A former lawmaker, member of the 2014 National Conference and Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Senator Femi Okurounmu, shares his thoughts with OLUFEMI ADEDIRAN on the proposed bill by the House of Representatives to return Nigeria to a regional system of government, among other issues
A bill is being imposed to return Nigeria to a regional system of government. As a member of Afenifere and a major supporter of restructuring, what is your reaction to this?
I have to know that the bill’s author is not a member of the House; he is a private person just flying the kite as to what he believes. Anybody can sit down and write his draft constitution; many draft constitutions are available.
During the NADECO days, several of them (draft constitution) existed. So, he believed Nigeria should return to regionalism and he wrote it as a draft constitution, hoping that he would persuade members of the legislature, the House of Representatives, and the Senate to adopt it. It remains purely his private document.
Many Nigerians, particularly Afenifere, have been calling for the restructuring of the country over the years, but this is still not happening. What is your message to the President on this?
My message to the President, both silently and loudly in many forms, is that if he wants us to take him seriously, now that he is in a position to do something about it, now is the time for him to embark on the restructuring of Nigeria along the line that all of us in Afenifere agreed, because he was an Afenifere member; he still claims to be an Afenifere member even till today.
The President still recognises Pa Reuben Fasoranti as his leader, and he paid a visit to him before the election. Fasoranti has already led a team to Aso Rock to greet him after he took office. So, he still considers himself an Afenifere member. So, my message to him is that he should not disappoint himself. This is the time for him to walk the talk and embark on measures to restructure Nigeria along the lines that everybody will feel happy and fulfilled.
Some people have said President Bola Tinubu’s administration may have started implementing some of the recommendations of the reports of the 2014 confab, with the adoption of the old national anthem. Do you agree with this position?
There are lots of false reports. The 2014 national conference did not recommend that we go back to the old national anthem. When we started the Confab, there was the issue of whether we should have an opening prayer or closing, whether it should be Islamic prayer or Christian prayer and to avoid all these conflicts between faiths, we decided that the third stanza of the old anthem which is a form of prayer should be used.
It is a very good prayer for Nigeria; so, we all unanimously adopted the third stanza of the old anthem to be our prayer. Each time we were going to say the opening prayer, we always said the third stanza of the old national anthem, we adopted it as a prayer for Nigeria, we did not say go back wholly to the full anthem as a national anthem.
Will you advise that another national conference be held to accommodate some of the new trends, or we should still go on with the implementation of the 2014 confab report?
I will not recommend another conference. Some people felt we should go back to regionalism; some people were strongly opposed to regionalism. So, the conference at the end did not recommend that we should go back to regionalism. The South-West went to that conference seeking regionalism, but we didn’t succeed. So, regionalism was not part of the report. Again, the South-West went to that conference, seeking a parliamentary system of government and we didn’t succeed in achieving it because the conference did not recommend a reverse to a parliamentary system.
There were lots of compromises, but it is good to come to compromises. If we have a chance to restructure, the report of the conference will not be the ideal way to restructure Nigeria. I have come out with a private movement that I belong to, to offer a way out on what we need to do to restructure Nigeria in a way that we can have good governance and sufficient autonomy for each of the constituents of Nigeria to feel self-fulfilled. We have what we call the People’s Charter and this rests on five pillars of reforms and restructuring because reform is part of restructuring.
But some have argued that there is nothing wrong with the presidential system of government, but that the leaders and handlers of the country’s affairs have not been doing well. What is your take on this?
We have to abandon this presidential system of government. The presidential system of government is killing Nigeria. It is killing Nigeria in the sense that, one; it is so expensive to operate. The way Nigerians operate the presidential system is very expensive; the way Nigerians have been operating it is very corrupt and it breeds corruption. It encourages corruption, and it doesn’t allow good people to come into leadership positions.
You have to be a billionaire to become a president in Nigeria today, and being a billionaire doesn’t mean you are the smartest, it doesn’t mean you have good ideas for Nigeria, it doesn’t mean you have a good vision for Nigeria. Normally, in politics, political parties are organised around visions and different visions for society. In Nigeria, the presidential system encourages gangs of people who call themselves political parties, who are just after wealth and power, and whichever gang of the so-called political party offers a politician the greatest opportunity to achieve his objectives of making the most money or having power, he will join because all the gangs are the same. They all have two goals, to make money and to have power.
In seeking power, you find out that most of them are people with very dubious backgrounds because since you need to have a lot of money to contest in the first place, you can imagine if you already have to pay more or less N50m to get the form, then you have to contest primaries, which is going to cost you billions of naira before you even come to the election itself. So, it is only billionaires that can do it, and most of them didn’t make their money through hard work; they didn’t make their money through industries that they set up employing Nigerian workers. Most of them made money through crime-related activities.
Once they are not caught and they are not imprisoned, they believe that they are okay to go and contest. So, the field is left for them, and instead of having our best people in government, we are having our worst people, and the ideal thing is to have the brightest and the best in government; that is how you get good governance. In the United Kingdom, which was our colonial master, that is their slogan; government is for the brightest and best; that is why you see most of them who are in politics are products of Oxford, Cambridge, and so on.
What is your view about the relationship between the executive and the legislature in the country’s democracy?
The legislature is supposed to act as a check, but in our environment, once you have settled the legislators and you make sure that they also have their share of the loot, they give you the freedom to loot the treasury as much as you want, so the looting becomes a joint enterprise. It is a joint enterprise between the executive and the legislature so that everybody is satisfied. Even though we have different political parties in the legislature, once they get there, they become just one political party, and there is no difference anymore.
When they all got to the Senate, nobody complained that he didn’t want an SUV. When they were padding the budget, only one person complained, and he was suspended. So, they become one, you are not even allowed to complain, or to protest once you get there. Whatever the corrupt leadership wants to do, you have to go along.
Then, the primary system, our constitution, somehow, gave INEC the power to say conditions by which people will select candidates, and INEC invariably says they must go and have primaries. Again, having primaries is like an auction. If you want to be a leader, only the richest can be leaders. For example, if you want to contest for the presidency, you want to go to a national convention where there are going to be primaries to select the presidential candidate, and now, the president wants them to vote for him, he will have to pay for the transportation of all the delegates from each state.
He will be the one to bear the cost of their hotel and feeding expenses, and they cannot come back home empty-handed; he must also give them something to take home, that is the only time that he can expect that they will vote for him, and even that does not guarantee that they will vote for him because other candidates too will give them the same thing.
In the last primary election, the major candidates were alleged to have bribed delegates as much as $50,000 each, you can imagine how much that will come to. When they are going for primaries these days, they use planes to carry money so that they can have enough money to give to delegates. If that is the way you are going to select the leader, how can we then complain that that leader is corrupt when he gets there? If you have a system that compels the leader to spend that much money before he becomes president or to a lesser extent, governor, and he gets there and starts stealing money, how can we complain? The very system that we are using to select our leaders is faulty.
The third pillar is for us to restructure INEC. Unless we restructure INEC to become truly independent, all the elections will just be a joke. If we are going to go through elections and INEC is going to be able to manipulate things to declare whoever the government prefers as the winner, they are just making a mockery of us going to the polls, they are wasting our time. They are just making us go through emotion so that we can say we are in a democracy whereas, INEC is just choosing who is going to be the winner. INEC is in collusion with the judiciary, and that is why everybody goes to the court to appeal.
Nigeria’s cost of living crisis is currently making life more difficult for many citizens. Do you think the present government could have handled the fuel subsidy removal and floating of naira better and avoided the present hardship?
The present government did not handle it well at all. For one thing, a politician must always be consistent, and when he has to change his mind, he must let the people know why he has changed his mind. Throughout the time that (Goodluck) Jonathan was the President, Tinubu was one of the leaders of those demonstrating against Jonathan when he wanted to remove fuel subsidy. Tinubu, Wole Soyinka, (Tunde) Bakare, and a number of them, were all demonstrating, carrying placards, carrying coffins, and so on against Jonathan for his attempt to remove fuel subsidy.
So, if he now thinks that there are different factors why he has to change his mind, he should let the country know; he should explain to us, instead of just coming and arbitrarily saying fuel subsidy is gone with just one sentence. With his fuel subsidy is gone announcement, he has created an inflationary crisis for the country because the price of fuel affects the price of almost everything. The President removed subsidy not only from fuel; he also removed subsidy from electricity, and everything is now expensive. It has rubbished our currency; it has increased poverty in the land, a lot of people can no longer afford food items, even the common everyday foodstuffs are no longer affordable; rice, beans, tomatoes, and onions, among others.
The cost of transportation has hit the rooftop, and the irony of it is that having created hardship for the people, those in his government are living big; they are living big like never before. One hundred and nine senators got N160m SUV each, 360 House of Reps members, and all the ministers all got SUVs to enjoy themselves. Not only did they get SUVs, but they also gave themselves money when they were going for Christmas. They distributed money that they didn’t want the public to know or even the press to hear about. They secretly indulged themselves by distributing our money to themselves to go and enjoy themselves, and that is what they do every time.
Are you saying all these affected the country?
Yes, after creating all these inflations, workers are now asking for an upward review of salaries, they are saying the economy cannot afford it, but the economy can afford their luxuries. A senator earns N29.4m every month in salary and allowances. Added to this is that he gets some quarterly allocation of N13m which they call a working allowance. This comes to N52m every year. Again, every time they pass a budget, they pad the budget to allow funds for themselves.
They are doing all these openly and yet they are saying there is no money to pay workers or to increase their minimum wage. So, these are some of the wrong steps he has taken. What Tinubu has done is to show that whatever his government wants to do, he doesn’t want to fight corruption.
Labour and the government seem to be at daggers drawn on a new minimum wage as they have found it difficult to agree on a figure after negotiating for weeks. What is your advice to the two parties?
My advice for Labour is to be more technical in their negotiations. Let Labour take the examples of several countries and look at the ratio of the senator’s salary to that of the minimum wage and compare the ratio for various countries. If they can do that and present this to the people, it shows the minimum wage in Nigeria is just ridiculous. I think it will take a worker over 60 years to earn what a senator is earning in one month.
They should use that ratio to convince not only the government, but even the public, to let the public know how unreasonable government wages for our rulers are. We cannot be saying an increase in workers’ salaries will cause inflation, and yet we are not talking about their own salaries causing inflation. So, if they think an increase in workers’ salaries is causing inflation, let them also bring their own down to a level where it will also not cause inflation. I think this should be Labour negotiating tactics.
Afenifere is currently divided with the two main leaders of the group laying claim to the group’s leadership. Do you think this is in the best interest of the South-West region?
It is very unfortunate; it is not in the best interest of Yoruba. In fact, it is embarrassing to Yorubas. Let me just stop here.
Some months back, a group of Yoruba Nation agitators invaded the Oyo State Secretariat in Ibadan and caused a security breach. What are your thoughts on this separatist agitation and the way the Oyo State Government handled the ethnic agitators?
The agitation for a Yoruba nation is natural, particularly given the various kinds of persecution of the Yoruba people by Fulani herdsmen and the other terrorists, and the attempts of Fulani to occupy Yorubaland, how they were displacing our farmers, destroying our crops, attacking Yoruba villages, even attacking chiefs and Obas. The agitation for a Yoruba nation was a natural follow-up. When Sunday Igboho led the fight in his area against these Fulani herdsmen, most Yoruba supported him. When he was arrested by the authorities and taken to Dahomey, most Yoruba initially supported him, but unfortunately, Yoruba people didn’t have the mind for a long fight.
A lot of Yoruba soon began to say nobody sent him (Igboho) and so on. That is typical Yoruba for you. If you are going to fight for Yorubas, you have to be sure of how you are going to do it, because Yoruba expect you to win. If you don’t win immediately, they will fall back, and if they see your persecutor winning, for their own safety, they will withdraw. So, Sunday Igboho was a courageous man; he was fighting for his people, but unfortunately, he did not have the support of many of our monarchs. Many of our obas don’t play the roles expected of them as kings.
An Oba is supposed to defend the interest of his own people, but Yoruba Obas are the opposite, Yoruba Obas do not fight for the interests of their people any time the interests of their people are under attack, Yoruba Obas always find a way of collaborating with the people trying to even oppress the Yoruba for their safety. During the Abacha era, you can imagine the role played by many Obas; only very few Obas stood up for the Yoruba people. A lot of them fell to Abacha. If people go into the history of obaship in Yorubaland, I don’t know why anybody still thinks highly of Obas; they (Obas) are not playing any vital role for Yoruba people
Are the Yoruba agitators going about their agitation the right way?
No, they are not going about it the right way. There is always a right way; I will say their goal is just, and their objectives are commendable, but their methods are crude and unenlightened. That is why you cannot have crude and uneducated people leading such a thing. You need people with some intellectual endowment to lead such a movement. It is not something you do in such a very crude way by going to take guns and fight the powers that be. You need methodical ways of doing.
Do you think the APC is still carrying on with some of the visions of AD?
No, that is why there was a breakup; the AD broke into two factions at that time. We called it the (Bisi) Akande faction and the (Moji) Akinfenwa faction. Akande was the chairman of a faction that was supported by the former AD governors with the singular exception of the former governor of Ondo State, (Adebayo) Adefarati. The other faction was chaired by Akinfenwa, and Adefarati was with that faction, and that was the faction loyal to the Afenifere leaders – Abraham Adesanya, Olaniwun Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, and all our leaders.
The governors broke away led by Tinubu. So, it was the Tinubu faction that had the former governors with him and rebelled against the traditional faction led by the traditional Afenifere leaders from whom Tinubu broke away. After he broke away, he didn’t recognise any of them anymore. So, it is the Tinubu faction that began to carry out all sorts of electoral experiments all over the place.
They derailed from the Awolowo path; they derailed from Awolowo’s philosophy. They derailed from the principles that had always guarded us in politics, and they became very pragmatic, just seeking power and money. It is their pragmatic politics, seeking power and money that led them into alliance with Buhari and it was the alliance with Buhari that gave us the APC. So, the traditional Afenifere leaders were never part of that faction.
What are your thoughts on the move by the federal and state governments on the creation of state police?
I think Tinubu is letting the people down on the issue of state police because I remember that Tinubu and all the governors met and agreed on the need for state police. That was the starting point, and that was what raised everybody’s hope, and all Tinubu needed to do after that was to go and raise an executive bill, the same way he did for the national anthem.
He should have raised an executive bill and sent it to his people in the two chambers, and they would have passed it within two days, but he didn’t do that. He began to demur. Then he began to send it to different governors, giving them a chance to rethink, whereas all the governors had met and agreed. So, it was Tinubu who killed the opportunity for us to have state police. We would have had it before now.
Insecurity remains a major challenge in the country. What advice do you have for the government in tackling this problem?
Well, the way it can be resolved is for us to go back to state police, because with the structures inherited from Buhari, it can only get worse. If you remember, Tinubu told us before he got elected that he would continue where Buhari left, and this is what he has been doing. He has continued from where Buhari left, and it has not been working. Many of these bandits are not from Nigeria; they are foreigners, but they have virtually taken over some of the northern states, like Zamfara.
They control local governments; they take taxes from the people, and they force the farmers to work for them on the farm. It is like taking over and enslaving the farmers. They kidnap and collect ransoms and we all know the man who is always negotiating for them when they want to collect ransom. Why can’t Tinubu arrest that man? If a man is negotiating for terrorists, is he not a terrorist himself? There is a lot of government involvement in this insecurity that makes it very difficult for the government to fight them, but if we have a state police, and they can take orders directly from the governors, I think we will do better.
What is your assessment of some of the policies of President Bola Tinubu’s administration?
Disastrous and disappointing; my advice for him is that he should go to Burkina Faso and take a lesson from their President. That one is governing the way an African leader should govern. If he can imitate him, we shall all start clapping for him.
