From Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
Dr Adebayo Orire, is a medical practitioner and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State.
In this interview, the party leader spoke about the APC in the country, President Tinubu’s tax reforms among other things.
What do you think of the APC as the party in power at the national level?
APC as a party at the centre in Nigeria has been transformed into typical Nigerian political party structure. The aim and objective of forming the party that metamorphosed to APC was pure progressive and framed or formed to reform Nigeria but it is unfortunate that we have had a period of close to ten, eleven years since the formation until we were able to get Buhari there. You will know that the activities of the party when Jonathan was there were almost diametrically opposed to what obtains now. That is number one. Number two, you discover that there is no pure political party system in Nigeria. More than half of the ruling force in APC now were in PDP if not more. People have not demonstrated policies, belief system and the constitution of party because a lot has happened. Everything has run amok. You find out that to talk as a politician is different from talking as a normal Nigerian. Talking as a normal Nigerian now, I will say this is not our APC we dreamt of. Another thing is that, what APC now inherited under Tinubu is abysmally obscene and ignoble. You will see the insecurity that we were crying wolf about during Goodluck Jonathan. You know it metamorphosed into something draconian under Buhari. And it is just flowering and flourishing even now. So, talking about the party now, you will think there is no party in the country. It is my party, we started it together. From ACD to ACN, to everything, and I actually brought the party to Ekiti State in company of two or three other people. The late Chief Akinlaya, Idowu Odeyemi of Ilawe-Ekiti and Chief Jide Awe, the former state Chairman of the APC. Now talking of corruption, you find out that you cannot actually say whether we are having results in the anti-corruption struggle or it is worsening.
Talking about the morale of people, infrastructures, you don’t see anything as a success result. It is my party but I am a Nigerian and we see what is happening. I am talking from the Nigerian angle because if I am talking as a politician, I will be a liar. Look at our economy, the value of the naira. I knew and I was already investing money when naira was less than three naira to one dollar. In fact, I was in school when naira was seventy-five kobo to one dollar. Talking of One thousand, five hundred naira or more to one dollar now. What did we make out of removal of subsidy? It has actually not brought any relief in this country and these are policy somersaults, policy failures, policy misdemeanors that could be well-intended but turned out to be injurious and hurting. Yes,Tinubu will not do it in a day. But can Tinubu take away tribalism from Nigerians? Can Tinubu stop corruption? Can Tinubu stop insecurity and banditry? Within how many years how is he going to do it because the interest of the North is different from the interest of West. And the interest of the Middle-Belt is different from the interest of the South East and South South. The only thing that is now obvious in all the regions is that everybody wants to leave Nigeria purely. The Arewa was saying it —- You know the Biafra has been fighting its own war. You know there is a Yoruba nation struggle. You know there is a Middle-Belt struggle. South South has already written to the president that they want their own nation because everything looks hopeless. And that is the truth. So, we have to excuse a party now. We have to come to the personality, the nation-states and their interests in Nigeria.
What of the ideological orientation of the party, is it still there?
That is what I am saying. It has to be lost because the problems are so multi-dimensional that one ideology will not actually apply because it is not going to gel. You are trying to fix the economy, Boko Haram is striking, Arewa is bringing up the Russian flag.
Do you see the party being hijacked by cabals or reactionary forces as being said in some quarters?
You see when we want to parry issues, we talk of cabals, we talk of interest groups. What are interest groups or cabals in a family that is well structured, that does not have impunity against the law and that is not given to its motives but when we want to parry issues or make things light, we want to excuse ourselves and apportion blame and say it is a cabal. I am not interested in calling some people cabals. Is everybody who has stolen money in Nigeria a cabal? Does the cabal extend from the presidency to the local government level? Are you going to say that people that are fueling insecurity and funding Boko Haram are cabals in government? We are going to distract ourselves from the problems and the solutions if we say so. There will always be cabals. There will also be people who are close to the government. There will always be people who don’t like the government. They will form caucuses and groups to work for their interests. Me, I don’t recognize them. They are all contributing to the failure of the policies of the government and the failure of the state. That is the way I see things.
Why is it that there is no noticeable presence of small parties except the APC and Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) as the dominant political parties? Does it mean they have been muzzled out of the limelight or we are moving towards one or two party system in the country?
There is no party, there is chop, chop level. The issue is this, I contested for governorship twice in Ekiti State. And we had about ten small parties grouped under one condition. By the time the election is won, those parties will go to the ruling party to beg for bread. And they are quelled. Even PDP as an opposition party, what can it do now? More than half of its senior citizens have gone to APC. That is what happens in Nigeria. There is no ideological stronghold or will power behind their party system. So a mushroom party which does not have two local governments cannot really make any impact. And by the time it is making any impact, they will just invite him to the governor’s office and say what do you want; you know you cannot do anything, take five million naira and he will jump up and take it. We cannot talk of these small parties making any effect. Look at what Labour Party did. It was a surprise to APC, It was a surprise to PDP and it was a surprise to Labour itself because nobody knew that Labour Party could make such a success. And why did it have that success? It was because people had become disinterested and dissatisfied in the big parties. And they thought it could gel. It didn’t move. It will not move. INEC is there, money is there, tribalism is there. So many things are there. So you cannot talk of those small parties making any effects. Any party that will be able to make inroad must be a revolutionary party. And I won’t pray for that because that will be bloody.
Many have described the APC as a party of strange political bedfellows who are just united to share the national cake. How do you react to this?
It is not a party of strange political bedfellows. It is a conglomeration of senior political leaders who have actually mastered the act of politics in Nigeria. When PDP was there, people from ACN, ACD moved there. Now that it is APC, I have told you majority of the ruling class today are PDP members. So, it is not about describing APC as this or that. We are all Nigerians. Those politicians have mastered the act. They knew Nigeria will not stand. So, let them make their money and leave. If they can continue it in the future, fine. If they can’t, they go home smiling to their banks. There is only one unity. Unity of corruption. Unity of amassing wealth. Unity of deceit. It is not peculiar to a party. Even in the Labour Party, there have been allegations of fraud, mismanagement of funds, and it has not got to power. What we saw in the PDP we were crying. What we are seeing now is worse. Look at the people in the Senate, a lot of them, their heads should be cut off. If you don’t have money now, you cannot win any election. So, it is the people that have the money that will win elections. How you make the money is not important in Nigeria. So, saying that one party is this or that, no, it is the same thing everywhere, and it has been like that for the past 20 years in Nigeria. It is just getting worse.
What do you say to the calls for restructuring?
If we had restructured Nigeria 15 years ago, 20 years ago, it could have been a solution. And when you restructure, you will have total regionalism like we had in the sixties. If the Northern region is there, let’s call it zones or regions now, and we have a Western region or an Eastern region and we are still in the same Nigeria, are you going to stop the Fulani man from entering any region? You can’t. And when the Fulani man comes he still destroys your farm and carries his AK47 and shoots at random and at will and the people retaliate. So, we are back to zero. Are you going to tell me under regionalism that the Federal Government is still not going to handle the security at the national level? Is the regional government now going to be facing the Federal Government or central security system? Would that regionalism stamp out corruption from Nigeria? Would that regionalism assuage the ill feelings of one tribe against the other? How is regionalism going to clear the mind of an Igbo man against the suspicion and hatred for the Yoruba man? How is regionalism going to make the Yoruba farmers or Eastern region farmers fall in love with the Fulani Invaders? These are the things that we want to sweep under the carpet. Twenty years ago, there were no such demarcations. There was no such impunity, but now when people die especially if some groups of people from one sector of the country kill on the farm or on the street, nothing happens. It is when another set of people carry a dane gun, it becomes an offence. So, even regionalism or restructuring cannot work again. The feeling is so deep inside you and inside me that the Fulani man does not trust you. You don’t trust him. The Igbo man is not at peace with any part of this country. And the South South man feels you are still going to be taking part of his oil. And so there is a lot of confusion. You see, if we want this geographical location to remain intact, all we need to do is to your tents, O Israel! Let the Arewa that have started saying they want their own go. In another ten years, if they don’t have wars against themselves, they will become prosperous. Let the Yoruba that have been saying they want to go, go. If in another five years, there is no intra-tribal war, it will be a most successful and progressive state. Let the Easterners go, and go with their Biafra. They will sort themselves out. Let the South South also go. Let everybody start determining his own destiny.
We will now say if you want the corruption to continue, you know you have allowed it. It is not one Yoruba ruling at the centre that is depriving the North or the South East or South South. It is not that the Fulani now wants to be controlling the whole country forever. And it will remove the tribal sentiment. It will drastically reduce corruption. It will assuage the tribal strife and hatred. Everybody will now say ok, we have seen what regionalism did during the Awolowo, Sardauna and Azikwe days. We would want to improve on them. And everybody will reset his brain. But under Nigeria, no brain can be reset because if you had told me that things would be like this under APC government 12 years ago, I would say they should lock you up or get you shot. Because we had the zeal to righting things. So, it is just all grammar. It is just trying to say we don’t want this. Nobody wants to say Nigeria should break. Nigeria is already broken into pieces. Everybody now believes in his own tribe than believing in Nigeria. It is only the people who are eating from it that want Nigeria to remain one because now the stratifications and separations are clearer than ever before. The separation is thicker than ever before and it is palpable. And if we don’t break up early and fast it will be very bloody. The longer it takes, the more bloody it becomes. And if there is war, they will still come back and sit down at the table. So, why don’t we see the future and sit down now and draw the thing and let everybody go without spilling blood. That is my honest opinion because regionalism is like postponing the evil day. Restructuring is like postponing the evil day.
Controversies have trailed President Tinubu’s tax reform bills. What is your take on the reforms?
President Tinubu’s tax reform is one of the ways that he is trying to right the long existing wrongs or inequalities in the distribution of revenues. Inequalities and absurd disparity in a case of let’s talk about what we make in the South, what we generate as revenues in the South, petroleum, revenue from the ports, revenue from the Customs, revenue from alcohol and sundry matters. You will find out that more than 70, 80 per cent of these revenues accrue from the South West, South East and South South, especially the South West and these revenues were distributed almost equally state by state. So, what the North does not generate, it takes on equal basis from the states that generate them. I think that is what he is trying to do to make for equality and equity but I know and almost too sure that the North will not accept it and the Senate and the House of Representatives will almost thwart it because of the population of the representatives. The North has more representation in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. If the Senate and the House of Representatives rebuff this and it doesn’t see the light of the day, where are we headed? If they don’t rebuff it, there will still be that evidence for consideration of a Nigerian state where there will be no total correctness in the distribution. They will still give part of what is meant from the South to the North and where the Southern states should have enjoyed more from their labour would be distributed to the North and this is why the North will not accept it. They will feel they are being marginalised because of the sense of belonging, sense of possession, the fact that they are Nigerians and those taxes are for Nigeria and Nigerians and they have an entitlement to feel that way but the people that are making these money will feel robbed and that is why it is just white washing the problems of Nigeria, that is why there will be no peace. When you feel wronged and there is no equitable solution, you feel cheated and so these are the things that are just not going to make Nigeria work. The inter- tribal hatred will continue to enlarge as people get more enlightened and it will actually rob in on their feelings. The North will be pitched against the South and the South will be ready to express their anger. Nigeria has been bastardised beyond repairs. Nigeria has been robbed beyond repairs. Nigeria has been fraudulently managed beyond repairs. You rob Peter to pay Paul and this will not engender peace. What that tax was supposed to encourage was to encourage each state, each zone of this country to produce and generate revenues but it will not do that but will rather be seen as tribalistic moves against a section. The North is already saying that Tinubu is trying to favour the South, especially the South West with that tax reform. This is seeing it from that jejune, prejudice and jaundiced perspective. So, we are going to continue like this until Nigeria breaks. Whichever way we see it, people will feel unhappy, people will pervert solutions that are supposed to sue for equality and correct placing of things in the perspectives. This is my view on that tax reforms.
Let me quote what you just said, “we will continue like this until Nigeria breaks”. Is break up the solution to Nigeria’s problems?
The break up of Nigeria is the one-stop and one-station solution to the multifarious problems and maladies afflicting this nation. Starting from this tax thing, if Nigeria breaks, everybody will produce and generate revenues to cater for his own needs. If Nigeria breaks, fraud will reduce. The sense of assuming that Nigeria is for all and not for anybody will be taken off. You will be able to say my country, my nation has to survive on what it produces and the rate of stealing will drastically reduce. If Nigeria breaks, insecurity will reduce. You will not come from one country in the North to come and be killing people in the South in their farm without reprisal. If Nigeria breaks, election rigging will reduce. If Nigeria breaks, the security apparatus will become more manageable. The police system will be more dedicated to their nation. The armed forces will be more dedicated to their nation. There will be no transporting of soldiers from here to over 500 kilometers to go and be defending any nation. So, the attachment, the loyalty will increase more. Then everybody will start on his own terms, development will be fast and there will be healthy and comparative development. Industrialisation will spring up. Agriculture will be engaged in to feed their nations. Education will be taken on individual priorities. Everything will assume a new look. Let me tell you, there is no part of this country that cannot survive alone; in fact, as small as Ekiti State is, if it becomes a nation, it will survive because everybody will now manage his resources, his personnel and his apparatuses more equitably, more loyally, more sincerely, and more truthfully. It is because everybody has a free ride from a common paternity and patrimony that does not really belong to anybody. Let’s say, this country breaks into the three regions or six regions, when the North speaks in its nation, the individuals will understand their language. When the Yoruba goes, majority of the Yoruba will understand what the other Yoruba is saying, the South East and the South South will understand themselves, the language will be there. To make things more explicit, the leadership will be more domesticated, and more than 70 per cent of the problems will fizzle out. There will be more credit to sovereignty, there will be more value for human life. In Nigeria now, people just get killed without punishment, people steal money without punishment, people flout the law without punishment; that will not happen in any new nation that is starting; that will not happen in a manageable nation. We say size and population will be advantages but they are disadvantages and causing problems in the present day Nigeria; so, if we should just summon courage to do the right thing now, there is no nation that will be new nation that will not prosper. We are just shying away, hiding under this so-called unity, one Nigeria that does not really exist. The unity is not there. It has been on for over 100 years and we are not yet united. The appreciation of our sovereignty is not there, nobody feels Nigeria. I feel I am a Yoruba man, the Hausa man feels he is an Hausa man, the Fulani man feels he is a Fulani man, the Igbo man feels he is an Igbo man. This is the reality that we are dodging, until we face this reality, we will just be jumping from one charade of solution to some misnomer of corrections.