Chief Ladi Rotimi Williams, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)), believes the nation’s future looks very bleak unless she gives room for a change and positively deals with the growing call for restructuring. He is still at a loss why the Senate did not vote in favour of the recent bill for the devolution of powers to the states. In this interview with WILLY EYA, he spoke on various issues.
All is not well with the country. There is recession and hunger in the land. Hate speeches and echoes of disintegration have become the order of the day. The level of insecurity of lives and property is also not palatable with the Arewa youths order on the Igbo to quit the North still hanging in the air. What do you make of the tension in the country?
The first thing I would tell you is that no group of people has the right to tell another group of people that they cannot live in any part of the country. Number two is that no group of people can just wake up and now say that they are no longer part of a whole. That also is wrong. It is now left for the executive arm of government to restore order, because if the people who are saying the Igbo must leave the North use force, there would be trouble. If the people who are saying they want to leave Nigeria try to do so, there would be trouble. I lived through the unfortunate civil war and I also lived through the rioting of a massive scale in the North. So, neither is good. It is now up to the executive to resolve the situation. We cannot allow such to happen in our country, but unfortunately, the constitution does not provide for a referendum for anybody who wants to go, to leave the country. There is no provision for a referendum. So, the power now lies with the executive and to some extent, the legislature who can make laws, but specifically to prevent any secessionist movement or to prevent any group of people trying to force out others. Some of the Igbo you are referring to have lived in the North in the greater part of their lives and you cannot tell them to get out from there. Neither can the Igbo who are saying they want Biafra be allowed to do so. Where would the boundary be? Some people have said it would include Benue State, the Tivs and Idomas. The minorities in the former Eastern Nigeria –the Efik, Ibibio, northern part of Cross River and so on, they do not want to go back to Biafra and be subjugated by the Igbo. So, our best option is to try and make the best out of what we have. United we are greater than when we start breaking into ethnic parts. When former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government was in power, you would have noticed that people of the Eastern region as a whole were dominant in government. The Igbo were very powerful in government. You had the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, head of the Army, Ihejirika and so on were from there. Then, they did not complain. And the election came the next time and Jonathan lost out. It was the strong support of the South West that ensured that Jonathan lost the election. And what made it worse for Jonathan in the West was that he came to the South West and started going from one Oba to the other. The Yoruba are too sophisticated for that. No Oba can tell a Yoruba man who to vote for and who not to vote for. It was a serious mistake. So, it is turn by turn. Those who are now out of office should be patient; let them go and relax. When the elections come, they might decide who to vote for and who not to vote for. The agitations, in my humble view, are being carried out by those who feel shut out of government and it is wrong. You cannot win all the time. So, you must be patient. We must live together and build the country. And of what use was it when Okonjo-Iweala was the Minister of Finance in Jonathan’s government. How did she impact the East? Are people there not yet in abject poverty? Were the roads built? Jonathan was in charge of Nigeria. Why did he not construct roads in Bayelsa? Why did he leave the office without building the second Niger bridge, with all the bad roads and gullies from Onitsha to Enugu? Why did Jonathan not do them and he is from the former Eastern region? So, what we should be interested in is who can deliver the goals and dividends of democracy? We must stop looking at things from the tribal prism. As long as we continue to do that, we would not make progress. Everybody should be each other’s keeper. We should not descend to all these primordial, tribal sentiments.
You are a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, how do you feel about the Senate’s rejection of the call for devolution of powers?
The Senate needs to explain to Nigerians why they threw it out. That is my short answer to your question. They have not explained to us. What we know is that they threw it out, but why they did it, whether there are advantages and disadvantages, they should tell us.
On the issue of restructuring, what is your view especially as it appears a section of the country is apparently not in support of it?
I think it is a major step towards bringing peace to the country, because no matter the calculation, no region that would be shut out in the scheme of things would keep quiet. The last time, the East and some elements in the North were in power. Now, the East is more or less shut out of government and the West and North West are together. So, it would always happen like that. Maybe if there is devolution of power and then there is less money in the central government, people would not be running helter skelter to get the Federal Government under its control. It is all about money and power. That is the truth. The Igbo were there before and now they are no more there, but nothing lasts forever. Let somebody else be there. That is the way I see it. Jonathan was there, is the East better off. The man was in power for six years but they are one of the poorest parts in the federation. So, what are you talking about? I pray that Buhari gets well and comes back to make his own mark in the nation. That is the way I see it and that is the truth.
As a way forward for the nation, do you support the implementation of the 2015 Confab report?
I support it, but not the implementation of everything they put down there. I support the aspect of the state police, fiscal federalism. We need to go and look at the principle of federalism. The people who invented the principle of federalism, we need to go and study their work. We do not have true federalism in Nigeria and that is part of the problems we are having.
We are approaching another general election amid so much tension in the country. Ahead of 2019, what are your expectations.
What I would say is that I sincerely pray and hope nobody would lose his life. It is not worth it. And I also hope that we shall have a free and fair election. That is one way of guaranteeing peace. There should be no rigging.
With the recession and the level of hunger in the land amid the cloud of uncertainty, do you have any fears for the country?
Of course, I have my fears. There is an old saying that a hungry man is an angry man. From Sokoto to Cross River, Lagos to Maiduguri and so on, we have hungry people. I am talking about people who do not have any reasonable job they are doing. They may wake up one day and say, what do I even lose and they would even see anybody that has a car as an enemy. And it should not be like that. They are still producing oil and they are trying to diversify now. So, the people who are looting the Nigerian treasury should be compelled to return the money. I am not even interested in anybody going to jail, to be honest with you. Putting the looters in jail will not feed the hungry man in Adamawa or Bayelsa. Take the money from them and let the country know what these monies are being used for. Invest in the people, agriculture and other natural resources; improve the schools, hospitals, roads and use the funds for that purpose. I have many friends in the Niger Delta, they complain that why should this one have an oil bloc, why does that one have an oil bloc, why are they distributing oil blocs to people. When you get the oil bloc, you do not have to work for the rest of your life, you just check your bank accounts. You earn millions upon millions virtually on a monthly basis. Why can’t such monies go to the state? They do not do that in Russia or America. These are monies that belong to the commonwealth. So, all these things have to be restructured. I do not understand why the Senate in their wisdom rejected the call for devolution of powers.
One of the planks upon which the APC came to power was the promise to restructure the country. Why do you think they have reneged on that campaign promise?
The APC is an amalgamation of different people. About 40 percent of the APC members were initially in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but crossed over. And without the support of the new APC members who came from the PDP, the current APC government would not have won the last general election. The Senate president, who is a very likable person, was not originally of the APC. He crossed over from the PDP to the APC. Even at the level of the Federal Government, Buhari was in the Congress for Progressive Change( CPC). It is the same with the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo. They were not together before, but they came together to grab power. And looking at it, they have just spent barely two years and they cannot do in two years what the PDP has been doing almost in the past 18 years; some would say six years of Jonathan. It is like training your son to be a doctor. If he is able to do it in six or seven years, if you want another son to do it in two years, it is not possible. Nobody would go and see a doctor who spent only two years in the university. So, it would take some time. Maybe, in the long run, a third party which would not embrace former APC and PDP members, people who have never tasted power before, would come to government, win an election, defeat APC and PDP and rule the country. But the problem is that they would tell you that they do not have money. This is because election needs money. We need to move away from the old guard. Nigeria has to cut out from the 19th century. We have to come out. Are we not all Africans? We cannot all go on like this.
Do you agree with those who insist that the core North is the problem with Nigeria because they do not want to change the status quo?
I will not agree that the North is part of the problems of the country. The problem is that Nigerians are yet to get used to the principles and ideas of democracy. The North was there when Obasanjo became the President of Nigeria twice. The North was there and Jonathan won the election and the North was there when they made Ernest Shonekan the Head of State. I do not have any problem with a northerner being president or an Easterner being president. My problem is that whoever is going to rule Nigeria should rule well. Somebody from the East could emerge the president and it could be somebody that I know, a classmate and is my friend. In that case, I would have more access to him than somebody from his village. So, it does not matter where he comes from. Whoever is there should do it well and have in mind the people of Nigeria especially the downtrodden citizens of the country. He should focus on the alleviation of poverty.
Part of the worries of some people is also that the Buhari-led administration has not been able to unite the nation.The argument is that from inception, the body language of the president showed signs that it would not be an inclusive one for all Nigerians. Do you agree with this position?
National unity is really a state of mind. If I see you on the street for whatever reason and I immediately recognize you and maybe your car broke down or something, you think I would not give you a lift because you are not from Yoruba land. If you see my car breakdown on the Third mainland bridge, so you would not pick me because I am a Yoruba man. You would pick me up. Do you know why you would pick me up. It is because first and foremost, I am a human being. It depends on the policy that is being pursued. In Nigeria, we do not use manifestoes to campaign like in the golden days of old like during the NCNC, NPC and so on. Then they had manifestoes which they followed. Late Obafemi Awolowo followed the free education in the West. He had this free education programme and that is one of the reasons why the West is leading in that area. So, it all depends on programme. That is why the bulk of the Yoruba people can swear by Awolowo till tomorrow. They still use him to campaign till tomorrow and the reason for that is that, that was the area he had the chance of ruling. He did not have the chance of ruling Nigeria, but the area he was able to rule, the people he ruled would testify that he did well. So, as long as we have people like that who are dedicated to alleviating the sufferings of Nigerians, I think all Nigerians should support the person. On a personal basis, my wife is not from Yoruba land. My wife is from Cross River. So, am I going to say because she is not Yoruba, I am not going to marry her. If I do that, do I know whether I am going to be happy! When I see my wife, I do not see her as Efik or non-Yoruba. No, I see her just as the mother of my children. If I say, I am going to change her and that it has to be Yoruba, am I going to be happy if I did that. Will it not end in divorce and my family ending up scattered? But you talk about somebody that can understand and tolerate you. It must not be somebody from your town or village. We should stop these sentiment of the North is there, the East is there and all that. Even in my office, it is not only Yoruba that are working for me. I have all kinds of people all over the place working for me and I do not take them on the basis of where they come from, but what they can do. I have to bring somebody from Kano. I have to bring somebody from Ikwere. I have to bring somebody from Cross River State. No. You interview them, they take the tests and based on how well they do, you can take them. That is a private sector, but I appreciate that when it comes to government, there are also other factors that you have to consider. You cannot put everybody from Owerri in a government job and say it was based on merit or you put 100 percent of the Tiv people in a government job and say, it was based on merit. It would not work. I know that in our constitution, we have the issue of federal character. It is just there to douse the issue of anybody feeling marginalized or not being part of the federation. That is why it is there. So, we have to look beyond North, East and West, but it would take us a long time to get there. It is not an easy thing.
At the moment, the greatest challenge facing the nation is that of threat to security of lives and property. Recall that it is one area the APC promised to bring under control when it takes over power. But even when the government claims it has won the war against the Boko Haram sect, you can still see what they are doing; there are the issues of the herdsmen, kidnapping, ritual killings and so on, why do you think the threat of insecurity is becoming so obvious now?
It is unfortunate. Nobody likes the killings, whether you call them Boko Haram, Badoo boys in Ikorodu or whatever you call them. That does not mean it does not happen elsewhere. Like I told you, I am abroad but recently, one man drove into where they were demonstrating and rammed his car into human beings. It was in Virginia. He did not care whether they were white or black; he just ran into them. He is in custody now and that is America, the world’s super power. It happens everywhere now. The situation was even worse when former President Barak Obama was in charge. So, what we need to do is to further invest in our law enforcement agencies. That is what we need to do, as far as I am concerned. And it shows that nowadays, there are so many guns in Nigeria and many of them are smuggled. The ones that you know about are probably more than the ones you do not know. So, the Nigerian Customs Service has to tighten up their ends; the Police should be better motivated. If you do not believe me, visit any police barracks of your choice and you see how they are living. They need to take care of them, so that they can take care of us. If a burglar comes to your house, you do not go to call your tailor but the police station. How many times have you driven in a car or taxi and you are stopped by the policeman on duty who would tell you that your boys are loyal sir or anything for our boys? It is because their salaries are not only small but are not paid as at when due. Policemen have children; let their education be free from primary up to university level so that when they know that is settled, when they are even dying in the course of the job, they would not be afraid.
So, we need to take care of them holistically. No child of a policeman up to 18 years should pay for his medicals. The government should take care. We need to do all that. But some people would loot the money, go and buy big houses in London; some are competing over how many private jets they have and so on. It is unfortunate.
If we do not change, if we do not restructure, if we continue in the same old ways since the past 50 years, the future is very bleak. It will be very sad because Nigeria is a blessed country. We have everything. Most black people in the United States that have college education are Nigerians. Go to South Africa and Europe, it is the same thing but it is mismanagement all these years that have brought us where we are today.