One-time Education Minister and Nigeria’s former Ambassador to Germany, Prof Tunde Adeniran, has urged the Muhammadu Buhari-led government to pause and do a stock-taking at this juncture, in order to lift the country out of recession and despair and redirect it on the course of social, political and economic progress. The eminent political scientist and Peoples Democratic Party chieftain told YINKA OLUDAYISI FABOWALE in this interview in Ado Ekiti that now that the reality of the Nigerian situation stared the All Progressives Congress in the face, as against its presumption while campaigning, it should halt now to reassess its strategies in order to end the pains of the citizenry and satisfy their yearnings.

He also spoke on the festering PDP crisis, the Biafran agitation, problems of Nigerians in the Diaspora and the Southern Kaduna massacre.

Could you appraise the state of the nation?

As a country, I think we are facing challenges that were not expected. We are facing major crisis in different areas- on the political front, in the economic arena and, of course, socio-cultural challenges, I will come to that later. In the area of the economy, people are aware that indeed we are troubled simply because we are in recession. I did warn occasionally, sometimes ago, that, in fact, the rate of inflation that we are encountering could lead us to stagnation and we are already there now. And, of course, that is why things don’t move in the forex crisis. Then, the inability of people to feed themselves, that is, the hunger in the land and so many other things, these are products of these. It is very, very sad! We are in deep trouble economically and, of course politically, when you see the spill-over effect of the economic crisis, of course, the tension that we are facing that border on some religious antagonism here and there. They are all products of miscalculated political actions. And unless we resolve those, we will be having problems. And the basic thing to do, which some of us have stressed over and over is that what we have in this country, either you talk about the economy or political situation, is a systemic problem, a structural problem in the economy and in the politics. If we do not have a right solution to the problem that exists, we would never get the answer to led us out of the problem. Some of us believe strongly in restructuring. In other words, structural reforms- not just political restructuring, economic restructuring that will put this country on the right path. We witness, very often, growth around us all over the place and we misinterpret this to mean development. They are two different things altogether. We may be growing; we may be having growth without development. That is part of the problem that we are having in this country. And of course, when I talk about this restructuring people also misunderstand. I believe we should be able to restructure politically in such a way that the tension derived from the type of hold that the centre has over the rest of the country is removed.

There should be a loosening in such a way that we will operate as a true federal state to operate true federalism in such a way that different states will operate on basis of certain parameters that should not necessarily have to be copied by other places. For instance, why for goodness sake would a country operate a system that makes it necessary or even compulsory that when you have some institutions, the vice chancellors or principals of some schools in a place like either you talk about Kogi or you talk about Ondo, Ekiti, earning the same salary of those either in Lagos or in Kano? Or you have a governor in a state like Rivers or Akwa Ibom earning the same salary as a governor, say in a place, like Jigawa or Taraba? In a federal system, that is not true federalism. This idea of National Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission which fixes these things is an aberration. Like I said, there was a time when I wanted to be governor of my state, Ekiti State in ’98, ’99, I told them during my campaign that there were some states in the federation that by virtue of their economic resources, their governors could afford to buy jets and bring to offices and to some local government areas and so forth.

So be it! If our own economy here can only afford me to ride a bicycle or an “Okada” so be it. Until we work hard and generate money, we should not be spending and be assuming wrong status. We should be what we are in truth and reality so that we concentrate on developing our community and our state, rather than just individuals empowering themselves. And that is what we have in most states of the federation now. Salaries are not being paid and yet the emoluments and the perquisites of office holders nothing will dare touch them; either they are top civil servants or political appointees. That is the problem that we are facing.

And economically, of course, the structurally deformity in our economic system in which we are consuming and we are not producing. We should divert our attention to the production sector. What is going on now is such that embarrassingly, in spite of the challenges we are facing, we still have not come to realize that unless we divert our attention to producing we would never get out of the woods.

The other time, the Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi was raising an alarm and many people did not know what he was talking about. When he was talking even about the forex policy, that it should go in such a way that it will encourage production, rather than encouraging people to be traders, which is not helping our economy. And we have enormous resources in this country, there is no state that I have visited, that I do not see enormous agricultural potentials. This is one area we can go into. Where this is little bit worrisome is that we do not have an economic team that can get us out of this system. That economic team is very important. The people we have in some places in the ministry of finance and so forth are not economists.

There had been calls on the need to raise an economic team. But the government appears not persuaded to put one in place.

Well, my worry is that I have the feeling that the government even doesn’t care about what the people think or how they feel. Otherwise, they would have responded to all these calls, these yearnings for strong economic team that could re-inflate the economy and get us out of the recession before it is too late. But the government seems, particularly the leadership, seems to have this attitude that, “Okay, we are there because we have been elected and whatever we do, you accept, and so that it is not a question of you now dictating to us”.Again, there is also another dimension on the orientation of the government. We still have not gotten out of the past fixation that the people, you know, once you are in position of authority, you have all the answers. The value, not just on presidential democracy, is that it gives you so much latitude to utilize the available human capital, which is the number one thing that you need. Stretch out and get them wherever you can get them.

There are Nigerians- First Class, who could be used everywhere in the world. They are being tapped here and there, which sends a signal to us, that look, we have good talents in our midst, but they are being underutilized or not being used at all. So, they should change their mental fixation and orientation and know that this country needs to be developed by using the right attitude, the right people who can do the job. And finally in this regard, I also believe that there is need for those in authorities to have a retreat and really think through what they did not know before they went into government now that they are seeing the way things are going, that we have these challenges and how do we now solve these problems, because apparently it seems that they were working in vacuum at the time they were campaigning to be in power. The reality now stares them in the face. They now have to sit up, reflect, plan and act for the sake of a better Nigeria.

Would you say the Igbo’s demand for the Republic of Biafra is well defined? Is it something realistic within the context of the present Nigeria; and how do we successfully end the continued tension that agitation generates in the country?
Well, personally I have a thesis which, in this regard, is external rejection leads to internal solidarity. When you feel alienated, when you feel marginalized and there is a tendency that makes you look inward and say, “Look, we are being subjected to undue political marginalization or we are not even wanted, we are being persecuted and so on”; what needs to be done is open up, let them debate any issue.

When issues are being debated at different levels and the merits of these debates are being tackled sincerely and conscientiously, it would reduce this agitation for self help in the negative way.

It is unacceptable when somebody out of sheer arrogance will say that some people cannot agitate for something. In a democracy, you can agitate for anything, but what you agitate will be within the confines of the constitution or the law. And so long that you are operating within the law, you should encourage those people, let them express themselves and then respond accordingly. Questions are being raised and then you provide the answers. If some people raise certain question, then you also see whether indeed some other people in other zones or geographical ethnicity in the country also feel the same way.

So you try to address those questions and do something about it. And part of our problems has been living in denial. A constitutional conference was held in 2014…what became of the recommendations?

(Cuts in) In fact, we have had series of such national dialogues before.

Precisely! They just put the recommendations of the conference together and dumped them somewhere.  It is insulting to the Nigerian> people. They came out of Nigerians coming together to talk. No group was left out, those who are agitating for Biafra now were part of it; South-south was part of it, Northwest was part of it, Northeast was part of it. All the zones were all part of it. Pick up, study and see whatever can be done about it. Until we accept that every Nigerian has a right to his/her freedom, the latitude given by the constitution for association and so forth, we would not be getting anywhere. We should not take those who are agitating, those who are raising questions everywhere, we should not see them as unpatriotic or saboteurs. We should take them as people who are aggrieved, let us look into their grievances and see what can be done about it.   And let us, even before certain things are raised and before they come up, let us tackle them.

Former Abia State governor, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu has initiated moves to get the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kalu and the Federal Government to a dialogue table with a view to resolving the issue. Do you see any success of the initiative?

As far as I am concerned, I commend that initiative, but what I don’t understand is why it has to take former governor Uzor Kalu the one to really, you know, take that action.  I would have been more delighted seeing someone from the Southwest, someone from the Northcentral or someone from the Northwest, making that move so that it would be seen that we are our brothers’ keeper. We feel concerned about what is going on, this is not an Ibo affair. They have the right to ask certain things and we as their brothers also have that responsibility to give explanation, to relate with them, to make them feel that we are one. But now that he has initiated it, I commend the efforts; let others join from other zones and not just about the issue of IPOB and so forth. I believe that in the Northwest, particularly in the Kaduna State now, the Southern Kaduna and so forth, is not an affair that should be left for the people of Kaduna or people from Northern zone alone. Other Nigerians should feel concerned because this is our country and the people there are our people and we should always all come together to solve a problem and in fact, prevent problems from arising, control crisis before they boom. Once we are able to do that we would have a peaceful country and we would be able to have development. We waste so much scarce resources, we destroy what is in the ground that is not even enough and that is not even good for us.

Lives and property, which is for this country, are wasted and recklessly abandoned. We seem to be sending the wrong signal to the upcoming generation that we are building a culture of violence. In other words, that it is when you put on arms that people would listen to you.

Prof, how would you describe the government’s response to the Southern Kaduna killings?

I have not been impressed, I have been saddened by the governmental responses which have ranged from silence to finding alibi and trying to rationalize, even in some cases, to justify some decisions.  I don’t think that is right, I don’t think that is good for this country. We are just trying to overcome Boko Haram, we should not encourage some other such insurgencies and everything should be done when something happens. Government should move in decisively, nip the crisis in the bud and should be able to even identify hot spot that before they grew, we move and solve these problems because of human lives. The first duty of government is to protect the sanctity of life. Human lives should not be wasted like animals, it is very saddening.

When do we expect the Peoples Democratic Party crisis to be resolved?

Well, my comment on that is I will appeal to the media not overblow or exaggerate the disagreement that occurred or exists to some extent among the leadership of the PDP. You see, there are court cases pending and we believe that as much as possible these cases will be resolved. But more importantly, Senator Ahmed Makarfi is a fine gentleman, Modu Sheriff is a patriot and they are all leaders in their own right. They do not have anything personal and since it is a disagreement in terms of certain issues within the party, this will be resolved over time. Reconciliation will go along with what is going in the court, because at the end of the day, those who are on the two sides will come together and move forward. I do believe, very sincerely too that what has happened has taught the PDP a lesson, a serious lesson and by the grace of God we are coming out very, very strong.

(Cuts in) What gives you that optimism when the party has been so weakened, especially in the Southwest, which has seen the exit of or wrangling among powerful stalwarts including Chief Olusegun Obasanjo), Chief Bode George Otunba Adebayo Alao Akala, Chief Rashidi? Even Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti, recently served notice to pop out of the party. In Ondo, you saw the electoral defeat due to the rift between Governor Mimiko and Jimoh Ibrahim.

When I said earlier on that we have learnt our lessons, I did not mean that there are no people who have left the party. You mentioned some who have left, but you have not mentioned some of them who are waiting in the wings to come back and those who have actually come back. And what is holding up people’s movement, the mass movement that will come to the party is the resolution and that is, the resolution of the disagreement which some tagged “crisis”. And the cases that you referred to, particularly in the Southwest, yes, the Southwest is one the very volatile areas. It is an area where we have suffered some defeats. And we have suffered quite a number of defeats simply because of some miscalculations, based on what I regard as personal interests in some areas. And having learnt our lessons I believe we are going to make some amends and make sure that we put the party first because the party must come before the individual, because if you don’t have the party as a sole vehicle on which to ride to political power, to various offices, you are nobody. So, we are working very hard on that.

One thing you should not forget is that, as of today if you go to every nook and cranny of the country, you will find the party. It is not so with some other parties. And of course, one of the biggest lessons that they have learnt is the limit or deadly nature of impunity and that is why people will not allow impunity again. We will ensure that this party is based on the democratic principles that established it. The vision and mission of the party will be upheld.

(Cuts in) These are ideals that are so adorable but we are dealing with human beings here with personal ambitions, self interests, and self preservation instincts. Are you saying these won’t come into play again?

Yes, they’d come to play, but when there is truth. Of course, people know that the game has changed and that we have to play the game according to the rules now and that there will be honour and integrity and that people’s view will be respected and everybody will be a joint owner of the party. Even some people, there are some people whom are assumed to have left, including my brother, Uzor Kalu. He will come back when he sees that the type of party that was conceived is what has come back, including so many other people. They will all come back.

What’s your take on the claim that the APC government is busy working to deconstruct PDP, giving the party a very negative image of being corrupt and fuelling the internal crisis rocking the party, to avoid your retaking power in 2019?

Two issues! One, it has to be stated clearly that part of what the party has suffered was self-inflicted. In other words, I do not enjoy listening to people who claim or accuse the APC as being responsible for the challenges we are facing in the PDP. We caused it ourselves by impunity, disregard for our own constitution, indiscipline and all that and so forth. The second of course is that, yes the APC government saw the way we were, then capitalized on it first of all by making sure that they snatched power from us and secondly they now decided to be descending on us, to be “pouncing” on us- doing all kinds of things to weaken us.