Afenifere chieftain, and member of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD), Ayo Adebanjo, in this interview with Assistant Editor (South West), MUYIWA OLALEYE, speaks on the Buhari administration, APC politics, Boko Haram insurgency, among other issues.
Pronouncements by election petitions tribunals, especially that of Rivers State
I am an advocate of law and I always like the law to take its course because the law is no respecter of anybody. That is why there is the need to always follow the constitution. In Rivers tribunal, the law should take its course. Our judiciary is performing very well and I think they will not fail us this time. I reserve my comment until after the Court of Appeal judgment, because as a lawyer, I can’t criticise the judgment without knowing the grounds, and since they have appealed, any defect in the judgment will be rectified in court.
Ministerial confirmation process
Looking at the setting on the way the ministers were screened, it was beautiful. But the fact still remains that the ministers were late in being appointed. Even so, there is no direction from the president as to what policy they are going to execute. There is no roadmap of what this government wants to do. We are only hearing about change! change! change! And even in the mantra of wiping out corruption, in what way does he plan to wipe it out? Is he just prosecuting those he feels are corrupt now? What programmes does he want to put in place to completely wipe it out, so that there will be no chance for anybody to loot our treasury? We are looking forward to such programmes. On education, what are his programmes to revitalise the educational policies? On health, what is the programme? It is high time he spelt out all these things.
Assessment of Buhari’s administration
I cannot say much now because I said it severally that the government he is running is one-man government, which we are opposed to. We used to have one-man government all along as head of state; but it is an elected government now. The president, as at now, should be able to give us policies as a whole on what should be done on education, health, among others. That was what we were used to during the time of Obafemi Awolowo. It was not when Awolowo won the election that he said he was going to do free education. That was announced before he won the election. So, by the time they were elected in 1952, every minister swung into action and the question of free primary education was duly executed. Now, what is the roadmap we are looking forward to? It is not there. So, those of us who are anxious for him to succeed are anxious for him to start afresh. The campaign period is gone; we now want action, and the earlier the better. I am a critic of this government, but I want to say it may be too early to spell all out. I am already criticising what he has done and what he has not done in time. There is no doubt that appointments are late and key appointments are in favour of the North. Well, let’s see how we can rectify it in other places.
I hope the president will take note of the criticisms we are making, so that we can proceed. We can’t afford to waste another four years just criticising. He should take note of these criticisms and move us forward.
Promise by military authorities that the Boko Haram insurgency will end by December
Well, that is the wish of the president and that is our wish too. We pray that it should end by that time, because that is when we can have peace. Anything that will make it end at that time is what I pray for.
Processes leading to appointment of new Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman
Well, we have no record of anything against him. But what people are saying is that this is the first time a president takes an INEC boss from his own area. Whatever that may mean, we should wait and see.
Afenifere not vibrant as it was
Afenifere is still very active. In fact, very soon, we are going to meet in Akure, Ondo State.
There is no doubt that there is some kind of division among us caused by some rebels who didn’t want the right thing to be done. We are strictly Awolowo’s disciples. We don’t modify Awo’s principles for our own interest. A progressive is a progressive; not progressive today and conservative tomorrow.
Politicians using Awolowo’s name to campaign
That is their own cup of tea, because we know ourselves. We shall continue to say what is right for people to decipher. There are no two ways about it. What we are doing now is to ensure that you people follow the right path. The principle of Afenifere leaders, particularly myself, is to tell you the truth because lying and falsification of things have dominated the country. I will say all those calling themselves progressives are fake. All those people in the then ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria), now APC, are fake progressives. They are fake in the sense that they don’t pursue the principles of Awolowo. Take, for instance, the issue of federalism; you know we were part and parcel of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). During the NADECO days, we were the only ones shouting about the issue of Sovereign National Conference (SNC) for the restructuring of the country because the federation was an awkward one. It was not balanced.
Federalism is the system whereby the various ethnic nationalities that formed the country can grow at their own space and still keep the country as one. That was what we insisted upon. You would also remember when Abdulsalami Abubakar (former head of state) said we should go for election, and we said no, we should first of all hold a conference that would lead to a new constitution which we would all be happy about, but he said, “No, I am in a hurry, when you get your civilian government, you can go and do it”. That was why one was held during the Olusegun Obasanjo time. All those with us during the NADECO time that insisted on national conference are the same set of people saying now that the Goodluck Jonathan conference was a diversion. That was what Bola Tinubu said. I have said it before; let him challenge it. SNC was one of the manifestoes we used in electing him into office as governor of Lagos State. It was part of the Alliance for Democracy that there must be a national conference.
After the elections, all the six states in the South West where we had our governors, Afenifere leaders toured the Houses of Assembly led by the late Papa Abraham Adesanya, for them to pass a resolution that there must be a national conference. Tinubu was there. Now because something does not suit him, because he has some motive now, he says the national conference was a diversion. Is that consistent with our policy?
What you find these days is imposition of candidates, which is against the principle of Awolowo. Take the issue of free education; you hear free education in Lagos. Have you been to their primary and secondary schools and seen the number of children there? Can you find any of the children of these ministers in any of the public schools? Is that what they inherited? It is a matter of principle. This is what separated us, the Afenifere, from the ACN who call themselves progressives. It is not a personal thing.
Reflections of the Yoruba on last elections
The question you just asked, I think, would also be a matter of principle. The question of South South was a matter of principle of Awolowo that a minority would also have the right to aim for the highest position in the country. That was what I was trying to point out about the recent national conference we had. That conference had taken care of everything concerning Nigeria, like the issue of power. It is no longer going to be the North West. Whenever it gets to the North, it must rotate within all other regions in the North. The same thing for the South. It is no longer about South West, but all other regions in the South, such that everybody now knows when each of the regions would be president. It is no longer the issue of we are born to rule.
South West following people like Tinubu and his ‘progressive’ party, instead of the real progressives?
That is left for them. I have given all the facts. This is a democracy. With all we are saying, you and I know that we are suffering here in Lagos. You may not appreciate what is happening now except you remember the Western Region where things moved well. A man ruled the Western Region for seven years without strike. He introduced free education when our income was barely five and a half million pounds, including Edo and Delta at that time, by sheer economic ingenuity. Is that what we are having now? You have people who do job of N50 million and say it is N250 million, and yet the people would be saying he has done a good job.
With all that is being done in Lagos, some of us have asked the question, how much does it cost? What is the revenue of Lagos, both the internally-generated and the allocation? And yet, we are still owing that much debt. And yet we have to pay tolls. I am not contesting election for anybody to vote for me; all I am saying is for posterity. Where they have done well, I say it, and where they are wrong, I say it as well. When they talk of corruption in Jonathan’s government, I won’t say the government was clean, but those who were talking about corruption, how clean were they? This is the question.
