•Nigeria should reintegrate South East zone
Remember Col. Gabriel Ajayi (Retd)! He is one of the victims of the inglorious late Gen Sani Abacha’s era whose brilliant and promising military career was cut short in 1995 on allegations of his involvement in a phantom coup against the regime. Currently, he is not a happy man. Why? He believes that despite Nigeria’s potential, she has failed to meet the expectations of the people. In this interview with WILLY EYA, he reflected on 57 years of Nigeria’s independence, the reasons for the agitation in the South East region of the country, calls for restructuring among other issues.
In the entire Southern part of the country and even the Middle Belt, there is a consensus on the need for restructuring but why does it seem that the core North are reluctant to embrace what many consider as the only solution to the challenges facing the nation?
Is it not shameful that we became independent by 1960 and today we are still talking about the form of government that we should have? Is it not a shame that people that were even talking about their own Arewa Republic are the ones now talking that they do not want devolution of powers and decentralisation? But that is not even my problem. The Nigerian government has spent over N800 billion prospecting for oil in the Lake Chad basin. If that amount is invested in agricultural production in Northern Nigeria, our products would have flooded the whole of West Africa and other parts of Africa and we would be contesting with European countries in agriculture. But the money went to the hands of the white people who are prospection for oil for us. For God’s sake, wherever God puts human beings, what they would use to survive, He would put there. What they do not have, God would give them something in exchange for that thing. I cannot hazard a guess why my Northern brothers and fathers want Nigeria to remain the way she is now. Who would say he is enjoying the system we have on ground now? I am not enjoying it. The system we have now has affected every facet of life in Nigeria – education, medical, social, economy, education etc. Why can’t we have a reassessment of the system? Let us go back to what we were by 1963. There is nothing stopping Sokoto State going into alliance with Rivers State to go into production of Cattle heads. Why should we be encouraging people to be doing nomadic herding in Nigeria when we can domesticate these things? We can do it in commercial quantity so that it can bring so much money for the country and for those who are in the business. Why do we politicize every minor thing in the country?
I must confess to you that I am not a happy man. Nigeria is a potentially great nation but you see, the nation is fumbling whereas we have no excuse to fumble as a country. The situation is very unfortunate. Stanford University is the live wire of the state of California which is the single largest economy in the world. What are our universities doing. The Federal Government took over the University of Ife and destroyed the potential of that institution. The way my brain is working, I am not happy. We should be enjoying in this country. If the exchange rate is one dollar to naira and somebody is earning N18000, I would say that Nigeria would be one of the highest Salary paying countries in the world. Why is it that our Naira cannot match the dollar? It is because we are not productive. Nobody wants to work in Nigeria. We cannot continue to share the tenancy rent that the white people are carting away from our oil resources. Nigeria is old enough to refine her own petroleum products and sell to other African countries. God gave us petroleum so that Nigeria would be exporting it. God gave us petroleum to provide Nigerians work. Anything that anybody is doing that does not impact the lives of the individual Nigerian cannot work.
What is your take on the tension in the South East and the launching of Operation Python Dance in the zone?
For me, that is a very sensitive issue which I do not want to discuss but you know, some of the chaps who are the senior commanders today happen to be those people we brought up in service. So, you do not expect us as their mentors to come out in the open and start commenting on their actions.
All I want to say is that the military is like the spear in the hands of the holder. Wherever it is thrown, it goes there. A soldier goes where he is told to go and does what he is told to do. The problem now is that if the spear is in the hands of Mr A and he could throw it anyhow, and if it also goes to Mr B, he could throw it anyhow; the issue is that there must be a standard procedure of throwing the spear. That is to ensure that there is no mis-throwing of the spear. I believe that what the military is doing in the South East should be what they are supposed to be doing.
Some of my boys who spoke with me recently said what they are doing there is a military exercise like the one we used to do when I was in the service including the Operation Lion Heart and so on. It is nothing other than that. It is not a warfare. The operation is not one to oppress people or to kill people but a military exercise which is to test the capability of the soldiers to respond to situations and emergencies to ensure internal security and protect the country from external aggression.
They said that is what they are doing in the South East and that they are not fighting anybody or doing anything or harassing anybody. They said they are doing their normal exercise that we used to do when I was there too. I had nothing to say because I too was there and we did so many of such military exercises. But under normal circumstances, I would have felt that the Federal Government could have adopted a pacifist’s approach rather than a pugnacious approach on the issue involved. This is because it is for Nigerians. We must make Nigeria attractive to all Nigerians.
If you make Nigeria attractive to all Nigerians, why should the East say they want to get out of Nigeria. You should ask yourself, why is the country no longer attractive to them. Why have they lost the romance for Nigeria. Why do my friends from the East want to leave me? Have I offended them and what have I done to them? We have to look at it. Have we offended them. Are we cheating them? But the other thing is also that war is not an option because whether you go to war or not, you still have to sit round a table and jaw-jaw. Why don’t we do the conference now and leave the issue of fighting war? I do not see any reason why the Easterners should say they want to leave.
Nigeria has a destiny and we are using the destiny of the Easterners as it should be. During the war, you could see the survival strategy adopted by the East. We could have used the survival strategy of the East during the civil war to launch Nigeria into an industrial age. We did not do so and so there are still the grievances and the grumbling. The fault is ours and not the Easterners. We ought to bring them in properly. We should not let them remain the prodigal son. Even when the prodigal son came back, you saw how the father welcomed him.
We have to apply the principles of the prodigal son in dealing with such issues. Since the end of the last civil war, we are still missing some things. We take certain things for granted and the whole thing is boomeranging now. It has taken a long time but the thing has got to the peak now. There must be proper friendship and camaraderie and there should be the ability to use the potential of the component parts. So, the ball is in our court. We cannot kill fellow Nigerians for Nigeria to survive. It does not make sense.
Recently, the South West elders had a rally in Ibadan where they resolved that Nigeria should be restructured back to how it was in 1963; do you agree with that position.
Let me tell you something; why people are so suspicious of our strident call for restructuring was that when somebody from the South West, Gen Olusegun Obasanjo was in power, they did not call for restructuring. When Goodluck Jonathan was there, they did not call for it. So, it becomes suspicious. When now we are calling for it, some people do not understand. We have been silent for long and that is the truth about the situation. In fairness to all, in previous governments, we did not make this as a cardinal demand and for us to make it a cardinal demand now, the people up North are suspicious of our actions. We have to make them to understand that we mean no harm. We should make them to understand that it would be beneficial to them too. But as it is now, it appears that we want to understand. For long we did not demand this restructuring.
We have been sleeping on our demand all along. Some feel that may be it is because some people are now in power that we are making the demand on restructuring. People misunderstand the altruistic motive of the leaders calling for restructuring. It is not harmful but the way it is, people do not understand us and they feel that there is something underneath. We have to try and allay the fears of those people and we should not demand it in a pugnacious manner but in a friendly manner. So long as we want to remain one Nigeria, we must understand that we have to make sacrifices of give and take. Without that, we would continue to misunderstand one another.
Why the North is against restructuring is that they misunderstand the concept and we have to make them understand that there would be no problem. We should do it not by bullying. We should emphasise the advantages of restructuring and some of our governors there should start restructuring in the states. The governors should start economic restructuring and even in the Local Government and not pocketing the money of the councils. Let people see the essence of restructuring. Let the allocations from the Federal Government go directly to the Local Governments.
During Local Government elections, let them be independent. Let them look at the closeness of the Local Government to the people. Try to improve the workmanship of people at the Local Government and grant them the independence to run the system. So, people would see that restructuring is not about dealing with people or depriving some people of what they have been enjoying.
With the level of tension in the land now, what do you see on the road to the next general election in 2019?
Let me say to you what I used to say: if we do not restructure Nigeria, Nigeria would restructure us whether we like it or not and that would be too bad. We cannot continue the way we are going. Something would give way. The best thing is for us to sit down and restructure. We must not consider ourselves but the generality of Nigerians. If we go on like this, the only thing I see is that the election would be poorly conducted; there would be very poor turnout for the election and you may not even see people coming out for campaign rallies.