How Tinubu fled Nigeria — Opadokun, NADECO secretary general

May 15 marked 30 years of the emergence of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). WALE AKINSELURE, in this interview, speaks with Secretary General of the NADECO, Chief Ayo Opadokun on the birth, the sweet and bitter aspects of the June 12 struggle, led by the coalition, as well as the extent to which the coalition has achieved its objectives and general expectations concerning President Bola Tinubu, who was among the arrow heads of NADECO.

ON May 15, the NADECO clocked 30 years of its formation, what circumstances led to the formation of the coalition?

It began when Chief MKO Abiola contested the presidential election on June 12, 1993. Results were being announced in the office of the National Electoral Commission (NEC). Most of the results of the 30 states had already been placed on the table where final editing was being done before they are placed on the notice board, and it was clear that MKO Abiola had virtually won in about 22 states – he had got 25 percent in virtually 28 states of the country. Suddenly, there was an unsigned statement by the Chief Press Secretary to Admiral Aikhomu, who was the Chief of General Staff, stopping the continuation of the announcement of results.

Afterwards, General Ibrahim Babangida announced the annulment of that election. It was traumatic for the entire country because that election was the first one in the annals of Nigeria history, where virtually every corner, segment of the Nigerian society decided to bury the dubious divides in the country like religion, tribe, ethnicity, status, wanting to have the back of the military, that they should return to the barracks. Usually, they voted money to build polling units, but they never built anyone that year. Yet our people were ready to bear the brunt to go out and cast their votes. Over 14 million people voted and Abiola won the election, then the military, under Babangida, annulled that victory.

At that point, we found that the military had taken Nigeria for a ride beyond what was tolerable and if the Nigerian people kept quiet and accepted such misguided, contemptuous act, denial of the popular will of the people to vote for who will govern them for a period of time, then the military could have totally incapacitated Nigeria and they would be there permanently. So, different political platforms, organisations were trying to react one way or the other, issuing one statement or the other, trying to hold rallies to reject the annulment.
There were efforts by the Campaign for Democracy (CD) to hold some rallies; they did but there was a bit of crisis within that organisation itself which led to a change of personnel at the helm of affairs. There was the collaboration of leadership of political platforms like The Democratic Forum/ Alternatives; The Professionals; ethnic nationalities, religious and traditional rulers, youths, women, Concerned Professionals for a credible, formidable and reliable campaign for restoration of democracy to Nigeria and restoration of the annulled victory of Bashorun MKO Abiola.

Then, some of us felt that this matter was beyond just the civil society, it needed the intervention of the entire populace.

Fortunately, we already had an organisation, Council for Unity and Understanding (CUU) which combined the leadership of the East and the South South; West and the Middle Belt. We were in the foray of getting the far northern states into it when this annulment came.

So, under the Afenifere leadership, we decided to hold an emergency meeting to consider the implication of that annulment and its effect forever. At the end of that consultation, it was decided that we should bring the matter to the joint meeting of the Council for Unity and Understanding. The meeting, therefore, took place on May 12, 1994 in the home of the late General Adeyinka Adebayo at his Ikeja residence. It was an array of who is who in Igbo, Yoruba land, Middle Belt. Hitherto, a meeting had been held by the Middle Belt Forum in the home of the late Chief D. B. Zang, the first miner in the entire Middle Belt region, where the matter of possible formation of an organisation like NADECO was thoroughly discussed and the meeting decided that every state in the Middle Belt should send a representative and all of them were there. The meeting held under the leadership of Chief Micheal Adekunle Ajasin. We considered what was going on and reviewed the speech of Abacha that he was going to convoke a conference. He, hitherto, agreed that it was going to be a Sovereign National Conference. Later, he removed the word, sovereign, then we became aware that a draft decree for that conference was already out indicating certain objectionable matters. First, that the Abacha government itself would nominate 93 people into the conference, unelected, and those 93 people will hold principal offices of the conference. Second, that whatever may be the resolution and conclusion of that conference will be remitted to the military Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) where it could be vetted, reviewed, corrected. We felt that was not what Nigeria wanted.
When we were announcing ourselves on May 16, 1994, we told the world our agenda.

The fact that a motley crowd of military jackboots, who treasonably overran the Nigerian state and kept to power could be so contemptuous of the popular will of the Nigerian people and rejected the popular will as they voted for Abiola, suggested to us that something was fundamentally wrong with the Nigerian state. So, a way to redress that was to convoke a Sovereign National Conference, where all matters as to whether or not we want to live together will be answered. That question has not been answered till today.

What you call Nigeria today is a creation of the British. Nigeria ethnic nationalities were not asked as to whether they wanted to be in a place called Nigeria. It was the British invaders who used their gun power to subdue the different ethnic nationalities and it took them time to do so. They hounded many ethnic nationalities into submission and forced us into cohabitation.

So, the question that must be answered at the Sovereign National Conference was, do we want to belong to Nigeria. Perhaps because of the long relationship between and among ethnic nationalities, it is possible that the answer may be yes. If it is so, we answer on what terms should our mutual existence and relationship be. What would be the modus operandi, the rules of engagement? The second objective, after we had got Chief MKO Abiola to attend the second meeting, and he had accepted our proposal, was that he should consider heading the government of national unity whose first business will be the convocation of Sovereign National Conference. When he had accepted, we said the organisation we were about to form should champion the cause of de-annuling his victory by the military. The way we prepared it was to send a powerful memo to Abacha’s government. The memo was signed by 52 Tookers, The santo stew which is the to be out. The list of those who betrayed the victory of Abiola, abandoned ship and joined in the Babangida’s contraption called Interim government, which brought Ernest Shonekan, is contained in my book. Those were the major objectives of NADECO upon which we presented ourselves to the public.

The aim was that it was in the greatest interest of Nigerians that all these various organisations who are fighting the same cause, are gotten united thereby making for a credible campaign for restoration of democracy in Nigeria and deannulment of MKO Abiola’s victory.

 

Who indeed were the founding fathers of the NADECO?

The names are all contained in my book; 52 of them. The chairman of those meetings at the preliminary stage before I went into detention was Chief Micheal Adekunle Ajasin. But we held the first two meetings in General Adeyinka Adebayo’s house. But the leadership consisted of the leaders of the various areas of the country I earlier mentioned, including Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe who was Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters who led the Eastern Wing; the likes of C. C. Onoh; Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu; Alhaji Abdulazeez Udeh; General T.Y. Danjuma; Commodore Dan Suleiman; Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti; Dr Frederick Fasehun; Chief Anthony Enahoro.

 

The role of President Bola Tinubu in NADECO has been mentioned. You didn’t mention him as one of the founding fathers; at what point did he join NADECO?

Senator Tinubu and Senator Ameh Ebute were in the Babangida Senate and they collaborated, insisting on the reopening of the National Assembly that was prohibited by Abacha. They decided that they were going to push for the reopening of the Senate. On that note, the security agents of Abacha went after them, got some of them arrested, locked them up at a building at Obalende, Lagos, and charged them to court. After the second or third court appearance, they were given bail and on the basis of that, he left the country. But, abroad, he played prominent, critical roles.

How will this federal constitutional governance be achieved? Is it by convoking another national conference?

Former President Goodluck Jonathan convened such with the report still not implemented.

 

Do you think NADECO has lived up to the values, ideals that it espoused from the start?

No.

Why?

Existential limitations would be a part; the fact that we existed for just about three to four years, unlike the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa which was in existence for virtually a century. Second, when Abacha died, as far as we were concerned, the first and most important thing had not been done, that is, the fact that, rather than convoking a Sovereign National Conference, there was an assemblage of handpicked loyalists, sympathizers, acolytes of the military, along with the so-called election where less than 400,000 people in the country voted. So, we were not in a position to get what we wanted. We could not have participated in such a transition because Abacha wanted to turn himself into a civilian president so rather than give his transition legitimacy, we decided not to have anything to do with it. On the basis of that, we were not in a position to realise our objectives. Finally, when Abacha died, and Abdulsalami Abubakar came into office, his own agenda was to quickly organise an election and hand over to civilians holding that when civilians come into office, they could keep on trying to reorganise themselves, whatever was wrong with the system, they could see how to tackle it. On the basis of that, our objectives became unrealised. Though there was a return to civilian regime, it was not collaborated with the fundamental modicum of democratic values and practice. Also, due to the kind of assemblage of Abacha, they never ventured into the critical things of how to return Nigeria to federal democratic governance. With that, there was a prolonged debate between and among NADECO members, both home and abroad, as to whether to participate in the Abdulsalami government. There was that crisis as to which kind of government. There was no law that backed the so-called conference that was on until the conference took place.

No law was formulated to guide the so-called election itself. The Abdulsalami government was going to sign the decree into law on the day of his exit. So, we did not want to have much to do with that. Within the NADECO rank itself, very serious discussion took place and it took us virtually nine weeks. Various propositions were being packaged together but some of our people, inclusive of the current president of Nigeria, felt we should participate and use whatever we won as a platform into navigating our way through into the entire Nigerian space. That is why we have not succeeded in the basic objectives.

 

Does this affirm the position of Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), also a member of the NADECO, that the coalition committed an error in not participating in post-military era politics on the ground that NADECO had concluded its assignment after guiding the country to a civilian rule in 1999?

He got himself on the wrong side of fact of history. He is not in a position to make such a fantastic claim because he was in the fringes. Yes, he was leading the Concerned Professionals, in fact, when I was initially detained, he was returning from overseas, he was arrested and detained along with me. So, he met me at Awolowo Road annex of the Department of State Services. The circumstances of our existence did not permit for some of us to jump into the fray. The ANC negotiated for a long period. They negotiated what was going to happen. Did we have any role for negotiation? We were mindful of our name, reputation, honour, integrity. We were not prepared to go and join whatever music they were dancing for the purposes of being in government. In any case, no one really, who had not been an acolyte, confederate, sympathiser, loyalist of the Nigerian military had the money to run for political office. That was why eventually we decided that for the purposes of not allowing the Abacha agents in Yoruba land, those who were running under the five fingers of leprous hand which Abacha created, who are already running for office under that platform to say they have won election here and claimed they were leading our people, we decided that we should have participated to the extent of running for office in the South-West. We asked all others to do the same in their areas. We, here, succeeded in forming government in six states because of the trust and confidence our people had in our leadership.

Since we have not succeeded in governing ourselves, what kind of leadership can we give to anybody? That is why it is important that we make sure that we are capable of restoring Nigeria to federal constitutional governance upon which we secured Nigeria’s independence.

We regard most of those so-called conferences as self- serving assemblies, which were not meant to do the job of restoring Nigeria to federal constitutional governance. It was meant to give Nigerians something to occupy them while the military dictators kept on doing the evil thing they were doing to our country. We have worked seriously on the procedure by which we can go to getting Nigeria restored to federal constitutional governance.

 

You have one of your own as President, is he actually living out the ideals that the NADECO espouses?

That is a fundamental question that really would be subjective. Somebody is in office for less than a year, it will be unkind, and not rational to start passing assessment on his government. Having regard to the existential crisis of governance in Nigeria, what he met when he got into office, perhaps if you ask me this kind of question in another one year time. I appreciate what it is in governance. Though I have never governed, I know that the existential crisis of human government demands some time allocation for policies initiated to be fine-tuned, executed and results thereafter. You cannot pass judgment on someone who is just one year into government.

 

NADECO has consistently talked about federal constitutional governance. As one of your own, have you seen President Tinubu take steps in achieving that?

I would say I am in a position to know what he is doing in that regard. The intervention that NADECO has been making these days, occasionally, is to remind the president that, as one of us, in the trenches, he knew the objective, which fundamentally is to restore Nigeria to federal constitutional governance and that means so much. We are interested in his taking serious and fundamental economic measures to uplift Nigeria out of the intolerable level of economic depression, poverty that is affecting our people. We want him to do it. That is bread and butter politics. But, much more fundamental is this matter of restoring us to federal constitutional governance which will enable Nigeria to answer to its divine destiny of providing leadership for the black race.

The black world is waiting on Nigeria to provide leadership because we have the biggest concentration of the black people in the entire world. They are looking up to us to provide leadership. Since we have not succeeded in governing ourselves, what kind of leadership can we give to anybody? That is why it is important that we make sure that we are capable of restoring Nigeria to federal constitutional governance upon which we secured Nigeria’s independence.

How will this federal constitutional governance be achieved? Is it by convoking another national conference?

Former President Goodluck Jonathan convened such with the report still not implemented.

We regard most of those so-called conferences as self-serving assemblies, which were not meant to do the job of restoring Nigeria to federal constitutional governance.

It was meant to give Nigerians something to occupy them while the military dictators kept on doing the evil thing they were doing to our country. We have worked seriously on the procedure by which we can go to getting Nigeria restored to federal constitutional governance.

Pending the restoration of federal constitutional governance that you talk about, Nigeria presently faces serious socioeconomic challenges. How should President Tinubu, as matter of urgency, address them?

I believe that President Tinubu, for all intents and purposes, of all his predecessors, is the one that can be safely said to have the expertise, training, experience of financial and economic matters, therefore, he is in a position to redress the intolerable level of poverty, agony our people are going through and I expect him to do so. I expect him to be on the watch that those who have benefitted and still benefitting from the gross deficiencies of our economic policies will not want him to succeed. He has a duty to God, to himself, to the Nigerian people not to fail because his inability to redress the injustice that has been done to our people, that has led to this level of insecurity, poverty, economic misery and depravation ought not to be tolerated for one more day. He must do so with vigour and fastly so that Nigeria will not go under. I believe that one of the things he enunciated which perhaps is being given some teeth is this Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) phenomenon. That thing ought to have started functioning within two months of his coming into office. The CNG availability ought to have been made sure all over the country. That could have reduced the highest level of transportation that has caused undeserved inflation and depression in our land. They are talking about it now. I enjoin him to take it as much more serious business than hitherto.

It is taking too much time to put it into effect to service our people. Also, I believe that for us to bear our name that we are not just activists who can talk and not do, he needs to redeem our image that we are doers. He needs to function in such a way to redress what has aggravated the depravation in our land and the stunted nature of our growth which is nothing besides this centralised and unitarised governance which the military imposed upon us. We secured our independence on federal constitutional governance which provides for the realization that Nigeria is an heterogenous society composed of different ethnic nationalities with their different languages, cultures, religions, artefacts, folklores, mores. Federal constitutional governance will allow for all these, so we are talking about unity in diversity. He should work to make this restoration of federal constitutional governance the highest priority so that our people will be able to live their lives to the maximum benefits that God has given Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the countries with one of the greatest human and natural endowments. Let President Bola Tinubu utilise the grace and talent that God has given him to make sure that Nigeria can be uplifted quicker than anybody can imagine. India, which is fast becoming the country with the highest population, in the world, has succeeded in lifting the greater percentage of its population out of poverty. Tinubu can do so and I implore him to do so.