Take a fresh look at your lifestyle.

Nigeria can’t go far -Ayo Opadokun, NADECO Spokesman

Says, June 12 more than mere declaration as Democracy Day

Legal practitioner, Mr. Ayo Opadokun, was a vocal front liner in the fight for restoration of democracy in Nigeria. He was one-time national publicity secretary of the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and political organisation, Afenifere, as well as general secretary and spokesperson of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).

In this interview with RAZAQ BAMIDELE, Opadokun took a critical look at the current structure on which Nigeria stands and declared it, “warped, skewed and lopsided.”  He warned that if something concrete is not urgently done to correct it, the country could go the way of the USSR and Yugoslavia. The renowned activist said that June 12, the day in 1993 when the country held its freest and fairest ever election, which was annulled by the military, is more significant than merely declaring it as Democracy Day.

How do you feel about the current state of the nation?

To be simply put, the state of the nation remains precarious.

How do you mean sir?

The Nigerian state is not ready to take up basic and fundamental challenges of its existence. There remains a pretence and infidelity by the political operators about what Nigeria is. We keep on lying to the public both local and international that Nigeria is a federal republic when we are being governed centrally and unitarily up till now.

And what is the implication of that to the country?

The consequence of that has been that the Nigerian state is retaining the current warped, skewed, lopsided national structure that had allowed the hegemonies, the internal colonisers, who had had taken advantage of significant milestones of our nation to have undue benefits. In the process, they had cornered the Nigerian commonwealth, as the ‘owners’, and seeing others as strangers.

So, the gross deficiency of our nations are a fallout of the malignant disease of man, wanting to subjugate an other, as inferior citizens when the anthem of this millennium is self-determination.

READ ALSO: Lagos set to combat cultism, kidnappings, says Sanwo-Olu

It is as a result of that, that Nigeria has not been able to create a nation out of the country called Nigeria. We remain as divided even as recently bemoaned by the late Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Dahiru Musdapher at Chief Alani Bankole’s 75th birthday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, in 2016 that Nigeria was more divided then than what it was at Independence. He said it was then time for Nigeria to sit down and talk.

So, the fact that the Nigerian state is not taking a concrete and immediate step towards making the ethnic nationalities sit down to discuss the date and conclude the modalities of our existence has been the most worrisome thing, because it led to a situation where there is mutual suspicion, mutual rivalry, political instability and a lot of criminality that are going on in form of kidnapping, herdsmen illegally possessing arms with which they kill people, send them out of their lands to occupy them or use their cows to finish up people’s farm products and the likes.

So, we are in a dangerous time. When we laid our necks down to fight for restoration of democracy to Nigeria, and talking now about the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) then, in our inaugural address to the world, we reminded Nigerians that there must be a de-annulment of the victory of MKO Abiola so that he could form a government of a national unity.

And that government would have a major immediate task of convocation of a sovereign conference so that the ethnic nationalities principally, which were the building blocks upon which Nigeria was constructed, would sit down to discuss how they would want to be governed. I will bring out my own; you will bring out your own. So, we discuss and resolve and come to some measure of agreement.

And then, we can now write a constitution, a homegrown constitution, all inclusive constitution, call it a grund norm, a constitution versioned out by our people, as a result of our commonality. That is most fundamental to the commencement of a rebirth of Nigeria. And until we do that, we are going nowhere. This is because it is a human predilection. Nobody wants to be subjugated. Nobody wants to be railroaded. Nobody wants to be trampled upon, as it is today in Nigeria.

While some people could have changed jobs for three, four or five times, there are are graduates of 15 to 20 years now, who have not gotten any job. There is too much unemployment and young people are busy getting involved in terrible things, criminal activities because they are not in positions to fend for themselves. What a pity! So, the state of the nation is not what we expected.

We had thought then that if we had succeeded in getting the military back to the barracks and we restored democracy, those who would take over political governance would be mindful of the expectations of the ordinary man, who had suffered too much in the country. The level of poverty, the mystery in our land is unbelievably intolerable! Those ones would be privileged to be elected into office would be mindful of such situations.

And they would package government policies that would not only ameliorate but also lead to quantitative and qualitative living standard of our people. They would be able to be participants in the enjoyment of the national endowment of our country. What we have witnessed so far is opposite to that.

And that is unfortunate. Our time is running out. That is why the agitations across the country, name it, Resource Control, MASSOB, IPOB, OPC and the likes, all of these are centred upon one demand – Nigeria must return to federal constitutional arrangement. That was what the ethnic nationalities and the nationalists negotiated. We secured our Independence on a federal constitutional arrangement. It was the military, on January 15, 1966, that came to subvert and upturn that arrangement. Under the federal constitution, there isan admission that this is a heterogeneous society with diverse and different cultures, traditions, customs, artefacts, folklores and others.

How do people operate under the federal constitutional system?

Under the federal constitutional arrangement, they are given free rein, but coordinated at the centre. The centre is not the boss of the component units. The component units assign responsibilities that are better coordinated by the central government to it. But when the military came, the first decree was suspension and modification decree.

They appropriated over 66 (2/3) powers, influence and authorities that normally belonged to the regions to the central government. They worsened the plight of the component units and equally appropriate the means of raising funds to run their regions or their states to the central government so much that the central government remains today Father Christmas.

I am not sure there is any governor in Nigeria today, who would not go to Abuja every week. If he is not going, one of his aides would have to go. This is because all the means of raising resources have been appropriated to the Federal Government.

You don’t run a federation that way. The central unitary system led to the situation where there is too much of inequity, unfairness, discrimination against some elements, where some people have assumed they are the owners of the Nigerian project. That is why the situation is worrisome.

But a committee under the leadership of the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, was recently set up to address some of the issues. Or what do you think about that?

So, as far as I am concerned, the El-Rufai thing is an afterthought. The All Progressives Congress (APC), in their manifesto promised Nigerians that when they got into office, they would do everything to restore Nigeria to federal constitutional arrangement. It was on the pressure, intensive pressure from the ethnic nationalities on different shores of the country, and credible opinion moulders that led the APC, therefore, to set up the El-Rufai committee.

But that is not it. It is a return to federal constitutional arrangement and not the one to be coloured, to be imprimatur by the partisan toga of the current rulers. It is a thing that should have been negotiated by the ethnic nationalities. There is nobody that does not belong to an ethnic nationality.

Some people are of the views that the National Assembly can do that…

(Cuts in) Nobody should talk to us about the National Assembly. It is a deceptive thing. They know that because of the preponderance of one or two ethnic groups in the leadership of the Nigerian Army that had governed for the longest period, they have manipulated the entire system, delineation of constituencies, creation of states, and creation of local governments to favour their part of the country so much that what we have today does not reflect the correct scientific demographic variables of Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Osun security: Residents’ vigilance, cooperation critical to government’s response

Can you buttress that assertion with concrete evidence?

In 1960, there were four political divisions in Lagos. There were two political divisions in Kano. Out of that old Kano, a Jigawa State has been created. That Jigawa State now has 27 local governments. The old Kano now has 44 local governments. 27 plus 44 is 71. The Lagos that doubled the old Kano, has 20 local governments on paper in the Nigerian Constitution.

All these could only have happened because the preponderance of the military that was from that part of the country. And they misused the apparatus of the state to impose their will on all of us. So, when we wanted a correction in redressing the imbalance, they said we should go to the National Assembly. It was because they know what they have done that they are at an advantage over all others. That is unfair.

And that cannot continue. It is an unsustainable thing. On this, let me finally remind them that all nation states that had been packaged together by force and forced into co-habitation never lasted. Historically, it is a denial of history to imagine that it would be there for ever. There is no more USSR on the world map. There is no more Yugoslavia on the map of the world today.

What we have today in Ethiopia is not what it used to be. What we have today in Somalia is not what it used to be. Those are historical examples that show it can only last for a while.

And my Bible tells me in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 verses 1 to 8, that there is a time, there is a season for everything under the sun. Those who have been marginalised and discriminated against, would not continue to watch idly while some people, who claim ownership of what properly belongs to all of us and treating others as bystanders and onlookers must be reminded that, ethnic nationalities have been living on their territories several thousand years before the British colonialists came to the shores of this country and eventually overran Nigeria with their superior force to package us into a place they called Nigeria for their own political and economic interest and not for our own interest.

It is falling out on them today. The current political operators must be watchful. They must be mindful, they must pay intelligent attention to what is happening with Brexit. It was what they did with the United Kingdom of England that they came to do here. I mean our colonial masters. In the House of Commons, they have disproportionate members allocated to London, Britain.

They allocated very small numbers to the other Union members so they could allow a Welsh to be the prime minister. They can allow somebody from Northern Ireland to be a prime minister. They can allow somebody from Scotland to be a prime minister. But power resides in Britain. That was what they have come to establish here.

It is falling out on them now. Until the Friday Accord initiated by the United States of America, about twenty something years ago under the leadership of Bill Jefferson Clinton presidency, they knew they were never happy. This is because the pro-British, anti-British struggle was so devastating and violence attended to it that Great Britain Metropolitan was not at peace until that agreement was signed.

But with the Brexit matter, Northern Irish, 80% voted to remain in the European Union (EU), so that they would not be taken out of the EU. Yet, they want the British to go out. So, that is the kind of thing we are talking about. The political operators must be watchful.

In your view sir, what do you think is the effective way out?

It is for the current political operator, President Buhari, to be pro-active to call ethnic nationalities leaders to elect through their traditional customary ways their representatives so that they can sit down. And the basic paper should be the 1960 Constitution, which was negotiated by ethnic nationalities leaders and nationalists so that they can discuss and resolve the national question.

That is the only thing lasting legacy he can leave behind. All his efforts at securing the nation, security wise, including the economy, fighting corruption would not yield result. Reason? It is because these are the symptoms of a malignant state, which is the human efforts to subjugate others when it is human endeavour to be free and independent. He must have the right to belong to a place and not forced into it.

What the Nigerian state has been doing since the military era is to want to make Nigerian out of most people when the people have not been given a free choice as whether or not they want to belong to Nigeria.

Can you then suggest falling back to former President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2014 efforts towards restructuring?

All those efforts have been over coloured by military agenda. And that was why people are asking for additional 30 more states or thereabout in that so-called conference. So, you could see how ridiculous it could be.

On June 12, are you comfortable with President Buhari declaring it as Democracy Day?

We have given him commendation for declaring June 12 as Democracy Day and even for giving the highest honour to MKO Abiola. But that is not all. We equally disagree sharply with him that it was a major misadventure to have given Babagana Kingibe a national honour at the same time along with MKO Abiola, saying it was a joint ticket. It was a self-serving thing.

Kingibe, opportunistically sold out that mandate. He became minister for external affairs first and for internal affairs later on. And he was busy propagating and denying the atrocities Abacha was unleashing – the oppression, the repression, the humiliation, the arrest, the detention and even elimination of critics, activists and those who were opposed to their views. He sold out the mandate, so he is not entitled to any honour any longer. That is by the side.

June 12, is more than declaration of that day as Democracy Day. The most fundamental is what I have said to you earlier on that, the current warped, skewed lopsided national structure must be restored and restructured. Let us go back to the federal constitutional arrangement. It was because of the nature of the national structure that allowed a motley crowd of military junta, real jackboot to annul the pan-Nigerian mandate popularly expressed by the Nigerian people at the ballot box and given to Abiola.

It was the nature of the structure that made that small crowd of military jackboot to annul that election in the most contemptuous manner, total disregard to the popular wishes of the Nigerian people. They treasonably supplanted the government in power and forced themselves on us.

And then the Nigerian people, in their wisdom, decided whom they wanted to govern them. And then, they annulled that election. That structure, which enables them to do such a thing, must not be allowed to remain. It cannot be sustained.

Is your organisation, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) of which you are a formidable pillar going back to the trenches to assert your position?

Well, thank God, I am not just one of the pillars. I remain the General Secretary and its spokesman. We will make a pronouncement by the grace of God before June 12.

Is there any hope for the country the way we are going?

Provided the Nigerian state and current political operators are willing to do this first thing, which is primary and fundamental, which is restoring Nigeria to a federal constitutional arrangement, all other things would fall into places. The monumental level of corruption that is being daily exposed, the political instability, the unjust nature of the state, the non-equitable nature of the Nigerian state are all fallout of this centrally and unitary government that the military has foisted upon us.

Or else?

Well, the rest will be left to history. I have told you what has happened to any state that has been coupled together by force. They don’t last. Maybe for a while.

Comments
Loading...