National chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Umeh spoke with reporters in Enugu recently, where he expressed his position on several topical issues.NNAMDI MBAWIKE was there for LEADERSHIP SUNDAY.
President Goodluck Jonathan said his government would bring transformation to Nigeria; with the administration’s performance so far, do you see such transformation on the way?
Jonathan promised transformation of Nigeria, transformation is not about telling us you will build roads. Transformation is about creating ideal system of government that will be a clear departure from what obtained that has been failing all along. You cannot become president and preside over a failing system, and when you leave office, you join the agitation for restructuring. That is what Nigeria has continued to have; our leaders have continued to pretend. When they are in power, they pretend as if they want Nigeria to be one united country but when their tenure expires, they join one agitation from their local level for Nigeria to be balkanized and let everybody go home.
So, until we take the issue of sovereign national conference serious in this country our problems will continue to confront us. Today, Nigeria is dealing with Boko Haram? but in 2015; if Jonathan steps down and he fails to make a bid to go for second term in any guise, militancy will return to Niger Delta; I tell you that and you better go and mark my words.
If Jonathan leaves the presidency of Nigeria, there will be militant actions in the Niger Delta one more time. So we are talking about Boko Haram today; in 2015, Niger Delta militants will return. I assure you of that. They are quiet today because their son, Jonathan is the president of the country, and that being the case, Nigeria should continue as one country; they (Niger Delta militants) will have faith in Nigeria federation.
But when their son steps down, they will lose faith in the Nigerian federation, and they will start their struggle again. So, that is it; for how long shall Nigeria continue to exist in a manner that the only thing you can do are things you find challenging on the spur of the moment? How can we lay down enduring structure for governance of this country? How can we lay down an enduring arrangement for our co-existence as a country?
Nigeria is multi-lingual and multi-ethnic. America is multi-ethnic and multi-lingual but America has continued to be a world power because what they have there is structured in such a way that everybody has faith in the state. But in Nigeria, the federating units see Nigeria with suspicion. So nobody has faith in Nigeria’s structure of governance.
People are here because they are forced to be part of the union. There is no way in a democracy; that you can force somebody to be part of a union. If you want somebody to be part of a union, you must give the person something that will give that person hope and sense of equity, justice and fairness so that the person can remain part of the union. If you don’t put things in place, the struggle will never cease.
?Would you want Nigeria to go back to regionalism?
If we do that I believe it will be better for Nigeria. One reason why I say so is that the 36 states we presently have are creations of the military administrations. The states had been created with gross level of injustice anybody can see. The south eastern Nigeria that is one of the six zones in Nigeria was so cheated by the military because of their war bias against the Igbo. We have five states; all the rest five zones have six states. We have 95 local government areas, the least in the country. Our south-south neighbours have six states and 123 local governments. The south-west has six states and 137 local governments, and when you go up north, it is in the same magnitude.
And all these things have been put in the constitution. The constitution the military wrote for Nigeria says there shall be 774 local government councils in the federation of Nigeria; there shall be 36 states in the federation of Nigeria, and the military proceeded in a schedule to list the states and the headquarters; the local governments and their headquarters. And now the same constitution put in place very stiff conditions for creating states and local governments. Since the military left, there has never been any successful creation of one local government anywhere in Nigeria how much more states. So people are agitating for states now to be created through what process?
Let such agitators for creation of states go and pick a copy of the constitution and read Section 8 that deals with creation of states and local governments, and
you will know that it is a practical impossibility. So the states that had been federating units now, according to the constitution; the constitution says these? states the military created are not the federating units; what about the south east people that have been so cheated, how will they get their additional states?
Today, about 48 groups are asking for states in Nigeria, if not more than that. Whereas if you want to be equitable and just, you just need to create one additional state in the south-east. That’s what you need to do. Then it will be six times six zones times 36 states. The south-east is cheated. North-west that controlled power under the military got seven states. So the sixth state that was due to the southeast was taken by the north-west.
Then on local governments, how are you going to bring the south-east number of local governments at par with the other zones? Who will do that? The military people that did all these things, they are gone. Under civilian process, there is this kick-and-follow method of doing things. You’re playing football, you kick the ball and then you start following the ball; that is what we are doing in Nigeria. What we need to do is a proper soul searching and look at the frame work of the Nigerian federation and re-define it in a manner that will be equitable; in a manner that every part of Nigeria will have faith in the Nigerian federation. Boko Haram is rearing up its head and the federal government apparently wants to dialogue with Boko Haram.
When the militants started in Niger Delta, the Federal Government created the amnesty programme, brought the militants to Abuja, discussed with them, pumped money into the amnesty programme, created the Federal Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and appointed a minister in order to calm the restiveness in the Niger Delta. The people there took the offer because they saw their son emerging as the president of Nigeria. But then wait until Jonathan leaves office and then you will see the militants going back to their trenches. Just watch and see.
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?As you have spoken at some length on the Niger Delta militants and the Boko Haram Sect, what of the MASSOB from the South-east?
Now we come to the south-east, you have Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB); is it because MASSOB is a non-violent organisation that the federal government is not giving it due attention? I tell you, if MASSOB decides to carry arms the way Boko Haram is doing now, so the federal government will run and start negotiating with MASSOB! So, it is not a solution to the problem. The solution to the problem is for us to tell ourselves the truth and bring everybody to the table.
What are the grievances of the various components of this country? Nigeria is made up of 250 ethnic nationalities, and you cannot have 250 countries carved out of Nigeria. But there are people who have contiguous arrangement through which they can continue to co-exist. Like in America where you have French; you have the Spaniards; you have Mexicans; all those people are in America. Everybody is there, living peacefully.
So the best thing for government to do is to come back and now say, let’s talk. Nigeria must talk. If we talk, we agree on the basis. When we agree on the basis this strife will be removed otherwise, if a fight is being settled today, tomorrow another group will begin their own fight; next tomorrow another group will rear up and we discuss with them; next tomorrow a different group will come out and we discuss with them.
So, we are even grateful that MASSOB is non-violent. If MASSOB is now violent, nobody will come to south-eastern Nigeria again. The south east has the worst grade of federal infrastructure in the whole of Nigeria. I was going to Umuahia on Saturday and between Okigwe and Umuahia, we spent two hours, a distance that would have taken only 20 minutes on good road. You dare not dream to make a trip from Enugu to Onitsha because of the bad road. That is the situation, and all these are what they call federal roads; federal roads that are not attended to by the Federal Government. We have very good internal network of roads in the southeast but the death traps are the ones called federal roads.
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You said a while ago that Nigerians should be grateful that MASSOB is not violent. But recently, the leader of MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazurike threatened that if care is not taken, MASSOB will toe the line of Boko Haram by being deadly violent. What is the implication for the country if MASSOB goes violent while the country is still facing the violence of Boko Haram?
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If MASSOB becomes violent like Boko Haram, the country will go up in flames. Uwazurike probably expressed that position because the federal government is trying to dialogue with the current killers. But who will MASSOB kill? Of course, we will continue to tell them, please don’t kill your brothers and sisters. Don’t kill the people you are fighting for. If you say you are fighting to attract attention to address the plight of the Igbo people, you don’t start killing Igbo people in your struggle. It won’t make sense.
So, for Uwazuruike to have made that statement; he is trying to prove the fact that they are being provoked. Kidnapping and all these anti-social crimes going on are fallouts of agitations of the various aggrieved people, and Nigerians should begin to take these things serious.
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?How do you advise the federal government and MASSOB because this has to do with security of the country?
I am sure if President Goodluck Jonathan, who incidentally received a very strong block vote from the south-east wakes up tomorrow and brings Julius Berger and RCC; place Julius Berger on Enugu-Onitsha road, place RCC on Enugu-Port-Harcourt road and they are working; I’m sure Uwazuruike will not say such thing again. MASSOB will now say let’s give them a chance. So the actions government takes will determine the level of restiveness you will experience from any part of Nigeria.
So the MASSOB threat is borne out of the deep neglect of the Igbo people. We are frustrated in Nigeria, but we don’t want to fight another war. We have fought the first war; we don’t want to go through that route again. But it is important that the federal? government? realises that for this country, the only way the oneness or unity can work is by being equitable and just to all components of Nigeria.
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