EndSARS: Our politicians have not learnt any lessons —Gani Adams

The Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Chief Gani Adams, speaks on recent meeting a Federal Government delegation led by Professor Ibrahim Gambari had with South-West governors, ministers and royal fathers from the regione, the EndSARS protest, which he maintained was national in outlook against insinuations that it was used against the North, the lingering issue of restructuring, why the National Assembly cannot be trusted to restructure the country, among other issues, in this interview by BOLA BADMUS. Excerpt: 

The South-West governors and royal fathers from the zone met with the Federal Government delegation a few days ago and took a lot of decisions. How do you see the parley? What is your view about what actually took place there?

There is nothing bad about the governors and royal fathers holding a meeting on the way forward and I quite agree with them on the issue of using the Confab report to move Nigeria forward. The only thing I do not agree with is the content of the communique that says they should gag the people on social media. They should not allow the North to dictate to us. That is the only content of the communique that I disagree with.

There is a clause in the constitution that says if you commit cyber crime, defame anybody on social media or through writing, the state, through the police and the DSS, has the right to arrest you. So, the law is there, why are we now coming out to regulate people’s view on social media? The only thing that sustains most Nigerians now is their involvement in social media, through which they express their views as allowed by the constitution, where there is freedom of expression. It is not only in our constitution, in any country with genuine democracy, the citizens have the freedom to express their opinions.

Look at what happened in the US election. Look at the different videos that were coming out against President Donald Trump. America did not even say they wanted to gag their own citizens. The same thing happened in Britain, you see different jokes and animations. Inasmuch as you are doing the right thing, anybody who does anything against you would be in the minority, you would be accepted by the majority of the people. But if you are not doing the right thing, you don’t use brute force or lawmakers to stop the people from expressing their views. We should not draw ourselves back to the era of tyranny. Unfortunately, most of our political players don’t know the implications of supporting that view because anything that happens today will go into history. Some of our politicians that worked against the interest of their people during the military regime are paying for it now.

So, I was surprised that a media person like the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, is also agreeing with the view that they should regulate social media in the country, to the extent that they (the government) is intimidating the traditional media too.

They are intimidating television stations for showing videos of what happened, even though amateur videos. Amateur videos are even shown on Al Jazeera, on CNN, BBC, among others, of what happened in any location. You are imposing a fine on them concerning a video, not a picture that was created of something that happened. NBC is intimidating them that they should pay a fine. What are we turning this country into?

The social media was one of the instruments the APC-led government used to defeat the then ruling party, the PDP, in  2015. And when they were using it, people knew you were using it for information dissemination. Now you have been in power for five years and you are saying that if we don’t regulate social media, it would ruin the country. What do they mean? If you are doing the right thing, the Yoruba people will tell you. There is no cheating in a picture. It is how you sit that you will appear in the picture when it is eventually printed out. So, if you are doing the right thing, why do you want to gag the people? I don’t know where politicians are dragging the country to. They have to learn lessons.

The aftermath of EndSARS is part of the lessons the leadership must learn one way or the other. You must respect the wishes of the people and behave well so that there would not be anarchy. You should do justice in everything so that when the citizens misbehave, they would not have sympathisers when you are using the law to deal with such citizens.

But in a situation where you think you are in power and you  can intimidate the people, you can gag them, and deny them the right to air their opinions, forgetting that you got that power by the will of the people, I think it is too late for Nigerians to accept that kind of approach. This is because every person that owns a phone is an editor of their own mindset.

I am not saying that people should use social media to malign anybody, to disseminate wrong information. The cyber crime law is there to deal with anybody that does any wrong in that regard. You don’t have to generate another law to gag those who have genuine information to disseminate through the media.

The EndSARS protest has generated diverse reactions. A former governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Abdulahi Adamu, said in an interview that the protest was used against the North. What is your take on his view? 

This is one of those people who would develop typhoid fever if they are not in power. What he is saying is just his own personal opinion. Why would he say EndSARS is a sectional issue? There were protests in Kwara, in Kogi, are they not part of North? There were protests in Jos, in Gombe, in Kano. Even there were protests Kaduna. Why would he say the protest was used against the North?

And go and see the list of all those who went to court to challenge the government, saying they were being intimidated. They are not only Yoruba, there are not only Igbo, or only Niger- Delta, they came from different tribes. Are Plateau people or Kano people, or Gombe people, or Kaduna people Southerners? The protests went beyond the Southern part of the country; it was a national issue.

For anybody to be sentimental on this issue is uncalled-for. I think the agitation on the ground, the demands of those EndSARS protesters are national in outlook. What are they asking for? They are asking for the reform of the health sector, reform of the education sector; they are saying that the government should listen to ASUU to solve the problems in our universities, good governance and end to corruption. They are also talking about the amendment of the constitution. Is that a sectional issue? The agitations of EndSARS protesters also included the reform of the police. They are fighting for the future of the Nigerian people. So, why should anybody have a mindset that it is against the North?

Some Northern leaders have been found to be creating an impression that if anybody is asking for the way forward, they would say such a person is against northern interest.

When we were at the Confab, when they were talking at the plenary, they would be preaching unity. And when they are bringing their Northern agenda, they would say that the agenda of the North is in national interest. But by the time you look at the agenda, you will know that this is not what all Nigerians want. So, when we started the Confab, they said we must preach unity, that our unity was not negotiable. They preached the indivisibility of Nigeria. They spoke all kinds of grammar, and when they brought the agenda out, we realised that the agenda was sectional. They wanted the status quo to remain.

Why do you think they want such to remain?

It is because a lot of things have been done wrong that favour them to remain in power and all these wrong things do not favour the majority of the Northerners, the poor masses of the North. The interest they are pursuing does not even favour the majority in the North. It is only for the ruling class. That system they are so content with does not favour the majority of the people in the North who are living in abject poverty. The few people in the ruling class in the North are content with the system and the system is not moving Nigeria forward.

We in the West, do you know we have our own elite, but we give room for the middle class and we want our people at the grassroots to be convenient at their own level. That is what is happening in the Western World. All over the world, we have the elite class, the first class. We have the first-class people, the second-class people, which is the middle class and we ensure that the lower-class people are comfortable to a certain level. And the lower class can graduate to the middle class and the highest class as well, depending on your destiny. And even though you don’t belong to these two classes, your children can be in any of the classes at the end of the day and that is what is happening in the Southern part of the country. But in their own environment, it is quite different. The lower class can never be in the middle or the highest class. They are so comfortable with that system that if they allow a moderate, a civilised government to operate in Nigeria, it will affect their agenda as the few elite that is controlling the entire North.

A good example is that we are talking of federalism; that if a certain section is doing very well among the six geo-political zones, it will be a pacesetter for others. So, what they are doing in this zone, in that region, other regions would try to copy it. There would be competition, healthy rivalry in economy and even in security matters. From the analyses of experts, there is no state in Nigeria that does not have resources. Those that don’t have much resources have vast lands that are potential for agriculture.

In the Netherlands, they export agricultural produce amounting to $100 billion every year. It was $100 billion last year on agriculture alone. And the vast land of the entire Netherlands is the equivalent of the vast land in Niger State.

Israel has one of the best agricultural systems in the world but what is the quantum of the land they have in Israel? It is minimal. But through technology, they plant things on top of rocks. And most of the Arab countries, Israel supplies them with fruits.

And what do you have in most of these European counties? When you are moving on their roads, you see farming on the right and on the left. Their governments empower farmers. They give them loans with little interest rate. Who are some of the richest professionals in Europe? They are farmers. They build paradise inside farms. Because there is internet, there is electricity supply everywhere, you can connect with technology. So, everything you have in the cities is also inside the farm. Everything they need is there. In small farms, they create small malls, almost turning those places into cities.

Nasarawa has between 28 and 30 solid mineral resources. I was in Kano to meet Ibrahim Shekarau when he was governor of that state. They gave me a brochure listing a total of 15 solid mineral resources. If not for governor of Zamfara State, who knew that there was gold in that state? So, the majority of northern states have their solid mineral resources. There is no state in the North that does not have between 15 to 20 solid mineral resources and some of the countries in Africa that are doing very well, like Namibia, and other South African countries, they are living on solid mineral resources. South Africa, which happens to be the richest country in Africa now, the major source of its revenue is solid mineral resources and after it, it is through taxes and tourism. These are the three major things that fetch money for South Africa.

And I remember that when the total budget for Nigeria was just about $15 billion or $20 billion about two years ago, that of South Africa was about $535 billion. And the solid mineral resources that Kaduna State has, South Africa cannot boast of 20per cent of it. So, why are you dodging restructuring? Why are you having fears? You want to syphon all the crude oil in the Niger Delta that does not have much solid minerals. What they have is oil and limited dry land. So, their major mineral resource is the crude oil in their water. The offshore is not even much. You are taking that oil and polluting their waters. They can’t even fish to earn money.

The solid mineral in Lake Chad, in Borno State, is what is causing the problem of Boko Haram today.

Why?

Because the international community has interest in that solid mineral. They call the mineral resource uranium, which they are using for nuclear bomb. It is in Borno State in large quantity. There are many other solid mineral resources in Borno State and they also have vast expanse of land. Sambisa Forest alone is more than three quarters of Lagos State. There is the potential of livestock farming. So, why are you holding other sections of the country to ransom? Why are you afraid anytime they talk about restructuring?

We came together as a country, having been federating units. Why don’t you allow the dream of our forefathers to come true? Anywhere anybody mentions restructuring, you will catch cold, saying they will break the nation. Who is thinking about secession? But they are leading us to ask for secession now because we realise that if Nigeria is not restructured now, if we continue this way, they will ruin the country within a period of 20 years. This is because now we are operating in a region with something that is alien to our own behaviour. Now what we are witnessing in Yorubaland is something that we never witnessed in the 70s, even in the 60s before independence. Now, area boys are everywhere, cult gangs have taken over in many communities and ritualists have taken over. At the same time, our children, the younger generation, are facing the problem of unemployment. And a country that does not give good education, a country that does not give shelter, a country that does not give jobs to its youths, a country that does not prepare very good infrastructure is breeding criminals. Any little crisis that occurs, if not well managed, will blossom into unrest or turn into war.

One would think that President Muhammadu Buhari is now ready to listen to the agitation of the people, hence the Ibrahim Gambari team he raised to move round the country and feel the people’s pulse. Do you think the president is going to implement all the decisions reached at the end of the day?

The team has not consulted with the ordinary people but is only consulting with government institutions. The royal fathers were there at the various meetings, they are part of the government. The Council of Obas is part of the government. It is an arm of government. We also have the Ministry of Chieftaincy Affairs. And there is a limit to which they (royal fathers) can be radical. It must be stated clearly, they can’t be radical like the Alaafin, the Ooni, Awujale, Alake, Owa of Ijesaland, Orangun of Ila, Osemawe, Olowo and the Eleko. They are about 26 in number. We have a few obas in Yorubaland who can be so independent-minded that the governors cannot remove them anyhow. We have royal fathers that we can call main institutions. Every one of them is an institution.

What of these other groups who don’t even have access to governors to hear their opinions? What of these main socio- cultural groups, who agitated for this restructuring? So, if you want to change the country, you go beyond government institutions. I think they have done well by meeting with serving ministers, governors and key royal fathers. These are the first steps but they must go beyond these. Only our traditional rulers were called. Nobody even heard that they were going to hold that meeting and at the end of the day, they smuggled that anti-social media into the communique which many Yoruba people were against.

The governor of Oyo State has reacted that such was not part of what they agreed to at that meeting. Maybe after that meeting they smuggled the thing inside the communique. That is another politics. But I still give them kudos for agreeing that the government should agree to look into the 2014 national conference report. But if the Buhari government is serious about it, it should go beyond government functionaries.

Do you trust the government delegation concerning the task it has been assigned; that its report would truly reflect what had been discussed and that Buhari would accede to people’s requests?

We can’t say we don’t trust them. We must guide them. We won’t write them off but anything can happen in politics. Twenty-four hours are even too long, anything can change in politics. Who knew Buhari would accept June 12 as public holiday? Who knew that he would honour Chief MKO Abiola posthumously? So, I won’t say I wouldn’t trust them, but we have to guide them because most government advisers act based on their political interests and some of them would not say the truth. That reminds what former President Goodluck Jonathan said, that if you are in the Villa, you are in prison; you don’t know what is happening outside. So, our duty as the Aare Ona Kakanfo and as a person who leads a socio- cultural group is to guide them through the media, that they have taken a good step forward but that is not enough. Socio-cultural and civil society groups, market groups and religious bodies have to give their own opinions. It is good that our royal fathers have agreed on using the confab report but there can be more inputs.

The National Assembly is also doing a review of the constitution. To what extent do you think it can address the yearning of those calling for the restructuring of the country?

Well, I don’t trust the National Assembly. I even trust Buhari more than the National Assembly. What Buhari did on the issue of June 12 makes me trust him more than the National Assembly. Is Senator Abdulahi Adamu not one of the members of the National Assembly? He is one of the key members. He is one of the opinion moulders in the National Assembly. He has already spoken their minds. He is part of the system. He has said it out loud, in his interview, that nothing serious would come out of the National Assembly.

The Senate President spoke truth to the presidency a few days ago that if they didn’t listen to the EndSARS protesters, the second wave of protests might give them a serious problem. But there is a cabal in the National Assembly that is not prepared to see Nigeria move forward. Unfortunately, those PDP Reps and senators are not radical; they are not ideologues this time around. Even though the ruling party wants to be stagnant and comfortable with anything from the executive sailing through, what of you as an opposition party? That is the beauty of democracy. That is why we have a multi-party system.

So, what are we saying about APC and PDP? There is no difference between the two parties. The PDP is supposed to put the ruling party on its toes. So, I don’t have confidence in the National Assembly and that is one of the reasons why we decided that we are not sending anything to the National Assembly on constitution review.

You mean the OPC.

Not only OPC, I mean the Yoruba Summit Group, the umbrella body for all Yoruba organisations. We don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel at the National Assembly. Those Southerners there, the majority of them don’t have the interest of their people at heart. Nigerians should open their eyes in future elections to know the kind of people they would vote into the parliament. The parliament is an essential part of any democratic society. They should not concentrate on the presidency; a lot can be achieved through the parliament.

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