Interview: 'Nigeria May Break If...' - Rtrd Gen. Alani Akinrinade

[The InfoStrides]

This is a piece of interview with Retired General Alani Akinrinade (pictured above) where he bore his mind about Nigeria (past, present, and future). It is worth reading!

The lesson of this century is that countries put together artificially will fall apart... National identities will not be suppressed.

When Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, said this in an interview in the Newsweek edition of September 2, 1991. She did not have a particular country in mind. Neither did she think a Nigerian army general would echo this sentiment in an interview in another weekly news magazine 21 years after.

On the scale of courage, integrity, and fairness, he has been described by many as a man who is worth his weight in gold. That's vintage Alani Ipoola Akinrinade, a 72-year-old retired general, civil war hero, and patriot of the best cut. Much unlike many of his military peers whose names are abhorrent to the Nigerian public, the former chief of army staff has earned his place of honour and dignity as one of the heroes of the wrenching struggle for democracy. Today, he is one of the very few retired soldiers that are spared the silent public indignation over the ignoble roles the military played in the mis-governance of the country – a rare honour in a nation that still rues the incursion of 'khaki boys' into the political arena on January 15, 1966. It is that ruinous era that has not only become a costly misadventure but one that has also foisted on the nation a quasi-unitary political order that is now killing the nation by instalments.

In a glorious military career that saw him to the enviable position of chief of defence staff during the civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari, Akinrinade voluntarily disengaged from the army after finding his position unpalatable, retreating into the quietude of private life at age 42. However, his well-deserved retirement did not last, as he had to once again  to answer the call of national duty when a band of officers seized political power and reduced every opposition to a game that must be crushed with military bestiality. That was in 1993 following the annulment of the presidential election of that year, won by Moshood Abiola of the defunct Social Democratic Party, SDP. Self-styled military president, Ibrahim Babangida, whose government annulled the election had to step aside following civil unrests. The Ernest Shonekan-led Interim National Government Babangida foisted on the nation was shoved aside by Sani Abacha, a tyrant. Unlike many of his colleagues, Akinrinade resisted the allure of aligning with Abacha, and his soldiers of occupation. Instead, he pitched his tent with the Nigerian people and was forced to go on exile along with other chieftains of the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, who fought the military to a standstill. Still bent on 'getting rid' of Akinrinade, the Abacha goons petrol-bombed his Ikeja residence destroying property worth millions of naira.

A shining model of integrity and public service, Akinrinade did not seek any public office, either elective or appointive when the military retreated to the barracks in 1999. Despite the huge losses he suffered in the hands of Abacha's men, he preferred to remain in the camp of the few doubting Thomases who believed then that the Nigerian people would be the worse for it if the nation rushed to civil rule without carrying out a proper restructuring of the fractious polity. Like a prophet, Akinrinade forewarned that any multi-ethnic society, such as Nigeria, that erected its democracy edifice on a constitutional architecture that is devoid of equity, fiscal federalism, and regional autonomy is bound to reap a bounteous harvest of regrets and stunted growth. Sadly, with current rumblings in the political firmament, this icon of courage has now been proved right.

Although the yearning for democratic rule has been met, the nation still faces ominous times as it did in the past during the locust years of military rule, with leaders of different geopolitical zones now throwing darts at one another over deafening calls for redressing the odious imbalances plaguing the polity. But this officer and gentleman, who invested his intellect, resources, and time in the service of his fatherland with a view to freeing it from the claws of rapacious soldiers, is not relenting yet in speaking truth to power. That is why Akinrinade is once again leading the struggle to see Nigeria re-organised along the fair path of true federalism, as opposed to the pseudo-federal order that the soldiers foisted, again, on the Nigerian people since 1999.

A concerned patriot, the retired general believes strongly that there is a dire need for all ethnic nationalities making up the Nigerian federation to sit down and renegotiate the basis and terms of their association. While he disagrees with some leaders who benefit from the "screwed up federalism", Akinrinade concludes in a tone laced with scorching forthrightness and palpable anger that the "servant-boss relationship" is not workable, warning that it cannot take the country to the Promised Land. Left to him, the fragile unity in this "creaking federation" is the kind that can never be sustained, insisting that the nation needs to re-organise to recognise its diversities "so that everybody can feel really comfortable in it."

Reacting to insinuations that those agitating for a national conference and regional autonomy are unpatriotic lots who are seeking cheap ways to dismember Nigeria, the general says those defending the status quo are the ones who should read their history books. If they do, this scourge of unitarist empire builders will remember that the last time democracy served the ends of the people was in the First Republic when the Constitution permitted fiscal federalism, which allowed each region to develop at its own pace. Yet, state or regional police, devolution of power, and fiscal federalism, which a section of the country is kicking against now, were part of what formed the constitutional architecture of that glorious era, as agreed by its founding fathers who negotiated the country's independence.

Although he says getting Nigeria to heed the word of caution is his first option, Akinrinade maintains that the country will eventually face the inevitability of dismemberment if those feeding fat from thestatus quo make peaceful change impossible. "We are proposing that we should do something that will help all of us to stay together as happy brothers, not as slaves and masters. All we are saying is that if we don't do something, this thing (Nigeria) will break. ...If this thing (the political contraption) is cutting our throat, then certainly at some point, we will get to the realisation that that (breaking up) is the answer to the misery of all the people."  He warns that the country may one day wake up to the chilling reality that many ethnic nationalities may prefer to walk out of this unholy alliance in order to be happy. Akinrinade bares his mind on the state of the nation with a team of editors led by Ademola Oyinlola, executive editor, 'Dipo Onabanjo, deputy general editor, Adekunle Yusuf, an assistant editor, andSunday Adedeji, photo editor, September 6, in Lagos.

Excerpts:
 
THE COUNTRY HAS WITNESSED 13 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY – THE LONGEST SO FAR IN OUR CHEQUERED POLITICAL HISTORY. AS ONE OF THOSE IN THE VANGUARD OF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST MILITARY RULE, ARE YOU SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED ANY TIME YOU REFLECT ON THE NATION'S DEMOCRACY SINCE 1999?

I have very mixed feelings about the last 13 years. We can sit down and talk freely, and you (the media) also have the liberty to determine what you want to publish and so on. For me, that one is one big victory we have scored. A few things have changed – a little bit of liberty for people... But if you are talking about the expectations that some of us had (while) standing at the barricades, it is not satisfactory at all.

(CUTS IN) PART OF YOUR DISAPPOINTMENT MUST HAVE STEMMED FROM THE FACT THAT IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THOSE WHO ARE THE OPERATORS OF THIS DEMOCRACY ACTUALLY DID NOT PAY ANY PRICE.

I think some of them did. When you look at the opposition bench around Nigeria today, these are the people who also were part and parcel, in spirit or in practice, of the struggle for democracy. But if you talk about the main people who really had the vision of where we ought to be going or where we derailed or that kind of thing, I think we have paucity of such people who had the opportunity to participate in the system after we came into democracy. And that is not too far-fetched. Most of the people who ran the democracy we had in 1999 were mainly products of the military regime. They introduced monetary politics to our domain, and they were the only ones who had the means to do so. All those who stood at the barricades were regarded as dissidents and not supportive and therefore they cannot participate in the economic system that the military ran during that time. They segregated them (those fighting against military rule) from participation. I am therefore not surprised that many of the people who finally came into the limelight of politics are not the people who stood at the barricades against the military clamouring for democracy, people who had specific ideas about how the country ought to be run and what the dividends ought to be.

(CUTS IN AGAIN) YOU HAD VERY DEEP SCEPTICISM ABOUT THE LIKELIHOOD OF THE EXPERIMENT SUCCEEDING AT THAT TIME. WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT, IS SUCH SCEPTICISM JUSTIFIED?

Well, it is not a very good idea to say I told you so. When we returned to civil rule, the very first thing we asked is to say this federation is creaking. Even if we are going back to democracy, let's do it the right way. Let's do the hard work or the heavy lifting to write a new constitution of the people before we can move on – even if General Abdulsalam Abubakar was going to stay there for two years. As long as he was faithful to the idea that when we emerge into democracy, it would be with a constitution that all Nigerians would be part and parcel of. Of course, there were politicians who urged him on, who were anxious to govern and not only govern but to also loot our treasury. It is bad to the extent that when they were contesting for elections, they never saw a copy of the constitution, not to talk of studying and making contributions to it. The only thing I heard was that there were one or two people who saw that constitution and had the privilege of making amendments to it. But such know themselves! Those people asked them to return the land use decree into the constitution and all that kind of thing. That is all they knew about. I don't know if you should go and climb the podium talking to people about what you wish to do without knowing what your powers are because the powers of the political class come from the constitution. So if you promise things that the constitution forbids, you cannot do anything about it. They were anxious maybe because the military had stayed for too long and that was an opportunity to get rid of them and all that kind of thing. But as far as those of us who were at the barricades were concerned, we were prepared to go until we get to the point where it is rational or reasonable for us to start talking about democracy. We talked about democracy almost too early and took it almost too early and this is the result. The democracy we have now is democracy of looting and non-performance.

WOULD YOU SAY THAT'S EXACTLY WHERE THE COUNTRY GOT IT WRONG?

Yes. We needed to have gone to the end of the road and the end of the road was for the people to demand that they needed a constitution and that they wanted to know the basis of the association of all of us in Nigeria, not just some military constitution. When Abacha died, they should have thrown that constitution in his pocket and buried him with it. But instead, they foisted it on the people and they accepted it. I think that was a terrible mistake we made.

LOOKING BACK NOW, WOULD YOU SAY NIGERIANS WERE TOO ANXIOUS TO HAVE DEMOCRACY AT THE TIME OR JUST TIRED OF MILITARY RULE?

Yes. Even if we were tired at the time, should we have jumped from frying pan to fire? That's what we did. The situation is worse now. When you have oppression from a dictator, you know exactly what you are getting. I know what you can do and what you cannot do. But when people ascribe to us a democratic system of government, it means freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of doing virtually everything provided you are not infringing on the rights of others. But it is now more difficult to complain that we are being oppressed and marginalised. Those are issues we should have debated before as the basis for our democracy. We did not do so. That over-speeding is resulting in a crash right now and we are just watching.

WOULD YOU SAY THE MILITARY WAS NOT TIRED OF POLITICS BECAUSE IT WAS OBVIOUS THEN THAT GENERAL ABUBAKAR WAS ANXIOUS TO SEE THEM RETURN TO THE BARRACKS?

That's true. But we could also have given terms on which they could return to the barracks. The people had a right because he (Abubakar) was just one man. And if he was not satisfied, he could have walked away and given the mantle to somebody else. He could have given a transitional committee the job to run the country with the mandate to have a proper constitution done. What was wrong with that? The tiredness of one man and non-farsightedness that attended our part of it too could not have been the excuse for us to find ourselves in this mess.

SOME OF YOU IN NADECO THEN DID NOT WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE TRANSITION PROGRAMME. IF YOU HAD PARTICIPATED, PERHAPS A LOT OF THINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN MUCH BETTER BY NOW?

I don't think so. Some of those who participated were important part of NADECO. We had about two of them who were governors; some of the rest of them were peripheral people – commissioners and things like that. I don't think it (participating) could have made a big difference. Even if the arm of NADECO that saw things very clearly and were ready to stay till the last time had participated without the agreement of the general body to write a new constitution, they would have just found themselves in this mess we all found ourselves now. If you cannot beat them, you join them. If the order of the day is no accountability, everybody will succumb. But Baba Enahoro's (late politician and statesman, Chief Anthony Enahoro who moved the motion for Nigeria's independence) faction of NADECO (National Democratic Coalition) stood to the end. They said this was not going to work and it is still not working.

To be continued...

[The InfoStrides]

IN YOUR SPEECH AS THE CONVENER OF THE YORUBA ASSEMBLY, YOU SAID EVERYTHING ABOUT NIGERIA SHOULD BE DISCUSSED, INCLUDING THE UNITY OF THE COUNTRY. SOME PEOPLE HAVE INTERPRETED IT AS AN ATTEMPT TO BREAK UP THE COUNTRY?

I think there have been people who have come out with such position. When you are used to a certain way of life and it suits you and you are enjoying it, nobody ever freely gives away such privileges or positions or powers without a struggle. I liken most of them (who say others want to break the country) to that lot. Those who want to wake up in the morning, ride the donkey to the farm and then do some work. And when they are coming back home, the owner is tired and packs all the food he will eat and the firewood and the rest of that and puts it on the donkey, climbs on top of it and says let's go home. That's the kind of unity they are talking of for Nigeria. The kind of unity they want is not the kind of unity that can ever be sustained. They are asking people to keep quiet. Do they want a graveyard? There are a number of issues, which they always try to gloss over. If some people feel cheated in a group, the house cannot stand. You are sitting in a glass house and you left your enemies at the back. Of course they will throw stones. Why don't you have the courage to sit down and ask them why? People are always talking that this country will break. If it breaks, so what! Nobody is going to leave his part of the country for anywhere else – the Ibos will stay where they are, the Yoruba will stay where they are and the rest of them.

YOU MUST FIND IT UNCHARITABLE THAT SOMEBODY WILL ACCUSE YOU OF TRYING TO BREAK THE COUNTRY AFTER FIGHTING FOR THE UNITY OF THIS NATION. IS IT NOT CHEAP BLACKMAIL?

In our lives, people have regrettable periods. But they tend to see more clearly because people get wiser by hindsight. If you ask me as at that time, there was no substantive reason anybody should have gone to that civil war. But we did! I staked my life and everybody else did. Even the stories of the war are being distorted; people who came at the last minute of the struggle now said they are the ones who finished the war and the rest of it. But it is not time yet to tell the whole story. My first option is for Nigeria to stay together as an entity because I have too many friends and connections outside Yoruba land for me to say we should break up. But if this thing is cutting our throat, then certainly at some point, we will get to the realisation that that (breaking up) is the answer to the misery of all the people. I am not just talking about Yoruba alone; I am talking about a whole congregation of 250, they say, ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. So be it!

We have to get honest with ourselves and look at these things in the face and decide that we are going to do something. We are proposing that we should do something that will help all of us to stay together as happy brothers, not as slaves and masters. We want us to stay together as equals so that all of us can put something in the pot so that all of us can enjoy it. That's what we are saying. We are not asking anybody to go home and break to pieces. There is no language that the Yoruba have used or I have personally used to suggest that we want to break up the Nigerian federation. All we are saying is that if we don't do something, this thing will break. There was the mighty USSR. Where is it today? But they are happier today. All of us are sitting down here blaming Boko Haram. We don't even know the genesis of the problem except what you journalists tell us, and the rest of it. The real thing we don't know. But I suspect it is something that has to do with injustice, which brought poverty and stratification of society where some people think they don't have any part in this estate and therefore if it burns down, what does it matter? That's the way revolutions start. When I don't have a stake in the estate, why should I stay awake when somebody wants to burn it?

We are saying let us remove all these pockets of disgruntlement and reasons people don't want to see one another as brothers. Let us remove them. Let us reorganise this system so that everybody can feel really comfortable in it. Don't let us deceive ourselves; nobody is comfortable in Nigeria. Is it the Ogoni? Is it the Igbo? Is it the Ijaw? Is it the Yoruba? Even the Fulani people that we always accuse of being overlords, I don't think they are very confident that this thing (Nigeria) is going to last. The reason is that we can see things coming and we can address them. That's what civilised people do. But what we are doing in Nigeria today is to say our problem is leadership. Leadership what? At the risk of blasphemy, if we put Jesus Christ as the president of Nigeria and make Mohammed his vice or change it round so that Mohammed is the president while Jesus is the vice, this thing is going to fail because of the way it is configured. It will always fail whoever runs it. The political and constitutional architecture are not workable.

IN FUNDAMENTAL TERMS, WHAT DO YOU WANT ADDRESSED IN THE NATION'S SYSTEM?

All the imbalances. Let me give you some examples. Some soldiers sat down and created 12 states. They did not stop there; they went on and on. We now have 36 states. Let us take for instance Kano State. The most recent is that you broke Kano into two parts. Lagos State as at that time existed as Lagos State. Lagos State has 20 local governments. Kano, which is not as populous as Lagos has 40 local governments. Jigawa State was carved out of Kano and Lagos is still as it was. These are the truths of the matter. Go to all these places and start asking yourselves where the people are. We are an urbanised people in the southern parts of Nigeria, and what geography dictates is that that's where most of the people are. But then you created local governments and ask them to go to Abuja to share revenue like everybody else. And Lagos State is your commercial capital. It carries all the weight of commerce in Nigeria. Yet that is the situation.

You took the resources and then you go and give to some other people. Take something like VAT. Lagos is probably responsible for about 40 to 50 per cent of VAT that is collected in Nigeria today. That money goes to Abuja. Take the example of alcohol. The Sharia says you cannot drink alcohol because they will cut off your hand or something like that. But Lagos State and some other states say it does not really matter. We know the consequences of alcohol. Some get drunk and they crash. Some get sick and their liver gets punctured and they go to the hospitals. But Lagos State and some other states have to provide for all these people. They cannot say your liver gets bad because you drink too much and so you cannot come to my hospital. They cannot do that; they have to care for them. All those people who have accidents on the road, they have to send ambulances around the place and start carrying dead bodies all over the place. After you have taken punitive customs duties at the ports when importing most of these brandies and so on, you go and impose another VAT. The first one went to the federal government and the VAT also. Then you start sharing it (VAT proceeds) and give the money to Kano and Zamfara states. First of all, Kano and Zamfara should not take it because it is immoral to take it. It is religiously unwholesome money! Why should they take it? But they will take it anyway.  That to me is the issue I want us to address (general laughter) and several others.

They are opposing state police now. But when they established Sharia, they knew the police could not police it. So they established their own Sharia police called Hisbah. Yet Hisbah is not going to policeSharia alone; it is going to police everybody and everything, including anything forbidden by the penal code, which is not Sharia alone. What did they have? They have state police. As soon as they started thinking about it, they established their own state police without thinking about any other person. Now you have Mohammadu Gambo (a retired inspector-general of police) telling us that we cannot have state police. They said we will have state police over their dead bodies. They are going to die very soon because there will be state police. Americans never policed themselves properly until they decided that there must be black people in their police system. They had to accept that they have a big population of Hispanics who have their own language and culture. And you cannot penetrate them to police properly without having their people in the police. They first started by quota. Now it is by sheer ability. America now has all races in their police. How can anyone police my village effectively if he is not from there? He goes to Kano for Police College. Suddenly they say they are posting you as a constable to my village. He does not understand the language, culture and tradition of our people. When people want to help you, you are saying they want to harm you. This is it. It is psychological violence we are doing to people by giving them jobs they cannot normally do. They cannot be efficient because they cannot understand.

Let me give another example. They say they (proponents of state police) will use it to victimise people. About 30 years ago, American police was dominated by whites. Then there was the Ku Klux Klan. They hated the blacks. At the time, you have to be white and redneck otherwise you are not an American. And they were roasting people in front of their houses. Usually, their heads of police in most of the counties were white people. And they were members of the Ku Klux Klan. They are saying the governors would use it (state police) to victimise. I think they are underestimating where we have reached. I think I can speak for the Yoruba. I think if they have 10 policemen in a village today and any governor will use them to victimise anyone when we have the press, the radio is more accessible, television and the Internet and so on, it will be difficult. There are all sorts of NGOs and human rights fighters and so on. The governor cannot get away with it – we are not in those days as in the 60s and 70s when they (opponents of state police) themselves introduced political brigandage into Western Nigeria. That's where the thing started from – when they were tying goats to people's backyard and sending the police to go and arrest them because they were political opponents. It is not going to happen anymore! Let me say the entire Nigeria descended on the West and destroyed their politics because Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the strongman there.

WHEN YOU CALL FOR A REGIONAL STRUCTURE, THEY SAY YOU WANT TO BREAK UP NIGERIA. WHEN YOU CALL FOR STATE POLICE, THEY SAY YOU WANT TO BREAK UP NIGERIA. WHEN YOU CALL FOR FISCAL FEDERALISM, THEY SAY YOU WANT TO BREAK UP NIGERIA. ARE THESE PEOPLE THE ONLY ONES IMBUED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT IS GOING TO BREAK UP NIGERIA?

I think they are imbued with the knowledge of the fact that those who don't work will not eat if they are able-bodied. This decadence can only be curbed when government gets much closer to the people and the people feel responsible for electing their own government. This thing you are calling for is not alien to us. In the First Republic, we had the regions and they were developing at their own pace. What is the problem today that the perception is that regional autonomy is seen as a way of seceding?

NOW SOME ARE SAYING THOSE CALLING FOR TRUE FEDERALISM AND SO ON SHOULD HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY THEY WANT TO SECEDE. ARE YOU LACKING IN COURAGE TO SAY YOU WANT TO SECEDE?

The Yoruba have not decided at any point in history – since the amalgamation of Nigeria – to say they want to secede from Nigeria. All we have been saying is that we should recognise things that make our diversity work. We are saying we should recognise our diversities in Nigeria and agree that we have diverse cultures, diverse abilities and the rest of it and that until we know and put all that into play, we are not going to develop. We are setting dates of development that are unrealistic such as Vision 2020, visions that cannot be realised simply because your people have put their backs to this plough. They don't feel it is their responsibility to do. That's what we are saying. Yorubas have never mooted the idea of secession and we have never ever tried to usurp other people's rights; we are not empire builders. We don't want to go into other people's territory and things like that. We don't have all that kind of ambition.

If you conduct a referendum in Yoruba land today and say let us go back to the 1960 derivative formula, in which case everything you have, be it minerals or agricultural produce, let us have 50 per cent and pay 50 per cent to the centre, I am sure a minimum of 70 per cent of Yoruba will say yes. Fair is fair.  It is fair that this oil money, which has turned us into a very decadent country, is addressed now. If the oil money disappears tomorrow, we will cut our coat according to our cloth – not according to our size. Our fresh energies and potential will be unleashed. We will know that we are not going to eat if we don't work. And I can tell you that half of the corruption will subside immediately because there will be no money to throw around the whole place.

There is a lot to say for us to sit down rather than [criticising] and throwing all sorts of jabs through the window at each other and telling others that certain things will not happen in Nigeria unless over their dead bodies, or harbouring the belief that this place is too big to collapse. We are not bigger than USSR.  Are we older than Czechoslovakia? Are we older than Yugoslavia? Today, if we go to each of the components of Yugoslavia – from Serbia and so on – all of them have started long streaks of development almost unprecedented in the days of Yugoslavia. Even the component units of the Soviet Union, they are nations now, with one vote each in the United Nations, UN. I think it is an African syndrome that we are so carried away with what [Artificial Creation of Nations] we were given by the colonial masters. I think if Katanga and Lumumba were allowed to go away, that area could have been more peaceful now. When the UN sent troops there to go and keep peace in the old Congo, the situation before that time is still better than today's. When everybody decided at independence that they wanted to break from the vice grip of Belgium, all they focused their attention on were the minerals. And that was the moving factor for not allowing Katanga to go.

Today, the place has never known peace. Why do we go all this far? Suppose tomorrow, the President does not get the ticket to contest, even if he contests, we are going to run the next election under duress. They (people of the South-south geo-political zone) are already telling us that this is what is going to happen if this man (President Jonathan) is not there. The Boko Haram people are saying if we don't get Sharia or a theocratic state, we are not going to have peace, then the far North says it is their turn to take the presidency, I am beginning to wonder whether we are thinking fast enough to see what will happen to us in 2015. We are always thinking that Nigeria will break up in terms of one section seceding and everybody goes into confusion and all that. It may not be so. It might just turn out that you might not have elections in the South-south, you might not have elections in the North-east. Are we thinking seriously about these things? Are we prepared to face the consequences of such things? I don't think we are. As a people, we have to sit down with some honesty and talk very seriously among ourselves.

YOU ARE ASKING FOR A NATIONAL CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS THESE ISSUES. WHERE DO YOU PLACE THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, WHICH IS THE LAWMAKING BODY FOR THE NATION?

The people always own their sovereignty. You can have the mandate of the people for a specified number of years. In civilised societies, people still have the right to withdraw their mandate. Any constitution that does not make provision for withdrawing that mandate is not a constitution. It is everywhere in the civilised world. The conference is going to be the way lawmakers do their work. For instance, in a constituent assembly, you don't start voting. Because if you start voting and it is against some people and you don't have a way of moderating that and bring them on board by so and so amendment, you have finished that document because they are not going to feel that they are part of that document. So they can do anything to sabotage it. That is the importance of the constituent assembly. If you go to the National Assembly today, you are going to get a PDP constitution. That is what it is going to be in real terms because they hold the majority in the House and they can just vote on every clause into existence.

But that's not what we want. A constituent assembly or a national conference is necessarily a parley where people try to resolve differences, not to say the Yoruba are larger than the Ijaws or the Ijaws are larger than the Ogonis and start saying let us vote. We will not get anywhere that way. You know what is going on now about the onshore-offshore dichotomy thing. The highest lawmaking body, which is the Supreme Court, ruled. But that ruling cannot be sustained without us resolving some things. Some people  [from the North] are saying they want to reverse the judgement but some people in the South-south are already saying don't try it. Of course we all know what the consequences will be. They [militants in South-south] will take up arms and start blowing whatever it is that is there. And because all of us are so timid, we are not even prepared to sit down and talk about these things. Even in the coming election, I can see this spectre of us voting under duress – that if you don't do this, you know what we are going to do. That is not democracy!

To be continued...

[The InfoStrides]

IF YOU WANT US TO DISCUSS THESE ISSUES, HOW DO WE SELECT THOSE WHO WILL GO AND REPRESENT US AND WHAT ARE THE TERMS?

Like the Yoruba have massed together, we will know those who want to remain as Yoruba and those who don't want to remain – because that is also essential. What we did in Ibadan is not a constitutional conference; it is a framework for constitution making for Nigeria and how the Yoruba see their position in it. Every nationality will have to go and have their own assembly and agree about how they want to associate with the rest of us. The Itsekiri have a position. The Ijaw have a position that we know. The Middle Belt used to have a position and I don't know if they still have a position. That's what it is supposed to be. And we will now go to the constituent assembly; we are hoping each of the nationalities will elect their own people in their own way. But when we get there, it is going to be one nationality, one vote. That's what a lot of people are objecting to. If the Yoruba used their numbers to run over the Igbo on one issue, that means we have not agreed.

But because you said it is democracy of one man one vote, if we get 80 per cent, we still do not have a constitution. That's how it is going to be different from the National Assembly. Each nationality will have its own election, which is not going to be like the Nigerian election, which is usually half-rigged, half-free. Every nationality will determine its own representation. If you are going to send 30 people there, they will pick 30 people either by voting or by referendum. In fact, they should be allowed to choose their 30 people but they have only one vote. That's the difference between what we are proposing and the National Assembly. Each nationality can pick its representatives to represent its sub-nationalities. We Yorubas also have sub-nationalities in our area, but we have a common history, culture and tradition. I think that's part of what stands us out. I think the Igbo have the same thing. The Ijaw have the same thing.

THE YORUBA WANT REGIONAL AUTONOMY; WHERE DO WE PLACE THE GOVERNORS AT THE END OF THE DAY? HOW WILL IT WORK OUT?

We are going to set up a constitutional framework, which will then take a more extensive look at how we organise ourselves considering the various sub-nationalities and sub-groups within the Yoruba and the economic powers available within Yoruba land. We have to put that on the scale and see what we can sustain ourselves with or what can work for us internally as Yoruba people. We may end up with more than 30 states. Who knows? We may even end up with provinces because we ran provinces before and they were very powerful provinces. We have to examine all that and decide which is the cheapest and most effective way of governing ourselves.  We want us to keep an open mind and explore all variations. These are matters people should sit down soberly to discuss. It is not a matter of breaking or not breaking up. How do we ensure this federation survives and gets stronger and not become an albatross on the neck of the people who live in Nigeria?

WHAT IF SOME PEOPLE DECIDE TO FRUSTRATE THESE MOVES BECAUSE OF PERSONAL GAINS?

You see Nigeria has got the Yoruba wiser. When the Yoruba look back to the time they were just one region, they found that they were more effective for development, peace and tranquility, they are much wiser because Nigeria destroyed that and handed us what we have today which causes absolute chaos to them. I have not found any part of Yoruba land that is averse to us getting together again. We don't have to have a government in Ibadan if we don't want to. We don't have to break up the states if we don't want to. We know where we are coming from and it is better than today. That is a very bad thing.

THE YORUBA ASSEMBLY, WHICH YOU CONVENED, MET IN IBADAN THREE WEEKS AGO. ANOTHER GROUP OF YORUBA LEADERS (YORUBA UNITY FORUM) ALSO MET IN IKENNE A WEEK BEFORE YOUR GROUP MET. WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO GROUPS?

Everybody knows everybody else. To the best of my knowledge, those in the Yoruba Unity Forum did not say they want to advance the re-organisation of Nigeria and things like that. The Yoruba Assembly is purposely to see Nigeria re-organised and see Yoruba people re-organised – not to bellyache about what is happening right now and talking about marginalisation of the Yoruba in the government at the centre. I think these are as a result of this skewed federation that we have. I have never heard any state in America complaining that it did not participate in Obama's government and the rest like that. The federal government is very remote from the people. So all those are what the Yoruba Assembly is talking about. If the Unity Forum is talking about unity in Yoruba land, unity in politics is impossible. I want to say that it is impossible among civilised people. As four of us sit down, if we hold only one opinion and agree on everything, it means all the four of us are unnecessary. The Yoruba are used to plurality all the time because we have always run a federation, even Oduduwa himself ran a federation; he never asked anyone to come to Ife to take orders.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE A COLLECTIVE VOICE FOR THE YORUBA RACE?

Yes, it is very possible. When the Yoruba get pushed to the wall, we always come together. Nobody always preaches it. I know when work starts, a lot of us will see the futility of trying to go our own ways out of the mainstream of Yoruba thinking. But I will like people to still stay out of the mainstream bringing caution and fresh ideas to what is happening. Otherwise we will get so bored and think we are infallible. We don't want Yoruba land to get ever into that kind of situation.

IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THE COUNTRY IS ON TENTERHOOKS. DARTS ARE BEING THROWN AT PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS HAPPENING?

Sometimes you think it is unjustified. But when you are the leader, the buck stops on your table and you have to take everything – the good, the bad and the ugly. You cannot just pick what you want. If he is not doing well and people are telling him, I think he should be happy. For example, it is often said that you don't believe anything until there is an official denial. They make that mistake all the time in that Aso Rock. People have a right to go after them. It is also very clear that the war on corruption is either not being prosecuted or you are not prosecuting it in a way that is discernible that people can say something is going on. I think Jonathan's government has that problem.

(CUTS IN) DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH HIS PERSON OR BECAUSE HE IS FROM A MINORITY GROUP, SINCE THAT IS THE ARGUMENT OF SOME PEOPLE?

No. Those are the things that actually qualify him. I think we are proud for once that Nigeria was able to elect a minority person as president. I think it should be a source of pride for us. It is supposed to be advancement. Before his election, some people were saying he is a gentleman and that the Yoruba always love the Omoluabi – a person of virtue and character. And that's why we threw away all the political principles and voted for him. How does he answer the charges that when he got there, he became a regional president? Of all the important things happening in Nigeria today, I do not know where it is not South-south people and the Ibos that are there. Yet we voted for him. But if he has been doing well, I know that the Yoruba will acknowledge it. I am sure of that.

I travelled from Yakoyo through Ibadan to Lagos today, the road is getting more and more deplorable. That's the major artery for our commercial enterprises in Nigeria. If anybody is dilly-dallying about doing that road because it is in Yoruba land, I don't see any sense in that.

IN FAIRNESS TO JONATHAN, HE DID NOT CREATE SOME OF THESE PROBLEMS. HE INHERITED THEM.

When he wanted to contest election, he was a member of the PDP. He was part of them. He was there for eight years before he became vice president to Umaru Yar'Adua. He was an insider who knows the problems of the country. You don't go about the country and promise that you will do this and that for them and get there and abandon them. Later, you now complain that if you had known. Of course, he knew. You cannot then complain. These are issues you should have thought about and be sure you have solutions to them before you climbed the soapbox. You cannot just throw up your hands in the air and say I did not know these things are so bad.

HOW DO YOU ASSESS HIS HANDLING OF THE BOKO HARAM PROBLEM AND THE GENERAL INSECURITY ENVELOPING THE NATION?

I will like to go with the opinion of the former Sultan of Sokoto (Ibrahim Dasuki). I read an interview (TELL magazine's edition of 12, March 2012) and he said it is a matter of justice. I think I am with him. Where there is injustice and where people have the perception that they are being unjustly treated, there are serfs, and lords of the manor and the rest of it, the house will be in disarray.

SOME PEOPLE THINK THIS BOKO HARAM PROBLEM WOULD NOT HAVE LASTED THIS LONG IF FORMER PRESIDENT OLUSEGUN OBASANJO WAS THE ONE IN POWER?

No, you don't have to kill people needlessly. We went to Odi and razed the whole town. Don't you think that could also be Ibogun (in Ogun State) where he came from? I saw something in the papers that anybody in the task force who committed rape would be sent to The Hague.  Are you turning our country into a war front? This is internal security and you are now telling people that you knew in your heart that you are being unjust. They are saying they will transfer their responsibility to somebody in The Hague.

SO IT IS GOOD THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS TALKING TO BOKO HARAM?

(Long silence) Hmmm, yes. But what are they doing in concrete terms – in the long and short terms to remove this poverty from there – apart from the almajiri schools? We have to remove the source of the anger or the main cause of the problem.

TOP ON THE AGENDA OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY IS THE ISSUE OF STATE CREATION. HOW WILL THIS SERVE THE DEVELOPMENT AGENDA OF THE COUNTRY?

A lot of groups and people are looking for more states simply because all the resources are gathered from all over, whether it is resources or taxes and are heaped into Abuja. And Abuja has the long arm  (laughs cynically) to reach local governments and states indirectly. Who will not want to share in anything like that? That's why people are clamouring for states. In my own state (Osun), there are three requests to break the state into three component parts. People want to be governors and commissioners. As long as money is coming from somewhere and we dish out, there will be no other rationale for state creation other than that. After all we lived together before as regions and nobody was complaining as long as development was reaching them. Now, it is not even reaching anybody any more.

IF YOU REMEMBER THE ROLES OF THE MILITARY IN THE MIS-GOVERNANCE OF THIS COUNTRY, BECAUSE MANY BELIEVE THE MILITARY PREPARED THE COUNTRY FOR THIS MESS, DON'T YOU BELIEVE, AS A RETIRED SOLDIER, THAT NIGERIANS DESERVE A FORMAL APOLOGY FROM THE MILITARY AS AN INSTITUTION?

Yes of course. People by hindsight get much wiser. I will be fraudulent to say that I have not thought about these things over the years and say: "was it really necessary?" The military regimes that lasted for so long, were they really necessary? Whether it could have been one in the first place? I think the architects of the first coup d'état were not too sure in their minds that they were doing the right thing. I think it was more of youthful exuberance. There were two terrible mistakes that got us to where we are today. The military is a hierarchical institution. One man takes charge because you can't have two commanders in a system. They erroneously believed that the same would work in Nigeria and applied it. They started governing from the top. There is no country that has successfully done that. The second biggest mistake was made during Murtala/Obasanjo regime. And that was to dismantle the permanent instrument of government, which is the civil service. Till today, we have not recovered. Once it was dismantled, the flaws started coming that it cannot work, and the country became a shadow of its former self. (Ibrahim) Babangida tried by changing titles, nomenclature and functions to director general and so on, but he did not know early enough that the thing had been beheaded a long time ago. I want to see a state today that has a good civil service. I don't think there is. I was reading a report about Osun State where the head of service said he was not consulted when the state borrowed N18 billion.  Who should have administered it?

SHOULDN'T THE MILITARY APOLOGISE?

Who do we call on now – the ones sitting down there (in the grave) or who? Nobody is going to offer acceptable apologies. It is also true that some of the development we have was during the military, even sometimes more efficiently.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE IF THE CAMPAIGN FOR A NATIONAL CONFERENCE FAILS?

Optimism is the basis of life. I don't think it will fail. I think things will be happening along the way.

Source: Tell Nigeria

[KingFemzee]

To move this great country called Nigeria forward, everybody needs to come together and sit down to deliberate on the future and way forward, the input of everybody in agreement is the only way to keep this country together.