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Dr Emmanuel Agbo, national deputy secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), an outstanding politician of note, was an astute legislator in the Benue State House of Assembly.
In this interview with Sunday Sun he expressed reservations at the rate the nation is tilting towards the precipice amid security challenges, the challenge before the Supreme Court in the PDP presidential suit, and what the Igbo must do to re-direct its political journey in Nigerian politics, among other issues. Excerpt:
How would you describe the state of the nation today?
Basically, anybody who has stayed or lived over time in this country, particularly in the last, say, 30 years should be genuinely very concerned about the way and manner that this country is drifting. Sincerely speaking this is without recourse to politicizing issues, it’s frightening and I don’t think some of us who are in our late 50s will stay by the divine grace of God another 35 to 40 years be calling the country Nigeria. I said this because there is very clearly extreme position that is being taken by people in leadership that clearly structurally redefine the nation into the first class, the second class and most likely third class citizens and globalization has come to let those who think some are supposed to be second class and third class citizens now to say no, that we are equal citizens of one great country Nigeria, anything other than that then there should be no country. And I see this friction of a deliberate people who think they are continuously holding on to power and then creating this class society, taking things that do not belong to them by brute force.
How do you see former President Olusegun Obasanjo claim that there is an underground plot for the Fulanisation and Islamization of Nigeria?
You see the truth of life is this; that it is taking Obasanjo this time to speak when he should have spoken while in office is what is totally unacceptable to some of us because the facts are the grand design for what he is telling us was even on ground when he was at leadership, when he was in charge of the country, he kept quiet or looked the other way when he should have spoken. This is not something that started today and of course even before he said it, in several fora speakers after speakers have cried out on the grand agenda for general Islamization of this nation and that the massive killings that have had to take place in the last couple of one or two years before the election was the grand design for the actualization of that master plan and if today he (Obasanjo) is saying what is obviously in the public space, I don’t think that we need to credit him with it because, of course, his silence in office led credence to what we today have as a speed up to that master plan. The truth is what was impossible about almost 200 years ago is it realizable this time? That is the question for everybody who has a clandestine motive to ask. If your great, great, grandparents attempted and failed in the 18th Century, they think that they can actualize it in 2019 now that the world is a global village. I think everybody is up for surprises because that surprise is going to come in the nature of dismemberment of this great nation. There is great danger ahead if we continue this way.
Do you think that what is happening would have been nipped in the bud if we have state or community police?
Let me say this, the original agenda for seeking state police in itself was against the Nigeria nation-state because a collective of states with authorized state police well trained can very easily transform those police to regular Army. But for the benefit of hindsight if that is the only thing now that is going to allow for a true federalism with independent federating units taking control of certain paraphernalia of authority and power to protect their own people some of us who hitherto stood against it now begin to think that we are giving it a second thought because as things stand today somebody from 900 kilometers to come to my village and think that he is going to raise a vigilante to give his goats, cow, sheep and possibly himself and wife security over what is provided for by my local community is totally unacceptable to anybody and so a lot of us who hitherto in the past had reservations about state police begins to look at it very favourably because whatever we are going to do to nip the ulterior motives of those who are clamoring for Islamizing this country we must now do it with one voice, but my own position is that we should while doing that be cautious of the fact that the bigger we are the better. Nigeria is just about 200 million, we have nations of the world that have over one billion population, China is there, India is there, the United States is almost in their half a billion, with over 51 states and so size in itself is an advantage in international diplomacy and we need to go around our differences, put our differences aside, but strengthen the question of the Nigerianess in all of us, such that, at least our children will be global players in the years to come. If we fracture this country into pieces I make bold to state that, the degree to which somebody can stand at the international platform as a Nigerian will not be the same as an Afenifere, or Biafra, Oodua, Ijaw nation or other groupings from the Middle Belt, etc, whatever you may want to call it, if we go our separate ways. So, the greater the land size and better management of our economy and resources under one large great Nigeria the better. The entire African community who are now being told that in every five people four of them are Nigerians and if that is the rate at which we are growing I think we should look out for those obvious advantages that are inherent in strength while doing that retain certain aspects that are very intrinsic to the people. Our cultures are diverse and unique, we must hold on to it while accepting a central Nigeria authority over all of us.
Do you really have regrets that if, perhaps, the PDP your party had been in power Nigerians would not have been experiencing what they are witnessing today on the state of insecurity?
I don’t think I want to say so specifically, but let me be very clear, the PDP is a truly national party with an ideology or philosophy that truly believes in the total integration of Nigeria into one stable state. The PDP was founded along the lines of the struggle to put an end to the militarization of the governance space in the nation. It’s only unfortunate that this coalition of aggrieved people through highly trumpeted and orchestrated propaganda led Nigeria into the delusion that something better was at the offing, today you and I know better. I say so because there was no need for this question that you asked and truly if PDP with those that believe in the ideology and philosophy of a greater Nigeria were together they won’t be prosecuting sectional agenda. We had a Fulani president that gave amnesty to agitators in the South-south; there was no python dance under that leadership. There was instead a persuasion for dropping of arms through a properly coordinated amnesty programme that gave education meaning to life to the young ones and that paved the way for accessing the resources that are being used to develop the entire nation. PDP leadership in no way was going to ever look at IPOB as a militia group or whatever name that they want to call them today. PDP leadership will listen to the agitations that are there and take proactive measures like they did in the South-south for the total integration of those aggrieved sections into this nation and suffice it to say that behind every agitation are some silent points that all that is required is government to sit down into a dialogue with the people for greater understanding among component parts of this nation. To begin to do python dance on the land of one people and to give protection to a more deadly group that has extended its activities beyond the confines of its own state and region and to be protected shows double standard and totally unacceptable to anybody that is of a rational mind. So, the way things are I think yes I regret the loss of power by the PDP because PDP in the true sense of the ideology behind its formation believes totally in the unity of this country on the basis of the understanding that yes, we might have our differences, but that this differences are supposed to be discussed on the table in a democratic fashion, but not to just use the federal might to annihilate a people or silence them because they are complaining about certain things that are very obvious.
Are you optimistic that PDP will be victorious in the court because they are claiming that they won the presidential election?
Let me say this and very clear on the basis of the facts that are available, any jury that is not arm-twisted will give victory to the PDP. As things stand in this country today, we in the PDP believe that we won, we had it done in Kenya just recently, if African states are beginning to allow that,yes the judiciary is supposed to be the last hope of the people and that at the apex of any nations judiciary it should be above any form of arm-twisting, Nigerian judiciary at the level of the Supreme Court will leave up to its name, supreme, then nothing stops the PDP from reclaiming back the victory that Nigerians freely gave to them that was thwarted by a few people in the last elections. It is our hope in the judiciary that has made us refrain from any act that could be violent because we believe and very sincerely too that on the basis of the facts that are available on the ground today the court should stamp its feet out. The true and only interpreters of the provisions of our constitution and law and in so doing we are very hopeful, but if to the contrary, the probabilities are like the toss of a coin, either the head or the tail. So, if we get the head which is victory we will return Nigeria, which of course is going to be a whole lot of job to do because of the mess of the last four years back to the path of hope from despondency, if it is tail we go back to the drawing board believing that through a democratic process we can reverse whatever the present ills that they (APC) have bequeathed to this country.
The Southeast seems to be worried that they have been schemed out in the present calculation looking at the principal positions in the National Assembly, but they are clamouring for the president of Igbo extraction. How feasible is this?
The issue of 2023 is still far away. All I can say is that the Presidency under the PDP, the structure of appointment clearly will not be what we are having today and I think under the PDP I don’t expect the Southeast to complain, but if things have to go the way that it looks today, assuming at the end of all our court processes and proceedings government still has to be in the hands of the APC, four years is a long time, but is a short time in the life of every election. The good thing is that they (Southeast) already has four out of the five states or clearly all five states in the Southeast not in the hands of the APC, so the traditional and political leadership will need to go back to the drawing board because from what we have seen in the last four years I do not see the present leadership as changing its position about the Southeast. I don’t think they are in a hurry to so do, but the Southeast with all their contacts across the globe, particularly their spread in this country should be able to define what they want in this country and see if they can have it. If you don’t have it in one government if you don’t have it under one platform all that that tells you is to reassess your relationship with that platform.
