He never had the best of times in Ado-Ekiti as the then Governor Fayose allegedly forced him to embark on an extended compulsory leave, five months to the expiration of his tenure as Vice Chancellor. He returned to his chair at the University of Lagos from where he moved to Abuja as Ekiti state delegate to the on-going national conference. Saturday Sun caught up with him last weekend at the Civic Centre in Lagos where he was the guest speaker at the 80th birthday anniversary lecture of Professor Wole Soyinka. He fielded questions from OBIDIKE JERRY on the recent governorship election in Ekiti, national conference and other national issues. Excerpts:
As a delegate to the national conference where some sweeping decisions like part time legislature, additional 18 states, rotation of presidency among the six geopolitical zones, state police, among others, do you think the professional politicians both within and outside the national assembly will accept your resolutions even if President Jonathan supports your demands?
Let me begin by saying that people like me canvassed for a sovereign national conference and the present government was dead against it until the Calabar meeting of the NBA, Nigeria Bar Association, where two weeks later there seemed to have been a turn around. The president now accepted the necessity for what you call a dialogue. They were afraid of the word, sovereign, because they believed that if we had a sovereign national conference, that would have taken the thunder from the present government. And they didn’t want, I believe, so many radical changes. I understand that when I was nominated to be on the federal government list…
I thought Ekiti State sent you there?
But I am telling you the background, the powers-that-be felt that I was too hard-nosed and radical, or rigid, or whatever and they said no, they wouldn’t want somebody like me. But then Governor Fayemi later called me and said governors in the south west had decided they should put their best feet forward and that’s how I came to be a member. So, I went there with an open mind because I didn’t know really what we could make out of it.
If you remember, my first comment after the president spoke, I said that we are embarking on a journey without a compass. That there was no legal framework and for me it could be an exercise in futility. Even as we speak we still don’t have a law setting up the confab but it seems that people have put a lot of stock on the conference as may be the conference that would end all conferences. So, people really have a lot of belief and confidence and expectations on this enterprise. So, what I have come to realize is that may be nobody has a monopoly of answers to the problems of Nigeria. I have always said it’s a talk-shop. The difference is that we have 492 and then some other people were added, so you can say 500 people representing the various parts of the country. So, it is very difficult to forge a consensus.
The first problem that the conference faced was what should be the consensus? We agreed finally on 70 percent. And we adopted also the parliamentary system so that it is ayes and nays and the chairman would rule on whether the ayes have it or the nays. Sometimes, his rulings are very controversial. People thought maybe he had a brief that he was working on. So, many of the things you mentioned were not unanimously accepted. It’s a talking shop, no doubt, but it has developed its own momentum. So, the conference, I believe, would make recommendations at the end of the day. And only last week they were asking for names of those who want to be in the most important committee, the implementation committee, to discuss the modalities.
We don’t know how many people would be inducted into that committee for the realization of all those recommendations. As regards the creation of states, some of us were worried too. We think that even the states we have now are a little bit unwieldy and they are not strong enough to function as the constituent units of the Nigerian federation. Some of us thought we might have needed to collapse many of those states into geographical or what you call geopolitical zones but that was not the consensus. I suggested that, if you saw my contribution last week, that may be we need to go to former Vice President Alex Ekwueme’s suggestion of 1995 on six or eight geopolitical zones to form the building blocks of Nigeria federalism. But they were not persuaded. They said the states should be the building blocks but you know the states are very weak. Senator Ekweremadu, Deputy Senate President, went to my law school in Toronto about two years ago and said we have what he called ‘feeding bottle’ federalism. So, the states go to Abuja every month to get their feeding bottle replenished.
So, you should acknowledge that there is a problem with the constitution that we have. And when I suggested to the confab that the constitution we are operating was outmoded, I even said it had expired because it is decree 24 of 1999 masquerading as a constitution. Some voices there berated my suggestion and railed against me and said all sorts of things. But then, you know, in this enterprise, you win some, you lose some. So, that is my first take on the enterprise. If President Jonathan can summon up the courage, if he can exhibit the guts to do the needful, to use that hackneyed expression now, then may be the effort would have been worth the while because some of us are still skeptical as to what to come out of the conference. But it depends on the convener, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. If he can really take charge and ensure that proceedings or the resolutions are subjected to a national referendum. And if 51 percent of the electorate adopts, then we are near a new constitution. What he needs do then, is to set up a constitution drafting committee to put into legal form the various resolutions into a new constitution and we have a new constitution. That is the biggest task facing the president after all said and done.
Considering the present structure of Nigeria where you have 36 states, 19 from the North and 17 from the South, do you think that the North will allow whatever resolutions you arrive at the conference to sail through even if President Jonathan wants them?
Well, I think we should recognize that the North is not anymore monolithic. We now have various contending forces. The minorities in the North, for instance, are a force to reckon with. They are even the people behind the cry for new states. So, the old monolithic north, to me, no longer exists. So, we might be in for surprises. That people might actually accept the changes. The old North is represented in the confab and it is a question of voting. Some of their resolutions, some of their amendments are put to vote, some they lose, some they win.
So, as I said the confab is, some win, some lose. So, at the end of the day, I think, we will come up with some consensus. The last issue before the confab which is for next week (this week), is devolution of powers. I think the powers-that-be believes that that was the most important, what the Yorubas would call the koko of the issue. And that is why they put it for the last hoping that it won’t scatter proceedings. But we have made some very important gains in terms of state police, in terms of re-configuration of Nigeria. So, there are positive signals and I hope that wisdom would prevail. And that we would not be prepared to throw away the baby with the birth water.
You mentioned Governor Fayemi along the line and as you know Ekiti people voted him out of office recently. How do you see the election?
Well, it’s most unexpected. It is curious, mysterious. In fact, I would say it is incredible because a guy that to the rest of us was doing excellently well was put to a very uncomfortable and inconvenienced situation of having to be reluctantly compelled to accept the votes that cost him his governorship. It’s mysterious, if you ask me because I thought whoever is doing well, the reward of good work or hard work is more work. But it seems that maybe there was some miscalculation by his party and so, I am on record as having said that the Ekiti people were faced with a choice between gold and lead and they chose lead instead of gold.
And so, they should be prepared to live with that for the next four years. I said on television that they should stew in their juice because as you make your bed so shall you lie on it. Fayose is not an unknown quantity to many of us and so we believe that there’s no way that a leopard can change his spots. You see, we are going to have more of the same in the next four years. And I think in another six months or at most one year, the Ekiti people would be missing Governor Fayemi because this is highly cerebral, highly gifted and focused political leader. And my view is that we have not had the last of Kayode Fayemi. I believe that in fact, his future is very bright. If Ekiti has lost him, I think Nigeria would claim ownership of that brilliant young man. So, I think we have blips in politics.
You remember, Churchill lost the elections after the 2nd World war. So, it won’t be the first time that a performing political leader is asked to go and take a rest. But, of course, you know that in terms of intellect, Fayose is no contest when you are talking of Kayode Fayemi. And Ekiti being the land of professors, it is still amazing how Fayose with his track record can pull off that stunt. Fayose is a stunt’s man. But he must be extra ordinary. To me you can call him the comeback kid, second time in almost ten years? It’s amazing. So, I think the analysts are still out in the field trying to make sense of what happened in Ekiti.
This phenomenon of not returning a performing incumbent, would it make other performers lose faith in the system or our electorate, that is, their judgment?
No. As I said it’s an unexpected development. I think, beyond Ekiti, Nigerians would not be fooled into voting a non-performer in preference to somebody who is performing. But if you put the shoe on the other leg then President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan should also be packing his bags in 2015 because if he says he has been an apostle of transformation, he’s done all sorts of things in Nigeria, who says that he would not lose? Because people may be sick and tired of seeing the same sombrero, the man with the fedora might have to seek a new habitat come 2015. That’s the way I see it.
Prof, somehow your state, Ekiti, introduced ‘stomach infrastructure’ into the political lexicon of Nigeria. How do you see that?
No. That phrase belongs to Jibril Ibrahim, Jibo, who succeeded Kayode Fayemi in the Centre for Development and Democracy. He is my friend. He is a very insightful, cerebral guy. The question of stomach infrastructure, I think is a big phrase to describe what we generally call amala politics, Adedibu style of politics. But I think it doesn’t tell the whole story. You know, Kayode Fayemi, himself said that the Ekiti people have created the new sociology which scholars might have to properly analyze because I don’t think the people are starving to be bought by just some 5kg bag of rice or whatever. I think they would regret what happened quite sincerely and before too long they would be asking for Kayode Fayemi.
Governor Kayode Fayemi need lose no sleep on what happened because his future is assured. You know, I have always said that we need professionals in politics instead of having professional politicians. Many people did not enjoy my statement at the confab when I made that statement because many of our politicians have no other business outside of politics. But I believe that the whole country has learnt one or two lessons from the Ekiti debacle and I am not a prophet, I won’t know whether there’s going to be a repetition of that. But my hunch is that we are in for interesting times in Nigeria.
As the Vice Chancellor of University of Ado-Ekiti, you didn’t have good understanding with Governor Fayose then. Would it be right to ascribe it to his kind of politics you have alluded to above?
It was simple. Fayose wanted to deep his hands into the financial resources of the university and I stood up against him. And so, he believed that I was not a man he could work with and that’s why he sent me on a forced leave because my tenure had just five months to run. I wasn’t interested in second term because I thought I had done my bit. But he sent me on compulsory leave and at the expiration of my leave I went back to my chair. My chair is in the University of Lagos and I have been teaching now for 41 years.
So, teaching for me is a vocation. It is not an occupation. So, no regrets at all and I hope he would be a little bit more circumspect with the incumbent who, I understand, is doing a very good job. But, you see, the job of a vice chancellor is a heck of a job. Like the late Professor Boderin used to say ‘it is a dammed terrible job’. But someone’s got to do it. You see. Ten years ago, I have forgotten that I was a vice chancellor. Life has continued for me except that I run into my former students everywhere I go which is quite enthralling but really no regrets.
It’s like Fayose would use this second opportunity to get better what he didn’t do well generally during his first outing. If he finds it necessary to invite you to work with him for the good of Ekiti people, will you accept?
Once beaten twice shy and I know a saying of our people that leopard cannot change his spots. Fayose says he is better and improved Fayose. I am not persuaded. And from even the way he’s been talking in the recent past, the last week or so, you know that it is the same old Fayose. And how he did it first was mysterious. Now that he is back, it’s incredible but I hope that the Ekiti people would not live to regret their voting pattern two weeks ago. Because, you see, Fayose is Fayose’s Fayose. A rose by another name remains a rose but let him pleasantly surprise us, skeptics or cynics, that he is a much improved and better Fayose. But I am not persuaded. He is not a man I can do business with, not in any situation or circumstance.
APC has been complaining bitterly about the excessive militarisation of Ekiti during the election and that it was purposely targeted against their leaders and probably led to their poor performance. Do you subscribe to that?
Well, don’t forget that the Vice President, Namadi Sambo, said before the election that he was going to war in Ekiti. And that it was going to be ‘do or die’ and that they were leaving nothing to chance. And I have said that the elections were gun-barrel democracy, people voted at the tip of the bayonet. And so you could not describe the elections as free, fair, and credible because of swooping on the electorate. Let’s give it 56 percent of the electorate came out, so you could say that even though Fayose defeated Fayemi by about 80,000 votes, I think he should recognize that he is still a minority governor-elect. He should think of the thousands of people that did not come out to vote. But I won’t begrudge him of his celebration, but I think the honeymoon would not endure for too long.
That’s my reading knowing him for who he is. He has promised that he would be giving the people food, that he has no industrial project except to build one fly over at Fajuyi junction. Then the other thing is consumption but for me, politics is more than the stomach. It is more than consumption. There’s what you call deferred enjoyment for people. You must be able to invest, defer satisfaction, in order to improve what exists. Fayemi did what was called physical infrastructure. Jibo said stomach infrastructure. You must manage to strike the necessary balance between physical infrastructure and stomach infrastructure if he really wants to redeem his image because his image quite frankly is in tatters because of what you can call the albatross hanging around his neck. Talking of the fiasco of his poultry project, he cancelled the college of medicine that we were setting up when I was the Vice Chancellor of Ado- Ekiti University. He preferred chicken to doctors.
So, maybe now that the college of medicine has been re-instated by Kayode Fayemi, he would not once again go and cancel the college of medicine. So, I am saying he has an unfinished business, a very large project to polish up his image, to redeem his image. So, he should not be too much in a celebration mood. He has his work cut out for him. I am not a PDP. I am not APC. I don’t hold any political card but I empathize with somebody like Kayode Fayemi for his vision, for his ideas. His eight point programme and collective rescue mission. He is the type of leader that one is seeking for Nigeria, you have focus and then you have the capacity to do a turn around.
Maybe he was too much ahead of his time and then his environment because nobody would have ever dreamt that he was going to be defeated in what was called a landslide, sixteen local government areas, not even his own local government area. I do not understand that. That is why I said it’s mysterious. And if mysteries happen in politics, well that’s another mystery. But as I told you Fayose from what I know is a stunts man. He pulls stunts all the time. So, that is what he lives in, he thrives on. So, it’s yet another Fayose’s stunt. We see how long it lasts for.
Govs. Adams Oshiomhole and Rotimi Amaechi were stopped by security forces on their way to Ado-Ekiti for the last lap of Gov. Fayemi’s re-election campaign in the concluded Ekiti state governorship election. How do you see that action?
Well, it is a violation of the constitution of Nigeria in terms of freedom of movement. But you see, this is a government that has been behaving erratically. Not too long ago, the number four personality in Nigeria, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, his car was searched and delayed at a function in Kaduna. There should be honour among thieves. There are certain things you don’t expect a self-respecting government to be doing. I know President Jonathan distanced himself from whatever happened. But the bulk stops at his table like Harry Truman, former US President, used to say.
He is president for God’s sake and he should answer, he should own up to the foibles and the distortions in Nigeria including Boko Haram, including the Chibok girls. You can’t say, because, I read what he wrote in Washington Post. It’s a cheap cup out. I mean, if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen. You know, for a president to be looking for excuses, to be shopping for alibis, to describe his incompetence. That’s not acceptable in a democratic dispensation. And when you hound elected governors, you trample on their rights, the sort of things that happened to Amaechi or happened to Oshiomole’s helicopter. That’s unacceptable. What are they afraid of? There should be level playing ground for contestants. We don’t want a situation where everybody will become PDP. No opposition. That is not a good signal. It is not good for the health and for the buoyancy of the democratic practice, praxis. So, it is not something that should be encouraged. It should be deprecated and I believe they should go to court like Professor Wole Syinka suggested, in order to claim damages for the breach of their fundamental human rights.
What is your take on how President Jonathan has handled the issue of Boko Haram in the country?
Well, he bungled it by first declaring a state of emergency without making it total. I am on record as having said he ought to have made it a total thing. There’s nothing like a slightly pregnant woman. If you have an emergency, you have an emergency. But you have an emergency and you leave the political structures in place. So, he blew it from that position. Then, this is a president who said he was not excited about being commander-in-chief, he was not a General, he was not goliath. So, as I said if you know you are not capable of doing what you need to do, then we look for somebody else because this Boko Haram thing has put Nigeria in discomfiture. Everywhere I go across the world, as soon as they meet me as a Nigerian, they say what’s Boko Haram? What are you guys doing? I just came back from the UK for a wedding. My taxi driver from the airport to my hotel, Boko Haram was what he was discussing with me on the trip.
When I went for my daughter’s graduation in the US, two months ago, the Americans were saying what’s going on with this Boko Haram? And that’s just small me. People now know Boko Haram. Look, three years ago I was invited by Oxford University with the late Professor Festus Iyayi. They had a big conference on international terrorism. I was invited to give a paper on legal aspects of Boko Haram. So, the world now knows about what is Boko Haram. And that’s three years ago. Not to talk of Chibok girls who have been in Boko Haram custody for than 80 days. It is going to be three months in another couple of days that these girls cannot be accounted for. Where is our pride as a country? You have to beg, cap in hands, United States, Britain, Israel, France, to come and bail you out. Now, if a government can’t protect the life or limb of its people, then am sorry that government has expired. You know it can no longer function as a government properly so called.
Talking about the Chibok girls, do you think they are still in Nigeria?
Well, I don’t know. I am not a security operative. I am not an intelligence operative and if the Americans with all the capacities that they have said they don’t know where they are, how can Aso Rock know where they are? Not to talk of small me? I can only go by what I watch on television, the literature I read and what have you. So, I have no answers to whether they are in Nigeria or they are not in Nigeria. But I know what activities have been going on by enlightened women including the spouse of my sibling, Aisha Mohammed, who has been in the forefront of ‘bring back the girls’. So, Nigerian women have made a case to bring back those girls. And if those girls are not brought back then President Jonathan would have a serious credibility crisis. How can you continue the way things are and want another four years in Aso Rock? He would have shot himself in the foot. So, he needs a lot of advice and help from whoever, in order for him to bring back those girls.
Some people believe that President Jonathan is not getting the required collaboration and cooperation with the governors of the Northeast states under the state of emergency to arrest the Boko Haram terrorism?
Well, for me governors are the chief security officers only in name. They can’t even give command to commissioners of police under their areas. That’s why the confab voted state police. How can you emasculate governors? They have the paraphernalia of office but they have no role in terms of security function. So we should do what we need to do. Empower them so that they are not glorified prefects. So, I don’t know if the three governors are not cooperating. They are saying that they are incapacitated. My reading of it is that the governors are asking for federal government to descend on the three states and stamp out Boko Haram. If you don’t really arm the soldiers because we hear that the soldiers are not well armed, their allowances are not paid as at when due, and the soldiers have to kit themselves. We hear all sorts of things. We must provide the wherewithal to arm and equip our soldiers in order to rescue our name.
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Fayose’s election, a mystery – Prof. Oyebode |
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