Nigeria on cliff hanger … Akintoye

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..Country going down steadily
Since he emerged  the leader of the  Yoruba World Congress (YWC)  over a year ago, he has left no one in doubt about his ability to lead the race to a new deal in Nigeria.
A new deal focused on changing the narrative of the place of the Yoruba in national development; arresting the falling standard of values and  repositioning of the Yoruba nation in Nigeria’s affairs and arresting its marginalisation in the scheme of things.
Professor Banji Akintoye, a second republic senator has been shuttling between Nigeria and the United states in the as an academic during which he has published a book titled A History of the Yoruba People.
Among the achievements he has made since his emergence as the leader of the YWC is the acceptance and recognition of the Yoruba as a member of the Unrepresented Peoples Organisation(UNPO) by the United Nations.
In this interview with Newdawnngr Editors, Tunde Abatan amd Charles Okogene, he spoke on wide ranging issues saying that the quest for self determination remains the ultimate goal of the YWC adding, “the hopes of many of us at attainment of independence in 1960 of a prosperous and leading black nation  have been dashed by successive governments’ failure and abdication of federalism, which has stultified the growth of the Yoruba people. We don’t have a Nigeria that is okay anymore. Nigeria has been betrayed by its leaders.”
Excerpts:
What do you consider the main issues in Nigeria today?
A whole lot of issues confronting the country.The oil wealth have been so mishandled as it has become an object of greed. Some influential people in the country have been obsessed with enriching themselves to the detriment of the people.The most devastating is that some influential citizens of this country have been betraying the essence of the country, denying the principle of equality and equity and attempting to impose themselves and their religion on the rest of us.we don’t have a Nigeria that is okay any more.
Nigeria has bee betrayed by its leaders.
The self deception going on in the country  is partly a product of fear .It is also to confirm that influential persons who are doing the betrayal . It is also partly  a product of greed leading to personal expectations that if they  rock the boat they won’t gain their own from Nigeria. The country has been going steadily down. The masses of the people are no longer part of the equation. They have been abandoned; and poverty has reached very great depth among our people.Today the world says Nigeria is the home of extreme poverty and there are people who are predicting that in less than 10 years from now more than 50 percent of the poorest people in the world will be Nigerians. So those are the issues facing Nigeria.The fact that the oil money created a culture of greed among the influential  and the abandonment of the interest of the common people. Some very influential Nigerians are betraying the essence of Nigerians.
The principle of common citizen, the principle of equity, the spirit of Nigerian unity and coherence. They want to impose themselves and their religion and whatever on the rest of us by force and so we are now something that the rest of the world is not used to, the existence of an agenda of a part of the country by citizens of the same country to go and conquer another part of the same country. There is no other part of the world  where this is happening, that a part of Nigeria wants to conquer the rest of Nigeria or most of the rest of Nigeria. You don’t find such things anywhere. It is something unknown in the history of the world.
How best could it be tackled?
I must be honest, I grew up as part of the generation that wanted to make Nigeria great. To make Nigeria one of the best countries in the world and let’s say there were others who were doing other things but we were determined under very solid and responsible leadership that we could make  Nigeria a great country.That we have a counter with enormous resources and capability that could access all these that could make  Nigeria a great and powerful country in the world.
We used to brag that we were striving to make  Nigeria the world black man’s power of modern times. That is the way we used to brag.I don’t see that kind of spirit out there anymore. It has been partly destroyed by a growing poverty, partly by spirit of lustfulness, partly by surrender to what it is and so the question remains what do we do?
My answer is, I don’t see the human material, the minds out there that can change the trend. so Nigeria continues to go  down and predictably it will continue to go down because there is no part of the country that is ready to resist its going down and retrogression.
 Now that the Yoruba and the Ohanaeze have  been admitted into UNPO, what exactly is the next step?
The situation has reached a point where others are trying to find an answer to their future. The situation now is that not just the Yoruba but a lot of other people, and other nationalities of  Nigeria, trying to find an answer to the  questions about their future and so I would say by now a very large percentage of the Yoruba Nation, most of Yoruba people, elite, non-elite, rich poor, educated have come to the point of asking what is the future of our nation. And so, there are masses of highly educated young people who think we must begin to prepare for the future of a Yoruba nation where everybody is civilized.Everybody knows that they are very hesitant about causing trouble, breaking the law, daring to be disrespecting government laws of Nigeria.They don’t want to appear like that nevertheless because of the circumstances that face all of us in Nigeria.
In view of that sir, I remember specifically  in 1989 a group of people led by late Also Aka- Bashorun conveyed a national conference at the National Theatre and since then  no government has listened to the call about restructuring in the Nigeria. So what is the next step?
Well I must say that I was one of the people motivated by the call for restructuring. I wrote more than 50 articles in newspaper columns in Nigeria on the question for restructuring and on the demand for restructuring but I don’t think the call for restructuring is appropriate anymore.
We were asking for restructuring and situation in which we were still engaged in politics, civil politics even if it is military. It is still the government of the people but now the situation has changed and we have a situation in which a section of the country is actively proclaiming its determination to conquer others. Manovering to maximize power, to conquer others regularly and viciously attacking other people of the country and we the rest of the people of the country are striving to protect, to defend our families, our homes, our villages our towns and so on.
It is already a situation of war In war, your duty is to defend your people. the duty of the moment is self defence there is nothing restructuring can change now. the duty of the moment is self defence because even if restructuring takes place now it will not change the situation of war, it will not change the situation of the country.This is not 1980s, even 1990s under Abacha this is not it. No part of the country then is invading another as we have it now.
People are now saying it is no longer time to talk about Restructuring. People want to stand out and defend themselves.
Now it is war, which means with the attack, people are defending themselves. They might not be particularly capable of defending themselves but they are at least trying in large numbers and protecting their areas from being distorted either brutally and so this is no longer the time for  restructuring. It is a time to beg the people to guide their loins and defend themselves if its what it will take.
So sir, inspite of the various security meetings nothing has changed.This week alone, the president have met with the governors of the North East and the service chiefs, yesterday  he met with the governors of the whole country and we have had series of meetings, do you see any sign of seriousness/capability on the part of the government to solve the insecurity issues?
 I don’t see any. I don’t see a desire to do it, I don’t even see a sincere desire to do it.
Sir, on this situation, looking at the history of the country, a lot of people believe the inability of the South-South, South-East and South-west to come together and actually address a common goal is the reason for the continued domination of the country by a section of the country. do you see them being able to summont that problem?
The south and the middle belt have come to a point in their history where they must have to act together to protect themselves. There is no other option. The people of the south and middle belt must learn to unite to defend themselves, they don’t have an option left, they don’t have any other option
 So, is that what informed the recent coming together of the Middle Belt, Ndigbo, South South and South West?
Oh, we started that two or three years ago through the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum. We started it about two or three years ago because of this development. But it has become clearer and clearer to other patriots of these four regions that something more likely to succeed needs to be done, it is no longer a time to ask for restructuring, to make the type of statement that demand restructuring…. It is a time for the people to learn to act together to protect themselves. If they don’t, they will continue to bleed and suffer.
Sir, are you carrying along the majority of the grassroot people especially in the south west?
 Grass root in every country is more difficult part of every action to reach them is not that they don’t know what is happening. It is not that they are not tired of what is happening, they know but the action you intend take to get it to them is difficult.
 What about community development associations  that we have in place?
Listen,  masses of the young Yoruba people upon whom parent sacrifice a lot of money to educate have been caught in this mess called Nigeria, Nobody is preparing anything for them or considering them in anything whatsoever. Many of them are running away to other countries, some are going into crime, some are going into cult , some are going into all sorts of things but a large number are still there who don’t know what to do, who are caught in the trap and it is they who  are moulding the opinions of their parents and cousins and so on. For some sort of definite resolutions of the Nigerian situation. So among the Yoruba people, it is easy to reach the masses.
Sir ,the fear people always nurse is that this is year 2020 and that by next year, politicians will start diverting peoples attention from the germaine issue confronting the country by mobilising for the next elections?
if that happens, it can only be temporal. Diversion of peoples’ attention to politics can only be temporal, Nigeria is already going in a very fearful direction and one or two years of distributing money by politicians and so on cannot change that.
 Lastly sir, I think you are in your 80s?
 I am 85 going to 86
Are you pained by the fact that we don’t have young people again who can take over from where you are now, having been in the struggle since the first republic because many young people use to say that the elderly people are still in charge. People are asking why is it that those people who are young now are not there to do what you were doing in the 60s when you were in your 30s?
What I was doing in the 1960s, 1970s, I am still doing it now.
Are you not pained?
It is an ancient cultural tendency among Yoruba people to trust that leadership qualities reside particularly with age. Yeah, that is a very ancient Yoruba culture but today even though young people will come and drag an old man like me out of my shell, (no, no baba come, come and do something for us) because that’s what happened when they made me leader. I didn’t know when they took the decision.
 I was in my house when I heard some people had held a meeting, nobody told me anything, so it took me a whole month to make up my mind to say I accept or  don’t accept.
But really, it is young people who are the real makers of the revolution. It is not the old ones like me, it is the young people, they are knowledgeable,  they know the world a lot, they command capabilities that old people like me can never command. It is they who are the makers of the revolution that is coming, it is a revolution coming. It is they who are the makers.
Sir,  the establishment of Amotekun, which you applauded has not really taken off as we expected. The two most cosmopolitan states in the south west, Lagos and Ogun seems to  be sleeping. We only have action in Osun, Ondo and Ekiti?
No, Lagos have established something before like civil defence, so it may take some time before they  marry the two together and Ogun too and Ogun is coming along they have passed the law, the Governor have signed. So it is a process and overall, the overwhelming attitude of Yoruba people we are great and we are  grafetul that they did it anyway, that they came up with this Amotekun thing anyway, that our governors came up with this Amotekun thing, we are very grafetul to them, for it is something upon which we can build and we see the thing now growing. We will be patient especially because the people are better ready today to defend their villages, their farms, their families, and so on on their own without Amotekun. Besides, some ancient instrument of power have come back into existence among the Yoruba people, some instrument of power and defence have come back into existence among the Yoruba people, so Amotekun is something we would build upon gradually but we are better ready today than we were a year ago to defend ourselves.
Sir, a retired director of the Central Bank of Nigeria,(CBN)  who granted an interview two days ago said he knows the commander of the Boko Haram and those people responsible and that it is one of  the sitting Governors and he was quizzed yesterday by the Director of State Security Service, what do you make of that?
He was taken for questioning yesterday? Yes and after it was over he came out and told the press,” I have nothing to retract, I insist on what I said before”.
If he had been a Southener  would he have been treated that way ?
There are courageous people, brave people everywhere.
 No I am saying, if he had been a southerner would he have been treated that way?
I doubt it. But he is from the middle Belt, but it is not so when it comes to bravery. He is a brave man, he faced them, He faced their questioning for a whole day and he came back and repeated exactly what he had said before, that is bravery we should salute.
For how long do you think we shall continue to hold on like this, because the government is not changing the security tatics, the other time the President was saying he will procure equipment.Is it the equipment that is lacking or the courage and determination to stop the insurgency and banditry?
 The stories are  even  in the open news shows that the Nigerian military is in difficulty, serious difficulty doing its duty to the country.
Sir yesterday ,a former US Ambassador to Nigeria,Walter Carrignton passed away and he was a friend of the pro democracy group sir?
Yeah, he was a very close friend, may his soul rest in peace. He has made a lot of contributions and he to contribute to strengthening the spirit of democracy in the country, yes he did.

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