Understanding Boko Haram: A Theology of Chaos

A kingdom can endure with unbelief, but it cannot endure with injustice.

                                                                            Uthman Dan Fodio 

Three weeks ago, Boko Haram, the ultraviolent Islamic militant group rose like a phoenix from hell from the ashes of its defeat last year by the Nigerian military. In Maiduguri, Borno State, they carried out motorcycle-borne ride-by shootings targeted at police officers and other law enforcement agents. In Bauchi, they stormed a federal prison and set free hundreds of their members as well as other inmates and threatened reprisals against those they accused of persecuting their members. Obviously, the military did not defeat Boko Haram last year when a five-day long clash ended with the extrajudicial execution in police custody of Mohammed Yusuf, the group’s leader. Although scores of the militants were killed or rounded up, several also escaped, simply melting into surrounding environs. According to the State Security Service, Boko Haram has 540,000 members. A group with that numerical strength cannot be wiped out by the strategy of decapitation traditionally used by states to cripple dissident groups. Decapitation as a strategy is simply targeting dissident leaders for elimination as a means of exterminating their rebellion from the very top. The resurgence of Boko Haram makes clear that the military operation against it was only moderately successful.

The emergence of Boko Haram signifies the maturation of long festering extremist impulses that run deep in the social reality of Northern Nigeria. But the group itself is an effect and not a cause; it is a symptom of decades of failed government and elite delinquency finally ripening into social chaos. Think of Boko Haram and other extremist groups of its kind as bacterial cultures. We must understand the Petri dish in which they have been cultivated. In order to appreciate the peculiar resilience of such groups, we must grasp the socio-political and economic conditions of the north. Northern Nigeria is a seething mass of illiteracy, misery, poverty and beggary. While Nigeria generally scores very poorly on every index of human development, Northern Nigeria sinks below the abysmal national average to the extent that a child born in the northwest or in the northeast is likely to have a lower quality of life than a compatriot born in the southwest or southeast. 

The news headlines in recent months portray only a part of the north’s mosaic of human suffering. Since the beginning of the year, lead poisoning has steadily decimated children in villages in Zamfara State, where they have been forced by poverty to engage in illegal mining. Cholera, a water-borne plague eradicated by the early 20^th century has reached epidemic proportions in the north where it has killed hundreds. The recent outbreak has been called the worst in twenty years and according to the Federal Ministry of Health now poses a threat to the rest of the country. Cholera is rife in the north because of the lack of potable water and flooding. In addition, the southward surge of the Sahara is claiming many natural water bodies forcing rural folk to resort increasingly to contaminated water sources.      

In 2006, Borno State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff told broadcasters that he was not bothered by criticisms of his administration in the print media because 95 percent of the people in the state cannot read and write. In any case, he added, less than 2 percent of Borno residents have access to newspapers. The governor’s press people later clarified that what he had meant to say was that radio and television were the dominant media in the state. To discerning ears impervious to spin-doctoring, it sounded as if Governor Sheriff had been glorying in the illiteracy level of his people and boasting of its utility as a political weapon. Mahmud Shinkafi, the current governor of Zamfara achieved infamy in 2002 when as Deputy Governor he pronounced a fatwa urging Muslims to kill Isioma Daniel, a Thisday reporter, for alleged blasphemy. Despite the acute humanitarian crisis of the north, its leading politicians have been preoccupied in recent months with how to clinch presidential power in 2011 and how to negotiate favourable niches in a post-2011 political reality.  Clearly the priorities of the so-called northern political elites are not in consonance with the realities of their people.

These facts are necessary to provide an insight into the prevailing political psychology in the north. Boko Haram is the consequence incarnate of misrule by delinquent political elites. It is a creature of state failure demonstrating the decline of our institutions in all its unvarnished ugliness. Despite the fact that the sect sent a widely publicized letter warning of its militant intentions, its attacks still surprised law enforcement agencies. The diminished intelligence capabilities of the government, the ease with which the militants struck at the federal prison and the group’s boldness in attacking federal agents since 2005 all indicate the waning strength of the Nigerian state. Elsewhere in the federation a range of embryonic insurgencies exist in the form of militant groups in the Niger Delta and kidnap gangs in the south east, and they intimate us of the fact that the Nigerian state no longer has the means to impose its will on this country; it no longer has a monopoly over the coercive instruments that underwrite the state’s rule and indemnify it against sedition or dissidence. Boko Haram is the terrifying face of this reality in northern Nigeria. It is the harbinger of incipient chaos.      

Boko Haram is an extremist group but it transcends the traditional extremist victimization of Christians in pursuit of grander anarchic ambitions. Its war is with the Nigerian state and western education which it perceives as a vector of the corrupting influence of modernity. Its ultimate objective is some version of an Islamic state, preferably of 7^th century vintage. In this, it closely resembles Maitatsine, the violent extremist cult that inaugurated the bloody era of religious terrorism in the north in the early 1980s. But Boko Haram is itself only a part of the picture. The social conditions that permit its existence are rife across the country. Millions of unschooled and unskilled able-bodied young men reside in our cities and towns and provide a ready pool of malcontents for extremist recruitment. Even among the educated unemployed, the crisis of unemployment in Nigeria where 40 million youths are jobless makes them vulnerable to sectarian preachments. Into this breach, groups like Boko Haram enter offering a theological framework of social analysis: rampant poverty and existential meaninglessness emanate from the Nigerian state and its unislamic provenance; from the presence of western education and the intrusion of modernity into an Islamic society. Boko Haram imparts to its members a sense of purpose and mission as warriors for the cause of God ordained to cleanse the society of moral impurities and establish an alternate order.

In a failed or failing state, religion is particularly prone to perversion. The role of the state is to protect humanity from assault by the elemental forces of nature through the institution of law and order. Where the state is derelict, religion is often the likeliest agency people turn to for interpreting the vagaries of their existence. This is what has happened in Nigeria. The explosion of sectarian violence in northern Nigeria coincided with four developments in the eighties – the collapse of the Second Republic which signaled the failure of politics and a popular loss of faith in politicians; Babangida’s imposition of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) which eliminated state subsidies, and through untrammeled trade liberalization wiped out local enterprises (especially the major textile industries and tanneries of the north) thereby eliminating jobs; the Babangida regime’s unhelpful religious politicking as evinced by its surreptitious dealings with the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) which gave the impression that it was a pro-Muslim regime and inflamed sectarian suspicions; and the collapse of the agrarian communities of Nigeria’s northern neighbours, Niger and Chad due to massive plagues of drought and desertification, spewing huge numbers of refugees into northern Nigerian cities where they fell into the void of extremism. Niger and Chad are essentially failed states and represent bleak prophecies of what could eventually befall northern Nigeria.

Even now, as desertification and drought devastate vast swathes of the north, a convergence of ecological, economic and social adversities is occurring. When rural areas lose ancestral farmland to the onslaught of the Sahara desert, huge numbers of disinherited young men flood northern towns and cities in search of jobs. In some places they become commercial motorcycle riders known as Achaba who now number about three million in the Kano metropolis; otherwise they swell the ranks of the urban underclass and most wind up on the margins of society from where they become easy recruits for politicians looking to build private armies or for roaming bands of outlawed extremists or bandits. Note that in the southeast where gully erosion has devastated rural communities, young men dispossessed of any means of livelihood make for the urban areas where many sadly enlist in the underworld. It is permissible to argue a direct link between the ecological degradation of rural areas and the uptick in urban crime and terrorism that has gripped south eastern metropolises.

These instances tell us that the umbrella of the Nigerian state is in tatters and while a derelict political class continues its self-indulgence, dispossessed Nigerians are embarking on the path of self-help by any means at their disposal. Religion is one of those means. It is tempting to argue that this pattern of perverse religiousity is something unique to the north and attributable to its Islamic heritage. This is untrue. Consider the neo-Pentecostal cults in Akwa Ibom that engage in torture of suspected child witches. In these communities, pastors or exorcists are engaged by poverty-stricken parents to seek out the witches in their household. Children are tortured, found guilty of witchcraft and banished from home from which point onwards they fall prey either to early death or sexual slavery and maltreatment as victims of child-trafficking. In a failed or failing state, religion assumes the role of locating scapegoats to explain social conditions of misery. In the north, Boko Haram blames the presence of western education and the Nigerian state itself; other extremists blame it on the presence of Christians or infidels, just as in some other parts it is blamed on the presence of non-indigenes, infidels or strangers. In parts of Akwa Ibom, defenceless children are the scapegoats for material conditions of poverty.

The view that Islam is solely to blame for religious violence in the north is simplistic for another reason. The south has a very substantial Muslim population (particularly in the southwest and parts of Edo state) and records very little of the sort of sectarian bloodletting that periodically grips the north. The region’s acceptance of western education and, especially, Obafemi Awolowo’s single-minded insistence on free education freed many communities from the yoke of illiteracy, boosted the technical capacity of the western region and created a vibrant middle class. Economic security meant that religious affiliation could not be the primary social identity in the region. Lagos State, for instance, has only ever had one democratically elected Christian governor – Sir Michael Otedola, who served in the short-lived Third Republic. Yet, this has never been an issue in Lagos politics. Compare this with Kaduna State where Governor Patrick Yakowa is the first Christian to occupy that position, despite the considerable Christian demographic presence in the state. His ascension to that office this year was attended with uneasy novelty, tension and fears of sectarian violence from some Muslims who saw his rise as a loss of power.  

The difference is that religion is at the centre of northern life. Matters of faith are synonymous with political allegiances. The north, historically hobbled by its cultural resistance to western education, experienced the absence of technical capacity and a lack of readiness for the demands of a modern economy, for which it had to compensate by accommodating southerners and expatriates. According to B.J. Dudley in his seminal work, Instability and Political Order, deep-seated resentment of the educated, technically-savvy southerners who formed the urban merchant middle class of the north was the source of ethnic violence in the region between the 1940s and 1960s. He argued that these explosions of inter-tribal animosity were also (indeed, primarily) class conflicts pitting wealthy southerners against the northern urban underclass. This thesis remains valid. Storefronts in commercial districts are specifically targeted during bouts of rioting by the armies of vagrants and juvenile delinquents that roam northern cities and towns. This kind of “ethno-religious” violence stems from cultural hysteria – the angst of communities who are unprepared for a modern social economy, who have been raised to be deeply antagonistic of modernity and who consider themselves assailed by outsiders as a result.  Young males are socialized to see themselves as victims and then to react as aggressors. Their rage is inevitably directed at presumed alien influences in their communities, often people of other faiths and ethnicities. Supremacist ideologies rooted in inferiority complexes gain increasing audience.

Without the skills necessary to access opportunities in the current socio-economic equation, the people are left with nothing but their religion as their sole resource and are thus vulnerable to all the monstrous mutations of faith that are liable to manifest in a climate of ignorance, corruption and economic inequality. Such alienation feeds the burgeoning subculture of violence embodied by street gangs like the Yan Daba in Kano and Sara Suka in Bauchi. The political imperatives are clear. The north in educational and socio-economic terms is a disaster area comparable to the ecologically devastated Niger Delta. Both zones are theatres of human and environmental carnage wrought by rapacious elites. Northern politicians have singularly failed to invest in education and to fast track infrastructural development in the region. Indeed, over the years, northern elites have cultivated the impression that illiteracy and ignorance are part of northern identity; that part of what it means to be a northerner is to be illiterate, in order to facilitate their own positions as political protectors of their victimized people. Even the Koranic education system is dysfunctional and is mainly mass-producing millions of almajiris – the street children that are fixtures in virtually every northern town and city.

This is a travesty of the region’s history and heritage. Northern Nigeria has a long-lived tradition of learning and literacy. Uthman Dan Fodio’s jihad was not only aimed at purifying Islam but also at replacing the rule of materialistic potentates with that of scholars. A comparable analog is Plato’s idealized government by philosopher-kings. But Northern-dominated anti-intellectual military regimes from the mid-eighties onward reduced the region to a crypt of learning. Anti-intellectualism is now promoted as being synonymous with Islam – a strange proposition since the religion gave the world gifts of insight in the sciences, astronomy, medicine and mathematics especially algebra. We still use Arabic numerals as the mathematical medium for explaining the physical universe.  In the north, there persists a residual antagonism of the so-called Yan Boko – western-educated northerners “who have forgotten their roots.” This obdurate resistance to education and glorification of illiteracy remains along with elite kleptomania, the region’s greatest obstacle to progress and the leading vector of sectarian violence and poverty.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, the British colonialists and the Fulani aristocracy conspired to block the spread of western education in the north. The British wanted to avoid what had transpired in southern Nigeria where the ready acceptance of education had created a generation of anti-colonial nationalist agitators. They also wanted to avoid the emergence of educated Islamists of the sort that were then challenging their rule in Egypt. The British understood that western education would upset the conservative feudal social order over which their allies, the emirs ruled and would ultimately endanger colonialism itself. The Fulani aristocracy objected to western education because they feared that its Christian missionary purveyors would gain inroads into their domains.

Herein lies the source of the historic schism between northern and southern Nigeria. It was not political in the beginning but educational, technical and thus socio-economic. The northern elites of the independence era led by Ahmadu Bello necessarily saw their roles as slowly opening their society to modernity while preserving it from domination by the southerners who were better prepared for the rigours of a modern economy. Today, it is fair to say that the general antipathy to western education in the north has been sustained by political elites who understand that psychological subservience is best perpetuated in a climate of ignorance and fear. By using the bogey of southern domination and manipulating religious and cultural symbols, northern politicians have been able to maintain their access to power. Decades ago, the leftist academic Bala Usman extensively critiqued what he accurately identified as the elite manipulation of religion for economic and political advantage.

Boko Haram and other extremist groups of its ilk have also emerged in the context of a yawning political vacuum in the north. Forty years ago, the poor of the north at least had champions like the great Mallam Aminu Kano and his Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and later the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP). Mallam Kano, a scion of the ruling class was an ardent advocate of the talakawa and made it his life’s cause to terminate the conservative power structures that he deemed responsible for their poverty. He championed education, women’s rights and the social emancipation of a people bent double under the yoke of feudal oppression. He used Islam as a liberating ideology against the preachments of those who used Islam as an ideology of subjection of the masses and women. In his excellent study, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria, Okwudiba Nnoli details how the British colonialists colluded with their local confederates in the 1950s to deny NEPU its electoral victory using thuggery, chicanery and intimidation.

In the years since the early eighties when Mallam Kano died, the fortunes of northern progressives have waned. There has been no other northern (or for that matter, Nigerian) politician of comparable iconic status and moral authority. The machinations of conservative opponents and military dictators ensured that the northern progressive movement was reduced to its entrails. No politician and certainly none of his prominent disciples have risen to claim Aminu Kano’s mantle. In the absence of a progressive opposition to the conservative ruling elite, a dangerous vacuum has grown in northern politics. The talakawa may have lost their political champions but this is not to say that they are completely voiceless. It is this vacuum created by the neutralization of progressive forces that extremist cults are now seeking to fill. It is their advocacy of the cause of the poor and their opposition to social injustice that lends these groups their appeal. Boko Haram and allied groups represent a potent if erroneous critique of the delinquent state and its dysfunctional leadership culture.

            Boko Haram’s actions cast some light on our institutional failings. Their assault on the federal prison in Bauchi may even be seen as an escalated protest against a travesty of justice. 70 percent of Nigeria’s prison population is awaiting trial. The justice system is over-burdened, beset by corruption, manpower shortages and other plagues. Keeping Nigerians in detention without trial indefinitely does not serve the cause of justice. From their point of view, Boko Haram simply liberated their brethren from illegal captivity by state agencies. If suspected terrorists cannot be charged to court and successfully convicted, then it is the fault of the state.

            

In a sense, the Boko Haram saga is also about chickens coming home to roost. For years, northern politicians paid lip-service to anti-Christian violence wrought by homicidal zealots. It was as though some secret diabolical transaction stipulated that Christian lives be used to placate the violent extremists to stop them from turning their attentions to their leaders. Emergent groups like Boko Haram, Kalo Kato among others are sectarian zealots like their forebears but have now arrogated to themselves the right to determine who or what is “Islamic.” To that extent, the double-edged sword of extremism is now aimed precipitously at the jugular of the northern ruling classes. It remains to be seen if northern politicians understand the catastrophic potentials of the Frankenstein monster that they have created; whether they can act to stamp out the homicidal pathologies festering along the margins of their society.

            

A few things can be done to arrest the slide into anarchy. The federal government should establish special tribunals mandated to deal expeditiously with cases of sectarian violence and terrorism. The capabilities of security agencies in terms of intelligence gathering and early warning systems should be enhanced. The operational conditions and capacities of the police mobile units, the army and other paramilitary agencies should be enhanced with respect to addressing urban terrorism and guerilla warfare. From all indications, our security forces are not yet attuned to the operational nuances of suburban counter-insurgency and conventional military approaches result in great collateral loss of life and property. Our northern borders with Chad, Niger and Cameroon are notoriously porous and have to be secured against the influx of weapons and would-be extremists and fanatics from these countries.

            

However, the greatest task lies in the domain of politics and public policy. The fact is that vast areas of the north are conducive to crime and insurgency. So too are the scores of decaying urban centres across Nigeria left desolate after the collapse of social services and public utilities in the late eighties and early nineties.  There needs to be serious commitment at the highest levels of government to address the entropic conditions incubating groups like Boko Haram. It might require some kind of federal intervention especially in the areas of education and healthcare and greater pressure on northern elites to develop the region. Without this, Nigeria could find itself battling with an insurgency in the north in addition to its manifold challenges. And unlike Niger Delta militants who are at least open to negotiating with the state, the absolutist extremist groups in the north want nothing except the very destruction of the state itself.  

            

Superior bullets, bombs and spies alone will not defeat extremism. Terrorism as a form of protest beckons to a generation of youths who see that they are destined to live and die in poverty and deprivation. Their present is bleak and their future is uncertain. Thus, they take refuge in a manufactured past, a mythical 7^th century Islamic Utopia into which they seek to forcibly induct the rest of the society. For these alienated legions, life is a more frightening prospect than death so presumed martyrdom has an allure because it offers a post-mortem status that exceeds anything that Nigeria can currently offer them.  Such cults threaten national security because they virulently oppose the pluralism, tolerance and civic mutuality generated by the very existence of the Nigerian nation. Their ideologies are by nature exclusionary accommodating only one perspective. Our national ideal, even if observed mostly in the breach for much of our history, is inclusion. Furthermore civic solidarity is undermined when a growing number of Nigerians aspire to relocate to the 7^th century while the rest strive to master the 21^st century. It is worse when these mutually exclusive aspirations occur along geographical lines.

Ultimately, we must redefine the notion of Nigerian citizenship in such a way that it provides a framework of civic purpose and welfare for every citizen. Being a Nigerian must offer a measure of existential meaning for Nigerians otherwise disaffected millions will seek definition in narrow, exclusive and polarizing sectarian identity constructs. The only cure for extremism is an umbrella of psychological, social and economic security spread over the nation by a socially responsible state, one that sees its role as guaranteeing the common good. Constructing such a state is the most urgent task of leadership today.     

Why Nigeria Can't Break Up

No bad idea is regurgitated as constantly as the notion that the solution to chronic violence in Nigeria is for her to “break up.” The case for Nigeria’s disintegration surfaces routinely after tragic episodes of violence and has emerged following the recent increase in sectarian terrorism. Some perspective is necessary. Since the days before the Civil War, beating the drums of separatism has become a sort of pre-programmed response to national calamity. Rumours of our impending divorce attended the 1964 elections, the June 12 1993 crisis, the death of Moshood Abiola in 1998 and the Sharia controversy in 2001. In 1990, a gang of over-ambitious soldiers attempting to oust the Babangida regime even purported to evict five northern states from the federation. Thus, current debates about the durability of Nigeria are nothing new.

It is intellectually lazy and astonishingly parlous thinking to suggest that the solution to our national crisis is disintegration. It is true that much life has been expended on the Nigeria project to no apparent redemptive effect but what we owe the dead and the unborn as well as ourselves is clear-minded thinking on the fate of our union rather than just emotive polemics.

The usual suggestion is that Nigeria be divided between a “Muslim North” and “Christian South” or among its so-called big three – the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo. Beyond these imprecise propositions, there is little specificity as to what shape post-Nigerian nations would look like except perhaps for the preposterous suggestion that every ethnic group should become a nation. These arguments are fallacious. Nigeria is not and has never been a country of monolithic religious halves. Christians and Muslims are scattered in substantial proportions and ethnic variety across the country. There are Fulani Christians and Igbo Muslims. Millions of Yoruba families contain adherents of both faiths. Nigeria is far more complex and diverse than the Hausa-Yoruba-Igbo tripod. Making each ethnic group a nation throws up problems. What would we make of Ijaw communities who hug the coastline stretching from the south to the south west? The sheer diversity and interlocking spread of hundreds of ethnic nationalities makes tidy disintegration a virtually impossible proposition.

A popular fallacy is that prior to the advent of the colonialists, Nigeria’s ethnic groups existed in self-contained cocoons of utopian bliss unburdened by the necessity of interaction with others. But many of the ethnic and regional identities which are now presumed “sacred” are in fact colonial creations. For instance, it was only after colonization, that the term “Yorubaland” began to be applied to the realms of all rulers who claim descent from Oduduwa, instead of only to the Oyo Kingdom. Before the British came, the Egba, Ijebu, Ekiti, Ijesha and Ilorin peoples fought costly interstate wars among themselves. The longest pre-colonial civil war was the sixteen year Kiriji war which was fought between Yoruba city states. Yoruba nationalism was forged by Obafemi Awolowo who rallied the descendants of Oduduwa as a political force in the new nation. Similarly, Igbos were organized into separate and autonomous republics. Many of them had scant contact with each other with some entirely oblivious of others before the advent of colonialism. Consequently, Igbos fought no wars as a collective. Igbo national consciousness was largely the handiwork of Nnamdi Azikiwe who at one point preached the manifest destiny of the Igbo in Africa. Hausa city-states co-existed through times of war and peace. Even when Uthman Dan Fodio’s jihad established the Sokoto Caliphate, the new emirates were never synonymous with “the North” which was a later British invention and was fortified as a political identity by Ahmadu Bello.

Significantly, pre-colonial societies were not based on ethnic units but rather on age groups, occupations, residence and settlements. Instead of monolithic tribal blocs competing for a share of the national cake, city-states, inclusive kingdoms and republics for the most part made up the area that was eventually christened Nigeria and experienced centuries-long commercial links and cultural cross-pollination.

Dissolving the Nigerian federation will not resolve the violence that bedevils places like Jos, the conflicts between the Ife and Modakeke in Osun, the Aguleri and Umuleri in Anambra or the Ezza and the Ezillo in Ebonyi, the Jukun and the Tiv or the Itsekiri and the Urhobo. Nor will it end conflicts between nomadic Fulani pastoralists and agrarian communities stretching from the north to the south. These are essentially either local or intra-ethnic conflicts.

Ethnic homogeneity cannot indemnify society against conflict. Somalia, the world’s poster child of failed statehood, has only one ethnic group, the Somali, only one language and is one hundred percent Islamic. South Sudan which only recently celebrated its divorce from Sudan is now embroiled in inter-ethnic conflict within its borders. Back home, we need only look at Bayelsa State and other ethnically homogeneous states to establish conclusively that ethnic homogeneity is not a predictor of peace, social justice or smart governance.

While prodigal political elites practise divisive politics, the Nigerian people themselves live in a socio-economic reality of interdependence and integration. The use of oil wealth from the Niger Delta in sustaining state bureaucracies all over the country may be the most obvious example of this. Less remarked is the dependence of southern urbanites on northern produce for food. The Fulanis are the main custodians of Nigeria’s livestock population, holding over ten million cattle, twenty million goats and millions of sheep. Their industry significantly accounts for protein consumption in the south. The north remains Nigeria’s food basket.

We are so captivated by the witchcraft of separatism that we fail to appreciate the fortuitous or providential alignments of ecological, geographical, cultural and economic factors that have fostered interdependence and integration. For example, if violence in the north was simply about anti-Igbo hatred then it would be saner for Igbos to stay home in the east. But the east is disadvantaged by its erosion-prone poor soil which cannot sustain the population density of the area and which accounts for the comparatively high level of migration of Igbos to other parts of Nigeria. Despite everything, Igbos (and other Nigerians) continue to migrate and mingle because human coexistence dictates it. No man is an Island. Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man is from Kano but has most of his investments in the south and employs more southerners than northerners. Millions of Nigerians have become socio-cultural hybrids through intermarriage, cultural adoption and transplantation.   

Nigeria’s problem is not her diversity but the failure of the state to affirm Nigerian citizenship as the ultimate identity superseding all other allegiances. It is our failure as citizens, intellectuals and politicians to articulate an all-embracing Nigerian ethos. Rather we waste valuable time and energy rebooting hackneyed definitions of Nigeria as an artificial creation or a mere geographical expression. Yet all nations, possibly except Australia, being creations of human political will, are artificial and begin as geographical novelties; they are not received from heaven. It falls on succeeding generations to transform them from mere geographies into socio-political moralities; to create transcendent solidarities where none existed before. This is what nation-building is about and this is what we have failed so spectacularly to do. Sectarian politics thrives largely because of the dazzling scale of ignorance that Nigerians demonstrate about their history, geography and each other.  

It is foolhardy to believe that the failure to treat ourselves as citizens rather than as ethnic and religious partisans will disappear if we dissolve Nigeria. If we cannot treat each other humanely now that we are compatriots, how on earth are we going to do better if we become foreigners? Last year, the Abia state government fired thousands of Igbo-speaking “non-indigenes” from its employment to make room for equally Igbo “indigenes.” Significantly, most conflicts in Nigeria are between so-called “indigenes” and “settlers,” a dichotomy that at times seems to defy ethnic or religious solidarity. These petty bigotries and manifestations of apartheid will not disappear with the Nigerian union. The challenge of civic security is inescapable for there is no possible post-Nigerian construct that would not contain either religious or ethnic minorities. It is worth noting that Biafra, the most serious separatist effort in our history was undermined both by the superior power of the federal forces and the reluctance of ethnic minorities who feared for their own prospects as citizens of Biafra. The problem remains creating a just, fair and equal citizenship that shelters all of us regardless of creed, ethnicity, class or gender.    Nothing suggests that new ethnic republics would in any way be more peaceful, stable or more prosperous than the current Nigerian reality. In short, it would require less effort to renew the Nigerian enterprise than to construct afresh new polities.

Having said all this, nations are not eternal but finite, expiring when they have outlived their usefulness to history and humanity. Nigeria is no different. Nigeria does not currently face immediate disintegration but a slow and steady erosion of federal authority by sundry paramilitaries, warlords and terrorist gangs, until the nation slips inexorably into failed statehood. Already we see signs of this in the brazen terrorism of pseudo-religious extremists who seek to establish alternate governments as well as the rise of oil-bunkering pirate gangs in our southern coastal waters.

It would be a pity if we were to let Nigeria fail. No one who has studied her history, encountered her acute humanity, sampled her cultural riches and researched the dreams of her founding fathers can fail to sense her ordination for higher purposes. For us to abort this purpose would be nothing short of cosmic treason. As Eme Awa once remarked, “If we were to dissolve the federation, a future generation of people will pass the verdict that the Nigerian elites committed suicide while of unsound mind.” Nigeria has not been tried and found wanting. We simply have not invested enough of our intellectual and moral energies into actualizing her promise. 

(All Images are sourced from Google Images.)

Posted by Chris Ngwodo at 1:29 AM

Edo Governorship And The Gathering Of Tribes

| SUFUYAN OJEIFO

The stage is set for the July 14 governorship election in Edo State with the emergence of General Charles Airhiavbere (rtd) as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).  The endorsement of Governor Adams Oshiomhole as the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the election is a fait accompli.

In essence, the governorship contest, from all indications, is a two-horse race.  This is because the ACN and the PDP are the only parties with solid structures in Edo.  Both dominate the sphere of power.  The PDP has five members in the State House of Assembly by virtue of which it has produced the minority leader.

At the national level, the PDP has Senator Odion Ugbesia (representing Edo Central District) and the two members of the House of Representatives —Friday Itulah and Patrick Ikhariale — from the district.  There is, indeed, something significant about the PDP in Edo Central: the five members of the party in the state legislature are from there.

The party lost the sixth constituency seat marginally to the ACN candidate, Festus Ebea, who is today the deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly.  The central senatorial district holds special attraction: it is the enclave of the godfather of Edo politics and Iyasele (prime minister) of Esanland, Chief Tony Anenih.  It took his sagacity and legerdemain to win the district for the PDP.

What that did was to put the lie to the claim that Oshiomhole has taken absolute control of Edo politics.  Indeed, the bottom-line of the last April general election in the state is that contrary to the theme song of his political propaganda, that he owns the land, “Oshiomhole, indeed, does not own the land.”  The land belongs to Edo people.

Edo people are a complex diversity made of different tribes.  There are monolithic tribes of the Binis and Esans as well as the multifaceted Afenmai ethnic nationality comprising Etsako, Akoko-Edo and Owan people.

Figuratively, there is a tribe of students.  There is a tribe of civil servants.  There is a tribe of market men and women.  There is a tribe of other self-employed people who have been at the receiving end of the harsh tax regime and other financially draining policies of the Oshiomhole government in Edo.  There is, on the political terrain, a tribe of godfathers, which Oshiomhiole has tried, in vain, to eclipse.

These are the elements that will coalesce to define a trajectory for Edo State on July 14. Will they bring about a leadership change or will they maintain the status quo?  There is no doubt that the cloud is gathering.  The wind is beginning to act gutsy while the prospects of a torrentially devastating rain are quite evident.  The tribes are gathering as the governorship election beckons on Edo people.

For instance, will the tribe of students, especially those in Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, who have been victims of Oshiomhole’s harsh policy of tuition fee increase from N18, 000 to N64, 000, invest their votes in the perpetuation of the policy?  Will the market men and women, whose shops were demolished for the reason of questionable road expansion and beautification of Benin City, consequent upon which they were impoverished, happily step out in the sun to vote for a man whose administration had meted to them a raw deal?  The self-employed and private businesses have continued to buckle under a draconian tax regime.  Will they embrace an administration whose policies are bereft of a human face?

In Edo Central, Oshiomhole’s claim of road development has been more of taunting political campaigns than genuine development efforts.  He is wont to claim that he has tarred the road that leads to the home of Anenih.  But all of these claims will be subjected to acceptability test by the people as they vote on July 14, this year.

But, significantly, will the tribe of godfathers within and outside the ACN allow Oshiomhole to eclipse it?  Even though his claim that he had buried the godfather (Anenih) of politics in Edo has been proved to be tenuous, should that not give him away to the harried godfathers in the ACN that Oshiomhole is a desperate power monger who wants to be the only cock that crows in the political firmament of Edo?

Will they gleefully watch as he transmogrifies into the grand patron of godfathers in their party?  Where are the Tom Ikimis, Tony Omoaghes and Osagie Izze-Iyamus of this world?  Is it not possible that these men are smarting in silence from the onslaught against their tribe in the party they laboured to form in the state? Won’t they be disposed to reaching out quietly to the tribe of godfathers outside the party for a concert of forces to edge out a man who has vowed to eclipse them?

It is a fact that Anenih has been the first and the last man standing in and out of the PDP. He now has formidable supporters in multi-billionaire businessman-politician, Captain Hosa Okunbor and Chief Mike Oghiadhome (former Deputy Governor and Chief of Staff to the President).  Where is Samuel Ogbemudia?  Where is former Governor Lucky Igbinedion with his camp who provided the structure that made Oshiomhole’s governorship candidature of the ACN in 2007 possible?  Where is the patriarch of the Igbinedion family, Chief Osawaru Igbinedion (the Esama of Benin)? Are they suffering Oshiomhole’s political antics gladly?

These represent the finest crops of political elite (read godfathers) in Edo politics.  Will they allow an opportunistic late entrant into the political field to decimate their tribe using the instrumentality of state power which they can avert by collectively mobilizing the electorate to vote for another candidate?  Can Oshiomhole, on the basis of his self-acclaimed achievements and in spite of the tribes, win the governorship battle on July 14?  Time will tell.  

— Ojeifo sent in this piece from Abuja

Edo 2012: PDP fails the primary test

By Dan Owegie.

The time is getting close when Edo people would repeat their 2007 feat by re-electing their beloved governor and put a final nail on the casket of godfatherism in the state. Come July 14, Edo people would finally dismantle the old-fashioned rigging machines of the godfathers. That day, Edo voters would put a permanent end to ethno-religious politics as all would speak with one loud voice in support of Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole. 
Interestingly, the so-called Edo PDP primaries has come and gone and the abracadabra has shown that the Uromi godfather has gone digital in rigging. Concerned Women and Youths of Edo PDP in an advertisement in Vanguard of March 1, have rubbished the charade which produced General Charles Arhiavbere as the gubernatorial candidate of the PDP. The youths noted among others that “despite the promises that the leadership of our party in the state led by Chief Dan Orbih made to ensure a free and fair primary but reverse was the case as we experienced. The situation is even more shocking that it happened in the glaring eyes of the National Leader, Chief Tony Anenih... Having investigated what went wrong in the PDP governorship primary, we discovered that the godfather again instructed his stooges to ensure that Esan delegates voted against their own sons, Prof. Osarhiemen Osunbor and Barr. Kenneth Imasuagbon... We want to warn that this injustice will be fought with the last drop of our blood.” 
The youth maintained that Imasuagbon or Iduoriyekemwen would have been better candidates if not for the shameless exchange of cash for accreditation cards by the party leadership.
In the same vein, Hon. Mathew Iduoriyekemwen Campaign Organisation in a statement published in the Vanguard of February 29 and signed by its Director General, Jarret Tenebe, noted; “ By your votes, you defied the intimidations and threats from the leadership of the party that had passed strict directives to you to vote for a choice aspirant as you were handed delegate tags and … money in the houses of elected party officials of Edo State PDP instead of the state secretariat where such delegates tags ought to have been collected.”
Barrister Kenneth Imasuagbon on his part, rejected the gubernatorial primary and described it as a “scientific and environmental rigging, tailored by the leadership of the party, screwed by the leadership of the party under the direction of Chief Dan Osi Orbih and it is not acceptable.”
All these point to one fact: General Charles Airhiavbere emerged from a tainted primary. It shows the desperation within the PDP. It shows that the old pussy cat, like the leopard, will never change its spots. He is not even known in Edo State and it is obvious for the signals on ground that Oshiomhole would beat Airhiavbere silly come July 14.
One would have discountenanced Ihimekpen’s vituperations published in the Sunday Vanguard of February 19, but for the naked lies, padded tales and boot - licking all to attract crumbs from Charles Airhiavbere’s table. 
He started his rejoinder,” Re: Airhiavbere’s logic and ACN’s theory of Illogicalities” with an impossible claim. Can Airhiavbere withstand Oshiomhole to an election in Edo State? Airhiavbere should first test his popularity by contesting for the councillorship of his ward. I doubt if he can win his ward in a free and fair contest. In spite of the threats to the delegates to vote for him, from the cries within, it was obvious from the results of the Edo PDP charade that Imasuagbon defeated Airhiavbere in Egor, Ikpoba Okha, Ovia North East and Uhumwode Local Government Areas. Oshimhole is a man loaded with ideas on how to govern people, he does not need to dub a retired Army General’s manifesto to make his mark in government.
But more importantly, Okharedia Ihimekpen should stop laying claims to free education, free health care and infrastructural development as the original idea of General Charles Airhiavbere and accuse anyone implementing the programmes as having plagiarized Airhiavbere’s manifesto. Ihimekpen may be a small boy when Chief Obafemi Awololo introduced free education in Western region but ought to have been an adult when Prof. Ambrose Alli introduced free education and free health care in the defunct Bendel State. Why the folly of attributing originality of these policies to General Airhiavbere? Nigerians are reading these lies that Ihimekpen and his ex-soldier friend bandy.
Again, the so-called Airhiavbere campaign organisation did not raise any issue that deserve the response of people who are busy developing Edo State. If Oshiomhole has implemented all what Airhiavbere is calling his covenant with Edo people, then he does not have any manifesto and as such no need to contest. He simply just has to go and sit down and watch the people’s Governor develop the state. It is obvious he has no superior idea from what Oshiomhole is doing in the state, so he should go and play golf. 
Again, one is pleased to note that Ihimekpen could see one area that Oshiomhole has performed well. He says it’s the environmental sector. Thank God for that realization. In all his previous diatribes against the Governor, Ihimekpen never acknowledged that Oshiomhole did well in any sector. That is how blind the man is. When all Edos are pleading with Oshiomhole to continue his good works after July 14, some urchins are hiding in one corner, out of sheer envy that they are not the ones in power talking nonsense.
The busy body again says, “Edo Line, Bendel Breweries, Edo Cement Factory, Ewu Flour Mill, which the Oshiomhole administration inherited are all grounded”. The question is: what state did Oshiomhole inherit these institutions? Were they operating optimally from the Oserhiemen Osunbor interregnum? 
What Oshiomhole is doing is putting the tax payer’s money into good use for them. Anywhere you go in Edo, Oshiomhole’s hand is working and the people are seeing it and appreciating it. PDP is spending money on Billboards, newspaper advertisements, trying to launder their battered image but Oshiomhole’s work is speaking for him. Anywhere in the world, taxes, rates and rents are used for development. Any aspirant who mean well will not deceive the people that he will abolish tax as Airhiavbere is doing through Ihimekpen. All those who pay taxes and school fees are having a feel of what their money is being collected to do. 
July 14 is only a few months from now. Airhiavbere and Ihimekpen will soon know the difference between a popular candidate and the one handpicked by a few godfathers.

• Owegie is the Publicity Secretary of Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Edo State.

OSHIOMOLE WAS A LABOUR DEALER AND NEVER A LEADER- YINKA ODUNMAKIN

Yinka Odunmakin is the Secretary of the splinter group of Pan- Yoruba socio-political association, Afenifere, Afenifere Renaissance and Save Nigeria Group, a civil society group that was at the forefront of the recent oil subsidy removal protest. The spokesperson of the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Gen. Mohammodu Buhari (Rtd) in this interview with Rotimi Sulyman and Adewale Ogunniran speaks on the 5-day tumultuous street protests among other sundry issues.
The Save Nigeria Group came into being in the recent past, what led to the formation of the group?
Save Nigeria Group came up as an intervention group in the dying days of former President Yar’Adua, when a cabal did not allow the current president to assume office as the ruling president. At that time, there was what was generally being called power vacuum. The fact was that power was hijacked and was exercised by people who in the first place had no business with the power of the president. That was why we met on the 7^th of January, 2010, and reasoned that there was an urgent need for concrete action. With people from the civil societies groups, we had our first protest march in Abuja, and the second in Lagos, and later returned to Abuja. This, among others, forced the Senate to pass the doctrine of necessity. All that period, we never met President Jonathan, and didn’t even care to meet him or know him, because what we were doing was not for him but based on the principles of democracy. It was after the doctrine of necessity was passed that we met President Jonathan as a group, and he thanked us profusely for what we did. But interestingly, just two years after, the same President who benefitted from our protest march has turned around, and is now the one sending troop to disperse peaceful protesters.  
It is obvious that relations between the presidency and the SNG are strained. Do you regret the supports you gave President Jonathan in the past?
Mind you, we never had any relationship before. Also, no bitterness or resentment or disappointment whatsoever, because we didn’t do what we did for President Jonathan but to preserve the constitution of Nigeria, and prevent anarchy. The night the late President Yar’Adua was brought back to the country, troops were deployed without his knowledge, which was heavily criticized. That he is now deploying troop against us, means nothing to us. It only shows that he was part of the forces we were fighting then, only that he was at the receiving end. He has shown us enough signs why we should not be surprised at what he is doing now. Don’t forget that shortly after he became acting president, he started showing his true colour, condoning impunity. In Bauchi State, the governor, Isa Yuguda was his campaign coordinator in Northwest, and when he joined PDP from ANPP, the deputy governor stayed back in ANPP, and his impeachment was arranged. The deputy governor went to court and the court ruled that the impeachment was wrong, and the man should be re-instated. But that was not to be, because Yuguda refused, and we confronted President Jonathan but he had nothing to say. When nine members of Ogun State Assembly sacked 15 members, ex-governor Gbenga Daniel was his campaign coordinator in Southwest, he couldn’t call him to order. All he could do was to seal up the assembly. He was just playing politics with critical issues because his friends were involved.
       
In your first meeting with the president, it is reported that the SNG were offered 50 thousand pounds by the president. It is believed in certain quarter that the group received the money, and that even before then, President Jonathan gave financial supports to the group. How true is this?
We challenge the president and his allies to come out and tell the Nigerian people if money ever exchanged hands between him, and the SNG. The only occasion they offered us money was through Godsday Orubebe who brought the 50 thousand pounds to us as we were going out of the villa gate, when we met the president for the first and last time. And we told Orubebe that we didn’t want the money. In fact it almost became an embarrassment. So, we were forced to go with it to our hotel room. And immediately we got there at Nicon Hilton, I think room 180, we called Uranta to tell him that we didn’t want the money, and returned it back to him in full sum. We were shocked to read on an online journal that we met President Jonathan, and he gave us 50 thousand pounds. So, we had no choice but to respond to the issue. Similarly Uranta called, to tell us that though we gave the money to him but he was going to deny it.
So, where does SNG source for money to fund its activities, and is it true that you get financial supports from some wealthy politicians, particularly, former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu?
Well, I, Yinka Odunmakin do what I do because of my belief, and not for material gains. Again, we at SNG are not indigent people, we have people among us who are blessed. The Convener, Pastor Tunde Bakare has done quite a lot in terms of funding, likewise other members. This is not to say that one or two people have not made donations to us. I can tell you not Tinubu or any politician. Even money from these people paid into our account is still there in the bank. We have not even spent a dime from it, and anyway we are not planning to spend a penny from it. Our plan is that if we meet them today, we will hand over their money to them.
It seems there is crisis in SNG with the recent pronouncement of a member of the group, where he condemned your activities and that of Pastor Bakare in the recent oil subsidy removal protest, and declared that the two of you are no longer members?
There is no crisis whatsoever. It is just that the media is not critical enough, and is giving its pages to any riff-raff. Who is this person? I don’t even want to mention his name. It was Femi Falana who invited him to Lagos for the oil subsidy removal protest meeting, and when he came, he was asking us for transport fare that would take him back to his base, which was quite strange. He is not even part of SNG because he has not joined us either as an individual or a group. So, somebody who had no transport fare is now being invited to Aso Rock and was given money to rubbish us.           
SNG’s position was that the federal government should reverse back to the old pump price but labour later caved in. With this, is SNG disappointed in labour?     
Don’t let us say NLC or TUC entirely but with the controlling leadership. We know that there are people who are not happy with what they did. In fact there are some states chapters that defied the orders. It is the controlling body of labour, the Abdulwaheed Omar, the Peter Esele, and the rest of them who are Oshiomole’s protégés. Oshiomole over the years is a known labour dealer. In all those period of Obasanjo and the rest when they want to increase fuel price, the government would first meet with him to plan how labour should go about its strike action. After he has collected whatever he so wishes from government, he would call for strike, and before you know it, he has called it off. That was what they were going to do this time around too. Don’t forget that at the beginning of this protest, Reuben Abati came out to make a statement that labour should not forget their agreement with government. And so from the first day, we knew what labour would do. In fact our street protest was more impactful. We don’t call them labour leaders but labour dealers.

Fight between my dad and Awolowo was senseless –Yomi Akintola

By DURO ADESEKO

•Akintola Photo: Sun News Publishing More Stories on This Section

Chief Yomi Akintola, first son of the late Premier of the old Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, told Saturday Sun that the historic quarrel between his father and Chief Obafemi Awolowo was uncalled for. “When you look at it, there was nothing that should have brought about the quarrel, because I cannot understand it,” he said. However, he is not happy that Nigerians, particularly the people of the South West attribute the achievements of the Action Group (AG) wholly to the leader of the party, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, thereby disregarding the roles his father, Akintola, played in development of the region through the party.

Bashorun Akintola told Saturday Sun that the contributions of his father to the development of the South West are imperishable. Consequently, he is inviting interested Nigerians to the Akintola library to verify his claim about his father’s contributions to AG and the South West. He also claimed that Chief Awolowo did not write the position paper on free education and he was not the minister for education. However, whenever reference is made to free education in the South West, it is only the name of Awolwo that comes up. He is taking consolation in the fact that “the lord of Akintola reigns.”

He has somewhat different opinion on the violence in the Northern part of the country. According to him, the whole Boko Haram issue is political; not religious. He believes that opportunists are merely feasting on the political disagreement the north has with Nigeria and using Boko Haram as cover.
Excerpts:
Let us talk about Chief Yomi Akintola, son of late Samuel Ladoke Akintola. How has your father’s name assisted you in politics?
The point I want to make is that my father’s name assisted Obafemi Awolowo and it assisted the Action Group (AG) as a party. When my father brought in the National Council of Nigeria Citizens (NCNC) and Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) into national government, he played a role in assisting the Yoruba. So, you can see that Akintola’s name and his actions worked.

If you look at Ogbomoso, it is not what it was before 1960. Ogbomoso was redesigned from the air. At that time, houses were built anyhow. My father started by breaking the Akintola House, which was my father’s family house. Everybody else gave up. Today, Ogbomoso is one of the few cities or towns in Nigeria where you can never get stuck on the road. There was only one road to Ilorin before. Today, you have about 11 roads that lead to Ilorin. There are about 12 or 15 routes that lead to Oshogbo. About 16 routes lead to Oyo town. These are things that Akintola created.
I am always happy when people give credit to other Nigerians for what Akintola, my father did. I know one thing, the facts are here with me and if you have the opportunity of coming to Akintola library in Ogbomoso, you will find a lot of facts. We have published a lot of his speeches and I am sure there are very few, if any, that can have such speeches to be published.
As a boy in the 1960’s, what do you remember during the misunderstanding between your father and Chief Awolowo?
It was unfortunate because, up till today, the Awolowo boys and girls don’t refer to me as Yomi. They refer to me as they use to refer to their elder brother. My best friend, until he died, may his soul rest in peace, was Segun Awolowo. After graduating from Cambridge, he came to me in Dublin and it was from Dublin that he went to the airport to come back to Nigeria before he died.

When you look at it, there was nothing that should have brought about the quarrel because I cannot understand it. Somebody said my father wanted to usurp Awolowo’s position. Which position? I asked from any of those people who were there at the material time if there was any time the Action Group (AG) held its convention and Akintola said ‘don’t vote for Awolowo?
What position would Akintola want again? He was Premier and Awolowo was leader. People talk about free education. It is a good thing. It was a contribution made by the Action Group. What the South West is doing today is to look at it as if nobody else existed during the Action Group days except Awolowo. Whereas, when you go to campaign, the leader should talk last but if Akintola should speak before Awolowo, the campaign would close. So, you would know that they were complimentary. No matter what you do, abuse us and do whatever you want to do, the Lord of Akintola still reigns.
As a young boy, did your dad discuss the goings on with you during the crisis?
I was not that small at the time. I was over 20. Further more, I was in a very senior position because I was marketing manager for John Holt at that time. My father never called me to say that this was what happened.
A lot of my friends would come over to Ogbomoso and they will ask my father questions and he would answer them. Those who know my father would appreciate him for what he was.
What did your dad tell your friends when they asked him about the crisis?
Take for example, a friend of mine who is no more now, Mr. Olu Oni Opako; he came to ask what created the misunderstanding between Akintola and Awolowo and my father explained his position to him. My father did not say that he was a young man or a small boy. He explained to him. My friend said he did not know that my father would be that patient to listen to him and explain things to him.

Because he was also friendly with Segun Awolowo, he went to Chief Awolowo and the reply he got did not encourage him. Basically, Chief Awolowo had his merits and Akintola had his own merits too. It is that position that has brought the Yoruba to where they are today. Chief Awolowo did not write the free education papers, they were written by Chief Awosika.
The crisis extended to your mum and Chief Idowu Dideolu Awolowo. Why?
People once explained and what they were saying to me was more of economical disagreement rather than philosophical disagreement between the two women. That was rumour.
But basically, the last time we were to hold the 47th annual lecture for my late father, I invited Chief (Mrs.) Awolowo and she accepted to come initially. I think the postponement was what delayed it. We are not enemies. There was disagreement on policies, which was rather unfortunate. They’ve built a party to the stage where people talk about the A G. But unfortunately, the leader and his deputy fell out.
What was your relationship like with Segun Awolowo during the crisis?
You know Segun died early. I was in England. He died a couple of months after graduation.
He wasn’t around during the crisis?
He was around when the crisis was on. But he came to meet the crisis. It did not disturb my close relationship with him. Wole Awolowo, his younger brother was in my house when we wanted to form a political party with Senator Bode Olajumoke during the Sani Abacha days. There was also Ebenezer Babatope and others. We held the first meeting in Olajumoke’s place, the second meeting was held in my house and Wole came. The third meeting was held in Ikenne and I went.
Now, what is your position on the insecurity in the country?
If you look back, you will realize that in the 1960s, we had a violent reaction from the West. It was called “wet e”. In late 1960s and early 1970s, we had problem from the East, which culminated in the Biafran war. So now that the North has its own grievances, we cannot but play along and look forward to God to help us. It is not something new.
You mean reacting violently to issues is not new in Nigeria?
It is not new. If you look at it, we had wet e when people were not satisfied with what was going on. There was a time we fought a war because the people in the East were not happy. People in the North are not happy about what is going on now. That is what brought about the violent reaction.
How is your party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) doing in your state?
I am from Oyo State. Due to the misunderstanding that existed before the elections last year, the party lost the governorship seat. Fortunately, you can see that the re-run elections we had, especially in my senatorial district, the PDP won. You know that my governor was once with us in PDP. So, we have a way of relating to one another.
The PDP zoned the position of National Secretary to the Southwest. Oyo that has several political representatives in government still want to present the Secretary. Why?
We deserve more. As I said to someone sometime ago, you take Ogbomoso, for instance, there are 774 councils in Nigeria. You should analyze the voting pattern in each local government. See the position of Ogbomoso with regards to the votes obtained by PDP. Yet, it was not until we agitated and quarreled that they offered Mulikat Adeola the position of Majority leader. That should not be the case. You should not only look at the votes obtained in states; you should also see what we have been able to do in the local governments. Take, for example, the House of Assembly seats, House Representatives and the Senate seats in Ogbomoso were won by the PDP.

When you look at what they have given us, it is not what we deserve. We deserve more. That is why, when you talk of the position of national Secretary, it should come to Oyo State. The President should also consider us. When President Sheu Shagari was there, the only area that the NPN won was Ogbomoso. Look at the last election and see what happened. What I am telling you is that the PDP will sweep the west in 2015.
And why did you lose so badly in the last election?
We are trying to resolve our differences now. I will also advise Mr. president to organize such a situation as President Shagari used to do, in which he can meet some people and have dinner with them once a week. That way, we can all exchange views and see how we can settle minor or major quarrels.