No country in the world is as distorted and cruelly constructed as Nigeria —Professor G. G. Darah, N/Delta leader

Professor Gabriel Darah, a septuagenarian, is a former chairman of the editorial boards of the Daily Times and The Guardian. He became a professor of Oral Literature, Folklore and Cultural Sciences at the Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, in 2001. In 2003, he became Special Adviser to former Governor James Ibori on Public Communication (Media) and later the Chief of Staff in 2005, spearheading the struggle for resource control and the struggle for 13 per cent derivation. The literary icon later returned to DELSU and retired from active service in 2017 at the age 70. He was a delegate to the 2014 National Conference representing Delta Central. Darah, who is currently the Delta State chairman of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), speaks with EBENEZER ADUROKIYA on the 2014 confab and other salient national issues. 

What was the focal point at the 2014 National Conference?

At the 2014 National Conference, we said let us retreat to where we started from, then see what limitations it has and then adjust. Adjustment then required balancing of geopolitical zones. There are six zones recognised. Let all the six zones have equal number of states. This is the first principle we addressed at the conference; each zone with equal number of states, regardless of its size or population. So, Lagos will be in the South West with its 20 million people just like California has millions of people. But Rose Island is a state in front of New York. It is a very small state. They are not competing with California for salaries. They pay their workers according to what they earn. There is a state in India that has 220 million people, just one state that is as populous as the whole of Nigeria. And there are some other states just like Effurun. They do not compete. The state has full autonomy to determine salaries. There is no minimum wage; you don’t pay everybody the same salary. Lecturers in Abraka, Warri, Port Harcourt, or Lagos earning the same salaries as lecturers in Maiduguri? No. You have killed productivity. That is the model that the United States set for us. Nigeria copied it, but when in 1999 they tried to have a constitution, they removed fiscal federalism and just copied the states, but not how money is to be shared. That is the Abubakar Constitution of 1999, which is a slave mandate. It has now become a Hausa/Fulani apartheid mandate to dominate, exploit and oppress the Southern people of Nigeria, particularly Niger Delta because we are the ones paying the cost and we started paying that cost in 1969, the second year of the civil war.

At the conference, we agreed that we return to the federal system. What we have now is a unitary system, inconsistent with the principles and fundamentals of the autonomy of federating units.

What do you think is hindering Niger Delta states from, either collectively or individually, floating refineries of their own? 

Individuals have oil wells that are sold to them by the Federal Government, not by the state where the oil well is. It is not Delta that allocates the oil well to an investor from Texas or anywhere. The unitary system that Nigeria runs, which is the enemy of the Niger Delta, has two legal hurdles inside the constitution. One is Section 44 Sub Section 3. The second one is what we call the Exclusive Legislative List. Oil, minerals and surface operations are for only the Federal Government. As a state, to even set up a refinery, you have to get permission from the Federal Government which they may not grant.

Let›s go back. The ownership of a refinery by a state will not correct the injustice of that Section 44 because you are just trading. But the well, the ocean below where the oil is flowing, doesn›t belong to you. And that is what we call natural resource. It is not refinery. Kuwait is a small country but it has refineries in Europe. So, you can have 20 refineries but if the control of the natural resource is still denied, you are a colonised people. So, the response of the South South to the rest of Nigeria is that we are colonised and we are fighting a colonial war and we will not relent. We will not stop until we conquer Nigeria, until we use any means necessary to free ourselves from that yoke.

Did you, delegates to the 2014 confab, after all the concessions and consensus, deliberate on how and when the resolutions would be implemented?

Yes. For example, at the conference, I served in Devolution of Power Committee. That is the one that says they should redefine the federal system; that all those aspects that are inconsistent with federalism we move them out. That committee was co-headed by Architect Attah, former governor of Akwa Ibom and Ibrahim Kumasi, former Inspector General of Police from Katsina.

We were also given authority to handle the 68 legislative items. So, when we reviewed them, only 10 went to the Federal Government, 58 concurrent: customs, army, navy, registration of birth, registration of companies, building of railways, these are the lucrative aspects of public governance. Railway, ports, the states are prohibited from engaging in them. So, if the Yoruba want to build railway from Lagos to Ado-Ekiti, they can›t do it. Even if it is for their economic interest and the person that stops them from doing it is in Abuja.

There is no country in the world that is so distorted and cruelly constructed as Nigeria. For purpose of historical accuracy, Rochas was a former Yoruba slave that came from Brazil, settled in Lagos, at Isale Eko. A hundred or 120 years ago, he promised to use his money to build a railway line from Lagos to Ilesha where he originally came from, to use to ferry cocoa and other cash crops, the British stopped him. That is the power of impunity that the caliphate has also inherited. Lagos State has the biggest consumers on the continent but it does not have access to its own VAT. You have to take the VAT to Abuja, share it evenly among states and those that banned alcohol consumption are still earning from it.

Lagos had the two busiest ports in Africa apart from Alexandria and Cape Town. The money from those ports goes to Abuja. During the First Republic, the money from the ports in Lagos was going to the Western Region on 50-50 basis. How come that 60 years after your freedom from colonial rule, you are having a more backward and a more oppressive rule? It is so provocative that only fight is the proper response, because there is no political science in the world that you can use to explain it. It doesn›t exist in any political science book that a country exists, the regions and constituent units are prevented while the central is sitting on top of them. Railway is the most lucrative business in the world now. The Chinese build 1,000 kilometers every year. The most popular part of Africa is Yoruba land. They can line it up with railways and put tollgates and earn money.

Yoruba land is one of the greatest parts of Nigeria. I am not talking of Lagos. All of us go to Lagos. We go to Lagos and think it is the biggest; it›s not, go to Osun State, Ekiti State, you will see some of the Awo›s structures of the 50s are still the ones there. And that is Yoruba land that took the premier position in 1950; that had the first free education scheme on the continent in 1955. They are still held down by whom? And they are still in Nigeria, what are they doing there? It is the same question. We in Niger Delta, whose oil and gas are stolen, what are we still doing in Nigeria?

So, following the 2014 National Conference, more knowledge and collaborative possibilities emerged. There are 51 languages in Plateau State. In Adamawa State, there are 80 languages there. In Bauchi, there are 53 languages. In Kaduna, there are 39. Those four states have 300 languages. They are not recognised by the Fulani and you think we will have peace? So, all these issues were unveiled at the conference. We had to find mechanics and methods for accommodating all these histories of oppression, neglect, murder and massacre. And that principle of balance of the geopolitical zones was the first principle established and agreed on. The second principle was equity, with nine states per zone.

So, did you (delegates at the 2014 conference) give a timeline for the implementation of these principles before former President Goodluck Jonathan left government?

Yes. In order to help the government and Nigeria, all the items were grouped into sub-themes. There were 20 committees so each committee had a report and a recommendation. The recommendation then devised what needed to be done. Kutugi, Azinge and Bolaji Akinyemi, lawyers, would go and work on it and by next plenary, they would come and say these are steps 1, 2 and 3, all marked out, the action that would be done and who would do it and the duration.

The most controversial was the creation of states which is Section 8 of the constitution and it can be done by consensus. The National Assembly and all the 36 states’ assemblies would agree that they have recommended 18 new states that are going to be created. Once they agree, first reading to the third reading can be done in one day. That is what we call historic compromise. You can do the reading in one day and the next step you get a referendum in 24 hours. A referendum is conducted with the resources available in Abuja. So, it is when the government is willing to follow that route of salvation that those processes will be eased.

The decision of conference was that each state, each of the 54 states, would have its own constitution. There is a federal constitution where central issues are but each state will go according to its peculiarities.

Abuja is the imperial headquarters that underdeveloped Nigeria. Everybody who wants to be free in Nigeria must fight Abuja and conquer it, because that is what is dragging the whole country back. So, timelines were put on each item. The simple ones that didn’t require the National Assembly, which are policies, were in different volumes and were given to the president. Those ones are for the Federal Executive Council to effect. The ones that required constitutional change were in different volumes. The drafting of the new laws: all the laws were drafted in our conference. This is the old one, this is the new one. So, if you are going to the parliament to debate, you hold the one you want and facilitate the debate. That is, there must be an agreement that Nigeria should survive. Therefore, what you are witnessing now in terms of coalition and alliance had its roots in the conference. I call it the ‘Four Square Alliance’ – Pan Niger Delta Forum for the South South, Afenifere for the South West, Ohanaeze Ndigbo for South East and Middle Belt Forum for the Middle Belt. We are four who have been saying since 2016 that please, implement this thing so that Nigeria can start to grow. And we have become very organised. In the beginning, we were minority voice. Now restructuring, which is the slogan we have coined, is now the mantra in the whole country.

So, we are very delighted about the evolution and the development because it means we are historically correct. To that extent, the meeting of the South South governors, plus leaders, monarchs that received the president’s delegation last week in Port Harcourt is a landmark because it records the point of convergence of interests and methods between those of us who are NGOs, who are advocating – we are not in government – and those who are voted into government, the governors. As God would have it, let me say Edo has freed itself and all the states are in one party now. So, they were able to speak with one voice with Obaseki’s re-election. That is why you saw the crystallisation in Port Harcourt. They were able to agree on seven items and those items are all in PANDEF’s 16-point agenda of November 1, 2016. The South South and Niger Delta are moving nearer and nearer to Niger Delta Federation with the developments and the work we have done.

But if there is prospect in the regional system that you are advocating, why are South Easterners insisting on getting the presidency in 2023?  Won’t that quest sabotage the restructuring advocacy?

Restructuring is inevitable. I can’t put a date to it. Nobody, no president can govern Nigeria effectively and satisfactorily without restructuring. So, if the president is demurring, dodging, he is just postponing the doomsday, because it is not a personal agenda. It is an agenda distilled from the interest of the majority of the Nigerian people. If a region opts to pursue occupying the office of the president, it does not undermine restructuring, because the fundamentals of restructuring will not affect that person that wants to occupy the office in Abuja. And even after we restructure, you can still be president.  Their case is that the thing has moved round in terms of majority ethnic groups to the South, now it is their turn.

We are putting the things in what we call dialectics of politics. There are certain fundamental issues that are so large they must be pursued. But while that is going on, since the constitution has not been altered, restructuring will change the constitution and then make that presidency irrelevant. If the presidency is not in control of oil, if it is not taking 100 per cent from anybody, and minerals are in the hands of the states, the president will become purely ceremonial. So, while we pursue restructuring, that is, all the major interest groups, anybody who aspires to be president under party platform, not regional platform, they are free. While they are pursuing, if restructuring comes in-between, their dream will be redefined. So, it doesn’t obstruct our pursuit. It enhances it in the sense that it is equity they are asking for.

The current APC government came in on the wings of restructuring…

The APC defrauded Nigerians. It set objectives and abandoned them. So, they have lost credibility.

Even with the el-Rufai committee that has come up with a resolution that is yet to be implemented?

The el-Rufai committee was just a diversionary trick. If not, when el-Rufai finished, they would have implemented it. These are ruling class; you can even call it ‘yahooism’. They throw certain things at you to divert you and you take them seriously, while they are carrying out their evils.

Why do you think President Jonathan was unable to bring into effect some of those recommendations of the 2014 National Conference before he left office?

I think they should question him. We laboured and suffered at the conference in order to safeguard his integrity because he was an honest man. He addressed us on the 18th of March to declare the conference open. We analysed every word, he was sincere and committed. If he lacked the political courage to carry out the outcome, he should be held responsible, because he has made the thing more difficult for us. But the kingdom must come like a thief at night.  If the thing is historically correct, whether Jonathan implemented it or not is irrelevant.

Some elements, especially from the north, have rubbished the call for restructuring. Could you explain to people what restructuring is?

The only way to save Nigeria is to first kill it and then reconstruct it. We are able to talk now because we are alive. Restructuring means that one, Nigeria will return to the operation of a genuine federal system. And that federal system means that there will be two tiers of government: federal in Abuja, and states. The states will become the federating units of the Nigerian federation. Three, those states will have 100 per cent ownership and management autonomy over their natural resources, whether they are waters, rivers, minerals, air, human beings, spirits, religion. All the resources are 100 per cent the states›. So, that is the third definition: a hundred per cent ownership and management of resources that belongs to each region. But like an old student association, the Federal Government in Abuja will require services. The states will all agree on a percentage to be collected either every month or every quarter to run the federal establishment as it was in 1960 Nigeria.

The next element is that all the states that constitute Nigeria will have their constitutions to reflect their peculiarities. The next item is that the judiciary, all the hierarchies, each state will have its own supreme court as it is in America. Every state has its supreme court. Then you can have constitutional court in Abuja handling things that touch everybody. Each state has courts, from magistrates’ to supreme.

Next is policing and security. The conference was unambiguous. We called it a multiple policing system. It is not just state police; it is multiple police system which means there will be a federal police equivalent to the National Guards in America. That one is invited when a crisis has gone beyond control and they come to assist, not to dominate. Then the state government will have its own police formation. The IGP will be called IGP of the state and will be appointed by the House of Assembly. Only members and citizens of the state can be members of the police of the state. You cannot post somebody from Sokoto to Warri or from Maduguri to Sapele. That is abolished. Local governments will have their own policing system working with the state›s one.

If we have a single police like we have now, with less than half a million people, all the people in the Nigeria police are not enough to secure Lagos. You spread them over 36 states so the figure is too small, ineffective. Kidnappers and armed robbers have taken over Nigeria and the police have to negotiate with them. We have lost the country. Security and welfare of the citizens are the primary purpose of government and the APC government has long abdicated that responsibility. If you have decayed in the most central sense of responsibility, you cease to be an effective government.

So, we are talking about a very thorough structure and is meant to empower the grassroots, the owners of Nigeria. That is why it is being vehemently opposed, but it is inevitable. The stealing of the money that goes to Abuja will be halted and the money will be recycled to modernise, industrialise, and provide jobs, invention and opportunities. There is an armed robber government in Abuja that corners the wealth and is enjoying people dying. It has to be ended by whatever means necessary. We have reached a position in Niger Delta that we are craving and heading to our own federation.

From what you have said so far, it appears that the solution to Nigeria’s ailments revolves around restructuring. If the option of restructuring fails, what is the next option?

If they attempt at re-engineering and re-organising Nigeria for fairness and equity, it will not fail, because the procedures, the contents, the gains and the difficulties have been mapped out at the conference in 600 pages of documents.

What happens if restructuring does not see the light of day?

If it doesn’t take place, anarchy will worsen. It has shown from 2015 till now. Was Nigeria like this under Jonathan, under Yar’Adua, under even Obasanjo? You can see the trend. Is it a personal hatred for Buhari? It is not. It is about running a structure that does not work.

In the South, there are ideologues, great speakers, philosophers, political scientists, strategists, pontificators, etc but it seems Northerners are preparing for an eventual breakup more than Southerners. What do you think should be done other than just talking?

This captures a central weakness in both the organisation and thought system of what we call Southern Nigeria, and this can be explained even if it cannot be excused. Nigeria was assembled in 1914 with the South as economic slaves. It is clear.

The man that wrote the memo, Vernon Harcourt, was Secretary of State for London. He wrote a memo to Lord Frederick Lugard and found the answer: ‘Merge the North and the South. Let the North be husband. Let the South be wife’. He used those words. According to the law in England at that time, a wife was a property of the husband. That is what they transferred to us and because the man’s intervention helped to break a jinx, they named Port Harcourt after him. That city in Rivers State is named after Harcourt, the man who sold us to slavery. So, from the origin of Nigeria, these advantages were piled there.

But I am saying that for the purpose of historical accuracy, let us not dump, or lump the whole of the North into one interest group. Let us say that the Hausa/Fulani ruling class has enjoyed Nigeria and they have determined the fate of both the North and the South. They have used officers of the Middle Belt for the coups, assassinations, for the civil war. The Fulani people behave like the English in the UK. The English sent the Scottish and the Welsh to the colonies. All those Lugards, Moloneys were not English. The core of the Fulani caliphate oligarchy is the owner of Nigeria as handed over to them by the British. That has a historical advantage.

So, we have that layer of oppression and segregation. Then you come to Talakawas, the poor masses, they are in all the places. All these things are coming into the open now because the demand for restructuring has challenged the system and the system is now unveiling itself. All the illusions we had in the South, we want to be vice president, evaporated. In other words, give credit to the Fulani that they were so organised intellectually and ideologically that we did not know they were doing harm. The people who can do that are called ‘ruling class’. Those are the ones who can project, who will now know the governor of Lagos in 10 years’ time. They may even give him scholarship to Harvard. Later, they will come and install him. That advantage comes from conquest and domination. It is not read in books. For the purpose of our anthropological studies or culture, we don’t have equivalent of such clusters or power in the South.

We may have some myth about the Oyo Empire and Benin Empire 200 years ago. They all expired 200 years ago. They have not exercised power over conquered people. So, it makes us more Republican in attitude. We sight Western philosophies, freedom of speech, of association, which are meaningless to the conquerors. They have a mission to dominate. We have a mission to emancipate. So, we must fight those things out. That is why I said by any means necessary, we must gain our freedom. If it comes to argument in the parliament, we should go there and dominate. If it comes to media war, they are always in the media. So, you must marshal your forces to have sufficient scientific understanding of historical forces.

To answer your question, it is beyond eloquence; each ethnic group, each region should also master the art of self-defence. It is not exclusive of dialogue. Debate can go on; you exchange opinions; you look for liberal minds on that side and try to woo them in. But in the Niger Delta, we are not going to surrender any territory, we will defend it.

What would you say about the protracted ASUU strike?

ASUU has to first join us to save Nigeria, because if you don’t have a country, you can’t have education. You must have a country first, that is functional, that has a mission in the global community that wants to take ideas out and sell them. Why would the United States president-elect, Joe Biden, choose a Nigerian to be in his cabinet? If we are morons, would they choose a Nigerian? But he is operating in a clime where meritocracy shines. If Nigeria is restructured and stable, the whole world will know. So, we have to restructure Nigeria to become a functioning country and education will fit into its position.

During the anti-apartheid, South Africa was boiling and there were bombs being thrown on campuses by the ANC – the liberation movement. No university was closed for one day. When a bomb was thrown, in two hours, it had been cleared. If you close a university for 24 hours, you are 24 hours behind the rest of the world. That is the meaning. You can’t catch up. Why? Professor Kpako told me that a lab that would produce a Nobel Prize winner in science – not in literature or culture – must function for 25 years non-stop. The lab must not close down for one day. That is, the light should not fail and everything must be intact before you can produce a result that will be acceptable. And here, you have a strike for nine months? If you have a country that is manufacturing; that has goods to sell in the world market, would you allow your universities to shut down? Where will they do the designs and inventions to promote your goods in the world market?

Let me give the example of Korea that has 145 universities but has 2,800 research institutes funded by multinationals. The biggest multinational there is Hyundai. They are given about 20 or 25 institutes. You are to fund these institutes. Number two is Samsung, number three is Daewoo. They take the bulk of them, and take the money to them and say please we want a car that can fly from the ground that will not touch the ground. The university goes there to find the result. They will bring money and hire research assistants for the professors in physics and so on. Nobody sleeps. They are travelling to conferences to challenge their colleagues elsewhere. Education stopped in Nigeria long ago. And it is the only answer to development. It is not presidential system but the quality of the mental development of your people that will make them compete with their colleagues elsewhere, because the whole world is a competition.

Nobody in America or Canada knows the size or height of your president. It is irrelevant. If you bring a different Samsung to their market, made in Nigeria, then they will respect you. A country allows its universities to shut down for nine months; you think there is still a government there? All the knowledge in the world, all the systems that we have inherited, from Mathematics to religion, to monotheism, to architecture, to medicine, came from universities in Egypt 5,000 years ago. If they didn’t know, would they respect knowledge, would they have invented Mathematics?

We sent Ngige to go negotiate with ASUU. In a serious country, would you admit him as a postgraduate student?  It is not a labour matter. Intellectual work is not labour, it is science. It is reduced to a trade union affair. We should fear Nigeria. If you stepped out into the American world in two years, nobody would recognise you again. Nigeria government is playing education as football. Nigeria is tiresome. It is destructive. It is devastating. And it is a crime that it has held its people down and prevented them from achieving what nature endowed them with. A country that has done that to its own citizens does not deserve to exist.

What ASUU is arguing now was agreed in 2009, 11 years ago. Even if you implement it now, it is already valueless, whereas every five years, you increase the pay. Nigerian professors, after 20 years, are earning N450,000, whereas Uganda that is producing only coffee is paying its professors over N1 million. You think something is not wrong with us? It is a structural deformation. Even people in the ruling class ought to use their brains to manufacture goods and go and sell in the world market, but they are all satisfied with the little dollars that come from the crude oil. If you are not competing at the world stage, you can never have inventors.

What is your dream for Nigeria? Do you think there is still hope for the country?

My dream is very simple. Niger Delta will be liberated and become a federation on its own.

Will that bring the people fulfillment? 

It is not a personal dream. Yes, it may not bring the Eldorado but will break the yoke and then enable us to now examine how we are going to meet up with our peers in the world, the Kuwaitians, Saudi Arabians, Iraqis, Iranians is the model there – the most advanced science society in the world.

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