Ahamba: State police will create new security problem

• N160tn debt: Tinubu govt selling Nigeria’s future with endless borrowings

• Sheikh Jingir talking rubbish; Nigeria’ll never be Islamic state

By Vincent Kalu

Elder statesman and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Mike Ahamba, SAN, has voiced out his opposition to the establishment of state police, noting that it will complicate an already bad security situation.

In his words, most governors will simply recruit their party thugs into the police and give them uniforms

He  also came hard on states that have insisted on collecting huge sums of advertisement and signage fees before any candidate for the 2027 election would be permitted to mount billboards, describing such action as ‘extreme exploitative’, and part of the reasons some politicians get corrupt when they go into office.   

The legal luminary lampooned Sani Yahaya Jingir, the Islamic cleric over the latter’s highly provocative statement referring to Nigeria as an Islamic state. in Ahamba’s words, the cleric was spewing utter rubbish.

Barely five months to the 2027 elections, what are your expectations?

It’s just like a very heavy sky threatening to rain. It’s unfortunate. The way things are going, we’ll be very lucky it moves on smoothly and I pray it does. But you can also have it move on swiftly if people can click to the rules

Why are you sounding sceptical?

Because the opposition is worrying about what the ruling party is doing, and nobody is sure that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would be neutral. That is a problem, and I hope my learned colleague in silk, the chairman of INEC will know that he has two positions to protect – one is that he is a lawyer of a high level, and secondly, he bears a Christian name. There are things he does that may rob off eventually, so, he should simply make sure he uses his whistle when it ought to be used as a neutral referee. That’s all he needs to do; the moment he does that, he will be a record like Prof Nwosu, who proved that a free and fair election was possible in Nigeria; he proved it.

So, let Prof Nwosu not be the last professor who would prove that credible elections in Nigeria could be a possibility.

You alluded to what APC is doing. What is the ruling party doing?

The opposition feels that the ruling party is muscling them. A lot of bad blood is being injected into the opposition parties making them feel uncomfortable. They have been complaining, it’s common news.

Newspapers have been carrying most of those complaints. That is the question. But having made all those complaints, I think Joash Amupitan, SAN can very easily make things right by being neutral, particularly in the Osun State election.

The party primaries have been conducted. What are your views over the outcome?

It is unfortunate that most of them had problems. If there was a provision that said that to go to open primary and after doing that, the parties refused to announce the results. It’s unfortunate for people to vote and a group of people sit down in the name of the executive or special committee to now give tickets to people who did not win the general nomination. It’s not very good.

Whoever they present in the election as a contestant, the only thing that INEC has to do is to recuse themselves for whatever happened in political parties. Whoever is there as a candidate should be given a level playing ground.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the courts should not meddle in the internal affairs of political parties. but in the case of one who won a party primary but had his ticket given to another person, is it not a denial of his fundamental rights if the court fails to listen to him?

If you want to fight that, you find it from the statutes. It is not only political parties; Courts are not allowed to dabble into matters that are related to internal affairs of corporate bodies or private associations.

One of the things that they considered is that if you reverse it, they can go back and do it again. 

But where it has to do with nomination, the law says, if there’s nomination and somebody feels that the process of domination is faulty, the Electoral Act has given the court the jurisdiction to go ahead and inquire into it. If any court declines to do that, well I don’t know what their reasons may be. But I know that under the Electoral Act, when it is a question of complaint about the way a loser in a nomination is complaining, the court has jurisdiction.

But, inside the party, and as to how the primary is conducted, unless there is a breach in the procedure as provided by the constitution of the party, the court has no jurisdiction. I don’t know where you see the difference between the two.

You were so hopeful that everything will be resolved and the PDP will bounce back to reckoning. However, INEC has recognised the Wike faction. So, what’s your position now?

As far as I know, PDP is PDP. Let us see what happens eventually. The PDP that they recognise is on the marble as PDP, and it has to be there. If for any reason the Supreme Court thinks otherwise and reverses it, then we will look at it. But for now, there is a party called PDP. It’s not going to die.

It’s not that one likes what has happened within the party, no, but that is the position; there must be an end to litigation. If the courts have decided to recognise the Wike faction, so be it.

For the 2027 elections, some states have introduced advertisement and signage fees for contestants. In Abuja, a presidential candidate is expected to pay N750 million to mount his billboard. In Abia, it’s N200, 000; Enugu is N150, 000, while Anambra is N50 million. What is your take on this?

It amounts to exploitation in the extreme, and this is part of the reasons some politicians get corrupt when they go into office.

They are so harassed by the society before they go in and that they need to recover what they have spent.

I have contested several elections; this is the first time; this APC period is the first time that governments are asking people to pay for mounting electoral election billboards. They must tax everything; they will collect money from everything and yet do nothing with it. It is very unfortunate, and it’s undemocratic. I want to repeat, this is exploitation in the extreme.

It was reported today that the debt profile of Nigeria has hit almost N160 trillion and the government this year alone has borrowed N14 trillion. What is your view on this?

Honestly, I don’t know where this will lead this country to. One thing God has denied human beings is that we don’t know what happens tomorrow.

It’s unfortunate that this administration is mortgaging the posterity of Nigeria. It’s a pity really and we don’t see how it is happening; they said they’re moving the economy and everything is going fine, but I know that the average Nigerian is not happy; he’s not happy. All these monies we are borrowing, who will pay them? It is the future; the posterity will pay.

Let the present administration know that what they are doing is to sell the future of Nigeria, which is wrong.

Members of the party now are clapping and enjoying it. They should try and get it right because nobody knows where they’ll be next. Some of us in the PDP were there when the ANPP, APC and other parties were complaining, but now PDP is at the receiving end. Let’s all do the right thing when you’re in a position to do that because you don’t know what happens next.

What should define 2027; the campaign messages?

People should vote according to their personal interest, and an assessment, not on the basis of who has seen them; from a place of who they think can change their position from the present state of despondency to one of cheers.

People should vote for those who have interest in their welfare, not those who have promises and goodies.

By now, every Nigerian must have formed his or her personal opinion on his or her state of affairs. They should vote based on their state of affairs and this should dictate how each one of us cast our vote.

INEC should please make the votes count as cast. We need just one good election in this country and things will go right. This is the way I look at it, and it’s a matter of personal commitment and desire. How do you want to be remembered as an INEC chairman? Is it the one who created problems? Is it as the one, during his era, things went wrong?

Or the one, during his era, people formed the opinion they have about Prof Nwosu. That is my advice to everybody who is working at any level.

The mood in the society is too rough for anybody to take chances, and I want INEC not to take chances with people because a hungry man is an angry man.

From the way the government is going, before the end of this year, Nigeria may likely have State Police. What are your suggestions on how it should be organised so that state governors won’t take advantage of it?

I don’t know how to organise it. Personally, I’ve said it and I know I hold a minority view by saying it because I’ve been in the political field all this while and I say; state police now will be counterproductive.

We point to America as an example. We should know that there’s no national police in America. You have the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). America didn’t create states. America has countries that volunteered to enter as states. They had their police before they became members of the United States of America. They were there.

And those things were recognised as they were; then, they gave some powers to the federal government that they can manifest there.

You don’t use a situation, as we have it here, where the federal government created the states and gave them certain powers.

Now, I want to say it here, that there’s nothing you can do to stop these governors misusing these policemen. People are already complaining about what the federal police are doing to them, and now, you want to bring another police force in addition to the one they are complaining about.

It’s not fair to the people. If they want to do it, we shall all be here to see what happens.

After all, when it comes to recruitment, most of the governors will simply recruit their party thugs into the police and give them uniforms.

It’s going to happen.

State police is no solution to our security problem. It’s going to create a new security problem. Yes, it is the situation. So let them organise what they have already to fight the insurgency we have in this country now.

After all, if you create state police now, you’re not going to recruit them in the next one month. Then when you do that, within the one month, won’t the fight continue? Do you think that a policeman trained for just one month would be good enough to confront these indoctrinated bandits and insurgents? It’s not going to be easy.

If we’re going to talk about the state police, let’s forget it, after this election we will go into it so that there will be proper consultation where everybody will come to express his or her view about it.

I know what happened when there were local government police in this country. I remember very well; I was in second school. I saw J S Tarka in the newspaper in the streets of Oturkpo being handcuffed by the native police.

My father contested an election. There was nothing they didn’t do to attract him to do something that would make the local police come after him; when they arrest you, they ask you to withdraw from the election. That happened in the 60s. My father was in politics then. I know what happened. So, my father was able to manipulate it and never agreed to take any step that was wrong. I was there one day when somebody came to ask my father to authorise him to go and tear the poster of NCNC. He told the man, ‘You saw the poster there, you didn’t tear it, and you want me to tell you to go and tear it? Leave their poster, leave my own too, and let him be there.’ Eventually, my father won as an independent candidate.

But if he had allowed that thing to happen, they would have locked him up, and they would have been prepared for him to withdraw from the election.

So, we should stop complicating our progress in this country. This will bring a new problem; but if the majority of people want it, so be it because we believe we’re in a democracy, where the minority will have their say, while the majority will have their way. I’ve had my say. Let the majority have their way if they want to.

That’s how they said they didn’t want a parliamentary system, but a strong presidential system. Now they want a parliamentary system. They won’t study a system before they begin to articulate views on its use. People who don’t know how those things originated or how they are operating where they’re operating, will just come up and say they want it because they’ve learned to speak English and have access to the press. Most of them don’t understand how these things are functioning.

However, even if we are going to have state police, we must hold on until after this election. That’s my very humble, patriotic opinion. I come in peace.

  About three weeks ago, Catholic bishops visited the president, and complained about the unfavourable state of the nation, since then, there have been attacks and counter attacks on both sides. What do you say to this?

Integrity and forthrightness are very expensive in Nigeria. If you must have them, you must be ready for assault from the negative people. That’s what the Catholic bishops are facing now. So, it’s expected. You don’t expect to be hit so hard at the centre for the misrule in this country, and those who have benefited from it will not react. That’s what is happening.

Like, Cardinal John Onaiyekan has said that, ‘the attacks don’t matter because we have delivered our message, and how they react to it is no longer our business.’ He is right.

What I’m trying to teach is that the message has been delivered, and to whom it was delivered should advise himself.

It’s not all the charlatan rubbish they are writing in the newspapers. People should go and look at the constitution and the function of certain persons who have authority in the government houses and in the state house. You find that they are personal staff of the president, and they shouldn’t be talking. Go to the constitution and look at it very well. People, who are holding office of personal staff to the President, will go and represent Nigeria abroad. It is a pity.

One Sheik Yahaya Jingir said that the Muslim-Muslim ticket has confirmed that Nigeria is an Islamic state, calling on anybody who doesn’t want it to leave. He even addressed Christians as infidels. What is your take on this?

The man is just being silly. He knows he’s talking rubbish. That shows you exactly why there is insurgency. It’s a religious insurgency.

I’ve continued to say it, it is a religious insurgency, and unfortunately, we did not confront it early enough, and it’s shifted into the society. But if we confront it, it can’t succeed, Nigeria cannot be a Muslim country; it’s a multi-religious country. So let them worship in their own way, let the Christians worship in their own way, and let the animists worship in their own way.

Let everybody worship in his own way; that is what the constitution has said. You shouldn’t decide the way people should worship. In his lifetime, you’ll find that his ambition will fail.

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