The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee for the 2014 National Conference, Senator Femi Okurounmu, tells SAMUEL AWOYINFA that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government can restructure the country before the 2019 general elections among other issues.

What do you think is wrong with the report of the 2014 confab, where you played a prominent role?

Why do you think the APC leadership rejected the report of the confab?

They never wanted the confab in the first place, like I told you earlier.

What are your thoughts on the recommendations of APC’s panel on restructuring?

My position, I believe, should also be the thought of anyone with a logical mind. There are people who, in the last three years, have been opposed to restructuring. They were equally opposed to the national conference. President Muhammadu Buhari, for instance, would have nothing to do with the confab report. He said he would keep it in the archives. Those who have been speaking on behalf of the APC since 2015, including the Vice-President, Lai Mohammed and Nasir el-Rufai, have all been lambasting advocates of restructuring. They are even pretending as if they don’t know what restructuring means.

The President, in his New Year message to Nigerians, said the country’s problem was not restructuring but a process to achieve good governance. He specifically said that we did not need restructuring. So, with these antecedents of all the leaders of the APC, if they now suddenly turn around, a year to election and begin to say they support restructuring, should any reasonable and logical mind believe them? They are only looking for votes, especially with the way they lied to us in 2015 to get our votes. Are they not telling us lies again to get our votes in 2019? They know that if they fail to support restructuring, they will have a tough time to win in 2019.

Do you think the current agitations are addressed in the 2014 confab report?

To a large extent, the agitation for restructuring has been addressed by the 2014 confab report. In the report, consisting of all delegates from all sections, 432 delegates in all, no section can get all its demands. But by and large, through the cooperation of the South and the Middle Belt, the advocates of restructuring got most of what they wanted.

I think there is one issue where I can see us saying the same thing: it seems they are now open to the idea of state police. The 2014 confab report came out clearly to recommend state police. Now the Vice-President and the governors’ forum have come out in support of the state police. So, we are on the same page.

But I want to observe that the Arewa Consultative Forum has come out to strongly oppose the position of the Vice-President and that of the governors’ forum. So, we are back to square one, because this was the position at the 2014 conference. It was the Arewa people who opposed the creation of state police but the majority prevailed and we were able to pass state police at the confab. It was because Arewa people were not satisfied with the confab’s decision that they now prevailed on the President not to even look at the report.

Why do you think the North is opposed to restructuring?

They are afraid because they don’t want to lose their privileged position in Nigeria.

Did the 2014 confab address their fears?

Yes, it addressed their fears by making sure that we took decisions in the confab by unanimity without having to vote, so that the decision reflected the wish of the overwhelming majority of delegates and therefore of Nigerians.

Do you think Buhari’s decision to set up a restructuring panel has anything to do with 2019 elections, as some have said?

Yes, he (Buhari) has seen where the pendulum is swinging and he wants to pretend he is in favour of restructuring even when he is not.

Do you think the adoption of the 2014 confab report would address the agitations by Nigerians?

It will. One, it will give the federating states more autonomy. Two, it will give the contiguous states opportunity to merge if they want to merge. Three, it will allow the formation of state police. Four, it will remove the creation of local governments from Federal Government and bring it under the confines of the state; states will be responsible for creating and funding the local governments. More revenue will accrue to the states because they will have more responsibilities. These are some of the areas that tension will be reduced.

Do you think restructuring can be achieved before the 2019 polls if the confab report is adopted and implemented?

Yes, I think so because there are three different categories of recommendations. The first category requires only administrative action only. That can be implemented immediately. The second category requires legislative action by the President and the National Assembly. Again, this can be implemented without delay. The third category requires the most time and this involves areas of constitutional amendment. Even this can be implemented within three months if the President wants to show sincerity that he is for restructuring.

The constitutional amendment requires three stages. The first step is to be driven by the National Assembly; all that can be done within one month, because the President controls the majority in both houses. Once the party is carried along, and it is a party decision, the necessary amendment by the National Assembly can be done within one month.

The second stage is to forward the decisions of the National Assembly to the state Houses of Assembly. For any amendment of a constitution to become valid, it must be passed by at least two-thirds of the members of state Houses of Assembly. Because the APC controls the governors’ forum and if they are brought on board, it will be easier for them to steer the amendments through the state Houses of Assembly.

When it has been passed by two-thirds of the state Houses of Assembly, it goes back to the National Assembly for final ratification. All this could be done in three months. So, if the President wants to show a serious change of mind on restructuring, he can do all these within three months. Then we shall believe he is serious.

What do you make of the recent statement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo advising President Buhari not to contest in 2019?

I am not an Obasanjo fan, but I have always been objective in assessing him. In his ‘letter’ to Buhari, he expressed what was in the minds of the majority of Nigerians. It can be said that he was not saying anything new. In fact, many Nigerians have been saying these things, but coming from Obasanjo, given his influence and importance as a former president, gave the statement more weight and mileage among Nigerians than they had got before.

His assessment of Buhari was accurate — failure in managing the economy, failure in being President for all Nigerians; he’s been one of the most tribalistic and most nepotistic presidents Nigeria ever had. This shows in his handling of security of ordinary Nigerians against the continuous killings of Nigerians by herdsmen; raping of women and daughters of farmers by these rampaging herdsmen and destruction of their crops and farmlands. It shows he only cares about the herdsmen and does not care about the security of Nigerians.

But the President ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to relocate to Benue State…

The police can move in, but what instruction has he (IG) been given? The herdsmen are still killing the villagers and farmers with impunity and the police failed to arrest and bring them to justice. But when the villagers organised local vigilante to protect themselves, the police were quick to go and arrest the vigilance group or the villagers.

Are you saying that the police are protecting the rampaging herdsmen?

They allow them (herdsmen) to go away and wreak more havoc. Look at what happened in Benue State. The state governor said he informed the government about the impending invasion, but nothing was done to save the people. The IG first said it was a communal clash, but when there was uproar, he apologised. The Minister of Defence was also quoted by some newspapers as saying that it was because the grazing route was blocked that the herdsmen struck. So, he was in effect justifying the killings.

The killings by the herdsmen have not stopped; see what has happened in Taraba, Plateau, Nasarawa, Ekiti, Ondo and Edo states. That of Southern Kaduna is constant and the latest was Zamfara. The attitude of the President to the killings is deplorable. As they were burying those killed in Zamfara, President Buhari and some of the governors were meeting in Daura, perhaps on how to return in 2019. So, they don’t care about the dead; the second term is more important.

Again, like Obasanjo pointed out, almost all the security chiefs are northerners, except the Chief of Naval Staff.

Are you saying the IG has not done enough on the issue of the rampaging herdsmen? Some suspects have been arrested over the Benue killings.

The IG has not shown that he is there to protect the interest of all Nigerians but that of the Fulani. The arrests are belated. As far as I am concerned, it came after a lot of uproar from Nigerians. It was when it became an embarrassment to the government that they made those arrests; they are not doing it for the people; they are not doing it conscientiously.

Recently, there was a proposal for the establishment of cattle colonies in the states of the federation. What is your own view on these proposed cattle colonies?

As far as I am concerned, I see the cattle colonies as a way of facilitating a complete takeover of Nigeria by the Fulani. The background to this is that since the Fulani jihad of 1804, they had the ambition of overrunning the whole Nigeria. After they overran the Hausa, their next targets were the Middle Belt and Yoruba territories.

They had said it was British colonialism that stopped them. The herdsmen have always been there with us and they were known with their ‘sanda’ (sticks) with which they directed their herds, but this is no longer the case. We now have herdsmen carrying AK-47 rifles. Cattle rearing is a private business and ranching is the modern way of doing this. In developed climes like the US, UK, and even in Argentina, ranching is the mode of rearing their herds.

Do you think the South-West should be wary of suffering the sort of tragedy experienced by Benue and its environs?

I say this because by the time they set up cattle colonies, they will begin to control some local governments. We should not allow any cattle colony in the South-West.

But there are some herdsmen that have been living in some communities in the South-West and they have become part and parcel of those communities and are law-abiding.

It is true but there is an agenda. If they are here genuinely to sell their cows, I mean for economic reasons, they are welcome. But when they carry arms, there is a cause for concern. Some of them are trans-border herdsmen from Mali and Niger. It is a common agenda to invade Nigeria. Why is the Federal Government trying to link a rail line to Niger?

Would you also support that Buhari contest a second term?

Like Obasanjo and other eminent Nigerians have advised that he (Buhari) should not contest a second term, they are merely speaking the minds of a majority of Nigerians. I will say he (Buhari) is not up to the task of governing Nigeria. He has no clue about how Nigeria should be governed. The economy has been in a mess since he took over.

All the promises he and the party made, when he got to government he dissociated himself from the promises. He had promised that the naira would be exchanging at par with the dollar. But today, it is N360 to a dollar. It is an improvement of what it used to be six months ago.

He also promised that Nigerians would be buying a litre of petrol at N40. Now, we are buying at N165 per litre, and there are even queues. If one says someone has not done well in their first term, is there any need for a second term? Obasanjo has said that. Chief Edwin Clark, Afenifere, Middle belt Forum, Pan-Niger Delta Forum and Ohanaeze have all said he has not done well, and he should go and rest.

But some believe the administration has whittled down the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East.

If the administration has defeated Boko Haram, as it claimed, why is it still asking for more money to fight the insurgents, which they claimed they had subdued?

In what areas do you think the current administration has made any improvement?

None, but some of its apologists will say it has been fighting corruption. I don’t agree. Its entire inner circle is full of corrupt people. When people, who are close to the President are accused of corruption, he goes out of his way to protect them. Obasanjo gave some examples in his open letter to the President. One of them is the Mainagate of the pension reform funds. Another one happened in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, where contracts were awarded without following due process. I can go on and on.

The current one is the case of the Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, who was suspended by his supervising minister. Buhari went over the head of the minister to reinstate him. Some people, we heard, returned their looted funds, and they were not arrested and tried for corruption. This will definitely keep encouraging people to steal, because once such people return a fraction of what was stolen, they go and enjoy the rest. Buhari’s approach to fighting corruption is actually encouraging it.

What would you say about the Coalition for Nigeria Movement being promoted by former President Obasanjo?

Obasanjo is not in the best position to bring up a coalition for Nigeria because he is one of those who ruined this country. He is a northern apologist. He has been giving us leaders since 1979. Unfortunately, none of the leaders has performed well.

This shows that he has a hidden agenda for selecting the leaders. He gave us Umar Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. He knew Yar’Adua had health challenges and he eventually died and then, Jonathan came in, and he later wrote him a letter. Later, he joined forces with the APC and they brought in Buhari. Obasanjo has never been in favour of restructuring.

Punch