Former Secretary of the National Democratic Coalition, Ayo Opadodun, shares his thoughts with DANIEL AYANTOYE on the country’s federalism, and agitation for secession, among other issues
Reporter: You recently called on President Bola Tinubu to return Nigeria to true federalism. Do you think the president can succeed in an area that his predecessors failed to address?
Ex Sec: First, let me set the facts right. I never called for true federalism. There is nothing like that. Federalism is federalism, and there is no qualification for it. That is why federalism in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, and the United States is practised differently. Federalism is a system of government that recognises the differences in a given state where you have a heterogeneous community of people with diverse cultures, religions, traditions, etc. In that diversity, they meet at the centre on agreed terms, and articles of faith; each different unit will have its constitution and they have that of the central government. It is the component unit that allocates powers to the central government and not the other way around. That was what we had in Nigeria during the First Republic.
It was the military that violently overtook the Tafawa Balewa government, abrogated the negotiated federal constitution, and substituted it with their military decrees which centralised Nigeria from then till date. As to whether President Bola Tinubu will succeed in this regard or not, there is a wide difference between Bola Tinubu and his predecessors. He was part of the core leadership of the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, and he spent his fortune and connection towards the restoration of democracy and the revalidation of the annulled victory of the (June 12) president-elect, Bashorun MKO Abiola. So, President Bola Tinubu knew and still knows what we are fighting for.
Reporter: Are you saying it is a must for the President to return Nigeria to the federal system?
Ex Sec: I believe that President Bola Tinubu has an abiding duty to make the return of Nigeria to federalism a reality because he was part of us when we were fighting for democracy which led to the realisation of the Fourth Republic. That fight didn’t come on a silver platter; we lost our sweat, blood, possessions, and freedom. Some people were forced to go on self-exile and some were battered. Again, in the All Progressives Congress manifesto, it was stated that if the political party was elected into government, it would return Nigeria to federal constitutional governance and that was the promise upon which the party was voted into office.
When we saw that in the third year of Buhari’s government, they were not taking any measures in that direction, we started campaigning for it again to the extent that because of the public outcry, the party was forced to set up the (Nasir) El-Rufai panel on constitutional review. The panel made some key recommendations, including that there must be devolution of power to the states. That is to say that many of the functions currently being performed by the central government ought to return to the states. Also, there should be fiscal federalism and thirdly, states that wish to merge should be allowed to do so. State police were also recommended and many others.
What we are asking President Tinubu to do is not NADECO’s matter, but for him to fulfill the promise that his party made to the Nigerian people. There is no doubting the fact that out of all those who have governed Nigeria, no one has a unique expertise, knowledge, or professional understanding of economics and finance like Bola Tinubu. Our challenge to him is that he should make an appropriate socio-economic policy that will quickly lift Nigeria out of the current intolerable level of poverty and economic miseries that Nigerians are going through. My only fear is that the currently warped, skewed, and lopsided national structure handed over to us by the military could be an issue in his will, but he is a streetwise guy who is capable of navigating his way through so that he can deliver to the people.
Reporter: Since the military handed over the lopsided structure, why has it been difficult for the subsequent civilian government to change the current structure you are talking about?
Ex Sec: Which civilian government? We gained independence in 1960. The civilian government was in office for a few years, and then the army struck. Until now, we have been subjected to military governance in Nigeria. Don’t deceive yourself that some civilians are in government. Democracy has been subverted and violence has been done to democracy. The military had undermined the propagation, nurturing, and popularisation of democracy in Nigeria. Many of them will not change the structure because they know how they got into office. That is why I said Bola Tinubu is a different kettle of fish. He has been an activist with us and Nigerians expect that he is in a position to write the wrongs, and now is the time, although sometimes, many who are voted into such office will not like the size of their power and influence to diminish.
Reporter: Are you saying the current system of government practised in Nigeria cannot get the country the development it desires?
Ex Sec: As it is today, it will never. It has violated all the basic universal principles because the current system has unitarised and centralised governance; it has resulted in the emergence of public policies that are unfair and bring injustice, inequity, discrimination, and total disregard and contempt for the rule of law. That is why the development we desire cannot be achieved. Since the end of Obasanjo’s military government, Nigeria has become a country of the opposite. We go to some African countries to preside over elections when we cannot run free, fair, and credible elections ourselves here. We export what we don’t have and we import what we have like petroleum. I hope that the current effort by President Bola Tinubu will be made to materialise quickly to change the misfortune that has befallen Nigeria. So, this system cannot produce results.
Reporter: When you say the state should determine local government workers’ pay, there have been concerns that some state governors are spending and mismanaging the local government funds. What do you make of this?
Ex Sec: Again, that is what the military did when they created the joint account (JAAC) provision in the constitution. There was nothing like that before. Under the federal constitution, there are constitutional provisions as to the responsibilities of the local government and how to source their funding. For instance, market, and radio licensing was the responsibility of the local government. Today, several responsibilities that should ordinarily be handled by the local government are now been carried out by the state forcefully.
The military sowed the seed of malfunctioning taken place in the local government. Again, several people who have governed their state are supposedly worse than armed robbers in the way they pilfer local government funds. But is it their fault that JAAC was created? If it was not created, they couldn’t have the audacity to be doing so. The state should set up guidelines.
Reporter: You were said to have described President Tinubu as the most competent President of Nigeria, but supporters of Peter Obi, Abubakar Atiku, and others will not agree with you on that. How did you come to this conclusion?
Ex Sec: That is a general statement. I said that with his expertise in economy and finance; he has a comparative advantage over all his predecessors. I didn’t say he is the most competent but when you talk about economy and finance, who else has that knowledge? Is it (Olusegun) Obasanjo, (Goodluck) Jonathan, (Umaru) Yar’Adua, (Sani) Abacha, (Ibrahim) Babangida, (Muhammadu) Buhari, (Johnson) Aguiyi-Ironsi, Muritala Muhammed or who? This is one person who is a chartered public accountant, treasurer, and auditor. He has run successful businesses on his own. So, in terms of these areas I have mentioned, he is well prepared for the task ahead.
Reporter: But despite these areas that you have mentioned, some of the President’s recent policies have been said to have plunged Nigerians into poverty. What is your take on this?
Ex Sec: I don’t believe you. It is as if you guys who are supposed to be purveyors of information, write on the spur of the moment. Buhari budgeted for subsidy up till the end of May and Bola Tinubu was sworn into office on May 29. You are asking the National Assembly which has not been constituted at that time to approve funds for subsidy. Look at what has happened since the removal of the subsidy. The amount of oil consumption that has been reported has gone down by almost 40 to 45 per cent.
Reporter: Perhaps it’s because the increase in price of the petrol and lack of money made many people abandon their cars which led to that reduction, or what do you think?
Listen, those who are benefiting from the subsidy are a very small number of people. They give bogus numbers as what they have imported which is not true most time. They collect the money for themselves whereas the government is forced to pay from N2tn to N3tn as subsidy. So, I don’t expect the kind of knowledge that President Bola Tinubu has to continue with the subsidy. Perhaps the method he used in removing it might be different from someone else, that is his style. What I expect him to do is to bring to reality, a quick measure of what he has started; to ensure that the natural gas that we have in abundance is been utilised to fuel our vehicle and others. Globally, fossil fuel is the most unwise thing to pursue; alternative fuel is what COP28 currently insists on. President Bola Tinubu has appointed young people into his cabinet whom I believe should be able to bring technology-based innovation into the government.
Reporter: In a bid to carry out some level of restructuring, former President Jonathan constituted the Oronsaye’s committee which presented its report, and Buhari set the report aside. Do you think President Tinubu should implement the report?
Ex Sec: President Tinubu must do so, and one thing I give to him is that he is a street-wise politician. There is no basis for a lot of ‘job for the boys’ agencies that the military had created. They just duplicated the functions of the ministries, which is why we have been spending over 80 per cent of our total earnings on recurrent expenditures. For the first time, we have a budget where both expenditures; recurrent and capital, are at almost the same level. Perhaps that is the beginning of better things to come, but for it to materialise and be institutionalised, he needs to ensure the implementation of the critical recommendation of the Oronsaye panel’s report.
We spend too much money on just one job because they created a different organisation for one job. There used to be a Police Traffic Department in control of our highways and they were performing. If they had spent the amount of money on that department as what is currently been spent on FRSC, we would have achieved better results. Also, if the Nigeria Army had not downgraded the Nigeria Police, the police intelligence department would have continued to be the best it was. Even until the coup of (Buka) Dimka, the Nigerian Army depended on the police intelligence report. So, there would have been no reason for the establishment of the EFCC.
You can say we have such agencies in other parts of the world but we don’t have their kind of economy because we are an underdeveloped economy and not developing. We don’t have that luxury. And any country that has the misfortune of having an underperforming police has been done for. The army decided because they didn’t want competition from the Nigeria Police; they undermined the development and progress of the Nigeria Police. In 1980, the police clamoured for ordinary water canon as soon as the Buhari government came into office; they ceased all of them from the police. Most of the things that should make the police become up-to-date technology-wise have been undermined for too long. The manner of recruitment into these security institutions undermines their efficiency.
Reporter: One of the provisions of the Oronsaye’s report is the need to reduce the cost of governance but with the huge number of appointees in President Tinubu’s cabinet, the cost of governance is further increased. What do you make of this?
Ex Sec: Give it to politicians, they will always play politics and I believe this political gamesmanship is on. Sooner than later, he will do what he needs to do. Again, for his emergence, you should appreciate that he could have rarely appropriated to himself a lot of IOUs which he had to pay back, which made it possible for him to win votes in some unexpected places. If he is accommodating some of them in his cabinet, you should give it to him. Again, remember when he was a governor in Lagos, he was the first governor to take a loan from the stock exchange at a particular reduced rate; the money was used for several infrastructural development in the state, which most states, including the central government then copied.
When he took the loan, he was conscious that taking the loan at that interest rate then was far better than waiting for the federal allocation and IGR where perhaps the cost of building the infrastructure would have increased. So, some of the things he is currently doing might be strange and awkward and it would yield development with time. Yes, there is no basis for crowding in governance; it is too much expense for the country to bear. That is why most of the citizens cannot earn N33,000 minimum wage, but you see what the politicians are earning.
Reporter: Perhaps that is the reason why it is said that many are ready to kill others for political office.
Ex Sec: Of course yes. Today, politics and religion are the most lucrative businesses that you have in the country. Most of the facilities and warehouses belonging to industrial establishments in Ikeja had been taken over by churches. So, the truth is that because of social economic, and political policies through military interchanged with their civilian collaborators, they undermined the essence of governance. They have not set up social economic and political policies that will aid local and foreign investment in our land. As soon as oil was discovered, they abandoned the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy which is agriculture.
Reporter: Do you think with the current security structure, state governors are incapacitated to protect their states and regions?
Ex Sec:How can they defend themselves? What police power do they have? Nothing! Some of the governors are spending state resources to finance the police operations in their state, yet they don’t have overall control over the police.
The Yoruba nation and Biafra agitators have always clamour for separation from Nigeria. Don’t you think such agitations should be shelved especially since the current President is from the South?
You call some of them agitators; they are terrorists whereas those who are disadvantaged and are been marginalised call them nationalists and defenders of their territories. Even in the Independence constitution, there was a clause that allowed individual regions to opt out if they wanted. But the British for their economic and political reasons, among the political leaders, refused. If you run the country well, nobody will agitate that they want to secede.
Reporter: Some regions in the country, including the Niger Delta region, have raised concerns about maginalisation and that they are been deprived of the full benefit of their resources. How can the feelings of these aggrieved regions be assuaged by the current administration?
Ex Sec:We should return to federal constitutional governance, and that situation will be solved.
Reporter: The Director of Defence Media Operations of the Nigerian Army, Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, recently listed the Yoruba self-determination movement as a threat to the peace in the South-West zone. How will you react to this?
Ex Sec:You know why I will not want to dignify him with any response; it is because it is a constitutional right of every individual to defend himself. General (Theophilus) Danjuma about three or five years ago told the people in Taraba State to defend themselves when some people were trying to erase them from their land. So, if any military man is saying that, it is a by-product of unitary, centralised governance that we are having in Nigeria, otherwise if we had a federal system where defence and security are federalised, it would not be so.
Reporter: With recent development, it appears the judiciary now decides who wins an election in Nigeria, and no longer the people. Are you not concerned about this?
Ex Sec: Elections should not be decided by the Nigerian Judiciary. It is destructive of the independent nature of the judiciary to be asked to impose who will govern the people for a particular period. The Nigerian people should do so at the polling unit. But that is when you conduct a free, fair, and credible election. Late former President Umaru Yar’Adua recognised that the election that Obasanjo conducted was the greatest assault on democracy and free elections; so, he set up the Justice Mohammed Uwais electoral reform panel which recommended things to do. None of those recommendations were implemented. For instance, the committee recommended that the electoral management committee should not be appointed by the sitting government. It is just like when you have a football match between Shooting Stars and Enugu Rangers, then you ask a nominee of Enugu Rangers to be the referee. Don’t you know the result already?
The panel recommended that anyone who wants to be INEC chairman or commissioner should apply. The Nigeria Judicial Council should sort the applications and make three recommendations to the National Council of State and they will then refer to the Senate for confirmation. However, the Nigerian state is not interested in that recommendation because that panel recommended the addition of representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigeria Bar Association, and some other interest groups to INEC so that the electoral management committee will be free and independent.
Another recommendation was that there must be the establishment of an electoral offences commission which will have prosecutorial powers so that anyone who commits an electoral offence should be arrested by the police and prosecuted. In spite of all that had taken place, who has been prosecuted for electoral offences in Nigeria? This is so because those whom they have assisted to get into office will have the power to appoint an attorney general or commissioner for justice who has authority by law to enter a Nolle prosequi which is a discontinuation of the case.
We, the CODER (Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms), sat down to review Uwais report and we made another recommendation that anyone supposedly elected but whose election is been challenged judicially should not be sworn into office until the judicial intervention has been finalised but it was not adopted. We went ahead to say that the burden of proof as to whether an election has been conducted fairly, and credibly should shift to the electoral commission because they have all the documents.
Reporter: But with the situation, some people appear to have lost faith in INEC and the judiciary. What is your advice to the government to set things right?
Ex Sec: If you return to federal constitutional governance, most of these problems are byproducts of the centralist and unitary system of government that we currently practice. In America, there is no central electoral committee. Each state conducts its elections.
Reporter: But there are state electoral commissions like LASIEC for Lagos, OYSIEC for Oyo, etcetera, which conduct the state elections except governorship and National Assembly polls?
Ex Sec: Yes, but we are only messing up everything. If we return to the federal system upon which Nigeria secures its independence, most of the crisis that you have will be reduced to the barest minimum. All the aberrations that the military has imposed upon us that have led us to this situation of injustice, unfair play, inequity, and total disregard for the rule of law can be tackled appropriately. And because as Nigeria, we have not been able to govern ourselves properly and we have not been able to establish a modern transparent, and productive government; we have been an abysmal failure to the black race which looks up to us to provide leadership for the black man.
Reporter: Some Nigerian languages may go extinct if nothing is done to protect them. What are the measures that can be put in place to ensure languages like Yoruba and Igbo are protected?
Ex Sec: Again, return Nigeria to federal constitutional governance, and then you will solve that problem. South Africa has just about 60 million people, do you know how many national lingua franca they have? About 11! How many do you think they have in Canada? Are you not concerned about the evil the British imposed on us? Between 1844 and 1848, even the Christian missionaries agitated seriously that the British government should allow Nigeria’s education system to be based on individual native languages, but it was rejected.
In the 60s, the late Professor Babs Fafunwa and his team at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then the University of Ife conducted research and divided the province into two. They used the Yoruba language to teach Primary 1 to the end and the other they used the English language, the result showed that those who were taught the Yoruba language performed excellently better than those taught in English. Can’t you understand the wickedness that the British have done to us? Does a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Philippine need the English language to thrive? Are they not performing better than the British in Science and Technology? Our young people are deprived of understanding their culture, tradition, and morals. You must not speak in your native tongue as they describe it as vernacular. They flog you in the school for speaking the Yoruba language. Yes, some can speak it but when it comes to writing it and responding to questions, many fail.
Reporter: Are you saying that schools should stop teaching the English language?
Ex Sec: That is why a return to federal constitutional governance will enable the regions and states to do that.