Evangelist Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko is the founder of the Igbo Youth Movement (IYM) and deputy secretary of the Professor Ben Nwabueze-led Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT) and the Eastern Consultative Assembly (ECA). He speaks on the clamour for power devolution, the possible way out of the multifaceted problems facing the country. JUDE OSSAI was there. Excerpt:
YOU appear to have been silent on the rising tension in the country, especially over worsening insecurity. What is responsible for your seeming nonchalant attitude?
Point of correction, we don’t have a nation yet. I don’t want to repeat myself. Everybody knows the solution to our problem. For some strange reasons, they have kept the solution in the archives to gather dust. I will be playing to the gallery if I speak everyday. For decades, I screamed myself hoarse to the authorities on the need to reconstruct our polity through a peoples’ constitution that will enthrone true federalism, devolution of power and equity. At least 95 per cent of our troubles flow from the unworkable unitary constitution inspired by the military. Repeating myself everyday will either mean that I crave to be relevant in the media always or that I am desperate for political accommodation within this wobble and crazy structure. Since neither is the case, that explains why I have been turning down your request for an interview. Moreover, I set out decades ago to inspire, influence and awaken youths from my region from their slumber. All through the 1990s till date, I have moved from city to city, organising IYM monthly seminars for the Igbo youths. I was privileged to have great Igbo leaders attend my seminars, conferences, conventions and rallies. The idea was to inspire the younger generation, first of all to understand their precarious condition in Nigeria and then to reject it. I organised 172 conferences all over Nigeria for the Igbo youths in 25 years. The late Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu attended 24 of them. Whether I succeeded in waking the youths up will be left for posterity to judge. Since I am not looking for a job from government and I am not hungry for publicity, my religion does not permit me to play to the gallery; that was why I refused to repeat myself. Moreover, there is nothing new to say since everybody, including those who called me Elliot Onyeala restructuring 20 years ago, have finally come to see that restructuring remains the only solution.
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But President Muhammadu Buhari does not believe in restructuring agenda. What should Nigerians do?
That is unfortunate, but his stand cannot change the truth. If you do not believe in addressing the malaria parasite in your blood stream by applying an anti-malaria drug, you will only be deceiving yourself if you choose only to address the fallouts of your malaria sickness. By stubbornly choosing only to address the symptoms piecemeal will never solve your problem. It is unhelpful and useless if you swallow dozens of pain relieving drugs daily in order to address the headache alone, and then you buy drugs for the high fever, rub balm at the painful joints and then you buy another drug for the loss of appetite you are suffering from and yet another drug because you are very weak and have no strength and so on, you are not only wasting your time; you are also complicating your problems. The only solution is to address the malaria parasite in your system with an anti-malaria drug and all the symptoms will go away. If we do not restructure our polity, our problems will only get worse. So, it is unfortunate if Mr President only chooses to address the symptoms instead of the root cause of our malaise.
There are talks of amending the constitution by the constitutional amendment committee of the National Assembly.
Our problems are beyond a constitutional amendment by the National Assembly. Our problem is that the framework of our constitution as designed by the military cannot move the country forward in unity and cannot also engender economic and political growth of Nigeria. We are only surviving as a country purely as a result of the oil money shared by all the tiers of government. The day the oil stops flowing and cash stops coming in, Nigeria will disintegrate. Our structure is crazy, strange and funny at the same time. People all over the world do not believe it when you tell them that the States of California, New York, Texas, and others do not troop to Washington DC every month to collect monthly allocation to run their states and pay salaries. That Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not rush to London every month for monthly allocation and that all the regions in Canada, Germany, India, Australia, and others all troop to the nation’s capital for money every month in order to run their governments, build infrastructure, pay salaries, and so on. They will not believe you because that is not done anywhere in the world. The regions and states can only develop when they source their own resources and manage it to develop their region to the envy of other regions. The rivalry between regions will engender competition like it did in the First Republic, forcing each region to look inward, think outside the box, mine and sell every mineral under their soil and then manage their resources so well thereby discouraging sleaze and waste. It is impossible for one man to effectively run a behemoth of 200 million people from Abuja. It also impossible to force down the same rules, style, format and system on the people of Sokoto and Akwa Ibom states at the same time or on the people of Borno and Bayelsa states because the religious and social cultures of the Fulani and Kanuri are completely different from those of the Ibibio and the Ijaw. Nigeria will only experience growth, peace and concord when the regions are allowed to develop at their own pace. We have tried for decades now under this unitary structure and we have failed woefully. Why do we find it difficult to face the truth and restructure Nigeria without further delay?
Where did we get wrong as a country?
Through the militarily-inspired constitution. It all began in the late 1960s, when General Yakubu Gowon unilaterally created 12 states through a decree, thereby destroying the regions and burying the 1963 Constitution. He also set up the Chief Dina Committee that advised the central government to annex all revenues and granted states allocations according to their needs. This made the Nigerian head of state the most powerful in the world. There was a civil war going on and everybody thought that was okay to enable the Federal Government to prosecute the war effectively, especially since General Gowon had not borrowed money externally to prosecute the war. Most Nigerians still do not know that for the first year Gowon ruled Nigeria that the revenue formula of 1963 still applied; that each region kept a certain percentage of the earning and contributed a certain percentage (as enshrined in the 1963 Constitution) to the centre; that the military governors shared, received and distributed the revenues and earnings of each region strictly according to the dictate of the 1963 Constitution. The governor of the Northern Region, Hassan Kastina, his counterpart in the Western Region, Major General Adeyinka Adebayo and others ran their regional governments according to the revenue sharing formula of the 1963 Constitution. Most Nigerians do not know that it was General Gowon and not General Aguiyi Ironsi who unified and centralised all the revenues at the centre in order to prosecute the war. Ironsi’s Decree 34 of May 1966 merely changed the nomenclature from regions to group of provinces. Ironsi never altered the revenue sharing formula. The facts are there in the files of the government. After General Gowon centralised all the resources at the centre, the victorious cabals at the end of the war who now saw that power was so sweet, especially with the oil boom, then decided that it would be difficult for any other region to ever take power out of their hands, they therefore preferred centralising all the resources and the revenues, only to be dispensed by whoever was in charge of the centre. Therefore they decided at the end of the war to inspire and influence a new constitution that would centralise power because they believed they would always be in charge and control of the central power in Nigeria. Both the 1979 and 1999 constitutions were influenced, inspired and manipulated by this line of thought of the victors of the war. For them, the East had been pacified through military force, the West had been co-opted and settled, the minorities were so excited that they all were now being empowered by the total exclusion of the Ndigbo. During the heady days of the 1970s, nobody saw that this unitary structure would only make Nigeria the poverty capital of the world 50 years later; a country where states cannot pay salaries, where a huge unemployment rate has turned kidnapping into a profitable business venture and lotto betting as the only passtime, as the hope in winning bet actually helps in reducing the suicide rate. Nobody knew that 50 years later, the fierce struggle for central power in Nigeria will deepen our ethnic and religious fault lines to the point where hatred, division and acrimony rule the land, nobody knew that this structure would ironically make the region that has produced 80 percent of the rulers of Nigeria the poorest region. So the mistake of 50 years ago that inspired the post-civil war constitution brought us where we are today. Everybody made mistakes but some are so proud to accept their mistakes.
What is your take on the agitation for session in the East?
I have said all I need to say on the fact that the younger generation of easterners have rejected Nigeria as presently constituted. I have said that louder than anybody else. I have also been consistent for more than two decades. There is nothing new to add except, may be, to repeat myself or play to the gallery by making noise every day. I don’t want to do both. I am on record as having warned the past governments that the younger generation of Ndigbo would not accept the continued humiliation and mistreatment. Right from the Babangida era to the Abacha regime and the Obasanjo government till date, I have remained consistent through God’s grace. All the IYM events are organised in public halls in big hotels, attended by very prominent leaders and always covered by the media. My message has always been simple and direct: restructure Nigeria, devolve power back to the region, and enthrone equity by giving everybody a fair sense of belonging. The younger generation will not accept this continuous oppression of the Ndigbo. They will resist it.
Finally, what do you have to say concerning the Buhari administration?
I don’t want to talk about Buhari’s government. It wasn’t the Chinese nor Mexicans that brought in the government. It was Nigerians that brought him. Those who brought him should enjoy him. I humbly suggest that Nigerians should amend this sick constitution to make him a life president. Those who brought him must enjoy him to the fullest. Moreover, I am not going to criticise Buhari’s government when it is obvious to everybody that the opposition party leaders are all mute, crawling discreetly at night to the same APC government to ask for favour and protection. I will not do the job of the opposition for the PDP leaders who are hiding under their bed in fear. Let them enjoy Buhari. The entire political class on both divides are selfish, ruthless, uncaring and blinded by greed.