Democracy not functioning the way it should in Nigeria —Ajasin

Chief Tokunbo Ajasin, son of Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin, the late Afenifere/National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) leader, is former member, as well as Federal Commissioner, representing Ondo State at the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission. In this interview by KUNLE ODEREMI, he speaks on good governance, insecurity, state of opposition parties and the buildup to the 2027 general election.

Looking at the practice of democracy in Nigeria, years of the June 12 struggle that your father was the leader of NADECO, what are your observations and areas of serious concern?

Well, I don’t think democracy is functioning the way it should in the sense that there appears to be no real demarcation of powers or what is generally defined as the separation of powers: the judiciary, the executive, and the legislature. It seems the executive has taken over everything. The legislature is just there, and not functioning the way it ought to. That is the way I look at it. They seem to be more concerned about how much money they can amass than how democracy should thrive. They are not concerned about that. The president wants to… I mean, I don’t have the real detail but the general belief out there is that before any law is passed, and so on, the executive sends to lawmakers; they get some compensation of some sorts before they pass it. They don’t even look at the merit, as long as they get their compensation. That’s the way I look at the executive arm of government because there no proper and rigorous scrutiny of anything. The most recent issue was the budget that the president took to the legislature. They didn’t even look at it critically and painstakingly; they just passed it. So, that’s the way I look at legislature today. And then, the judiciary, it has been giving some contradictory rulings that boggle the mind. Things that you think are logical are no more logical. They’re not. They’re just like, well, you want to pander to whoever gave you more money than the other, or something. And that seems to be the case. So, we are in a situation, where systemic corruption that has eaten deep into the Nigerian system, is not letting democracy work.

Does it mean the prolonged struggle that caused Nigerians blood, tears and sorrow to attain civil rule in 1999, following the annulment of June 12, is largely in vain?

It’s not in vain to the extent that people have to continue to struggle to get it right. But, if everybody succumbs to that, then it will be in vain. But if people still fight back, and still finding people fighting back, I think to that extent there’s still hope that something can happen.

But people that are within the corridors of power, and  in fact the leadership of the country today, are among those that struggled to enthrone democracy. The President Bola Tinubu, was a leading light in the June 12 struggle. What do you think could have gone wrong?

What always happens is unfortunate. I don’t know that when people get to power, it seems that they forget their roots. They tend to  forget their source; they forget where they’re coming from, and they start to do other things that ordinarily they won’t do. That’s what has been happening. The only time a party got to power and did what they promised to do was the era of the Action Group and to some extent, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). So, all these other parties are not parties, so to speak. Many of them are just instruments to contest election and acquire power for personal interest. Period!

What are those things that are actually missing from the system? What are those values?

What is a strong political party? A political party should be made of people who share common ideas, ideals, aspirations and objectives, people who have the same interest, who have an ideology they are pursuing. They can say, “This is what we want to do,” like social welfare, and so on. Or they say, “Yes, they are conservatives, or they are capitalists,” and so on. But in our own case, there’s nothing like that; there’s no firm character and philosophy. It’s just what the leadership thinks at a particular time that predominates. He wakes up and thinks of a particular subject that suits his whims and caprices, and he comes up with it and everybody surrounds him. All his minions surround him and they say, “Yes, that’s what we’ll do today.” There’s no plan. There’s no clearcut agenda on values pertaining to good governance. And in a situation where they have something like a manifesto, and so on, they don’t even follow it. They just do what the figurehead wants to do. That’s the thing. I give you this example of even APC as it is now. They have a manifesto, and it was on the basis of the manifesto that I was actually enthralled. It is the manifesto they said they would restructure the country, and so on. And when President Muhammad Buhari came, he said he didn’t even know about it. You are the leader of a party and you don’t know about a major aspect of what the party wants to do? So, I mean, I lost hope since that time in the APC because they had, to some extent, a good manifesto but it was not implemented; they didn’t look there. They just did exactly whatever they felt like doing. That has been the case since.

 Are you suggesting that the problem has to do with certain individuals that find themselves in the saddle or the subsisting system and structure?

Both. The structure is bad, and the people who operate it, they don’t want it to change, particularly when they see the structure that favours them. The military gave us a constitution that is faulty in all respect. All I expected the civilians, who first came in after the military exited from power in 1999 to do was to sit down and say, “Look, this is a military constitution. Let’s look at it again to adapt it to a civilian setting.” But, they didn’t do that. They continued withit what they were given as a contrived constitutional framework, a contraption so to speak. And the military did that based on their own whims and caprices and not based on the ethno-religious heterogeneity of Nigeria. It was done in their own image, terms and conditions like unitary command. So,  the president is everything. The Commander-in-Chief is everything. And that’s what we followed. We went ahead and did that. That’s more of the reason that even after the military has handed over power to us, they (military officers) still continued to influence the political space. You had Obasanjo and Buhari, other former top military brass still at the centre stage. I mean, it’s just like the colonial master, who characteristically would say, “Okay, we are giving you independence, but we are leaving this man to continue.” That’s what has happened with us. We got independence, but we need the change. We need to do our own constitution, we didn’t when the military left. They did a constitution for us and then we just took it hook, line, and sinker. It’s an aberration, totally unacceptable and deceptive and anti-progress.

You are aware of the several attempts to rejig the constitution by successive National Assembly members. Why do you think we have not been able to break the jinx and begin the real journey towards a workable constitutions framework for the country?

It is largely because those who find themselves in the position of authority find the existing system most suitable for their narrow interest. The constitution suits the people in their quest to retain the status quo. They like it. They want to sustain the inadequacies or what the military did in the past to the Nigerian people to remain: continue to loot. The military, essentially, when they enter a place, they see it as a war zone, and then they conquer the place and loot. So, the civilians coming in saw it as an opportunity to also loot, and they just continued. That has been the case. Then, why has it been difficult for us to actually cage this thing, to actually change the system? You know it’s a minute percentage of the population that constitutes the elite, the ruling class. They control the money. They control the lever of power. They control the resources. And if you hear about weaponisation of poverty, that is exactly what is happening now. I mean, it’s been happening, but it’s at its peak now. I mean, people are getting poorer. We used to have a strong middle class. When you have a middle class that is strong, that’s when you can examine things; you can look at things objectively and say, “okay, I want this, I can make a decision about this.” But, when you are poor and you are looking for daily bread, you can’t think. I mean, your thinking faculty becomes warped. You just figure that, “Well, I’m looking for food.” Survival before anything else. So, the few people who are controlling these resources make it difficult for you to survive; as you are looking for survival, you can’t challenge anything. That’s what is happening.

When things like this continue, naturally we should expect consequences. What do you expect at this point to be the consequence?

Well, I don’t want to say this, but, at some point, when people are pushed to the wall, if they ever get pushed to the wall and then they can rebel. That’s the only way.

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How can we avert such a dire chaotic situation?

The government is doing something different, starting to amend and ameliorate the situation. For example, let’s look at the current position of the government. Everybody says, “Okay, we had what was there as oil subsidy was not altruistic. It was fraudulent…” and the president saw that. He saw it because, he had been in that industry; he saw what was going on. So when he came in he said, “No more subsidy” and all those things, he was doing the right thing. He saw it that way because he was like an insider. He wouldn’t want that type of thing to continue, which is good. But, he took a unilateral decision on the issue of subsidy, because no matter the situation, to some extent, many Nigerians were able to manage to keep body and soul together then. But when you now say, “No more subsidy,” what about the consequences? Did you put anything in place to cushion the negative effects of the policy? In a proper clime, the party should have prepared a blueprint ahead of such policy trust when it gets to power. I always look at the Action Group as the best party in the world. In the Action Group, they planned well ahead. Everything on their manifesto, they have a reason behind it, and they knew how they are going to effect it. But there’s nothing like that anymore. Today, many people don’t even know the manifestoes of the parties, including their members. The ones that have the so-called manifestoes, they don’t plan to implement them anyway. They just say, “Oh, let’s just put up something and go ahead and do whatever we like.” When the president said, “No more subsidy,” it ought to have been a decision that the party took.

They would have sat on it and said, “Look, this will happen, that will happen. Then, how do we do this? How do we do that?” Not this ad hoc, arrangement that comes after the deed has been done. And because of those ad hoc arrangements, we haven’t been able to get it right. Because every time you do some ad hoc, another thing comes up somewhere and it is killing people. It is affecting even the middle class. So you now ponder: is it deliberate or an inadvertence?  I want to say that it was inadvertent because there was no proper party to sit on it. People should sit down and think, see different scenarios and say okay, we do this. When free education was introduced, there were so many things that the leaders had to go through. Real scrutiny. People sat down to brainstorm on how to go about the programme and even with that, there were still some errors. All of a sudden, they didn’t anticipate the number of people who would come out. But he (Obafemi Awolowo) went ahead and also was able to address those challenges that came up.  But this one, there was nothing like that. So, the current consequences are what to expect. The consequences are affecting us today. We need a proper political background. Everybody is joining APC, but there is no attraction other than to be in government and be part of taking your share of the national resources. Yes, that’s the way I see it because you should see an attraction and say that you want to join because they’re doing this and doing that that have direct positive impact and bearing on the lives of the citizens. But there is nothing unique, no unique selling point whatsoever.

Are you one of those leaders who fear that Nigeria is moving towards a one-party state? The outcry is most pronounced among opposition parties

I don’t think so.

Given the kind of defections that are taking place, don’t you have that fear?

No, I don’t have the fear.

Why?

Because I don’t think even the president wants a one-party state. I don’t think so. I don’t believe he wants a one-party state. To that extent, I don’t have that fear. I also think that it can’t be a one-party state in the multi-ethnic group, multi-religious setting that we have in Nigeria. It is going to be disastrous, because it will cause trouble. It’s like you’re inviting trouble for yourself.  That is the way I look at it, I don’t think it will happen. But, it’s the hungry people who are gravitating towards—I mean, it’s like giving some of them — carrot and stick. Using carrot and stick: you want this, okay, come and join us, and so on. So, already you’re intimidating people to join. When you intimidate people, it’s not the right way to attract good people. You’re going to attract all the dregs of society. And the dregs are not going to make anything better; they’re going to make it worse. But at which case, at that point, you don’t care. And I don’t look at Tinubu as someone who doesn’t care. He might see the situation and maybe the situation has gone beyond—I mean, bigger than what he thought. You know, sometimes you come in and want to do certain things and you’re overwhelmed. And at his age, I don’t think he can do that kind of work. It would be too cumbersome. So, you need people. But, unfortunately, many people who surround him came to chop, not to work. That’s the way I see the situation.

But the governors are not poor. You have 31 governors in APC now. Are they poor?

I said many of them came to chop, but they have so much—I mean, huge resources at the state level as well. Yes, they have, but now they’re moving to the centre. I don’t even know what they’re looking for, really. Many of the governors, except if President Tinubu is doing the same thing that Obasanjo did to him.

How?

When he was trying to rule Lagos State and they had these local council development areas, LCDAs, and Tinubu was trying to organise the place, Obasanjo decided to withhold Lagos State local council federal allocation. If that kind of thing could happen to these people, I don’t know. It might be something underneath that we don’t know. He might tell them that, well, if you don’t come in now, I will withhold the money, which shouldn’t be, anyway. But anything goes in Nigeria. Obasanjo has done it, so why can’t Tinubu do it?

How do you see the scenario within the opposition parties amid their internal division?

How? There’s no opposition party in the country because PDP has been decimated. PDP has been castrated by internal contradiction and inordinate ambitions of a few party leaders. I mean, they have made so many errors as far as I’m concerned.

Errors? How?

In the sense that from the beginning, Atiku Abubakar shouldn’t be the candidate. They had ,the principle of power shift in their constitution. They had that power was due to the South in 2023. They manipulated it and said, “Oh, let’s review.” They reviewed it and then left it open-ended because they wanted Atiku. That’s the main issue—you can tell any excuse, but that was the reason. Having done that, they said, “Now the North is having both the chairman and the candidate.” They said, “Okay, chairman resign, and let the Southerner become the chairman.” They refused. That’s too much. If they had — even Senator Iyorchia Ayu said it himself on Television Continental (TVC) that he was going to resign if the candidate came from the North. Now the candidate came from the North, you refused to go. That’s not right. That’s not the right thing to do. So, that caused all the frictions they had and the split with the Nyesom Wike faction. That’s what wrecked them.

But, what about the ADC?

My problem with ADC is that all they are concerned with is how they want  to remove Tinubu. To me, I don’t see anything special about them and their ultimate goal. Like I said, you must have an ideology, a manifesto, and defend it and say, “Well, this is what we are going to do that is different from what this government is doing.” You don’t just say “I want to just remove him.” So when you remove him, you come there and be doing the same thing or even worse. So from my own perspective, I don’t see them doing anything better than what the government that is there now is doing.

They are accusing the government of trying to destabilise them and turn Nigeria to a one-party state.

No, I don’t agree with that. That’s their accusation. That is what they are saying. I don’t agree with that. If I’m the government or any party for that matter, I want to destabilise the opposition. Yes, I mean it’s a legitimate thing to do. So it is left for you to put your house in order and focus on telling Nigerians what you want—what you should be known for. People want to destabilise, why not? If I am a rival, I don’t want you to—I want to see how I can get rid of you.

How do you see politics in Yorubaland these days? In Yorubaland, are we still as principled as we used to be?

No. Because politics has become more tribal, more ethnic. You know, before, it used to be based on principle, philosophy. I never guessed that Yoruba would ever be in the position where you say, “Ah, because someone is a Yoruba, then you have to follow him.” No, I don’t believe in that. But I believe that in most cases, the Yorubas do better than others. I believe that Yoruba should do better. But I haven’t seen them coming out to do much better than I expected. President Tinubu is better than a lot, but he hasn’t measured up to what I think he should be doing.

Why do you think so? Why do you think he has not been able to deliver the goods based on your expectations?

Because, as I said, it is not an organised party with an ideology. He just got a group of people together and then they won an election. So that is responsible for it basically.

They talk about what he did in Lagos—there was an organised party at that time, Alliance for Democracy. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it was more organised than APC. APC is just iruwa ogiri wa.

One critical issue in Nigeria today is insecurity. Everybody is scared to travel particularly on the road these days, Yet, only the elite can fly. Why is it difficult for us to tackle the growing insecurity since 2009?

It is a problem of corruption. Because the money you put out to buy necessary security infrastructure is taken. It is not used for the purpose. And then there are people financing these criminals and assailants. If you remember Dubai, the United Arab Emirate sent a list of those said to be funding insurgents in Nigeria. I thought the next logical thing was for Buhari to zero in on these people, but they didn’t do anything. You are given on a platter the names of people who are financing this thing, and you didn’t do anything about them? So, you mean you really want it to happen? It means it was deliberate. It was a policy to destabilise the country or whatever, I don’t know what we were trying to do. And Buhari was told about these cattle herders carrying AK-47 rifles. You said they are using it for self-defence. Those are the beginning of all these troubles we have. He was defending them.

But, Buhari is no longer there. A new person is there now.

Yes, a new person is doing something. But don’t forget that now because of the opposition that he has, I think they want to make sure that he fails. It’s not because it can’t be done, it’s because they want to make sure that he doesn’t succeed. That’s the way I look at it. Because it’s not difficult. I mean, if you are in your town, your village or something, you know the people who are new, who are coming in to cause trouble. Once you identify them, get rid of them. But you don’t do anything. In fact, I don’t understand what is happening.

We have Amotekun in Yorubaland. Despite that, the insecurity in the South-West is troubling. It’s worrisome.

No, no, South-West is the safest place right now. It’s the safest place.

There has been a resurgence of banditry taking over places…

Yes, Ondo, Ekiti. When Akeredolu was alive, he was financing the Amotekun very well. I happen to be in a body that went to visit and talk to them and so on. In the process, I mean, I heard what they said. In fact, we started praising the head of the Amotekun for doing a very good job. They said they were getting money regularly; they were paid regularly. Their salary, everything, nothing was delayed. It was prompt. And when he asked for funds for this, he got it. And the type of their set up was such that they had regular people on patrol, who are knowledgeable in this thing. And they had the local people who are local intelligence, they had all those. So I don’t know what has happened since, because but what I heard was that some of the money that was being given to them was no more by the new government. So, you can see the effect.

When you don’t fund a place that’s getting money before, they stop their work too. They can be the people to engineer the problem. We don’t know, but there is obviously poor funding. So maybe if the funding issue changes, things will be better. I mean and goes along with the same way like Akeredolu was doing.

People have talked about the need for state police. Do you subscribe to it too? Do you think it’s the panacea, can it be an all-rounder? I mean in terms of solution to our problems?

No, absolute not. I mean I’m one of those who when they talk state police I just laugh for several reasons. State police, when we restructure, if we do restructure, that will be taken care of automatically. There’ll be state police. So it won’t be necessary, you don’t start to ask for state police outside of restructuring. You know, because state police is an integral part of restructuring. So and then you who is going to provide the money for state police? Is it Federal that doesn’t want it and they’re forced to it or the state that doesn’t have enough money and they’re already crying or they can’t pay salary? Now you add state police to it, you know? And then that then there’s the problem of the Governor also misusing them. To some extent, the Federal can misuse them too. It’s not that the Federal doesn’t misuse them, because I remember Adewusi in those days during Shagari era in the Second Republic. Adewusi was used extensively to destabilise the UPN governors. So if you give the power now to state governor they are going to do the same thing. So that is why I’m afraid of that.

But if you do a restructuring, then it will be done, you have state police but the state police will be controlled in such a way by the government that you put in that will I mean it will be difficult, you make it difficult for the Governor to control and abuse it. But if you just leave it the same way and you just say state police for Governor, you might just be giving the Governor more power to oppress people who are opponents. That’s what will happen. But you can when there is holistic restructuring the state on its own by the time you vote people in and people come in and then they can arrange. For example, Police Service Commission you can refine them that they will control the police I mean the Governor will still be the chief security person but they can control the police only if they’re doing the right thing. You can’t use the police to oppress the people because the people who who the police authority I mean the Council so to speak will be composed of regular people. I mean civil society people, NLC, labor people, they will be composed of religious, professional bodies, NBA and others. They will control that. So if the Governor is doing something untoward they can always checkmate him. But not just say state police and then it’s the Governor who’s going to even put his people there again.

There is a conscious and deliberate effort to pass the bill to amend the constitution that will give room for state police. But at the same time, the National Assembly is at the moment is trying to amend the constitution. Can you see any correlation between the two? They’re trying to create state police and at the same time they are planning to amend the constitution. Which one should come first?

They are amending the Constitution. Yes, they are lworking on the Constitution, and at the same time, I mean, they are both at the same… like I said, the state police is an integral part of the Constitution, or of the larger, the wholesale thing. You can’t take bits and pieces. For example, 774 local governments; that should never have been in the Constitution. It’s an anomaly. And you put it in the Constitution. A state, any state, you have the power to create the number of local governments it can. My dad, when he was governor, any community that wants a local government, because they are going to be responsible to some extent in financing their council, you create. I think they created 36 LCDAs then. And because the people asked for it, and once you meet the criteria that’s set up by the government, you get a local government of your own. So, and there was no problem. So why, I mean, there is no “one size fits all.” You put 774 and put it in—insert it in the Constitution. It’s one of the things that the military handed over to us that was wrong. And lwe have had so many governments since then and it’s still there. And I can’t see, I don’t know whether they are not looking at it. And that’s why now the president Tinubu said some funds should be going to local governments. If we want to operate like that, then let’s operate… then we don’t call it federal. Federal is between two bodies: one, the state, and the central. That’s federal. The moment you now say local government is part of it, it’s no more federal, then it’s a three-tier government. So if you have that, then it’s not the federal that should be dictating that money should go here or there.

The election year is almost here. What is your perception of some unfolding events surrounding the 2027  elections as they relate to the conduct of the key a torso and other critical stakeholders?

I think it’s still very fluid. They will settle, it’s still fluid. Like someone was telling me today that once you are in a party, you can’t leave the party and go to another party. To me, you should be able to resign from any party anytime, any day. I mean, the one that is very compulsory that they should take care of, they haven’t taken care of it since. That if you change—if you are elected on a platform and you defect, you should vacate your seat. None of them have been able to do it, except they did one in Ondo State. All these years, they are not talking about that one. They are now talking about dual membership of party. What business does INEC or any electoral body or the Parliament have with that? They have absolute no business with that. No business. Even in the US that we copy, there are some states where there’s a Republican primary, you can vote, even if you are a Democrat. You can vote in the Republican thing. There are some states like that. Some states separate them. But there are some states where they don’t separate anybody; you can vote. So what are we doing here? We are going backward. What is the business of—that’s none of their business. If a man wants to leave a party today, he can leave it and go somewhere else. I don’t think it should stand. It’s something that is wrong.

What do you think should be the issues that ought to preoccupy the minds of Nigerians as we prepare for the next election?

For me, from day one, from day one, I have always said restructuring. Let’s restructure this country. Let’s change this Constitution. Let’s get a new Constitution. Totally new. And it’s not by National Assembly that will do it. National Assembly should make a law to constitute a body that will do it. And then it’s brought back to the parliament again. And then, after that, then the people… a referendum is conducted on it again, before it becomes… you go through a process. And the British taught us with Macpherson’s Constitution, all those constitutions. People went from the village level. So why are we, when we have our own thing, now we are taking shortcuts? Hmm? The British taught us, they did all that for us. So why don’t we go through the same thing? Go to the village, to the community, and then the state, all the way, just like they taught us. And they did a good job. In fact, the area they faltered is where we are still having this problem till today. Willinks Commission… when they said, “Okay, if you want to wait until you resolve this one, you can’t have independence on this date.” And everybody was anxious to get independence, so they didn’t wait. I wish they had waited, so that that minority issue could be settled, addressed. But till today, it’s not addressed. And that’s part of the things that’s causing problems. Why should Offa and all those places be in the North, for Christ’s sake? They are kith and kin of the South. They should join them, and they have been agitating, they want to join them, and you are saying no. Why? So those are the nuances that we are facing. And I wish there is a party that will come up and say, “Yes, we are going to resolve this once and for all.” Once that party… let people who are in favor of that join it. Thank you very much, I don’t know if there are any other issues you want to reflect, I don’t know.

Well, what will be your final word as you have really delved into a lot of critical issues in politics?

I hope the people in the corridors of power listen. I hope they listen. Because at the moment, they are preoccupied with issues concerning the general election. They are scheming on how to get tickets. You know, I heard… I don’t know if it’s true or just rumours, that the legislators are asking for the President to make sure that they get automatic tickets. If that happens, I think that will be the greatest disaster ever. Why? Why give… I mean, I even believe that they will all lose. Go to the field and they will all be swept off. Why? Why should they be there? What have they done? What have they done that is unique? They are the people who have wrecked this country. They should be able to tell the government, “this, this, this,” but once the government… I mean, they get money, they are okay. That’s all they are about. I mean, in a country where people are so poor, where the government is fighting the people about minimum wage of 70,000 naira. You are taking home between 20 and 30 million a month, and someone is taking 70,000 naira? Why? And we buy from the same market. And yet, government provides virtually everything you need. I mean, and then they give you another one billion for constituency projects. Is that right? Is that right? Can that be right? I see now that you just come to government, that’s what you have come to do, not to serve. I don’t know because that is… I mean, it’s criminal. It’s criminal. That’s what it is. It’s criminal. And then you are saying people are asking for 70,000 naira, you are making them suffer for so many months before you even pass the 70,000 naira minimum wage. What’s 70,000 naira? What can 70,000 naira buy? I thought those are the things the President should look at. He should be a radical President, not just follow the… if he can be a radical President, I would love it. I don’t know, and he has surrounded himself also with crooks.