Former Governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande recently played host to the team of New Dawn in Lagos. The chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), told New Dawn’s Editor, TUNDE ABATAN and DAYO EMMANUEL, that the military destroyed Nigeria and caused a setback the country is yet to recover from. Akande talked on sundry national issues. Excerpts:
In your capacity as a statesman who has even governed a state in Nigeria, how do you advise the government of the day in reshaping our educational system?
Well, we get to where we are now the day the government decided to take over schools from the private owners and missionaries. And that was the military government. It was only pupils that came out of private schools that can withstand politicians who want to steal money and say NO it is wrong. The military on their first coming got challenges from the civil service of those days trying to say what they were doing was wrong. Each time the military wanted to do something, the civil servants of those days would say NO, that is not according to the rules, the civil service was a clog in the wheel of progress of the military then, and their own progress was in stealing money. So the military retired all civil servants that were very educated and well trained. So from that time we had what we can call a wrecked civil servant so from that time the schools you left in the hands of the civil servants will never grow, good pupils will never do well and it was the same military that took over schools from missions also reduced the number of years you spend to become qualified in school. Before if you don’t have you’re a level passes you don’t enter the university that is the situation in place in England till today. But in our case, if you say four years in the university will make you a university graduate today, so there are graduates being produced today that are not as good as those who had A Level then. They hardly become better than they left their secondary school so all those coming from the university are unemployable because they can not think, they are not trained to think at all. Their teachers don’t know how to think so the students cannot think and anybody that cannot think will be unemployable. It is the military that wrecked our politics and our civil service so they can have a leeway to loot our commonwealth. They came to loot. What is the business of the army in government if not to steal? They came to steal our commonwealth and in order for them to do that they have to remove all good things on sight. So they recovered civil servants, a good educational system, good schools, they reduced the period of training our professionals.
After 15 years rule by the last set of military rulers, Nigeria gained democracy through active agitation. The same military men have put on the civilian dress to continue in power, don’t you think the battle is not over?
They came back as politicians becoming Presidents, governors, ministers etc. They can’t reverse what they did earlier and it has become difficult. Military in power led Nigeria to where she is today and I am afraid because most countries in the Sahel have failed. Talking about countries like Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, many have failed. When a country fails, all the soldiers and police go away with their guns and become mercenaries, they are among most of the people killing people today. They have almost destroyed Kenya but stupid people will be calling them Fulani herdsmen until they get to your bedroom. So we shouldn’t allow Nigeria to fail.
So how do we make people know all these because even if another government comes in we would still be talking about some of these killers as members of Fulani herdsmen?
I was fortunate to attend the Anglican Bishops’ Conference. Anglican and Methodist were there. I spoke there, I made them see that what you call Fulani herdsmen has been operating in Nigeria for over 20 years. If we sit down here and begin to say Fulani herdsmen are the ones causing our problems that have roots in the Sahel until our own government will fail and all the police and soldiers carrying guns begin to become mercenaries, we won’t know what to do, it should not be politicised at all. We have merely politicized Fulani herdsmen issue, we need to look straight into it so that the Nigerian government doesn’t fail in our time because the consequences will be serious when they carried Chief Falae from his farm in Akure, Buhari was not in power but today when anything happens in Yoruba land we would say it is Fulani herdsmen. When they carried Chibok girls, Buhari was not in power. Buhari in power only arrested it. It would have been worse economically, the country had almost failed, it was Buhari’s coming that stemmed the tide and it is somebody like that who doesn’t care about money, that person who is selfless, it is such a person like that that can hold back the failure of this country. If we allow the country to fail, nobody will sleep in his house. All those Obasanjo and others that said they don’t see any change, ask them when they were there for donkey years, what did they do? Ask them what they did well. Was it not Babangida that created Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) and reduced our money to rubbles? Did Obasanjo say anything to address it? When Obasanjo and I took over power, Dollar was selling for N80/N85, when Obasanjo was leaving power it was almost N200, so the foundation for the Naira to be getting useless was laid by the military as started by Babangida. Now they are putting the whole blame on Buhari, making him a scapegoat. We also see what social media is doing to echo what they are doing. We can only repair Nigeria from the schools, we cannot do that from anywhere.
You have said the whole blame is being heaped on the present government but I don’t think the government is doing enough to educate the populace on the true story. What is your take on this?
Maybe the propaganda of the present government is not as strong as the propaganda of the corrupt people. Because corruption propaganda is stronger and corruption is fighting back. They decorate falsehood in terms of jokes and abuse. People are not talking about the failure of the Sahel countries because it has been there for 20 years. We don’t think, we don’t have a society that thinks. If you change this, change that, then you see it in reality. If you change Buhari this year, Nigeria will fail before two years.
In Awolowo days, he created the Fashola cattle ranch in Oyo north between Iseyin and Oyo Alaafin and it is still there. But it is not there like it used to be then. In Awolowo days it was to rear animals in modern ways and train people how to rear animals in modern ways. It was destroyed during the time of the corrupt people. Failure of the Sahel states is causing the problems but instead, Nigerians would blame the problem on the Fulani herdsmen and Buhari and they know it is not true but it is a way corrupt people fight back.
Did you participate in recent Osun election?
I am an Osun State person. I participated in the process. I hardly participate in elections but as an elder immediately after the primary, there were issues, some people were angry so I travelled around the state to hold a meeting with the leaders and make the know things can go wrong here and there but you don’t throw away the dirty water and the baby. You throw the water away and save the baby, we have to save our party. There can be problems here and there but stay in the party and address the issues. So I went round to talk to people. I voted too but I am not a party official, I only went round and appealed to the people.
We are in a democracy but the problems are still enormous, what do you think is the actual problem?
I think the biggest problem is the electoral act of 2010 that is the problem of the Nigerian politicians. Before the Electoral Act of 2010, the political parties were on their own. They are supposed to be like private organisations whose decisions should be private. They are not owned by anybody, they owned themselves, they are like private organisations whose decisions should be private and whoever they chose to represent them that is the person they would choose. After doing that, political parties should be able to sell themselves to the public. If they win, then good luck and if they don’t win, fine all the same. But the electoral Act 2010 says that when you want to organise your party even at the ward level, the police must be involved, INEC must be involved, DSS and so on must be there. The government regulates how the parties must run, it is not done anywhere in the world. It is not in any democracy. It is not in Canada, Israel, India, Switzerland, America, England, not in any democracy in the whole world to create law and determine how a political party should be run, but Nigeria did it to hold won the party so it doesn’t make it appear as if there is any difference between the parties. You may sit down to have a very lofty manifesto, you sit down to form your party, other people would come and hijack your party, those who should not be there, he doesn’t know when you started, he doesn’t believe in your manifesto, he just believes in Nigeria, you can go and sell your father’s house, make money and hijack a party, get to position and recoup your money. The electoral law reduces our parties to a trade and not service. With that law remaining in our book, our political parties can never do well. You buy an election, buy political positions in the party. You pay to be elected, to become a National Assembly member or any position, when you sell your father’s property, you have to steal money to pay back. Until that law is removed, our political parties cannot do well. The law that seeks to regulate activities of political parties is a bad law. When I was doing politics I don’t pay anybody. Nobody asked me, I went there to serve. Today they buy votes. Is that law?
You and I have like minds, and we sit down to write a manifesto and form a political party. Then someone who doesn’t believe in the party comes and hijack it when he gets there, he won’t follow that manifesto. And when the party is not good for him again, he jumps to another party.
You can join as many parties as possible they don’t care but they will care when they get into chaos.
