Deputy Chairman of the Northern El¬ders Forum, NEF, Dr. Paul Unongo has warned that there would be cha-os in Nigeria in 2015.
“For the sake of Nigeria and those of you who publish correctly, you need to advise the people who are running Jonathan that in the interest of Nigeria, they should guarantee us. When we vote them out they shouldn’t try to remain in power. They will overheat the system”, Unongo, a People’s Demo¬cratic Party, PDP, chieftain from Benue State warned, adding: “ Everybody is behaving as if the world would come to an end if Jona¬than is not President, it is much more likely that Nigeria’s world would come to an end if Jonathan is elected President because he has demonstrated no capacity to run this country.
“Jonathan has been hijacked by people telling him that they own the oil wells in Ni¬geria. As a leader, he has shown no qualities that would warrant his insistence to become a leader for another four years because another four years of what we have in Nigeria today will break up this nation or will lead, at my old age, having read history, to conflicts similar to the Biafran conflict. And it will be senseless. It is simple. Let’s have free and fair elections,” the former minister said.
He described President Goodluck Jonathan as an incompetent leader who lacks the capac¬ity to run the affairs of Nigeria and warned the press to stop trivializing such incompe¬tence. “This young man is just not competent. You people want this young man to push us into war to start killing ourselves again. People don’t know the seriousness of the game these young men are playing with Nigeria. On the in¬dices of performance, can we say Jonathan can continue?,” he asked.
In this interview, the ex-minister took a long look at the match of the Nigerian nation state from inception till date and concluded that Ni¬geria has become more primitive than any other primitive country in the world. He blamed the elite for the slide into primitiveness and de¬clared that Nigeria is now “a dead, sleep walk¬ing nation”.
He also spoke of what he described as the theology of the Major Gideon Orkar coup that was to excise some parts of the North from Ni¬geria, among other national issues.
Excerpts:
A lot of things have happened in this country. Some would say Nigeria is making progress; but how would you assess the present state of the nation?
I would like to say I remember you. You in¬terviewed me many years back and you pub¬lished me correctly. I am very happy to talk to you about Nigeria which is my constituency. It’s the only place I hang on. It’s the only hope I have in this world and I don’t want to leave for any other place. I am 79 years old now. So I love this country. It’s the only country I have. So, I promise you as I promised you then that I will tell you the truth as I feel it, as I see it. It depends on how you define the word prog¬ress. Nigeria has made progress as it has more people registered. We are about 175 million hu¬man beings now, from about 30 million when we started. That is progress. Nigeria didn’t have as many buildings as we have today. We have huge fantastic structures. If you look at that, you will think this country has really de¬veloped. We have gone through some kinds of democratisation from colonialism where we owed allegiance to the crown in Britain, the UK. Today, we can pretend that we are an independent state. Thanks to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and the Sardauna of Sokoto. They bequeathed to us a nation state that we confused. Nation state is a political statement and it is a political, scientific statement that defined what we are supposed to be-a multi-ethnic, multi-national country that respected the idiosyncracies of the various components that make the Republic of Nigeria as we became known. And the founding fathers were very clear. Chief Awolowo articulated this in terms of his federalism. And it was very clear that this is what was intended for this country. Within that context, yes, Nigeria is no longer a colonial country. We messed ourselves up. We got into a funny civil war that cost us two mil¬lion men. At the end of it, we reconciled beyond anybody’s wildest imagination. No country has gone into civil war and reconciled the way Ni¬geria did in the shortest time possible. For it to make Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe contest the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nige¬ria in 1979, just eight years after the war, I think Nigeria is great. He was Igbo. And the heart of Biafra was Igbo. So, there are so many good things about Nigeria. In those days, we talked about the potentials, the economic development of Nigeria, structurally. We may not have liked it, but there are some elements of manufactur¬ing without electricity. There are elements of a few things we used to import that are now done in Nigeria. So, you can say even economically, all the things impact on the people and the well being of the people. Nigeria has done well. But in Africa and in developing countries, like In¬dia, Malaysia and Singapore, development in terms of your question, started at the same time with these countries. India became a nation state from Britain in 1947. Pakistan was born in 1947. Today, India is one of the most technologically advanced nation states. It has nuclear power. It has the Atomic Bomb, so does Pakistan. They were all colonies. They have their own prob¬lems, but they manufacture everything they need, including aircraft put together during the era of the Nehrus of this world. If you go to Malaysia now, we started the same time with them, Ceylon and the rest of them. In fact, Singapore came here and imported our palm fruits and today, they are technologically more advanced than us. They have settled. They are now developed to the extent that we go to them and import technology into Nigeria. What has happened to Nigeria? I think when Nigerians talks about development, without mincing words, they ought to talk about economics. When I finished secondary school, there was no university in Northern Nigeria. We went to the “highest institution” then. It was then called Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology located in Zaria. It became later, by the wisdom of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Ah¬madu Bello University. That was the highest institution. I was the first Middle Belter to teach anywhere in the university. I also taught at the University of Lagos where I founded the De-partment of Psychology with a few friends and I was the Head. They couldn’t believe I was from the North and I was. So, they said I was a crazy man. Today from my part of Nigeria which is the Middle Belt, that is within northern region, I think there are hundreds of thousands of gradu¬ates. So, if you want to talk about progress and numbers in education, Nigeria has done it.
If you want to talk about more manufactured goods that we never used to have, that we im¬ported from Britain, Nigeria has done it. So, I believe that your question is located to Nigeria as a nation.
It is the political life of Nigeria where I do not believe we have done much. I believe we have messed this country up, we the educated elite. And anywhere in the world, it is the educated elite that determine and decide the direction of the nation state. In the time of the Awolowos, it was also the elite. Even during the military re¬gimes, the elite military officers that determined the fate of Nigeria, resolved we should fight a civil war and we fought a civil war behind them. In fact, Gowon was just 29. Ojukwu was 30+, about 32. They were the young elite. So, it was not a matter of youth. It is an attitude that has destroyed this country and this attitude has made me so sad that it has come out more emphati¬cally under the present administration which is the attitude of absolute insensitivity. To real is¬sues, to human beings, to issues of development, to issues that are critical, we take them seem as if nothing is happening. Within
that context, Nigeria has become more primi¬tive than any other primitive country I have seen in the world. In fact, it has become so bad that one wonders and ask questions at my level, at my age. When I have to reflect, sometimes I won¬der, were we right? Did we know what we were doing when we were fighting the whiteman? When we were fighting the soldiers? When we got beaten up and got sent to jail. The whiteman thought we were inferior to him, the Ziks, Awos and Sardaunas of Nigeria answered the call. We were like the second eleven, the youths in school rallied around them and we had patriotism. The only thing I have seen in Nigeria today is impu¬nity. There is also insensitivity, lack of care. We don’t believe we owe any human being anything for being Nigerian. There is nothing in this coun¬try that stimulates somebody’s trust in the nation state to warrant him to say I will sacrifice my life.
My daughter has just come from youth ser¬vice which I helped in establishing. She went to Zamfara. Now, I am saying why should I allow my daughter to go to Zamfara? For this Nige¬ria that I see that doesn’t think about her? That doesn’t plan for her; that is insensitive, where small girls like her are abducted? We laugh, we throw parties, we dance at political party ral¬lies and we are the leaders of Nigeria? A ragtag army like Boko Haram had come here before. Others were in charge. They dealt with it. Now, this thing is laying siege to the greatest African nation state on earth, the greatest nation with the largest number of black human beings and ge¬niuses. And our ingenuity was revealed during our civil war, if nothing else. The ingenuity that was revealed during the civil war on the side of Biafra was staggering; on the side of Nigeria it was also staggering among the Federalists. This country went and organized Congo when there was total chaos there.
This country went and fought, physically against Charles Taylor and saved Sierra Leone. This country even during Obasanjo’s regime, saved Equatorial Guinea which couldn’t do any¬thing about a coup. This same Nigerian Army made Liberia a country. This Army has been so bastardized that it cannot face a ragtag army that say they are religious extremists. And they are laying claim to Nigerian territory and the re¬sponse we have is that I must be President for¬ever. We must dance Owambe.
So what do you think is the problem?
I think Nigeria has not developed. I think we have gone backwards. And this is the heart, this is the nucleus, this is where the life of the nation state is. Nigeria, to me, is a dead, sleep walking nation. It is as if somebody put opium on the rest of us. We are watching this destruction unfold¬ing and nobody talks. It is as if we have been hypnotized. And when you try to talk, every¬body pounces on you. You hate the President. Oh you are a Muslim. Oh you don’t like Chris¬tians to be President. I am just answering the first part of your question. You asked my opinion about how developed Nigeria is and I am tell¬ing you that Nigeria has gone nowhere. Nigeria has matched backwards. We are now tribalists. You are an Ijaw man. It is our oil. I don’t drink oil and I don’t give a damn. Oil has brought di¬saster to Nigeria. Nigeria was a great country when we were selling our beniseed, hides and skin, groundnuts and developing Nigeria. To¬day, there is so much money, there is so much stealing, there is so much devastation and there is so much insensitivity in the system. Nigerians that loved themselves so much don’t exist. What kind of society is that?
How did we get to where we are now?
We got to this stage because one, Nigerians developed a thick skin and became insensitive themselves. And then there is this national effort by people who usurped power. First, the military usurped power and they tried to force everybody to see things their way. If you didn’t, they killed you or locked you up. Some of us were lucky. We were locked up, but God intervened and we were not killed. We got close to being killed when we were falsely accused of doing a coup. How can a civilian do a coup during a military regime? But it happened because nobody spoke. I don’t know when Nigerians became such cow¬ards. And I don’t know when Nigerians became people that depended on government to get food. Everybody is saying no, no ,no, you can’t talk. If you talk, you won’t eat. My child is go¬ing to school, I can’t pay school fees. When did this happen? When did this acceptance of bestial irresponsibility happen? We think we are hoping that we will develop a set of values where our children will learn how to evaluate themselves. Then suddenly, this disappeared. This came in punitive way which has reached its height un¬der the present administration. Impunity started from corruption. Nobody asked anyone how wealth was acquired. If someone would just be dashing people hundreds of thousands, nobody would ask questions. Don’t we have a system? Can this sustain the economy of a nation? Why so much money? Why is this money concen¬trated in the hands of a few people? Why not the majority? There are no amenities. There are no social services. How come the ones in gov¬ernment don’t look at it as service? How come going into governance means going to make money? And this again has reached its peak during this administration. Then there’s this idea of my own; I want my own to be there. Ni¬geria became a country where some of us have had to re-learn to say well, I come from the North. I have never talked about coming from the North. I talked about just being a Nigerian. But I now talk very vocally about coming from the North because I can see I am educated. I can see what has been done to the North, structur¬ally at governmental level.
I feel I should come in at this point. From your analysis of the Nigerian situation so far, there is a turn around in the attitude of our leaders towards governance. But the last time I spoke with you, you sounded different. Why do you feel differently?
There is no turn around. You didn’t study me properly. I have written books.
You supported President Jonathan then, but now…
That is what I mean, but I have not turned around.
Now, you are pro another…
I am not for anybody. I am for justice, fair play and honesty. Try to be honest in govern¬ment with the people. Try to serve the people. Try to develop the people. Try to be fair before you steal all. This government is just stealing too much. This government is too insensitive. This government doesn’t want anybody to criticize them. Why did we criticize the British? They locked us up but we survived. Why did we criti¬cize the military? We did so because we wanted a democratic set up. The so called democratic set up has come and we cannot criticize with all your knowledge, with all your eyes wide open, you are seeing this kleptomania. You can’t talk about it. And people are cowards. They say let’s just give everybody opportunity, we minori¬ties. Jonathan rode on the back of people like me from the Middle Belt. We were preaching minority politics, that the majority has been cheating us too much. Now, we have a minor¬ity person; at least he has suffered,so when he goes there, he would develop Nigeria because the minorities have kept Nigeria together. We were the people who joined our hands; we even fought more to keep Nigeria one. So here is our son. I was excited. Here is a university man, a teacher, a lecturer like Umaru Yar’Adua whom I knew very well. He came from my school, Keffi and I knew he would do well. And when God took him away and I heard that the next person is a minority person who is also a uni¬versity person, I was very excited. I remember I wrote Jonathan a letter. I also remember what I told Jonathan when he came to Makurdi. I was selected by the governor of the state and by that time he was not swallowed up by Jonathan in the game that they are playing with Nigeria. He told Jonathan that this is the father of this state. This is the father that will speak on our behalf and I did. I do not think that Jonathan has forgotten what I said. I told him he didn’t need to come back here, we will vote for him. He represented hope. He represents us who have been feeling that after the British and all these single-handedness of the military, here is a per¬son who comes from the small people that were never empowered. So, we would use power with restraint, we will restructure Nigeria to be patriotic. And I said please let us come to a sovereign national conference, redesign Nige¬ria the way you want Nigeria so that for once Nigerians can be honest to say we the people of Nigeria give to ourselves this constitution and we are prepared to support him and we sup¬ported him. And when there were hiccups, after our son from the North died, there were a lot of hiccups about his successor and we stood firm with Jonathan to take over and he took over. And when Jonathan took over, somehow the accusations that the majority, the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa people used to level against the minorities, Jonathan started showing them. Jonathan suddenly ended up becoming an Ijaw man. He was captured by a clique that was so nationalistic, the ones we dealt with like Tam David West. They relegated those people to the background, brought young men that were militants. I like militancy. I was a militant too. So we thought we are going to have progress, they concentrated on fighting Nigeria because Nigeria, supposedly, stole their oil. Which is their oil? This thing got to Jonathan’s head and he left Nigeria and joined his group. He became an Ijaw man. And Ijaws didn’t bring him to power. We did and we thought he would give us leadership. And then the second factor was that Jonathan appeared to be a Christian and the Christian elements that were always feeling that no Christian ever comes from the North or anywhere by their own choosing to become the President, said since Umaru was dead and Jonathan is a Christian, we Christians will rally around him. I am talking from the point of view of the Christians now. I have noticed now that everyone who felt so strong about Jonathan don’t feel that way anymore. He dis-appointed Christians of Nigeria by his utter¬ances, his behavior that appears so insensitive. How can small children be abducted from their parents and taken away by criminals. Their fathers are weeping, their mothers are crying. And they are weeping up till six months now and Jonathan was playing politics and wants to be re-elected. This is the seventh month since the Chibok girls were abducted. Our Christian brother Jonathan has many advisers, including me that may have resolved this issue. It became a political thing. That somebody gets into power, learns how to use the instruments of power, in¬cluding the coercive forces of the nation state of Nigeria to perpetuate himself in power. Is that not why we fought the British? Is that not why we fought the military? Is that not what Jona¬than has become now? He must be President for life because of Ijaw’s oil. Ijaw’s oil is located in their land, the one that has been developed. But is Jonathan aware that most of the oil, the one that has been found in Nigeria is off-shore in the territorial waters of Nigeria. I am not getting into any argument. In International Law what exists anywhere and everywhere in the whole world, is that the extent of territorial waters of a nation and a nation state, including Nigeria is determined by the land mass of that nation. The region that joins two other regions to form the nation state of Nigeria is called Northern Nigeria. It has three-quarters of the land mass of Nigeria.
It’s like you are using the utterances of a few people to…
Please listen to me. I am not using the utter¬ances of other people. How has he reacted to them? I have too much knowledge and I have too much information at my disposal. I am not a kid. I have been active in politics all my life, except the short spell I taught at the university, I have never worked for anybody except myself. And I have just sat down to do nothing but to write constitutions for Nigeria and argue for Ni¬geria. So, I know what I am talking about. You are a leader and people dominate you and you don’t extricate yourself from them and you al¬low your utterances to guide your behavior, you are as guilty as charged. Let me just give you an example, because I am not usually vocal, I don’t go around preaching what is wrong, when you ask for my reaction to it, I give it. Let’s take a simple thing like choosing people to go to the so- called place I described as a place Jonathan was giving money to his friends to help him to drum up support for him to be President of Nigeria. Who are those so much qualified than people like me who started writing constitutions for this country since 1957? And I served on committees with people like Ben Nwabueze, Chief Rotimi Williams and I came through all constitutions, all conferences in this country that were written. I was invited to participate in all of them. And I think I participated in all except one, including that of Abacha’s that ended in 1994. There, I was right at the top of arranging the type of Nigeria we want, the type of institutions we want and how we can make these institutions strong. I have always been there. As a man with this type of experience, I am still alive. Jonathan knows me. He is a much younger brother. In fact, I can call him my son because at 79 I am Jonathan’s father. I am not a Nigerian that minces words. My Nephew whom I adopted is 60. I am 79. So, Jonathan is my son. Why would Jonathan be in¬viting people; he came to Benue, the governor showed deference, called me to speak. The Tiv nation is a major nation in Nigeria. We are the fourth largest in population and when there is crisis in this country, the contributions to the second world war; in fact, in the first and sec¬ond world wars, the Tiv people were there. Our contribution was critical to the British. And in the Nigeria civil war, our contribution was abso¬lutely necessary. It was a factor in the war turn¬ing in favour of the federalists and I was vocal. I was with Gowon throughout. I gave all kinds of advices that were implemented. Jonathan is old enough to know that. If Jonathan wants the Tiv people to be represented in a discussion, the first Tiv man to teach in a university is alive and is articulate and has participated in designing all kinds of things and going overseas to represent Nigeria, I was not qualified? Why? The Ijaw people that were around Jonathan told him I was his enemy. He came to Benue and they told him this is the father of our place, he would talk on our behalf, including the governor of our state, what I told Jonathan we would do we did . We, the Tiv people, when we make a statement, real Tiv people, when we make a commitment, we stay there and we put our blood to the commit¬ment. We have stayed with Jonathan and Jona¬than decided that in the type of conference he wanted, Paul Unongo was not qualified. And yet this conference was going to talk about how we could organise Nigeria to include Tiv people and I am the leader of the Tiv people. Can you imagine Awolowo being barred from partici¬pating in discussing how you can make Nige¬ria peaceful? That’s what Jonathan did. That’s number one.
But sir…
No,no, no. I must end this one. Number two. When Jonathan selected the people to advise him, Jonathan selected somebody called Col. Nyam, …I studied and know the man they call Col. Nyam. He was the leader of the coup that was to oust Ibrahim Babangida. I knew this because I, a civilian, was picked as the leader of this type of coup because one Tiv person, one little Tiv young man, called Major Gideon Orkar announced the coup. So, it must be Paul Unongo that influenced him. I was incarcerated for almost seven months and I knew and studied the coup. After anger, I decided that I will study the theology of the coup, why it came about and why people like me were arrested. It was a coup of minorities. Yes, but minorities of the south. And Orkar’s knowledge of the coup…I think I am qualified to say so because I suffered a lot…I don’t believe it was more than 30 hours before the execution of the coup. And I swore that I will reveal the nature of the coup because I am trained to serve my country and the gov¬ernment of my country and I will advise them despite my incarceration. So, I studied the kids that were wasted and I talked to all of them and then transferred all their frustrations in my evi¬dence in chief. I told them if you want to kill me, these are the things that were disturbing these young men that did this coup. This is the line of the coup, the leadership and so on. I know be¬cause I am there with them. I have asked them questions. Now, I discovered that the leader was not even Mukoro. It was Col. Nyam. This coup, the first thing they did, the first speech that was written that Col. Nyam was going to deliver ex¬cised about seven states from Northern Nigeria or thereabout and threw them out of Nigeria and say we don’t want them. They said after some years, may be these people if they come and beg us, then we can re-admit them into Nigeria. When I saw Nyam who ran
away and abandoned these young men, his role was to make the broadcast. When they got to the venue of the broadcast, Radio Nigeria, Col. Nyam was not there. He had left. He ran away. This was to be their leader. He ran away. Mukoro ran away after entering Dodan Bar¬racks. And they came and caught us innocent people that didn’t know anything about the coup and one young man, Ogboru’s brother was tortured. And they suffered a lot. So, I felt if Jonathan was sincere about this country, would he take for an adviser, a person who did a coup to expunge almost half of the population of the country away from Nigeria? He doesn’t want to see these people in Nigeria. And I didn’t keep quiet. I went there to tell Jonathan that I don’t believe in this thing that you are doing. I don’t believe that you are sincere. I know you want to have political gain to prepare yourself for an election, but the senseless dash called allowance, how can you give these people N4 million?. It was bribery to corrupt them to write what he wanted, do what he wanted. And this is hap¬pening in Nigeria where half of the population can hardly make N40,000 a year. And you gave people this amount for four or five months and you pay them N4 million every month? Look at the number. There is so much that went wrong. When I saw all these, I said this man cannot be a Christian. This man cannot represent the suffer¬ing people in the creeks. This man is just using us the minorities for a big political plan. What is he looking for? Why N4 million? Col. Nyam who sought to break up Nigeria and some of us went and suffered for him while he ran away,. he brought him and he didn’t care. And then Nyam went and started fighting Oshiomhole, one of the progressive governors form the labour move¬ment. He abused him and wanted to engage him in physical combat to the embarrassment of the committee that was set up by Jonathan. So they removed Nyam from the committee. You know what? When Jonathan wanted to appoint a larger team, Jonathan brought Nyam again and put him so as to pay him N4 million a month. He had the indecency to stretch his hands and col¬lect the money of Nigeria he wanted to break up.
Is it a planned issue? And look at this insecurity. Is this deliberate? Could your not being appointed a member of the National Conference be the reason why you turned against President Jonathan because you are sounding bitter over the issue? The inference might as well be, rightly or wrongly, that you are now anti-Jonathan because you were not appointed a National Conference mem¬ber. Right?
How many people appointed me into posi¬tions? If I was somebody looking for positions in Nigeria, don’t you think I am capable of being a Minister? Couldn’t I have played the same game you Nigerians play to make money? You think that I am so down that I would go and kowtow before people in authority and say look, oga this one I know I am small I will do it for you so give me money? I think you are trivialising the issues I have raised. I am saying a leader of Ni¬geria should not, publicly, you can have private relationship with these people if you admire them, but to the public, Nigeria’s leader cannot go and shore up an inconsequential person try¬ing to break up Nigeria and in the assignment you gave to him he showed himself not suitable, if not incompetent. He was not suitable. His col¬leagues kicked him out of the committee you set up. They said they cannot work with this kind of person. Then when you were selecting people to come, to show how you felt about that person that you believed in him, you went out of your way and brought him back and announced him as a member of these people that you dashed N4 million. For what?
Source: Sun
