The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, Thursday lampooned Mike Ozekhome, the human rights activist and former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) that he has always defended politicians who rig in the country’s elections.
Wike, who tackled the former NBA over his lecture on the state of the nation, at the 2024 ThisNigeria Newspaper Lecture and Awards, stated that Ozekhome’s lecture did not highlight the positives brought about by politicians since the return to democracy and under the current administration of President Bola Tinubu.
“You talked about those rigging elections and you, as an activist, do take briefs from them. You have always defended those who have rigged the election in this country”, Wike lampooned Ozekhome.
Ozekhome, the Guest Speaker at the Newspaper’s Lecture and Awards, delivered a lecture on “25 Years of Nigeria’s Democracy: Challenges, Prospects, and Possibilities”, where the Legal luminary criticised the current state of affairs in the country, saying that Nigerians are suffering and that the government needs to take concrete steps to address the nation’s challenges.
He lamented that the country’s democracy is being threatened by political corruption, and called for the need to do away with the long convoys and large size of government.
“Let nobody deceive President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigerians are suffering, there is anger and hunger in the land. Don’t let the people around you make you feel otherwise. I will advise Mr President to disguise and go to see the anger and hunger in the land”.
“From 192 per litre, fuel is now between N550 to N800. Small-scale Industries which usually are the hub of a country are already dead. You need to plug all loopholes and cut the large size of the government. The government is too large and wasteful. We must also do away with all these long convoys. Our convoys are too long”, stated the former NBA President.
“Mr President sir, let me give you one advice as I sit down, we were in the trenches together, you operated with NADECO, you saw the suffering we went through, some of us here who were under Civil Society, some were with Labour, all of us synchronised to fight the military, so Mr President, having witnessed what we went through, you have an opportunity to write your name in gold as great leaders did in the past. It is in the time of crisis that you know great leaders”.
“While we call for support for you, we must say that you have to lead by example by empathising with the people you lead so that you can come out as a true leader like Nelson Mandela, George Washington, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln. You can do it, it’s not impossible so that when you are leaving the stage Nigeria will say yes, he was here, he came, he saw and he conquered,” Ozekhome said.
Wike, who was present at the event as one of the five awardees disagreed with Ozekhome’s assessment, saying that it would be unfair not to acknowledge the progress made so far under democratic rule in Nigeria.
The former governor of Rivers State acknowledged that there are challenges facing the country, but argued that it would be unrealistic to expect overnight solutions to decades-old problems. He cited the example of Abuja, which he claimed has been transformed under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.
“ Are you telling me that for 25 years, we have not made one progress? We can say yes, we have made this progress but there is still room for us to move forward. Just like Sheu Sani said, how they were detained, can you say under this democracy, any Nigerian has found himself in that state?
“Mr President knows that there is a problem, he’s aware Nigerians are suffering. Who does not know that Nigerians are suffering? We should know the difference between theory and real practice.
“ Mr President has been making a lot of effort, you know where we are coming from, you don’t expect within a short time an economy that was down, everything was miserable and broken, you don’t expect it to be corrected within a short time. Thank you for saying that we have turned Abuja around, if Abuja can be well, the whole country too can be well,” Wike stated.
The minister also lampooned activists who have been critical of government policies, saying that they have often failed when they had the opportunity to make a positive impact.
“Activists have always failed, we have seen activists given appointments and they failed. When Senator Shehu was in the Senate, how did he perform? What was our performance as Senators?” Wike queried.
Ozekhome in his lecture, advocated for a new constitution, electoral reforms, and the empowerment of the youth. “We need a new constitution, we are not saying a new constitution is an end in itself but it’s the beginning of a beautiful journey where we have agreed on certain things as America did between May and September 1787.
“If you have a militarily imposed constitution like the type we are using, which is a schedule attached to decree number 24 of 1999, people ignore it. A constitution that has 67 items of the exclusive legislative list including the Marriage Act. What is the Federal Government’s business with the marriage between a man and a woman? Vehicle licensing is something that should be left to Local Government Areas.
“So, I think that not only do we need decentralisation but we need a brand new constitution, which the people will pride in to ensure their legitimacy and credibility because the process by which a constitution comes to being is even more important than the content of the constitution because it becomes indigenous to people,” Ozekhome advocated.
The event was chaired by former military Head of State, Abdusalami Abubakar, while the panellists include, Okey Ikechukwu, Shehu Sani and Abiodun Adeniyi.
The awardees are FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, Kano State Governor, Kabir Yusuf, Akwa-Ibom Governor, Umo Bassey Eno, Special Investigator of the CBN and other related entities, Jim Obazee, Director-General, Michael Imoudu Institute of Labour Studies, Issa Aremu, who received Gold Prize for Infrastructural Revolution and Exceptional Leadership, Courage in Leadership Award, Award for Peace Building and Innovative Leadership and Public Service Award respectively.
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