Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka in this encounter takes a swipe at the regime of President Yar’Adua and dismisses it as a government on sabbatical. He describes OBJ/Atiku reconciliation as a marriage made in hell and a relationship that could finally destroy PDP which he calls an affliction on Nigerian people.
He goes further to say that kidnapping is not new in Nigeria and traces it to the period of the cement bonanza of the Murtala Muhammed era when kidnapped victims were drown with bags of cement around their necks when their families didn’t pay up.
He attributes the entire Nigeria situation to the fact that Nigeria is a failing state and is fast disappearing before the people and urges that the people who destroyed Nigeria, including former President Obasanjo and his party PDP be brought to trial for betraying Nigeria and her people. Excerpts:
The recent leave embarked upon by President Yar’Adua generated controversy because he did not officially brief the National Assembly about it and in turn the legislators would not accept Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President. Should things continue to be that way in Nigeria?
Really, I have not studied exactly what the Constitution said. But I think I have to now. These are little things in the Constitution that are not really clear but I would have to study them.
Okay, whatever the truth in the constitution, should there be a vacuum in government?
Having a vacuum in government is nothing new. From the very beginning, Yar’Adua’s government went on sabbatical. It’s nothing new.
Is it good for a country?
Even in a home, in a domestic setting, decisions are taken one way or the other. A family likes to know who is in charge, how to relate to authority. Who can do what? Who’s in charge of food, cooking, purchases? Everybody does something to make sure that the household is running. Well, the people of Nigeria are mature individuals and they should know those who are in charge even when nothing is said.
In other words , you think Nigerians don’t need to feel his absence?
You misunderstood me. The question you asked has to do with whether the National Assembly should reject anything that does not have Presidential signature. I’m now saying that yes, there is a point in that because even in a domestic situation, people in that house would like to know just who has the ultimate authority to take decisions.
That means that somebody has to be in charge at any given time…
I’m saying that the nation is a nation of very politically sophisticated people and they deserve to know yes, just who is in charge. I think this is clear enough.
There is the issue of Constitutional Review which is generating some bickering in the National Assembly. Sir do you think we need this Constitutional review and is this bickering between the two chambers of the legislative arm necessary?
The system we are running in this country is a disaster. It is too costly for our resources, for the kind of political intellectual manpower that is needed to run it. It is too demanding and according to the rules of the nations which we borrowed, the structure itself is flawed, dangerously flawed. So, you ask, do we need a Constitution review?
On one hand, I like to say yes. On the other hand, I’d like to remind you that people have different ideas to review. If you ask Nigerians, say twelve Nigerians what they understand by review, you will likely get twelve different points of view. The Constitution that we have is a fraud. We need a completely new Constitution.
The Constitution we have at the moment was imposed on us. It was not agreed upon in full freedom by free citizens of this nation. And so, we are in a situation where we are looking at the system that is not running. We continue to attempt to run it. So, we need a drastic review of the situation, an overhauling of the system that is not paying off and for which we are paying through the nose.
OBJ/Atiku reconciliation
So, it is unnecessary for the two chambers of the national assembly to be bickering over the issue of Superiority and not getting the job done?
Like I said, the issue of superiority should not arise if the structure itself is not flawed. The structure itself is flawed from the very foundation of what we claim to be a nation.
The Power Sector in Nigeria has failed woefully and the President thinks, the country should resort to importation of generators so that carbon monoxide should be used as an alternative to electricity . Should that be the way out of the power problem in the country?
Those who were running this country when the system of generating power collapsed has a case to answer in the criminal court of justice of the people of this nation. It’s a sin. It’s a disgrace and former President Obasanjo should be tried for having betrayed this nation over the issue of power generation.
If you remember, after having disgraced the former Minister of Mines and Power, Bola Ige who set to sanitize the power generation and power delivery system of this nation, he (Obasanjo) pushed him out and afterwards sabotized his reforms.
And even after the man died, he had the nerve to tell this nation that he put somebody in charge who did not know his left from his right. He slandered a dead man! He then took over personally in a statement to the nation and said he was going to resolve the whole issue. Now, I’m asking you, did he?
Personally, I know how much I’m spending on Diesel. I know how often my two standby generators break down and what it costs me to repair them because they are no longer standby generators. They are the main generators while the so-called NEPA or whatever it is called has become a complete opposite.
It does not supply power. It is a complete nuisance. It is a disgrace and those who ran this country for so many years have a case to answer in the court of criminal justice.
Is the power problem it beyond repair?
Well, it is not. But as long as we have the kind of leadership that we have at the moment, we are going to continue to suffer.
The system break-down you talked about has become a global phenomenon. The so-called economic melt-down is taking its toll in all the countries of the world. In Nigeria, they told us initially that it would not affect us but now it is doing so even to the point that the Presidency is thinking of cutting down the remuneration of political appointees. The stock market has gone down and the devaluation of the naira has become the in-thing. There have been calls to sack the CBN Governor and really, one wonders how we will get out of it…
I hope that Nigerians are too intelligent to believe that the earlier ridiculous statement that the global economic melt-down would not affect Nigeria. You see, those who came to lead this nation have a way of beating their chests over nothing or boasting about situations that they know nothing about. I remember that statements were made that Nigeria would not be affected. We laughed where we were.
We said look at these clowns again, trying to lure the people of this country into a state of false security. And of course, we’ve being proved right and especially for a nation which depends on one solitary economic productive system, which was not even a productive system but one of just extracting from nature the resources of a nation.
So, how can such a nation be affected by what is happening in the rest of the world which also depends on that one single commodity? All those who made this kind of statement wherever they are, no matter the positions they held in public or private sectors should be tried for deliberately misleading the nation.
Some people are agitating for the sack of the CBN governor for devaluing the naira and for other economic woes befalling Nigeria?
I have never been in government and I will not make a comment for or against the sack of CBN governor. But anybody who thinks that the sack of the CBN governor will reverse things in Nigeria is living in a fool’s paradise.
I’m not saying they should or should not sack him. I’m not making comments on that. That is between Soludo and the government that employed him in the first place. What I find very annoying is the deceit Nigerians were subjected to on the matter of global economic melt-down.
The former Vice-President, Atiku Abubabar was in the news recently for having reconciled with his former boss, Olusegun Obasanjo. There are insinuations that he could be returning to his former party, the PDP. What do you think about that?
PDP as a party is a party of treachery and murder. I described PDP as a nest of killers and I uphold that position till today.
There are individuals within the PDP who have tried to reform that party. Some have given up and moved out to form their own party. It is my belief that the PDP is irredeemable. The PDP is in power but it is in power fraudulently. You and I know that.
The whole nation knows it. The whole world knows that the PDP was resoundingly rejected at the last election but was manipulated into power by the egomania of one desperate individual who still wanted to be controlling the affairs of this nation from the outside after he failed to enthrone himself through an unconstitutional third term agenda.
And he has not yet given up. So, what happens between individuals in PDP is of no interest to me except to say that this is one of the most obscene incidents of reconciliation that I ever encountered in all my years of existence. It’s an obscenity. It contradicts all laws of decency.
So, the OBJ and Atiku so-called reconciliation is a marriage made in hell. In any case, I don’t believe it for one moment?
So, you don’t believe the reconciliation would work or move Nigeria forward?
Please stop using that word reconciliation. Don’t try to give it an air of recovery. That word should not even come up.
You talked about the global economic recession and in Nigeria, apart from the stock value and naira free-fall, the price of fuel has come down. Do you think this will still affect us?
I have started stocking firewood in my house at Abeokuta and when the time comes and it would require my using firewood, I would revert to it. Those of you who are not ready, who think that it would not eventually come to that, be fooling yourselves there. Don’t delude yourselves that the price of fuel has come down. But I would advise Nigerians to start stocking firewood. Go and get your cooking pots down and be prepared for the worse of it.
That means the end is not yet in sight?
I have told you, I am ready to start cooking on firewood. What are you talking about? This is 2009, first decade of the 21st century and I cannot boast of an average of 30 minutes electric power in my house in Abeokuta, one of the first modernised cities in Nigeria and I cannot guarantee that I can have one hour of power supply per day in 2009! The firewood and cooking pots are ready.
There are insinuations that the reason why Atiku Abubakar reconciled with Obasanjo was to return to PDP and recontest Presidential election in 2011 under that platform as the situation of health of President Yar’Adua may not allow him a second term in office…?
I have told you earlier that anything that bears the mark of PDP signifies evil. I also want to remind people that there are individuals within that party who need to be encouraged to destroy the party from within.
PDP is the most violent affliction on this nation and there is nothing positive to be used to qualify it. It is violent, illegitimate, filled with bribery, extortion and so on. This party is the greatest affliction on Nigeria and it stands in the way of progress of this nation. The people who are still honourable who still belong to that party should come out and decide whether to form a new party or join with the progressives of this nation and destroy that affliction called PDP which has continued to ruin the future of this nation.
Now one last question, you know this issue of kidnapping started as part of the struggle for resource control in the Niger Delta and now, it is escalating to other parts of Nigeria, to places that have nothing to do with Niger Delta. Criminals just kidnap people and demand for ransom. Is there really no way this menace could be tackled?
I want to disagree with you that the issue of kidnapping began in Niger Delta or due to resource control. You are a young person and may not know some of the things that happened in the past. But I want to take you back to a period of the Cement bonanza.
The kidnapping-for-ransom syndrome began with the cement bonanza in this nation. I want you to go and read my play To Zia with Love and do so very carefully.
This book dealt with this problem and that book referred to a period in the life of this nation under the Murtala Muhammed.
People were being kidnapped for ransom and those whose family did not pay up were drowned with cement bags around their necks. Kidnapping began at that time. Sudden overnight millionaires emerged at that time who were cement merchants and cement amalgams.
At that period, there was an amalga of ships lined up even beyond our national waters, paying demurrage of millions of dollars and pounds Sterling as demurrage because they could not land.
And people profited from that by ordering shiploads of cement and even when they had nothing on those ships, all they need to do was come to this place and anchor beyond the borders and Nigerian government was forced to pay demurrage. Later, General Adekunle was brought in to clear everything up.
This began at the time of the regime of Murtala Muhammed and spilled over to the time of Obasanjo. So, it did not begin today. Some of the kinpins of that time even had albums in which they kept photographs of kidnapped people.
There are different gang leaders and if you were looking for somebody, they would direct you to them and they would bring out their albums and look through for the missing person. In those days, they used extermatic cameras.
They would check their albums for a victim photograph. If the photo is there and has been crossed, it meant the relations of the victim did not pay up and he had been drowned. If they didn’t have the person you were looking for, they would direct you to another gang .
If your relation has been drowned, they would even direct you to another group to know how your relation was buried and if you could still retrieve the corpse for a fee.Many people didn’t know about this. I know about it intimately because I too had to go into the nation’s waters to help track down these gangsters.
So, General Benjamin Adekunle was the one who quelled it but obviously, for it to crop up again means it didn’t die down completely. It was at that period of cement bonanza that kidnapping people for ransom began and later, the Niger Delta region militants were to inculcate this despicable tradition.
This attitude is despicable and should be stopped. We of the black continent have a memory of enslavement and therefore we should not repeat history of our own enslavement by afflicting ourselves with this menace.
Other people are moving forward and we should not inhibit ourselves by enslaving ourselves after we suffered same centuries ago.
That means this government can still do something to stop?
I told you earlier, Yar’Adua’s government is on sabbatical. We are moving backwards. We are still depending on animalistic means of survival.
This is a shame of this nation. It is deplorable and Nigerians should desist from that. And it tells you that this country is failing as a nation. I said it earlier, Nigeria is a failed state. All these things you see happening are signs of a failing state. There is suspicion everywhere.
You don’t trust anybody in Nigeria, not even your next door neighbour. These are signs of a failed state. Nigeria is fading away right under our very eyes. It is very sad and unless something is done quickly to arrest this situation, Nigeria is gone.
Written by Chioma Gabriel, (Deputy Editor, Lagos,) Taye Obateru, Jos, Uduma Kalu, Lagos
VANGUARD
Saturday, 14 February 2009
