Omoniyi Salaudeen
Recently, some concerned stakeholders drawn from across South-east, South-south, South-west and Middle Belt met to re-strategize on how to actualize the agitation for a restructuring of the country in line with the true principles of federalism.
In this interview, one of the key conveners of the parley, an erudite Professor of History, Stephen Adebanji Akintoye, gives an insight into what transpired and why Nigerians must insist on a change of the status quo.
Looking at the recent spate of killings in Benue, Taraba, Kaduna and Rivers states, it goes without saying that the roof is falling but President Muhammadu Buhari appears to be unperturbed with the development. Where is the nation headed?
President Donald Trump of America recently called us shithole country. That is where we are going. We are becoming a shithole country, the backward people, the wretched of the earth. That is where we are going. And unfortunately, our president does not have the capacity or inclination to lead us upward. He is bringing us downward. In a world in which people are already building machines that can think, machines that will be able to probably reproduce themselves, in a world where people are already planning and designing cities that will be built on the high seas or even in space, our president is telling us to begin to build colonies for primitive cattle rearing. These are sad days for this country. The future looks bleak. I can’t say more about that.
Will it be right to see the idea of cattle colonies as part of the continuation of the age old agenda of the Fulani to colonise Nigeria?
Yes, you are right. It is colonization not for any high purpose but colonization in order to degrade and destroy every bit of cultural achievement that has been built in this country and turn us into downright barbaric people. But we are going to resist it. We knew this is where they were going all along. They are doing it already as by creating little pockets of Fulani in the bush all around Nigeria. It is now that the government of Nigeria wants to make it a policy so that they can tell you that they have created a colony in a suburb of Lagos and you accept it. But if Buhari thinks that any Nigerian nation other than the Hausa/Fulani will accept it, he is making a very big mistake. This is the battle line that is being drawn. We are ready for it. It is not going to happen, at least, in our own part of the country. And I know the people in the Middle Belt are already getting ready to see that it does not happen in their land too.
Recently, stakeholders from across the Middle Belt, South-east, South-south and South-west met to restrategise on the way to actualize the clamour for restructuring. Are you looking at the possibility of changing the mindset of the President who had already foreclosed the idea of restructuring?
I don’t think anybody who is looking at Buhari will think of changing his mind. I don’t think he has a mind that can be changed by anybody. So, it is not a question of changing his mind, it is a question of doing for our country what we need to do: restructuring. Let us have a proper federal structure. And we are going to achieve it in one way or the other with or without Buhari. As for the strategy, I don’t think those of us in the struggle can claim that we are the ones who have achieved the success of bringing stakeholders in the South-south, South-east, South-west and Middle Belt together. It is the work of God because it happened in a way that we in the struggle cannot claim we are the ones who gathered these people together. I am convinced from what happened that there is a hand of God in the struggle because we have brought together a quantum of power in this country.
People of the South-south, people of the South-east, people of the South-west, the people of the broad Middle Belt and even the people in the fringes of the North-west and North-east have come into this. And we are all determined to see that this country is properly structured as a federation, that all this barbarism of mass murder will stop in our land and that this will be a country that will compete with the best in the world for the great scientific, technological and infrastructural developments that are taking place in the world. Nigeria is going to join the rank of the best in the world. Buhari is not going to determine our future; Nigeria will determine its own future with or without Buhari. If he wants to join and lead us, we are glad to have him. If he doesn’t, he had better think of resigning because we are not going to let this opportunity slip away from the hands of Nigerians. Nigerians deserve to live better and we are going to ensure that they live better. Already, those of us who have gathered together are 70 per cent of Nigeria and more people are joining from the fringes of the North-east and North-west. That will bring us to about 80 per cent of the population of the country.
How are you going to translate all this into reality?
We will keep doing what we are doing at a higher level by constantly telling Buhari and showing him why we need to restructure our country. Fortunately, we are close to the end of his term. He has done two years and he is still talking of another term. He should forget that. It is horrendous insult to this country that Buhari is talking of a second term. He wants to come back. Come back to do what? To come and destroy our country? We don’t want our country destroyed. This is the only country we have. This is the country into which we born our children and our children are also bringing up their own children. But the situation is that our children are fleeing from the country. Many people of my age are living alone in the country because their children are in America, in Russia, in Afghanistan and Libya. And those who don’t have the means of running out legitimately are trying to get out through the most dangerous routes unimaginable. They run through the desert. The desert is not a little territory, it is thousands of miles across a dry land of nothingness with some very distant oasis. Today, many of our youths are stuck in the middle of the desert who cannot get to Libya. We are talking of the ones who got to Libya. We are not talking of the ones who cannot get to Libya. A family called me some months ago, they said someone called and said their daughter was in some small oasis in the Sahara desert. And what is driving them out of the country? Poverty and hopelessness. And Buhari is still saying he wants a second term. Second term for what? To come back and do what?
If at all Buhari is not going to come back, the power pendulum is still likely to go to the North, going by the zoning arrangement of the PDP.
(Cuts in)…Let me tell you something, we are not reckoning with PDP, APC or any of these political parties. We are reckoning with only the people who are ready to restructure the country. We are reckoning with people who are going to sit down and lead us decently through the process of restructuring. Only those who are ready to restructure the country will win election in 2019. 2019 is going to be a fight between the minority who want the present status quo and the majority who want Nigeria restructured. It is not about political parties, it is about the person who has the mind to do the right thing for our country. And we are going to make sure that only such people will win election in this country in 2019.
On which platform do you intend to actualize this?
We will create the platform. We are the makers of platform, we are the makers of structures. Once you have the clear majority like 70 per cent, you have the power in your hands to create whatever platform and do what you like to do. And what we like to do is to make our country a great country; a country of orderliness. Part of what is driving the Fulani who are going around and killing people is desperation. There is no provision for them. Nobody made any provision for them. They look left, right and centre and they don’t see any help; so, they become violent towards everybody around them. We will create a country where people in any type of occupation will settle down and do work to the upliftment of our country. Even the Fulani who are rearing cattle will lift up the country rather than destroy it. That is the future.
Would you subscribe to the theory of international conspiracy to what is happening in Nigeria?
Yes, there are people abroad who are supporting it. The people from the Middle-east, Saudi Arabia and their allies who are supporting a lot of these things are not only thinking that Nigeria should be brought down, they are also thinking that Nigeria must be compelled to accept their religion. They are pumping a lot of money to all this. We know it. The Fulani activities have been taken over by the people who are structured towards a political purpose. It is no longer about cattle rearing; it is about using a desperate group of people to achieve a political purpose. There is a deliberate attempt by a group of people with political and religious objectives to use some people who are desperate. They train them to be violent; they indoctrinate them and give them weapons to be used against the rest of us.
So, it is no longer the innocent Fulani searching for economic survival. Some people have taken it over and they are using it against the rest of us. It is like the Janjaweed in Dafur in Sudan. The Janjaweed did not emerge on its own. Yes, the Arabs who formed the Janjaweed were desperate for land. But it was the government of Sudan that sucked them in, trained them to go around to destroy the villages of other people who were living in the province of Dafur. That is what is happening in Nigeria. Some people are using the poverty and desperation of the Fulani and turned them into an army of destruction against the rest of us. We are going to turn the Fulani herdsmen properly around and make them successful people in their own country. They will not be our enemies any more. They will be our people dedicated to prosperity in our land. You listen to the leader of Mayetti Allah threatening fire and brimstone against a state, telling the state governor that he has no right to make law. What type of country are we building? They are being used, and we are going to stop it.
You know, of course, that this group has access to a lot of funding from their international conspirators. What is the way out?
Yes, they have access to a lot of funding. The answer is get as many as possible of Nigerians to say no, educate them, let them know what is happening to their country and what Nigerians are doing to collaborate with the people from abroad. There is no way we can lose this battle because to lose it will result in a lot more bloodshed. We have seen some bloodshed; we are going to see a lot more, if we fail. Secondly, Nigeria itself will break up. But it will break up in bloodshed. There will be seas of blood in our land. We cannot avoid all that. We must get Buhari and his type out of power and then bring good willing Nigerians to sit down and restructure this country and establish institutions that work, educational system that works, agricultural enterprise that works, industries that work and then train our men and women to be good employees who can work and make success of anything.
Once we reach that level and our men and women are productive, our country will settle down. It can be done. Nigeria has the resources to do it. I took part in the idea that created the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in 1976. I was one of the young intellectuals who ran around the world looking for ideas on how to make this country a great nation. For about three years, I was almost everywhere in the world looking for ideas on how to make Nigeria a great country. Chief Obafemi Awolowo used to refer to Nigeria as the Blackman’s world power of the modern times. Nigeria has the resources to do it. These ideas are immortal. They are the property of all human kinds. We can do it.
The next general election is going to be a defining moment for Nigeria.
(Cuts in)…2019 election is not just another election; it is an election that will create a truly independent Nigeria. Nobody is going to be masterminding our lives from a distance. We are as educated as any country in the world. They have no right to be masterminding our lives from a distance. And no Nigeria has a duty to be collaborating with them to undermine our lives. The duty of anybody who is elected is to build our country. We have enormous human and material resources to be a proper country. Let them exploit their own country, let them spread their religion in their country. Nigerians too should spread their religion in their own country. Let the Christians be free to spread their religion in Nigeria. Let the Muslims be free to spread their religion in Nigeria peacefully. There is no need fighting anybody. We Nigerians are not going to fight one another over religion. People who worship Sango should be free to spread their religion. It is their fundamental right to do so. Nobody should come from outside and instigate us against one another in order to spread one religion or the other. It is no longer going to happen to our country. Now is the time to bring an end to it.
You are very optimistic that a new Nigeria is going to emerge in 2019. Is there any structure on ground to support such an evolution?
We are citizens of Nigeria. We know there are no elections any more. 2019 is going to be different. Masses of this country will see to it that only those who win elections will be declared winners. Nigeria is the only country in which people win votes and lose elections. They win majority votes and they are declared losers. It is not going to happen again. We know them, they have already prepared for the rigging. The electoral commission will, of course, do their things in their usual way. It is not going to happen in 2019. Anybody appointed into the electoral commission had better tell himself this one is different. We have to stand up and take back our country from the hands of barbarism and destruction. It is true we are different people; there is a will in Nigeria, among Nigeria, to build this country to a great nation. The will is there. We must work on that will. It is a final battle against colonialism.