Elder statesman and chieftain of the Youruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo,  bares his mind to KUNLE ODEREMI and SAHEED SALAWU on the question of the Nigerian constitution. Excerpts:

What would you say have been our remarkable achievements in this country since the return of democracy in 1999?
Not much. We have not had democracy really in action. It is under this period that we have the rule of law being violated, we have elections not being properly done, but we can thank God that the last one was an improvement. But for those of us who fought for independence and looking back as to the position at independence, there is not much for us to cheer, and those in authority don’t seem to understand the problem, like (President Goodluck) Jonathan now setting up a committee to amend the constitution. We have got to the position where we should have a constitutional conference, not any committee patching the constitution for us. Who are they? Since we had our independence, we have been patching the constitution by setting up series of committees by people elected and unelected, some of whom don’t understand the problem. Some of those who are in the committee are fair but they would do better with a representation of the ethnic nationalities in the country sitting down to discuss our problem, not the people we discussed earlier.

But what the president has done is to set up a committee to look into the reports of past conferences.
Why can’t he call a conference and let us decide the reports there? What I am saying is that the idea is good but the step is wrong. We are conscious that something is wrong with the constitution, but it is not a committee that would look into it. Why is he running away from constitutional conference? If the question of sovereign national conference baffles him, let him remove the word ‘sovereign’ and call a constitutional conference to discuss how true federalism will be established in the country.

But there is a National Assembly in place...
We didn’t elect the National Assembly to draw us a constitution. They were elected to implement the constitution. We are running a unitary form of government and that is why late Chief Rotimi Williams said, ‘our constitution is a fraudulent document.’ You say Federal Republic of Nigeria when we are practising a unitary form of government. To rectify that, let the various stakeholders in the country meet and decide on how to live together, not anybody deciding this for us. That is the only way.

What has led us to this place? What went wrong after the independence?
What went wrong was that when the military came in, they disrupted the country. The independence constitution given to us by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna and Sir Tafawa Balewa was the truly federal constitution and that is not what we are running now. Let the stakeholders sit together and discuss the problems with the ethnic nationalities. We were not colonised as Nigeria. We were colonised in bits. As I continue to repeat, my father was not born in Nigeria. He was born in eighteen ninety-something: Nigeria came into existence in 1914. So, all those people who were colonised bit by bit come together: do we still want to live together?  If we still want to live together, how? We will decide it ourselves, not a small committee, not a group in the country will decide for us.

Setting up a committee is second best. What Jonathan has done is not the best for the country.

Can the president still lead the country to the glory land?
How many years? 50 years after independence, they are still leading us to the glory land when we have the opportunity to settle the problem once and for all? This is the question the public needs an answer to, not ‘those in authority want to do this, they want to do that.’ Let the people speak. Let the stakeholders decide on how to live together.

Some people believe that the problem with the country doesn’t have to do with the constitution, but the operators.
I don’t believe that. There is no doubt that those who operate the constitution made some mistakes, but there are fundamentals in the constitution. What about the sharing of the revenue? Does that have to do with those who operate? When we had our independence, the position was 50 per cent on derivation, which Chief Awolowo fought for.

There are many things we have to decide at the constitutional conference: how the power between centre and the region must be. How we are going to share our revenue. All these things that are causing trouble will be placed on the table and we will decide how to do it one by one.

But don’t you think there are other platforms rather than constitutional conference to discuss these issues?
Why are you running away from the conference? What is the problem? The constitution is for the people and I say let the representatives of the people decide specifically, how we want to live together. Why do you want to run away from that? Why do you want to choose people who will decide my fate?  These are the questions Jonathan should answer. That problem had been there before he came in and I will say even before he was born. The instability in the country is because no matter is settled until it is settled aright. It was the military that had been abridging the constitution.

The military left over 12 years ago...
After the military left, what happened? Some of us said we should summon the constitutional conference, but Abdulsalami (Abubakar) said, ‘no, you do it when you get your independence.’ But has that happened? It had been (Sani) Abacha setting up a committee, Obasanjo setting up a committee, Umaru Yar’Adua setting up one and then Jonathan setting up one.

Don’t you think we need to have a kind of no-go area if we have to hold a conference in the interest of our corporate existence?
Why should there be a no-go area? That is why you will never get peace. Why should there be a no-go area on whether we want to live together in Nigeria.

But don’t you think we need to preserve the unity of the country in view of the inherent advantages?
Are you preserving the unity of Nigeria by setting up committees? The only way to preserve the unity of Nigeria is to call a national conference to decide how we choose to live together, under federalism where every ethnic nationality would develop at its own pace. To have a federal system does not mean we are going to split. You say you follow American constitution, is America unitary? Is Canada unitary? Is India unitary? Those of us agitating for this conference are the real people who are honest about Nigeria being together.

Is there any relationship between the present security challenges and the structure that is on ground?
Certainly, for instance, the present structure does not allow for a state police and a state police is an ingredient of a federal constitution. Imagine a Sokoto man coming to be a policeman in Ikenne. How does he know the locality? How does he know the terrain? A Yoruba man going to solve the problem of Plateau! If it is a state police, the people would be watching themselves because they know their locality. Even Great Britain with a unitary form of government has no national police. You have what we call Metropolitan Police.

Every local government has its own police.

My organisation, the Afenifere, had met Jonathan one-on-one and we emphasised to him, the necessity of calling a national conference to discuss the issue of establishing a truly federal constitution. It is all-embracing. You don’t discuss Nigeria’s unity piecemeal. What he is doing is piecemeal solution and it can never solve our problem.