Senator Femi Okurounmu represented Ogun Central District between 1999 and 2003 and has been a frontline elder in the Afenifere, a Yoruba socio-cultural group. He was appointed chairman of the Advisory Committee on National Conference which midwifed the 2014 confab. In this interview with DARE ADEKANMBI, he speaks on the recommendations of the Mallam Nasir el-Rufai-led committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on restructuring, among other issues.
THE APC Committee on Restructuring led by the Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai has made some recommendations regarding the restructuring of the country. What do you make of those recommendations?
My view is that the whole idea of setting up of the committee is a diversionary tactic by the APC to swindle and con us once again, to deceive Nigerians and swindle them of their votes and get them to vote for them in 2019 fraudulently as they did in 2015. APC does not intend to implement restructuring and the party has made it very clear since it won power in 2015. Right from the president downwards, they have made it clear that they are opposed to restructuring, even though they put it in their manifesto and promised to implement same. They did it only to get our votes. As soon as they got there, they made it clear that they are not for restructuring. They even said they don’t know what restructuring means. This was the same way Muhammadu Buhari, right from 2007, has been promising that he will implement restructuring if he wins election as president. He has been deceiving us for a long time. In 2007, the Afenifere partnered with Buhari under the platform of our party at that time, the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA). We even signed an agreement with him and he promised to implement restructuring if he wins the presidency. On that basis, we campaigned for him. So, 2015 would not be the first time he would promise to implement restructuring and fail to do so. But now we know he has denied this all the time. Buhari is full of deceit and dishonesty to Nigerians. He was not only opposed to the 2014 national conference, after winning the presidency, he made it clear he will keep the report of the conference in the archives and said he had no intention of reading it. And his people, his immediate constituency- which he has taken to be the Fulani people, because he is ruling Nigeria as if to say the country consists only of Fulanis- is opposed to restructuring. So, he has no choice but to dance to their tune. That we now have a committee under el-Rufai pretending to want to implement restructuring will be the greatest deceit of the century. They just want to take Nigerians for fools and take us for a ride. But will indeed prove that we are fools if we allow Buhari to return as president and APC to continue to rule the country. It is one thing for us to be deceived one time. It is another thing to for us to be deceived repeatedly over and over again and for us to continue to believe the deceit. That will show that we are indeed fools and I am sure Nigerians are no fools. So, we can’t believe them this time because there is no basis for believing them. It is in their character to lie ad be fraudulent and to deceive us when elections are coming to say they will implement restructuring. That is all they are doing now.
But examining the content of their recommendations which include merger of states, resource control and so on, would you say those recommendations are good for the health of the polity?
There is nothing new in what they have said. The committee only copied some of the recommendations in the 2014 conference. We recommended that states that desire to merge should be allowed to do so. We recommended resource control too. I have told you that they just want to swim with the tide of public opinion which favours restructuring, return to true federalism, resource control. Since Buhari wants to return and do a second term, they have to pretend to favour the current public opinion and swim with the tide to get a second term. They are only pretending to believe in what the masses believe in so they can get out votes again fraudulently. They don’t believe in the concept of restructuring because it is against the interest of the privileged class, the Fulani and northern feudal oligarchy, which is the one benefiting from the status quo. Restructuring is supposed to make things equal for everybody and to achieve equity. They do not want equity. They want to maintain the God-ordained class that they have always assumed they belong to.
Does it not sound contradictory that a government which spurned the 2014 conference raised a committee which is suggesting some of the recommendations of the confab?
That is what we call dirty politics and Nigeria’s politics is that of deceit and dishonesty. This is what our politics has become. In 2015, they promised to implement restructuring in their manifesto. But after they won power, they have been singing a different tune. I have told you that if someone deceived you the first time and got away with it, he should not do it the second time. But they are now trying to do it the second time and it is for us not to allow them. All they are saying are things they think will sound sweet to our ears so we can vote for them. It is for us to show that we are no fools. They take us to be their slaves; it is for us to show that we are not their slaves. For God’s sake, let us show that we are human beings that they are. We are equal and not inferior to them. We are even better than they are. With all our education, we should not be proving that we are inferior to them. Let our education show that we can think and understand and reason. With the level of our education, they should not be taking us for a ride.
Some may argue that the recommendations, coming close to 2019 elections, may be programmed for implementation if Buhari gets a second term. Don’t you see it that way too?
I can’t see it that way because if that were so, they would not have been speaking very openly against restructuring. If indeed they were preparing in their first term to do it during a second term, then they would not be speaking violently against it. Buhari has been pretending as though he does not know what restructuring means. He has said the problem of Nigeria is not restructuring and that the concept is irrelevant. El-Rufai who chairs the committee has been abusing agitators of restructuring as mere nuisances, stigmatising them as troublemakers. If all they have done in their first term is to insult and abuse advocates of restructuring, then we can’t say they are preparing to implement it in their second term. That will not be constituted with reason and we should show that we are reasonable people. It only comes to one thing: they are only trying to deceive us.
The position of the Yoruba is that the country must be returned to a proper federation as operated under the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions which granted some level of autonomy to regions. What becomes of that position in the light of the recommendations by the el-Rufai committee?
I have told you that the attitude of the president is completely negative to the whole issue of restructuring. The president represents the minority opinion of the conservative, feudal North, which is less than 10 per cent of Nigeria. So, we can’t take the opinion and preference of 10 per cent of Nigerians to be what will determine the future of Nigeria. If that happens, it means the remaining 90 per cent of us must indeed be slaves. It will mean that we are confirming that we are slaves. But if we are human beings, we will not allow the 10 per cent to dominate and sweep aside the opinion of 90 per cent. That will be against the laws of democracy.
So, it is for us who believe in restructuring to now work out ways of achieving restructuring in a proper democratic way. That will not be an easy task because those of us who want restructuring are in the majority.
When we talk of returning to the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions, we are talking of returning to the constitution on the basis of which independence was granted to Nigeria. When the British were departing, they granted us independence on the basis of the 1960 Constitution and we only became a Republic in 1963 and the 1963 Constitution is basically the same as the 1960 Constitution. This constitution was agreed to by all our founding fathers. Sir Ahmadu Bello, who represented the North; Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who represented the West and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe who represented the East all backed the constitution. It was the military that unilaterally changed the constitution to a unitary one and concentrated all powers at the centre. So, there is no reason why we should not return to the basis on which we had our independence, which was a purely federal constitution. That constitution allowed each of the regions sufficient autonomy to determine its own future, generate its own revenue, decide what its own priorities were and they developed at their own pace. As a result of this, there was healthy rivalry among the regions and this moved the regions forward. That was why, up to 1966, Nigeria was moving forward at a faster rate that the South-East Asian countries. We were not behind them; they were behind us in terms of development. Places like Malaysia and Singapore were coming here to learn from us. But see what has happened ever since we adopted a unitary constitution. These countries have left us behind. Let us go back to the federal constitution of 1960. This unitary constitution is keeping Nigeria behind in terms of development. This is why we remain what Donald Trump of the United States called a shithole country.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo penned a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari asking the latter to go home and rest instead of angling for a second term of four years. What do you make of this?
I will like to separate the message from the messenger. The message contained in the letter is perfect and I agree with him on that message. Buhari’s government has failed and his best has not been good enough for Nigeria and Nigerians. In fact, his government has been a disaster. Not only that, the present two major political parties, that is, the APC and the PDP, none of them is of any good to Nigeria. They are both disaster to Nigeria. So, Buhari should go and rest as Obasanjo has advised him. Nigerians should sweep APC, PDP away and a new party should emerge. The youths of this country need to take over power because the future belongs to them. The youths should not allow these elite who see politics as a profession, a means to wealth and are just looting our resources. These elite must be disallowed from continuing to be in power and mismanaging our resources. The youths must take over now so that we can have something to leave behind for the future generation.
What about the messenger, Obasanjo whom many say is part of the problems?
Though I accept the message, the messenger is part of the problem. Ever since 1999 when we returned to civil rule, Obasanjo has been the major source of most of the problems that Nigeria has had. He ruled the country for eight years. In those eight years, when we thought he would move Nigeria forward, he himself failed abysmally as president. He realised he has failed and wanted a third term. I don’t know what he wanted to do that he could not do in eight years and wanted another four years. When he was leaving, he imposed Umar Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. When he turned round to say Jonathan was not good, who put Jonathan there? He opposed Jonathan because Jonathan did not want to do his bidding. When they were putting APC together, they went to him and they said he was their Chief Navigator. He was with them when the contraption called APC was put together and supported them by putting Buhari in government. When things did not go his way, he is now abusing Buhari. He failed to impose his ministerial nominees on Buhari. But the president rejected most of them. I wonder what would have happened if Buhari had accepted his nominees, whether he would have written that kind of letter.
After imposing people on us and he sees they are not doing well, he will try to extricate himself by trying to condemn them. But by condemning them, he is condemning himself.
He has come up with a coalition to rescue the country from the current precipice that it is on…
Obasanjo’s coalition is going to be a fraudulent coalition and we are already seeing the trend of his coalition. We have seen the kind of people he is putting together. They are the same discredited characters of APC and PDP. He is also bringing in the looters who are in the National Assembly. The coalition is not any positive coalition; it is just to satisfy his personal ambition. He always wants to be at the centre so that he will be the one in charge.
With PDP and APC having failed Nigerians by your account, do you see the need for a third force party?
I see the need for a third force, but not the kind that Obasanjo is putting together. The former president is putting together another APC-like contraption, discredited people from discredited parties to form another front. That is not the kind of third force Nigeria needs. His intention is to throw a spanner in the works for the real third force that is coming soon. The authentic third force will come out very soon, I can assure you. The old guard must not be allowed to continue to rule. It will be different from Obasanjo’s third force.
What do you see as the lasting solution to the killings by Fulani herdsmen across the country?
The solution is to have restructuring. When we restructure the country, a Fulani herdsman will not trample on the crops of farmers, kill the farmers and rape their children. The Federal Government has done nothing about the killings. The Federal Government knows the killer-herdsmen. These herdsmen perpetrate the evil with the full authority of the Federal Government and the collaboration of the security forces. But, because the killers are Fulani herdsmen and the president is Fulani, he gives them full authority. They know nothing will happen to them. The governor of each state does not have the power of a federally control police. But if each state governor has its own police force, will Fulani herdsmen invade a state and the governor will fold its arms? As it now, only Buhari can give orders to the Inspector General of Police. The police chief is a Fulani man under a Fulani president. We are all more or less enslaved under the Fulani. The Fulanis are acting as our conquerors. If there is restructuring, the governors will have control over the security situation in their states. We must restructure. All power can’t reside at the centre.
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