Dr. Sylvan Ebigwei (MON), renowned consultant dental surgeon and President-Emeritus, Aka Ikenga, the intellectual think tank, Ndigbo, in this illuminating interview with Daniel Kanu, Assistant Politics Editor, speaks on President Muhammadu Buhari leadership, opposition politics, security challenge and the urgent need for restructuring among other national issues Excerpt
What is your assessment of the 3 years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership?
For me nothing has changed and I still think that before Nigeria can advance politically, economically and socially certain things must be considered if we are really serious at fixing this country. We have to restructure this country for the unity, sustainability and patriotism of members within the confines of this geographical entity known as Nigeria. There is a lot of inequity, a lot on imbalance, a lot of injustice projected into the system. There is a lot of complain from every segment of the society. If things are not working as it is today and it’s allowed to continue, Nigeria will be a sorry site in future. Recently, I attended Pa Abraham Adesanya symposium on governance, most of the speakers stated it all, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Secretary General of the Commonwealth was unequivocal in saying that without restructuring Nigeria will become a fail state. All the speakers, including Chief Nnia Nwodo, General Lekwot, Prof Akinloye, Ayo Adebanjo etc. took their turn in re-echoing the same thing: the need for restructuring and the danger of continuing the way we are. All the speakers were in support of the restructuring of the country and you can’t beat their judgment because they have seen it all. We will be deceiving ourselves if we strongly believe that things are working right in this country the way we are going. The truth is that things are not working right. There are serious complains everywhere, most Nigerians are coming to their elastic limit of endurance and we pray that majority do not snap because if they do it will become a big disaster for this nation. There is an urgent need to restructure Nigeria for survival.
People have been speaking out in support of restructuring even before now but most Nigerians are of the view that this country has not been deeply divided as we have it today. Why?
Yes, Nigeria is deeply divided because of inequity, when there is a strong in-equilibrium in terms of distribution of the commonwealth, people are bound to complain, people are bound to be dissatisfied and agitated in the country. When appointments are skewed against certain regions, sense of lack of belonging and sense of neglect will always lead people to complain and to negativism, so what is happening today in Nigeria is improper. Many don’t feel they belong to this country and as such they don’t have the patriotic feeling towards the nation. Nigeria is just populated by people, it is yet to become a nation where people will have the sense of pride to be called Nigerians. Everything is almost collapsing. Although those in government say they are trying but their efforts are not enough until there is equality and everybody has a sense of belonging so that when you ask a citizen: can you die for Nigeria? They will say, yes, but go out to the streets today and throw the question: can you die for Nigeria? Let us see the percentage of the people who will say yes. So all the indices are there to show that there is deep injustice and that is why the patriotic sentiment is not there.
But how worried are you on what is going on for instance the security challenge?
The security issue in Nigeria is terrifying in a sense that life is no more sacrosanct where people are slaughtered like pigs without the full efforts of those who are in-charge of security to stem the tide. Day in day out we hear of Boko Haram killing people in mosque, churches, market places, along the streets etc. and no member of Boko Haram has been brought to book. Apart from that, the herdsmen farmers clash is becoming a common place. In certain areas of this country villages are being burnt and sacked, people slaughtered and this go on unabated as if we have no security forces. I don’t think there is any country that will continue like this and still believe they have a government. The government may be trying within their resources but such trial is not enough and that is why we are admonishing the government to up their security challenges and responsibility by allowing the citizenry to participate in the defence of their communities either through armed vigilante groups or the formation of zonal and state police. The military personnel are too few to handle the security challenges of this country. The police we have appear to be non-existent because the police formation has been hijacked by some top citizens of this country, be they in government, in politics or in business so the common man is just left to fend for themselves, security-wise. So the security situation in the land is daunting and very terrifying and we pray that government should do something, it is not only acquiring arms and budgeting money but government need to increase the personnel and as I earlier said either local personnel or increase recruitment into the military and police forces.
Some critics say the Service Chiefs have really failed in their responsibilities as far as security is concerned and should be removed. Do you think this call is part of the solution?
You see a hood does not make a monk when you look at the appointments into the security services you discover that all the security Chiefs come from only one segment of the country and as such they may not know or be sufficiently briefed on what is happening to other areas and even in those security challenges that they are having in their own areas they may be bias in tackling it, they may not act effectively as they should have done if they are in another environment. Most of the Service Chiefs come from the North and most of the security challenges are in the North so something is wrong there. If I am the Head of State and Commander-In-Chief, I will look into this and see how he can reshuffle them, bring some security heads from other segments of the society, not just from the North. You can see the operation Lafia Dole or so in the North some commanders were praised for being highly effective. Those commanders did not do that in their own native or ethnic territory but elsewhere and they did well. So it’s a critical issue the President must look into with seriousness and great concern, bring in people from other ethnic groups and do some balancing act and let’s see if we can have some order.
What is your take on the type of opposition politics we have today?
For me we do not have politicians in this country and because of that you should not expect strong opposition as it should be. The Peoples Democratic Party is supposed to be strong opposition to the APC but you will see that the greatest supporters of the APC government in the National Assembly are the PDP members, and this issue of carpet crossing has shown the so called Nigerian politician as unprincipled and as such democracy cannot strive because in the parliament you don’t know who is in the opposition or in the ruling party. Something common binds them together and that is the pecks of office and because of that there is no opposition in Nigeria Parliament. We can witness opposition here if we resort to Parliamentary type of government. In a parliamentary system they do not sit together but sit eye-ball to eye-ball to each other. In Nigeria, and it is funny they sit together and you don’t even know who is in opposition or in the ruling party? Nigeria politics and its Parliament is still in its primordial state, it has not matured. It is still money politics.
It appears your own ethnic group, Ndigbo, does not seem to be positioning themselves for the top position…….?
(Cuts in) how can Ndigbo position themselves? To rule who and to govern who? Ndigbo believes that the only thing that can save this country is restructuring. If Nigeria is well restructured and everybody from any unit of the federation of this country is allowed to fend for its own people or zone and become semi-autonomous thereby having a true federalism and true fiscal federalism the person at the centre does not really matter because restructuring means looking more inside from your end (constitutionally recognised zones) take charge of their destiny, take charge and control your resources. You take charge of your agriculture, education, transportation, health, environment etc. There will be zonal competition as it used to be. The scramble and craze for the centre will be discouraged. There will be devolution of power to the federating units so that the center will become unattractive in terms of money, distribution of political largesse and power control. With the arrangement politicians will face their environment and if they mess up they have their own people to contain with. That is the only way Nigeria will grow and it will bring healthy competition in development. It will give the people sense of belonging and sense of patriotism.
Many Nigerians are calling for the declaration of Fulani Herdsmen as terrorists. Do you share in this view?
All depends on ruling leadership. As you know, IPOB have killed nobody and they have not been bombing people’s houses or public places but they were declared and branded as terrorists. All depends on the priority of the ruling government. Everybody knows that Fulani herdsmen are terrorizing the country but it all depends on government to do the right thing. For me the issue is not classifying them as terrorist but it is in stopping them from what they are doing. It is the duty of government to protect life and property but this is just not happening.
