Admiral Akin Aduwo was governor of the defunct Western State of Nigeria. He rarely speaks on public issues, but when he does, he is blunt. He speaks with STEPHEN GBADAMOSI on current political developments in the country, warning politicians of the dire consequences of profligacy. Excerpts:

IT is 12 years since our renewed democratic journey; have we changed for the better?
No, we have not changed; we are going backward and we may end up hitting the wall.

The presidential system of governance is in ruins in this country. That is what has caused so much unemployment, crimes, insecurity and general backwardness of the nation.

What was wrong with our parliamentary system? Our papa here (Awolowo) was premier and he had only one parliamentary secretary plus the civil servants in his office; not special adviser on girlfriends, special adviser on sleepers, special adviser on toiletries and so on. Today, we are spending three quarters of the country’s resources on paying rubbish, allowances and emoluments to all sorts of people, including members of the National Assembly who are earning, may be, ten times the salary of the president of the United States, the most powerful human being on earth. So, what are we gaining from it?

Awolowo advocated true federalism, just as most progressives around today are advocating it. Why has it been difficult for the country to practice it?
It is because we all want to be president. In every office now, you have executives; executive sweeper, executive messenger and executive governors; everybody is an executive and that is how the resources of this country have been frittered away. People turn their father and mother to oil barons. The most annoying thing is that when the anti-graft agencies catch these people and dock them, they come out of the courts boasting; it is very annoying.

I am a retired military officer. I led all the operations along the coast of Nigeria during the civil war; from Bonny to Port Harcourt, Calabar, Warri etc. I rescued David Ejoor from a fishing village near Sapele where he ran to as military governor of Mid-West State.

In this democracy, how do you think the military has fared?
The military have been pushed aside and subjected to powerlessness. Ships, armoured vehicles and aircraft cannot be replaced, serviced or maintained, because funds for all these are not provided.
In the Navy today, we have commodores (those are one-star admirals) who have never commanded ship because there are no ship for them to command. The ship afloat today are 20 to 30-year-old ship; some of their spare parts are no longer in production. They cannot go for sea exercises.

Instead of giving the funds those services need, parliamentarians have to get their constituency allowances and a lot of other emoluments.

Who do you see as leader of the Yoruba?
Everybody wants to be leader. If they become leaders, who would they lead? Would a leader lead himself? No. I am a foundation member of the Yoruba Unity Forum. It was the name that I suggested that that group bears today. The most important point is that which I have made several times; we are not united. Are we?

What is the problem of the race and why can’t we be united?
The problem of the race started many years ago, but people have decided to push it aside. The moment our papa, Awolowo, and his deputy, papa Akintola, disagreed, the Yoruba nation had been going down and then, political beliefs and associations splintered into thousands and people no more agree with themselves. Even traditional rulers quarrel among themselves. There is no unity; there is no sense of direction. When two people quarrel, they have their political supporters. These supporters go out to say things about the opponent to other people; the other people pass that on and so on. The whole Yoruba nation is disintegrating into bits and pieces. And as long as people have the money, they share it and get recruits who would be happy to carry on the bad message.

Is our democracy working?
I don’t see any democracy working where elected members of government steal; embezzle so much of the resources with which they are supposed to improve the lives of the people.

What is democracy? It is a system of looking after your people who elect you, forming programmes and following those programmes that would improve their lives; upgrade their existence. But what is our own democracy today? It is money grabbing, embezzlement, stealing and then, the arrogant behaviour of these corrupt people when they are brought before justice. They don’t show any remorse or tender apology.

Are you saying military administration is better than civilians’?
No. Papa Awolowo here with whom I was quite close (his eldest son, the late Segun, was my classmate and for five years, our beds were side to side in Igbobi College. When I was military governor in Ibadan, he came to see me twice) said the worst democratic civilian administration is 100 times better than a military administration. I agree with him.

Why?
Because there is nothing in this world, when you are alive, that is higher and more important than your freedom. Democracy dictates that everyone should be free; free to abide with his or her own belief. Civilian administration allows you to think and act independently, and from there, there would be a form of discipline.

Even in the Yoruba family norm, if your son steals something from outside and the law enforcement agents come, you push him out to go and face the consequences. But nowadays, parents are defending such children, saying they are being made a scapegoat, for obvious criminal actions. You are sent to make laws for people to control their behaviour, but you are at the head of the criminality. Is that not shameful? The Yoruba nation never encourages that in the upbringing of their children.

As a country, it seems we are lucky not to have had external aggression, but internally, there are a lot of security challenges, such as the Boko Haram. What is responsible?
The insecurity in Nigeria is caused by the fact that those people you elect to go and make laws that will institute security are the ones undermining the resources and economic strength of the nation. This results in unemployment and illiteracy. Many parents cannot send their children to school and there is no free education as we have in the days of Awolowo. All that will lead to insecurity; an idle mind is a factory for the devil. That is what is wrong with us.

In all theses, do you see a future for the country?
I wouldn’t want to say that. I have my own feelings which I won’t like to express in public for now. It is like the Yoruba would say; oro t’o wa ko se e so; eyi t’o se e so ko wa (the thought available is bitter truth; the thought that many would welcome is not available).

People would say ‘God will do it for us; He will reposition the country for us.’ God has done more than enough for this nation, already. Like you just said, we are lucky; we don’t have aggressions here and there; we don’t have flooding; we don’t have earthquake; we don’t have mountains that exude fire. It is when we have all these crimes and bombings that we just wake up and ask what the government is doing. This should not have happened at the police headquarters. They want to turn Nigeria to the Middle East.

Why are you not in partisan politics like most of your colleagues, retired military officers?
I wasn’t cut out for that. There are people who can do what I cannot do and there are people who cannot do what I can do.