Collapse of national ideals, not faulty amalgamation, is Nigeria’s problem —Sani, ex-ACF Secretary General

A pharmacist by profession, Anthony N. Z. Sani is the immediate past Secretary General of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and also the former national publicity secretary of the forum before becoming the spokesman of the northern delegates to the 2014 National Constitutional Conference. He is a member of the Governing Council of Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation, apart from being an active member of the National Working Committee of the ACF. In this interview by KUNLE ODEREMI, he reviews Nigeria’s journey since 1960.

SIXTY years after independence, what can you say about Nigeria, in view of the challenges confronting the country?

There is nothing exotic or quixotic about 60 years after independence besides taking stock of achievements and failures with a view to assessing progress against plans for the express purpose of charting the next course of actions and avoiding past mistakes. More so that nation building is a contiguous process.

Independent has given us freedom to choose how we wish to govern ourselves, and this has been done through various structures: from three to four regions with a weak center under the watch of a parliamentary system; we went through a unitary system with a strong center under military dictatorship; from 12,19 to 36 states called a federal system which is a compromise between the confederation of the first republic and the unitary system, where the federal power is balanced by appropriate state level power. And given the fact that order, justice, liberty, common decency and prosperity for all are never natural order of things but attained through ceaseless hard work by both the leaders and the led, there are bound to be successes and failures.

On the sides of successes, we have 36 states and a Federal Capital Territory as against three regions at independence. We had just about four federal universities and one state university, 60 years ago. But now we have about 174 universities in the country. There were about five federal government colleges that are today’s unity schools with each state boasting of at least two unity schools. We had only one polytechnic in the whole North. Today, each state has a polytechnic in the North while those in the South have many. I have lost count of secondary schools across the country compared to what the nation had at independence. We have built many hospitals and clinics with each state having either a teaching hospital or a federal medical center in addition to those built by the state governments. There has been a substantial improvement in volume and quality of roads across the country. We now practice multiparty democracy which allows us to choose our leaders.

On our challenges, we had to fight a civil war after which it was declared ‘no victor, no vanquished,’ and the 3Rs to bring about rehabilitation, reconstruction and reintegration of the Igbo who have since embraced the situation and settled and invested in every part of the country. The Igbos have also found ingress in the train of all federal governments since after the war in positions such as the Chief of Staff Supreme HQs/VP, senate presidents, speakers, ministers, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and service chiefs.

Another challenge to corporate Nigeria has been the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and the death of the winner, Chief M. K. O. Abiola. In order to effect some healing, some penance was done, thereby causing a national consensus that threw up President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The third major challenge has been insurgence which has almost overrun the whole North and forced a sense of hopelessness. This led to the prediction that Nigeria would become a failed state by 2015. But the coming of President Buhari has managed to tame them by limiting the activities of the sect to the fringes of the North East.

The coronavirus pandemic brought the world’s economy to its knees, with Nigeria not spared. Today, there are far less economic activities due to lockdowns and restricted movements. These have stifled both demand and supply. As a result, prices of oil and production quota have ebbed substantially, thereby reducing the revenues for governments to deliver on the promise of electoral mandates. Poverty caused by unemployment and ignorance has made able-bodied youths to be ready canon fodders for the criminal elements of our society who go by the name Boko Haram, banditry, cattle rustling, armed robbers, clashes between herders and farmers, militant  activism, ritual killings, cultism and rape.

I take all these to be natural concomitant of the process of nation building. The most important thing is to have in place mechanism of confronting them as they arise.

I have read some respected statesmen submitting that because President Buhari has not managed our diversity creditably to the level they want, all ethnic nationalities are now agitating for secession. But this cannot possibly be correct, considering there are over 300 ethnic nationalities out of which only some few Igbo youths have formed IPOB for an independent country called Biafra. I do not know of any ethnic nationality besides IPOB asking to secede.

Don’t you think the country could have made a lot of difference in the comity of nations, going by the incredible strides achieved by the first generation of leaders at independence, coupled with Nigeria’s huge human and material endowments?

It is possible the country could have done better, given its endowments.  But oil, which is not a result of hard work has made the country to be a trust fund state, funded by oil wealth. As a result, Nigerians have since decoupled from the culture of hard work, thereby leading to corruption which has outsourced everything good. And because COVID-19 has laid bare our vulnerability where even the money bags can no longer travel anyhow and spend their riches, they would have no choice but to come to terms with the reality of what General Buhari said in 1984 that we do not have any country we can call our own besides Nigeria; and that we must stay and salvage it together. They would have to come together and support the government in the difficult task of salvaging the nation.

 In specific terms, how come Nigeria seems to be lagging behind in view of the status of its contemporaries in Asia, Latin America and so on?

I do not believe in the wisdom of comparing an African country with Asian countries, where citizens are not black people, moreso that most of the Asian countries are smaller than Nigeria. I prefer you compare Nigeria with African countries, most of which are not doing better than Nigeria. People have attributed failure of leadership as the bane of socioeconomic development in Africa. We cannot forget the import of the fact of history that different sets of leaders have ruled in different African countries without any success comparable to Asian countries. President Julius Nyerere performed credibly well. Yes, but when he was no more, recidivism of feckless performance returned to Tanzania. Abraham Mo has since instituted a prize of $5 million and pension of $200,000 per year for any of the African presidents who excels in delivering on the promise of good and purposeful leadership, yet no African leader has won the prize since its inception. So, the problems of Africa may not be at the door mat of only failure of leadership but also may have to do with societal values and attitudes to life.

And in order to make fair and objective analysis as to whether the country is being governed for performances, the analyses must be fact-based and also be by trends and also cross comparisons for realistic appreciation of whether progress is being made or not.

The anger and frustration among stakeholders in the Nigerian project has led to agitation for self-determination and restructuring. What do you think are the inherent issues in such agitations?

The inability to meet the expectations of the people is largely responsible for the topsy-turvy in the politics and agitations for restructuring, self-determination and the so-called national question. Because wealth from oil has wetted our insatiable appetite, most Nigerians have come to believe government can provide everything under the sun in blithe disregard for the sources of the funds. And this has to do with the trite that most Nigerians are unable to make a clear distinction between power and the claims which they make on its behalf.

Given the avalanche of challenges threatening the corporate existence of the country six decades after independence, what are the implications for the future of Nigeria?

There is an avalanche of challenges buffeting the country. But many of these challenges are not new. The mistrust and suspicions have been there. That was why President Babangida ordered that the 1990 census should exclude ethnicity and religion. It was an attempt to hose down the flame of tension of divisions in the polity. You would recall the fact of history that despite the trite that President Babangida supplanted Kaduna mafia with Langtang, Benue, Bida and Zuru mafias some people still goaded Major Orkar to organise a coup which sought to excise some states in far North from Nigeria. The coup was said to be by some soldiers of northern minorities led by Major Orkar and sponsored by some southern minorities who ran away and left Major Orkar and others on the lurch. Major Orkar and co paid with their lives while the alleged sponsors left the country. If this was not a problem of diversity, one wonders what they could be.

The killings in Kaduna South have been for long. Recall the one in 1987, 1990 and 2000. In one of the crises and killings, some leaders of Kaduna South were convicted and sentenced to death. And in order to bring about peace in Kaduna South, President Ibrahim Babangida pardoned them. Consider why General Isa Jaafaru created six chiefdoms in Kaduna South as a means cutting their historical mooring to Zaria emirate. The creation of states and local governments has been done to allay the fears of minorities which now govern themselves. Yet, you hear some people calling themselves middle belt and not part of the North in the contest of one united Nigeria. To me the agitations for the amorphous and ill-defined middle belt are rooted in what no longer exist.

And if you consider the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election and efforts made to heal the wounds, then you can hardly avoid the conclusion that there have been challenges and efforts made to contain and mitigate them. But because most Nigerians have no sense of history and reel from too much expectations on the government, they engage in hyperbole while stating the problems facing the nation. Those who posit that the agitations by IPOB is an indication that the country is no more should note that in America some people in the state of Alaska want to join Russia. Yet such agitations do not affect the unity of America. In China, the people in Xinjiang want China split; in Canada, the people in Quebec do not like to be part of Canada. So, let not our heart be troubled by IPOB.

Some Nigerians blame Britain for our major problems following the amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates in 1914. The argument is that many smaller countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia that are viable and stable today, do not have the kind of endowments the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria individually possess. What are your views on these?

I have pointed out in several comments that most countries in the world were crafted by colonial forces without the participation of the citizens. That is to say, the colonial masters did not get the consent of the people before colonising them. And what most countries have done have been to make the most of their circumstance by working hard to overcome what divide the people. China, India, Russia and Germany are examples of big countries that have worked hard and reduced the challenges posed by their diversity. Tanzania in Africa has about 120 ethnic nationalities which President Nyerere tried to bring together. I therefore do not see our problems as due to amalgamation in 1914 but of collapse in national ideals and moral values as well as failure to know what is right and what is evil.

You may wish to know that Ethiopia is about the only country that has not been colonised in Africa, yet it has challenges of nation building reminiscent of those countries that were colonised. Somalia is of one ethnic nationality and one faith, yet it is a failed state. So, the problems of Nigeria is not due to faulty amalgamation in 1914 or diversity but lack of abiding faith in core values of humanity, considering only values and not monuments can unite a country.

Don’t you feel that the founding fathers of modern Nigeria should equally be blamed for some of the defects and challenges today?

I do not see any critical defects in Nigeria that were ignored by our founding fathers that have not been attended to.  I have told you that Nigeria has been restructured several times, be it geopolitical, forms of government and models of economic development, all of which have worked successfully in other climes but are said not to be successful in Nigeria. Apart from tinkering with geopolitics, with forms of government and economic models, Nigeria has tampered with revenue allocation formula that now gives the national government 52 per cent and state and local governments 48 per cent while oil producing states have 13 per cent, the Niger Delta Development Commission, Ministry of Niger Delta, PTDF and amnesty programme. Yet, you can still hear echoes of agitations that the Federal Government has more than its fair share. All that is required is to re-engineer our sense of justice, make mercy smarter, and hope more strategic in socioeconomic development. And if we must restructure at all, let it be done democratically by allowing political parties which wish to undertake any form of restructuring to spell it out clearly in their manifestos and use same to canvass for electoral mandate needed for execution.

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