Some traditional rulers behave badly – HRH Agubuzu

His Royal Highness, Igwe Lawrence Agubuzu is the Eze Ogbunechendo of Ezema Olo and chairman of Enugu State Council of Traditional Rulers. At various times, he served as Nigeria’s Ambassador and Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Nigeria in Washington, as well as High Commissioner to the Republic of Zambia with concurrent accreditation to the Republic of Malawi. Fluent in English and French – as well as his native Igbo – Agubuzu also served as the Organisation of African Unity’s (now African Union) Assistant Secretary General in charge of Finance and Coordination, and was once Commissioner for Local Government, Rural Development and Chieftaincy Matters in the old Anambra State.

In this interview with FRED ITUA, Igwe Agubuzu spoke extensively on the long-standing issue of the role traditional rulers. He also talked on the dynamic nature of foreign policy and how it impacts on Nigeria’s relations with other nations, especially sister African nations. Among other things, he equally touched on the Nigeria civil war and its aftermath. Excerpts:
Looking back at those days when you were a diplomat, what would you say you missed?
One occupation that can give any person the great­est satisfaction is to be your country’s ambassador. When you are in that position, you represent your country. That is where you find a big country like Ni­geria has an advantage, which smaller countries do not have. They see you as the representative of your president. In that country, every Nigerian there re­gards you as a father. You look after them and you feel fulfilled doing something of pride for your coun­try. In those days, Nigerians who did not have money to pay their rents would carry their bags and come to the embassy. As an ambassador, you had to protect that citizen. It gives you satisfaction. Now that I find myself as a traditional ruler, it is very fulfilling. The difference is that I am looking after a smaller com­munity. But I still solve problems. Being a traditional ruler, I don’t go on transfer like an ambassador. It is a lifetime thing.
There are divergent views on whether tra­ditional rulers should be given constitutional roles. Where do you stand on this?
I believe that whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. Since we have decided to have tra­ditional rulers in Nigeria, we should give them some specific roles and ensure that these roles are protected. Therefore, they should be enshrined in the constitu­tion. That will make them very effective and help them perform their roles well. If we feel that we do not need traditional rulers, we can decide not to have them. I give you an example. In Tanzania, there used to be traditional in­stitutions. But at a certain point when a dif­ferent president came to office, he decided that there was no need to have traditional rulers. So, it was scrapped from the consti­tution. Right now, they do not have tradi­tional rulers. In South Africa, they have had traditional rulers from time immemorial. But, in modern times, they decided to give them special roles to play in the affairs of the country. They also decided to change the names. Now, traditional rulers in South Africa are called traditional leaders.
But generally in West Africa, they have all retained their traditional institutions. I think we in Nigeria have found out that traditional rulers have roles to play even in modern Nigeria. To make it perfect, we should have roles for them and enshrine it in the constitution so that we will know what we are supposed to do. I know that the opposition to this has been based on the perception of traditional rulers by our own subjects and by the Nigerian population. That is the way they see us. We must admit there are traditional rulers who really do not command the respect of their subjects. There are some traditional rulers who are seen as having been imposed on the people by some people in authority. Besides, the behaviour of some of us who are traditional rulers is bad. The image we portray to the public is bad. These are some of the things people look at and they are scared that if we are given power, there might be a tendency that some of us will abuse the powers.
You have already expressed the fears of Nigerians. As it stands now, some traditional rulers are more powerful than elected public offi­cials. If you add constitutional pow­ers to that, don’t you think the whole process will be abused?
No. I think the contrary will be the case. Some of the traditional rulers in this country today have unlimited powers in their domain. They deal with all manner of cases. If you now state what they should be doing, you have, in fact, limited their pow­ers. This is in the interest of the government and the Nigerian people. We need to know what role traditional rulers should play and if they fail to play that role, then we can hold them accountable. That is my position on that.
You were a diplomat for many years before your ascension to the throne. We have played the Big Brother role in Africa for too long. Going forward, do you think Nigeria should review its foreign policy?
Well, foreign policy should remain dy­namic. In other words, it should change from time to time as circumstances de­mand. What you said about our foreign policy may be true when you look at it as what has happened in the past. Before, our foreign policy was based on playing the role of a big brother to other African coun­tries. Recall that at a point in our history, we said that Africa was the centrepiece of our foreign policy. In other ways, what people like Kwame Nkrumah theorised about, we in Nigeria had to practise it. Nkrumah was quoted as saying that the independence of Ghana would be meaningless until all Afri­can countries were liberated. It was Nigeria that actually did that. We had attained our independence but still believed that if other African countries were still under colonial rule, that our independence was actually meaningless. We took it upon ourselves to actualise what Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe called Nigeria’s manifest destiny in Africa. That destiny is that we are the biggest country in Africa in terms of population. We are en­dowed with natural and human resources. We have everything. Therefore, everybody in Africa looked up to Nigeria to play a leadership role. The entire world saw us as the country that mattered most in Africa. Nigeria took it upon itself to liberate other African countries, which were still under colonial rule. We spent enormous amount of resources in that exercise.
For those of us who were part of this system at that time, there are things we look back at and wish to we had done things dif­ferently. For instance, I recall when the Cu­bans were going into Angola to help them, they got the Angolans to sign some form of memorandum of understanding. They promised to help them liberate the country, but agreed that Cuba would get something in return. In the case of Nigeria, we said we were going to do it with altruism. In other words, we would not ask for anything in re­turn. It was an argument within the Foreign Ministry. At that time, some people felt we should get the Angolans to sign an agree­ment with us. But again, those who were in charge felt we should just do it as a big brother in the African spirit.
We had a similar situation in Zimba­bwe. We helped Zimbabwe as much as we could. I recall after Zimbabwean election where Robert Mugabe won as prime min­ister, the White colonial masters who were there had the economy firmly in their hand. Even the major newspaper in Harare was owned by the whites. As you know, he who pays the piper will always dictate the tune. This newspaper was called Zimbabwean Herald or so. This newspaper was castigat­ing the government. The government had no control. They appealed to Nigeria. They said they had no mouthpiece. At that time, what we did was to acquire major hold­ings. Nigeria acquired the majority shares in that newspaper. Again, we had a debate in the ministry. I remember General Oluse­gun Obasanjo (retd) was the head of state. Some people said we should take major­ity shares in the newspaper and appoint a board, which would appoint other staff. But then, Obasanjo overruled us. He said we were helping our fellow African brothers. Nigeria provided money to the Zimbabwe­an government and they now bought ma­jority shares in the paper. They were now able to change the editorial board.
Years later, Obasanjo was running for the post of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. It was now this same Zimba­bwean Herald newspaper that wrote a very damaging editorial about Obasanjo. The pa­per said he was not fit to head the United Na­tions because he was a military man. When I sat down in my office then as an ambassador and read this editorial, I shook my head. I said if the advice of some us who were of the opinion that the newspaper should have come under the control of Nigeria, this wouldn’t have happened. This is what you see. In some of these countries, we have made sacrifices. I can go on and on to recount sacrifices we have made for other African countries.
In Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo and several countries, we rescued them. Now, you find again that when some Nigerians go there, they complain. For those of us who worked in the Foreign Service, we have seen that the attitude of some of our people does not help us. An average Nigerian may know that we helped a country. But you do not go there and remind them. That makes the job very diffi­cult. Lest I forget, we played a major role in the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. We have moved ahead under the leadership of various foreign ministers. The situation had changed. During General Ike Nwanchuk­wu era, we adopted what we called economic diplomacy. It was used to better the economic well-being of Nigerians. It goes round like that. It is dynamic.
Looking back at these sacrifices Nigeria made for many African coun­tries and you sit back to imagine the way they treat Nigerians, does it give you concerns?
Well, it is not that they do not appreciate what we did for them. The demographies of countries change. In 10 years’ time, some people will not be in power. New leaders will emerge. Look at our country. How many people who were there when Alhaji Shehu Shagari was calling the shots as president are still in power? Some of the problems he grap­pled with at that time, many people may not know. When General Murtala Mohammed was there and was making his statements about Angola and how we would help them, not many people were there. So, we in Africa are not yet very strong in keeping institutions and memories. The advanced countries of the world keep institutional memories. A young British officer comes into the Foreign Service and reads records. They know what had happened. In Africa, we do not have these records. Even South Africa, they do not have such memories an­ymore. When I was Nigeria’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York, I was deal­ing with a lot of people from South Africa and Namibia. If I go to Namibia now, how many of those leaders whom I related with back then, are still in power?
I’m very certain that you were around when the Biafran war broke out in 1967. Many Igbo believe that the region has not fully recovered and reintegrated into the main­stream.
What I can tell you is that I was already an adult when the war broke out. In fact, I just graduated the same month the war broke out. As an undergraduate, I knew how the whole crises developed gradually before they culminated into a civil war. I know that really, the Igbo were not responsible for the civil war. There is a proverb in our place that cassava was never the food of our peo­ple. What we were eating before was yam. Then, as the population grew, somebody in­troduced cassava. Cassava was introduced to help yam. But they now put the problem of yam on cassava. That is exactly what happened.
For purposes of history, there were prob­lems in the country. There was the Tiv riot because the United Middle Belt Congress under Joseph Tarka was championing the cause of the area. They said they were be­ing marginalised and he wanted to liberate his people. They started the resistance of the government in Kaduna. They said their people were not in government. They had no option but to start fighting what they considered a local occupation of their place. First, the Federal Government was using the police to deal with the matter. The Tivs were beating the police. Then they sent soldiers.
In Western Nigeria, there was an elec­tion, which the government, under Samuel Akintola, was alleged to have rigged. The whole of Western Nigeria resisted that. In fact, Professor Wole Soyinka had the cour­age to go into the radio studio to hold those announcing the false results to ransom. All those things happened. When they installed the government the people believed was not legitimate, they started fighting. The fight then was called Operation Wetie. When the soldiers decided to stage a coup, again, it was a general agreement among them. It was not the Igbo that staged the coup. I am told that most of the Yoruba officers had ap­proached the Igbo officers to help them re­move the government. The Igbo then were mainly in the officer corps. Some of them agreed to help put the country right by re­moving the government. They had assigned what each person was expected to do. They collectively took the decision. Unfortunate­ly, soldiers assigned to the East did not carry out what they were told to do. The same thing happened in Lagos. The coup was haphazard. The announcement of the coup ought to have been made in Lagos, but be­cause it was unsuccessful there, the people in Kaduna had to make the announcement. That was how Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu made the announcement. These were accidents of history. Major Gen­eral J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi was the one who stopped the coup in Lagos. If he was part of it, he would not have done that. Ironsi and others would have been killed. Unfor­tunately, the soldiers who knew what hap­pened scattered after the coup. People like Adekunle Fajuyi who knew the truth stood by Ironsi. That was how he was killed.
That was how it all started. People in the North were instigated by politicians to start killing Igbo. They started the pogrom in the North. It was all politics. Everybody was coming back to the East. They had to run back. The people came and told Lieu­tenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu that they needed their own country. Again, it was not Igbo alone. All the east­erners were involved. That was how Biafra was declared. Igbo felt that there was injus­tice on them and it is only the Almighty God that understands why it is like that.
More than 40 years after the end of that war, do you think Igbo have been served true justice?
The issue is not about the Biafran dream. As far as the Igbo are concerned, once the war ended, they accepted. An average Igbo man works for one Nigeria and believes in it, too. There is no question about seced­ing. As far as we Igbo are concerned, we are one Nigeria. But we believe that jus­tice has not been done to them. There are a number of things we can see. People who should understand pretend as if they cannot understand. Some properties owned by Igbo before the war in some parts of the country are still there, not given to them. The money they had in bank accounts were frozen and have not been given to them. The world keeps moving. Many of those people are dead. Their children only hear about what happened. We are all trying to forget about the past and move forward. There is no way we can get absolute justice.
This is why this just-concluded con­ference is important. This is the first time people have come together to air their griev­ances. People must understand that, for us to build a nation, we must discuss. Every Nigerian should be grateful to President Goodluck Jonathan for convening the con­ference. You hurt somebody and pretend as if you did not. Throughout the military era, very few Igbo military officers were in­tegrated. States were created, and since no Igbo was a member of the Supreme Mili­tary Council, nobody spoke for them. That is how our region ended up having only five states. As Nigerians, we have talked to our­selves. We need to address critical national issues so that no part of the country will be marginalized or feel marginalized.