National Publicity Secretary of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), the apex socio-cultural group in the Niger Delta of Nigeria, Honourable Ken Robinson, speaks with EBENEZER ADUROKIYA on the score sheet of the seven-year reign of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
What›s PANDEF›s score for the ruling APC in the last seven years?
The APC government, for us, is not different from that of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). More than half of the people in APC today are from PDP. So, it›s about the leadership of the party and to that extent, APC has been in power for seven years and in all areas – economy, security, national consciousness, unity and general issues of governance in terms of people›s participation, they have performed below average. But in some areas, when it comes to some extent of freedom of expression, tolerance of contrary views, we think that they are slightly above average.
But the government of APC in the last six years has inflicted a lot of hardship in the lives of Nigerians. People are finding it difficult to live decent lives in this country, because everything has skyrocketed in terms of food prices, basic needs of people. And then, when it comes to the issue of security, the country is almost in a collapse. The government has obviously been overwhelmed with incessant killings and life is becoming meaningless in Nigeria. Meaningless and worthless people have taken the laws into their hands and we see these people kidnapping, killing and beheading other people in almost all parts of the country on a daily basis.
If Nigeria was on the scale of one to 10, Nigeria was at a scale of six in 2015 and in the last seven years, APC has taken us down further the scale, perhaps even four. In PANDEF›s view about the governance issue, the administration of the APC has done very badly; and it is our hope that whichever party that takes over from APC in 2023 even if it›s APC, the leadership of the country will shift away from what it is now. And that issues will be tackled frontally without bias, without tolerance to those that should be dealt with.For PANDEF, we will score the APC below average.
Do you buy the view from people that the government has been more of a curse than a blessing to Nigerians?
The government promised «change» and unfortunately, the «change» they brought is a negative one. If we look at where we were in 2015 before this government took over, the dollar was about N200 or so, but today, the dollar is almost going above N600 and that has affected every other areas in terms of cost and standard of living. It is also driving people into social vices, because criminality has increased which is reflecting in the issue of insecurity.
Then there›s vicious activities of those who call themselves terrorists, bandits or whatever. Those who said that this government is more of a curse than a blessing, you cannot fault them. The parameters are clear that things are going down and people are suffering. It is very unfortunate, that it is the citizens that are paying for the failures of the government.
From your own point of view and that of PANDEF, what is the way out?
It is what we will pray for, and what Nigerians should work towards. For us in PANDEF and the larger body that we are part of, we are insisting that the next president should come from Southern Nigeria, preferably the South-East. Having said that, we need to evaluate, properly, those the parties will bring forth as representatives. Look at their characters, pedigrees. Unfortunately, President MuhammaduBuhari was counted as a man of integrity, as a man who could deliver Nigeria from the situation that we were in at that time and that was mostly the issue of insecurity in the North-East. Even some international bodies thought that he could deliver the country, because of his military background, but unfortunately, it has turned out to be something else. He is no longer the person he used to be as GeneralMuhammaduBuhari; he is a different person, now. And he has health challenges that have also affected his performance and some people are taking advantage of those issues that he has and we see the obvious void in proper direction in the leadership of the country.
There are a lot of problems and we hope that the next president of Nigeria will be a person that is firm and fair; that will have the capacity to drive some of the issues and bring us back to where we should be as a country.
You are one of the larger bodies that have always been advocating restructuring; shouldn›t that come first before the general elections?
We are also realistic and pragmatic that restructuring cannot be done in the next six months or seven months. And so what we will hope for is that the next president and next political class at the National Assembly should be sincere to themselves and to the rest of the country and say that ‹We have operated Nigeria under these circumstances for the past 60years. It has not worked and it will never work and until these imbalances, errors are corrected, we may not have a country that is truly a country.›After 2023, we are going to escalate the issue of restructuring and ensure that Nigeria becomes a true federal nation.
Some people believe that the person who is at the head of affairs is not actually the issue, but the way the country is tailored and structured to favour a particular ethnic group or region. How will zoning the president to the South actually solve the problems of Nigeria?
The issue of nepotism that has characterized the Buhari’s presidency is completely a different matter from the issue of skewed constitution that was imposed on the country by the military. There are some provisions in the constitution that attain to correct or check those gross imbalances. For instance, the federal character clause is yet to some extent check the imbalances. And if we have a president that is without bias and sees himself as the president of the country and the entire Nigeria is his constituency, then we won›t see some of these things that we have seen in the last seven years.
Do you recommend a revolution through civil disobedience?
The government of any nation derives its powers from the obedience of the people. The moment the people say that they are tired and no longer take unlawful instructions and laws and disobey constituted authorities whether violently or peacefully is one of the changes. And we have been portraying this through advocacy and to call people to understand that if you refuse a peaceful change, violent change might become inevitably.
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