Professor Alphonsus Bosah Chukwurah Nwosu, 81, also known as ABC Nwosu, is a Nigerian politician, parasitologist, academic, and administrator who served as Minister of Health from 2001 to 2003. He also served as Commissioner for Health in Anambra State from 1986 to 1992. In this interview, he speaks on the crisis facing the People’s Democratic Party, continuous detention of Nnamdi Kanu and the forthcoming governorship election in Anambra State. Excerpts:
You are a founding member of the People’s Democratic Party. What is happening to your party now?
What is happening in the party started even early in 1998 with my winning of the governorship ticket in Anambra and it was cancelled by the appeal panel. When the party started deviating from its founding principles, then the problem started; you remember that the first set of governorship candidates, that is us, ran the primaries and campaigned in all the local governments but our tickets were taken away from us.
Some of us went on appeal. So, if you take the case of Anambra State, you would see the warning given by the men who ran the election. Gen. A.B. Mamman, with Senator Dagash and Dr. Debu Igwe. They said if the party was going to go that way, it would be a pity. But it has gone that way. It has followed impunity, rather than the rules as set by the party.
And so, that is what has happened to the party and continues to happen to the party. And again, that the party shall run on a rotational basis, North and South for presidency. Then, Umaru Yar’Adua died, a Northerner did not complete his tenure, the Vice-President (Goodluck Jonathan), completed the tenure. But that Vice-President insisted on having tenure of his own and they bent over to give him tenure but he wanted to do two tenures, and then that was when the open rebellion took place in PDP. At the end of it, the President was dropped (he lost the election), and the APC (All Progressives Congress) came up. If PDP had brought a Northern candidate, according to its rules, it would not have lost the election.
Again, PDP said that the party would be funded by members through membership fees. At that time, PDP members were up to six million people, and assuming that each member was to pay N1,000 or N2,000, you were going to get N12 billion. So the governors and money bags took over, especially governors and political parties became a forum for governors within that party.
These were what were debated, and I am bold to claim and I dare anyone to say that I was not at the meetings in Prof. Jerry Gana’s house where PDP was formed and that I was not present the night that the Secretary General was chosen. So I think that what has happened to PDP was that it started going not by the rules it set for itself, but by the face of man, the supermen who became legitimizers.
So, once you start doing that and getting funds from them, he who pays the piper dictates the tune. If the PDP wants to come back, it must put the rules right, rotation right, funding must be got right too. And then the people must have faith in it.
Do you think that PDP will really recover from this present crisis?
Well, I’m very happy about the present crisis because I have faith that it will recover. Why do I say so? Because it’s good that APC has shown us what the alternative is. Where the old woman cries at night and the child dies at midnight and is legitimized in the morning by the people who should uphold it.
This is an Igbo proverb, which translated means that … If you look at what happened (in the National Assembly), you have both the House of Representatives and the Senate sitting, the members themselves, I don’t know how they determined those that constituted two thirds majority, that’s not the kind of democracy I know. The Constitution is clear.
I was once a Political Adviser to the president before becoming a Minister, and I recall that the president (Bola Tinubu) took President (Olusegun) Obasanjo to court over non democratic tendencies. Nigerians can judge now how far we have gone along the road. Almost every day, the old woman cries at night now and in the morning, the child dies, the frequency is too much. So if PDP didn’t give way, we would not have known that it could ever become like that.
We would never know that a democratic government could also suspend a democratic government. Very often, I hear people say sub-national level, there’s no nonsense, I repeat, no nonsense like that in a federation. Federation is a central government, it is not a national government, it is a central government and coordinates governments of federating units.
There is no nonsense called local government. Local governments are completely under coordinate governments. Now you hear everybody talking of sub-national governments, our founding fathers gave the powers the central government had. I keep asking people; Tafawa Balewa was number three in the NPC (Northern People’s Congress). The leader of NPC was Sir Ahmadu Bello. Why wasn’t he Prime Minister of Nigeria?
The way we are running the government now – national government and sub-national government, it is so amusing; it is as if you now have a Federal Government and sub-national governments, and therefore the Federal Government has superintending powers over states. There is no nonsense like that. We better look again at the federation and decide what exactly we are running. So (Nnamdi) Azikiwe was not under Tafawa Balewa, (Obafemi) Awolowo was not under Tafawa Balewa.
These were the three at independence, not to talk of Sir Ahmadu Bello, so we better look at it. I was actively involved in one of the various constitutional conferences, and I was a member of the other. We were quite clear that what we are running now is not a Federal Government, and that’s why you are seeing people saying, ‘let us return to true federalism, and let us go back to fiscal federalism.’
In this present situation where we kept power coming to the centre from 28 to 68 now should be reviewed. That’s why there is a do-or-die struggle for the centre.
Nnamdi Kanu has been incarcerated for a very long time, what is your take on this?
Painful, very painful and his detention is completely senseless to me. People have forgotten what it is supposed to achieve, or not even achieve. The court has said release him. Wasn’t Nnamdi Kanu the chairman of APGA (All Progressives Grand Alliance), London? Wasn’t Nnamdi Kanu a member of MASSOB (Movement for the Survival of Biafra)? What are you detaining him for? The court has said release him, release him.
In my sickness, illness, about midnight, I read an apology by Godwin Kanu Agabi, SAN and I cried and I called him about midnight and said ‘thank you for all of us.’ When he was apologizing for Nnamdi Kanu and urging the Federal Government to release him, everything that Godwin Agabi said is exactly how I feel. I have to go and find him and thank him.
What is it that you think Nnamdi Kanu is going to do that the bandits haven’t done in the North West? What is it that Boko Haram hasn’t done?
Anybody who thinks that once you release Nnamdi Kanu, Biafra will spring up from the blues, from the roots, from the stem, the leaves fall down, release him, we are not saying it will not fall down, release him, court said release him, release him. Not releasing him is like asking somebody, what can you do? So the court said to release him. I won’t release him. Do your worst. That’s how many people feel. There was a time I said something.
I said at least all these suppositions, all these things you think that if you release Nnamdi Kanu, you will have the Biafra Liberation Army and it will do this or that. I’m not saying it will not. I’m saying we shall see. At least you will see whether he can or cannot. You are trampling on his rights.
The South East has in recent times experienced insecurity. What do you think is responsible for that and what should be the solution to insecurity in the region?
The matter of insecurity in the South East is also another very painful one. There was a time when the South East was the most secure. There are many causes. The non-release of Nnamdi Kanu is one of the causes. Not that Nnamdi Kanu is causing it. That this person has not done any harm more than the others that you have released in other places.
Even in places where it started, like Boko Haram, what have you done? You have released them. You are reintegrating them. You are retraining them. You release them to society. What did they do? They did worse. So, release our own. You are just telling us, ‘okay, do your worst.’ That feeling is contributing.
Two, there are forces from outside the South East that have been paid to go and put fire to kerosene there, to exacerbate the insecurity in the South East. Asari Dokubo said it and keeps saying it, he hasn’t been arrested. It hasn’t been said that he is lying and if he is not lying, that may be one of the forces.
I was to have been the key lecturer at the Dora Akunyili lecture in Onitsha by UNN (University of Nigeria, Nsukka) alumni. And after it happened to one of the gentlest, non-troublesome, fine human beings I have ever known, Chike Akunyili, who I begged personally, I have witnesses, to allow me to recommend his wife, Dora for NAFDAC. And seeing Chike Akunyili, terrific, very good physician’s head split open, we don’t know whether that was to provoke the Igbo into doing what they are not supposed to do. Almost like saying, ‘okay, we will pick out their people.’
So I was sitting, just like in this sitting room as we are now; a call came and said: ‘Aren’t you ABC Nwosu’? I said, shut up, you bastard. You are threatening me for what? For carrying one and a half lungs in Biafra from my war injury, for leaving the university, I fled Ibadan to Nsukka and we were the first set that graduated after the war in 1971. Don’t call me again. If you have to kill me, kill me.
“If the PDP wants to come back, it must put the rules right, rotation right, funding must be got right too. And then the people must have faith in it”
Who was the person that called you?
How can I know? Okay, who are the IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) people that called you? When somebody calls you and says you are next. I reported the matter here. So I don’t know. All I know is that those who threatened me, I’m not the enemy.
I cannot be the enemy. But if it’s blue, I will say it’s blue. If it’s black, I will say it’s black. I’m giving you the reasons why… And then the criminality that has now come into it, how many people know that Chu Okongwu is buried? Dr. Chu Okongwu is my relation. When we put him on the ground, not more than five of us were there.
Two of his children who were in America said, those who are in Nigeria should share the things. They don’t want anything. They will not see anything again in Nigeria. They came to negotiate. His house was burnt down. George Obiozor’s house was burnt down and George was just returning from the first bout of chemotherapy for his prostate problem. And he wept like a little child. Not for property, if you knew George, not for his property, but his library. So when he died, I said, George died two times, the day they burnt his property and the day he died from the same problem. I cannot say that those ones were IPoB or that they were not IPoB or that they were Igbos. But George Obiozor was one of the nicest human beings you ever met.
And Kanayo Esinulo, in his book, has made it clear that the things that happened in their effort to bring back (Dim Odumegwu) Ojukwu as Onye ije nno, the major role by Chuba Okadigbo, the role by George Obiozor, who coined Onye ije nno and welcomed him at the airport in Abidjan and brought him back; could they be the enemies of who? Are they enemies of IPoB or enemies of what?
So I don’t really know what has brought it, but a great deal of criminality and criminals have come into it. And in the process, they cannot again tell you, you don’t know who is who anymore.
The boy from the neighbouring town who advertised that he was doing his late mother’s Ofala; of course armed robbers, instead of going to where they may not get up to N200,000, go to the place where they will get millions because you’ve told them you’ve left millions. I don’t think those ones are paid. I think those ones are criminals looking for money.
What would be your advice to the leaders in the South East, do you think they are doing well, especially the governors, what should be the solution?
You see, except when two people are faced with the same problem, you can’t judge them. For example, you can’t judge Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State and Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra. They are not facing the same problems. You cannot judge governors Alex Otti of Abia State and Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi because they have different problems.
Soludo took a comprehensive look, and came out with a law.
He smashed houses where criminals were hiding. There was intelligence before he did that and he was not the first governor to do that. Remember, there was a time we had Bakassi Boys in that place. But there was one that really made me sick, people using pestle and mortar and pounding people’s legs as if they were pounding fufu. They call them tax agents and all that.
I said no, no, no, no. Somebody must bring this to the governor’s attention. I can’t think of anybody who has been properly educated, who can think of that kind of means of resolving an issue. So they have different challenges but they don’t often meet.
A long time ago, even when we were in government, we tried, we were meeting in the Senate President’s house to think as one. I blame governments of the South East for not thinking along the lines of the South East Development Initiative. We have produced two Chief Economic advisers to Mr. President.
We have had Soludo. We have Prof. Austin Ogbu, brilliant economists. And we are very strong, even though we are older than we are, somebody like Kalu Idika Kalu, we can’t sit down. We can’t imagine a project that one economy can’t handle, neither Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi nor Enugu, you sit down, put the five states together and they will meet and solve the problem, it becomes an Eastern problem. M.I Okpara was once a governor, official records show that Eastern Nigeria under Okpara was the fastest growing economy in the world. That’s why you had farm settlements.
We had agricultural produce, we didn’t have cocoa. But at a stage, we started producing some of these.
At least one of the governors who knows about SEDI should bring the others to buy into it. Ohaneze had asked Osita Ogbu to produce a blueprint, he did. Why can’t they all buy into it? One of them was chief economic adviser and governor of the Central Bank. It’s his duty. Nobody is going to beg him. He’s not bigger than any other governor.
So the fact that I can work with you is more of my quality than yours because I’m asking you to follow. If I try to suffocate you with my knowledge ability, you will go to your place and I will go to mine. So I place more onus on the person who knows, for not bringing the person who is as well-educated and who knows.
How is your party going to fare in Anambra, your home state? Will PDP make a mark? How do you look at the forthcoming governorship election in Anambra State?
First, I’m not in the PDP anymore. My resignation was made very clear. I said I had resigned as a matter of principle and conscience. I was quite clear. So I’m not playing partisan politics again. Let it be free and fair. Let the people choose who they want to be their governor. That is the simplest I can take because of what happened to me.
If the people want somebody, leave them to have that person. They know why. You ask me who I think or what I think. The most stable time we’ve had in Anambra has been under Peter Obi and I think what has helped a lot under Peter Obi was his humility.
Whether real or contrived, it doesn’t matter. People don’t want human beings who will come to them and before you’ve told them the problem in their backyard, they know it much better than you do. People like to tell you their problem and you gently ease them into the solution. I think that is human nature.