CHIDI Anslem Odinkalu is a human rights activist and a former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of Nigeria. He currently chairs the Truth and Justice Commission established to address the crises of violence and agitation in states of the South-East. In this no-holds-barred exclusive interview with The ICIR Nigeria@64 series tagged ‘Independence Watch’, Odinkalu, who was involved in the creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, speaks on burning issues that have shaped Nigeria’s political journey through nationhood. Excerpts:
The ICIR: Nigeria has just clocked 64 years as a nation. Looking back at the journey through our sovereignty, what are your thoughts?
Chidi Odinkalu: I wasn’t there when Nigeria became independent, but when I turned 50, a friend gave me one of the most invaluable gifts I’ve ever got; a copy of Daily Times of 1st of October 1960. It’s a collector’s item.
When I look at just the promise, the sense of expectation that Nigerians had on that day and where we are now, I’m entitled to ask myself whether this is what people thought independence should be.
Anybody who was an adult on Independence Day will now be in their 80s in all likelihood, and the number of people of that age bracket in the country continues to diminish- probably in the tens thousands- with life expectancy at just above 50.
The reality is that our country at some point pivoted onto the wrong path. The problem with Nigeria is not its people; It is its rulers. As Nigerians, actually for the most part, we are terrific to one another. At the level of daily existence, citizenship, you see acts of neighborliness every day that defy all understanding and inspire you every day.
The reality is that our country at some point pivoted onto the wrong path. The problem with Nigeria is not its people; It is its rulers.
The way Nigerians help, accommodate, and inspires one another is totally commendable. Our rulers, I think, are the central part of the problem and the kind of ethos of our public comments that they have created, is part of a central part of why we have got to where we are. If we don’t re-engineer that ethos of the public commons in Nigeria, I think things are not going to be better.
The ICIR: Would you then say that the labour of our heroes past who fought for independence is in vain?
Chidi Odinkalu: This is the central issue in the Nigerian narrative. We don’t have common heroes. There are no one Nigerian heroes. We have, Yoruba heroes, like Awolowo, Igbo heroes,like Zik or Ojukwu, and northern heroes, like Tafawa Balewa, Murtala Mohammed.
In the Niger Delta, you talk about the likes of Anthony Enahoro, and in the Middle Belt, people talk about heroes like Joseph Sarwuan Tarka. People will even claim Yakubu Gowon, although he grew up in Zaria, right?
You can also talk about Margret Ekpo in the southeast and south-south because she was Igbo but married in the south-south.
So we have regionalised the idea of heroism. We don’t have a central national narrative of heroism, someone whose appeal is to Nigeria, not to a part of Nigeria. A country without national heroes is not a country; that’s the central issue here.
We’ve not been able to create a national narrative that every part of Nigeria can buy after 64 years of independence.
We don’t have a central national narrative of heroism, someone whose appeal is to Nigeria, not to a part of Nigeria. A country without national heroes is not a country; that’s the central issue here.
If you know when Julius Nyerere died, every Tanzanian stopped and mourned the day that his body was returned. Every Tanzanian identified themselves, not pretending that this was a Tanzanian teacher, who was a Catholic. Wherever you were as a Tanzanian globally, not just in the country, you noticed that something had happened that touched every Tanzania.
That’s the thing; we need to aspire and work for a nation that can boast of at least country heroes.
The ICIR: Is it too late to yearn for this pan Nigeria hero to build our nation?
Chidi Odinkalu: Right now, I think we’re quite far from it. After the 2023 elections, we are probably furthest from meeting it in my own lifetime, which is very interesting. I was born towards the end of the Nigerian civil war and my earliest years were the recovery period of Nigeria’s war. But you see my own estimation and the others may differ here. I believe that we are farther away from a country with a shared national project now than we were in, say, 1975 or 1978, just in the first decade.
It is very interesting because it talks to the kinds of leadership that we’ve had.
For me, one of the greatest leaders’ least appreciated in Nigeria’s history, is Shehu Shegari. This is because Shagari invested in trying to bind Nigeria’s wounds in the immediate decade after the war. He had an inspiration for doing so, you know he was there at the foundation of the nationalist movement. He was one of the founders of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and he then held every important position in every government and then served thereafter in Gowon’s cabinet.
When he resigned from that cabinet, he became the finance minister in succession to Awolowo. Of course, the military favoured him to become the head of state in 1979.
But Shagari did something remarkable, he was the person who pardoned Gowon. He also pardoned Ojukwu, and created the context for the return of people like Michael Opara.
The only Nigerian who has received the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic without being head of state was Obafemi Awolowo. The person who conferred that on him as leader of the opposition was Shehu Shagari in 1981. Look at the cabinet he put together in 1983, which Buhari ransacked and refused to let it work.
When you see the tone that he set, if the leaders who came after him had tried to build on those foundations of trying to forge a common political narrative and bind the roots of the country, we won’t be here.
In my view, Shehu Shagai is the greatest presidents this country has ever had.
The ICIR: What is your take on some of the initiatives taken over time to bind this country together, such as the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)?
Chidi Odinkalu: Well, I was the third president general of the unity schools old students association, which is the umbrella body of the old students of the 104 federal government colleges, federal technical colleges, as well as Kings College and Prince College in Lagos. When my generation went to the unity schools, we had kids all over the country and actually people from the north, say northwest and northeast, came down to the south by rail. The road from the south went up north by rail and there were parents in those terminals – from Saminaka or Kaduna or Maiduguri, who were there to pick up the children and send them to the schools and make them comfortable.
This was immediately after the civil war and people were happy to play that role, to send their kids across the country.
Frank Nweke jnr., who was minister of information came from Enugu State, but went to the Federal Government College (FGC) Maiduguri. The senior prefect in my set in Federal Government College (FGC) Okigwe, was Tijani Lawal, who just retired from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a director. He came from Borno State. So, kids travelled across the country and learned about the country.
Frank Nweke jnr., who was minister of information came from Enugu State, but went to the Federal Government College (FGC) Maiduguri. The senior prefect in my set in Federal Government College (FGC) Okigwe, was Tijani Lawal, who just retired from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a director. He came from Borno State. So, kids travelled across the country and learned about the country.
The first student in federal government college, Okigwe, was from southern Kaduna, admitted seven years after the civil war in 1977 (001 FGC Okigwe enrolment).
Today parents in Owerri do not want to send their child to Orlu in Imo State or Osun. A parent in Jos south, Bukuru, doesn’t want to send their child to Du in Jos north or Riyom or Barin Ladi. A parent in Jos doesn’t want to send their child to Wase. If you are in Chikun in Kaduna, you don’t want to send your child to Malali or Barnarwa or vice versa. The FGC Kaduna is in Malali, but you don’t want to go there and if you are staying in Potiskum, you are not going to send your child to Maiduguri, which used to be one state. Potiskum is now in Yobe State. So as a result, the unity schools are no longer embodying the idea of unity schools, they have become community comprehensives.
You then look at the NYSC scheme. It’s the same thing, people no longer want to go outside their states to serve. You come from Enugu State and choose to go to Enugu State high school in the same state. You attend primary school in the same Enugu State, high school, and university you go to the University of Nigeria (UNN).
From there you want to also serve in Enugu State. If you don’t go to Enugu State, they post you to Abakaliki which used to be part of Enugu State.
When you are done, what happens? You go and win election in Orji River federal constituency which is in Enugu State. Then you come to Abuja and speak of the national assembly. What do you know about Nigeria?
The ICIR: Some people have suggested that the NYSC scheme be scrapped because the purpose for which it was intended at the time of initiation has been defeated. Do you subscribe to this?
I think the Tinubu government with my good friend, Godswill Akpabio, have been a dreadful disservice to this country by going ahead to bulldoze the clearance through to ministerial positions of people who should have done the national youth service but failed or refused to do.
There are, I believe, three ministers who failed clearly to have done the NYSC when they were eligible to do so and the federal government and the national assembly, senate in particular, nevertheless cleared them.
There are standards that we cannot really compromise and in my view, the NYSC is an essential component of building a country. Enabling people to actually understand the diversity of the country is an asset and is important. You cannot live by accepting only people whom you like or people who look like you.
A country is actually something worth building and as the president or senate president or speaker of House of Reps, you should accept that project.
There are standards that we cannot really compromise and in my view, the NYSC is an essential component of building a country. Enabling people to actually understand the diversity of the country is an asset and is important. You cannot live by accepting only people whom you like or people who look like you.
The ICIR: Let’s talk about our constitution, the Nigerian constitution. Within this period of independence, there has been various attempts at amendments, and constitutional conferences. Despite all these, we are yet to have a generally acceptable constitution by Nigerians. As a lawyer, what do you think has been the missing link?
Chidi Odinkalu: Constitutions are for the dead, the living, and the yet unborn citizens, and this is the point. We have made them about lawyers, not about citizens, right? So whenever we needed to do a constitution, we collected a bunch of lawyers and told them to write something up, and then soldiers have decreed the constitution into existence.
Since 1999 of course, we’ve had five successful alterations, so you now have the 1999 constitution plus alterations. Outside those, you say well the alterations have been done by the national and state assemblies with electoral legitimacy and therefore those have some legitimacy.
But underlying all of that is one issue; a constitution is a piece of paper, anybody can write it. But to create that generation that underpins a constitution, you do need a constitutional settlement on narrative. Yes, that will proceed the writing of the constitution, and when going into writing the constitution, what then happens to the settlement is what you write. You write it up in a way that makes sense to people and their fidelity to what was agreed.
A constitution is a piece of paper, anybody can write it. But to create that generation that underpins a constitution, you do need a constitutional settlement on narrative.
In Nigeria we’ve not had a constitutional settlement. We’ve never had that underpinning narrative or settlement that binds a constitution together.That’s why it has never worked. So no Nigerian takes what you say seriously about constitutions and as a matter of fact, our constitutions are not written for ordinary people to understand.
When you open them up, you see ‘herein before’ ‘hereinafter’, ‘herein this’, those things that lawyers use to confuse us and make money. That really is the point. I think we’ve got to get to the point where we say this has never worked before. Why don’t we actually all settle down now if it takes us five years. India became independent in 1947. It did not get a constitution until 1950. Now Ahmed Kan led the adoption, the process of negotiating the Indian constitution. It was an untouchable document at the time, you know, ‘untouchable’. But it took over three years to negotiate the Indian constitution and bring it into force. That Indian constitution has stood the test of time because the people accepted it and it has legitimacy. It was preceded by a settlement and it is underpinned by a narrator.
In Nigeria the closest we came was in 1978/79, but that process was cancelled by the military with their no-go areas and that those areas have continued to haunt the country and that’s why we don’t have a settlement.
The ICIR: Closely related to the issue of constitution is the system of government that we have also been practising over the years, the presidential system which we copied from the US. Many people have criticised it as too expensive and all of that. In your opinion, what should be the right system?
Chidi Odinkalu: Well, there is no system of government that is not expensive. Ultimately though you want to get into a situation where the cost of the system is less than the benefits that accrue to it, and that’s the matter of ethics in government. It’s not about the system of government, the values that underpin government. Here we’ve not managed it well. Being in government is a revenue stream for those who are in it. That is not produced by the constitution that is produced by the conventions and ethics of politics and of public life, and we tend to conflict those two issues.
Well, there is no system of government that is not expensive. Ultimately though you want to get into a situation where the cost of the system is less than the benefits that accrue to it, and that’s the matter of ethics in government
Presidentialism does not have to be what it is. That is, principal office holders, advisers, special assistants, personal assistance, special assistants to personal assistants. You know, first ladies, second ladies, wardrobe allowance and all of those. Those are not related to presidential system of government, so I’m saying, if we want to scrap the presidential system and go to any other system that has to be a decision for Nigerians. That’s my view.
But you can bring parliamentary system and it will still be very expensive. We tried military government, it was very expensive. Military, by the way, was supposed to downsize the costs of government. They did not.
This is really the problem with a society index on status. Everything is an appearance, which is why somebody will want to ride the convoy of 50 cars.
How many of the cars can you use? Every other car there is surplus. It is burning petrol. Now when governors, I’m not even talking about president or vice president, when governors go anywhere, I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, the car that they go with is perpetually on. The governor can come here where we are now and stay here for 10 hours, the engine will be running for 10 hours, burning public money. That is not presidentialism, that is stupidity.
We have elevated stupidity to a form of government, and we blame it on presidentialism. You know, the fact that if you visit a governor or somebody they must give you a handout. That’s not presidential. And that’s the thing that I think we’ve got to try and work on distinguishing what is essential for a system of government from what it is not. A lot of what we blame on presidentialism isn’t part of it.
In my view, we shall make presidentialism work if we are interested, but that requires being interested in forging a common national narrative, a leadership that is interested in building a country for everyone who comes from or lives in it, not just for a different or narrow countries.
The ICIR: We have gone far away from uniting as a nation. Is it possible to embrace that path?
Chidi Odinkalu: I do think it is possible now. Wherever you were on the day that the presidential election results were announced in 2015, there was a sense that something possible could happen in Nigeria and I would never support Buhari. I never supported him, but on that day most people felt good about being Nigerian, including the people who lost the election.
Why was that so? It was not like the election gave you anything, even that so many people whom I know voted for Jonathan stood up that day and sang the national anthem. There was a sense of common stake-holding and then something changed.
Now it’s the same thing on the day that the national assembly rejected Obasanjo’s third term proposal in 2006. There was a sense of shared pride amongst most Nigerians. So it’s not like we have not experienced that before and from my own generation on the day that the June 12 elections took place and you know the annulment of the elections happened 10 days later on 22nd of June 1993, but at least as that was building up we knew what the outcome was.
There was a sense of shared pride. The idea that you actually had somebody who could win across the country in account that looked credible was unimaginable for too many people. So is it possible to forge this kind of thing? Of course it is and Nigerians are not idiots. Nigerians are not asking for miracles. Are they asking for miracle workers or saints and perfectionists? No. We know people would make mistakes but when people give the country good service, we know, when they have not given, we also know and that really is the point here, and I do think it is possible for us to come up with leadership that can give good service and in whom we can take pride.
The ICIR: How much have we lost in terms of the social political growth with these cracks and failure to build a nation which we were in terms of our journey so far?
Chidi Odinkalu: The quality of education that these people had, we talked about standardisation. Shagari was a teacher, but he spoke impeccable grammar. But it was not just his grammar, it was his understanding of the country, he had a coherent understanding of Nigeria. He didn’t just understand Shagari village, or old Sokoto emirate or northern Nigeria, he knew Nigeria. And his vision was of Nigeria not of part of it. That’s the point.
Obasanjo is another person who knew Nigeria or knows Nigeria. In many ways I think Obasanjo, and you’ve got to credit Obasanjo’s intellect, is brilliant, and very hard working. But Obasanjo was also a missed opportunity because he got himself into believing that without him, Nigeria cannot exist. So he got carried away with his own hubris.
And sadly, President Yar’Adua, who I think brought everything to the table for great presidency, humanness, acuity, knowledge of the country, and commitment to the country, did not have health on his side, and sadly suffered untimely passing. So you know in that sense, we’ve had a combination of factors, some of which are beyond our control. But now, having spoken about the Buhari and his limitations because as far as I’m concerned, someone who makes F9 in mathematics should not be a president in the 21st century because the presidency is about acute calculations.
A man who can be president twice is not an idiot. A man who can be military president and civilian president, having failed three times to become civilian president is not a fool. So you know, you’ve got to see to understand that my view of Buhari is a little nuanced
But you’ve also got to understand one other thing, a man who can be president twice is not an idiot. A man who can be military president and civilian president, having failed three times to become civilian president is not a fool. So you know, you’ve got to see to understand that my view of Buhari is a little nuanced. But I still think that a person who has F9 in mathematics is unfit for strategic leadership, because certain degrees of grand vision and strategy will be beyond the past.
The ICIR: What is the cost of us missing the link and the line of building a nation at 64?
Chidi Odinkalu: I could write an entire PhD dissertation on that, but I’ll give you two things. One is that we all need one another, that we all joined in the project of neutral dissonance and mutual losing, and it’s also that we all don’t like, the I don’t like Nigeria. All parts of Nigeria are at odds with the country and the country is at odds with all parts of Nigeria.
That’s why in the northeast you have an insurgency, in the northwest, you have banditry, in the northcentral, you have livelihood crisis, you know, people call it herder-farmer’s’ clashes.
In southeast you’ve got IPOB/ESN and cults. South-south, militancy, south west, you’ve got Oduduwa the movement, you have got cult in Ikorodu, Epe and all of that.
All parts of the country that you look at are at odds with the country, that tells you all you need to know that we are in a serious crisis.
Second thing, we are bleeding our best. Our young people with productive populations have lost faith in the promise of a country that can work for them and they are fleeing our country. We call it japa, right? They are all fleeing to Europe, North America, some are going to the far East; from Japan to Malaysia, Indonesia, and the lot. They don’t mind carrying drugs and getting exterminated or executed in some of those countries, right. But that’s what is happening. The ones who are not migrating are trekking across the Atlantic. I don’t know whether you’ve read Segun Adeniyi’s ‘from frying pan to fire’.
We are bleeding our best. Our young people with productive populations have lost faith in the promise of a country that can work for them and they are fleeing our country. We call it japa, right? They are all fleeing to Europe, North America, some are going to the far East; from Japan to Malaysia, Indonesia, and the lot
So now that’s what is happening and we’re not bleeding our best in tens or dozens. We are bleeding in the droves. You only have old people and young people, basically dependent populations, we don’t have productive populations anymore and we’re wondering why we’re having a national productivity crisis. We are because the productive segments of the population are bleak. And all of that is because of this problem that we’re talking about, the absence of vision and narrative of a divided country that everyone can buy it and if we can’t change that, it’s going to get worse.
So we are not going to have destitution and dependency running amok, and that is not a foundation for building a country that works. Somebody needs to originate and change it.
The ICIR: Within this period in review, we have had several elections, and in most of the election are always flawed. We currently had an amended act, but it appears we are still yet to get our elections right. What is the problem?
Chidi Odinkalu: Democracy is about three things or about one thing in three dimensions. Democracy is about counting and accounting; what do you count an account for? One you count your people. What do you call that? Census. Two, you count the votes of your adults. What you call that? Elections. Number three, you count your money. What do you call that? public accounts.
So how does this work? Through elections, you acquired a legitimacy to administer your public accounts, your money, commonwealth on behalf of and for the benefit of your people. Those are the three things. It is more of counting and accounting. The Nigerian condition is that we don’t count or account honestly. Public ethics are starched that those basic elements of the democracy have been destitute, despoiled for the purpose of the personal benefit of those who are supposed to run the system. That’s all.
Democracy is about three things or about one thing in three dimensions. Democracy is about counting and accounting; what do you count an account for? One you count your people. What do you call that? Census. Two, you count the votes of your adults. What you call that? Elections. Number three, you count your money. What do you call that? public accounts.
So whether it is the election or census or public accounts, as long as it involves counting and accounting it does not work. It has been reverse engineered to fail by those who are supposed to make it work like INEC chairman or whoever it is.
Now, I don’t know whether we saw the paper this morning. You know in the midst of these demonstrations, if you did, the issue was how many people were killed yesterday. One newspaper reported 17, another reported 16. Several said it was 14, another said it was eight, another said It was six. All of them were published. Daily Trust I believe said 17, ThisDay, said 16. Vanguard, Independence said 14, Guardian said eight and you could go on. It is about counting and accounting for your people. This particular issue, illustrating it right and it is the same thing whether it is votes or not.
We have two major judicial inquiries into the electoral systems in Nigeria since 1979, right? One was the Babalakin Commission which reported in 1986, the other was the Uwais panel, which reported in 2008. Broadly speaking, both agreed on the fundamentals of what I have just said the fact that we don’t count well, we don’t account well. We manufacture numbers for elections that have not taken place. And we read judgments of the courts, it is the same thing and then what happened because we don’t count to account properly. We then look to the judiciary to manufacture legitimacy, which belongs to the people. And so the judiciary has toppled the people and installed itself as the source of electoral legitimacy, which ordinarily, if you look at section 14 of the Constitution, should be the people.
What really this problem is about is restoring legitimacy back to the people. Not giving it to the judges, until that happens, you are going to continue to have government without legitimacy. And you see, two things, a person who can steal your election will steal everything. They will not stop at stealing your election, they will still your money, they steal your lives, they steal your wife, they’re steal your land. They will steal everything. That’s number one.
Number two, you cannot have a person who has not won an election and look to the person to give you democratic dividends. It will not happen. Because installing illegitimate government basically goes to the heart of democratic project. The incentive is that the people install the person who rules them and if the person performs, they renew their mandate. If the person doesn’t perform, they retrieve the mandate and give it to somebody else. But if the person can hold on to power, irrespective of what they do. Why do they need you? It destroys the incentive system that underpins the democratic experiment. Having destroyed it, every benefit that accrues from the system of democracy collapses. And that is why we are in a system in which there are the democratic dividends in the country. Instead, there are dividends to the politicians. Their bellies are rising. They cannot see their genitals in their standing up because they are so overfed. They harbour all these houses in which they cannot live. They are accumulating money, that they cannot use. We have banking systems that they do not use. We have roads that they don’t use, their children don’t go to our schools. Their wives don’t go to our markets. And what exactly are you talking about?
The ICIR: On a lighter note, the National Assembly has adopted old national anthem, what does that mean to you?
Chidi Odinkalu: It tells you everything that is wrong with Tinubu’s government. If you are going to be changing your national anthem, the minimum you can do is involve your own people because it is their song. It’s not a plutocracy. It’s not a Tinubucracy, it’s not an ‘Akpabiocracy.’ It is a democracy and about the people. So just grant the people like public hearing, grant them participation in the process and what they have done. If you want to rig their votes just to make the effort to appear, to think or to care about whether or not the people should count, or is that asking for too much?
If you are going to be changing your national anthem, the minimum you can do is involve your own people because it is their song. It’s not a plutocracy. It’s not a Tinubucracy, it’s not an ‘Akpabiocracy.’ It is a democracy and about the people.
So that national anthem issue is really the biggest evidence of where we are with the current regime. But as said there was something I described, that told you hold this page, hold this page, two years from now, we will return to that page.
Fidelis Mac-Leva is the Deputy Editor of The ICIR. He has previously worked with several media outfits in Nigeria, including DAILY TIMES and DAILY TRUST. A compellingly readable Features writer, his forte is Public Interest Journalism which enables him to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted..." He can be reached via [email protected], @FidelisLeva on X
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.