A Septuagenarian, Professor Ango Abdullahi is a former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University; he is the current spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum. In this interview with MIDAT JOSEPH, Professor Ango who was only 22 when Nigeria gained Independence in 1960, takes a look at Nigeria of its founding fathers, including the problems facing the north.
Where were you when Nigeria gained Independence?
Preparatory to my gaining admission at the University College Ibadan in 1961, so in 1960 I was here in Zaria getting ready to write my A-levels preparing to go to the only University in the country at that time. So, 1960 I was already 22 years old.
Where you in any way involved in the struggle for the Nigeria’s Independence?
No, as a student of that era, we were very watchful of what our founding fathers were doing. Of course we were very supportive that Nigeria should become independence in 1960. But, there were times we didn’t agree with their own vision of things. For example, Nigeria wanted to sign a defence pact agreement with Britain and the students rose against it and eventually the government then abandoned that particular objective, because we saw that it was not in the best interest of Nigeria to sign any agreement with any foreign country, including Britain that was the immediate past colonial master, so we rejected it. And as students then, we were very vigilant of anything happening in the country.
At that time, there were only few students.? A total number of students in the only university was only 1200 students. So,? we were mature students, very articulate, very vigilant and very responsible in the sense that we insisted that everything should be done right irrespective of who was doing that. So, I think in 1960, we joined the chorus of hope for the future of Nigeria, because our founding fathers told us that few years after independence Nigeria would become great and that we have a major role to play as upcoming replacement of the expatriate manpower that dominated the various part of the country.
So, we were all very determined to successfully complete our courses for us to play our role for the development of the country. This was clearly how we felt in 1960 as students. Students were seen as general activists in terms of political and social awareness.? Students were allowed to become members of different political parties.
As Somebody who has seen it all from the pre Independence days to date;? Is Nigeria today on the right track?
Well, at the point of independence, everybody was very hopeful looking at the potential in 1960. We were very hopeful Nigeria would transform into a very great black nation within the shortest possible time looking at its resources and the potential of manpower as well as the population taken together. Nigeria was very hopeful in terms of future development.?
But, unfortunately, now 52 years from 1960, the journey has been a very disappointing one, especially for those of us who were old enough to know what Nigeria was in 1960 and what Nigeria is today. Especially when you compare Nigeria of 1960 and other country of? 1960 who today are well ahead of Nigeria.
There are many countries who got independence the same year with Nigeria, some of them in Africa and some of them outside Africa, but today they are very far away from us in terms of social economic development. So, I will say it is a big disappointment in terms of what Nigeria has achieved in these 52 years. Nigeria ought to have achieved much more than what it has achieved so far.
Can you asses the various administrations we had had over the years?
If you want to assess the various governments, you have to start with the civilian government from 1960 to 1966, the first military government of 1966 to 1975, the second military government of 1975 to 1979, then the next civilian government 1979 to 1983, and then the next military government of 1983 to 1996, and of course from 1999 to date. If you look at all these, the best government was from 1960 to 1966, because, they were more honest, they had more integrity, they were the best managers of the scarce resources? in terms of the application of the resources to the basic needs of the people and that was the best period of the Nigeria history up to date.
The second best goes to General Gowon-led government of 1966 to 1975; even though General Gowon had to grapple with the civil war, he maintained the ethics of the public service we had from 1960 to 1966. In fact most of his ministers and commissioners at that time were found within that generation of leaders of 1960 to 1966. That was why he succeeded, because Awolowo was his minister of finance, Mal. Aminu Kano was his minister, Yahaya Gusau was his minister and so on.
So these are people that were leading the country after independence. So, they carry along with them those qualities of good leadership. And this was on until 1975 when Gowon vacated office and was succeeded by General Murtala. So, I will rank again, General Gowon administration of about nine years second best. And since then, we continue to see a continued degeneration of quality of governance.
Murtala and Obasanjo period recorded a lot of degeneration in form of breakdown of public civil services; they were virtually disrupted and were the beginning the failure of the civil service to rarely be the beacon of governance in a country such as ours. In fact, it was that military regime that brought about a change from parliamentary to presidential system, which is another negative as far as I am concerned, because today, we are suffering under the presidential system of government.
I am an advocate of the return of parliamentary system of government, because the presidential system of government has failed this country. It is corruption prone, it is not accountable, it very expensive to the extent that today up to 80 to 90 percent of the country’s resources is spent on course of governance, and then the remaining 10 to 20 percent is spent on infrastructure development in terms of the basic need of the people.
Immediately Shagari inherited this type of system of governance, we started getting into trouble. And before Shagari finished his term, the country started witnessing economic bankruptcy. And all this has to do with the system of governance and corruption that is built into it. Lack of accountability led the government of Shagari to become almost bankrupt. So, successive governments have recorded negative development right from 1979 until to date. People were very hopeful that from 1999 when the civilian administration ounced back, things will be better. But, it is now on record that people are suffering.
Obasanjo’s eight years, Umaru and Jonathan’s four years? are even worst. Things have deteriorated to the extent that this country is becoming way down. There is nothing much to celebrate, because not much has been achieved, the country’s resources have been wasted to the extent that despite all the claims of oil, this country is poor, our foreign reserves are none in existence. Where are in huge debt already, the current services are not running.
There is no power supply, there is no portable water supply in most parts of the country and there is no security, there are no hospital services despite the fact that we are claiming to be an oil exporter. Nigeria has many resources but she is a poor country. This is because the leaders are not managing the resources for the benefit of the poor people.
Can you assess president Jonathan’s administration?
This is the worst regime, I was thinking that Obasanjo government should be recorded the worst government in the history of this country, but, fortunately for Obasanjo it is now being recorded that Jonathan’s crop of governance is so far the worst than the Obasanjo’s period.
How do we get out of the mess we have found ourselves now?
Well, the mess is created by poor leadership; Nigerians must make sure that they have the right people in the right places at the right time. Obasanjo is very intelligent, but was a very mischief person. That was why he ruled the way of mischief. He created so many problems for Nigeria, including its unity. Nigerians must not vote bad leaders to power again. The way out is to find good leadership at the national level.
What is the stand of the Northern Elders Forum on the issue of Sovereign National Conference (SNC)?
The Northern Elders Forum does not care, anytime anybody wants to convene a conference in whatever name, we are ready for it.
The North of our founding fathers is not the North of today, what is fundamentally wrong?
What is really wrong is that the current leaders have failed, our fathers succeeded because they saw themselves as one family. The Saduana we all talk about, provided leadership and embraced everybody as his own. Saduana leadership of the North was what makes it a united family, it makes it difficult for anybody to break the north. But unfortunately, since the death of Saduana and the certain constitutional changes that have taken place, things have changed.
In Saduana days, we had only one north, legally, politically, economically and socially, but after Saduana’s death with the creation of states, the north suffers legally and constitutionally to speak from one platform. We are now speaking for state platforms. We have allowed infiltration into our unity because, the break-up of that fabric was as a result of the fact that we allowed some people to take advantage of our ethnic and religious diversity of the north. In 2011, the north wanted something and didn’t get it because, the north was not united. Now, northerners should blame themselves. I will blame northerners largely for what the north is facing today.
How do you get out of it?
They way to get out is very simple; for us to appreciate that we were careless, we were not mindful and now we have a problem and this problem is affecting everybody irrespective of where they come from. The problem facing the north may not have been created by the federal government. The Northern governance have been a substantial failure to the extent that more than 50 percent of the crises facing the north can be attributed to poor governance in the northern states.