Oyedika Agbedo
Former Minister of Works, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, in this interview on the state of the nation, urges President Muhammadu Buhari to initiate a meeting of leaders across the six geo-political zones as a panacea to curbing the escalating insecurity in the country.
Ogunlewe, who spoke against the backdrop of the recent statement by a former Minister of Defence, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (retd), alleging that the armed forces had been providing cover to armed bandits to kill innocent people and urging Nigerians to defend themselves, warned against further crisis, saying “we are going to be an embarrassment to the Black race if we don’t manage our affairs properly.”
The security challenges bedeviling the country took a different dimension recently with a former Minister of Defence, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, accusing the security agencies of bias and urging Nigerians to rise up and defend themselves. What is your take on the issue in your position as an elder statesman?
It’s not only Gen. Danjuma that has spoken in that light. Former president Obasanjo also spoke in the same vein, the same thing with former president Babangida. When wise people are talking like that in a nation, then all is not well. These are our five star Generals; they are all respected leaders in the country. My take is that they should call a meeting where all of them would sit down and discuss this matter. It’s of national importance; it’s something that nobody should ignore. It’s better we discuss it and the issues are addressed. People that are waving it away may be postponing the evil day.
My concern is that in Yoruba land, there is a saying that where somebody is running, something must be pursuing that person. You can hardly see somebody that is just running without a cause. So, when that person is running, if you look properly you will probably get what is pursuing him/her. So, what is pursuing Nigeria as a nation is something that all our leaders need to find out. They can call a meeting of all the leaders in the country; they know themselves. They can sit down and address these issues and nip them in the bud because they are of concern to everybody.
If you are talking about a meeting of all the leaders in the country, who and who do you think should be involved?
We know the leaders across all the geo-political zones. If you talk about the South-west, we know the Afenifere leadership. If you talk about the South-east, we know those that are leading them. If you talk about South-south, they know themselves. The Middle Belt people also know themselves likewise the North-west and the North-east people. So, they can gather together and talk; they know themselves. We know people that when they talk Nigerians listen. They should come together, close the door and speak on our behalf. Our population will not support any crisis in our country. God forbid! We are too many to be crisis ridden. We are going to be an embarrassment to the Black race if we don’t manage our affairs properly.
Will the kind of gathering you are talking about not amount to another form of national conference. Is that what you are advocating?
No! The leaders will just sit down and talk. It’s not going to be an all comers gathering. They know people that are important in this country and it is going to be a closed-door meeting. The meeting I am talking about is of critical national importance. And people that should be there are people that can stand up and speak the truth; people that will not be afraid to say the truth. We know them and those are the kind of people I’m talking about. Look at the meeting the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) held in Kaduna recently. They issued a communiqué, which should be of concern to everybody. That kind of body is too important to be ignored. And when people are making ‘noise’ like that, somebody somewhere should listen. That’s my take.
Who should initiate this talk?
The President, of course. He is the president of every Nigerian. He is the father of all in this country and he must be able to listen to everybody.
In view of Danjuma’s statement, which the Federal Government has described as a call to anarchy, how do think Nigerians can defend themselves within the ambit of the law in the face of the present security challenges across the country, especially if government fails to initiate steps restore law and order?
I think they will take necessary steps this time around. A person of Danjuma’s calibre is not a frivolous talker. How often has the man spoken in this country in the last four years? He doesn’t talk. For an elderly person like him to speak out now, you cannot ignore his views; you cannot! What does he want again that he doesn’t have already? These are the people that ensured the survival of the unity of Nigeria. When a lot of other Nigerians were running away, they were on the battlefield to make sure that Nigeria remains united. Are you telling me that if they observe something they should not say so? I don’t think so. They must speak when it’s important that they speak because everybody that fought for the unity of this country has a larger stake in it than some of us that didn’t fight. How can you put your life down for the unity of a country and you cannot talk in that country? They sacrificed for our unity; they sacrificed for our survival as a nation. We owe them a duty to listen to every thing they say.
Are you saying that President Buhari should listen to Danjuma and act now?
The President knows more than you; Mr. President is a very wise person. He is also a retired General. He knows that Generals don’t talk just like that. He knows more than all of us, so why are we bothering ourselves. He (Danjuma) was not talking to us. But Nigerians just talk and talk. He has sent his message; the people that the message is meant for have got it. And I can assure you that it will not go with a wave of the hand. Not at all!
Before Danjuma spoke, some Middle Belt leaders had accused the military of bias in their execution of Operation Cat Race…
(Cuts in) As far as I am concerned, all these things need to be addressed. Let everybody come to the table and discuss. It’s better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. In a multi-ethnic, multi-religious environment like ours, sometimes you step on toes and kick yourselves around. But the best thing is for you to realise it and come to the table and discuss it. That is my own view. You must not allow it to escalate. Nigeria is a country that is being envied throughout the world. We should not allow our enemies to capitalise on our deficiencies. We have leaders that can take control and make sure that we do the best for the country.
With rising insecurity in the country, would you support the idea of allowing Nigerians to carry arms legally as obtainable in the U. S. and some other developed countries?
Let everybody sit down and talk. It’s when we sit down and discuss this matter that we can have a solution. I am not an elderly person as such in this country yet; so, let those we look up to as our leaders sit down and talk. They know themselves; they staked their lives for the development of this country. Somebody like Ayo Adebanjo is 90 years old and he is still talking and talking on how to make Nigeria a better country. Somebody like Prof. Wole Soyinka, what else does he want in the world that he cannot find? But he has been talking on the need to make Nigeria work. People like Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, Alhaji Shehu Shagari and a host of others have also served this country meritoriously and they cannot allow this country to be in this sort of situation without talking. They must talk; they must unite; they must sit down together and address this issue. Nobody should ignore them.
The recent apology to Nigerians by your party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been interpreted in some quarters to mean that the party has admitted messing the country up and putting it in its current situation. Do you agree?
We apologise for not allowing internal democracy to reign in PDP. If we had allowed internal democracy to reign in PDP, we would not be where we are today. That’s the apology the party has offered to Nigerians. You know that we held a national convention where they said that there would be no competition with former president Goodluck Jonathan for the presidential ticket of the party, that there was no vacancy in Aso Rock. And they printed only one nomination form for Jonathan. That was a political sin and it made five of our northern governors to leave the party. If somebody had been reasonable and allowed the North to take that slot, we would not be where we are today. That’s why we apologise to Nigerians. We apologise for not allowing internal democracy to reign; we apologise for not respecting the issue of rotation. There are so many issues PDP should apologise for because we deliberately or unconsciously led this country into what it is today. If we had listened to the northerners at the time, we would not be where we are today. We must apologise to the North for not allowing them to present a presidential candidate. That is my own perception of the apology.
The issue of rotation must be respected. Once it’s the turn of a zone, don’t be too clever because you may not get through. That’s what happened to PDP. As far as I am concerned, PDP lost the 2015 election because some people were unreasonable. They failed to understand the dynamics of Nigerian politics.
So, apart from the problem of lack of internal democracy in PDP and not respecting the zoning arrangement, the party didn’t offend Nigerians in any other way?
No! Those were critical. The issue of corruption will never go away. In a country where the minimum wage is N18,000, what do you expect? In a country where there is no education unless you go to private schools, what do you expect? That was what Bill Gates was telling us recently, that those who are fighting corruption at the top are fighting the symptoms and not providing the cure. You are not investing in the education of your people, you are not investing in healthcare and you are fighting corruption. What are they going to use to take care of their health in the private hospitals since government is not providing facilities in state owned hospitals? How are they going to pay for the education of their children in private schools? Develop the human being in your community and you would have fought corruption properly. There are 17 human Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); once you don’t directly address those 17 issues, you are just chasing shadows and it will never work.
But the PDP was in power for 16 years and left these 17 issues unaddressed?
We have to apologise. Once you take the country for granted those are the kind of things you get back. But why are they repeating the mistakes now? Why can’t they address them? We are talking about restructuring now, why is APC not championing it? Why can’t they champion the agitation for local government autonomy? Those are the things that are germane to the development of the country. And we need an apology from any government that refuses to take that into consideration.