarked in conclusion that what is most disturbing is the fact that Nigeria has completely taken the intellectual contribution to politics out of our process.
"What is most disturbing is the fact that we have completely taken the intellectual contribution to politics out of our process. We are only concerned with how to capture raw power, how to get into the engine room, how to share in this life cnanging booty called oil money which is gradually looking like blood money in our country.
"We need to turn the corner and do so with confidence and assurance. I will make five quick Koints. The pillars of the [igerian economy are extremely weak and the continued economic viability of the Nigerian state and the continued economic viability of the Nigerian state is perpetually at risk."
"Will the new politics in Nigeria end the regime of thugs, godfathers and mothers, cronyism and clientelism?
"Will the new politics end our demo-feudalism, that is, a government in which the political class merely uses their offices to share power and resources with pre-bendal institutions?"
Worried that Nigeria lacks sincere and competent tools for measuring governance and its effectiveness, Kukah asked: "For example, how many are we in Nigeria?"
He argued that beyond the guesswork, few political actors know their constituencies beyond the major Local Government Headquarters or the exotic country homes of their political cronies.
"Our projected growth has often been measured by what I call, Power Point civilization. This was a favourite toy of the Obasanjo economic team. Discovered by the United States military, we are daily inundated with dazzling, me smer izing and psychedelic slides that project growth in Road and Railway mileages, megawatts and kilowatts of electricity which never leave the screens. Billions of dollars later, the Consultants pick up their briefcases and return to Washington or London leaving us with more death traps and darkness."
He wondered why Nigeria is still talking about an emerging democracy after 50 years, why Nigeria does not have a constitution after 50 years, why almost 80 per cent of the Nigerian population is still living in poverty after 50 years, and of course, why after over 50 years, Nigeria is still far from the goal post of free, fair and credible elections.
...Nigeria: Flying without a black box...
Perhaps, for lack of the appropriate words to describe the sorry plight of Nigeria, Kukah simply described Nigeria like an aircraft flying without a black box.
"There has been a nagging concern as to how and why our country has found itself in this state of immobility and decay. This is not the place to reel out the statistics concerning our rot. Everyone, young and old, in the city or in the remotest part of the country knows and feels the pain of what is wrong with our country.
"How do we explain the fact that after over 50 years, we are unable to generate and distribute electricity, supply water to our people, reverse the ugly and avoidably high infant mortality, set up and run an effective educational system, agree on rules of engagement for getting into power, reverse the circle of violence that attends our elections. contain corruption, instill national discipline and create a more humane and caring society?
"It is important that we treat our malady as a symptom and not a disease. What is most disheartening is the fact that these ugly indicators are actually the fruits of an investment in a theory which a scholar has referred to as the instrumentalisation of failure.
"The idea behind this reasoning is that even though things are not working; in reality, their failure is an investment. The popular argument is the correlation between our failure to generate and distribute power, process and refine our crude oil and the rental political economy that we have adopted which feeds only a few.
"Nearer home, the failure of our electoral system has thrown up a lucrative culture of electoral tribunals which have now become the latest cash cows in our democracy. Many lawyers and judges are now making fortunes from our electoral failure in the same way that the coffin maker benefits from death.
"The fact of the matter is that we have never really exited from the stranglehold of the military state that displaced our post independence experiment with democracy.
"The period of military rule must be held responsible for a significant phase of the tragedy that is Nigeria today. For, although in the early 60s and 70s, Nigeria was at a higher rung in the ladder of development than the Asian tigers, over 30 years later, those nations have since found a seat in the comity of respectable and developed nations. They were all under dictatorships of sorts, but their dictatorships Eroduced results and while •eedom may have been in suspension, their leaders laid a foundation for
Sowth and development. ere. we lost both freedom and development."
He continued: "We are a nation that seems to despise our history and heroes/heroines. I am not aware of any country that despises its leaders the way Nigeria does. In a way, we are reaping what we have sown over the years. This is because, today, we do not have a coherent history of our country that can serve as a take off point.
"Globalisation has caught us offguard and it is hard to tell what our cultural identity and future will look like, 50 years or so from now. We now have over 17m Nigerians in Diaspora not to talk of the children of our elites from Nigeria, who do not speak their native languages and also do not think about Nigeria in the way an Asian in the diaspora might think or feel about their home country.
"The lack of both cultural roots and a sense of nationhood or patriotism are now testing our resilience. For example, a friend shared his frustration with me recently. He is a Nigerian-American. He said when he introduced his first son, Obinna to his guests back in New York; they gladly greeted him in Igbo, but the young man said to them: That is my father's language. They said, aren't you from Nigeria? He said, No, that is my father's country. I am an American!
"We have the greatest turnover of leadership anywhere in the world. For example, most African and Asian countries who gained independence at about the same time as Nigeria have an average of three or four Presidents.
"For example, Singapore, Botswana, Malaysia for example each has produced just four Presidents since independence. Nigeria has produced a staggering 14 Presidents, harvested over ten military coups, and not counting those who were aborted by failed coups. Propelled by greed, these laicf a foundation for a nation that I refer to as flying without a black box. Thus, today, we have nothing to draw from, no inspiration about the past to engender sacrifice and patriotism."
...The military legacy and its consequences...
Kukah remarked that the nature of the military legacy and its cumulative impact on Nigerian polity has never really been studied.
He said that some military apologists find this interrogation to be akin to hatred of the military and they also argue that so much time has passed and therefore the military should not be held responsible.
Perhaps, according to him; "If the military had left us with working institutions and infrastructure, as the apartheid regime did in South Africa, these institutions would provide some mitigating circumstances.
"More than anything, it is the negative cumulative impact of their legacy and the persistence of the rot that makes it imperative for us to address this issue. This is important for two main reasons; first, it will help us to identify the weaknesses or strengths of the legacy and secondly it will provide us a means of redemption, correction or consolidation.
"The Nigerian military did not vacate the scene voluntarily. In a way3 General Abdusalami Abubakar's spectacular show of patriotism, an appreciation of the frustration and a sense of fairness and moral rectitude enabled him to guide the military out of the Augean Stable into which they had turned the nation.
"This is what turned General Ibrahim Babangida's stepping aside into a shunting aside. Our transition was not the Eroduct of negotiation, argaining, trade-offs and elite consensus.
"We set out on a road with no clear maps, with a controversial Constitution given to a motley crowd of greedy businessmen and political contractors and a coterie of individuals who had honed their skills in manipulating the levers of power and could survive either under the military or civilian administration. To this extent, what we had was a transition from the military but not necessarily a transition to democracy.
He further opined that the military left behind a country severely fractured by a bitterness engendered by coups, a rash of human rights violations, a wounded, compromised and weakened judiciary, and a prostrate intellectual and academic community.
"Significant portions of the Constitution were suspended. Tribunals and Decrees replaced the rule of law. Other security agencies were subordinated to military culture with the Police force losing most of its respect.
"Without a Constitution, the threads of nationhood, the institutional mechanisms of restraint began to give way to individual caprice as rule of man replaces rule of law.
"Today, post military Nigeria is paying a high price for overcentralisation of the threads of power in the hands of the military dictator.
"Today, most of the frustration of the political class with this baggage finds expression in the debate about various shades of federalism.
"Corruption was rife not because the military was made up of a band of thieves. No, there were quite a lot of good men and women in the services and there are still many.
"The growth of corruption under the military was the direct result of the destruction of such institutions of restraint as the National Assembly, the muzzling of civil society and the media, among others. The Sovereign governed with abandon and was accountable only to a tiny circle of like-minded cohorts."
"For Nigeria to turn the corner, win public trust and consolidate its gains in our fledging or emerging democracy," Kukah stressed that: "there is need to unbundle not only power supply but take the nands of too many bandits who have held the economy captive, those who are growing while the country is diminishing.
"Strict laws relating to the attainment of a people oriented budgetary system, removal of the veil of secrecy on such areas as public procurement, contract awards and so on will help us deal with corruption and open us up for international business and investment, a key guarantee for growth.
"We should work hard to open up the political space and free our political processes from the throttle of carpetbaggers who continue to compromise the system by using slush funds to dilute the political process."
...Institutionalising a democratic culture...
Speaking on the need to institutionalise a democratic culture, the Catholic cleric said: "We need to appreciate the fact that Nigeria did not have a transition to democracy. Our transition route was simply connected by nocturnal trips between the Villa, Yola prisons and Ota farm. When the deal was struck, General Olusegun Obasanjo was released from prison with the sole Purpose of being the resident of Nigeria.
"Everything else that was done in the name of a transition, from forming political parties, funding the elections and so on was all tailored to fit that outcome.
"Even the birth of the largest political party in Africa was choreographed to meet this end. The result is that today, even the PDP knows that it is a unity of takers but not a party founded on any conceivable or perceived ideological commitment."
He stressed that transitions are always a contested concept. Citing the examples from Afghanistan to Exodus, he said that the possibility of backsliding is the greatest threat to democracy.
He maintained that Nigeria was not really ready for a transition, pointing out that the inability of Nigeria to create the necessary environment for the emergence of a democratic ethos accounts for why it is still unable to emerge from dictatorship to democracy.
"The result is that rather than growing, our democracy is sliding into a florifiea dictatorship. hings have piped down now out not because the politicians have imbibed the principle of democracy. Rather, we are enjoying some respite now because the politicians have gradually learnt the philosophy that in Abuja; You do not talk when you are eating' and secondly, that there is an agreement that it is our turn to chop and if you are patient, your turn will also come.
"Political parties are the foundation pillars on which the architecture of democracy is built. However, the story of political parties in Nigeria is a manifestation of the corruption in our system.
"Political parties are run by and funded as private fiefdoms. In the course of our work with the Electoral Reform Committee, we discovered that most of the 60 political parties which had been registered ahead of the 2007 elections literally vanished after the elections.
"Individuals and groups had registered these parties simply to gain access to state resources. Those parties in power are also largely funded by state funds. A leaked letter from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, some two or so years ago, instructed all Ministers to make payments into the coffers of the party. Is there any wonder that elections still generate so much anxiety in Nigeria?" Kukah asked.
He also stressed that: "Godfatherism and cronyism have destroyed and are destroying Nigeria. Today, it is almost impossible to convince any young man or woman that a first class degree can guarantee you a job anywhere including the areas in which you have excelled.
"Right now, we are faced with an uncertain future in which, some 10 or so years ahead, we shall have a generation of young men and women running the bureaucracy or in public life who owe their future to a godfather, not a country that offered them a chance to excel.
"This is dangerous because what we are doing is investing in an unproductive system of clientelism which destroys excellence, stunts national cohesion and compromises our public ethos.
How can we have a country in which the future is being mortgaged on the altars of prebendalism and feudalism?
"How can the President preside over a country in which his children rely on others for their wellbeing and welfare?
"We are going to end up say, 20 years ahead when we shall have Ambassadors, Permanent Secretaries, Directors, Ministers, Governors and Presidents who came to
Erominence not by dint of ard work or the transparency of their environment but men and women who will be running a country that is not the primary basis of their allegiance.
"The reason is because they were pushed to a job with no qualifications other than that they came from a list presented by a man or woman with connections."
Kukah remarked in conclusion that what is most disturbing is the fact that Nigeria has completely taken the intellectual contribution to politics out of our process.
"What is most disturbing is the fact that we have completely taken the intellectual contribution to politics out of our process. We are only concerned with how to capture raw power, how to get into the engine room, how to share in this life cnanging booty called oil money which is gradually looking like blood money in our country.
"We need to turn the corner and do so with confidence and assurance. I will make five quick Koints. The pillars of the [igerian economy are extremely weak and the continued economic viability of the Nigerian state and the continued economic viability of the Nigerian state is perpetually at risk."
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