Wilfred Eya
Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Ladi Rotimi-Williams has called for the organization of a referendum or plebiscite to avoid a calamity happening to Nigeria. In this interview, he opened up on various issues.
Recently, Nigeria marked her 59 years of Independence with some thinking that the country is rather retrogressing than progressing; do you think that the anniversary was worth celebrating considering where we are today as a nation?
It depends on what you use to measure progress. I remember when there was only one bridge that linked Lagos Island to the mainland and only one car could cross it at a time. But today, you can see for yourself; that for me is moving forward. The population of Nigeria today is far higher than what it used to be before. I am very slow to condemn the country.
You sound very optimistic but if you look at the life of an average Nigerian today, don’t you think he is worse off than before?
Like I said, the population has multiplied and the facilities on ground are simply not growing fast enough to cope with the growth in number of people. For instance, when I wanted to read law, it was only one or two universities that were offering the course and maybe, University of Lagos as the third one. But today, there are so many private universities. In fact, the private universities are just as many as the public ones. You cannot have development without problems. Look at how easy it is for you and I to talk now. Before, unless you were a big man, you could not even afford a phone and even if you had that phone, you would dial and dial until you are fed up. You would not get through. Now, with the small phone on my hand, I can phone London, Japan, Moscow or any part of the world. I just dial once and it goes through one time.
In Africa today, we have some countries that are beginning to be reference points in terms of development. We have Rwanda, Ethiopia, even our neighbour Ghana; what do you think they are getting right unlike what we have in Nigeria?
Those countries are very small in terms of population, size and their income is also very small. We are huge and Nigeria is as big as the entire Western Europe. Ghana is probably the size of Ojo, Festac, Apapa and Surulere. We are the only country in Africa that has airports in more than 10 states. No other country has more airports than we do. So, our own problems are completely different. How many countries are bigger than us now in terms of size and population? According to Wikipedia, in terms of population, Nigeria is number seven in the world. And then, how many countries have as many languages as we have. On the last count, somebody said we have about 250 languages. Each of the former regional governments, is big, if not bigger than most African states. The population of Rwanda is maybe the same size of Ilesha or Uzuakoli. So, our own problems cannot be compared to some of these African states.
But some people would disagree with you and argue that population and even the issue of diversity could be a source of strength and not as a problem. For instance, the U.S is about twice the size of Nigeria and not to talk about countries like India and China.
I am not saying that it is our population that is making us not to do well. What we lack here is science and technology and this would take time to come. We still continue to import many things from abroad. China that you mentioned, they have been producing their own medicines for quite a long time. Also, Indians are also producing theirs such that people now go there on medical vacation. Our own people, we can do it but our government needs to encourage us. Remember the person who discovered the cure for Aids, one Abalaka, we need to encourage such people. In the East during the Nigeria/ Biafran war, people were building tanks; you must have heard of Ogbunigwe. We should bring those people and encourage them instead of continuing to import. We have rubber trees and we can also make synthetic rubber and many others. We just need to redirect our resources to these areas and also improve our educational system.
The security situation in Nigeria is not improving and on a daily basis, we get reports of killings in several parts of the country particularly in the North; how do you feel about the situation?
There is always a problem with security everywhere; even in America, they experience mass shootings once in a while. In supermarkets, you have cases of 14 year olds shooting people; you also have drive-by shootings and so on. So, the situation is not exclusively a Nigerian problem. America, the most powerful country on earth has her problems, and we are just taking off. The way to correct it is from schools and parents should give their children good upbringing.
More than three and half years to the next general elections, some prominent Northerners are already saying that power should not come back to the Southern part of the country; do you think the North is being fair to the South?
How do you define a Northerner? Do know that some of these places you are mentioning, for instance the North East, there are many different tribes in that place. We stay here and say they are all Hausa people. They are not and in fact, some of them would resist you calling them Hausa. There are many Christians among them as well. It is because right now you have President Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner in power that you hear all these but they have forgotten that the same Northerner lost election on three different occasions. When former President Goodluck Jonathan was here, he made a mistake and excluded people who voted for him, I mean the South West. In a situation where you have a tripod and you remove one leg, it cannot stand again. Had Jonathan ruled properly and not exclude one leg, he would still have been in power today. Don’t forget again that when he was in power, he brought in so many people from Ijaw land and the core South East. They were fully in control. So, everybody is doing it. The only president who did not do it is former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He is the only one who was fair to all. But under Jonathan, the old Eastern region was fully in control. They were at the head of the Army, Navy, Finance led by Okonjo-Iweala and so on. So, everybody is doing it and not only Buhari. I am not saying that Buhari is the best person for us; far from it. All I am saying is that everybody is doing this wrong thing. It will continue to be so unless we have leaders who can embrace people based on merit. We have Vice President Osinbajo there; he has not done anything for me and I won’t even expect him to do anything for me. So, the fact that you have the commanding heights of the economy and security and so on from one particular place does not necessarily bring progress to your place. In spite of being in power, the North is still backward. Power has been in the North but what has the North been able to do with the power all these years. Has it translated to development? No. To develop, we just need education, more and better schools and universities. And for the lecturers asking for sex for marks, they should be summarily executed if they are caught. If they are not executed, they should be castrated. You can quote me on this. They should be castrated so that they would not be able to use that instrument of mass destruction again.
What is your take on the argument by some people that only the South East is yet to occupy the presidential seat since 1999 and so should be supported in 2023?
For me, it does not matter where the president comes from. What we should be looking at is performance and ability. What about Umuleri and Aguleri? Have they not been fighting even when they are from the same South East? So, it does not always follow. Also, when you say, it should be the East, you should know that the East is big. An Onitsha man does not understand an Abakaliki man speaking and it is the same Igbo language supposedly. It does not necessarily mean that if you have a president of Igbo extraction, the East would automatically become the Dubai of Nigeria. This is because you will always find those who would disagree with one another and those who will oppose others and team up with people of the other side. Will you tell all the other people not to contest or you just bring somebody and say this is your president? No opposition and nobody else should contest? You can do that in a democracy. The other time, Obasanjo and Falae were the two contestants and they are from the South West. That can also happen. Soon after the civil war ended, Shagari and Ekwueme were president and vice president. Remember that the civil war was very acrimonious. People lost their lives needlessly. Nevertheless, Nigeria still came together and gave power to Shagari and Ekwueme and rejected Late Obafemi Awolowo who fought on the federal side then as the Minister of Finance. The problem with us is that we do not study history anymore.
What are your fears about Nigeria?
The way to avoid a calamity is to have a plebiscite or referendum. Northern Camerouns voted to go with Nigeria and Southern Camerouns voted to go with the present Cameroun. Now, they are suffering. They now belong to a bi-lingual country. They are killing each other now. I pray it does not flow into Nigeria. We need to sit down and work out how to restructure Nigeria. I am not saying break up. I am talking about a rearrangement.
What is your assessment of the Nigerian judiciary?
There are three things wrong with our judiciary. They are corruption, corruption and corruption. In China, when a judge is corrupt, do you know what they do to them –execution. I understand the trial only takes three days. So, unless we take a hard line, corruption will continue.