Only regional arrangement can save Nigeria —Honourable Omogbehin, Reps. member

Honourable Michael Adeniyi Omogbehin is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) representing Okitipupa/Irele Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. In this interview by AYODELE ADESANMI, he insists that regionalism is the panacea for the various agitation across the country, among others issues.

 

Cries of marginalisation and restructuring are unrelenting in recent times. Do you think the implementation of the 2014 Confab Report would douse the tension?

The reason for the 2014 National Conference was to resolve this issue of various agitations around power sharing, restructuring and, to that extent, I will say it is important to implement the report. The problem of Nigeria today, to me, is the absence of ownership. People do not own Nigeria because it is poorly structured, looking at the history of Nigeria and how we started and came together in 1914. Before the military intervention, the country was developing and the development of those days was better. By this, I am referring to healthy competition among regions. Unless we sit down and talk critically about restructuring and fiscal federalism, we will continue to face that question. If that is the only thing we can take, I will be satisfied and until this issue is settled, Nigeria would continue to have the problems we are having presently, while we continue to chase shadows in the name of fighting corruption when our problem is the ownership question.

There is no single report that can proffer solution to the general problems of a nation, but l am saying that, today, the basic problems we have is the poor structure of this country. I belief that that confab report has an answer to the proper restructuring of this country so that people can now take ownership of their region. If that is done, people can now rightly manage what belongs to them under a particular agreement. This country started with the southern and northern protectorates that came together and later on we had the North, the South, the West and the East. The major developments we see in Nigeria today were recorded under regionalism. Suddenly, we were balkanized into 12 states and from there to 19, to 21, and now 36 states. I strongly believe in regionalism; it was during regional government that we have University of lfe, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Then, there was healthy benchmarking and competition. Things were going on smoothly until suddenly the military came and scattered everything.

 

With all that has been going on recently in terms of ethnic tension, can we really say Nigeria is one?

One of the greatest shocks in our constitution is the first phrase, ‘We, the people of Nigeria’. It is one of the fraudulent statements I have ever read. At what point did we people of Nigeria get together to agree? In the first instance, the forceful amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates was not by the people of Nigeria; it was done by the Europeans. The 1999 Constitution was not by the people of Nigeria; it was by the military. So, at what time did we agree to become? And if we ever agreed, we did so to live by region by region; it was never by the decision of Nigeria to have 36 states. I think we can still live together, but can two people commence a journey without first agreeing?

The truth of the matter is that we are on a journey together today in the name of Nigeria without agreeing on our terms. But at present, we have a document in the confab report which we have agreed upon, at least, to a certain degree; at least, to the degree of restructuring, among others. To me, you can’t continue to go to somebody’s father backyard to take his oil, bring it to Abuja and keep giving him money piece meal. You can’t have peace and that is why the cocoa production in the West has gone down. Equally, that is why the cotton and groundnut production in the North has gone down and the palm oil in the East.

In my opinion, we must go back to farming and, if we must do that, we need to select some of our cash crops and provide a trust fund for them. I would soon present a bill on “Cash Crop Trust Fund.” The reason why we abandoned our cash crops is because we found oil. If we restructured, we would no longer find oil as one big product as this would return the North, East, West and South back to the old glory economically. The way we are now, honestly, the man from Bayelsa can never be comfortable with what is happening, likewise the Niger Delta generally. We in the West have abandoned our cocoa; the North has abandoned cotton and ground nut; the East has abandoned palm oil and that we are living solely on oil, while we continue to devastate the environment and get pittance from the end product. That arrangement looks unnatural and if is unnatural, it would never be acceptable to a natural man.

I have said several times that the problem of Nigeria today is that this country lacks ownership. Look at America where the president takes the country as his own. All we are having in Nigeria is sectional leaders. This country Nigeria needs ownership. The time Chief Obafemi  Awolowo owned the West, it developed; the Ukpabi Azika owned the East, it developed  and the time Ahmadu Bello owned the North, it developed and together as a country we were developing. The truth of the matter is that the military deprived the country of ownership as they balkanized the country. They were ruling on their personal interest and friendship. The more they do this, the more they put imaginary boundaries. “To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done» was the slogan of the civil war era, but it tells you that the man who said it knew that Nigeria is not one.

 

What is your view about the quit notice recently issued by the Arewa youths to the Igbo living in the North?

If Nigeria is one, would anybody give quit notice to anybody? This is an indication that we are not one. That is an indication that to keep Nigeria one is a failed task. The statement was the most treasonable I have ever heard in this country and look at the way we are treating it with levity. There is absolutely no comparison between that statement and the demand of the Igbo. The demand of the Igbo is permissible under the international charter. Even if the agitation for Biafran ceases today, the Igbo will still exist, after all, a lot of Nigerians are residents in the United States of America, Ghana and Niger Republic and they are not citizens of those countries.

 

What is the state of your party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State, especially aftermath the defeat it suffered at the governorship poll last year?

The former governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, said before the last governorship election that the PDP can only lose to the PDP in the state. What happened during the election in Ondo State was very simple; PDP lost that election to PDP and we could see this in so many ways. The crisis preceding that election was between the PDP and the PDP which got us divided and unsettled. We never prepared for the campaign; we were in court when every other party was campaigning. Most of the votes that ensured victory for the All Progressives Congress (APC) came from the PDP members.

We need to reconcile our differences and become one powerful, unified family member. The party should try as much as possible to bring back our members who have gone to other different political parties so that we can have a solid home. I am sure a lot of them who found themselves in different political parties must have done their comparison now and must feel that the pasture is not as cleaner as they expected. I am sure reconciliation would become easier now and once that is done, we would come back to our winning ways in Ondo State.

 

Do you think the party could still regain the state and the country in general?

Honestly, day-in day-out, my confidence in the PDP being able to regain its lost glory get strengthen, no thanks to the misbehaviour and maladministration of the APC government we are having today/ The facts speak for itself; they are there for everybody to see. It was true that the PDP had problems with Nigerians as a party when we are in government, but Nigerians now have the opportunity of doing comparative analysis between the PDP and the ruling APC. All what the PDP needs to do is to reconcile ourselves as all the people who won the last election for APC are members of the PDP. Presently, people who left for the APC have seen that it was just a conglomeration of disenchanted persons and is not actually a political party like the PDP.

Everybody knows that the PDP is a political party, while the APC can never be considered as a political party. It is just a movement of people who are aggrieved and who are thirsty for power. They are aggrieved with the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan and are looking for revenge. That is why there is this overwhelming crisis in the party because they are not one and not bound together with ideology, neither are they bound together by combination of party discipline and principle.

I served under the administration of Dr Olusegun Agagu and was also a member of the party under Dr Mimiko and if it were possible to take the contributions of the PDP away from Ondo State, you would have nothing again. The performance of the PDP in Ondo State covers every sector, including rural electrification, human capital development, school building, water and market stalls, among others. Take away all these contributions from the PDP government and the state would have been empty.

 

A cardinal point in the manifesto of the APC government was to fight corruption, but can we say we are winning the war?

Ab initio, there was no plan to fight corruption, by my own understanding. What the government is doing is to bring members of opposition to book to justify the money spent on election. There was a plan to fight members of opposition who have lost election. Where is the evidence to show that this government is fighting corruption? All you need to do as a member of the PDP and you have a corruption case is just to defect and you become a saint. Evidences on the ground indicated corruption was more fought under the PDP than the APC.  There is no war against corruption; what we have now is war against opposition.

 

What do you think could account for the unending feud between the executive and the legislature?

If the disagreement is pursued in a healthy environment, it is good for the ordinary Nigerian.  If the executive and the legislature are disagreeing, that is good for Nigeria. But if it is taking a very dangerous dimension, that is not good. When there is too much romance between the legislature and the executive, then the electorate are in trouble as it simply means a serious compromise is going on. To me, as it is, the face off is good for the people, but when it is taken too far, that is when it is no longer alright. In Western democracies, such crises do exist but they are ironed out before they escalate.

What I am seen in this scenario is that some cabal in the APC want to dictate to the leadership of the National Assembly. One other thing was that the leadership of the National Assembly was chosen by the lawmakers themselves. It was never imposed by the executive as they wanted to. So, this is what is happening. Most of the disagreement is on budget appropriation and whoever that is dissatisfied with the way and manner the legislature handled the budgetary process should go to court. The budget appropriation is the property of the people and members of the parliament are the representatives of the people. Therefore, it is their property.