Medical Doctor and founder of O’odua People’s Congress (OPC), FREDERICK FASEHUN, in this engagement with Senior Correspondent, VICTOR EBIMOMI, takes critical look at the on-going national conference, Boko Haram, division among Yoruba politicians and his support for Major Hamza al-Mustapha, among other topics.
The on-going national conference seems to be the biggest issue in the country currently. Do you see us achieving anything tangible from it, given the way things are going?
REDERICK FASEHUN
It was too hurriedly put together; and what you don’t prepare for, you don’t expect to be rewarded with good dividends. I am one of those who started agitating for a sovereign national conference (SNC). The SNC we agitated for must have national orientation. The people must have been well-orientated through the media – television, newspapers and radio – for months before asking them to go for the confab. Nigeria has been knocking on the door of national unity for 100 years, and she did not attain national unity. How can we now do so in just three months whose first month has been wasted? I didn’t expect the president to say go and build a nation within just three months; this is what we have not been able to do in hundred years. It is impossible to build a nation in just three months. It is good that the president has allowed the confab, but the confab should have been one from which we can derive a lot of dividends. But as it is, I am not particularly expectant.
I expected the confab to be backed by an enabling law. An enabling law will strengthen the hands of the president on appropriation of funds for the confab. To me, the confab should be people-oriented. That is, the people should endorse it through a referendum and not through the National Assembly. I think the confab should have been a youth thing; maybe from 18 years to about 60/65 years would have been ideal. But to open the confab to 85, 90-year-old people who go there only to dose off, I think, wasn’t well prepared for.
Was it the age range that prevented you from attending?
As I told you, I am one of the agitators for the national conference. Whatever I would say at the confab had been said in the past. As a matter of fact, I have written two volumes of a book called Argument with the Sahara Wind – a voluminous thing. So there is nothing I am going to say on the floor of the confab that I have not said in those volumes. My presence on the floor of the confab will be denying somebody, a youth, opportunity to be there. I have made the word ‘youth’ slightly elastic by saying 18 to 65. The oldies are part of the wasted generation and they should not come to waste another generation; they shouldn’t come to waste an oncoming generation.
If you were to advise the delegates, what mode of restructuring would you suggest?
I believe in true federalism. The true federalism should be a weak centre and strong periphery. So that if the South West wants to go for parliamentary system, if the South East wants to go for pure autonomy, if the South South wants to go for resource control or any method to sustain their resource, if the Northerners want absolute power, let them go. But all must subscribe to the centre.
Do you mean every region should have the right to organise its system of governance?
Exactly! Chairman Mao Tsetung said let a thousand flowers blossom. See what the thousand flowers blossoming in China have done to China. The Chinese that couldn’t eat one triangular meal in 1948 are now eating four square meals a day. And China was a very apologetic country. In the past, the economy was bad; their socio-political structure was evil and so on and so forth. But now, China has succeeded in becoming one of the greatest socio-political, socio-economic communities in the world.
So, maybe, with some discipline and getting rid of impunity which leads to corruption, we can do something through re-ordering of our time, structures and laws. We hope and pray that the current national confab will write a good constitution, and we won’t need to start agitating for another conference in a few years.
One of the biggest problems confronting us today in Nigeria is corruption, which has led to alarming poverty and frustration in the country. How do you think we can tackle the menace?
As I said, we have laws in our statutes book. Let the executive put down its foot and execute those laws without caring whose ox is gored. The major problem with our country is impunity; and impunity causes corruption. When a state governor dips his hands into the state’s treasury and removes millions of naira, and the law of the land fails to deal with him, that is impunity. Others would emulate him. Impunity is all over the place. And where a state governor stands up to challenge an executive president, that is indiscipline and indiscipline is caused by impunity.
In the past few days, there have been bombing, kidnapping and others. Some people have suggested reaching out to some advanced countries like the United States of America and Britain for assistance. Do you subscribe to that?
No.
Why?
Nigeria is a sovereign country. It has various institutions saddled with securing her; unfortunately, the indiscipline caused by impunity is destroying us. Should our borders not be properly secured? The security of our borders is a function of certain people. What are they doing? Why are foreigners allowed to cross our borders with impunity, only to do damage to our own polity – killing our children, raping our women, abducting school children? I think Nigeria is not aware that it is at war and our people are not being sincere. The leaders are not being sincere with Nigerians. While some are saying “secure the border by all means”, others are saying “please, negotiate, pay amnesty”. As a result, Nigeria is hesitant to secure her own people; hence strangers, insurgents cross our borders with impunity to do a lot of damage.
Are you implying that these Boko Haram elements are mostly outsiders?
Many of them are outsiders. Some of them have been arrested and they confirmed that they are nationals of other countries.
They must have internal collaborators to move in freely, have access and operate successfully.
Is that not impunity that leads to corruption? Impunity is the bane of Nigeria development, and unless we choose to remove impunity from our statutes books, we may have a long way to go.
You said Nigeria is at war based on current developments…
(Cuts in) When a nation has lost about a thousand of its citizens through insurgency, it is at war. That is the definition.
Won’t it be better, then, to call on our friends and allies to assist us, especially those who have better equipment and better intelligence gathering mechanisms?
No, Nigeria is a sovereign entity. It should solve her own problem through her own sovereignty. Nigeria has its own Army, Customs, Immigration and so on. To what use has she put these elements? Are these elements serving Nigeria with sincerity? Are those in control of these institutions serving the country with sincerity? That is the problem.
If you were to advise President Goodluck Jonathan on how to handle this difficult situation, what would you tell him?
I would tell Jonathan to teach our neighbouring countries a lesson. Now Jonathan should put the responsibility of security at our common borders on them. If their citizens cross over to Nigeria territory to do havoc, Nigeria should pay them back. Don’t we have an Air Force? For insurgents to be moving into our country as they like and abducting our children is a very embarrassing situation. The future of Nigeria is being destroyed.
Some insist that everything boils down to the type of leaders we have, or how do you score them?
I don’t think Nigeria has good leaders. Leaders should be able to say: do what I do, not only what I say. There are not many people of the leadership cadre in this country today that can beat their chest and say: do what I do, not what I say. Leadership in Nigeria is associated with corruption, looting. Is anybody who loots the treasury, our commonwealth, capable of sticking out his neck and say: do what I do? Unfortunately, we keep quiet.
What do you expect us to do?
I expect people to say: look, you are stealing from our national treasury; stop it. Do you just condone looting and stealing? Then you must be a fool.
This takes us to the issue of the coming elections where they will have the opportunity to change bad leaders. But with the tension in the polity, do you see us having credible election?
You will not have national discipline through our elected people; but you can have national discipline through INEC (Independent Nation Electoral Commission). Are we getting that?
Are you putting it at the doorstep of INEC as to whether we can ever have national discipline?
You are talking of election. INEC is concerned only about election. Discipline in the electoral process is a function of INEC. So if people come, rig election and get to power, who is at fault? INEC! So it must now buckle up, roll its sleeve and decide to carry out its function the way the nation expects.
You were in support of Hamza Al-Mustapha, Chief Security Officer to the late Sani Abacha, while he was in detention. Even when he was released, you followed him to Kano. What is your relationship with him?
Al-Mustapha is my very good friend. And as a crusader for social justice, I know he did not commit the atrocities he was accused of. That was why I stood by him. That is all.
Many Yoruba felt bad at your action, given that he was being tried for allegedly killing one of their own.
I don’t agree with you. You mean many vocal Yoruba? How many among the 40 million Yoruba are vocal? What is the percentage of those of us that are vocal? Well I know that not all the Yoruba are blind to justice.
You recently floated a party, Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Is this a revival of the old Unity Party of Nigeria of Pa Obafemi Awolowo and all it stood for?
We are even going to surpass the old UPN. We are going to add a lot of things to it.
Do you see the current Yoruba politicians protecting and projecting Yoruba interests both at the state and national levels?
The Yoruba are always involved in protecting the Yoruba people.
But there seems to be lack of cohesion that has denied them the mileage they had in the past.
They cannot but have division in a people that are numerous. And the Yoruba people even have a proverb that says all of us cannot sleep and put our head in the same direction.
There is this controversy that Jonathan should not contest the 2015 election. Some people are even saying that power should shift to the North. What is your opinion on it?
I think Jonathan should be allowed to enjoy his constitutional right. The constitution allows him to contest the presidency two terms. He is on his first term; he has the constitutional right to go for the second term. Nigerian people also have the constitutional right to either vote for him or not. That is my position.
After the reconciliation between you and Gani Adams, people had expected to be seeing both of you in some functions; but that is not happening. Is the OPC still factionalised?
I don’t know of any faction. I am the founder of the organisation; so anywhere I am, the OPC is there. When I was detained and I came back, I found the organisation in tatters. I tried to re-write the constitution, but those who could not cope left. So I don’t know of any faction. I only hear of it sometimes in the media.
