Hon. Israel Ajibola Famurewa, a member of the House of Representatives from Osun State has blamed the inability of any part of the country to break away on the position of late nationalist and premier of the Eastern region, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in the 1960 Republican Constitution just before October 1st Independence. He also talked about a shift back to regional administration as it was in the First Republic, Osun politics and the need for more effort at eliminating economic recession in Nigeria. AHMED MUSA brings the excerpts…
Talking about agitation, before 1914, while the Oyo empire, the Kanem Borno empire, the Benin kingdom and all that, there were self-rule before the creation of Nigeria as an entity; all these agitations are coming as we are clocking 57 years of existence; don’t you think that going by the agitations and what have you, the project Nigeria could fail anytime from now?
We need to trace the history of Nigeria and look at where we are coming from. Let us assess how we actually got to where we are today, if you now examine it, to me, I don’t see this nation failing. Nigeria will still remain Nigeria because those people that are agitating for crisis to me, are calling for war. Maybe they were too young or they were not even born when Nigeria fought the first civil war, the war that claimed over 2million Nigerian souls on both sides of the divide and if someone now comes today and sound the same drum, I don’t think that person knows what he or she is doing. And I believe that whoever is leading the cause will not be sincere with it, an average Igbo man doesn’t believe in it.
Does your state (Osun) believe in restructuring and if yes, in what form?
If we are talking that we want to restructure Nigeria, let us come down on the same table and now put that word restructure. Let us examine the word restructure. What are we trying to restructure? Let us define the word restructure. And if you now take it that way, I believe in restructuring quite alright, but what do we want to restructure? Are we talking about the constitutional restructuring, are we going to amend some parts of the constitution in a way that will balance up some powers or sharing of resources? Are we talking about the administrative restructuring?
Like in my state we believe in restructuring, we are advocating for regional governments, not states because we realised that most of our states in Nigeria are not viable and we achieved more when we were operating at regional level than now that we have 36 states. So if my state we believe that we should restructure towards regional administration. That will not cancel the office of the governor or whatever we have presently, but let us have a regional administration that will oversee the whole region in the form of premiers that we had in the first republic.
But if you are talking about restructuring like what happened in the House during the constitutional amendments, the issue of the devolution of powers, that is one area we can look into, sit down, look at it, let us restructure along that line, let us shed weight from the centre to the states or regions or whatever we agree on, I believe in that. There are some responsibilities on the federal government that are supposed to be at the states’ level or let the states do their own and let the federal government do its own, concurrently. So if you are talking about restructure in that area, I agree.
If you are talking about restructuring in terms of resource management, I also agree. I have gold in my constituency now; I don’t have control over it niether does my state government have control over the resources in my state, it belongs to the federal government, we are supposed to have a say, that is a section of restructuring. So if you are talking of restructuring, let us define it clearly, what are we restructuring? And that will then guide us to know what to say.
It’s like you are part of those who are afraid that if a part of this country goes, heaven will fall. Is that what you are telling Nigerians?
No, I am not saying that, but God in His infinite mercy and wisdom that wedded us together knows why. Again, unfortunately our constitution, the one we are operating today doesn’t favour secession. I read it in the book of history in 1960 Republican Constitution when we were preparing for independence in October 1st, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo proposed that in our Constitution, let there be a clause that can allow any part of this family to go away. The Sardauna of Sokoto also supported the move but the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe kicked against it; and as fate would have it, Azikiwe’s position prevailed and that is what we have in our Constitution today that nobody can break away.
That clause has remained consistent in subsequent drafts and amendments, so if anybody is making that move, you are working against the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and whoever is in government at that particular time will have the responsibility of protecting this Constitution and they can move against that person.
Does this constitution made by foreclose amendment? However, you are amending it. Does it become sacrosanct, and is it un-amendable, does it weaken the powers of the National Assembly to amend as conferred powers on you?
It has nothing to do with the powers of the National Assembly until any part of this constitution is amended.
Who has the power to amend?
That was then, I am talking that as at today, this is what we have and that has not been amended and that is what is guiding us until we decide to amend it but if we have not done that, this thing is still guiding us. And I don’t believe if anybody goes heaven will fall, we are so blessed in this country. Come to my region or my state we have a lot of resources that is more than enough for us to survive. Go to the north, they have their own resources that is more than enough for them to survive, same in the east and south-south.
So if peradventure Nigeria breaks, well what I don’t have, I will need to, because as at today we do import goods from America, China and other countries of the world; it is the same process, what I don’t have but I need, I will import from well if it is the northern part of Nigeria or from the eastern part of Nigeria and what they don’t that I have, then they will import from me and life will continue. So heaven will not fall. But what I am saying is that as we are today, this constitution doesn’t allow that until we amend it.
Talking about the constitution not allowing any part of the country to secede, that whoever tries that would be moved against, does that go to support the legality of what the military has done against Nnamdi Kanu and the IPOB movement. Meanwhile we heard the Senate President saying that the action of the military was unconstitutional?
The military has the constitutional right of protecting the nation’s territorial integrity and if in their wisdom, and as professionals, what they may see as signs of danger may mean nothing to me because that is their own area of specialty. If they realise that there is an action somewhere that may put their responsibility at stake then they will move against it; I don’t have any problem with that.
I don’t want us to consider the action of the military in isolation, what led to it. Did he (referring to Saraki) consider the activities of Kanu, his utterances and the way the so-called IPOB boys have been terrorising people in their domain? We have a lot of these on the social media. They constituted themselves into a gang blocking roads, highways, extorting money from innocent Nigeria and they were claiming that they were fighting for these people they were extorting money from. We need to look at the activities of this person called Kanu. If a civilian should have the courage to go and attack police divisional headquarters, then if they should allow them to do that successfully, me and you and the ordinary people on the streets in that part of the country will be in danger.
Recently we saw an incursion by the PDP in your state where we discovered that in the elections, somebody from the opposition party won in a landslide manner; does that show that there is problem in APC in the state? And going forward, how are you supposed to bridge this gap so that you can win other upcoming elections?
I don’t want to see it as PDP victory, no. That victory was a victory designed by APC members. APC members voted and don’t forget that the so called PDP candidate, about some days to that election was a member of APC, picked nomination form from APC, attended screening of APC, this particular person as far as I am concerned was a member of APC before he eventually changed camp to PDP towards the election simply because he was unable to pick the ticket of APC.
And there are a lot of factors that are actually responsible for what happened; we are all human beings, if we lose someone very close to us, very dear to us we may decide to throw the sense of reasoning away in order to sympathize with that person, people sympathized with that family that they lost an illustrious son, a former governor and a serving Senator, he was a generous man, we cannot take that from late Senator Adeleke, he was a man of the people. And the votes given to his brother was just a means, a way of sympathizing with that family and I can say it categorically, it is our party members that voted for him. I don’t see that as PDP incursion.
Well PDP may want to take glory and the person that actually went to PDP had a differently plan entirely; his plan was to win that election and then return back to APC. Unfortunately for him, immediately after that election, the PDP crisis was resolved by the Supreme Court and there was no basis for anybody to decamp again. So now as at today, he’s hooked in PDP camp. But in Osun state as at today, our members, we are one.
You are a grassroot person, you are very much on ground with Osun politics. Is it true that the gubernatorial ambition of the deputy Speaker, Yusuf Lasun is a done deal, that he is the next governor? And has the ban on campaign been lifted by the APC in Osun State?
The deputy speaker being a loyal party member, as I am talking to you, did not tell me he is campaigning, he said “I am consulting”; there is difference between campaign and consultation. I may come to your house, one on one as a brother and consult, advice me, I am thinking of doing this, what is your view, can you advice me? It is quite different from coming out and say I am contesting for this, I am presenting myself for this, no. As at today, the deputy speaker will tell you that he is consulting.
But the media has shown that he has already declared his intention, including his visit to the Ooni of Ife and to most of the paramount rulers in the state.
I can decide tomorrow to pay a visit to the Ooni of Ife and he won’t shut his door against me.
Is he also consulting with market women?
We are not talking of councillorship or local government; let me explain this, when we started the governorship aspiration of the incumbent governor, we consulted widely. Okada people, we will call them for a meeting and have a chat, this is what we are planning, what is your view? Will you support us? Even before we came out openly. Mechanics, we consulted them, market women, we consulted them, the traditional rulers we went to them and said; it is part of politics.
If you are looking for governorship, it is not something you can just believe that you will win with party support. Apart from party nomination, you are still going to appeal to people outside, ordinary people who are not party members to vote for you, so that is more reason you need to carry them along from day one, consult them. When you give them recognition, when the time comes, they will listen to you.