Leader of the pan Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo has charged President Bola Tinubu to write his name in gold by changing the current Constitution of Nigeria, so as to save the country from breaking up.

The nonagenarian, who said Tinubu should forget about doing a second term, stated that the military plunged the country into a myriad of problems as currently being experienced. He spoke with EMMA NJOKU on several other issues including the spate of insecurity across the country, the 2023 general elections, the corruption at the National Assembly, President Tinubu’s order for implementation of the Orosanya report and the continued detention of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, among others.

What are your reflections on the state of the nation today?

I’m a sad old man! Why? Because I don’t think there’s anybody in the field today that has my passion, except those who were with us right from the beginning. All those who are talking today are merely supporting what we did. Why we did the things we did they don’t know. And that’s why they fumble. Immediately the military came to power, they disrupted everything! You needed to see how good life was in Nigeria under Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello (Sardauna of Sokoto) and Chief Michael Okpara.

All the problems that arose from a plural society as a result of a unitary government were solved in the 1954 London Conference. That was before Nigeria secured her independence. That was when we established federalism in Nigeria. There was allocation of revenues on the basis of derivation. State police, local government police, devolution of power and all these things people are now arguing about were all settled. And life was moving on. Awolowo did all the wonders in the Western Region. He gave free education and built the Cocoa House in Ibadan, among other things; Sardauna built the Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna and other infrastructure in the Northern Region and Okpara built so many infrastructure in the Eastern Region. All these were possible because each region generated and kept its revenue.

Then the military came in 1966 and changed that constitution to favour a section of the country – the North, and that gave rise to all the problems we have today. So when people are talking about restructuring, they don’t really understand what it means. The military set aside the federal constitution which gave us peace. The idea of a federal constitution was for each region to develop at its pace based on the revenue it generated. Each federating unit (region) was autonomous and independent of the federal government. The regions were not subordinate to the federal government. The military abolished that constitution and created 36 states. They created more states in the north than in the south. Kano, which had the same population as Lagos, was divided into two states. That was how Jigawa State was created. They went ahead to create so many local governments in Kano and Jigawa, while Lagos remained the same. The reason for all these was because every military officer in the north wanted a local government in his place. And they now said all the revenue generated by each state should be taken to Abuja and shared among the 36 states. So the north was benefitting from the revenue generated from the south while they contributed next to nothing to the national treasury.

You can see that the current Nigerian constitution is a fraud and it has to be emphasised! We didn’t make the constitution. That’s why I told you that I’m a sad old man. When I hear people calling for restructuring, they don’t really understand what the military did to us. Some people talk about amending the constitution. Which constitution? A constitution we did not make!

Besides the unfair creation of more states in the north as against the south, they now said the revenue generated from the states would not only be shared among the 36 states, but the sharing formula would be on the basis of land mass, even if the land mass is made up of a desert without human beings. So, Lagos and the rest of the West, in fact, the entire South that generates the bulk of the revenue would get the least allocation. When you journalists are writing, you need to point out the evils in this current constitution. It is a lot of injustice! A lot of fraud!

The Parliament has been amending the constitution since former President Muhammadu Buhari was there. They will never do it! So, I’m not a happy old man because there is a lot of fraud, a lot of injustice and denial; people pretend as if they’re not aware of evil. And that is why I’m emphasising that President Bola Tinubu should leave a legacy. He should change the constitution now!

But despite all the advantages enjoyed by the north, there is prevalent insecurity in the area with insinuations that some vested interests want to sabotage the current administration of President Tinubu. What’s your take on this?

That’s diversionary. Those behind the Boko Haram insurgency and other forms of terrorism were known to the former administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, but they refused to act on it. Commodore Kunle Olawunmi (retd), during a programme on national television, said Buhari commissioned a committee of 20 service chiefs to find out the people behind Boko Haram, and the committee gave him a list of those involved in 2018. That programme was aired last year, 2023, and the presidency has not reacted to the list. The report stated that those financing Boko Haram were in his (Buhari) cabinet. Some of them were part of the sitting governors then, some were in the Senate and House of Representatives. Then. I have always brought this to the front burner; unfortunately the press has not emphasised it. I accused Buhari of connivance with the terrorists and I dared the then Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, to come and challenge me for accusing Buhari of connivance with those terrorising us in Nigeria. The evidence I’m using is the committee’s report disclosed by Commodore Lawunmi. Remember that the former Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, once announced that they had got the list of 200 people behind Boko Haram insurgents. Have you seen the list till today? The United Arab Emirates caught and imprisoned some Nigerians and sent their names to the Federal government. Did you know who those people are till today? So President Bola Tinubu should not just tell us that he has given the military a marching order to fetch the terrorists, he should match the order with implementation in the Presidency. Those behind the terrorists are known. Why are they afraid to act? They set up a committee, just deceiving us, when they know the terrorists. The Yoruba have an adage that “the insect that is spoiling the vegetable is inside the vegetable”. So all the banditry and kidnapping happening in Zamfara State and other parts of the North, the perpetrators are known to the government. How come Gumi knows where the terrorists are and negotiates with the list of those abducted? He goes to the camp of the terrorists and comes out, not once, not twice, but on many occasions. And the military are telling us they don’t know where the terrorists are. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. President Bola Tinubu has to clear his name because all these are on record. Even those who are eating our money in the petroleum sector are known. He should go after them and the problem will be solved once and for all.

It appears as though Nigeria is tilting towards a one-party state. What’s your take on the situation?

That can only happen if the people want it. You press people know so many of the problems in the society and you refuse to emphasise them. For instance, a serving minister during the President Muhammadu Buhari administration was accused of financing Boko Haram insurgents and all Buhari could say was that he had recanted. And they arrested members of Boko Haram and told us that they had purified them and reabsorbed them into the army. Who are they deceiving? You journalists are part of the problem. By the time one politician wins an election and makes you his personal assistant, you’ll be singing another song. You press people know our problem. You have to put pressure on President Bola Tinubu to do the needful. And the needful is not to postpone the ‘evil day’. Take the 2014 National Conference report; take the El-rufai recommendation, set up a committee to harmonise the two reports within three days and let the operation of the new constitution begin between now and October. Let him (Tinubu) forget about running for a second term. He is deceiving himself!

I’ll say it again, the North will not vote for him again because all that he’s doing now is not favourable to them. Let him know they’re pretending that they are supporting him. He should take the bull by the horn and leave a legacy behind. He should go the whole hog and create a new constitution. Even if they don’t vote for him for a second term, he would have written his name in gold.

But how does he do that with the North dominating the National Assembly as presently constituted?

My dear, you’re just deceiving yourself. Is it the same National Assembly that is a creation of a fraudulent constitution? Can a product of a fraud rectify the fraud? I never agree with them. The only thing Tinubu should do is to set up a committee and use his engaging power to pave the way for a referendum. The recommendation of that committee should be subject to a referendum, not anybody else. Will the parliament that’s a product of a fraudulent constitution pass a new constitution? Why do we shy away from the obvious?

Recently, about 60 national lawmakers moved for a return to the parliamentary system of government. What’s your position on that?

I’m 100 percent for the parliamentary system. The presidential system of government is a symbol of corruption, particularly in Nigeria. There’s nothing as corrupt as the presidential system of government because there’s no supremacy of the party in a presidential system of government. It might operate before the election, but the moment the president assumes office, he becomes an emperor. Which minister could look Buhari in the face when he was the president? Somebody who defied court orders! Those of you who were born after 1966 do not understand what we are talking about. That’s why I said I’m a sad old man.

You’ve been in the vanguard of uniting the South.

Certainly! Not only uniting the south, but, also, advancing the entire country.

Unfortunately, it appears as though the last election divided the south. How do you feel about the development?

When you say the election divided the South, how do you mean? What caused the division? People took money and the government of the day rigged the election. You can’t pull the wool over our eyes. Even the governors who passed a resolution that the presidency must come to the South, when the ticket was ceded to the south, must it go to the area that had served before? That was the stand of Afenifere. We said no! Even though Bola Tinubu is our own man, it was not our turn.

Yar’adua came, after that Jonathan came. After Jonathan, Buhari, and after Buhari the thing returned to the south. Must it go to the South West? Or must it go to the South South? Is the South East not part of Nigeria? If we want Nigeria to be one, then the South East must have their turn. Go and read the statement of Afenifere in supporting Peter Obi for president in the last election. I don’t know Obi from Adam. It is the principle Awolowo gave us that if you want Nigeria to be united, there must be devolution of power. The federalism we’re going to have, we’re going to share it in power rotation. That’s all. If the right things were done; if there were fairness and equity, all the agitations by the likes of Nnamdi Kanu would not have arisen. The evil that they have done goes beyond what they know. All the talk about state police and local government police, where are the revenues to finance state and local government police?

What’s your view on the order by President Tinubu that the Oronsaye Report be implemented?

You see, I don’t want to talk about it. If you want to leave the game behind, change the constitution and everything will be okay. Now you say you want to end corruption. Corruption is far from gone. There were about 500 parastatals in the federal government, there’s a reason for that. Now they are about 1,000. At the moment, Nigeria has the largest cabinet in the world. And now, the Oronsaye Report is saying to prune down the cost of governance. Where does it mix? Just give us a new constitution and leave the stage. The Oronsaye Report, to me, is an aside.

How do you look at the corruption allegation rocking the National Assembly regarding the padding of the 2024 budget?

You journalists are looking for what I would say. When Jonathan was in office, this same APC in government now was shouting that Jonathan was very corrupt. Nigerians know that no government has been more corrupt than the Buhari government. President Bola Tinubu confirmed that Buhari left an empty treasury. Unfortunately, Tinubu said he was going to follow what Buhari did. So, for him to wipe out all the mess he met there, let him give us a new constitution and his name will remain in the good books of history forever. For now, whatever programme he’s doing in the name of fighting corruption is ‘window dressing’.

Back to the last presidential election; it also appears as though the outcome of that election has divided the Afenifere?

There’s no division in Afenifere. Where is the division? I didn’t push the former leader away. He’s the one who said “I’ve retired”. And he wrote his letter of resignation. Have you not read his letter of resignation? You pressmen are part of our problem. You have all the facts before you and instead of talking about it, you’re emphasising that we’re divided. Divided how? There’s no division. I don’t want to go into that controversy. In a nutshell, what happened was that we never had any disagreement since he appointed me. He said “I’m tired”. Go and read his statement again. That was when he was 95 years old. But when the election came, Afenifere made a decision, and I’m applying what Awolowo told us – to keep the country together.

Later he (Fasoranti) called me on the telephone and told me that Tinubu said he wanted to come and see him. That courtesy visit turned to support for Tinubu. Sincerely speaking, old age is ‘troubling’ Fasoranti, but I don’t want to go into that at all. Those who were looking for an appointment from Tinubu just wanted to make use of him. They felt that ‘Adebanjo cannot be reconciled, let’s use Baba’. Go and check all the talk about division in Afenifere, you’ve never heard a statement from me. It’s you pressmen that created the division. There’s no quarrel, what’s the cause of the quarrel? Because I didn’t join those looking for an appointment to support Tinubu, then they said Baba Adebanjo is a rebel. To talk about that is a diversion. I’m moving forward with how to keep Nigeria together, how to live in peace.

Now hear this: Tinubu never supported him right from time until now. When Fasoranti was appointed as the leader of Afenifere, Tinubu chose and supported another factional leader, Ayo Fasanmi. When Fasanmi died, he brought another person, and when that one died, he brought another man from Lagos. He just wanted somebody to say he did not agree with our own side.

What do you make of Nnamdi Kanu’s continued detention despite the court ruling that he be granted bail?

It’s unfair! It’s part of the injustices in the system. The man is fighting injustice. His people have been denied their rights. How can you deny a substantial part of the country their right to produce the president? What type of judiciary are we operating?

Do you still believe in one Nigeria?

I believe in Nigeria under a federal system, under the same constitution we had at independence. If we can’t have that, then everybody should go our separate ways!

Finally sir, what kind of Nigeria would you wish to be bequeathed to future generations?

The Nigeria that I fought for and which I believe in is the Nigeria with a federal system, where all the federating units are independent and autonomous, where no section oppresses the other. Federalism as it is practised all over the world. I don’t know where Nigeria copied their own brand of federalism which they call ‘true federalism’ when what they are practising is a unitary government. Federalism is federalism. And for those who are talking otherwise, where in the whole wide world do we have a plural society that operates a unitary system of government? Have you heard about an Inspector General of Police in the United States of America? Not even in Great Britain. What they have is cosmopolitan police. The military had a hidden agenda. Unfortunately, we have just a few progressives in the North. But the bulk of the North during Buhari’s regime wanted to Fulanise Nigeria. That’s why they look the other way when the Fulani are killing us and taking away our lands.

When people complained to Buhari about the killer herdsmen he told them to go and make friends with their neighbours. Remember that the Inspector General of Police, at a time, was asked to go and stop the killer Fulani herdsmen in a certain area and three months after he couldn’t go there. It took the pressure from the public before he could go there.

The former Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, fought vigorously to end the menace of killer herdsmen by fighting for the establishment of the Amotekun in the South West. With his demise, do you think the fight against terrorists in the South West would be sustained?

You’re just limiting it to Amotekun. When the problem of killer herdsmen started, I told Buhari, ‘if you want this nonsense to end, allow each state to have its own police’. At the end of the day he allowed them to form Amotekun, and I said if you allow them to form Amotekun, allow them (Amotekun) to carry arms; because that’s the only way you can protect your area from the infiltrators.

What’s the sense in somebody coming from Sokoto State to come and protect you in Anambra or Rivers State? What does he know about the terrain? Or how can somebody from Maiduguri come to my village in Ijebu to protect me? But because they know that the local government police will fish the infiltrators out, he didn’t allow that. We had a situation where there was a crisis in a community in Ikeja, Lagos State, and the governor went there and tried to resolve the crisis, but one of the aggrieved parties went to the federal government. The situation degenerated into a power tussle of sorts when the state commissioner of police told the governor, “I don’t take instructions from you; I take instructions from the federal government”. The governor said “but I’m the governor of Lagos State” and the commissioner of police replied, “I don’t know that”. What I’m telling you is recorded in a video. They’re all lame duck governors! The military knew why they wrote the constitution.

Some Nigerians were clamouring for the return of the military due to the increasing hardship under a democratic civilian regime. What’s your position on the clamour?

The return of the military will not solve any problem. Instead of the military coming back, let everybody go back to where we all come from. If we can’t live together in unity and ensure fairness, justice and equity to all sections of the country, it’s better for us to return to how we were before the colonial masters came. The colonial masters messed up Nigeria. That’s why Awolowo said that Nigeria is an artificial name, a mere geographical expression. We’re not a nation! We have Yoruba nation, Igbo nation, Hausa nation, Ijaw nation etc. But there’s goodness in coming together as a country. That’s why the system of federalism was proposed, so that each federating unit will develop at its own pace. If that is not possible, then let’s go back to where we were.

Do you think President Tinubu has the will to enthrone that ideal federal system of government, where the federating states would be autonomous and independent from the federal government?

He has to do it. If he doesn’t do it, Nigeria will break up! I said it when Buhari was there. Restructure the country or forget Nigeria! I repeat, if Tinubu fails to restructure the country, that will be the end of Nigeria! You cannot continue with a constitution in which you’re being cheated. All the anomalies we had got rid of during the Independent Constitution, the North came to power through the military and changed the constitution to their advantage.

What they couldn’t get through the front door, they got through the back door by staging a coup and came up with this current constitution that is a fraud.

Tinubu was in the trenches with us. He should remember where we’re coming from. It was on the basis of the change of this constitution that he became the governor of Lagos State. He should be able to change it. (Saturday Sun)

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