Dr Yemi Farounbi is a former Nigerian Ambassador to the Philippines. In this interview, the respected senior citizen explains how those who colonized Nigeria left a systemic problem that has been stifling the nation and defying solutions 63 years on. TIMOTHY AGBOR brings excerpts:
As someone who witnessed the pre-independence era, how do you feel as Nigeria marks its 63rd independence anniversary?
Well, we have to thank God for everything. There were times one thought there would be no Nigeria any longer and that Chinua Achebe would be right when he said there was a country; or Kole Omotosho would be right when he said the house has fallen.
There were moments that we had doubts whether this country would survive. We had doubts in 1964 and 1965 when we had the federal election that was cremated and we were unable to form a government. We had a problem in 1965 when we had Operation Wetie in Western Nigeria that ended up in the military coup of January 15, 1966.
We have never seen a coup before, and when all these problems started, we thought Nigeria was not going to be. Then, there was May 29 when the North decided that they were going to secede. Subsequently, there was a civil war and it was one that took up to three years.
So, that we are still here as a country, I think it is something worth thanking God for. Nigeria may not be where exactly we want it to be; it is not that we have not made some progress, we have made some progress no matter how little and we must talk about the progress we have made before we start talking about whatever that are the problems.
In 1969, for example, we had one University College and one University of Nigeria, University of Ife was in the making, Ahmadu Bello University and so if you put all this together, you are talking of three Universities. That is some progress. Similarly, there has been progress in the number of secondary and primary schools. There has been rapid development and increase in the number of schools and in the number of the students. Even though these days, we are worried about the number of people pulling out of schools.
We had barely one airport, Lagos and another one in Kano but you know how many traditional airports we have today. At that time, we had one television station and in 1960 we had one radio Nigeria, we had WNBS in the making but today, you know how many radio stations we have in Osun State alone.
So, there has been some progress but it has not been at the pace everybody had hoped for. Everybody had been hoping that in 1960, Nigeria would be the main giant of Africa but we have been the giant in population. We have been a giant in terms of resources, number seven or eight in crude oil in the world, number ten in natural gas, number two in asphalt and so on.
So, Nigeria has not lived up to the expectations; the hope that people expected Nigeria will be, not only a giant in size but a giant in infrastructural development, a giant in political developments, the giant in political stability, a giant in the nurturing and operation of democracy.
There was a time when we were ruled by the military. So, out of the 63 years of independence, military has taken 28 years and 16 has been taken by civilianised military people, so, when you add all of that, many Nigerians think Nigeria has failed. In fact, there are people who believe that we are already a failed state.
If you consider that in 1960, you have a scholarship that you went to study in the UK or US, you are most certainly going to leave the country after finishing your programme and rush back to Nigeria because Nigeria was worthy, it was a country you would want to come back to quickly.
Now, those who are staying in Nigeria are doing what you call Japa. They are running away and on a second wave of slavery voluntarily; educated people, professionals, the best of doctors, the best of engineers, the best of nurses, the best of physicians are migrating per day; the best of our energetic youths, ICT compliant are migrating per day and that was not the situation in the 1960s. We have some progress as I said but we have not lived up to expectations.
“If I call it a fool at 63, it is an understatement. If I call it a crawling nation, it has not captured it enough. The truth is that Nigeria has no determination to move forward. There is a complication in the system”
Some have said our problem is foundational, that we have a country but no nation. What is your take?
They are absolutely correct. Political scientists will describe a nation as a group of people with common history, common language and common culture. Some people came all the way from Europe and said there will be a country called Nigeria, the name given by the mistress of Lord Lugard to this geographical expression, without consulting us or getting our consent. Despite the fact that we have the same culture and tradition, it has been difficult for us to come to a meeting point to integrate and marry our culture together.
Those who brought us together didn’t want us to remain one. They wanted us to be called a country but they want a country divided and disunited.
When they were leaving in 1959, they left a federation that had a minority problem and they manipulated the population of this country. The British left a population in the North and created instability in the South.
At a time, there were 312 in the House and more than 60 percent of them were in the North. This means that already, there is a situation of perpetual dominance or a situation in which some people will be thinking that they are born to rule.
So, it has been difficult to have unity in the use of language, unity in political development, unity in value. We have been unable to formulate a common Nigeria dream; we don’t have a common Nigeria ambition. What the South wants for Nigeria is not what the North wants. All of them are foundational problems and when the foundation is wrong, the structure will be faulty and that is what we will be having.
Can we still get it right as we move on?
Yes, we can get it right. We were about getting it right when we made a constitution to accept the 1973 constitution. So, if we are to discover ourselves and come back to status quo ante, you cannot expunge unity but you can hold unity by interaction. We have no agreement according to the number of states, today, you see 17 states in the South, 19 states in the North, perpetually placing the North at an advantage so that even if you want to amend that constitution, it becomes impossible to do because the preponderance of senators in the North will be higher than those in the South. So, we must first live together. There is beauty in sustaining Nigeria.
How do we sustain it? We should go to a federal form of government. It is the federating units that should constitute the centre.
When the North was in power, they created more issues and these are fundamental errors. The only way to sustain Nigeria is to have true federalism. We have never had leadership who truly believes in Nigeria. Even those who said they belonged to nobody, we know where they belong.
Even when they say ‘Awa Lokan’, we say ‘Enitokan Lomo’. Until we have each state to be able to run at its own pace, inclination and historical antecedents, based on its own social values, we will be enforcing unity and when you enforce unity, it is going to crack.
So, it is possible to get it right in Nigeria but it depends on how honest our leaders are and how honest the followers are too because it is not only the leaders that are wrong, the followers are also wrong.
The leadership lacks vision, they lack competence, they lack truth, they lack discipline and commitment and once they satisfy their pocket that is all that matters. And the followership has lacked everything, especially the capacity to put the leaders on their toes.
The desire to make the leadership accountable, to make them transparent, they have lost it, and it is pathetic. But, like I said, it is doable, we only need commitment, openness and more importantly, mutual respect.
Political class has skewed the country to their benefits because of the wrong system and that is why they don’t have the will. They have been benefiting from the wrongness.
If I get gold in Bayelsa, it belongs to Nigeria but if I get oil in Zamfara, it belongs to Zamfara State. They want a perpetuation of the mistakes they are benefiting from. There is an alliance of profiteers who are in government, profiteers who are in the military and the police, and profiteers who are in other countries stocking Nigeria’s money in foreign banks and these foreign countries have used this money to grow their economy, their agriculture and build infrastructure for themselves and now they are returning the remaining to us. The profits of corruption are really affecting us.
People are grumbling and unhappy. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 133.1 million Nigerians, out of 205 million are multidimensionally poor because some people feel they can continue to control and personalize our resources.
They can’t do this forever. If these leaders can reason and return all this money, I am sure the people will forgive them.
A time will come when people who don’t japa will not tolerate all this any longer. When you frustrate a goat to the wall, it will turn and face you and bite you. So, our political leaders, especially those who are benefiting from the dislocations and contradictions in our system should let us sit together and make Nigeria a better place for all of us.
There is enough in Nigeria for the needs of everybody but there is not enough in Nigeria to the greed of some people.
Nigeria celebrated 63 with N77 trillion debts, 45 percent unemployment rate, 93 percent debt servicing revenue ratio, a thousand naira to one dollar at the black market as we speak, what do you call this nation at 63?
If I call it a fool at 63, it is an understatement. If I call it a crawling nation, it has not captured it enough. The truth is that Nigeria has no determination to move forward. There is a complication in the system.
In an attempt to solve a problem, we create a problem because our leaders don’t understand that when you take over the nation, you must look at the survey and then begin to provide solution segment by segment and you ensure that the solution of the problem in one segment does not create a complication in another segment.
In all of this, I want to urge Nigerians not to give up on their country. Be ready to make demands; begin to make assertions on the directions that this country should go.
When the country is good, all of us will benefit; when it is bad, we will all suffer and that is why we must not abandon our ship, we should not japa and we should not be innocent bystanders who keep quiet even when things are going wrong.
