Chief Tola Adeniyi, a media executive and public affairs analyst, was director of the Daily Times of Nigeria (DTN). He recently spoke with STEPHEN GBADAMOSI on national issues, including why Nigeria needs confederal system of government. Excerpts:

THE Federal Gov-ernment has been described as slow to tackling issues. It recently engaged the labour movement and the masses over fuel pricing. How do you rate this government?
There is no question of rating, because I would have said the government is a disappointment. Why I won’t say that is that it has behaved to character; nobody expected this government to perform, for the simple reason of the way the entire thing was arranged.

When you talk about government, you are talking about leadership. Jonathan may be a perfect gentleman. I have met him on two or three occasions. He is humble and easy-going. He has submitted governance to handpicked advisers, most of whom have personal agendas and most of whom are spies for Western imperialism.

Western imperialism had warned that Nigeria would cease to be a corporate body by 2015 and when Western powers talk like that, they know what they are saying.

Do you see Nigeria truly going the way of disintegration?
We are almost there, but what we are going to have is for Nigeria breaking into pieces.

As I said, Jonathan means well, but meaning well is not the same thing as performing. The advisers have hijacked his government and there is no more unity. Okonjo-Iweala would be saying something, Diezani Allison-Madueke would be saying another. Labaran Maku and Lamido Sanusi would be saying different things. No cohesion and there cannot be because of individual agenda.

Are you saying the subsidy removal is not Jonathan’s idea? And don’t you believe that the deregulation plan of the Federal Government will drive down price of fuel?
What is deregulation? I don’t mind if we refine our crude oil and it is marketed by individuals; which means government will not have a hand in it. If that is what they want to do, fine. It should not by selling our crude oil and getting some people to bring refined product in, charging demurrage and all sorts of levies and putting all the burden on Nigerian consumers. That is not deregulation.

Do you believe there is really subsidy?
Okonjo-Iweala, Diezani and a few of them in government cannot claim to have monopoly of knowledge or be more knowledgeable than many other people. Kalu Idika Kalu has been minister of finance twice. The man said there was no subsidy. Professor emeritus Tam David West, one of the greatest men on this continent, said there was no subsidy. Mohammadu Buhari, who had been minister of petroleum and head of state, said there is no subsidy. Femi Falana, a legal luminary, and many other Nigerians have argued with copious facts to support the claim that there is no subsidy.

Imposing increment of about 250 per cent is wicked. They should not compare petroleum with communication. Petroleum is a necessity.

Telephone is not compulsory. Even now that we have GSM, subscribers are about 17 million. Nigeria is 160 million people, which means many more millions don’t use telephone and they are going on with their lives. But everybody uses kerosene, diesel. Tailors, barbers and other traders use petrol. Transporters use petrol. That is why prices have gone up. A responsible government should have known that. But those pursuing IMF and World Bank agenda in government must visit hardship on the people, so that there will be chaos and everything will scatter.

After the subsidy removal strike, soldiers were deployed in the streets of Lagos by the Federal Government. What does this portend for the federation?
I will tell you that what we even need now is confederation. It is the only and urgent solution to Nigeria’s problem. If we do not go confederation in the next one to three years, this country will not be together by 2015.

When you talk about deployment of soldiers, it is an insult on the memory of freedom fighters like Beko Ransome-Kuti, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, and all those who sacrificed their lives to chase the military out of power; the heroes, living and dead. The government showed incapability by bringing in soldiers through the back door. It meant that civilian government could not govern. It amounted to inviting soldiers back.

The second danger, which is even worse, is that the government indicted the Nigeria Police. By that action, it said it did not have confidence in the 300,000 men of the police. That is going to create a lot of envy and enmity; they may not say it though. The president must listen to historians around the country. This is what happened around 1979 and 81 in Poland. By trying to divide the labour and civil society groups, government is doing exactly what happened in Poland and Romania. In Poland, government cracked down on and divided the solidarity movement and the whole thing led to the collapse of that government. It was even worse in Romania in 1989. Before 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu was the president of Romania. He introduced martial law and that was what led to his execution alongside his wife. That is a warning our president must be mindful of. What we have now is peace of the graveyard. People are quiet, but they are so unhappy that there is no money in the economy. To compound it, an organisation that calls itself Road Safety wants to introduce licence. We are complaining about unitary government. Why should a Federal Road Safety Corps want to control the licence issued in Ogun, Lagos and Calabar? Licensing is a function of the state government. In fact, in some countries, it’s local governments’. It’s not even in the edict that created Road Safety to go into commerce or business.

Would you expatiate on why you think it is confederation that Nigeria needs?
Onabanjo and several other past leaders in this country had advocated for confederalism long ago. Even at Aburi, before the civil war, what they settle for was confederation. Sani Abacha, in 1995, though would remain the worst of head of state, not in terms of performance, started something we could have built on. He might have been credited to be the most wicked leader, but during the four and half years he was head of state, the naira was stable at 99 to a dollar. In 1995, he created a constitution that was to give autonomy to six regions in the country. That is what they are still using now; six geopolitical zones. He had wanted to devolve power so that every region would return to the way they used to be in the 50s and early 60s. If we do that and they say they want Boko Haram in, say for example, the Elkanemi Region, that would be their business. If they must have Shariah in three regions, that would be their business in those regions. It’s not the business of the Federal Government to create states or local governments. It should be the business of those regions. Why I said we cannot escape going to confederation is that the cost of governance in Nigeria is the highest in the whole world. We spend about 80 per cent of our resources on maintaining less than one per cent people in government. It’s ridiculous and wicked; it is leading Nigeria to a crash.

The regions will have their police and so on. What is the Federal Government doing with a ministry of agriculture? What land has the Federal Government? What is Federal Government doing with primary education? Primary education is the function of local government, not even of state. You have about 75 ministers. Why are lawmakers having constituency allowance? Are our lawmakers contractors? They are there to make laws.