‘Restructuring is repairing Nigeria without firing a shot’
Dr Lloyd Ukwu, Executive Director, National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), USA, speaks on the current agitation for restructuring in the Nigerian polity, the NADECO, USA stance and the planned Conference of Ethnic Nationalities billed to hold in Washington DC in March next year. He spoke in an interview with Gboyega Alaka and some select journalists.
The present administration has maintained that those calling for restructuring have not come out with a clear definition of what they want. How is NADECO, in its own space, defining this call for restructuring for a better nation?
As you know, NADECO was born during the Abacha years when the 1993 June 12 election which late Moshood Abiola won, was annulled. Prominent Nigerians formed NADECO and it was primarily designed to attack the military at that time. Of course you know Abacha got more violent by jailing and assassinating some of us. Hon. Wole Osun was jailed; Pa Alfred Rewane was assassinated…. So, a lot of those chieftains ran away from Nigeria. Some went to the UK; some came here to the United States of America. While here, they asked that we register NADECO USA. We had the likes of Bola Tinubu, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Chief Ralph Obioha, General Alani Akinrinade; Dr Wahab Dosunmu, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, Chief Anthony Enahoro and a host of others. And so in 1999 Nigeria retuned to civil administration, and of course NADECO did not see much work to do and kind of fizzled out. Now this is 2021 and the very things that brought in NADECO in 1994 have started again; so NADECO is back to the trenches- so to speak, to see if we can get Nigeria working.
Now based on what is currently happening in Nigeria, it appears like the only sustainable and viable option is to restructure. A few years ago, probably there would have been more options, but as we speak, there appears to be only one option, which is restructuring. The word restructuring has been so used that many do not understand what it means. Restructuring simply means, repairing, revamping, transforming; to renew, top overhaul. Now if you want to understand restructuring and why the larger Nigerian people are preaching that restructuring is the only way to fix Nigeria, take a look at Nigeria as a corporate entity or organisation in which the Nigerian people are the sharehold ers. If the company is not doing well, the shareholders are bound to come together to repair or restructure it. Restructuring basically means the art of changing the business model of an organisation to transform it for the better. If you look at Nigeria as a corporate entity, Nigeria is not making profit, Nigeria is going down; it is not achieving the goals for which it was set up and the owners of this corporate entity are the people of Nigeria. You could see Buhari as the chairman or MD/CEO of the entity; he is just someone working for the people. The Nigerian people would rather see Nigeria working well; so it is better that we stick together and repair Nigeria, so that we can continue to live to gether as brothers and sisters. There is nothing very complex about that. The problem of Nigeria is very simple. So we do not understand why the Buhari administration is dragging its feet as far as repairing Nigeria is concerned. If you have a business and it is not doing well, you go back to the boardroom and find a way of fixing it. So what we as Nigerians want to see happen in Nigeria is for Nigerians to come together, the various ethnic nationalities, the zones, and find a way to make sure that the country begins to work well again. That, basically, is what NADECO has in mind when it preaches restructuring. The Pro-Buhari group would always argue that the call for restructuring is just a permutation by the opposition, stressing that they never agitated like this during the time of President Jonathan.
Well, the issue of calling for restructuring is seen as though it is anti-Buhari, but that is misguided. The South is calling for restructuring; the North is calling for restructuring. A couple of weeks ago, we had the former vice presidential candidate to MKO Abiola, Babagana Kingibe, in a speech, arguing that the unity of Nigeria is negotiable. That is the same thing as restructuring. To negotiate, you need to sit down at the table to discuss how you want to live together. So this is not a call designed to put Buhari down. In any case, the reason those calls were not as agitating as it is now is because Nigeria had not fallen to the floor as it has now. Right now, everyone knows that Nigeria is a failed state.
How do you mean?
There are indices you must take a look at. First, the security situation of the country is completely out of control. It was never as bad as this. You never had bandits going to abduct people in the University of Abuja; did you have them burning down train lines? Did you have them bringing down aircraft? There can be insecurity in any clime, but what matters is what effort you are putting in to bring it to the barest minimum. This administration is not doing anything. If you want, you can say that a lot of things that are happening in Nigeria appear as though they are state-sponsored. You see the recycling of people you call bandits; you see the resistance of the terrorists; you see the way people like Sheik Gunmi goes in to negotiate with them and comes back; these would show you that a lot of the things going on in Nigeria could have been fixed if we had a stronger administration.
Are the various calls for secession by the separatist groups part of the restructuring agitation?
No. Look, the separatist groups were born primarily out of the frustration a perceived marginalisation. We believe that if Nigeria is restructured, these agitations would fizzle away, because they would have no basis for asking that Nigeria be broken into bits. The reason they are agitating for it is because there is no equity, there is no fairness, there is no justice in the system. As I said earlier, I see Nigeria as a corporate entity; if you and I own a business, and the business is doing well, such that whatever comes into the business, you come and pick up, and you use it to do things for yourself, for your brothers, for your region; why would you complain that we should break up the business? So if I begin to get returns on my investment, and we start having employment, there are no more security issues, economy begins to grow; infrastructure begins to grow, and you have health facilities all over the place; Nigerians who are agitating for splitting would no longer have reason to make such calls. The question therefore is why does the Buhari Administration not want restructuring if they know it is going to drive away all the crooks that are agitating for their separate countries?
Are you aware that the ruling party has set up a committee which has done a report regarding this restructuring agitation?
You see, we don’t want lip service to the issue of fixing Nigeria. Some of these things are politically motivated. You would see now that there are more activities because 2023 is around the corner; just to make people think they are ready to yield to the yearning of Nigerians. It is important for this administration to know that without restructuring Nigeria, there should be no 2023.
How feasible is that position?
2023 is not more important than the Nigerian people. 2023 is going to put Nigeria more into the coma. This is because, as soon as you conduct the 2023 elections, utilising the 1999 military decree constitution, the result of that election becomes like the fruit of a poisonous tree; because you are using a document that has no basis to conduct an election. So it would be better to clear the foundation of the country before you start building on it. You just had a building collapse in Lagos. That building collapsed because it had no good foundation. So you dare not build the 2023 election on a foundation that is gone.
What can Nigeria learn from restructuring from other climes?
The way people are using that word, restructuring, makes it sounds as though it is a very big word; no it is not. Even in the smallest unit of family, if you have a problem, you come together to see how to resolve it. The crises, insecurity and the likes that we have in Nigeria are symptomatic of a broken system. And when you have a system that is broken, you fix it. And how do we fix it? Nigeria does not belong to one person, Nigeria is a corporate entity, so let’s all come together and fix it. Back in 1787, all the United States had were loose Articles of Confederation. But at a point, they felt that the system was no longer working well, so all the components came together in Philadelphia in 1787 with the sole purpose of amending those articles. They wanted a stronger centre. Because of their experience back in England, they had opted for a weaker centre; but at a point, they realised that the weaker centre was not working for them; so they decided to amend the articles, so that they can have a stronger centre. They spent three months in Philadelphia; and at a point during that deliberations, they said let’s throw away the entire Articles of Confederacy and have a brand new constitution. And that brand new constitution has now made America one of the longest lasting federations. You know why? Because they all tried as much as possible to take into consideration the things that had been problematic to them in the past. Have you wondered why they have the right to bear arms? Because while in England, the police could badge into their homes and arrest them. They said we don’t want that here; so they said, ‘let everybody have the right to bear arms’. They were all forced to go to the Church of England; so they said let’s put it in there, ‘there should be freedom of religion’. We were not allowed to express ourselves; let’s put it there: there should be freedom of expression. So it was a constitution out of their experience. So, if Nigerians gets together to put together a constitution, they would do one that will take very serious consideration their past experience and Nigeria will be one of the smoothest run countries of the continent, if not the world. This is because they would not allow those things that have kept them apart from 1967 till date to continue to keep them apart. If I should be part of the design of a new constitution for Nigeria for instance, one of the things I would like to put in is that the army should not have the power to go into the states and start shooting people. The army should represent us outside; the police, inside. You know why? Because that has been a problem before and I would not want it to continue. I would say, let the police be state police, because the issue of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) staying in Abuja and asking that I be arrested in my village has been problematic and I would not like it to continue. So, we put it in there. We would be able to sit down with our clear eyes and discuss how we can all live together in the Federal Republic of Nigeria as brothers and sisters.
From all you’ve articulated, is it safe to say that NADECO is proposing for a Sovereign National Conference?
You know the Nigerian government is obviously not going to allow anything that is akin to repairing Nigeria. So if you begin to think of a Sovereign National Conference, it will be more of wishful thinking – because what the system is doing is placing the cart before the horse. It is placing 2023 before the lives and properties of Nigerians. And so they are looking at 2023 as a milestone to determining Nigeria. But the truth is that after 2023, political activities would start all over and this urgent matter will be swept under the rug. And remember, as Nigeria continues to deteriorate, there are some people who do not feel it; it is the youth that bears the brunt of this mismanagement of Nigeria.
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What therefore is your recommendation or solution to this quagmire?
You know Nigerians have been talking and we love to talk; and the government enjoys this. What they would do is to offer someone from the Southwest the presidency, and tell them, call on your separatist movement to take it easy; then, they’d take the same carrot to the Southeast and say ‘you’ve never produced the president, we’d give it to you this time’; then they’d start jubilating. They would then go the Southsouth with the same carrot; and in the end, there will be a crisis amongst the three major ethnic groups over the presidency. In the end, somebody emerges as president in 2023 but the foundation upon which the person would be required to repair Nigeria would be the same faulty 1999 constitution. So what we are recommending is that instead of just talking restruc turing, we in NADECO are suggesting a timeline. We’re saying ‘you must restructure Nigeria before 2023. In fact by October 1 2022, if Nigeria is not restructured or fixed or repair, then there may be no more Nigeria. And there will be no reason to go for the election.
You still have not answered my question. How do you suggest that this be done, especially as you are saying a Sovereign National Conference cannot happen?
We have a conference, which we have dubbed, Conference of Ethnic Nationalities, coming up here in Washington DC in March 2022; it is designed to bring Nigerians from Nigeria and Nigerians from across the globe under one roof for three day: 4, 5 and 6 of March, to decide how to live together. If that gathering were to be allowed in Nigeria, we could call it a Sovereign National Conference. But because we know that such a gathering will never be allowed in Nigeria, what we are going to do is to make it hold here. There is no law that says Nigerians cannot come to Washington or any other country to decide how to live together. After all, Nigerians went to England when we were asking for independence. As I said earlier, Nigerians have only one option. You know what the other option is, I will not say it.
This Conference of Ethnic Nationalities, how binding can its resolution be, especially to an averse or reluctant administration?
Yes, it may not have legal binding, but don’t forget it is Nigerians who have come from Nigeria and the Diaspora together to make this statement to the officers of Nigeria Limited on how they want to run the country. But if you don’t want to run it that way, so that we can begin making money, so that we begin to create employment opportunities, have good roads, fix our health care system, generally have better infrastructure, take care of insecurity, banditry, restiveness, Boko Haram; then Nigerians would come back and say, here is what we’ve decided….
What would be your recommendations at such a conference?
If Nigeria Limited were to be my personal company, I would break it into regions or zones. Before now, we had four regions: Eastern, Western, Midwest and Northern Regions; but we’ve created six geopolitical zones, so we leave it like that. And it will be four-tier government; so you’re going to have the federal government, regional government, state government and local government. You’re going to have regional police, state police, local govt police and the city police. As for the army, you’re going to have one army, alongside zonal or regional commands. The Southsouth Command will have a commander of Southsouth origin; same for other zones. That way, there is no one group that can oppress the other. Because the General in the Southwest will not allow the commander from the Southsouth Command or Northeast or Northwest Command to invade his region. The six commanders will now form the military council that will run and secure the entire country.
The same goes for the police. There would be no Nigeria Police. You can have something like we have here, which is the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which basically handles federal crimes. The states will have their own police; same for the regions, because you cannot apply the same criminal indices for all regions. And you cannot arrest somebody in my local government for an offence and take him to Abuja. No, you arrest him and take him to Port Harcourt, Rivers State or to his local government police headquarters. So if you break down all of these things, and share the ministerial appointments and resources, all of these things would be equitable. And you will find that what these crooks are asking for will be given to them anyhow, without a shot being fired. So restructuring is repairing Nigeria without firing a shot.
Dividing Nigeria from a separatist point of view is a violent way of repairing Nigeria and you have side effects. If you allow restructuring, everybody is going to walk away happy, or happier, because I’ll bring to the table what I think will make my people happier; same for everyone else.
Nigerian government’s foot dragging is sending a lot of confusion and making people think, as you say in Nigeria, that perhaps, there is a hidden agenda. Everybody knows Nigeria has problems; and it cannot be worse than this. I was about 12 years during the war, and I can tell you that Nigeria has completely gone 360 degrees backwards. Are there ways the international community can come in to help address these issues?
Nigeria’s problems belong to you and I. They say sunshine is the best disinfectant; if you turn on the light in your room, the cockroaches in your room will all take cover. What we are trying to do is to put a spotlight on what is going on in Nigeria, so that the international community would know. A lot of things that happen in Nigeria may be domestic, but they have global ramifications. One of them is terrorism. Terrorism knows no boundary. The individual who blew up the Twin Towers in New York did not live in America. So the international community needs to know that it is also in their best interest to ensure that terrorism does not take over Nigeria. So one of the reasons we are holding the conference here is to make it easy for the major policy makers of in United States, the European Union, the United Nations and other international observers to come in and see whether there is credibility in the process or not. So, yes, we are asking the international community to assist. But remember, Americans have their issues. They have COVID-19 issues; they have unemployment issues; they have the influx of immigrants from the south. So let them not abandon theirs to come and settle ours.
What will be your charge to this administration in making the country better for all?
My charge or advice would be to listen to the Nigerian people; they own Nigeria and they have the right to change the trajectory of their country. We want a chance to sit down and repair the country. I also think the government must listen to the people because their number one mandate is to listen to the people and to protect them and their property. Any government that fails in that regard has failed. That is why it is very easy to describe Nigeria as a failed state. Because every law in this world is geared towards protecting the people and their properties. And even if you don’t know that you have failed, the fact that more people are asking to go their separate ways is indicative of the fact that you have failed. Like the Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo put it, ‘you cannot beat a child and expect him not to cry.’ If you repair Nigeria, those leaders who are agitating to go their ways would be shunned. The people will tell them ‘what are you talking about? The country is okay, we’re better off a country than countries.’
Some people have argued that the whole agitation for restructuring is a way of giving a dog a bad name to hang it; that once people come into power, they forget about it. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for instance never mentioned the word restructuring until he lost out in the last election.
The political process of growth is what you are witnessing. You come into power, target things that you think are not working, and if those things are fixed, you move to point B, you grow. If you think that those agitating for restructuring have ulterior motive, the question is, are the things they are saying not true? Is Nigeria really doing very well? Are Nigerians who are sick able to treat themselves in Nigeria? Can I drive from Port Harcourt to Uyo without being afraid that someone is going to seize me and demand for a ransom from my people? Are the university graduates able to get jobs? I came to America in 1977 and my parents only wanted me to spend four years and obtain a bachelor’s degree? My models were the young graduate corps members who were teaching in my school. But I came to America and I stayed. Now I want to go back home, but there is no home to go to.
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