DAILY SUN
Friday, October 12, 2012
H’S BOMBSHELL!
ry if I wish
had a charismatic leader with these kinds of persons. But that is what I call the richness of my life and I am really eternally grateful to God for that. So, if you ask me if anything has changed, I don’t know. I am still struggling, in the same way that 90 per cent of Nigerians that called me, still call me Father Kukah. They still find it difficult to call you Bishop Kukah? Yes. And it includes bishops. I mean, sometimes, I am having a long conversation with Archbishop Onaiyekan and a few others and they still call me Father Kukah until I try to say look, I am a bishop now. And if I say I am a bishop now, people just laugh. But I think a lot of people still believe that I’d rather be Father Kukah, which is a wonderful feeling because in this business, you need to have your feet on the ground. Talking about the papacy, would you say the seat is politicised? In what sense? It cannot be politicised because nobody campaigns to become a pope. To politicise anything at all presupposes that you have got platforms for competition. None of those kinds of things exists. In that case, do you foresee a Nigerian, becoming pope soon like we expected in the case of Cardinal Arinze? I don’t know why people were expecting. People were saying an African pope and I said no, there is nothing like an African pope. There can never be a Nigerian pope. There may be a pope, who is from Nigeria but it doesn’t make him a Nigerian pope. There may be a pope from Africa but it doesn’t make him an African pope. We have only pope of the Catholic Church, who may happen to be from Brazil or he could be from Poland or he could be from Nigeria or he could be from Ghana. To narrow it down, do you foresee a Nigerian becoming pope soon? My dear, except becoming God, there is nothing that is not possible. With God all things are possible. And, in any case, this country has produced some of the most excellent, international servants whether they are serving politically, economically or spiritually. We’ve always excelled wherever we find ourselves. How do you feel that after the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa panel, the result was aborted? I don’t know what you mean by the result was aborted. Maybe if you come to the event I have tomorrow and the book is launched and you grab a copy of my book and you read it, you will know that there was no abortion because a child was born. What do you think would have been the benefit of Nigeria’s unity if the panel’s recommendations were implemented? Nothing would have changed for the simple rea-
more churches had been n Nigeria. All the churches Nigeria in the last 20 or so has done is not up to what e in Nigeria by forces that ko Haram. So, my argument ell, look, if we need peace in the
ose things. If you need peace in the ountry where I have freedom to pracchurch that takes me ten years to try estroys the church and somehow, the eem to know what to do. ‘
son that Nigerians don’t use information. And people like you can go to the Internet and download the entire Oputa panel report but no Nigerian journalist has done that. If you had produced that report and put it out on the streets, nobody would read it. Why is the situation like that? Because this is Nigeria. People are good at talking. People are good at talking but action is not there. Elsewhere, in more serious countries, even parts of the Oputa Report that came out should have been part of political science debate and discussion across the country and you don’t need the president to release that report for you to get the information. In any case, like I told people, I just flew this afternoon with somebody from Sokoto. He held me by the hand as usual and greeted me very warmly. And he said to me, look, I have got almost every tape of Oputa panel because I listened to everything. Now, the first thing about Oputa panel is that everything is out there in the open in the sense that most of the debates, everybody has them. The critical question is to say what were the recommendations and the recommendations are there. Even if government didn’t release them, Nigerians had access to what the recommendations were. And serious people in a most serious country: journalists, civil society groups, should appropriate some of those recommendations and use them to confront government. I give you a simple example. When Obasanjo appointed me to serve as a mediator to end the conflict between Shell and Ogoni, it was more or less following through some of the recommendations of Oputa panel, although he may not have been direct in that way. And it is also important for Nigerians to understand. When you talk about releasing a report, you see, if, let’s say for example, something is wrong with The Sun Newspapers, staff go on strike or whatever or staff are complaining or there is a hemorrhaging of staff, your Managing Director, Tony Onyima, would probably say ok, look, let’s hire a consultant to find out what has happened, why people are leaving us. They may come back and say look, the reason your staff are leaving you is because the pay is l o w,
morale is low, other newspapers have cars for their staff, and so on and so forth. If your chairman collects that report, he doesn’t have to call a meeting of all the journalists to say this is the report I have received. If he decides on his own, he doesn’t have to say now gentlemen, I have decided to raise your salary because a commission of enquiry recommended so so so and so. If you see better changes in your condition of service, he doesn’t have to tell you what the motivation is. So, similarly, if Nigerians see a change in their lives, and I am not defending government. But when government gets these reports and wants to implement, sometimes, the government doesn’t necessarily have to go out, saying this is what we are going to do. But my feeling is that civil society groups, especially the media, need to be a little bit more proactive because like the late Dele Giwa used to say, it is the business of Nigeria to hide its information and it is our business as journalists to find that information. Not minding that the government clamped down on the Oputa panel recommendation, you still published a book on it. Why? This book is the first I am publishing. There are two more coming. I am going to publish a book on Political Reform Conference and I am also going to publish a book on my experience in Ogoni land. There wasn’t much excitement in the Justice Uwais Committee that I served in. I didn’t throw up a lot of excitement. It didn’t have enough intrigues to create excitement. So, I am not likely to do any book on that. But for me as a public intellectual, releasing that book is one way of continuing the work of Oputa panel and I am proud to say that through my own initiative, I have encouraged people; one student in Oxford, another student in Ibadan, to work on the findings of Oputa panel. For me, that is why I said I am really saddened by the fact that the Nigerian universities communities have been a great disappointment really in terms of how the universities have reacted to matters of this nature because this is raw material for even a course in political science. I mean, traditional justice is now a course on its own. People are earning degrees in traditional justice. Do you actually think, deep in your mind, in spite of your populist position, that Nigeria’s disunity can be
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cured? What do you mean by disunity? That people have been discussing the possible disintegration of Nigeria…My dear, let me tell you. Please, this country, nothing is going to happen to its unity. The people, who are talking about disintegration of Nigeria are just a few cowboys in the media. They don’t represent anybody. They represent themselves and they probably are on the wrong end of the fence. But the fact of the matter is, don’t let anybody deceive you. This country is going nowhere. This country will grow stronger and stronger. I do not take it that 99 per cent of ordinary Igbo people feel the way that those who claim to represent them talk about. Or that 95 per cent of Yoruba feel the way that people want to make us believe or that 99 per cent of ordinary people in Northern Nigeria feel the way that some cowboys want to make everybody believe. I think we have had our difficulties but let me tell you that, perhaps, the saddest thing with Nigeria is that we have not been able to have the leadership that can inspire confidence and literally mesmerise us because every country requires a leadership that has charisma. When you have a charismatic leader, even your hunger goes away. When you have a charismatic leader, you can make sacrifice. You won’t see all these things. It is not because they are not there. When I went to Ghana after Rawlings came to power, you needed to queue up for about three, four or five hours to buy a loaf of bread. People were queuing up for almost a whole day to get a litre of fuel. But you could see the confidence and the courage of Ghanaians. So, these things are not about infrastructure and so on and so forth. It is that, unfortunately for us, Nigerians have not been lucky to have the kind of charismatic leader that can rouse the populace. Including Jonathan? ell, it is a point I am making. We can’t talk of a Nigerian leader that has created what you might call theatre and drama. Take a simple example of somebody like Mandela. Have you ever seen a Nigerian leader dancing for example? Something as simple as that. Mandela is not a good dancer but every time he did all those things, why do you think, for example, that Bafana Bafana have never won African Cup of Nations again? But when Mandela became president, he was able to rouse up these people from nowhere. The rugby team that won the world cup, it was because of the Mandela persona. You go and watch. I keep making reference to it. There is a film called invictus. Go and watch it. So, it is possible when you have a leadership that can choreograph change by making people feel that this is our country, we believe in it, things will be better. When you see the passion that Nigerians express in football or whatever, you know. So, every human being has passion. Some people deploy the passion for sex, others for drugs and so on. But you have to find out what to do with your passion. And if your nation does not seize that moment, then you deplore it to something else. You were selected recently as one of those to put an end to the Boko Haram insurgency in the North. What has your committee done so far? We weren’t to deal with Boko Haram as such. But you are to restore peace in the North…Yeah. We are still working. I have been terribly busy with other things but we have identified some of the issues. I have also my own feelings about what I think we need to deal with in terms of seeking healing in the North. I mean, the injuries started before Boko Haram. Before Boko Haram, more churches had been destroyed in the Northern Nigeria. All the churches destroyed in the Northern Nigeria in the last 20 or so years, what Boko Haram has done is not up to what has been done in one state in Nigeria by forces that have nothing to do with Boko Haram. So, my argument, as a Christian, is to say well, look, if we need peace in the North, you need to address all those things. If you need peace in the North, for me, we cannot live in a country where I have freedom to practice my religion and then, I build a church that takes me ten years to try and find the resources, somebody destroys the church and somehow, the state government doesn’t seem to know
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