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| Hon Kwapnoe |
Hon Alex Kwapnoe is a renounce
politician in Plateau state. He is the former Adviser (Youth Affairs) to former
deputy Senate President, Nasiru Mantu; former member of the Plateau state House
of Assembly; member of the Plateau state executive council in the Jonah David
Jang administration and currently, member, National Council for Women Affairs.
In this interview with African Drum, he called for the address of the Nigerian
question among other burning national issues. Enjoy the excerpts.
Generally
how would you say our democracy has fared since the advent of this dispensation
19 years ago?
Well, truly democracy is preferable to authoritarian
rule as dictated by military dictatorship and in Nigeria, when we started almost
twenty years ago, every right thinking Nigeria believed that by now, we would
have been better off. But apparently, we have not learnt from the past.
Mistakes of the past are being repeated on a daily basis and that is stalling
our progress in other spheres of our lives. Consequently, we have lost control.
It appears what we have at the moment is a political situation in which we are
controlled by our passion, religion or ethnicity not by the rule of law,
therefore, for me, we have performed 40 percent. But I thought we should have been
an example to other African countries considering that even as of the time of
military interregnum, we were able to help installed democratic institutions in
South Africa and other climes across the world. So, we have more work to do.
What
would be your take on the security situation in the country vis-Ã -vis the
incessant killings by suspected Fulani herdsmen?
My take is that killing anywhere by anybody is
wrong. It is God that gives life and only He can take it. God did not give
authority to anybody to take another person’s life. I believe that all the
books of religions in the world fault the situation in which people arbitrarily
kill one another. To that extend, I am not comfortable and I believe all
Nigerians are not comfortable or in support of the killings going on. However,
it is also as a result of our failure to run government. What I mean by that is
that, you have the police that is poorly trained, poorly armed and poorly remunerated.
He
is also the policeman that is expected to protect lives yet his monthly take
home pay is 40 or 50 thousand naira and lacking in all I have enumerated above.
What do you expect from this police man? He tries as much as possible to
survive consequently; he may likely abandon his responsibility because there is
lack of motivation. We have similar
situation in the armed forces, in the customs and other paramilitary. We don’t
reprimand those who abandon their responsibility willfully. We are supposed to
have introduced the law of quality and the law against willful negligence. By that I meant no man should be a policeman
or security personnel without proper training but most importantly, be well remunerated.
For instance, if we are paying new entrance to NNPC 4 million naira why can’t
we do same to the police and other security personnel? So, you can see that
have neglected that sector and concentrated on politics and politicians because
the take home pay of politicians is outrageous. Instead of concentrating on
empowering our security personnel to protect lives and property, we are only
concentrating on taking care of politicians. So, until we come to term with
that reality and change our attitude and mentality, certainly we are doomed.
Are you saying those in charge of
security have compromised?
Whether you called it compromise or whatever,
what I know is that by this indoctrination; by their training they are not fit
to carry out their responsibility taking into account recent happenings. For
instance, thousands of people were killed in Plateau State some years ago. In
Dogo Nahawa almost a thousand were killed in one night and as I am talking to
you this afternoon, no single prosecution has been done, nobody has been
caught. Incidentally, that happened when we had a Christian president. So,
these things have been going on for quite sometimes, whether it is a led by a
Christian or a Muslim, we have failed woefully to re-organized and re-energized
our security system.
Are you in support of the call by the National
Assembly for the removal of Security Chiefs?
I go a step further than that. I call for the
removal of the National Assembly itself…………cuts
But
it’s the symbol of democracy?
I
say, I call for the removal of the symbol of democracy. We have to start all
over. We have to address the question of the entity called Nigeria completely.
Do we need a two term president? I say no. we
don’t. What we need now is a collegiate system of government where we have six
geo-political zones and six presidents; each one serving one term of six years.
Then we also need a single or unicameral parliament. We don’t need bi-camera
parliament. We don’t need, senate, House of Reps; it is all rubbish. We have to
address the whole question of the constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria.
If
we want to practice true federalism, let’s go ahead and do it but as it is now
what system are we practicing? Unitary or federalism? What are we really
practicing? We are practicing nothing. As far as I am concerned, the system we
are practicing is self-governance; everyone for themselves. Everyone has his or
her own generator. Everybody is expected to protect their own lives. Everybody is
expected to carter for themselves and people are engaged in doing whatever they
want. So, we have to address the whole question of the entity called Nigeria
not just the security apparatus. Yes, you can say the security apparatus has
failed, so also the whole system; governance, the constitution; everything has
collapsed. This is the reality.
. Probably it is for this reason that pundits
have observed that the life of the ordinary Nigerian who ought to be enjoying
the dividends of democracy now is at its lowest web. Do you also share in this
view?
I am
in this government. I don’t want to speak on this because I would be hailing
myself but if you take it outside the context that I am in the APC, I would say
that nowhere in the world have people make progress without sacrifice. The
concept of no pain no gain suffices here. What do I mean by that? We had a
situation; a bad past which I really wouldn’t want to mention here because
everybody know it was thieving galore and we were almost taken to bankruptcy. I
believe that every sane person is aware of what happened in the recent past.
The looting, the stealing, the illegal use of guns and ammunitions, the
oppression of the poor by the mighty. But today, I hail this government for
instance most importantly for the fact that is has been able to increase our
farmers’ league. That today, we are consuming our local rice is a plus to this
administration. Nothing can be more than this. That in the recent past, every
measure of rice we consumed was imported is indeed shameful taking into account
the abundant blessings God has bestowed on this country which include fertile
land and people with peaceful disposition. A land in which even if you spit
your saliva on it, turns to fertilizer yet we could not feed ourselves. So, in
that regard, this government has done extremely well. I have also seen
reasonably improvement in electricity supply and distribution. Where I reside
in Jos we used to stay up to six months without a blink of light, but today, we
even complain if supply is disrupted for a day. Again, that is another great
achievement of the Buhari administration. I have also notice that the kind of
reckless spending that characterized the previous government has been
curtailed. Today, everybody, including government officials live within their
means. I am not saying we have achieved all, but gradually, we are getting
there.
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In just few weeks from today, your
party, the APC is expected to have its national convention, what is your
anticipation of the exercise?
My
expectation is to see that my party allows democracy to thrive. I am very
pleased with the position of Mr. President who said that we must respect the
tenets of constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the constitution
of our party. I believe that nobody will deviate from that and if that is the
case, then it’s a step in the right direction and I think it will help the
party to grow; it would also help democracy to grow and that in itself, will
help in the growth of the society.
Do you see the APC retaining power in
2019 and even claim more states than it did in 2015?
When
APC was not in government, it won elections not to talk of now that it is the
ruling party. I appreciate the performance of president Buhari most especially
in his transparent handling of affairs in the country, I have every confident
that APC would still be in government in 2019 because in the horizon, I can’t
see any competent challenged because most of them who came from other parties
are clearly looters and I see no ability, no capacity in them to change the
tide of governance as it is. No one has shown the ability to lead at this very
moment. May be some other people who are better would come up but at the
moment, there is none.
You
have seen the list of the purported looters. The only thing that is keeping
them from going to prison is the slow judicial process otherwise; they should
have all been in prison by now. Are these the kind of people you think can
challenge Buhari and that Nigerians can trust? I don’t think so. I believe the
APC is on course and set for another four years of governance come 2019.
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