Professor Kimse Okoko, president of the Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of Niger Delta (CENND) and former president, Ijaw National Congress (INC), spoke to KELVIN EBIRI in Port Harcourt.ARE you in support of the clamour for State Police, particularly by some governors'That is being disingenuous. You want to pluck state police from the Constitution. They are doing like the National Assembly, half-heartedly tinkering with the Constitution. Create state police and so what'These governors must look at it holistically. This piecemeal way of looking at the problems in the Constitution will not help this country. You cannot just pluck out state police and say we have achieved something.I don't support their call for just state police. AllI am saying is do a national conference. Of course, there will be state police, there willbe state constitution; all states will have their own flags. That is the beauty of federalism; that is unity in diversity.Right now, there is no diversity. Licence plates are produced from one source. All must register companies in Abuja. What type of federal system is that' They are stifling innovation, creativity and yet, they don't realise that is what is causing fundamental problems in this country.Doesn't insecurity caused by Boko Haram make the call imperative'I have always argued that before, during and after the (2011) elections, there weresome key politicians in the North, who said they would make this government and country ungovernable for Jonathan. I believe those statements were not made as a joke; they were very serious statements and they knew what they were talking about. So, what you are seeing in the country is an affirmation of those statements.But if they think that by doing that, President Jonathan will not be able to contain the situation, they will be making the biggest mistake. It is not Jonathan; it is the country that is being undermined. If they make the country ungovernable for Jonathan, who is going to accept them to govern us'What they are saying is that they want to see the country break up. If they think they want to limit it to Jonathan, I think they are making a grave mistake. It is the country that is in trouble.Those who also flippantly say it is because of poverty are not sincere. Why must they be so simplistic' Is poverty only in the North' If it is poverty, why must they be bombing churches'The sooner we realised that it has a deep religious connotation, the better for us and the better for those who want to find solution to the problem.Yes, poverty, to the extent that you have already made army for them to recruit, but you cannot take the substance away from Boko Haram when they said'we want to Islamize the country.' That is their ideological position and you cannot take away that from them.Those saying it is poverty are being mischievous. That is a song that some Northerners now sing, but it cannot be. Let them not emasculate the substances Boko Haram stands for. Let them face up to the substance; that is the only way we can solve the problem. If you begin to talk about poverty, you will not be able to solve that problem. Poverty will not tell them to go and bomb churches.DESPITE the recommendations of the Belgore Committee, the clamour for fiscal federalism seems to be a sectional agitation, isn't it'True federalism is both political and economical. It means that all the federating units must own and control their resources. Those who think they don't have any resources will want to feed fat on the resources of other regions; so, they will continue to insist on the status quo.There is no part of this country that has not got resources that they can develop. We have been made to believe that it is just the oil and its easy money and everybody wants to grab it. Nobody wants to develop agriculture. We all knewthe role agriculture played in the development of the North during the Sardauna daysbut nobody wants to do that again.It is free money that is converted into corruption that everyone likes. Those who have been benefiting from this massive corruption will not want to let go. But now, some key elements in the North are saying let's hold a national conference.Even if the government does not see reasons for it, the propelling forces will ultimately make us have one. The ultimate goal of a national conference is for us to have a Peoples Constitution, which will be put before Nigerians in a referendum. That is the ultimate goal; it is not a tea party.Is lack of autonomy the reasonlocal governments are not performing'The reason we are not feeling the impact of the local government councils is because the states have hands in their pie. Most local governments are under the control of state governments; so, how can they perform'The non-performance is as result of the Constitution, which does not have a clear delineation of the local government. Some have argued that the local government is not the third tier of government. With this confusion, the state governments are having a field day.Everybody knows what is happening at the local government level: that the state governments take control of them. Because the state governments are corrupt, they cannot control the corruption at the local government. The local governments need autonomy.SHOULDN'T public officers declare their assets publicly'Public declaration will be ideal. But in Nigeria, be rest assured that when they have done the public declaration, their properties are in the names of other people; hence, making nonsense of the public declaration.In as much as public declaration is good, corruption in the country has gone so far that most public officers willnot declare all their assets because they have distributed them cleverly to people to hold in trust for them.While I am saying that the demonstrative effect of public declaration is going to be fantastic, let us not be taken in that people will declare every item of the property they have. In Nigeria, it's not going to happen.What about immunity; should governors continue to enjoy the privilege'Immunity for them should be expunged (from the Constitution). Immunity is part of the corruption problems of this country. If governors know that they have no immunity, they will feel more accountable to the people. But with immunity, you can see why they are not accountable to the people.They even brag: 'After four years, you can take me to court.' And because the judiciary is hopelessly corrupt, you cannot get justice. It is a terrible situation we have in this country. If the judiciary that is supposed to hold them in check is corrupt, what hope do we have'You don't even have the kind of money they (politicians) have to go through the legal process. How can they claim that the removal of immunity will distract them' Who is going to distract them if they are developing the states by building schools, constructing roads, and improving healthcare' Their distraction is stealing, corruption!WHY the insistence on a national conference instead of a constitutional review'Well, it is so crucial that we must have a national conference and it will become a sovereign national conference after a Constitution has been drawn upand it is put before Nigerians in a referendum. That is what makes it a sovereign national conference because sovereignty resides in the people, and not in any other person.It is crucial because, as I have always argued, the generation of corruption in this country is because of the concentration of powers and wealth at the centre. The centre generates corruption, radiates corruption; it is an embodiment of corruption.If you have a Constitutionthat respects those key national functions that the centralgovernment is expected to perform like defence, immigration, foreign affairs, there will be peace. If the federal government is limited to that and other things that are supposed to be performed by states and local governments are ascribed to them, the generation of corruption will be far less than what we see today.In any case, when powers are devolved, the respective tierswill take up the guise for being corrupt. But where the centre arrogates all the powers, all resources, it becomes a big problem, and we end up running a unitary system and call it a federal system. The sooner we agree to sit down and delineate the functions for the centre, the states and local governments, the better for us.The 1999 Constitution has no Exclusive List for the states. Why not' The Constitution should have Exclusive List for the states and for the centre. There are certain functions that can best be performed by the states and must be in the Exclusive List of the states.It is a national conference that can do that, and not by amendments. They (National Assembly) will not be able to do it. Can the National Assembly say we want a parliamentary system' That is a fundamental change in the Constitution. Can they'They are meant to amend not to review the Constitution.People think that those of us who call for a national conference want to break up the country. No. They are the ones doing the worst damage to this country; they are the ones who want to see the country break up. A national conference will lead to a great Nigeria that we all hope for and things will change dramatically in this country.Should we have more states'The National Assembly members are the ones propelling this state creation agenda because we know that there are some key members, who have promised their constituencies that they must get states created. Creation of more states is not going to be answer to the problems of this country. Let them be honest to themselves instead of trying to satisfy flippant promises made to their constituencies.State creation is not the problem of this country. Even if you create more states and the concentration of money and powers is still in the centre, you are back to square one. Current states that are not economically viable will find things more difficult. State creation will worsen the problem for these states.If they (NASS) doggedly go ahead, and they don't create enough states in the Niger Delta, there will be problem in this country. They know that the money they will use in supporting the new states will come from the Niger Delta and if they don't create appropriate states there, it means the injustice continues and it will be unacceptable.DO you support the call for restructuring of the National Assembly'I have always said that the structure of the National Assembly will make it extremely difficult for a president from the minority to perform the way he would have liked. It's playing out already. Remember when some members in the National Assembly complained that the president must ensure that the budgetary allocation is not favouring the Niger Delta; if not they will stall it!It will be extremely difficult for Jonathan to push on changes that will fundamentally affect the people of the Niger Delta. He should try and let people see that they stopped him from doing it. If the rest of the country was sensitive to the Niger Delta, things will not be this way.Shoulda bicameral legislature be sustained'We are running a presidential system and I am aware of the fact that most presidential systems have these two chambers. I don't think that the presence of two chambers is the problem we have, as it were.Yes, it will add to the cost (of running government) but we have allowed a situation to arise where members of the National Assembly decide how much they should be paid ' salaries and allowances ' and how much for constituency projects and on and on.That is where the wastage is coming from.If you are paying a senator N45 million every quarter, just allowance, which does not include the salary and constituency money, what a hell are we doing to ourselves' And worst still, they don't feel they are accountable to the nation. They just allocate money to themselves. When people question it, they will say 'go to hell'.That is what is depleting the resources of this country. The expensive nature of our bicameral system is because of this criminal salaries, allowances, and constituencypayments they allocate to themselves.Bicameral is not a bad idea because it creates checks and balances. It is bad because in this country, we have allowed them (legislators) to get away with murder. The cost to this country would have been minimal if we had checkmatedand stopped the criminal salaries and allowances they paid to themselves.Even if you have a unicameral legislative system and you have this kind of criminal payments, you will still have the problem of massive corruption in the system. You might say that okay; it will be less. No. At that time in the unicameral system, the number of legislators may increase to reflect the diversity of the country. It may not be the 360 in the House of Representatives or 109 in the Senate. The number will be more.So long as this massive criminal corruption continues in the National Assembly, we will continue to have challenges. Bicameral is not the problem. The advantage of bicameral is that it allows for greater checks and balances:one house checks the excesses of the other one. You might have a situation where there is a deadlock, but all that is in-built into the democratic process. They are supposed to resolve the deadlock and move on.Let's assume that we have just one body and that one body is one party, anything goes. But we have two bodies and in one body, perhaps, the dominant party is not the same as the dominant party in the lower house. You can see the checks and balances.Although in the Nigerian case, because of the massive rigging,that has not been possible, I have always argued that many of those guys who are there (NASS) shouldn't be there if not for rigging. If the elections were done properly, there is no reason other parties would not have featured more prominently than what we are seeing now.But you have a built-in checks and balances between the two houses. That is the beauty of a bicameral legislature.
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