How do you react to the statement credited to Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, about fears over 2023 general election in the country?
Nigeria is a secular state. By this, I mean that religion has little or no role to play in the politics of Nigeria, except that our political class is one without direction, ideology and focus, and, thus, has failed to organise Nigeria and give leadership direction to the people. This loss of focus has caused religion and religious leaders to begin to play significant roles in the governance of Nigeria. If the politicians have gotten their acts together and have done what they are supposed to do, we shall have no business with ecclesiastical or religious leaders as far as political governance is concerned, let alone dictating the tune. But because the politicians have failed, almost every sector of the society, including religion, has gotten crucial roles to play in the society.
Our laws are, not effective and so, not workable. Citizens do not respect the laws and political institutions are weak, corrupt and do not deliver on their mandates. Personally, I do not think that the Sultan has raised any new or serious issue that has not been raised before by the ethnic nationality leaders or elders of Nigeria, similar religious leaders, civil society activists, labour leaders, women groups or the youth and students, among others. He just re-echoed what had been on ground, namely the issues of insecurity, bad governance, peace and the likes.
So, I share in the call for all of these, but we must go beyond the call to focus on more fundamental and serious issues that gave birth to these crises so that we can be able to holistically deal with or address the germane matters for a better, just, equitable and prosperous Nigeria.
What are the critical issues that must be addressed?
Over 80 per cent of ethnic nationalities (owners of the Nigerian federation) have agreed that there are wrongs and these must be judiciously addressed and they have to do with fundamental restructuring so that Nigeria will be a free, just, responsible, truly federal and a prosperous society. This restructuring will unmask Nigeria’s deceit of running a monarchical, unitary system under the canopy of federalism or a federal arrangement and would return us to the prosperous era of thorough federalism as captured by the 1963 Republic Constitution.
Local government must go and each federating unit shall create as many local governments or provinces as they like. The federating units shall absolutely control their resources and pay taxes or royalties to the Federal Government, which will deal with few issues, namely armed forces, foreign affairs, Supreme Court, sports, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and currency, etc.
There shall be state and community policing and the federating units shall be allowed to develop at their individual capacity and pace.
This arrangement will kill the feudal conspiracies and arrogance that have kept Nigeria from geometric growth and development and reposition us in the county of global nations. This is the positive way forward and the road to go so that analogue ideas and ancient elements can no longer rule a modern 21st century state.
What do you think should be the way forward?
I was at the 2014 National Conference hosted by former President Goodluck Jonathan. At that conference, the majority of the 494 delegates drawn from the majority of the ethnic nations, professional associations, labour, civil society movements, students and youth associations, religious groups, military, police and paramilitary organisations, strategic institutions and women groups, among others, who sat for four and a half months, critically looked at the sick country called Nigeria and brilliantly recommended the solutions to the sickness.
Unfortunately, rather than pursue the pious implementation of the recommendations, both Jonathan and our political class began the wild goose chase. This is what has compounded the ugly situation and kept us where we are today. The only solution to Nigeria’s challenges is the thorough, fundamental and strategic restructuring of Nigeria. Any other recommendation is deceptive, shaky and fallible and so, cannot survive and stand the test of time. Presidency has no relevance as to the type of restructuring that we are talking about and after this restructuring, any one ethnic group or family can continue to produce the president of Nigeria.
Some of us may not be interested because the fundamental things that touch on the lives of the people and nations making up Nigeria have been duly sorted out.
There has been long agitation for a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction. Is Igbo presidency feasible in 2023?
The unwritten understanding between the conservative class in the North and South in 1999 is that each divide would produce the president of Nigeria for two terms of eight years and get it rotated to the other region. There are three zones in each divide of North and South. The South-West has served out its eight-year term. The North-West is about serving for six year plus term, while the South- South has served for six years plus. The distortion in the execution of this understanding was caused by the death of Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua in 2009. He died mid way into his first tenure. Nobody can be blamed for this divine matters because it beyond all of us.
It is, therefore, expected that after the expiration of tenure of the North in 2023, it would be the turn of the South. Since the South-South and South-West had had their shots at the Presidency, justice and equity demand that it would go to the South-East in 2023.
However, some of us who have seen the gross inequity, injustice and repression in Nigeria caused by iniquitous lopsidedness in the distribution of offices, amenities and tapping of natural resources in the land and have been demanding for fundamental, thorough and strategic restructuring of Nigeria are no longer interested in producing the president of Nigeria. We demand that Nigeria be restructured in the fashion explained above in order to allow the peoples and nationalities of Nigeria equal rights, privileges and opportunities. What does the Igbo man who understands this dynamics of the fraudulent operation of Nigeria want Nigerian Presidency for? Of the six zones in Nigeria, the South-East has the least number of states; five. Of 774 local governments, Ndigbo have 95, while Kano alone has 44 and Jigawa has 27.
We have the least number of federal amenities in the zone and our people are hugely marginalized in the running of the country. Our natural resources are not tapped or exploited, so as to allow us access to the gains of these God-given resources. The infrastructural facilities in Igbo land are monumentally inadequate, with the existing ones decaying and our people are exposed to Paleolithic or stone-age life in the 21st century.
This is unacceptable. Ndigbo demand that Nigeria be thoroughly, fundamentally and strategically restructured, so that freedom, justice and fairness are accorded to all of us. We don’t want an Igbo Presidency that would be run from palaces in Sokoto and Kano and in the homes of retired Generals who never won a war.
As I said earlier, Ndigbo cannot be slaves of a federal society run like a monarchical and feudal state. Therefore, rather than demanding for an Igbo Presidency, I opt for, and urge Ndigbo and, indeed, all oppressed nationalities in Nigeria to unite and demand for the true restructuring of Nigeria before another corrupt and manipulated general election in Nigeria.
Following the just concluded general election in the country, what are your expectations from President Muhammadu Buhari’s second tenure?
As a human rights activist, I expect that President Buhari may have learnt his lessons in the past that he performed abysmally poor in almost all directions and learn to correct the ills or failures of the past. His appointment of ministers was delayed. He said he wanted to do a thorough check and give Nigeria the best. Few weeks to the end of his first four years in office, we are still expecting the coming of the Christ like the Jews.
Two, insecurity has matured from the operations of Boko Haram in the North-East to all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria with lives and property lavished and places of worship wickedly destroyed. Similarly, women are rabidly raped in their homes, farms and even on the roads. Cases of underage girls who are cruelly abducted, kept in emirs’ palaces as sex slaves and willfully married and converted to Islam against their and parents’ wishes are manifest in this first tenure. Instances of extra judicial killing by state actors and mass hunger, mass unemployment and mass poverty and, indeed, hopelessness have become the order of the day.
Lopsided appointments that totally abuse the constitution and the federal character law are clear and prevalent. Our currency has become completely hopeless in the global arena and Nigerians have become slaves in their own country and ignobly disrespected in foreign lands.
Above all, corruption in various ways has become the character of this regime, despite award of open pass mark to self and campaigns that tend to portray the government as an open and transparent system.
The rule of law and human rights are eroded and unity, peace and love have eluded Nigeria. We have become divided more than ever and the falcon no longer hears the falconer in Nigeria.
We can go on and on. Therefore, my expectations from President Buhari’s second term is for him to appoint credible, open, just and Godly entities who will work with him to right these wrongs and place Nigeria in her pride of place in the comity of global nations. Those denied justice, especially the South-East which is marginalised, the underage girls in monarchical custodies and the youth who are denied the goodies of life via joblessness and induced poverty should be justly treated. The rule of law and human rights must be respected and happiness, love and unity must return to the people.