Mubarak has to go, US and Israel should see it an opportunity
— Sidique

PRESIDENT HOSNI MUBARAK has to leave DR. SIDIQUE ABUBAKAR an Associate Professor of Political Science, Administration and International Studies of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria says; alluding the crisis to absence of democracy, suppression of the opposition and corruption. In this interview with our reporter ABDULL-AZEEZ AHMED KADIR, the university don says the crisis in Plateau, Borno and Bauchi are all due to “irresponsible leadership” in the states. He speaks on other national issues including the lesson for Nigerian leaders in the Egyptian crises.

What started as a protest by one man who eventually set himself ablaze in Tunisia is fast snowballing into regional crises. Is there more to this?
What happened in Tunisia was the immediate cause but it has been there for long waiting to explode. If you take Tunisia even before Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali came, all other institutions except that which was controlled by those who had power; Habib Bourguiba at that time in Tunisia were destroyed. He did not tolerate any opposition, he was President for life; he continued ruling until he became senile.
There was a time he (Habib Bourguiba) was changing prime Ministers regularly. Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali who was his Minister of Interior got him out through carefully organised coup. When he came he made all sorts of promises but he didn’t fulfil them especially in terms of expanding democratic space. He would not tolerate opposition; he drove most of them out of Egypt and those who didn’t leave were jailed.
So people didn’t have any avenue to express their dissatisfaction or grievances at all. And to make matters worse there was corruption. The evidence is coming out that he and his clan had their hands in any business in the town. So no political freedom and there was corruption and at the same there was repression. It was a combination of that which led to the crises. So when that guy burnt himself, he was expressing the frustration of the people of Tunisia and which is what led to the uprising.
In fact they underestimated the masses; that is the problem with dictators. When you have leaders who become absolute rulers, by the time they lose touch with reality and with their people, even if they don’t want it, it would end that way because they have all sorts of people around them who want to be close to them and they keep on fighting each other trying to win the favour of the absolute ruler and they end up destroying themselves.
And because he is the absolute ruler and due to the internal fights, information they think would not please him would not get to him. Or because they get too much involve in the internal fight, they lose touch with the feeling of the general population. So when an uprising such as we saw in Tunisia occurs, they are not in a position to deal with it. That was what actually happened.
What do we make of the boomerang in other parts of the Middle East as we saw in Yemen, Jordan, Syria and the worst Egypt? What correlation is there with the political setting?
If you look at the whole of the Middle East, of cause there are differences between Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt. But that which is common amongst them or in the whole of the Middle East is the absence of democracy. Leaders come to power either through coup d’état or manipulated transition when a leader dies. So they remain and sustain themselves in power by the use of the security forces; the army, the police and different level of security agencies to keep themselves in power. They don’t tolerate oppositions.
In some countries blessed with oil resources, they are able to take care of the daily needs of their people; you could see what the Kuwaiti National Assembly did, they quickly voted to give every Kuwaiti certain amount of money. Saudi Arabia also the welfare package is okay. But there is a limit to that, because people want to express themselves, they want to say that which is not correct in their own country but they are not allowed to express themselves freely.
So, in the whole of the Middle East no single country that is democratic starting from North Africa. Is it Algeria; though they have some forms of elections, and Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan. So that is what is common with the countries in the Middle East and when you add corruption to it, it
But Egypt seems unique with what is going on, people never anticipate this?
Majority of the people there are poor. As I said the regime is oppressive; they would not allow people to express themselves and on top of that there was corruption. And you have a situation where the President who is over 80 was planning to hand over power to his son who has not done anything extra ordinary to warrant that.
He has been contesting not that he has not. Don’t forget the Muslim Brotherhood is a well organised group despite the repression. They succeeded in getting some seats in the national Assembly but in the last elections they were not even allow to contest as usual and so one is not surprise that there was this explosion.
But in the case of Egypt there was this massive uprising especially when the price of bread goes up because no country in the world uses wheat the way Egyptians do. Wheat is virtually part of everything they do and the price of wheat in the international market has gone up. Though Egypt has reserved some percentage of wheat but they were not properly kept because of incompetence and disease destroyed almost half of the reserve of Egypt. So certainly the price would go up which would increase the poverty of the people. So you deny them freedom, you become corrupt, you add incompetence to that in addition to price hike, it was a matter of time that it would explode.
Secondly what Arab leaders has not taken into consideration in their attempt to control their people is the fact of modern technology; internet, GSM. In the past the Egyptians were limited to the Egyptian television, look at the role it is playing in the on-going crises; they try to minimise the extent of the crises. But you could not stop Aljazeera, CNN, BBC, Press TV and so many others. So people have access to it. With your mobile phone you can have access to most of the charnels in the world.
Increasingly the youth of Egypt are highly educated; look at the interviews they are granting the various media. Most of them have travelled out of the country. If you go to most of the Middle East; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and co you see Egyptian Engineer, Doctor and other professionals. Their kids benefit from the wealth of their parents, they go to school and they know what is happening in other parts of the world. You can’t forever keep them in the 19 century when they are in the 21st century.
Look at what happened, when this uprising started they decide to shut down the internet but they realised too late. From what the experts are telling us, it is the greatest attempt ever to shut the internet. No country on earth has done what Egypt did; they also closed down the Aljazeera office in Cairo but it did not stop Aljazeera to beam live what is happening at Alharir Square to the people of Egypt. They could not stop CNN, BBC and at the same time they could not stop other demonstrations in the capitals of the world in support of the opposition in Egypt.
People can now communicate; there was an article written by somebody captioned the ‘twitterisation’ of the uprising in Tunisia. See what happened recently in the Egypt protest; the opposition said they want one million people in Tahrir Square and the government stopped the movement of trains, they closed down the GSM. But from all account, about two million people were able to get to the square. Those who could not go like the one million in Alexandria, they decided to hold their own demonstration there.
So if you look at what is happening there, you have millions of people out even in other world cities. So there is a limit to what government can do to stop communication in the world. We have seen primitive societies with outdated communications systems of 18th or 19th century moving into the 21st century at a go. Look at Nigeria; our telephone services were not working, while the GSM came, now you go to a town without electricity, a town which never had telephone now they are using GSM and the price is down. When it started in Nigeria it was very exo
In the face of the whole uprising, the United States of America is saying Hosni Mubarak should be allowed to finish his tenure but commence reform imediately (cut in)?
They have been changing their position. I don’t think they would say that today given what happened yesterday (last week Wednesday). They are now calling for orderly transition because the USA is also in dilemma.
How?
No one foresaw what is happening. They know that one day it will come but nobody know that it will just explode like that. So they are not prepared for it. So they are reacting on daily basis. This is what is happening and moving very fast. Even Mubarak himself; although he said he has PhD in Obstinacy but then he has to go. So the struggle now, because the opposition is insisting all of them should go. All of those associated with him one way or the other should leave. The USA and some forces within the Mubarak regime want a sort of the Tunisian situation.
What is the Tunisian situation?
A situation where some of them would remain in power and hopefully organise elections and maintains a fraction of the power. This is what they are trying to do, but whether they would succeed in doing that I don’t know. But certainly Mubarak would have to go but whether the Vice President has to remain in power up to September or when they would organise another elections nobody knows. The situation is very, very fuming and they have not served their situation especially with these attacks on demonstrators. They would embolden the people. People were demonstrating peacefully and they were there with their children and then you went and mobilised armed thugs to attack them; they have seriously incensed world opinion.
The name of the Army Chief Sami Enan seen even by the opposition as incorruptible is been bandied as possible successor to Mubarak. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat to Mubarak what is it about the military guys in Egypt?
No, people are not interested in military coup or the military taking over; they want the military to tell Mubarak and the regime that their time is up. Nobody wants them again except those who benefit from their system.
The Egyptian constitution says that in the event that the government is not there, the Chief Justice or the President of the Supreme Court takes over. And I think that is what the opposition wants. The President of the Supreme Court or the Chief Justice takes over the government in an interim or acting capacity for six months during which he would have organised free and fair elections for the Egyptians to elect their own leaders.
There are various groups and each and every one of them has their interest and it is normal in politics. Everybody is manoeuvring to push his own interest but the army is very critical but he himself was a member of the military; Commander of the Air force. If you look at the Air Force for instance, he did very well in the past. And you see this is the problem; people refusing to leave when they should. Even the Vice President was in the Army. Most of the top Minister or people around him were top military officers.
But this was to be expected because they came to power through military coup. From Nasser as you said he was a military officer when he died Sadat another military officer and when he was assassinated Mubarak also took over. So the people they know and the people in their cycle are really military officers.
That bring us to the opposition; the most potent known before now was the Muslim Brotherhood but there are other secular groups. In the case they succeed to chase Mubarak out, would there not be problem among the opposition in the struggle for power?
At the moment they are all united because their aim is to get Mubarak out of power after which there should be free and fair general elections. You have to give the Muslim Brotherhood one thing; despite the oppression, repression, they kept on contesting. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a group that is alien to Egyptians; they emerged from the Egyptian society.
If the Egyptians go ahead and elect them what is the problem. If you say democracy what do you mean; it mean where the people elect those who would govern them. If that is what the Egyptians want, they should go ahead and assume the consequences; it is not for us to judge for the people of the Egypt. Why is it that despite the repression they are popular? So let us have a free and fair election and see.
If they are most organised today it is because the regime did not allow any other structure to emerge. These so called secular organisations you mention, they also did not tolerate any other political party. So also were the Muslim Brotherhood banned but they kept on going and never gave up. They were organised; many of them went to jail, some were killed but they continued. So if the people of Egypt went ahead to elect them, it is simply because they appreciate the role they have played in fighting Mubarak.
In the first place why are people afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt is essentially a Muslim country; about 90 percent. The Copt is about 10 percent. So if they say they want to be governed by Muslim laws and of cause with special protection for the minority; that is what democracy is all about.
If the oppositions, at the rate we are going succeed to push out the governments in Middle East which have been very supportive of Israel and took over, what do you think would be the fate of Israel?
That is the fear that both Israel and United States have. But the thing is why are they afraid of democracy in the Middle East. Why I am saying that. Precisely democracy allows for all shades of opinion to come out; people will discourse. To me they should not be afraid, this should be an opportunity. Democracy creates a situation not only for discourse but also for explanation as to why certain things should be done or not. As to why certain policies should be pursued or not; people discuss them and arrive at some consensus, compromise.
But when you don’t allow for that kind of discussion such as we have seen and you have a clique which benefit from 1.5 billion dollars from United State without discussion, to me is more dangerous. So the United States and Israel should see it as an opportunity unless they are lazy and prefer an absolutes leader like Mubarak who would oppress his people, benefit from the aid which he would distribute within the military and do what USA wants to the detriment of the people of Egypt. And I don’t think democrats should support that.
In the face of the massive protest in Egypt what does this portend for sit tight leaders especially in Africa?
In the first instance Egypt is in Africa. Sudan that started this is in Africa, Tunisia is in Africa. We should learn from things like this that there are limits to things like the manipulations of the result of elections such as we see in our country Nigeria. People may accept it once, twice or thrice but a day will come when they would accept it again.
There are instances where people who have lost election have come back. Look at Ghana, Rawlings was in power he stepped down organised elections and won twice. At the end of his term his party lost and opposition party came to power and they were in power for two terms of four years. They contested and lost and the party Rawlings leads is back to power. So it is not a do or die affair. They should realise that if they run the affairs of their country properly, the people would reward them. People don’t want to suffer, they have rewarded governments that have done well and punish a government that have failed them; that is what democracy is all about.
People who make promises and they don’t fulfil them, they should learn from it and change their ways. Corruption has its own limits; it is short term. Bad government also has its own limit and it is short term. It will lead to the people one day saying enough is enough. And if that happens in an unstructured manner, it becomes chaotic.
Look at what is happening in Egypt; so far nobody knows who is behind them and many capitals of the world especially in the West, they would want to know who the leaders of this up rise are; but they don’t know. They are now scrambling to see whether people like Elbaradei and other characters who are repressed by Mubarak such as Mansur and co would be able to know, because these are the ones they know. They are groping in the dark. Even the Mubarak people don’t know. The only group they know is the Muslim Brotherhood and there was nothing to show that they are behind it; they are also reacting to these massive uprising which apparently some commentators are saying led by the youth which started on Facebook, Twitter and co protesting against what was happening.
Exactly what happened in Tunisia happened in Egypt. Some people I think about three of them burnt themselves in Egypt in front of the National Assembly. Three or two of them started it in Egypt before it escalated. African leaders should begin to think seriously of good governance, they should fight corruption and should not be telling us that they have zero tolerance of corruption when they are neck deep into it.
They should therefore allow for free and fair elections. It is in their interest that people elect those they want to lead them. But if they failed to do that, they would create unnecessary chaos. In West Africa we have seen it; in Sierra Leone that is what led to series of military coup and eventually military uprising. We had to move our troops there and hundreds of Nigerians died in order to recreate the new state.
In Liberia it was the same. You had the party in power which did not allow for free and fair elections and on top of that you have deep corruption. It led to the emergence of people like Doe who tried to run the affairs of the country the same way the people he overthrew were doing and then we have civil war. Again many Nigerian troops were sent there in order to recreate the collapsed state. The evidence is there for all and the lessons are there for all leaders to see.
Look at Laurent Gbagbo, if you don’t take time he will plunge Cote d’Ivoire into crises or another civil war. You have Houphouet-Boigny who remained in power until he died without any effective structure to allow for any effective free and fair elections and for his successor to emerge peacefully. It all led to bickering, conflict and so all. And then it led to a coup. So the lessons are there for all our leaders to follow but they don’t. Look at the violence in Plateau; is it not bad governance. In Bauchi it is bad governance. In Borno it is bad governance. People don’t want to say it but it is the reality.
You have irresponsible leaders who are incapable of solving problems and in the process people are dying. Every single day somebody is killed in Plateau. Every now and then uprising in Bauch, in Borno the same problem; irresponsibility on the part of the leaders; the earlier they addressed this, the better.
What is the lesson for other African military to learn from the Egypt uprising by not been partisan but remains an arbiter and control both the pro and anti government protesters?
It is in the interest of the military to do that and I think the officers in the Egyptian military have learnt a lot from what happened in Iran.
What happen in Iran?
When the people rose against the Shah, the military sided with the Sha. When the Sha was overthrown the top echelon of the Iranian Army suffered. Many of them were killed because they took the side of the Sha and killed many people also; so many of them were arrested and killed. So the regular army, the Sha Army was virtually disbanded. A new Army was recreated; the Revolutionary Guard. It acquired a privileged position in Iran.
The Army tried to get some of its glory back during the war with Iraq but certainly the regular Army was destroyed; the Army of the Sha was actually destroyed. So the Egyptian military; apparently the top echelon, much as they are also the beneficiary of the Mubarak regime seems not oblivious of the fact that his time has come to an end. They should tread softly to ensure that there is an orderly transition.
They have an interest on been on the side of the people and that is what they are trying to do. And again if they push their support for Mubarak too far, it will lead to a division within the military. So far it is very clear that the middle ranks of the military from Colonel down are with the people generally. So if they push it too far, they would see where the military would be divided; it will be wicked in an environment which is volatile. Not just in Egypt but you have Israel to deal with, so they are treading cautiously.
We asked this question because for the military, Gbagbo would have been history by now?
In the case of Cote d’Ivoire you have to be very careful
Why?
because 65 percent or 68 percent of the military voted for Qhuatara, they did not vote for Gbagbo. So there is a problem there and it is going to explode one day whether the army protects him or not.
Two, he has mercenaries; Angolan and Liberian mercenaries which constitute the bulk of the Presidential Guard well equipped and headed by his loyalist. This is what is happening in Cote d’Ivoire. But whether that army will continue to hold if the reserve he now holds are beginning to dwindle, mind you, remember Cote D’Ivoire did not have a Central Bank. Many of these francophone countries do not have Central banks like we have. So he can’t continue printing money. Whatever money he has, is that which is already in circulation in the country before the measures were taken.
Already he is finding it difficult to pay civil servants. Already he has defaulted in the payment of his debts. He defaulted about two weeks back, he was given two weeks grace and he has defaulted. And also next month, he is expected to meet another obligation which he cannot. So there is a limit to what he could do except if he for example exports cocoa through the back door. By that I mean the transaction would not come through the normal channels so that he could get some dollars and others like that.
It is a matter of time and Gbagbo would go. His prayer is that if he prolongs it, there would be division within Africa in ECOWAS and within the African Union (AU) and they would call for power sharing. That is his gamble but whether he will succeed is a matter of time but I doubt it very much
That brings us back home. Like you said earlier, Jos, Bauchi and Borno; some would say despite Obasanjos’ shortcomings, he handled the Jos situation better compared to what we are seeing now. Why are we having this problem?
Because the issues have not been tackled. What Obasanjo did was that he declared the state of emergency and brought about a relative peace in the area. Apart from using the military angle, they did not go deep to examine the root cause of the crisis and try to resolve them. What Chris Ali tried to do, in fact he created more problems than he solved.
The problem we are having today is the outcome of the kind of solutions which Ali tried to proffer which emphasised the Settler Indigene difference. You organised the Plateau Intellectual Conference which reaffirmed the fact that some people don’t belong there. So the solutions to Jos crises go beyond the military. They can do as much to stop the killings; I am not belittling what they have done at all, but you need the state of emergency in plateau. I strongly believed in that. Move in more troops and stop the killings.
When you do that, after all President Jonathan set up the Lar committee, they should go ahead and implement them. Where they require a change in the law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, you should go ahead to do that. Bring together all the stakeholders in Jos, make them feel they all have a stake in it and you would have a solution to it.
As things are now even if you move the so called Hausa-Fulani out of Jos, there would be crises in Jos itself. What has somehow led people to ignore the crises among the other ethnic groups in Jos is precisely because of these crises. But there is a profound crisis in that area which has to be resolved.
Again the leaders of Plateau should realise that they are leaders not thieves. They steal the resources of the state and use part of it to mobilise people to attack those they see as settlers. Take Dariye; how much did Dariye take outside Nigeria including money meant for checking of erosion in his own area Bokwos. He took the money straight from Abuja to UK. So the elite there are corrupt also. They preoccupied themselves with stealing, leaving their own people in abject poverty only for them to become later day Pastors, manipulating religion and setting people against each other. These are the carnage in plateau and the earlier they sit down to address this issue the better.
Jang cannot bring about solutions in Jos. Jang is part of the problem; if the leader is a part of the problem, you cannot have solutions to it and PDP as a political party is very irresponsible in that respect. A leader who has presided over chaos in his state is given a ticket to re-contest again against those who are calling for solutions within the same PDP. So the preoccupation with Jonathan and his people is how to remain in power; who would manipulate election result for them. That is what they want.
But Borno seem a bit different from Joss?
In Borno you also have a leader who does not believe in dialogue, who thinks he is a thin god, who can use money and manipulate the security agents to deal with his so called enemies. This is the problem and there is also corruption in Borno.
So where do we place the Boko Haram-Government uproar?
There was a situation which requires dialogue and out of dialogue you find solutions to it. But he opted for military solutions. At a time people were saying let us go into dialogue, let us see what these people represent. What can we do to neutralise them. What can we do to make them see that their ways were wrong, but they opted for the military option.
But we have seen all over, not just in Africa, it may give you temporary respite; unless you succeed in exterminating everybody which is not possible though. This is the result. Many commentators of what is happening in Borno predicted this and said it was not the solution. In the process of dealing with Boko Haram they created anger in the society because so many innocent people died without compensation whatsoever.
We saw how people were arrested and killed; these people did not fall from heaven, they are Nigerians, they have relations. Even when some went to court, the government did not want to respect the verdict of the courts. I don’t know if they have done that now, but they said they were going to appeal. And the kind of things that happened in Borno that people saw across the globe creates the kind of situation we have today. A revenge mentality emerged; people felt they have been dealt with unjustly; they cannot get justice even in the courts in Nigeria.
So if they come to the conclusion that they cannot get justice, they will take the laws into their hands especially when the governor has this attitude of tranfanism; he is strong, there is nothing anybody could do. He wants to feudalise the leadership in the state. It is either himself, his brother, his cousin or the wife of a cousin or whatever.
Even the ministerial appointment has to be someone in the family and it give rise to the kind of things we see happening there; resentment against the regime. Some would say Allah ya sauke, some would talk, some would demonstrate some would use force.
What would you suggest as the way out?
In Nigeria leaders should earn the trust of the people. They should respect the choice of their own people. They should fulfil the promises they make to the people and if for any reason they could not fulfil the promises, they should make people realise why they could not fulfil it, they should justify the reason why they could not.
Leaders should use the resources meant for their people to develop their areas. What we have in this country is a yearly ritual of going to the State House of Assembly or National Assembly to pass budgets and at the end of the year the budget is finished and we see nothing on the ground to justify the amount of money budgeted.
We are running deficits in this country and have nothing to show for it in this country. Go to the hospitals nothing is there. In many states workers earn slave salaries; graduates are paid ten thousand, fifteen thousand a month, in some cases the salary comes late. Corruption is so deep and see how much people are spending on elections. So unless our leaders realise that for peace to reign in this country, for us to have peace and stability, they should begin to invest in production. They should stop killing and stop telling us they have zero tolerance for corruption when they know they are corrupt.
They should stop telling us they are not corrupt when we see them spend billions to buy votes. The statistic is always showing us that things are not right with us in Nigeria. National and international statistics is telling us that poverty is on the increase in Nigeria. There is no correlation whatsoever between the billions Nigeria is making or the budget they pass every year and the conditions of living of Nigerians.
It seems in this country the more money the states make, the poorer the country and the people becomes. And Nigerians should stop this idea that we can’t do anything especially in this path of the country with Allah Ye Sauke. Even God said Ka tashi in taimake ka. The late Sheik Abubakar Gumi said ba da ibadah bane when you accept injustice and refuse to fight for your right. The docility in Nigeria should end. Nigerians should demand for their right. They should ask their leaders what they did with the money budgeted or whatever revenue accrues to it.