THE ELITES HAVE DESTROYED NIGERIA -Yinka Odumakin

Mr. Yinka Odumakin, the publicity secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has located the problems of Nigeria among the elites. The trained journalist, politician and activist was able to see much of the Nigerian problems during the nationwide campaign of the presidential candidate of his party, (Rtd.) General Muhammed Buhari and his conclusion is that there is so much poverty in the land.

Odumakin blames the elites for the numerous problems in the country, and said that they are benefitting from the rot, which is why they have not been able to stem the tide of one-sided distribution of wealth in the nation.

In this exclusive chat with brandicon, the former publicity secretary of Afenifere, a Yoruba socio-cultural group speaks on the reasons militant groups are springing up in Nigeria, warning that the police is not equipped enough to handle the security problem in the nation.

How will you describe the April 2011 elections in Nigeria

I think in terms of the ability to stage a make- believe, the umpires tried to do something better. But in terms of content and output, the biometric data capturing machine, open ballot system, the transparent ballot boxes, these are the inputs, but the output did not match the input. Unfortunately, because we are so full of sentiments and emotions, we all lauded the election as free and fair. For the people, it was free and fair. People like Professor Itse Sagay, Festus Keyamo and others who we expected to speak up, they all kept quiet for reasons best known to them. We are not practicing democracy, I have always said it. Nigeria is digging from a big oil field, and as long as we continue to dig oil, it doesn’t matter who rules us. They did it with Abacha, so they won’t care a hoot.

But international observers commended the election as the best

Yes, most of them did, except the European Union, which report was a bit critical in terms of all the lapses noted, most of them said that the election was free and fair.

So are you saying they are not objective

They are not interested in democracy here, they are not interested in free and fair election, all they are interested in is a government that would give them chance to continue to drill oil here. We are importing them to take care of their own interest, that is what they want from Nigeria. I remember Nelson Mandela, who once asked a question  about those of us who have been released by our colonial masters, but have not freed,  that if America or European countries have elections, do they invite us to come and observe the elections.

Let’s talk about the presidential election, is CPC still pursuing the court cases, and do you think Gen. Mohammed Buhari actually won the election

We have moved to a stage where the court is working on the matter, on that note, I would not prejudge the matter; I would rather wait for the court to look at the case and make a pronouncement. But, a lot of things will come out that what is being paraded as pan-Nigerian mandate is nothing, but pan-Nigerian fraud.

We see a place in Cross River State where only 6,000 people registered and the PDP secured 76,000 votes. In River State 1.3 million people voted in the Presidential election, whereas only 300,000 votes were recorded in the governorship election. Let’s save the rest for the court.

On the election, your presidential candidate made some statements asking people to protect their votes, and people are now saying some of his statements led to the post-election violence in the north

It is all a reflection of why Nigeria cannot move the right way. We don’t think the right thought, we don’t ask the right questions, we always leave the substance and go for the shadow. When our affliction is leprosy, we start to deal with ringworm. All what are being saying are propaganda from Aso Rock, which has voted billions of naira of tax payers’ money to spread lies, but a lie repeated a thousand times by a million people is still a lie. I challenge anybody to come to tell us where they got the quote they are flying all around, nobody has done so. A national newspaper wrote in 2002 that Buhari said Muslim should vote for only Muslims, till date nobody can say where he made the statement and the newspaper cannot substantiate their claims.

Before the election, Buhari said, register, vote and protect your votes, in fact the statement was initially  made by a young man who belongs to Enough is Enough Group during a rally. A lot of people, NGOs were asking people to protect their votes, so were they the ones who caused the violence. The questions of electoral violence, except those who are shallow, will know that it is rigging that provokes violence. We had ‘Wetie” in 1964, was it because of the statement Chief Obafemi Awolowo made before the election, did he ask people to protect their votes. In 1983, remember Omoboriowo in Ondo State, when there was massive rigging. I remember then that the head of the chairman of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in Ondo State was severed from his neck and they were carrying it all about, was it because Chief Michael Ajasin, the then Governor of the state made a statement before the election. After the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections, you know what happened. The actions of people have always been because of rigging. But because most Nigerian opinion moulders today are benefitting from rigging, it is easier for them to ignore rigging and be talking about the symptoms of reactions to rigging. A former United States Ambassador to Nigeria located the problems of Nigeria with the elites, that they are benefited so much from this iniquity and they are living on it and they don’t want to change. You have the likes of CAN President, Ayo Oritsejafor saying Buhari should be arrested because of the violence and things like that, go and check the election of CAN President if it was not done with rigging. Nigerian elites are comfortable with the perversion of the system. They live on corruption; they live on the rot, either in politics or in business. After President Goodluck Jonathan was sworn-in as President, a banker said ‘thank God that you won, if you had not win, many of us would have fled into exile.’ There are pastors of churches, who said if another person had won, they would flee Nigeria because they know what they have done.

On the day of the post-election violence, (Rtd.) General Muhammed Buhari, the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) was on his way to Abuja, he called me and I said I was in Abuja, he said he was also on his way there that I should get some of these Hausa Radio stations. By the time, he got to Kaduna, a mob attacked his car before they knew it was his car. If it was planned, would they have attacked his car? By the time he got to Abuja, we got in touch with Aljazera, and other radio stations Hausas listen to, to calm down the rioters, but because Gen. Buhari did not come to any newspaper in the south, they said he did not talk. If he was hypocritical, he would have called all the newspapers in the south and make statements. Most of the people in the North do not read any of the newspapers in the south, because Buhari did not talk to any newspapers in the south and make a statement, they thought he did not do anything, whereas the people in the north would not come across the report. The moment Buhari made the statement, there was calm. Many people burnt their voters card in protest and say look at the man we are fighting for. Now, people are saying, ‘where is Buhari, Buhari should speak oo,’ why did they not ask that where was President Jonathan, the man who was said to have won a pan-Nigerian mandate, the commander of the Nigerian armed forces, because he has no authority, he doesn’t have the mandate. Go and check at the site of Aljazera if you will not see that Buhari called for clam during the violence. Get me any publication in Nigeria or anywhere all over the world where Jonathan spoke a word until six days after the riot and when he spoke, what did he say, he said ‘oh, this reminds me of Biafra.’

Shortly before the election, we heard there was going to be a coalition between the CPC and the ACN and that the CPC backed out

I think that is one of the propaganda going around, so go and find out from those who are talking about the coalition.

People are saying Gen. Buhari is a dictator and that Pastor Tunde Bakare is not a politician and that his church does not have more than one parish and that this affected the success of the party

Those are tales by the moonlight.  All those who are afraid of Buhari are afraid of him because he is not a thief, and because it will not be business as usual. Under a Buhari presidency, you cannot get oil licenses, oil blocks anyhow, you cannot get waivers which people got under ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo. There is a matter before the House of Reps that a particular church got a N2 billion waiver. Under Obasanjo, about N4.3 trillion was not remitted, N2 billion was traced to a church. So, when you now have a pastor in a Pentecostal church canvassing support for PDP during the election, you can see where they are coming from.  It is not a question of Buhari is a dictator. Nigeria is not ready for an upright man; Nigerian elite want business as usual. They want someone who is not against corruption, who is not competent, under whom they can continue business as usual.

Recently, we have been having problem with the issue of security in Nigeria, especially the Boko Haram menace, where they kill people and even went to the police headquarters, how do you think we can get out of this

First of all, there are short term and long term measures. In the meantime, we need to beef up our security. The kind of security men we have today are not equipped to handle insurgency or terrorism. The level of their operations does not go beyond the police taking bribes at check points or protecting those who are snatching ballot boxes. The Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, went somewhere in Borno State recently and said ‘now that elections are over, we now have time for Boko Haram, their days are numbered.’ That is loaded, so when you were planning to protect those who wanted to snatch ballot boxes, you had no time for the security of the country. Ballot boxes were being snatched with the protection of the police. You said Boko Haram’s days are numbered without any action, that tells you the kind of police we have. A situation where they can enter the headquarters of the police without any hindrance is very bad indeed. Police said it was not a suicide bomber, Boko Haram said it is, police said the guy used a Mercedes Benz V-Boot, Boko Haram said he used a Honda 1996 model, does that show that we have a police that can handle security. So, we need to have effective police.

Secondly, we need leadership that has the will to do justice. Most of our problems have to do with injustice. During the election, we said people protested because Buhari asked them to protect their votes, the same way if we had done clean business in Niger Delta, if we had not deny the people of their dues, of development, if when the late leader of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP),Ken Saro Wiwa was saying let’s come address our problems, he was carrying leaves, if we didn’t hang him and listen to him, would we have MEND today. He said it that people would come out of Niger Delta and they would not be carrying leaves, but guns. When we had Biafra, we went on as if nothing happened.

When the grievances against the annulled June 12, 1993 election, which was presumably won by the late Chief M.K.O Abiola came up, and we had a lot of protests in the South West, on one day, soldiers were killing people who were carrying leaves to protest. On Ikorodu Road alone, we counted over 360 dead bodies. So, those people felt it is just not enough to carry leaves, so they formed Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC).  Boko Haram, when you go back to history, when they started, they were not attacking anybody. They were a sect, who looked around them and said what was happening around them such as corruption, and others were caused by those who had western education. They felt there is no word in the Quran that supports this, so they felt those doing this had western education, who had gone to school; they felt it is their education that caused this. So, they started Boko Haram, to say ‘Western education is evil.’

They started confronting the state, when some of their members died and they went to bury them and the police attacked them.  When they started, they were even attractive to the politician, I remember the former Governor of Borno State, Bonu Musa Sheriff used them to win election, and that was why one of their members was made a commissioner. Because they wanted justice, they started attacking the police and the rest until the big one in 2009 and when the police executed their leader, Yussuf summarily. Some of us rose up and said this is wrong. Yes, he has committed an offence; we said extra-judicial killing is as worse as the offence the man committed, it is pure murder. Now, that Boko Haram has taken vengeance to police headquarters, the police is now charging the man who killed their leader for murder. In every instance, we need justice. As much as we don’t address the issue of injustice, there would be problem. Of course, there will always be criminals and deviants, then the law can take its cause.

Under the late Yusuf, Boko Haram was like an open organization, they had their centre, they had where they gathered, after his death, they went underground. We need to address this and we need a president who will address issues objectively, who would look at what happened and do the right thing. Not the one that would say, because my brother is involved. I would give you an instance, on October 1, 2010 when bomb exploded at independence square, MEND claimed responsibility for it and the president said it is not from MEND because he comes from their area. Then, they started playing politics, they arrested Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, t he owner of DAAR Communications that someone had a test message that implicated him just because he was working for Gen, Ibrahim Babangida then. But as soon as he joined Jonathan group, we didn’t hear anything about it again. That is playing politics with security.

People are canvassing for a return to regional government and parliamentary system of government

Nigeria will not make any progress as long as we run this unitary system of government with all the powers concentrated in Abuja. The presidential system of government in the Nigerian context is encouraging monarchy. Nigerian president is one of the most powerful men in the whole world. The kind of power our president has, President Barack Obama of America does not have it. But, I believe we should go regional with the six regions and each region would be free to adopt its own type of government, either you want presidential or parliamentary with a weak centre. It could be federalism or con-federalism, the centre will only deal with issues that bind the country such as currency, defence and others. A senator in Nigeria today earns 1.7 million dollars per annum, President Barack Obama of the United States of America earns 450,000 dollars per annum. When you multiply 1.7 million dollars by 109 and 1.2 million dollars each reps member earns by 360, do you know what that would do for the country. If you look at the South-West, you have six states or even eight because what used to be Western region government extended to Delta State and Edo State and you have eight governors, eight commissioners of education, commissioners for health and yet they cannot all match what Chief Obafemi Awolowo did for the Western Region from Ibadan.

The kind of money they have today was not even available to Awolowo. We should let each region control their resources and pay tax. For the National Assembly, instead of having senate and Reps, let’s have only one legislature and each zone will have only six senators, who will be meeting on part time basis. Today, as we are speaking now, bankers are chasing senators to come and take loans, about 150 million each, which job will you get in Nigeria today that banks would be chasing you for loans. They arrested former speaker of the House of Reps., Dimeji Bankole,  that he took loans for his colleagues, and the rest lawmakers are free, nobody is asking them to come and explain. They were earning N42 million per quarter in the reps, the same for the senate and they have not talked about how they will finance such expenditure. Has anybody asked how senate has been paying their own? We don’t ask questions in this country, they arrested Bankole today, another person will come, may be Waziri Aminu Tambuwal would be arrested after his tenure and we will say they have caught another thief.

Can you share your experience about what you say all over the country during the campaign for the election

I would say that the tour for the campaign is one of the most rewarding outings I have ever gone. I would cherish it till I die. When I find time to write my memoir, I have a lot to say. It gave me opportunity to see this country the way it is and it changed two of my earlier beliefs. The only we and them is the haves and have nots. Though some people in the middle are there who want to have more like the professionals. I discovered the extent of poverty in Nigeria. The day we went to campaign in Gombe, close to the palace, a woman gave money to a small boy to go and buy water for her and somebody said you have wasted your money. About 30 minutes later, the boy traced her in a thick crowd and brought a bag of water. Then, one of us in appreciation gave him N500 as dash, but the boy came back with another set of water, saying he would not collect dash from people who are trying to help them.

There is so much poverty in the north such that if care is not taken, anything could happen any moment from now. Nigeria  earned more than what we earned from 1914 to 1999 between 1999 and 2011, yet in 1999, poverty level was just 46%, now it is about 76%, we are sitting on keg of gunpowder. We must do something fast so that the poor would not revolt against the system.

July 02, 2011