And of course we’ve been discussing Nigeria uh call for uh good governance and then the desire by several Nigerians for president tinu to actually uh make some very bold moves in governance as we continue with 2024 well uh tonight I’m being joined by uh a Top Flight panel to
Help accept all that you’ve heard from the senior advocate of Nigeria Dr Lisa bakuba I me join right now by rice news analyst and former chairman of the editorial board of daily trust newspaper mmud Jer and also the journalist and political Affairs commentator arise news analyst Dr constan ikuku thank you so
Much for joining us thank you so let me start with you mmud very strong words here you can see the feelings the pains this I mean these were people who were on the streets in the 80s fighting for democracy and all of that and now we’ve got democracy in this forth Republic he
Just pain that it looks like this is not working the president needs to just sit up and take some very bold decisions and the National Assembly has to be there to support him but even if he doesn’t he’s asking president unu to use his administrative powers to do more for
Nigerians what you have to say about that there’s a limit to executive power and in any case you see H Professor the late professor Fe spoke about this when the issue of uh restructuring came up after the 2015 election he said look you have to win an election on a certain
Mandate you don’t bring mandates from outside in the middle of the town on smaller issues fine but on fundamental issues if this is what you want to do with Nigeria campaign on that basis make it very clear to the electorate that this is what you are going to do if they
Elect you on that basis then you have a mandate to go ahead and do that but it is not correct as far as I can see for drisa to try to hoist on President tunu a huge and complete change of agenda from the one that he campaigned on and
Was elected and you say you must do this in order to even to the point of crush everything you have to do you have to do it within the Constitution right now me I was being afraid so that it doesn’t make a dictator out of if you want to change the
Constitution you can you can restructure Nigeria provided you can get the two3 majority in the National Assembly and also simple majorities in two sides of the state assemblies to enact a new constitution you can still do that but anything outside that you will be like n Republic and the course will suspend you
Yeah I mean Dr conu that’s the reality of restructuring Nigeria whatever views you have whatever ideas you have there’s a structure and that’s that if for you to change the Constitution the National Assembly has to support you and even when the National Assembly does that you need to have the state houses of
Assembly uh to actually support you how far can president ubu go based on what Dr abbaka is advising him to do because according to him a lot of Nigerians are suffering so let’s look at the uh the conversation this way I think um this discourse shows us that politics
Underpins everything that we do it is Central to our progress and survival as a nation and so why is it that we are still where we are because we haven’t gotten the politics right you must get politics right and then you as The Logical question why are we not
Getting the fundamental questions of politics right in our country I think it’s partly because we do not have that Elite consensus on what is right and good for our nation or we haven’t decided so why are we not having that Elite consensus it’s also partly because
Um the party bazis are the elit and they much more interested in um things that are their own personal selfish interest rather than the greater good these are difficult questions these are difficult issues whether you campaign during the election with it or whether you do not
It is important that we as a nation resolve this however we’re going to go about it and so if we do not um have rational and reason and yield to reasoning to do these things you know we’re just joking okay M he’s also calling on uh uh a platform to be
Created and where you have like ARA consultative forum and then of course a to be brought in to discuss uh a new Nigeria how would this be different from the 2014 National Conference if we doing this I’m very sorry it is a very fous assumption the 1997
79 Constitution as you reminded him was adopted by an elected constituent assembly representatives were elected from all the constituencies in Nigeria I think that consent assembly was ched by Dr I mean Justice UD yes Justice and after it was adopted well there was some criticism that the Supreme military Council had to enact
The Constitution into by decree well because the Supreme military Council was ruling it was the ground gnome and they also made a few changes but very small like adding NC and Land Reform Act to the Constitution they did about it but that was an elected constituent assembly
Why does alisaa think that the A and the consultative Forum or the is more important and more more representative of the opinion of Nigerians than an elected consent assembly he said they are very credible voices within the regions they they don’t control all thoughts I mean they I
Don’t know doctor do you have anything to add to that calling these groups I mean how different will that be from the 2014 Abuja Arrangement that we have with some people call the jambur because the provisions whatever they agreed on is yet to be implemented I don’t think anybody’s calling for a sovereign
National conference anymore you know maybe it was a mistake at the time uh they called for it but we understand what they were trying to say we need to move the needle so we do have a National Assembly you didn’t ask your yourself a question this National Assembly that we
Have is it the one that is going to change the country do you see what is happening in the National Assembly whether it’s at the federal level or at the state level so we we are in a quagmire it is a very tough situation do they look like a National Assembly that
Is interested Ed in moving the country from point A to point B you might not like what we are saying right now but that is the truth it looks like a National Assembly that is more interested in pushing further their selfish interests yes you might say they
Were elected a lot of them didn’t win elections any but we know how elections are won have their certificates they do have their certificate but that doesn’t make them legitimate do you understand you might have power you might be in position it doesn’t mean that you have
Legitimacy and that’s part of the crisis that we are facing all right mmud just before we R off this conversation ask Dr Baka a very important question taking a look at all of this it’s difficult for you to reach a consensus from Nigerians on very basic issues and so sometimes
You see presidents when they in power doing some little little things do you think that President hu is doing some sort of restructuring at the moment from a little level because he’s already thinking of introducing Forest guard uh he’s already thinking of introducing solid minerals police and then CBN is
Moving some departments to Lagos we hear for airports of Nigeria and some little little things within the executive powers that he has those are completely within the powers and also the responsibilities of an executive president keep tinkering every day with whatever but major constitutional issues must require a complete concern you see
The problems that are facing ner like all the economic problemsa this and that I don’t think it’s a constitutional problem in any case there was somebody who wrote I said look the problem is the people whatever structure you adopt I think there was someone who said if you take Nigerians
To Germany and you bring Germans to Nigeria after a short time Germany will become Nigeria and Nigeria will become Germany you know it is not structur and Mr the lawyer was talking about that you must sit down down the sist that we have and the Insurgency look even Britain who
Adopted their WR Constitution 900 years ago they had a sist problem in Northern Ireland there are violent groups in the United States the W cult in in in in Texas in India which seems to be a very good functioning third world democracy there are all kinds of violent a time
Will probably never come when you have people who are contous who are violent who want out you can rewrite the Constitution 100 times the American Constitution which looks to most of the world as perfect they are still violent groups apart from the school shooting that they have every day the January
Event uh under former president Trump well I I would just ask you to hold on let’s just go on straight to our last story that we have the federal High Court City in Abuja on Wednesday declared null and void the provisions of the Nigeria broadcasting code which authorizes the national broadcasting
Commission to impose fines on broadcast stations for alleged breaches of the code the ruling handed down by Justice R ofilia AOG goia was on a suit instituted by media rights agenda against NBC following the commission’s imposition of fines on a television station and three pay TV Platforms in 2022 for allegedly
Undermining Nigeria’s National Security by broadcasting documentaries on banditry in Nigeria Dr constan what do you make of that I mean I think Jud yeah this is a victory for the media industry in Nigeria and I think the conel of the issue is that we have um a National Broadcasting
Corporation um that commission that is like an Umpire so you have the sweeping powers to receive complaint to adjudicate that complaint to uh punish people to impose fines and to collect the fines at at the same time and you know in most cases there’s little or no fair hearing for the organizations you
Just slammed this money you know on fines on top of them and expect them to pay so I think this is one of the reasons why it’s good to have the rule of law it’s very critical to our democracy and these people have gone to court and have gotten a judgment and I
Hope that the NBC would agree with the court and abide by it I think this is very important because you want a free media I think the media is about the only institution in Nigeria today that is saving Nigerians a lot of people have given up hope the media throughout the
Media we need to inspire people and continue to give hope if that is gone I do not know whether we still have a country all right interesting submission there uh MGA uh let’s talk about how the court was very angry that the NBC seems to be usurping the powers of the Court
By imposing these very huge fines it looks like MBC has come full cycle honestly I when I read the the report I agree entirely with with what the court said that uh you can the judicial power that finding somebody is a Judicial function and that has to be done by the
Judiciary however I think that the broadcasting code was adopted for a very good reason because really it is true that some Electronic media stations over step bounds and they do things that could cause confusion in the society so it is important to enforce the code but
It must be enforced within the laws and the Constitution if it requires finding people it means NBC probably now has to go to court and obtain an order to find someone I think the court was right yeah but does this also imp impose a higher form of self-regulation on on the media
Specifically broadcast houses self sensorship so that uh they don’t take their powers for granted well you know that’s the whole purpose of uh professional training there is very little for example control of the print media it is assumed that the editors and editors in Chief are well- trained
Professionals they also love the country they have respect for peace and code order and law and they they they restrain themselves it’s supposed to be the same in the electronic media it’s just because uh violations of the code in the electronic media bring more instant trauma in the UN like print
Exactly I don’t know 30 second fin yes and the media has power but with power comes great responsibility so as media professionals and personnels I think we should definitely be careful in the way that we run our organizations because at the end of the day it’s for the interest of the
Country all right I want to end this conversation by saying that power is nothing without control according to a popular adver so the media has a very huge responsibility ahead of it irrespective of the fact that the NBC has been stripped of the powers to actually impose fines but we must thank
You so much uh Mamu jger is our own arise analyst and of course you’ve really provided some great insight and of course our own Dr K ikoku thank you so much for providing those great insights too well that’s how it’s been for this edition of our prime time do
Join us again tomorrow from me and the entire team here in Abuja goodbye and thank you for watching
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