Your group Nigeria National Summit Group has one of its objectives as fighting for any fresh attempt to break up Nigeria. Looking back how do you feel?
We really have a sad development. Recall that the Nigeria National Summit Group was the body that spearheaded the call for a national conference which was responded to by the last president, Goodluck Jonathan in 2014 by convening the 2014 National Conference, which was a big success, but unfortunately has remained in the waste bin of Aso Villa since President Buhari took over and that has been intentional, deliberate by this administration and they have made no bones about it. They say it has no value. President Buhari has said without mincing words that he sees little or no value in that report so he has virtually thrown it into the waste bin. Even though when reality started striking with the incessant calls for restructuring by different parts of Nigeria, he paid lip service to it all by setting up a committee which was headed by the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai and interestingly the el-Rufai committee virtually adopted many of the recommendations that were in the national conference report which is to say that a lot of people including friends of this administration both from the Northern and Southern hemisphere of this nation recognised the need for repositioning, a return to the basics, a re-addressing of the issues of why we want to stay together, how we want to stay together, and at what speed we need to work to stay together. In short, everybody has said directly or indirectly that we need restructuring. Fortunately, whereas we are faced with this strong wall at the federal level of resisting restructuring, a few of us, who are leaders, members of the Southern and Middle Belt leaders forum have advised our zones or regions and they have accordingly started effective integration of states within their zones for them to be able to carry out the integration. We all know of the Don Commission in the Southwest, it is the most advanced compared to any other zone to integrate socially, politically and economically. Recently, the South-south governors have met and revived theBRACED (acronym representing the states of South-south) commission which is the regional integration body for politics and economy, but with more emphasis on the economy of the region. The Southeast governors have also met and they are working along with similar fashion. The Middle Belt governors have not met, but we know within the next two months something will take place. It is just that the Middle Belt is yet to define its sphere accurately enough. There are areas, for instance, say Kogi will fall within the Middle Belt or North-central and yet they also fall within the Southwest. Also, others like Niger falls within the North-central and Northwest, so there is a need for a better definition of what the Middle Belt comprises geographically. I think the people of that region know who they are in terms of politics and cultural affinities, but they have not yet fully defined themselves in the sense of geographical contiguity. One thing that came out of the national conference was that whilst the vote by vote, the emphasis on regions were struck out, the national conference unanimously consented that all states can integrate politically, socially, economically without your calling them regions. For example, Lagos and Kebbi integrated economically with respect to the production of rice.
So, what are your thoughts on the state of the nation now as you have been silent for some time now?
There is still a country called Nigeria today by the Grace of God. Yes, it is the grace of God that has kept Nigeria together baring that we would have become a Somalia or a Libya, that is to say, we would have ended up becoming descript parts warring against one another or descript areas run by warlords. For example, we know that the present administration has failed woefully in the areas of security control, this administration has, mostly, by commission, sometimes by omission failed to secure Nigeria and wanted to create policies and programmes that were calculatedly designed to weaken the federation and disempower the citizens of Nigeria in favour of the citizens of the member of particular ethnic affiliations. The president went into America, said to the American President Donald Trump that the skirmishes in Nigeria that are blamed on Fulani herdsmen are not by Nigerians, that they are foreigners who have come into the country to destabilize Nigeria. Taking him ont his words, we now said, therefore, you should shut down the borders of the Northern part of Nigeria and strengthen the security systems around those areas. But you now find out that conversely totally in defiance of what you will consider wisdom the administration has gone ahead to propose different things at different times that would want to suggest that this administration is more concerned about giving a particular ethnic group greater favour more than its own defined citizens. This administration seems hell-bent on creating RUGA, colonies, etc, for the Fulani ethnic stock whom we know arise from the Futajalon mountains and have spread up to East Africa, as well as in West Africa. Even the proposed amendments to the Nigeria inland waterways act which have been resisted by, especially, the Southwest and the Niger Delta areas of Nigeria there have been attempts to create land and say the Federal Government has authority over those creations so that they can build the RUGA whether we like it or not. Now, this is oxymoronic, if you in one sentence call people foreigners and then in the other sentence you say they must be accommodated, it is strange. Are you concerned about foreigners so much that you want them to take over Nigerian land or should you be concerned about Nigeria? This has even brought us to a stage where the Nigerian National Summit Group was envisaging holding a conference with the theme: Chaos or Citizenship. This is because we saw that the central government did not care how dislocated the different ethnic groups will be by their creating, allowing room, making it official for these foreigners to become part of Nigeria and enforcing, compelling all parts of Nigeria to accommodate them. It is oxymoronic because if they are not your citizens you cannot create laws for them to be accommodated. If they are your citizens, you cannot go and call them foreigners. So, the president has put himself in a box by himself by saying that the people creating insecurity in Nigeria are foreigners and yet telling us that the only way we can have security is by our creating colonies for these people to live. It is the first time I have heard of where a nation cedes out property to foreigners just to give them peace rather than to strengthen its own structural existence and boundaries.
There is this recent bill that tends to give repentant Boko Haram foreign education, grant them amnesty as was done to the Niger Delta militants, among other things. What is your view on it?
The Federal Government for whatever reasons best known to itself calculatedly decided to go insane with the attempt to justify granting amnesty to the so-called repentant Boko Haram members. These are the same people President Buhari has called foreigners, so are we saying we are now going to accommodate those foreigners and when people start to say that something similar was done for the South-south people, I say, that is nonsense. The South-south or Niger Delta agitation, or agitators or what some prefer to call militants were bona fide Nigerian citizens who were not at peace with the dis-functionalities of the Nigerian state. And we are saying that we want to be better treated and accommodated by the Nigerian state. These were Nigerians seeking better treatment or conditions for their continued existence as citizens of Nigeria. Boko Haram, on the other hand, has said that, they are part of a caliphate that is not from Nigeria, they are not Nigerians, so they are not even asking Nigeria to accommodate them, they are saying they want to carve out a region of Nigeria into a new homestead or states that will include parts of Chad, Niger Republic, Cameroon, etc and that they want to be called or become part of the Islamic caliphate that goes as far as Iraq and Iran. Now, isn’t that ridiculous for you to now equate those people with Niger Delta agitation, just because some members of that group do belong to Nigeria. You want to grant them amnesty for what crimes? Niger Delta militants were wrong in destroying their land and water in their attempt to call attention to the despoliation and disenfranchisement that they were suffering and are still suffering under the Nigerian state whereas these brutish non-Nigerian elements are guilty of mass murder, of killing tens of thousands of people savagely, brutishly and you are giving them amnesty? It has never been done anywhere in the world and even where it has been said, let’s confine them, for instance, as America was doing and is still doing in Guantanamo Bay of Cuba when they decide to release them they do not accept them back into society automatically, even those that were sent back to Syria, Iraq, etc are sent back as prisoners. You are saying that a man who has spent let’s say, the last three years, throwing newborn babies into the fire, smashing newborn babies’ heads, disemboweling pregnant women, cutting off the heads of human beings without remorse, etc, you are now saying just because they have been captured, it is you now telling them to be repentant, you want to spend the commonwealth of Nigeria in educating them, notwithstanding that their very name Boko Haram tells they do not want and are totally against western education. Therefore, you want to use the resources of this nation which until now mainly comes from the South-south regions, Southwest and the Southeast, you then want to use the resources to empower human beasts who have come to kill, destroy and burn unrepentantly. They have never stated to anybody’s hearing that they wish to be reabsorbed into the Nigerian system. You wish to now bring those people and throw them into our midst. We even hear though it has been denied that they are being absorbed into the Nigerian army and other military forces of Nigeria (I am yet to confirm it). It is absurd if this is true, it has never been done by anybody before and these are especially inhuman beasts who have committed brutish mass murder. I see no sense in their being granted any amnesty or do I see any sense in our trying to force western education on a group who has said very clearly that they are basically, foundationally against any western education.
Still on the same security challenge and talking about the Southwest security outfit codenamed Amotekun and the issues still being raised about it like some people seeing it as a platform that may bring about the disintegration of the country while some say every region should key into it…?
(Cuts in) It is a healthy and welcome development and, of course, yes, the South-south must key into it and others. It must be fast-tracked. I spearheaded the call by the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) which is the equivalent of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, etc, that the governors of the South-south and of the political Niger Delta which includes governors of Imo, Abia and Ondo that they should come together and create a regional security body in line with the Amotekun that has been very foresightedly created and legally so by the Southwest states. And our governors of the South-south and the Southeast have come together and agreed to so do even though we hear that one or two torn-coats in the Southeast region are making the region drag its feet and favouring community policing by the Nigeria police which is a federal force. The Amotekun shall be called REDCRAB, the acronym is taken from all the first letters of the names of the state in the South-south, but then whichever way it is, whatever they like the South-south is going to legally create theirs because their different state assemblies will before the end of April bring into existence this regional security body.
Don’t you think this will bring about the end of Nigeria as the fear has been expressed in many quarters?
No, it is the return to the real Nigeria that was envisaged by the founding fathers when they redrew the 1960 Constitution in 1963 and in the 1963 Constitution each region had its flag, its anthem, its authority in control of all its resources and those regions were also working towards the creation of different police units and arms within the different regions while still subscribing to the national police which is the Nigeria police. This is in line with what happens in other climes that we are trying to copy. If you take the simplest example of America, you have the FBI as the national police force, every state has its police unit, every town has its police unit, every municipality has its policing unit, even universities. No police can go into the university in America without a prior invitation or notification to the university’s police. This is what must and should be done. I am a Nigerian who is more interested in the unity of Nigeria than the average person, but unity must one be premised on justice, equity and fair play not unity premised on one group’s compulsion or decision to force their views, desires, and interests on others. That is not acceptable. If Nigeria does not live according to the tenets of justice, equity and fair play Nigeria shall be divided.
Do you have fears that 2023 may pose a great problem for Nigeria given the fact that regions are already strategizing for power not putting into consideration the need for power to go round for equity and unity sake?
I am worried about the existence of Nigeria even beyond March 2020 because the rate at which we are going, this nation has no guarantee that we will celebrate October 1, 2020, as one country. Anything could happen to splinter this country. Let me repeat, if this country is not run based on justice, equity and fair play this country shall implode and seize to exist as one entity. I am, however, prayerfully hopeful that the different political and economic overlords will find it necessary to infuse into our system, into our laws the practice which will ensure justice, equity and fair play. As to 2023, if we get there, so far as I am concerned every Nigerian should have the right to run for any office, anywhere in Nigeria, but the reality of Nigeria is such that this country’s leadership has always been zoned when it is democratically arrived and at the moment we have not zoned it, but the only zone that has not been zoned in for leadership has been the Southeastern region. Therefore, by simple arithmetic, commonsense, the rationality says a Southeasterner should be the next president of Nigeria. However, we know that our so-called political class controls movement of locations of goalposts and continually move the goalpost such as to suit them. It is not impossible for us to find it difficult for anybody who is not agreeable to the North to accede power or be allowed to hold power because we are imperfectly balanced. Within the Nigerian system representation in the National Assembly is based on population and the demography of local governments. We know that demography, have been artificially skewed in favour of the North in Nigeria, therefore, if you ever have the opportunity to vote in the House of Representatives they will not vote for anything that goes against the Northern interest. It is the more reason we, leaders of the Southern and Middle Belt forum are concerned about helping empower our brothers in the North-central area of Nigeria to become a truly political zone so that they can vote according to their conscience. If that comes into play there will be more chances for us to be able to say a southerner and maybe a southeasterner will become the next president. If it doesn’t and we keep having these two monolithic political parties, the APC and PDP, which really are the same group of “mainly thieves” masquerading as politicians concerned about the future of the citizens of Nigeria; they will never re-arrange their political processes and trajectory to accommodate justice and equity in the allocation or decision as to who should run for which office and which zone should represent. You shall find that in 2023, we shall still find Northerners scrambling to want to be president which is definitely not an equitable and fair decision for the North. Under a fair equitable system, the North should not run for president in 2023.
The vibrancy of any economy is predicated on how power works in that system and the same has not been the case in Nigeria. Where do you situate our economy bearing in mind that the country is now said to be the biggest economy in Africa?
Many people may forget that by training I am an Economist, by thinking all my slanting is based on that background of being an economist. It is because of this that I advocate restructuring as being the basic foundation that Nigeria must carry out now, restructure the foundation of our nation. We have advocated that the Federal Government should not be the sole control of generating power for all of Nigeria. Each of the federating units should have the right to employ any resources available to it to generate power as much as they need and distribute it to its constituents and if they have excess power output sell them to other parts of the country. Today, the Federal Government remains the generator of power; transmitter and you have these bodies call the DISCOs as the distribution companies. The power generated in Nigeria is abysmally and shamefully too low for the need of even Lagos State alone. If Lagos State was allowed, for example, to generate its power which then governor, Bola Tinubu started with his Enron example, if that attempt was not stopped by the Federal Government every other state would have done a similar thing to generate their own power and we would not have been in this mess as we have it today.
How do you see the deregistration of some political parties?
If it was legitimately done, that is those parties did not meet the requirements, conditions for its continued participation as a political party, it is fine. If the INEC will deregister more it will be in the favour of Nigerians. The proliferation of political parties is one of the reasons for confusion for the average voter. People are unable to identify who exactly they should vote for. I think one thing INEC should do before 2023 elections is that they should not pay any money of any kind to any political party. It is now business for politicians to register a political party and just wait before any election you go and collect a certain amount from INEC which runs into tens, sometimes hundreds of millions. We need just four or five political parties.
What is your take on the Ogoni clean-up mess?
But they are still flaring the gas in the Niger Delta region, so what are we saying? We still have all kinds of pollution in the area not only in Ogoni, go to Port Harcourt, you see pollution there. Nobody has passed a law that is punitive enough to disencourage the oil companies from flaring. The amount the oil companies are made to pay as the cost for infringing pollution expectancy is so minimal that it is easier for them to pay those amount and flair than to build in the clean air systems that they should be operating with and that they do operate with everywhere else in the world. Finally, we should remember when people talk of remediation, the clean-up of Ogoni land was only arrived at by a court decision which UNEP championed, it should really be a policy and programme covering every area of Nigeria that has been despoiled up to Abule Ado in Lagos State where bomb blast took place recently and areas of Arepo, they are all areas that have been despoiled environmentally, but even the one the Federal Government is committed to remediating i.e. Ogoni, it is public knowledge that the Federal Government keeps dragging its feet and creating a conduit for corrupt enrichment of officials plus collusion by some of the citizens in the area. There is nothing that has been done in Ogoni land to justify the promises that President Buhari made on May 29, 2015. Ogoni land is still in its poor state that made the Ogonis rise up against Shell in the days of Ken Saro-Wiwa.