Yinka Odumakin, an activist and human rights crusader is the Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, the Yoruba social political organisation. A fearless and down to earth critic of some of the activities of the present government, Odumakin is worried that the way the present government is going that it may not be long before the dooms day comes calling unless there is a drastic change in the nation’s approach to politics. In this interview with PATRICK OKOHUE, Odumakin argues that unless the country is restructured it may not be long before it disintegrates. He also counsels political leaders of Southern Nigeria to forget party loyalty and forge a common front if they intends to have power return to the South anytime soon.
There seem to be tension in the land lately, especially with travails of the converner of the #RevolutionNow, Omoyele Sowore in recently and other things that have made many people worried, but are you concerned?
Well, welcome to the next level, the Nigerian situation has reached a disturbing point, I saw something on the net yesterday, it said Nigeria was looking for solution to its problems, but it has found a problem. If you remember in 1986 when Justice SJ Cookey, who was in charge of Political Bureau for Babangida (former President Ibrahim Babangida), wrote to Chief Obafemi Awolowo to participate in the PolitiBureau that Babangida put together to chart the political future of Nigeria, the great leader, Obafemi Awolowo wrote back to him to decline participation in that exercise and made some profound statements, he spoke to the future of Nigeria and today, the words of Awolowo has come to pass in the APC government.
Let me give you a snippet of that letter that Awolowo wrote to Cookey, it was on Friday, February 28, 1986 that Justice Cookey wrote to Awolowo requesting Awolowo to avail Nigerians the benefit of his wisdom, Awolowo wrote back to him, he said, ‘I received your letter of February 28, 1986 and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to national political debate, the purpose of this debate is to clarify our thoughts and search for a new path, it is therefore meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so, I do fervently and I will continue to pray fervently that I may be proved wrong, for something within me tells me loud and clear that we have embarked on a fruitless search.
At the end of the day, when we will imagine that the new order is here, we will be terribly disappointed. In order words, at the threshold of our new social order we will see for ourselves that as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical and idealistic, Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominates their hearts at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and government activities are exorcised, I am sorry to assert that they will not be exorcised and indeed it will be firmly entrenched, unless God himself will induce a vast majority of us with change in life and politics or unless dialectic process which has been at work for some 20 years now and thus make us perceive the abominable filth that abound in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic change for the better. There is offcourse alternative option open top us, to support permanent social instability and chaos, in the premises, I beg to decline your invitation’. That was Chief Obafemi Awolowo for you in 1986
Now 33 years after this letter and in the letter he referred to 20 years earlier, 53 years after, can we really say Nigeria is heading anywhere today different from what he said? Not in anyway, Nigeria is headed for the abyss. you saw what happened yesterday after the Punch Editorial, the staccato of statements, first Femi Adeshina said yes Buhari earned General, so nothing wrong with anybody calling him so, because he earned he should continue to be ruthless like a military dictator, when he himself said he is a born again democrat, what do you see in Nigeria today that suggests that this man believes in democracy? Then Garba Shehu later said oh! Punch you romanced dictator before, Obasanjo seized Lagos money you didn’t call him General. Let us agree that Punch romanced dictator before, do we then pray to continue to be under dictatorship. You saw what Aisha later released about Garba Shehu.
You can see the impunity, within 24 hours you removed Fowler (Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service), from the three zones of the South nobody seen fit to replace Fowler, 24 hours after you removed Banire, (chairman of the Asset Management Company of Nigeria), unfortunately nobody again and the North cornered the positions. Today in Nigeria you have the Head of the Judiciary, the Head of the National Assembly, the Head of the Executive all from core North. Security architecture, out of 17 service chiefs, 15 are from the North. In the Finance sector, Minister of Finance, Customs, FIRS, AMCON, NNPC, NPA and the rest of them all in the North and someone will now get up and say no more zoning in 2023 we will continue, to continue this? Nigeria is now in the grip of anxiety and unfortunately, they cannot see temporary power, they believe that they are in charge nothing can happen, we will rule this place forever, where is Sani Abacha today? Look all these things they are doing now there is the need for them to know, do you know that Broad Street in Lagos at a point was Yakubu Gowon Street, what is it today? Is it not Broad Street?
But, I have a concern, you belong to a social cultural political organisation, Afenifere, which by all means is a strong voice in the South West, but there seem to be a division within that group which has weakened the voice of Afenifere, in the South East there are people very opposed to Ohanaeze Indigbo and these are organisations that ought to be able to galvanise their zones to stand up to what is happening, but that is not happening, so, how do you think these people will not continue the way they said they will? I was having a discussion with somebody a few days ago, my friend in the USA from the South East, he was saying the role the Yorubas played in the past, there are no leaders today to stand up to those ideals like that of Awolowo. Truth be told, the leaders in Nigeria are made in South West, the South West made Awolowo, Ajasin, Abraham Adesanya and many like that, but Nigeria today has raised its own kind of leaders, who are accountable to it, who are in its image and in many areas. I was in Kiagbodo, Delta State about two weeks ago, the Edwin Clark University were having their maiden convocation and I was there, after the event we retired to the home of Chief EK Clark to eat, I remember I was at the table with Dr. JP Clark, Prof. Anya O. Anya, Gen. IBM Haruna, Gen Zamani Lekwot, among others and a discussion arose, and someone on the table said look if we rally around the South East they should be able to take the reigns of power, but two eminent Igbos said no, we don’t want 2023, because if Nigeria remains as it is we do not want a Fulani President who will answer Igbo name. So, clearly they are picking leaders of their own type who will respect their values and protect their interests. That is why things are dysfunctional, the front men from the South today are behaving like political servants to those who have held the country to ransom and they don’t give a damn about them. When APC was campaigning in 2015, go and get the video again, when you see Buhari who were those surrounding him? You will see Fayemi, you will see Asiwaju, you will see Okorocha, Amaechi, and the rest of them, you will think at that time that Buhari just dropped from the sky, that he has nobody from his zone, but the day he won election that he went to collect the Certificate of Return from INEC, go and check the photograph and look at all the people around him, they were all Fulanis, so clearly we are at the next level.
Afenifere has been at the forefront of calling for restructuring, but with the present state of things, do you really think restructuring is the solution to the nation’s problem today? Restructuring is not just desirable, it is a necessity, some of us have come to the conclusion that Nigeria has two options today, restructure or disintegrate, there is no third option, the third option is to continue this patch patch and allow things fall apart on its own, there is no solution in sight, how was our debt before 2015, Prof Anya o. Anya put it succinctly, in three years of this administration, we have borrowed more than we did in 30 years and now we want to go and borrow another $30billion to invest in terminal crisis.
Maybe that is why they are so reckless, maybe they have foreseen the end of Nigeria and they want to take what they can take before thing go comatose. And you ask yourself in the midst of what we are facing why will anyone be talking of building a road from here to Algiers, why will anybody be building rail line to Niger Republic, why will anybody be saying that we are closing borders so that Rice will not come, yet you say you want to open our borders to all Africans without visa and when you talk of Africans you are talking of Fulanis across Africa. So, it appears very perilous times for us in Nigeria, all the signs for those who can read it points to an unfortunate ending for Nigeria.
Some persons have accused the South West of being largely responsible for what Nigeria is going through today, because they said those in power today were more or less put there by the help of the people of the South West, do you think the South West still have the power to change the political equation today and install another government in 2023? I don’t think that will be correct to say South West, people like us are we from North East or South East or South South? We are from South West, we were not part of this, we warned against it, in 2015 if you look at the vote in South West, Buhari had 52 percent, Jonathan had 48 percent, the 48 percent who voted for Jonathan in South West are they from other zones, are they not from here? If you say APC South West fine, but to say South West that is too generalised.
Yes, APC South West delivered Presidency, especially because for the three times that Buhari contested before, the only reason he didn’t become President was because he didn’t win any zone in the South, but in 2015 APC South West gave him 52 percent of South West and he became President, so it is right to say yes, but where we are today now, if we want to get out of this we have to forget about South West alone, not one zone can do it, we must all rise like one man, like I was writing in one of my columns on Sunday, that I have heard some people still saying I have no sympathy for Sowore, that Sowore was one person who brought this upon us, I said no, infact if Sowore is one of those who brought them to power and they are treating him like this, the more reason why those of us who opposed them should be scared. The Yoruba has a saying, that when you see a man disciplining his blood brother, same father same mother with pestle, he is hitting it on his head, you that is a half brother should run, because when he turns to you your own will be AK47 bazooka. Where we are now we should not be talking about 2015, we should be talking about how do we get out of this, because at the level where we are now even everybody coming together is not yet enough.
If that be the case, then what is possible? If we cooperate we can turn the tide, but if each zone or region think they can do it on their own, trying to cut corners they will over run us all, because as at today everywhere were money comes is in their hands, they have taken over the security apparatus, everything, but a united people can make nonsense of all of that, but once we begin to think we can do otherwise, it will be unfortunate. In the days of the slave rule, a British man wrote to a Banker in Vienna and asked him how do very few of you keep so many under your subjection, he replied with only a sentence, keep them divided. So if we get our ass together, because it is only in the South today where you are playing party card, asking which party do you belong to, you are APC and you are PDP.
I even laugh when some of the people who don’t know anything in South West begin to say our party, which your party? About two or three months ago Buhari broke it down for you when he said when we wanted to start APC the South West was easier for us to woo, because they are already organised, there is a structure there, the South East was the most difficult for us to woo, so from the language of the President they are the husbands, they had decided what they wanted, and that was the language Laggard used at amalgamation, that I have found Northern suitor for Southern Lady of means and we still remains the lady of means, so if we say oh South South has done this South East will do that, then we still have not started.
Quote Restructuring is not just desirable, it is a necessity, some of us have come to the conclusion that Nigeria has two options today, restructure or disintegrate, there is no third option, the third option is to continue this patch patch and allow things fall apart on its own, there is no solution in sight, how was our debt before 2015, Prof Anya o. Anya put it succinctly, in three years of this administration, we have borrowed more than we did in 30 years and now we want to go and borrow another $30billion to invest in terminal crisis
