Professor Ango Abdullahi, the current spokesman of Northern Elders Forum, was the vice-chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, between 1979 and 1986. He also served as Special Adviser on Food Security to President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2003. He had a stint in mainstream politics when he contested for Kaduna Governor on the platform of Social Democratic Party, SDP, in 1991 but lost to the late Dabo Lere of the National Republican Convention, NRC. Although he has refused to participate in politics in the current dispensation, he has not retired from making comments on goings-on in the polity. In this interview with FEMI ADI, Professor Abdullahi bares his mind on the insecurity in the North-east, Abubakar Shekau’s recent video on the abducted Chibok girls, zoning of political offices and the North’s resolve on Jonathan’s 2015 Presidential bid Did you watch Shekau’s video where he was saying Islam means killing and killings...and that he would sell the school girls. Does Islam support these? No! Certainly not. Pronouncements have been made by major Islamic organisations around the world, including recently, the Conference of Islamic States. Actions of the sect are totally, totally un-Islamic. In fact in Islam, Muslim or no Muslim, it is like killing the entire humanity. In fact the destination of somebody who commits suicide, in Islamic beliefs, is hell fire; let alone against somebody who deliberately takes somebody else’s life. There are reasons, there are provisions or ways a Muslim should defend himself. Mainly, where a Muslim is urged to take up arms is where he’s attacked. But not to attack without provocation. No. So you see, quite a number of people who are very vast in Islamic history and Islam itself have said clearly that these activities are un-Islamic; totally un-Islamic. It’s just like saying that the insurgency in Syria is Islamic. A Muslim to go and tear the chest of a victim, pull out his heart and eat it raw, attack churches, mosques and so on and you say that this is Islamic? No, certainly it is not Islamic. To my mind, it is violence that is emerging for various reasons. I was born 76 years ago. I was a university student when Nigeria got her independence, so I must have a very good picture of our past history. Our parents had political differences: Awolowo, Premier of the Western Region; Dr. Azikiwe, Premier of the Eastern Region; Sardauna, Premier of Northern Region and later, Osadebey, Premier of the Mid-Western Region. Different people from different historical, ethnic and religious backgrounds. But they were able to sit down and discuss matters of common interest on the basis of common understanding and eventually that was the basis for Sarduana’s quotation: “We may be different but we should be able to work together if we understand our differences.” This is what really should be the pre-occupation of Nigeria. There is no way you can wish away 350 ethnic groups in Nigeria today. There is no way you can wish away the fact that there is Christianity, Islam and even animist religions and so on. But what you need to do is to sit down and look at the entire structure and see in what way perhaps you can mitigate these differences that emanate from tongues, locations and religion. This is what our parents did to be able to work together, which eventually took us to the point of independence. It was after independence that things began to take the kind of direction in which eventually we’re in today. So Boko Haram’s ideology is not Islamic. This is the summary of it. What about the feeling that such rag-tag people are as a result of economic deprivation caused by members of the political elite like you? Absolute nonsense. Are they economically deprived because of the elites in the North? Or are they economically deprived because of the elites in Nigeria? Let me tell you, this is a guesswork but I think it can be verified factually. Today, 80 per cent of Nigerian wealth is owned by less than 100,000 Nigerians out of 170 million people. Then what happens to the rest of us the 160 million plus to share the remaining 20 per cent, and what do you say when you’re talking about Nigerian elites or leaders? Somebody who has stolen billions and is celebrating all over the place, he’s a Nigerian elite. What he steals in Lagos affects the man in Maiduguri and what the man in Maiduguri steals affects the man in Calabar and so on. So, it cannot be accepted in this narrow definition. Generally, I agree the elite generally are responsible for the crises we’re having in Nigeria today, but you cannot blame the elites of the North as being responsible for the crises in Nigeria, let alone the North. I would agree for example that a lot of the failures are in terms of managing resources and keeping track of resources and so on. I gave an interview recently, my estimation is that 80 per cent of the failure of socio-economic development in the North can be attributed to the failure of local and state governments. Only 20 per cent could be attributed to failure by the federal government because the division of responsibility is very, very clear. So, you see, this is the totality of the crises we’re having. When we wrote to the President – the document is still there – we said yes, poverty is one of the elements, but there are also other factors that set people one against the other and so on. It was not Boko Haram that started ethnic religious conflicts. We have been having ethnic religious conflicts for years. Plateau, my state Kaduna and various other places, OPC, MEND and so on, These are ethnic, religious or socio-economic conflicts that have been taking place for years in this country. And in each case you can explain why. If you take the current cry for resource control and so on, it’s very simple – failure of the elites, particularly those of them who are operating in the South-South.[caption id="attachment_1660" align="alignnone" width="180"] •Professor Ango Abdullahi[/caption] I did an exercise recently to look at the 2014 budgets that have been approved by the various Houses of Assembly throughout the country in the 36 states. If you take the budget in the six states in the South-South together with allocations to the Ministry of the Niger-Delta, allocations for NNDC and Amnesty, the figures came to a frightening disparity. The South-South budgets together with all these allocations stand at N2.6 trillion, against the combined budget of 19 northern states at N2.4 trillion. Do you call this justice in one country? And yet the politicians in this region get up in their various communities to say, No, your money is in Abuja, it is the northerners that have stolen your money; it is oil money and so on and so forth. If you take this issue of oil money technically, is it idle money? Who produces it? Who works for oil? Who put oil on ground and who is extorting it? We can argue here that the labour of the northern farmers produced the groundnut pyramid. The labour of the cocoa farmers in the West produces cocoa. The labour of the farmers in the eastern part of Nigeria produces palm products. Whose labour is producing oil? Certainly not the people who are sitting on it. It must be somebody coming from outside that told them that there is oil there and then brought the technology to bring it out. And you said it’s your resource. Meaning what? The companies should be paying taxes. I saw Dr. [Iyorchia] Ayu’s interview recently and I agreed with it completely. He said this resource issue, you have to look at it very critically. When you say you are producing something it must be by your own sheer ability and labour. But this is idle wealth that you’re not working for and this is why people are even quarreling with you for it and that is why the money has no value now. I would take you to Chapter Two of the Nigerian Constitution. I was privileged to be the chairman in 1994 Constitutional Conference that produced that draft. Chapter Two – fundamental objectives and directive principle of state policy – that’s where the soul of the Nigerian Constitution should be. If people would work on the provisions of that chapter, this country would have perhaps risen far ahead of where we are now. The soul there is that the Nigerian resources must be harnessed and used for the benefit of Nigerian citizens. [But] the resources of the country have been mortgaged through the pressure of IMF and World Bank. So everything must be private sector-driven, meaning the state has no role in ensuring that the resources of the country are controlled for the benefits of the citizens of this country but rather are controlled by the multinational companies who will bring in dollars against the depreciated naira. Only few years ago, one naira was equivalent to one dollar and forty cents. By the time you graduate from the polytechnics, federal colleges of education etc, don’t even talk about secondary school students, the economy cannot absorb them; it’s in hands of less than one per cent of the population of this country. So anybody who is dreaming that this country will remain peaceful under this regime is dreaming. I’m not saying particularly Jonathan’s regime; he inherited a lot of these things. It’s a cumulative failure that has taken place and we’re getting to the pinnacle of it. And the pinnacle of it is surely dangerous; very, very dangerous. The signs are not good. How do you see the economic reality of the North now? Is it buoyant or not? No! The North has always been self-sufficient. I was telling you that the resources of this country, particularly the oil resource that we’re fighting over, are being cornered by less than 100,000 people out of 170 million. So, out of that number of 100,000, I don’t think the North has more than 100 or 150 people that can be considered to be elites and rich. Perhaps, the kind of rich people you’re even talking about are the ones that do not even have factories that employ anybody. They do not have farms that employ anybody or produce anything; their only job is be to allocated oil blocs, which they will sell to foreign companies and make their commission and come here and pretend that they’re rich. And with those riches, they don’t even create anything that employs other people. So, the ordinary man in the North at the moment doesn’t even need oil money. If you see people in the North struggling to talk about oil, they are the idle beneficiaries of oil money that is being stolen. The ordinary northern Nigerian citizens depends on various forms of vocations, mainly agriculture. And it is the agriculture sector, take it or leave it, that is keeping this country today. They are the ones that are eking a living without any support from anybody; it is entirely their effort. So, they don’t know whether there are oil riches in Nigeria; if it evaporates today it doesn’t make any difference. If the oil sections of the country decide to go their different ways the ordinary northerner who lives on the farm doesn’t care one bit. He will not care nor be bothered. The only person that will care, perhaps is my kind of class that eats fat from money we do not produce or work for. If the North does not depend on oil resource, then why the cry in the North over issues of revenue sharing and power? No, this is not true either. I’m part of the clamour for power shift and I hope you can understand it from my background. I was one of those people who signed to form Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. I was one of 10 people who went to INEC and signed on the dotted line for PDP to become a party. Also take it from me that PDP emerged from various activities of which I was involved. I was in the first group called G18 before it metamorphosed into G34, where Dr. [Alex] Ekwueme became a leader. But the G18 stock was entirely northern and under the leadership of Solomon Lar and Mallam Adamu Ciroma. But before then, I was a member of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua’s political formation called Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM. [caption id="attachment_1660" align="alignleft" width="180"] •Professor Ango Abdullahi[/caption] I was also one of those who against all odds, against the resistance of a large segment of the North, agreed there should power shift between the North and South. I was at that conference where this was agreed and in fact there was an effort to put it in the constitution of the country. Some people argued that this was too much and it’s not easy to amend the constitution but it should be part of our report for political parties to use, particularly those who won large spreads in the country, to use it as an instrument of gaining support across the country. And there were those of us who also drafted the PDP constitution, incorporated rotation and that power will rotate between the North and the South. There was no issue of geo-political zone at all; it was just rotation between the North and South.The next argument was where would this rotation start? People argued that the North had been leading for years and so on, including military leaders. This was not democratic, but all the same we accepted it since many former military leaders were our own people. Then the element that weighed the most was the annulment of Chief MKO Abiola’s election .That was used as a strong element of argument that the North should concede to the South to begin the rotation of power. That’s how it started. I was one of those who conceded and say yes, let’s go along. We were encouraged by the military people who really worked with Obasanjo. Then it was decided that the rotation could start from somebody with a military background but who was seen to be neutral and would come and galvanise the country because he had no political history that could have been associated with the Action Group, AG, NCNC, NPC and others. That’s how they argued and rationalised that a neutral person but with a lot of experience both in the military and in governance of the country should be given the leadership. Obasanjo was then, of course, in prison and we rationalised and argued that he should be brought out of prison and pardoned of all the convictions. That’s how we started, and that’s how Obasanjo took the first term under this rotation arrangement to run for president and it was overwhelming. You could see it, and there was an attempt by Abubakar Rimi and Barnabas Gemade to run against him. But Rimi got almost zero in Kano. How could he have made that zero if not rotation in Kano? How could Gemade get nothing in Benue but for an agreement that the North would come fully to support this southern candidate. So that’s how Obasanjo got the first four years but under the constitution of the country, he was entitled to go for two terms. And then he asked for an extension of the zoning arrangement to enable him utilise the second term allowed by the constitution. An expanded caucus was called, go to Audu Ogbeh, you will find a record of that discussion there, where additional concession was made for another four years for Obasanjo under the zoning arrangement and it was there conclusively stated that he would run and South then would have run for eight years and it would be the turn of the North to run for eight years after Obasanjo. So, you can see that those of us who had been part of this arrangement felt that something was going wrong in terms of fairness, trust and keeping agreement. When Umaru died midway through his first term, what we would have expected under gentlemanly agreement, written or unwritten, is that the vice-president under the Constitution of Nigeria should finish those remaining two years of the first term. And then gentlemanly behaviour, honour and trust we lead those people from the South to say under this arrangement in this party the North if it did not have eight years in full should have at least six years, the first two years Umaru ran and the four years that would follow, from 2011 to 2015. That’s all that was expected. And those of us who sat and were part of it felt angered that there was failure of trust between people that should be seen as leaders and trustworthy, but they came out with all sorts of arguments that Jonathan should be the legitimate candidate to run in 2011. This is part of our disagreement. It is not an issue that the North must rule but the issue that there has been a failed trust. At the Paris conference on Boko Haram, one of the resolutions was to set up a committee to raise funds for reconstruction of the North-East. Should leaders in the North who mismanaged money not be called to vomit some money too? No. What about the leaders of Nigeria that have stolen Nigerian money? This is the money we are looking for. I mean, it’s absolute nonsense to my mind that the responsibility of correcting the socio-economic condition of the North-East should rest on the people of the zone; it should rest squarely on the people of Nigeria. If you rehabilitate the North-East, the Igbo man can go and trade there and make his millions. The Yoruba man, like yourself, very enterprising, could go there and make your millions. So you are not rehabilitating North-East for the people of that zone but you’re doing so for the entire Nigerian state. Because for now, you cannot go and find viable Igbo businesses there. The Igbo man is always in every village in the North and so on. If he didn’t feel secured he cannot be there. And his livelihood is threatened, just like the livelihood of anybody else including those who are living in the North-East. The responsibility for developing Nigeria is clearly stated in the constitution of the country that there should be even development in Nigeria and that no section of the country would monopolise the resources of Nigeria to the detriment of other sections. But it is stupidity to say that it is the money stolen by politicians in the North-East that should be brought to develop the zone. Absolute rubbish! What about North-East’s share of the resources of the country that have been stolen in Abuja, Ibadan, Lagos and the Niger-Delta? You were once reported as wishing that zoning be killed, yet you advocate that power must return to the North. Is there no contradiction here? No, it’s not a contradiction. I initially trusted zoning. I was part of it. In fact I was castigated for supporting it by fellow northerners who feel that Nigerian democracy should be on basis of one man one vote. If you win an election on the basis of one man one vote, so be it, whether you’re from Ogoja, Kano, Sokoto, Ilorin or Lagos. But for us to introduce a caveat which says that it is no more one man one vote that will determine who becomes the president of the country by introducing zoning, this is what it is. But we thought that, that sacrifice is worth making, given the diversity of this country and its history. Obasanjo was the first person to deny that there was zoning; that he came to be the president of Nigeria under zoning. Obasanjo said so and he was followed by the various pronouncements that Jonathan himself made, that he’s not aware of zoning despite all the flying evidence. This is why I came to the conclusion that zoning is no more worthwhile and if it is so, it should die. Whether PDP wants to keep it on paper, it’s their business. Given the experience we’ve been through, the kind of discriminatory treatment that the North suffered in the hands of those people it trusted under the zoning arrangement, we are saying that we should go for it and we’re not going to behave the way they behaved, because our history is very clear. The leadership of northerners in the history of Nigeria is very clear. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa didn’t discriminate against any section of this country. Gen. Yakubu Gowon didn’t discriminate against any section of this country; in fact he did far more particularly for those areas that were affected by the war than the area of the North he came from. And when he finished somebody had to build a house for him. Shagari, go to his village now and see if he has anything called wealth apart from his farm he’s running. Sardauna left no house in Kaduna or Sokoto. So you see, the tradition of northern leadership of Nigeria has been one of selfless service and it has been for equity and justice for all. This is why we feel that Nigeria will be much safer under this kind of leadership of equity and justice, not equity of win and take everything for yourself, as we see today. You claimed that Jonathan’s refusal to comply with the zoning arrangement of the PDP was something he learnt from former president Olusegun Obasanjo. Could you please throw more light on that? No! I didn’t say quite that, but I said Obasanjo himself said so at the time he was talking about third term. Even though he had never publicly admitted that he wanted third term, circumstantial evidence made every sensible Nigerian believe that Obasanjo wanted to extend his stay in office beyond the constitutional eight years. It didn’t work but then, when debates were going on about the zoning arrangement he said he didn’t believe in zoning and that he did not become president on the basis of zoning. But Jonathan said that he didn’t know about zoning. And that the only thing that he’s aware of is that, when the president is decided, the other offices would be shared according to the zones that have not produced the president. You were once reported as saying everything under Jonathan is collapsing. This takes us to the issue of insecurity. How could he have handled it? Tell me one which istitution is not collapsing. Well, he must have read the document we presented to him from the Northern Elders Forum. When we went to him with our document, we said we’re not here to confront your government, we’re here to assist you in the governance of this country for the betterment of Nigeria. Maitama Sule led us and we left the document with him; fairly comprehensive, looking at major areas of the challenges Nigeria has been facing, particularly two areas, with so many branches. But the two areas we emphatically went for were insecurity and the emerging political dichotomy. Utterances of leaders from various interest groups and so on that seemed to be heating up the polity, these were the ones we went clearly for. In the case of insurgency, we reminded him in that document that brute force had never solved the problem of insurgency around the world. The most powerful country in the world today, United States, was defeated by insurgency in Vietnam, Iraq and is being defeated by insurgency in Afghanistan and it is the United States now that is trying to organise peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government... So we said multiple approaches is the way forward. The stick, which is first, the carrot, which is dialogue, and the collective will of stakeholders. In the case of the military, we know where there is open violence somebody has come to kill some people innocently and so, our security forces should be there to challenge it and repel it. But in the case of carrot, we recommended dialogue and we’re glad to say that really it was our persuasive document that eventually got us to the dialogue committee. In fact when we presented that document to him, he was having a security meeting the following day. He said he would take it up for discussion and to his credit, the following two days there was an announcement that a dialogue committee would be set up. But again, soon after a dialogue committee was set up, the pressure from other ends said no, you cannot dialogue with Islamist fundamentalists and we knew where that pressure was coming from. Jonathan set up a dialogue committee, which had barely started work when he made two pronouncements: one, he created state of emergency and secondly, he banned the group. So if you ban the group who are you going to dialogue with? That is giving with one hand and taking with the other; and that is why the dialogue committee never really produced anything. And the other side was skeptical because there was even an attempt earlier, where Dr. Datti Ahmed and others tried to broker some discussions. That’s why he quickly took off and said he was not going to be part of it and that’s how the thing collapsed. This one collapsed because of these contradictory positions that wer being taken. We looked at all the various facets that have to do with sources of violence. Where are they getting their recruits? Are they literates in any education including Islamic education, but they’re getting the recruits because they’re dealing with idle kids like millions of them all over the country that have nothing to do and are willing to fall prey. I saw a video on the internet of a suspect that was being questioned. How he joined Boko Haram, he explained. How much they gave him, he said he and his group got N800,000. That’s a lot of money for somebody who doesn’t get N20 or N30 per day. He’d be prepared to die with N800,000 in his pocket he’ll take instructions to do whatever it is. And we said finally, the solution to this is to build confidence particularly between local leadership security and the government. But for you to create an impression that you’re an occupation force, you create a state of emergency and everybody has been sidelined, you’re not discussing with anybody, where are you going to get your information? You can get any information because information is power, particularly in this kind of war. Intelligence is power and you can’t get it without the cooperation of the public. Again he went to Maiduguri and insulted the elders, so they left him alone. But all the same they continue talking to him on various aspects to no avail; apparently he has made up his mind. Many Nigerians have blamed northern elders, clerics and politicians for allowing Boko Haram to fester. What is your opinion? I say it’s utter nonsense. To allow them to fester in what way? In the Constitution of Nigeria there is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of movement, freedom of vocation for livelihood and so on. To fester suggests that we created them. In fact, our suspicion about its source of creation was confirmed. When Jonathan eventually made a hurried visit to Maiduguri, he held in his hand the former governor of Borno State, who he introduced as a very close friend. From all your writings and insinuations that you must have read from your colleagues in the media, there is an allegation, some suspicions between the sources of Boko Haram in Borno with the former governor that is very close. If you see the security outriders that he moves with from federal sources and how protected he is, you begin to ask yourself questions. Were ordinary people being ignored or is there something that more than meets the eye between the real Boko Haram and the official Boko Haram? Please take northern elders’ elites out of this and place it squarely on the laps of those people that are leading the country irrespective of where they come from. Because he kept harping on this as if the North is not part of Nigeria; if there is no peace in the North there will be no peace in Nigeria. That you can take from me. What of the argument that the areas of blame are social conditions such as inequality, poverty, illiteracy and others that make terrorism thrive? There is illiteracy; there is poverty and unemployment in Kaduna State. There is illiteracy, poverty and unemployment in Sokoto, Katsina, Lagos and everywhere in Nigeria. So it a national problem, and for you to politicise it as if only North has the problem is nonsense. Go to the international community, reports on poverty and wealth distribution in the world. Nigeria is average. Depending on which book or report you read, it’s close to 100 million now that are living on under $1 per day. One hundred million Nigerians; are they all northerners? Are they all living here in the North? They’re Nigerians, so the responsibility is a national one. This is why the constitution emphasises the need for even development. What is your take on the allegation that northerners be blamed for refusing to caution their clerics over the kinds of sermon they preach to their adherents, which inadvertently led to the emergence of Boko Haram set? You’re now saying that Boko Haram is Islamic and I’ve told earlier that Boko Haram ideology is not Islamic. More Islamic countries and clerics around the world have said so. If you’re saying that the teachings – either the home teaching or Madrasas teachings – should not have produced Boko Haram solely. Every child you see on the street today comes from somewhere. He’s come from a family, perhaps a village or town etc, and every child you see with a bowl begging on the street or people you see looking for food on the street and so on, they are Nigerians. There must be responsibility for them. The responsibility for them is not with the clerics but if you’re accusing clerics that perhaps preach in favour of violence, then you’re totally wrong. In fact, if Islamic clerics are being accused of preaching hatred against non-Muslims, then the same accusation goes to the Christian clerics that do the same in their churches. From their various pronouncements and some of them in advertorials, it is very clear that they are pointing accusing fingers at Islam without looking at themselves in terms of what they say to their congregations. And people are aware of what they do in their congregations in terms of ‘Don’t vote for them, they’re fundamentalists, Islamists’... ‘So, if there is any candidate from the North who is a Muslim, don’t vote for him.’ We’re aware of this. This is going on; even if people pretend that it’s not going on they can only deceive themselves, because we’re aware that it is going on. So, the appeal should be to all religious organisations to desist from promoting religious mistrust and to the point of religious hatred. What we have in Plateau or in some parts of my state, Kaduna, cannot be explained anywhere except religious hatred and this is what created violence that people are being chopped and eaten raw in some of these places. You see, if you are pointing accusing fingers at one person, there are other four fingers pointing at you. We believe this country should have responsibility at all levels to preach peace among the people irrespective of religion, ethnic or any other background. You see it every day, where the Sultan or the CAN President and so on sit down and say that they want a peaceful co-existence between their adherents. The last comment that I like most is that there is no quarrel between Christianity and Islam but there is quarrel between Christians and Muslims. It looks like most Christians and Muslims are not reading their scriptures correctly. What is your position on the intervention of Western powers in Nigeria? It is very unfortunate and shameful that Nigeria should go out of its borders to look for help to solve a fairly localised problem. Particularly looking at the meeting in Paris. As far as I’m concerned, Nigeria is claiming to be leader in Africa economically, socially and perhaps politically, which shoulders the initiative of bringing in West African leaders to discuss the problems of their borders In fact this particular meeting has brought us down considerably in the eyes of Africa, the so-called continent that we’re ascribing to lead and indeed in the eyes of world. Like [Senator John] McCain has said: ‘Is there a government in Nigeria?’ This is a huge indictment and for our President to even give some interviews saying that why he is not in Chibok is because his being there will not add value. For the President of Nigeria to say that is regrettable. He said he will not add value by going there, haba! Oh God Almighty. The Americans say they are not going to put boot on ground. It’s a technical term: it is that they’ll not put foot on ground to fight your war for you. If that’s what you’re waiting for, that you’ve failed and you want. American troops to come and save you, they will not do it. And I will ask them not to do it because they’ve had enough of problems themselves and even if I were their adviser, I would not advise them to add another one to the ones that are already on their plates. The matter is entirely the responsibility of Nigerians. If you take the military; how come Boko Haram within few months or years is better equipped than the Nigerian soldier? Or even better trained or motivated than the Nigeria soldiers? How do you explain this? This is in spite of the fact that for the last two years the allocations to the security forces have been so big. But then, the Commandant, in discussions with the National Assembly said that only 30 per cent of that budget reached them. That is why their AK-47 cannot fire. In fact, somebody told me that they went to the armoury in Kaduna here and by the time they finished the count of the guns, only 50 per cent of them were working. Then I asked the Speaker, how come you are extending this emergency rule? So, they’re doing it only for two or three patriotic reasons – that the government has already invited foreigners. If they’d sought the advice of the National Assembly they wouldn’t have done so. But having invited them, they do not want the foreigners to come and find a more divided house than they expected here. They didn’t want to create that impression because it will worsen our international image. The second reason he gave was that, after they receive their briefing when they met with the service chiefs, they were convinced that it’s true the budget appropriated for the military did not reach them to be applied for the needs of the forces. They said only 30 per cent was given for their needs. So, they said okay, they will extend this for the last time. Secondly, because the foreigners themselves would want to feel a little more secure if this pronouncement would make them feel a little more confident. Thirdly, they wanted to give the executive another chance to make sure that the military is fully prepared and motivated. Even allowances for their maintenance are not being paid on time. How do you put a soldier out there standing there in the bush on end? Yet he does not get his allowance for his upkeep. And you want him to be motivated. They’re not reporting this, but I’m sure there are a lot of desertions; people just drop their uniforms and go. Some people advocated that security should be on the concurrent list. Do you agree with them? Every Nigerian is a security officer if you take it logically; you’re a security officer in your house. You don’t allow robbers to come into your house if you can. I come from a traditional rulership house. When traditional rulers were in-charge no stranger comes to a village who is not presented to the ward or village head within a few hours to say that such and such a person has arrived in my house looking for accommodation; that is why I’m bringing him to the authority to know that he’s being housed by me. If later he wants to stay long, he will come and look for space to build a house or something like that. So, if something goes wrong overnight, that man who is staying there will know where to go – the host. That is why hosts are very careful. Whenever they receive guests they immediately report. Concurrent in the sense that if you are talking organised security arrangement. In terms of that, I support one military for the Nigerian state; military here includes Air Force, Navy and Army. But I support decentralisation of the police. Put it on concurrent list; if a state wants it will create one. Even if a local government wants some gendarmes, they should be able to create one but within a general frame of law that will provide the necessary. Take United States, there is state police but whenever there is something beyond the state police, the National Guard comes in. It’s another tier of police, and when the national guards fail then the military comes in last. But now you find out that the military is doing the work of a policeman. The policeman is supposed to be working with the civilians. If you take the Nigeria Police, with due respect I am a District Head, some police officer came to my district from Calabar, Cross River State. His culture and social background is so different from the cultural and social background of his new environment in my district – Hausa/Fulani. How does he relate? A policeman depends on civilians for information for all sorts of things and cooperation. And if he is not culturally acclimatised it’s a problem. This is where the advantage of the local police will come in: they know the hideouts of local thieves or trouble makers. They know their orientation and can identify them quite easily and they were very effective in the First Republic. So I support one military for the nation but the police could be on concurrent list for state to take their stakes if they want, fine. Northern delegates to the Confab have demanded the reduction of oil derivation revenue from 13 per cent to 5 and abolition of the Niger-Delta Development Commission and Amnesty programme for militants. Will this not cause more harm to the region? Yes, I agree. In fact I was part of the conference that moved the derivation arrangement from 5 per cent to 13 per cent. This was in 1994 during the Abacha conference - I was there. I was of course an elected delegate. This time, I said I’m not going because people are not elected, so I knew the fire Shehu Yar’Adua (may his soul rest in peace) came under from northern delegates for conceding, because he was the chairman of the Harmonisation Committee on the deliberation arrangement. He conceded from 5 per ent to 13 per cent and he came under tremendous pressure from the northern delegates. But knowing Shehu for what he’s made, he stood his ground and argued that this was in the best interest of the Nigerian state and for the fact that we know oil has side effects, mainly negative, on land, water, fishing and so on. And the territory where oil is being extracted is always difficult for development. So we argued and eventually the conference conceded 13 per cent. But if you look at it, I call unreasonable the demand by the extremists from the South-South that they want 100 per cent resource control, whatever that means. I mean, it doesn’t make sense to believe that these people want to be part of the Nigerian state or they want some other arrangement. So, we feel that the northern delegates have been very generous indeed to maintain the status quo. If they had gone to their various constituencies, the move now would have been to insist on them bringing this percentage down. But for them to have agreed that we should maintain the status quo, fine; but then the on-shore, off-shore dichotomy has to be abrogated because the offshore oil belongs to the Nigerian state. Should Jonathan decide to contest the 2015 election against your wish for a northern president, what do northern elders intend to do? Well, first let’s look at the constitutional rights of Nigerians. It is the constitutional right of Nigerians to seek any office, from councilor to the president, provided all the rules and guidelines are satisfied. Assuming that Jonathan is not even president, he has every right to come forward and offer himself to seek for the office of the president. But in his case, he has been vice-president, and president now for six years. He probably has assessed himself as having done well to still want to continue to serve another four years. That is his right, but then it is also the right of other Nigerians to say no for a number of reasons. One reason could be, you have not done well and therefore we’ll not vote for you. And this is not exclusive to the North or to any part of Nigeria.The critics are increasing in terms of performance and so on. The other issue that is likely to arise will be legal. The Constitution of Nigeria that I’ve been privileged to be part of says that the President of Nigeria will only be president consecutively for a period of eight years. If Jonathan decides to contest, it will mean that he would have spent 12 years at the end of his tenure in 2019. Certainly, the court will decide on this matter. And we are ready. The constitution say the president can only be sworn in twice; anything outside this will amount to breaching the constitution. Secondly, if he decides to force himself on Nigerians, the North obviously will decide who to vote. We have the political power to choose our leaders and we will surely do that. We had an agreement and since he has breached it, the polls will decide.