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Being text of remarks by the Chairman, Atiku Abubakar and former Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, at the 90th Birthday Gala Night in honour of Chief E. K. Clark, at Ladi Kwali Hall, Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Abuja, recently.
Protocol:
It is not often that we gather in this country to celebrate the 90th birthday of our friends or relations. The club of 90 is a very exclusive one indeed and for allowing this son of the Niger Delta, our brother, friend, and a true Nigerian patriot, to join that club, we are very thankful to the Almighty God.
One of the privileges of sticking around for a long time on this earth is the bragging right to say “I’ve seen it all.” Our celebrant, Chief E. K. Clark, has every right to, and can, really brag that he has seen it all. Who would deny that bragging right to someone who participated in the struggle for Nigeria’s independence and played a role in the First Republic politics? Who would deny him that right when he served the country as a Federal Commissioner in that 1970s, a period which some regard as our country’s most affluent years since its independence?
What Chief Clark has not seen though is a truly great Nigeria, a Nigeria that lives up to its full potential as an economic powerhouse, a thoroughly thriving democracy, with robust separation of powers among the three arms of government; a government characterized by respect for rules and regulations.
For six years after independence, Chief Clark witnessed a federal system that functioned as one, one in which the federating units had control over their resources and agreed to surrender some powers to the centre on matters which are better handled by the centre, such as defence, foreign policy, immigration, national currency, and setting and maintaining standards, etc; a federal system that encouraged healthy rivalry among the federating units. But then January 1966 happened.
The military took over and over time all that changed. Progressively the federal system was eroded; power got concentrated in the centre and more resources got shifted to the centre. And the federating units got splintered into more and increasingly unviable entities that are dependent on the centre.
Currently the federating units lack control over their resources and the capacity to develop at their own paces. Thus there is little healthy competition among them as they try to provide for their populations, populations that are largely detached from the primary source of government revenues. It is no wonder, therefore, that our country finds it really difficult to make appreciable progress in the key indices of development, and accountability.
But all hope is not lost. We know we can right the ship of state. We can, as adults, re-examine our ways, our practices, and the structure of our federation in order to find ways to fix its features which impede the development of this country and its constituent units, including the improvement of the welfare of our peoples. Our challenge is to work fast and let this needed reversal occur while Chief E. K. Clark is still physically strong and mentally alert so his voice will be part of the conversation. As a patriot he would not wish for less.
So my friends, let’s do it because Chief Clark will continue to demand it from all of us. You all know he is not afraid to speak his mind about the things he feels strongly about. I have even, on occasion, been the target of his sometimes acerbic tongue.
But tonight, let’s celebrate this great patriot as he clocks 90 and wish him a Happy Birthday, and many more years of good health and God’s protection.
