By Daniel Kanu
Chief Oloye Adeniji was the Lagos State governorship candidate of KOWA party in the 2015 elections.
The activist is also the Chairman of Movement for Fundamental Change, MFC, a coalition of over 100 civil society groups, non-governmental organisations of high networth activists who believe that governance in Nigeria should not be left in the hands of the present crop of leaders.
He spoke to Sunday Sun on the problem with Nigeria, what needs to be done, and the disappointment of the President Muhammadu Buhari government, among other national issues. Excerpt:
You have been advocating the need for a new Nigeria, what is really your fears today?
As a scout that is always prepared for any eventuality, I don’t have any fear because I have a resolute mind of how to effect a fundamental change in Nigeria and I believe it is possible to fix Nigeria, so I have no fear. Nigeria can still be better, it’s a question of change of body language, leadership, especially our elite, they are the cause of the challenges that we have. Something will just happen and they will realise that this situation cannot continue forever. They are the ones dragging this country to a tipping point.
So, even the security situation that the country is witnessing today does not scare you?
The security situation is a political issue, it is created by the people in the government to continue to be in the position of leadership, they created the challenges so that everybody that is lily-livered will be cowed, but we are not cowed and will refuse to be cowed because we know that it is a question of fundamental change and everything will fall in line. Nigeria needs a fundamental change, simple. The security challenge is not far-fetched, let me tell you, it’s just about the denial of rights of the citizens. The citizens will find their way to claim their rights when you deny them their rights or diminish their humanness. Many people don’t understand Sheikh Gumi when he speaks, Gumi is telling you that these bandits are their children and that the government has denied them the fundamentals of human rights and so they are doing anything to make sure they live and so it is the government that should change its position, change its service to humanity so that they can serve the people. When they are young you prepare them for service to the community, but you left them to wonder about. So, when you turn them into rent-seeking citizens they will squeak their survival from anybody and it is getting to the climax because all the elite will go in for it. It is danger lurking.
When you say it’s just a fundamental change, what type of fundamental change are you talking about?
It covers the fundamental changes in our inter-personal and inter-governmental relationships. You just have to appreciate the essence of life; the essence of life is service to humanity, it’s not any mansion or any millions you carry away to a foreign land. So when you are not serving your community or your immediate environment, when you are not giving to them what God has endowed you with then you are in danger yourself. For example, I am chairman, Movement for Fundamental Change; we are saying that Nigeria should be restructured; we are saying enough of this fake federation, that the system in operation in Nigeria today is fake. This is not a federal system, this is a unitary system that encourages rent-seeking individuals to continue to take advantage of the majority, so once we agree and the critical mass agree that there must be a fundamental change in the system and we embark on the change sincerely, there will be peace. Let every locality manage its resources, train its children to achieve the maximum endowment God has given them, they will be ready to serve. You help others to help yourself, you offer service and you are given compensation and you use it to take care of yourself, it’s very simple. The system we are using here is extreme capitalism, in other parts of the world where you have it their elite create welfare social infrastructure and maintain them so that they make sure that those who are low in income or ability have certain inalienable rights of living, a roof over their head, transport subsidized, education subsidized, levies subsidized and you are at peace but our own leaders are so selfish and capitalist-oriented that they think it is only they that must have all. As I speak with you now, I am in serious traffic coming from the Lekki axis to Mainland, I have been in this gridlock for close to 2hours, why in this 21st Century should we not have a metro line from Yaba to Epe to Badagry to Ikorodu in Nigeria? This present President (Buhari) canceled it in 1984 and Nigeria paid the money, now he is here again and you are doing railway lines to Niger Republic. So, you can see, their faculty do not reflect humanity, their faculty is serving self. And when you serve or focus on self ignoring the welfare of others you need so many things to secure yourself because you will always live in fear. The government is living in fear because they have failed to secure a better life for their citizens. And you cannot expect peace where there is injustice. You see, there is a job challenge, most of the violence that we are witnessing is because the majority of the youths are not given an opportunity to take care of themselves, they seem to be hopeless about their situation. So they have to survive anyhow.
Coming to the issue of the youths and opportunities, we just had a one-year commemoration of the EndSARS protest…?
(Cuts in) You can see that the government learned no lesson from the #EndSARS struggle. You can see the government reaction, they were even shooting tear gas again. Look at the critical issues that the youths articulated during the protest and tell me how the government has positively addressed them. It is sad that we have a very negative-thinking government, they are not proactive at all. You see the government should have joined the youths, encourage them to celebrate the event with innovative ideas to improve their lot and their law. What are they complaining about? It is the policing system, our policing system is rent-seeking, they (the police) are on the road collecting their own salary. It is a systemic challenge and with just one stroke of good direction, good leadership will change all this. The old order must go, our present system of rulership is the old order it cannot survive further, it must give way to the new order, of technology-driven economy whereby everybody can develop at its own pace. What is the cause of banditry in Zamfara? It is just because of the mineral resources there. Every
body is claiming ownership and you ignore the real owners, you oppress them to take their gold, their God-given resources, you kill their leader, their Chiefs, and whoever they can kill they get rid of them. You cannot run a country in such a manner and expect to have peace.
You contested for the governorship of Lagos state in 2015, looking back are you satisfied with the progress so far made in the state?
Yes, I ran under the KOWA Party and I am sure there would have been a monumental and positive difference under my watch in the sense that we will first of all tackle the issue or concerns of the youth population. I enjoyed Nigeria; my children did not enjoy Nigeria, my grand-children I don’t know how they will feel. There is no reason today, we should not have effective marine transportation, effective metro lines, and an effective transport system within Lagos. Don’t forget that Lagos is a mega-city, with more than 30 million people, so why should everybody put their car on the road? I would have adopted the Jakande administration blueprint and you will see a great city where infrastructure is working. But the people that are ruling us are simply rent-seeking agents as I said earlier, they are extreme capitalists and just after money, money, and more money. What are they going to do with the money after acquiring so much for selfish gratification? I have told them: grow the economy, focus on it and you create the wealth and ensure that others’ welfare, citizens concerns are taken care of. I tell somebody that all these Agberos (thugs) are our own Boko Haram, they use them for rent collection on the highways and when the election comes they use them as thugs and they are the ones they used to discredit the EndSARS protest.
How do you feel about the deregistration of political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which also affected your party (KOWA)?
INEC itself is a serious challenge to democracy in Nigeria. I am operating on Restructure Actualisation Movement (RAM) now. It is a collaboration between the Movement for Fundamental Change and highly placed Nigerians that have appreciated the need to restructure Nigeria.
How will you assess Present Buhari’s leadership?
It is not a Buhari matter alone if we must tell ourselves the truth, it is the entire conglomerate, everybody that is in that government they are a disappointment to civilized people. They are a disappointment to all those who gave them the mandate. How can you be in government, you criticised former President Goodluck Jonathan, for instance, that they were paying subsidies and that you want to stop the payment of subsidies. What have we got, what are we getting now? Are they still not paying the subsidy that they condemned? The subsidy is part of the reason for our indebtedness. We have crude oil, for six years you cannot get one refinery working. Our three refineries are gulping money, they are pocketing billions doing nothing, so is this government? They themselves are bandits, the reason they cannot handle the issue of ordinary bandits in the country. They created bandits and they are the same. I am very disappointed in the Vice President (Prof Yemi Osinbajo), a whole Professor, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), a revered man of God, he should have resigned from this nonsense. What is he doing there? Is it compulsory you must be vice president or president? But all the same, I don’t blame anybody that is failing; it is a systemic challenge so if the system is adjusted to produce service-oriented people they will fall in line. But are they willing to adjust the system? No, because they are benefitting from it. What we have there now, both the lawmakers, are conglomerates of bandits.