The Zonal Director, Directorate of Politics and Good Governance, North West of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Apostle Abayomi Adekoya, has claimed there is no possibility of Nigeria producing political leaders in this generation that would resign from office in the national interest, as it happens in other climes. In this interview with NOAH EBIJE in Kaduna, Apostle Adekoya said every politician is struggling to occupy public office just to service personal interest. He also spoke on other national issues.
As a man of God, who is the crystal ball telling you will become the next president?
I am a little bit careful because of the position I am holding. As the Director of the Directorate of Politics and Good Governance of PFN, North West, I am not to take a position. But Nigerians are yearning for change. Our country is at a precipice; we are on a threshold that we must get it right in 2023. I fear that this nation may disintegrate if we don’t get it right in 2023. But I think the nation, particularly the youths, have gotten up and said, “Look, we own the nation; let’s take our nation back. It is like in 2014 everybody wanted a change. The clamour for that change, if you permit me, is about 98 per cent higher than it was in 2014. People want a change because the cost of living is high. On a daily basis, I receive calls from people asking for money to pay school fees and food. It is obvious that it is not well with the nation. I believe the change we are yearning for will happen in 2023. The Nigeria of 2014 is not the Nigeria of 2021, needless to say, that of 2022. Knowledge has increased. Those who have been staying aloof are now saying, “Let’s take our land, our nation.” Our lives lie in our hands.
The change of 2023 is different from the change of 2014. I watched a clip by one of the governors talking about how he performed and challenged the youths to go and research on Google, and the youths went and searched, and told him what they found in the Goggle. They said, “You are not right in your submission, and you are guilty of ABCD.” One thing about Nigerians is that we are very patient people. When an average Nigerian gets up and says it is enough, then it is enough. The youths are ready to vote, and they have begun to sensitise one another. Look at the analysis of the demography that registered for the election: they are between the ages of 18 and 39. And 99.1 percent are youths. These are the owners of this country, if you like.
But Americans, who are the apostles of democracy, hardly emphasise on youth leadership. How about that?
America, like Nigeria, was also yearning for change at the time Joe Biden came to power who was available at that time. You know President Macron of France came to power at the age of 39. Even in Kenya, the current president is a youth. It is a world all over thing. The youths are beginning to take responsibility. The old leaders we have today came on board when they were youths. They were 30, 31, 32. Now, our youths are saying, “We are not leaders of tomorrow; we are leaders of today; let’s start today to learn the ropes. Those who are leaders today started as youths. Goliath was a warrior as a youth, but he faced David at his old age, and, David being a youth, defeated him. The truth is that our old politicians don’t want to let it go. The political parties have made democracy too lucrative. So people are willing to die to get there for the money, not for the love of the nation. We cannot take away the experience of the old generation, however, but it is said in the Bible, Job 32: 8, that great men are not always wise, nor do aged ones understand judgment. It requires that wisdom does not reside only in the elderly. It resides in the wise, and it is God who gives wisdom and power and He can raise somebody from nowhere. If you ask me, I will say that the old ones should be kingmakers not wanting to be kings again.
The All Progressive Congress (APC) Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket has generated a lot of criticism across the country. What is your reaction?
Nigeria is a very religious nation. Muslim-Muslim ticket is dead on arrival. It still talks about the issue of the institution. The argument has been, “okay, it is somebody who can perform.” Are they saying that, in the entire North, there is no credible Christian who can fly that flag of a Vice presidential candidate? The answer is No. We have segmented the nation along religious lines, ethnic lines, and a particular interest in the North. I grew up in the North here. I came to the north with my parents in December 1964. So I know what north is. When we were growing up together (Some people will say when Satan was still sleeping) there was no dichotomy of Muslim, Christian and all stuff. Over time, that had been played and overplayed. Muslim-Muslim ticket is an insult on the sensibility of the Christian community for lack of another word to use. They said it is based on competence, forgetting that the entire Christians in the North are competent. It brings about the issue I talked about structure and system. The same thing that is playing in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
There’s no Muslim-Muslim ticket in PDP
Yes, I mean the issue of their national chairman; should he go or stay? And it is all about equity, justice and fairness. I am not a politician, but they say every human being is a political animal. I understand what is going on; we lead the people; we know what we hear or see. You understand what I am trying to say. We are about to begin the election; you cannot have all the ways, give us something, no matter how little. There is always horse trading, bargaining; there is what is called balance of error, balance of power. That is where the Nigerian state has failed. When power is tilted towards a particular section and interest, there is always a reaction, which is normal. When you push people to the wall, they will get to a point and react. That is what is currently going on in the nation.
The argument by some concerned Nigerians is that the PDP national chairman came to the office through an election, and, therefore, he cannot be removed without following the due process. How do you see this?
Though the constitution is there, it also provides for the doctrine of necessity. I also think the constitution itself talks about the balance of power. Power must not be seen to tilt towards a particular direction. The constitution provides for every segment, every stratum, and the society to be involved in the governance of the nation. To that degree it is convenient for everybody. Even the Constitution of Nigeria agrees that nothing should be done to see that some people are excluded from governance. You have the chairman from the North, Vice chairman from the North, Presidential candidate from the North, the BoT Chairman from the North stepped down recently. There is something fundamentally wrong with us Nigerians. I watched a documentary not long ago about a woman who died because they could not take care of her in an emergency situation, and the health minister of that country resigned. If your position is for the people, there is no sacrifice that is too great to make. If it is for the interest of the people, there is no sacrifice that is too great to make.
Some Nigerians are saying that Gov Wike of Rivers State has fought enough over Ayu. Don’t you think he should now move ahead with the party?
Somebody has said that Governor Wike ought not to be a politician; that he is somebody who is forthright; he is a straightforward person, it is a question of integrity. We have very few of such persons in the nation that believe in a cause, fight for the cause and follow the cause. If you ask Wike to bend, for how long shall we continue to be bending, because evil will thrive if we continue to bend? Evil will continue to thrive when good people keep quiet. Nobody has been asked, to the best of my knowledge, that what Wike is asking for is not correct. Everybody has said he is correct but the timing. I am saying there is no better time to correct an abnormality than now, because we are talking about equity, justice and fairness, and that is what the constitution of the nation is based on. If there is no equity, justice and fairness, there can be no progress.
Almost every Nigerian is complaining of severe socio-economic hardship in the land. What is your reaction here?
We didn’t get to where we are in one day. We got to where we are over a period of time. But when the present administration was coming to power there was so much hope; people thought things were going to change for the better because of mantras with which they came in. But, over seven years down the line, things have gone from bad to worse. And I think that one of the biggest problems of Nigeria is that we have not allowed institutions to function. The biggest problem of Nigeria has been that of system and structure. We have a system in place that has not been allowed to work. We have a structure in place that has not been allowed to work, partly because of what I will call lack of political will. We have not run the nation like a nation, we have run the nation like an enterprise, because, in a nation everybody has a stake; there are stakeholders, there are things that individuals are bringing to the board to make the system work. But, in the case of Nigeria, partly some of the things that are supposed to make the system work are lopsided. Where they are not lopsided, they belong to a particular region or a particular interest group. Like it has been trending, Katsina State has been granted a licence to secure the state against insecurity. That is okay. But when it got to Ondo State, it was a different ball game in the South-West. Then you begin to ask yourself, are we having two different kinds of law in the country? If we are having two different kinds of laws, who are the beneficiaries of this one and who are the beneficiaries of the other? I think that what’s sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. We are talking about institutions and systems. Nigeria has not been allowed to function in a way that has all the different components that will make it function as it should be. Like I also read in the newspapers a few days ago about the issue of Osun and Ekiti elections —the use of servers — and you begin to be jittery about what is going on. If you have told us that the use of servers is being proved and is going to be a game changer, why are you shifting the goal post in the middle of the game? This is to tell you that what we are having as a problem in Nigeria is a systemic failure. It is not as if Nigeria cannot work; Nigeria can work. We do believe and hope that Nigeria will work. But for Nigeria to work, all the components in the system must work. This is part of the challenges of Nigeria in the current dispensation that we are in.
Another issue bedevilling the country is insecurity. What do you think should be the way out?
Like every other thing we have been discussing, security should be everybody’s business: the number one. Number two: the Armed forces are doing the best they can in the circumstances they found themselves in. But somebody somewhere must get to a place where he will tell himself enough is enough. The governor of Kogi State said, if he was in the position of the president, some things that were going on wouldn’t not have gone on. We know things that happened in Kogi State and the steps he took, and he said he would face it headlong. The situation is a very dicey one — blame games. But I believe that one security forces are the best anyone can have. But if you know how security operates, you cannot go beyond what you are asked to do. Until we have leaders who are selfless; until we have leaders who are patriotic enough to put the nation above personal interest, section, religion, we will not go very far as a nation. But once we have leaders who put national interest above personal interest, then the issue of protection of lives and property becomes a priority. As it is right now, we do not have leaders who are thinking national; we have leaders who are looking for the needs of their people, the needs of themselves, the needs of their section. That is why the issue of what is going on in Katsina State and South-West is coming to play. If the interest is for the generality of the people, you will not mind who is there or who is not there. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The lives in Katsina are as precious as the lives in Zamfara; precious as lives in Ondo, Ekiti or Abeokuta or anywhere, for that matter. The Bible says, in the lack of people, places are destroyed. So, as a leader, the people are your strength, and it doesn’t matter who they are. No matter where you are, you need people. People are everything. Once you don’t have people as a leader, you are just moving around alone.