Colonel TONY NYIAM (rtd.) was the leader of the April 22, 1990 military coup that shook the foundation of military establishment in Nigeria. The member of the on-going national conference speaks to Assistant Editor (North), CHUKS EHIRIM, on some burning national issues, including the reason behind the coup, gains of the confab and the problem with Nigeria…
The national conference is almost coming to an end and you have been here from the beginning till now. What is your take on the whole process?
Colonel Tony Nyiam
I begin by thanking God for blessing the country with President Goodluck Jonathan, for giving us this chance to dialogue among ourselves, especially at this time we are faced with the biggest challenges Nigeria has ever experienced.
We all came from different parts of the country with different mindsets, at times, somehow opinionated. But as time went on, this mindset started giving way to what I will call commonsense, and later the love of humanity as people of Nigeria. So far, the conference is going well and we do hope that at the end of the day, we will disappoint those who think that the conference would be a failure because really we have no choice but to come up with a long term framework with which we can restore Nigeria to a governance system of equity, justice and fairness.
You had on occasions at this confab spoken on issues not like a person with military background. What is the difference between you and these other ex-military personalities here?
The noble military profession has a deep root in furtherance of the protection of the collective good and in defence of the weak. When you look at the greatest military man where we all took our tradition from, Alexander the Great, he was a spiritual man. Everything he did was based, in a way, on spiritual principles. Don’t forget that discipline is from the word ‘disciple’. This amounts to, in effect, that the military is a calling that trains you to be an honest man.
And honour, among other things, is to defend the defenceless, to defend the poor. When I joined the military as a young boy, I went to military school. Nigerian government gave me so much right from when I was a secondary school boy. Immediately I left there, I went to the NDA (Nigerian Defence Academy). At the NDA, I served only a few months before I was sent to the United Kingdom for university education to the level of Master’s Degree.
What am I saying in effect? Nigeria gave me so much and so I owe it to Nigeria to be of service. Also, I am just an ordinary person, to whom God has been very helpful. My life has been saved so many times. I know what it is not to disappoint my relationship with God. So I will continue to be of service to man who is, I would say, a manifestation of God.
What do you think will be the stance of majority of the delegates concerning the issue of resource control?
I wouldn’t really know. But the position of truth is that it is the inalienable rights of human beings to own the resources of land. The illegitimate clause or provisions of the constitution that some one’s land, something below the surface, does not belong to him is extremely an abuse of human rights of the individual. You cannot deprive a man of his rights.
Injustice has been done to the people from the oil producing areas. The greatest injustice has been done to them, in that these are people whose environment has been so damaged that they cannot have means of livelihood. So I think we need to reward and give funds to these people to clean their environment and restore the environment to the level it was before now, so that they can at least go back to their businesses. What I am saying is that any attempt not to give the people whose rights are being deprived a chance is not sustainable.
You were said to be associated with a document which said that if at the end of the day…
Who said that?
I read it in the newspapers
No, all I have said is, and I still say, that it is not any document anywhere; it is that we must, if we still want to be a federal state, go by the principles of fiscal federalism. The fiscal centralism, which we are practising, is very corruptive; it creates indolence and encourages wealth sharing rather than wealth creation. I am for fiscal federalism, which encourages wealth creation.
The statement credited to oil producing states is that if the issue of resource control is not addressed in their interest, they will resort to self-determination. Was it what you alluded to when you spoke some weeks ago?
First of all, let me say one thing: I am so amazed at the level of, with all humility, ignorance. Self-determination is the right of all human beings. It is there in the United Nations Declaration for Ethnic Minorities and also for Indigenous People. What does self-determination mean? It means self-actualisation. Psychologists say that human being has the right to self-actualisation. When it comes to a group of people, it becomes self-determination. What does it mean? It means that the people will determine, in a federal state, how they want to be governed.
You cannot come and impose any system on them. It means that the people have a right to decide how their land is used. You cannot take away their land. They have to determine the use of their land. That is what it means. So what these chaps are saying is that if you deprive them of their rights, then they must fight for self-determination. There is nothing wrong with that.
In Canada, they recognise self-determination. In the United Kingdom, the Scots are right now working out how they want to live. There is going to be a referendum in September. So, what are we talking about? You cannot force a people to belong to any place they don’t want to belong. In fact, when Ethiopia was having the type of system that Nigeria is having, for a long time, they had poverty that they had to organise band aides to gather money to feed Ethiopians. But today, Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing economies. Why? Because Ethiopia decided to have what is called, and what we should have: Ethnic Federalism. And they even have a clause to allow you to go, if you want to go.
Were you disappointed when, a few days after, Edwin Clark countered the statement and dissociated himself from it?
Edwin Clark remains our leader. He remains the leader of the people who have issued that statement. And I can assure you that Clark still remains our leader. There is no faction. The whole Niger Delta remains one in this matter.
The people talked about self-determination. Clark came up and said, “we remain Nigerians”. Did you not see something wrong with that?
If you watch, we just passed a motion, that there should be right to self-determination, internal self-determination; a motion that was left out and then the chap who moved the motion called for it. There is nothing wrong with self- determination. Self-determination is the right of every human being. In modern democratic practice as federalism, self-determination is allowed.
Is this the dream you and your colleagues had in 1990?
Yes. You are right.
There is also the coming together of the South and the political Middle Belt at the confab.
Oh yes, the injustice cannot last. I experienced the killing of Easterners in the North. I was a young boy in Form One in Zaria. That injustice is not right. It is the same way the Middle Belt people have been facing injustices for a long time. Some of them have now realised the mistake they made in acting against the East. So, we are one. Just as I am against the injustice of certain people, what they call rustlers, killing cattle herdsmen, I am against it.
When I was in the Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC), I got to Jos, and the Fulani came there and explained why they were driven towards it. I was shocked because the Fulani herdsmen said that they were being killed by the locals everyday; hence they have to defend themselves. I am not suggesting that the method they are using now is better. But at least they had a case too.
Do you see any similarity between the political system that we have, maybe from 1999 till now, with what happened in 1990 – the Gideon Orkar coup?
The political system, which we had since the coup after Ironsi, was the system that came to undermine the basis of federalism. And that was what we challenged. We wanted a restoration and also challenged military government. We wanted a restoration of federalism. We wanted to correct the mistakes that were made during the Aburi (Ghana) meeting. Remember that in Aburi, people sat down and reached an agreement and someone came back to Lagos and disowned the agreement. That was what caused the civil war. Our inability to keep to the agreement we reached in Aburi is the nemesis we are suffering now. If we had kept to the understanding we reached in Aburi, we wouldn’t have had the same problem we have now.
Are there lessons to be learnt from 1990 coup?
Without the April 1990 coup, there wouldn’t have been the issue of national question that forced the Yoruba nation to demand for Abiola’s mandate. Without the 1990 coup, today you wouldn’t have had an Igbo man being Chief of Army Staff. Whether anybody likes it or not, we demystified the invincibility of some people and it has never changed. Since then, Nigerians have begun to assert their rights increasingly. Remember that most of the people who were involved in the 1990 coup were mainly people from the Niger Delta, with a few people from the East. And it is the same cry. The same cry by President Goodluck Jonathan; crying to be given a chance, for equity.
A lot of people hailed the coup, but some people picked some holes in the issue of excising some states from the country. Was excision consensus among you or a personal agenda?
First of all, I have expressed apologies for that statement. But remember, there were conditions. We didn’t mean that the people should go out of the country. We outlined certain conditions that should be met, which is that they must respect other people and treat other people as equals. That was the condition. Having said that, we have moved on. Most of us have realised that the problem we have in Nigeria is not the ordinary Hausa/Fulani man who is as cheated as the average Borki man or Igbo man. So we have gone beyond that. It was a mistake to have excised anybody. All that we wanted was to build a Nigeria where there could be equity, fairness and justice.
Apart from you, and may be Saliba Mukoro, the other members of that team are not being heard. Is it that they are not in Nigeria?
Most of them are abroad.
Till now?
Most of them are in, we thank God. America, Spain and Britain took them.
Are they still afraid of coming back to Nigeria?
They are not afraid. They are getting on with their life and some of them are successful. Mukoro became a professor in the United States. Obasi is a successful medical doctor. They have good professions. They were not job-seekers. They were people who wanted a change. America gave them a chance and they are excelling where they had the chance.
Are you still in touch with them?
We are in touch. They are all brilliant young men. They are heroes. I have said to many people from the Ijaw area that I am surprised that till now, they have not honoured the likes of Emperor, Dakolo; people who were the pioneers, the same way as Isaac Adaka Boro.
Why do you think they have not honoured them?
I am still appealing to the governors of Bayelsa, Rivers and Delta states, to do what they ought to do; to honour these heroes.
