Chief Jelili Oyewale Adesiyan, former Minister of Police Affairs, has asserted that Nigeria would not move forward until it returns to a regional system of government, insisting that the current American-style presidential system would not augur well for the country.
In an interview with OLUSEYE OJO, Adesiyan, who served under President Goodluck Jonathan, also spoke on restructuring, state police, security challenges and other issues of national importance.
Nigeria has passed through many stages right from the pre-independence era till date. What can you say about the past and present of the country?
When Nigeria got its independence, the constitution that was bequeathed to us was parliamentary. We had three regions at that time- the West, the North, and the East. The three regions were based on ethnic groupings. Majority of the Easterners were Igbo. The Yoruba are monolithic in the West. Then, the North was basically Hausa/Fulani, though there are other ethic groups there too.
Each of the regions developed at its own pace. Each region was controlling its resources with fractional percentages of the resources going to the central government. The Yoruba, led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, made incursions to the north and that was why he brought in Joseph Tarka, and a lot of people from that place. He made people know that in the North there are Tiv, Idoma and other tribes that are not Hausa or Fulani.
The Sarduana of Sokoto also made incursions into the West through the instrumentality of the deputy leader, Chief Ladoke Akintola. Then, the West and the North looked at the East as a bride. The leader of the East then was Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe. It is on record that other factors also played out among the three regions, which led to where we are today in the country.
The first military coup in Nigeria actually created a big issue. The coupists were revolutionists, according to them. But how genuine it was is left to the history. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi took over as military head of state after Kaduna Nzeogwu coup. Nzeogwu saw himself as a revolutionist. Unfortunately, most leaders were killed in the West, and in the North. So, it became a sectional coup. Aguiyi-Ironsi introduced a unitary system of government. People revolted. Then, he was going round the country to speak to traditional rulers and leaders of thoughts on why he wanted a unitary system as against the regional government. He drew a unitary constitution, drafted by Prof Ben Nwabueze. He went to the North to explain it to them.
Aguiyi-Ironsi was killed during the second military coup, which is known as a counter-coup. The system of government that we are using now is not working. We have to return to regional government. The unitary system has done a lot of harm to federalism in the country. If Nigeria will work, then we must practise true federalism.
What would you say is the major bane of unity, growth and development for the nation?
The cause of the problem we have in the country today is the unitary constitution. We have not gone back to the regional system of government.
My own personal prayer is for President Bola Tinubu to be the last President of a united Nigeria. I am a politician, and I am not saying Nigeria should be divided into three. Let us go back to regional governments. This will lead to resource control. It will lead to state policing. Let the National Assembly sit down now and make a new constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Let us go back to parliamentary democracy. Under this, the corruption would have been minimal. Nobody in any region will allow anybody to steal their commonwealth and go scot-free. But the fact that under the present system, it is a national cake, everyone has been cutting what he could get. If we are to go back to regional government, it cannot be three regions again. We have to go to the six geopolitical zones.
If Nigeria adopts the regional government again with six geopolitical zones, what will be the fate of Nigerians that have been cut off from their ancestral people?
The new constitution should capture them. Let them have a plebiscite to determine where they want to go. Let the United Nations come and supervise the referendum. If the other ethnic tribes in the South West don’t want to be minorities in Yorubaland, let them have a plebiscite to decide whether they want to go or stay. Even in the North, there will still be minorities within the minority.
What’s your opinion on the banditry and kidnapping currently ravaging the country?
The incursion of the present Fulani herdsmen was caused by those who wanted Jonathan out of power. I have no apology. When Buhari was about to contest the 2015 presidential election under APC, we were in government then. He knew he could lose. In the history of the country, nobody had been able to take power from an incumbent. So, there was the need to get ready in order not to lose that election. I was a minister then. I was not only a minister, I was one of the security ministers – the minister of police affairs. So, I knew all that happened. Some people did not know why Goodluck Jonathan signed off. Jonathan kept on saying that his ambition was not worth the blood of anybody. Fortunately, Jonathan is a person that never thought he could be anything in Nigeria, and he rose from that level to become the President of Nigeria. Then, he was president of Nigeria for six years. He wanted to become president for another four years. So, he thought there should not be war because of his ambition.
On the election day, while some of us were in our various states, monitoring the election, a lot of tension had built here and there. We had held security meetings. We knew what they were planning. We knew a lot of things that had happened. In order to save Nigeria, Jonathan just sacrificed himself in order to ensure peace in Nigeria. He went in and called Buhari. He congratulated him, even when the election was still on. This settled all the tension and drum of war.
So, those that were engaged to cause problems were living in the bush, including Sambisa forest and everywhere. But to return them to where they brought them became a problem. This is the cause of banditry till today. The people just shared the $1million given to them and said they were not going back.
Therefore, if the regional governments had been on till now, Nigeria will not be in this mess. So, until we go back to our constitution, sit down and start our resource control, nothing tangible will happen. Let all the regions contribute a fractional percentage of money to the centre. If the centre knows that the money they would need to control the Army, Customs and others is from the money they get from all the states, the presidency will not be attractive again. I would rather become the prime minister of my state than to become the president of this country. The presidency should then become rotational among the regions.
As a former minister of police affairs, do you see state policing working in Nigeria towards overcoming security challenges besetting the country? And, without returning Nigeria to regional system of government, can state police still work?
I live more in the United States today than in Nigeria. I come to Nigeria when the place is too cold for me. America is the home of democracy. The United States does not only have state police, they have community police. Almost all the universities in the United States have their own police. They have the constitutional rights to do so. So, in the U.S, there is federal police. They can handle anything. Then, they have state police. Within the state police, they have county police, which is the local government police. Within the local government police, they have community police. It is the constitution that spells out the functions and jurisdictions of each of them.
This country – Nigeria, has become so large than for one centralised police to govern, it is impossible. One, the Nigeria Police Force is not only short of staff, they are short of equipment.
When you look at the ratio of police to persons, one policeman is guarding close to one million persons. The police we have in Nigeria are not up to 500,000. And we have up to 300 million people in the country.
You would want to ask me about funding of the police force. There is what we called Police Reform Funds. When Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was Head of State, the Council of State, which is an advisory council, sat down and resolved that the problem of Nigeria was the type of police that we have, which is true.
The council suggested having a Police Reform Fund in order to reform the police. They concluded that to set up the reform, a special fund must be set up as well. The council noted that the three tiers of government share allocations every month. They suggested that one per cent of the allocation should be set aside and should be given to the police for the reform. They thought of who to give the money to, either the Inspector-General of Police or Chairman of Police Service Commission. They resolved that the money should not be given to them. And they mooted the idea of establishing the Ministry of Police Affairs. This is what led to the establishment of the Ministry of Police Affairs.
Then, there would be a committee in the ministry, which shall be headed by the Minister of Police Affairs and supervised by the President through the office of the Vice President. The committee would be meeting every month after the one per cent deduction has been received to suggest and agree on what the money would be used for. The President is the approving authority for everything the committee would do.
It was from the money that they established the Police University in Kano. It was from the fund that the police colleges are resurfacing. It was from the fund that they bought equipment, including helicopters, for the police.
When I became the Minister of Police Affairs, there was a man who did not want to see my face at all. He is Rauf Aregbesola, when he served as governor of Osun State then. Aregbesola went to court when I became Minister of Police Affairs and said he had locus standi not to give me the one per cent police reform fund. He got an injunction and brought it to my ministry. So, that was how the court stopped the police reform fund.
So, throughout my tenure as minister, I could not do much because there were no funds to work with. We did not also have a budget. It was then we realised that the fund was not backed by law. We drafted the law and took it to the Senate. The Senate had the first reading. They did not complete the second and third readings before I left as minister. When there is no funding and you don’t have a budget, what do you do?
This was why during the first four years of Buhari, he did not have a Minister of Police Affairs. It was during the four years that the Senate passed it into law and did adjustments to it. It was thereafter that they have a Minister of Police Affairs.
Also, I discussed the issue of creation of state police with President Goodluck Jonathan when we were in power and he said he was in support of it. But he was worried about its potential misuse.
What is the way forward?
First of all, let us recreate a constitution that will guide each of the political zones.