Chief Mike Ahamba is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria with over 51 years legal practice experience. In this interview, he speaks on the defection by elected political office holders from the opposition parties to the ruling All Progressives Congress, inability of the National Assembly to check the executive arm from borrowing spree, the local government autonomy and the crisis facing the PDP. Excerpts:
How can you describe the 20 months of the APC administration?
Disaster, in one word. They may have a good intention as they claim; unfortunately, the way that good intention is being implemented is very disastrous on the people. That is the truth of the matter, and they know it. There is a level at which people stay, and they don’t know what is happening below them.
If they have contact with the villages, they’ll know that there is a serious problem in this country. Whatever is that good intention let them look at the implementation style, whether it is the intention that is causing the trouble or the style of implementation that’s causing the trouble?
The important thing is that the trouble is a disastrous one. I’m sorry to be speaking the truth all the time.
But the citizens are told that the reforms that the president has put in place have started bearing fruits?
Where? Let them tell us where their reforms are bearing fruits. Whatever fruit it bears, the man in the street is still buying fuel at over N1, 000 per litre, and he cannot buy garri to eat, and cannot buy rice to eat. That type of fruit is very, very bitter, and the people don’t want it; they don’t like it. They should adjust that style. There’s a type of change that you bring on to the people even if you want to make it good; even if you have a good intention, it becomes too traumatic for the people to carry.
Now, let us assume that their intentions are very good, but their method of implementation has brought serious trauma on the people. And that is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
As the race for 2027 has begun, elected political office holders and other political stalwarts, both in PDP and Labour Party that are supposed to provide strong opposition, are now defecting to APC. What does that portend for the country’s democracy?
Well, I know members of the Labour Party who have crossed over, and a few members of the PDP have crossed over. Some are in the PDP, but their minds have crossed over. That is as a result of the political system we are running.
I want to repeat here, as I did in my lecture in the seminar organised by the National Day of the Representatives in 1990, attended by international figures, that we have no political parties properly so-called in Nigeria. What you have is an election platform. So, the moment you don’t feel comfortable with the platform about your own election, you run to a place you think will give you solace.
Just like some people who have no political footing, won elections because they entered the Labour Party and so young people voted for them while voting for Peter Obi. Now that Peter Obi did not pass, they are running away.
I hope the political party for which they are running will take steps to implement Section 209 (1g) of the constitution.
“Why did I leave the ANPP? It was as a result of what happened at the board meeting of the party, chaired by Buhari, which was against the South East”
You once defected from one party to the other. You have been in APP, ANPP, PDP, and CPC and back to PDP. Can it be said it is the same absence of political ideology?
It is the same thing. If you go into a place and they start practising what is different from what was in practice when you entered and you leave without having any election or office in mind, that’s good. There is nothing wrong with that. Many people don’t do that, but that’s what I did. I was in the PDP in 1999. Later on, something happened; they now decided to coquette with members of the party we defeated, as against associating closely with us. So, I left the PDP.
I held a press conference on why I left the PDP. I stated that the party had left the generals that defeated the generals of the party that we beat to sit with them on the table while leaving the generals who fought the battle for PDP in cold cells, and I said that was unacceptable to me. So, I left and joined the APP when there was nobody left in the party. They had all defected to the PDP, but as empty as APP was at that time, I joined them. If you can ask those of them who are still alive they will tell you. I started a mobilisation that restored the party, and thereafter it transformed into the ANPP with other parties.
This is the way. Now, why did I leave ANPP? I didn’t leave ANPP. What happened was that the ANPP started fighting a few of us, including General Buhari, who was the heart of the party. So a new party, CPC, was formed, and I was at the helm of forming that party,
Later on, ACN, CPC, and some remnants of the ANPP and APGA formed APC. I was there when it was formed. But to my greatest surprise, their constitution provided that in selecting delegates to a congress, 60 per cent should be nominated by the sitting governor. When it was challenged, they said, they were the people who provided the funds for the election. I said, that’s not my character. How can you tell people to go and run 100 yards? And you put one of the runners on the 60th point; 60th yard point and you fired your gun and told them to run. I said this is a dictatorship and no longer a democracy.
At that time, Rochas Okorocha had taken over in Imo State, defecting from ANPP and he didn’t like the faces of some people and so he started fighting everybody at the grassroots. So, I feared for my life and left. I left and I didn’t enter into any other party.
I left at the ANPP level before the APC was formed. Why did I leave the ANPP? It was as a result of what happened at the board meeting of the party, chaired by Buhari, which was against the South East, and I said I wouldn’t stay and I withdrew from politics and didn’t enter any other party, until this President Tinubu spoke to me, El-rufai also spoke to me to come back to politics because the South East needed my voice to be authentic.
Achike Udenwa spoke to my wife at home and that convinced me to come back to politics under the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). ACN and CPC combined to form the APC, but when we came here and they made that rule and Okorocha won’t allow us to even operate at ward level, I left politics completely.
In 2014, an approach was made by the PDP for those of us who were outside PDP at that time, but who were former members of the party to come back. Achike Udenwa was there, so we decided to go back to the PDP. That is where I am now. I’m not leaving for anything. If I leave, it is a retirement from politics.
Even if it means defecting to APC, Mike Ahamba would not do that. I will not defect to any other party. If I leave the PDP, I will retire completely to my chambers.
Right now, I’m only 30 per cent a politician and 70 per cent a lawyer. That is how I have been operating since 1979. I have always left on principle, not in anger for non-benefits.
The way these defections are going, are you not concerned that by 2027 Nigeria may be a one-party state?
It is unfortunate. I warned in our previous interview that we were headed towards that. A one-party state is worse than a military dictatorship because somebody will be hurting you and claiming to be authorised by him to hurt you, but the military would not want your opinion.
That is their method, after all, they are trained to kill, but a civilian who assumed the power of the military in a civilian regime will use the civilian to give him power, which is more dangerous than a military regime. We are heading towards it, but I won’t be a party to consolidating it. I’m happy that I’m now old, if I leave the PDP that is the end of politics of any type for me.
It is unfortunate. These people who change parties don’t know the history of Nigeria. They should realise that Nigeria made a law banning carpet crossing because it was a big problem that hurt the first regime.
About 1953/54, Nnamdi Azikiwe was to be the Premier of the Western Region, and Action Group took over through carpet crossing. That was the beginning of tribal politics in Nigeria. So, Zik came back to the Eastern Region, and of course used his Igbo majority to send out Eyo Etta who was the leader of the government in the region. Carpet crossing was not very good for any political system. If people had elected you with a particular banner, particularly the Supreme Court of Nigeria had ruled that it is the party that the people voted for. If you don’t like that party, resign from the House and lose your seat and go back and contest on the platform of your new party and see if they will vote for you or not. They do it now and escape because the proceeding to remove them will last the whole four years. We have a lot of problems in this country.
What is your position on Tinubu’s tax reforms?
I’m not an expert at that. I made a comment on the issue of VAT, and I said that it should be shared in accordance with production. If you don’t want people to sell alcohol in your state, you don’t take VAT from the sale of alcohol in another state. The money you don’t want anybody to earn in your state, you don’t take part in sharing it in another state. The rest I would not comment because I’m not an expert at that, but there is a lot of hullabaloo by those who know.
According to the Debt Management Office, Nigeria’s public debt was N142 trillion in the third quarter of 2024. About 21 months ago, the debt was about N87 trillion. What do you say to this?
I know when a government borrows money it is for the development of the area. Our own money doesn’t develop any area; it just falls into a bottomless pit. I blame the National Assembly. There is a difference between the executives and the legislature. The executive arm is supposed to manage the country. In the legislature, they are representing the interests of the people in a particular area and under our constitution, the legislature is a more powerful body. If they cannot control borrowing by the executives then we are in trouble. They are the only people who can do it. That is why you must send high quality people to the legislature and not any person. That place is not any person’s place. But, here in Nigeria, it is any person’s place.
I hope they do understand what they are doing; they are putting posterity into trouble. This is the truth of the matter. You don’t borrow for fun, you borrow money for investments that would yield and pay back. When I was in the Imo House of Assembly, then governor of the state, Sam Mbakwe started borrowing money for social projects, and I shouted in the House, but they booed at me. I told them that they didn’t know what they were doing, that we were mortgaging posterity. You don’t go and borrow money at compound interest to put water in. How will that water pay back that money? The people will clap for you but they are in trouble. I stood my ground and continued to say it. Do you know what? Achike Udenwa participated in paying the debt circulated by Mbakwe, and we are repeating it at the national level.
“I know when a government borrows money it is for the development of the area. Our own money doesn’t develop any area; it just falls into a bottomless pit. I blame the National Assembly”
What can I say? I’m not a member of the House; I’m not a governor. I’m just making a comment that they should be careful about the future. We should concern ourselves with what happens to Nigeria tomorrow, not necessarily now because we are here now. When we do things that would put Nigeria of tomorrow in jeopardy, then it is a total failure to our generation, which has already failed anyway.
My generation has failed. If my generation succeeded, we should have been among the leading countries in the world today. My generation failed because those of us who spoke up in our early 30s on how to get this country in order were failing elections and nominations because we didn’t have cash to pay, and we refused to borrow to pay.
I won’t borrow to do an election; I won’t do it because if I do it, I will want to recover it. When I begin to recover it, and you call me a thief, but you are the first thief. You stole from me and I stole from you, it is one-one. So, let us stop stealing from politicians who are contesting elections if you want them to stop stealing your money when they get in. Because they have to replace and get prepared for the next election, otherwise they will fail. This is the reality. When people point their searchlight on politicians alone, yes, the politicians may be a problem, but that is not all the problem.
Let the pastors, the preachers, everyone who wants to talk, tell the people that the card they call voters card is their right to give a report card on the immediate regime. The regime that has ruled them for four years, they use that card to give their report on that regime. We don’t do that because parochialism, selfish politics, stomach infrastructure will lead us to elect those who have put us in a hungry mode. I pride myself to say that right from my youth, I have spoken up and till today I’m still speaking up, whether the people listen or not.
What is your stand on local government autonomy?
I put it there in my book, “Getting right in Nigeria”. The autonomy has been there in the Section 7 of the constitution. It says that, “A democratically elected local government is hereby guaranteed.” The proviso there now gives power to the states to make laws for the structure, finances, maintenance of that same local government.
The governors took advantage of it. Immediately they come to power, they put a bill that will give them the power to dissolve elected local government executives, in order to take the structure. That is what is happening. Unless that provision under Section 7 is eliminated they will continue to have the power to do what they are doing.
The autonomy of the local government is in the constitution subject to local laws that may come, and they make these local laws and that is it. It is unfortunate. The constitution is clear.
The governors don’t have the power to dissolve elected local government executives; they don’t have the power to appoint transition chairmen. The local government under the constitution is guaranteed under a democratically elected government. An appointment from Government House is not a democratic election.
They have moved now to another level in conducting local government elections. In Imo State, we have a peculiar situation where results were announced without figures attached. Mr. A is the elected chairman of this local government; Mr. B is the winner of that local government and it continues. There were no figures attached. It was not at the local government headquarters, but somewhere in Owerri. It is a pity, and those who are benefitting from it now don’t see it as wrong until the benefits slip from their hands and they begin to cry. After all, the PDP said they would be in office for 60 years and nobody can remove them. APC can say so too. They have come and they will pass. The Bible says, “And it came to pass.”
The PDP is embedded in crises. Do you see the party coming out from these?
Yes. The important thing is whether what is being done is consistent with the constitution or not. Once it is consistent with the constitution, crises come and crises go. There are people who are being used to foment trouble in the PDP. Eventually, that will be defeated. Those who were in PDP for benefits have nearly all left. What remains in the party are those who are there not for the benefits or who have no benefits. So, it is a stronger army when the time comes.
