A Methodist Church of Nigeria Bishop, co-chair, Interfaith Dialogue Forum for Peace and founder, Vision Africa, Dr Sunday Onuoha, speaks to DARE ADEKANMBI on the separatist agitations in parts of the country, violence in the South-East, Anambra election, among others.
Some will say Nigeria is on the precipice due to the agitations coming up left, right and centre. People say the fault lines have never been this visible, since we began this democratic journey in 1999. Is it as a result of the attitude of the current president? Or are some people are just trying to be political with their agitations? What is your reading of this development?
I would say what is going on is a bottled up anger by many people from various parts of the county, and when you look at the question of anger and frustration, it is not just from only one part of the country. It is a national thing and you cannot just blame it on the current president alone. I think it is part of the things that have been happening and graduating to this point in which people are saying ‘enough is enough’. When people come to a point that they are not afraid to die, then there is a problem. You say ‘if you come out, we will shoot you.’ They say ‘are we still alive? Have we not died already?’ ‘Better go ahead and shoot.’ When people are angry and are also hungry, then the problem becomes more complex. So, we are at a situation where the poverty rate is very high; the level of unemployment is very high. The active people in the society, which are the youths, are not employed. These youths are looking of ways to express themselves. They are angry at the system; whether the system is right or wrong, they are not happy with the system. Once it gets to that point, I will encourage the government to reach out to all those who are angry, even if you do not accept or appreciate the reason for which they are angry. You cannot see a child crying, and say he is crying out of anger and hunger, so you would not attend to such child because he has to stop. All these people are our children, and we must see that frustration has a way of bringing about violence, and that is what is going on all over Nigeria. It is not just a matter of South-South, South-East, North-Central or North-East. It is all over the country. What you are seeing being expressed is the manifestation of a system at the verge of collapsing if nothing is done.
What do you think can be done to rescue the country from the dangerous sliding into anarchy?
There is nothing wrong in identifying those who are the key agitators or leaders expressing their anger. The Igbos say that ‘every mad person has a friend.’ There is no mad person in any community that does not have a friend. No matter how violent the mad person is, there has to be someone who, when the mad person sees him, he will stop. So, those people who are agitators, we may call them agitators or separatists. We may call them all kinds of names. Those people are representing a group of people, who are Nigerians. There is no person that is agitating, angry or demonstrating that does not have followers. So, if we want to reach out to those followers who are ready to do anything to express their anger, let us reach out to the key leaders and bring them to the table. The greatest challenge we have today is that we are afraid to bring people to the table. We bring people to the table for a conversation and may realise by the time we are done, they may come out smiling.
In other words, you do not seem to agree with the Federal Government in the way it has handled the issue of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho?
I think that there should be more of dialogue and engagement. Sometimes, we have a way of making people heroes by the way we handle or deal with them. There is no person that does not have some element of madness in him. Every person has some element of madness. It depends on the degree. And when you begin to employ force, power and might, it will never bring about peace. Each time we talk about the Nigerian Civil War, Nigeria went to Aburi and had an accord. They came back and the accord broke down. The question I asked was why did they not go back to Aburi to continue the conversation? And because they did not go back to Aburi, we lost over four million lives because we refused to go back to the table for conversation. No military might can bring perfect peace. You can only subdue a people with military might and you subdue them for only a little window. After a while, they will come back again. So, we are living on peace of the graveyard. It is borrowed peace. So, we must right now identify influencers of various communities and bring them to the table. You may realise at the end of the day that these powerful influencers, by the time they meet other influencers from other areas, they may end up taking a glass of wine at the table.
What makes Nnamdi Kanu so powerful? Somebody who was out of the country and is being held in custody now, and his followers and lieutenants will give an order that there should be a sit-at-home protest, and there will be high level of compliance throughout the five states of the South-East. What makes this man so popular and powerful?
I think this issue is beyond Nnamdi Kanu. That is the mistake people make. After all, Nnamdi Kanu and his family have come out to say ‘no more sit-at-home.’ The man is in detention and is not issuing any order. So, this is the mistake I think we are making. When there is an ideology and you think you can fight an ideology with guns and weapons, you will not succeed. The only thing you will do when there is an ideology, there must be a people of moral character because there is a total disconnect between societal influencers and political office holders. Political office holders come and go, but in Igbo character, in certain communities, there are those who may not be holding offices, who will never be invited when key decisions are being made, but when they come out and call their boys, they will come out and listen to them. Those people are never brought to the table for conversation. That is the missing link. Having political office is not the same as being a community leader. Igbos are known through their unions and age grades. That is how Igbos develop. Igbo communities were never developed with government money. In Imo State, the Owerri Airport was never built with government money. It was built through union and community leaders, who raised the money, probably the only airport in Africa that was never built by government but by a community. Even as a student, I was forced to give my own contribution. My parents gave me N3 as my own contribution. I did not even know that I would be flying all over the world, but it was made compulsory and everyone was made to believe that the airport will help the economic development of the area and everybody gave towards the project. In the communities, people gathered to train one person to the university level. Once they see a student is intelligent, everybody would gather money to send the person to school. That is Igbo community. It is built trough unionism not through military or political might. That is how the community is developed. Until we go back to the dynamism, the chemistry of the Igbo community, then we will be wasting time. Where are the community leaders? Who has brought the community leaders together to say ‘find solution to this problem?’ Rather they are inviting political leaders to address an ideology. It will never work because in some places, some of these boys who are angry are angry at people who have disappointed them. Some of these boys, who are angry and they are calling IPOB, are boys who were used by politicians and dumped and are now fighting back. They are looking for a way to fight back, and when they find a channel through which they can fight back, they take advantage of it.
Will this violence not disrupt the governorship election coming up in Anambra State?
I have asked question about Anambra election. Let us ask ourselves critical questions. Let us call the politicians in Anambra to come out and tell us that all the thugs they have used for their campaign and politics, did they settle them all well? If they had settled them, there would not be unrest in Anambra today. Now, we are trying to look for solution to Anambra. The boys who are saying that there will not be election are clearly the boys who felt disenfranchised, who felt used and abandoned. Now they are telling the government ‘you cannot conduct elections.’ It is a question of anger and frustration.
The National Security Adviser is also telling them that Nigeria is capable of containing them and that the election will go ahead, no matter the threat coming from the boys.
I believe the election should hold. We should do everything humanly possible to make sure the election holds. I also believe that as much as the National Security Adviser has the military and power of guns to conduct elections, they should also engage key actors and leaders privately and quietly and begin to have the process of talking so that what the military might cannot do, sense of reasoning can do it.
Imo appears to be a peculiar state in the South-East with the level of violence there. Many people have traced it to the political issue there, the governor, the process and circumstances that surrounded his enthronement and all that.
Thank you. I think every state in the South-East and the whole country has its own peculiarities and when you look at what is happening in Imo State, you cannot just confine it within the space of the current administration in the state. We have had a history of violence and brutality in Imo. So, like I said about Anambra, what has to happen is that key players and all the gladiators in Imo should come together and seek each other’s forgiveness. There is nothing that cannot happen within the table of apology and forgiveness. For the sake of the poor, for the sake of the innocent, for the sake of our children unborn, the key political actors in Imo State, irrespective of their party leanings, irrespective of affiliations, should know that Imo is superior to their individual interest. If there is no Imo State, none of them can even occupy any space for government. When for once people come together and their followers who also go to the extreme to do funny things on behalf of their bosses, even when their bosses have not sent them, see their ogas are shaking hands and smiling, they will sheathe their swords. It has to be done now. There has to be a kind of reconciliation that must happen.
You are known for crusading the jettisoning of state of origin as part of our data collection or the official data collection process. Why did you take this position?
If I have my way, I will gather all the SANs and all the legal minds to take government to court, to be sure that the issue of state of origin is abolished. I think it is like telling somebody ‘come,’ with the right hand and at the same time, telling them ‘go,’ with the left hand. You want to preach unity, want to preach one nation, but when it comes to the practical aspect of it, government system and procedures, it is not so. It did not start today; it has been a long time thing. I am not happy about it.
A child who has never lived in Sokoto, simply because the grandparents or parents are from Sokoto and later migrated to Zamfara State where the parents and child was later born and raised in, wants to go for NYSC and you ask the child his or her state of origin. The state of origin of such a child at that time, is Zamfara, not Sokoto, as such a child must see Zamfara as a home. Such a child should be allowed to contest election in Zamfara, pay his taxes there and should never be asked to wait. But, when you make someone a visitor in a country of his own, that person will never see that community as his own.
We are making people strangers in their own land. We are making people not feel wanted in their own country. The only thing we should ask people in the biodata is date of birth, place of birth and place of residence. This should be for purposes of documentation. A child is born in Lagos and for whatsoever reason, moved to Oyo State and lived all his life in Oyo State, he is from Oyo. You have no business pushing him back to Lagos. If you want to have one country, we should not have government system, policies and practices that make a child not to belong where he is from. I have a practical example of somebody whose parents were from Abia State and has lived all his life in Rivers State, and when they were to post that person, they posted him to Rivers State for NYSC because on the state of origin, he put Abia. So, they ended up posting him to a state he has lived all his life. So, you are talking about national youth service, what did he achieve? He has achieved nothing. As far as I am concerned, now is the time that, if we want to salvage this country from collapsing and crashing, the state of origin must be abolished. If these people want the country to disintegrate, let them continue with irresponsible language and terms. When we want a child that was born in Kaduna, lived all his life in Kaduna but his grandparents are from Abia State, but when we want the child to fill in a form with state of origin, the child is made to put Abia, you have made that child unwanted in Kaduna State.
So, by the time the Federal Government will be conducting the national housing and population census next year, you feel that the census questionnaire should be done in such a way that there would not be anything like state of origin, but instead, place of residence and place of birth.
Yes, only. In fact, the place of birth comes only because of the history of the person. The actual thing that is important for demography for planning purposes is where you live. That is the essence of census so that when one lives in Ibadan, and government is planning on providing electricity for Ibadan residents, they already know accurately the number of people living there to consume the electricity. It is the same with water supply and also when it comes to voting. That is why in time of election, if you are from Benue and are living in Ogun State, you see yourself carrying your load and travelling to Benue to vote, that is already telling the person they do not belong in Ogun State. Also, religion has no use being put in the biodata. What has someone’s religion got to do with their status? You must see people as humans, not from the angle of religion.
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