Date: 2014-09-20

Deacon John Dara, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State, was a member of the National Conference. He has served the country in various capacities, including being a special assistant to Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd) during ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo's regime. In this interview with BISI ADEDAYO, he spoke extensively on the recommendations of the just-concluded Confab. He also bares his mind on the politics of Kwara State.

Excerpts:

What is your assessment of the elections in Ekiti and Osun states vis-a-vis the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)'s performance?

I believe the stage is being set for a more mature approach to politics; the stage is being set for more peaceful outcome of elections. I believe that as long as the INEC ensures free and fair elections, and as long as political parties allow internal democracy in their various parties, there will be less acrimony and tension. I believe that 2015 will be an improvement on all previous elections in the country. Of course, I know there will be a lot of surprises. There will be a lot of hype against my party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But the reality is that it is the dominant party in Nigeria. It is the party to beat and it is likely to sweep the polls in 2015 - not because of any rigging - but just commonsense and the advantages of incumbency and all that. However, I believe with hard work things will change. You can see around the world that ruling parties have found themselves in the opposition. Look at what happened in India; the new Prime Minister there had been in the opposition for almost four decades. He had tried and failed but this time, the same electorate that had apparently been dancing to the tune of the incumbent made up their minds that they wanted a change and nobody could stop them. When the time for change comes in Nigeria it will be inevitable, but I think 2015 is still for the PDP.

You contested the presidential election in 2011 under the platform of another party. What is your political aspiration for 2015?

I like to see myself as a man on a mission in politics. I am not driven by ambition; I am driven by areas where I perceive there is need and I see myself as one of the best materials to solve those problems. I look at Kwara State and I feel sorry because what we have been having for almost 40 years, is mediocrity being glorified as governance. I believe the time to make the state a model and pacesetter in good governance has come and I see myself as the man who will bring about that kind of change when it is time. But the INEC has not lifted the ban on campaigns, and when it is time I will run for the governorship seat of the state and the people of the state will know that the game changer has come. Some Nigerians are of the view that the bane of the country's problem is leadership. Do you subscribe to this?

I have always felt that our system has not worked well enough. Some will say the problem is the quality of leadership; others will say the fault is in the structures we are operating. I am one of those who believe that from the colonial times, there have been some deliberate lopsidedness in the balance of power; there were some injustices committed and some of these were sustained or even amplified by the military and this has created a lot of distrust in the nation. This is why we have this constant agitation for restructuring; agitation for change in the constitution. However, I believe in the two views that the operators of the constitution are as critical as the quality of the constitution itself. To address the two problems of leadership and constitution there have been demands for a Sovereign National Conference and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo had to give to those demands and convened what we called the National Political Reform Conference. The recommendations were far-reaching and would have addressed a lot of issues but unfortunately, because the report was compromised with the purported third term agenda, it ended up not being implemented. So, the demands for a conference that will come up with implementable recommendations continued and initially President Goodluck Jonathan was reluctant especially because some of the people calling for the conference were emphasising the need for it to be sovereign. They felt that the decisions of the conference will be bold, subject to modification by the people of Nigeria. Therefore, they wanted the conference to be independent of the existing government structures. But legally and technically, making the conference sovereign would have meant that the sovereignty of the people is transferred to the conference and whatever decision taken by it would have been final and binding without the people having any need to even authenticate it again.

President Jonathan wisely avoided the idea of sovereignty. He constituted what he simply called the National Conference and the objective is to address every issue that we felt had undermined the progress of Nigeria; that has retarded the growth of Nigeria; that has slowed down the pace and progress of Nigeria. I think he did a very good job in making sure that the conference was as representative as possible. There are people who said the conference delegates were not elected, but they were actually elected officials of various entities that were a reflection of the pluralism of Nigeria. For instance, each of the six geo-political zones was called upon to produce representatives of the various ethnic nationalities as delegates. I can speak about the Middle Belt as various ethnic nationalities in the Middle Belt were called upon to send names of their representatives. In fact, we all converged in Jos, Plateau State, and did a sorting out until everybody was satisfied. The same thing happened to Ohanaeze, Afenifere and various interest groups. Many of the professional organizations were also products of election. If it had been an INEC-conducted political election, what would have happened is that most of the civil society groups, professional bodies would not have been represented and the quality of those who would have emerged would probably make it less credible. It was a clear indication that Nigerians were enthusiastic about the conference and it was highly representative. We also believe that the outcome is a reflection of the desires and yearning of the people of the country. There are sections of the country that may find one aspect of the decisions not favouring them, but it was about give and take. No region of the country got what it wanted and every region went away with something. To that extent, I think it was a remarkable and successful conference.

Why was the conference unable to reach a compromise on the derivation principle and had to hand it over to the presidency?

I think the press has misrepresented the decision of the conference on derivation. It is not out of mischief but a clear misunderstanding of what a conference of that nature is all about. From the beginning, some of us had confided in the media to expect a lot of compromises; that things may not turn out to be in the precise terms that delegates who came with different agenda wanted it to be. If those people wanted 100 per cent of the things on the table, that means others will have zero per cent. We had to balance the various conflicting interests. But let me point out that the conference succeeded in taking 98 if not 99 per cent of the issues that were presented before it. We had 20 committees and they came up with 20 brilliant reports. At the plenary sessions, we debated, discussed and analysed the various reports; modified as necessary the reports of the committees and finally adopted 19 of them without any dissenting voice. That was unprecedented and spectacular.

Then, on the devolution of power committee which discussed issues like the exclusive, concurrent and residual legislative lists which bordered on revenue allocation, the decisions were smoothly taken without difficulty. On derivation, there was a general consensus at the conference that the current 13 per cent is not adequate and that it should be increased. The problem was by how much? While some wanted it to be increased by one per cent, others wanted it increased by as much as 37 per cent and others wanted it to be 50 per cent. In the end, some elders were selected to go and distil all the ideas and they initially came up with 18 per cent. But most of the delegates from the North wanted the damage caused by insurgency to be addressed and they felt there should be five per cent allocation from the Federal Government to address it. Many of us felt we should not create the impression that we are rewarding insurgency and terrorism. We therefore packaged it as funds to ameliorate the consequences of disasters and crises not just terrorism.

So if there are people who are victims of natural disasters there should be standing funds from which their problems can be addressed. Some us felt embarrassed that the people of Bakassi who have been displaced due to no fault of theirs, the Federal Government has not fully rehabilitated them. I think that is a shame on Nigeria. In the same manner, we have people who had been displaced by floods since last year, yet they have not been properly rehabilitated. I think this is a shame on Nigeria too. In the same manner, all those who have been victims of Boko Haram and other violent conflicts in the North and other parts of the nation should be properly rehabilitated. Reconstruction works should be done in the region where damages have been caused. I believe that it is good to have a dedicated fund to address such needs, but it should not be exclusively for victims of insurgency and terrorism.