The United States of America and the United Kingdom have expressed no doubt in the ability and commitment of Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to continue with the anti-corruption war and economic revival in Nigeria.
The two countries told SUNDAY PUNCH on Friday that they have confidence in Osinbajo to carry on with the quality leadership President Muhammadu Buhari has been providing the country.
This is coming on the heels of public outrage and fears expressed by Nigerians over Buhari’s deteriorating health and continued absence from public.
The President left for the UK last Sunday to receive medical attention and he is expected to be there for an indefinite time, according to his media aide, Femi Adesina.
In his last medical trip to Britain, Buhari was away for 49 days.
In the last few weeks, some prominent Nigerians had expressed angst over a cabal that has purpotedly hijacked power in the Presidency due to Buhari’s protracted illness, leaving Osinbajo in the cold.
The US and the UK, however, told SUNDAY PUNCH that they believe the VP would take off from where the President stopped when he jetted out of the country to the UK for further medical attention.
When asked by our correspondent if the US Government was worried that Buhari’s poor health could slow down ongoing anti-corruption war in Nigeria, the spokesman for the US Embassy in Nigeria, Russell Brooks, said President Donald Trump’s administration believed in Buhari and Osinbajo.
Brooks said, “We are very much in favour of President (Muhammadu) Buhari’s campaign against corruption. We also believe that Acting President (Yemi) Osinbajo is strongly committed to this agenda and will continue to pursue it while President Buhari is out of the country.”
Speaking in a similar vein, the spokesman for the UK High Commission in Nigeria, Joseph Abuku, stated that while the British Government could not comment on whether any crisis resulting from Buhari’s protracted ill-health would lead Nigeria into political instability, he said the UK had confidence in the President and his deputy.
“The Vice President is acting President in President (Muhammadu) Buhari’s absence. The United Kingdom has full confidence in both he (Osinbajo) and President Buhari. Questions on President Buhari’s health should be directed to his office,” Abuku told SUNDAY PUNCH.
Concerning Buhari’s return to the UK to continue his medical treatment, Brooks stated that the US looked forward to the President’s return to the country.
“Again, we wish President Buhari good health and a speedy return to his homeland,” he said.
Recently, the US had praised the Buhari administration’s current agenda of fighting insecurity and corruption, noting that it agrees with Trump’s plan of dealing with such issues on the African continent.
Speaking last week during a special briefing in Washington, the Deputy Director, Office of West African Affairs, Bureau of African Affairs, Nathan Holt, told journalists that the country was a critical US partner.
“Nigeria matters to us because it’s Africa’s most populous country, and depending on the price of oil, it’s either the biggest or the second biggest economy on the continent.
“With a current population of 182 million, Nigeria is projected to grow to over 400 million over the next few decades, which will leave it by the middle of this century as the fourth-largest country in the world,” Holt said.
When asked about America’s continued support for the country in view of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric to cut foreign aids to Nigeria and other African countries, Holt said, “I’m not the person who can answer your questions about the future of the US Government budget.”
In this revealing interview Mercy Aigbe granted Broadway TV, she opens up on the crisis that has now engulfed her marriage to Mr. Lanre Gentry, and other related issues
Few weeks ago, you initially said that your husband didn’t beat you but you later came out to say that he beat you regularly. What do you want us to believe?
In the midst of all this crisis, I have never granted any interview and I have never for once come out to say my husband didn’t beat me. It was in 2013 that I had an interview and it was to address the news that went viral then that my husband beat me and we had to record a video at that time. He has consistently beaten me.
Why did you stay in spite of the constant battering?
I stayed because I wanted a home. Besides, I loved him and whenever he beat me, he would beg and get family and friends to plead with me. He always promised to change but he never did. I prayed, fasted and hoped that he would change but he never did. My husband is a violent person and whenever he gets angry, he gets physical so it is not just about me. He has actually beaten a maid of mine, Oluchi, before. I was out of the country when this happened and the girl got the police to arrest him. That is the kind of person he is. Aside the fact that I wanted a home, I stayed because of my children. I didn’t want to be moving from one man to the other and a lot of people look up to me as a role model. They respected me because I was married and I didn’t want to disappoint a lot of people. Some people would probably say I am a fool to have endured everything but God sees my heart that I just wanted a home. A lot of people think that actors do not want to stay married but it wasn’t easy for me to walk away.
What did you do after the incident and how brutal was the beating?
After it happened, I met with my husband’s younger brother and told him that my husband would just kill me one day. He is not ready to get help or go for therapy to manage his anger problem. I told him that the last incident was brutal and Lanre almost killed me. I actually thought I was going to die. I also told him that I did not feel safe anymore. For a very long time, I had been living in fear in that house because any little argument led to me being beaten up by my husband, even in front of my children, domestic staff and neighbours. I moved out because I was finally fed up. I was scared for my life because a lot of people have died in the process of being beaten up by their husbands. I just wanted to feel safe and that was why I moved out. Four weeks have passed after the incident, and I am still coughing blood.
Why did you take him to court?
A day before Easter Sunday, I discovered that my husband was sleeping with a girl who was like a sister to me. I was bitter, especially since that wasn’t the first time of such happening. My husband has slept with a lot of my personal assistants and he has done a lot of things that I endured. I was bitter because he promised me he was never going to do it again, so we had an argument but at a point, I had to keep quiet because I didn’t want him to get physical. On Sunday, I cooked and he and the children ate. I reminded him I was going for a burial which I had informed him about prior to that day. At first, he said that I was supposed to stay home with my kids and I said I had promised I was going to attend and that if he didn’t mind, we could go together since I did not plan on staying there for long. He said no problem and that I could go for the party. I went to my designer, Luminee’s place to dress up in case my outfit needed any adjustment. I was there with my make-up artist, Ayomide, and another colleague. We got to the party late and by the time we got there, the party was about rounding off and we spent just a little time there before we returned to Luminee’s place. At a point, my husband telephoned me and asked me to pick him up at his office on my way home. I told him to leave me alone, that I was not going to come. I was still angry, having discovered that he was sleeping with the girl I mentioned earlier. After I ended the call, he telephoned me again and asked where I was and that I needed to pick him up. I told him I was at Luminee’s place and then, he started shouting that I should pick him up from the office. I knew he was angry and I told him that I would come to pick him. I told Luminee I had to go, because my husband was beginning to get angry and if he gets angry, he would most likely beat me up. At that point, Luminee walked me to the door. When we got to the door, I heard a car park. I began to panic and I told Luminee that I was sure that was my husband. At that point, he had gotten to the door and immediately I got to the door, Lanre beat me mercilessly. He kept punching me, slapping me and hitting my head on the wall. Everyone saw what happened and I kept begging him. He said he wanted to kill me, that he was going to damage my face so people would no longer call me for jobs. He acted like someone who was possessed. At a point, I had to tell him in Yoruba that “Lanre, mo ma bimo fun e, kini mo se?” (Lanre I have a child for you, what is my offence?) At that point, blood was gushing out of my nose, yet he kept beating me. I begged Luminee and Ayomide to take me to the hospital but when Luminee helped me into the car, Lanre told them that if he saw any of them in his car, he would beat them. When I heard this, I stumbled out of the car. He came to me, matched my face and continued beating me. I told Luminee to get the security men at the gate or else he was going to kill me. She ran to call the security men and when they arrived, they walked Lanre out of the estate. Ayomide called her husband and Luminee called my husband’s friend and when they came, they took me to Solid Rock Hospital in Ojodu. He followed us to the hospital and he kept saying that he was going to kill me
What did the doctors say?
Mercy Aigbe
At the hospital, the doctor gave me injections and put me on drip. They stuffed my nose with cotton wool to stop the blood from coming out. The following day which was a Monday, Ayomide and her husband were with me at the hospital and I was there till about eight o’clock. I removed the drip myself because I felt I needed to report the case to the police. I told Luminee to take me to the police station and she took me to Area F where I made the report. Immediately I made the report, I met the area commander and I met with one of the human rights representatives at the same station. I wrote a petition and gave my husband’s number to the Area Commander who tried to reach him but couldn’t. She then asked the police officer in charge of the case to go with me to invite him to the police station. We went to his hotel at Oregun and we didn’t meet him but met his two brothers. The officer, ASP Amaka telephoned him and he said he was in Ibadan. I knew he was lying because he could not have travelled so soon. We returned to the station and I was given a note to go to the general hospital to treat myself. I went there and saw a doctor at the Surgical and Emergency Department of the hospital where they gave me drip, injection and antibiotics to stop the blood. He gave me another note to go to St. Solomon Health Care Ltd to undergo some scans so they can determine why I was bleeding and if I had any internal injury. I did series of tests from Brain CT scan, Chest scan and more.
It is being alleged that you also cheated on your husband?
I have never cheated on Lanre and he knows it. That is even the most painful part of all these. Instead of showing remorse for what he did to me, he went online, started granting interviews and fabricating hideous lies just to tarnish my image. He said I cheated on him several times when I know that I never cheated on him. He came up with those lies so as to get sympathy and justify what he did. That was why I told him to provide proof that I cheated on him. It is not enough to allege that I cheated, he should come out with proof. He said a lot of damaging things and when I read those things online, I was completely broken. I never knew I was married to my enemy because only my enemy can do that to me. He lied that I am mentally unstable and I do not take care of my parents. He said that he has caught me with numerous men, yet he doesn’t have a single evidence. Even when I was single, I never had any scandal, so why would he now say that I cheated on him with different men and none of these relationships was leaked to the public? Is it possible for someone like me to cheat on my husband repeatedly and I was never caught in the act?
If you are reading this Lanre, your conscience will judge you. A lot of people think I married you because of your money but they do not know the true story. I read a lot of things online and I just shake my head because only God knows the truth. I gave you my money many times. Two months ago, I gave you N260, 000 to buy a travel ticket for your sick daughter who was abroad. And that is just one of the many times I had given you my money. People very close to us know that you have never given me money to even shoot a movie. All the movies I have shot was with my money and I have had to work hard for it. I had my son through caesarean section and I was back on set less than 40 days after I was delivered of a baby because I needed the money. I didn’t know someone who claimed to love me would go to the extent of trying to ruin me or my image. Lanre, you have always beaten me and everybody around us knew it. Three years ago, I took you to Area F police station where you signed an undertaking that you weren’t going to beat me again but since then, you have beaten me several times. I know people will call me a fool for staying that long and yes I do agree with them. I agree that I shouldn’t have endured for that long but I am just a woman who wanted to stay married. I did a series of interviews where I praised you because I didn’t want to wash my dirty linen in public. A lot of things that I did myself, I gave you the credit. I just couldn’t come out to say that my husband isn’t financially okay because I believe that a wise woman builds her home and I was ready to do just that
Your husband claimed that he didn’t grant any interview, what can you say about that?
He has been granting a lot of interviews since this issue started and he has told many lies. He said I am being influenced by some people but that is a lie. I know my husband very well and he lies a lot. I don’t know if that’s being disrespectful but my husband lies all the time. During the course of our relationship, he told me a lot of things which I later found out to be lies. Four years ago, my husband was in a cell for over seven months. I was in the house and I didn’t move anywhere. I suffered and was working back-to-back to take care of our children and pay their school fees. I kept it all to myself, so why would I now want to leave him? It is almost four weeks since the last incident and I still have a black eye. I am coughing out blood and he says it is make-up. If I had died, he would have lied so hard. Now, I can’t see well with my left eye because he broke the orbit and the doctors at the General Hospital said I have to undergo surgery as soon as possible. They even said that I shouldn’t do it here in Nigeria. According to the doctors, some of the eye muscles are trapped in the broken orbit and they have to do a surgery to release the muscles, otherwise I won’t be able to see properly. This is what a man who is supposed to be my husband and the father of my child did to me and he is not remorseful. Instead, he is spreading lies and has threatened to kill me if I leave him. Like he said, I am the one who has an image to protect and I am really going through a lot of pain.
What do you hope to achieve with the court case?
When this incident happened and I saw the way he was going about it, I went to the Domestic Violence Department in Lagos State and I met with the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs. Lola Akande. I also went to the office of the public defender where I met Mrs. Tope Salami and I explained everything that I do not feel safe with my kids. I feel like he is going to send some people to kill me. The Thursday after the incident, I went home to get some of my things and he sent three thugs to the house to prevent me from taking anything. One of them almost beat me up and I had to run to Ojodu Grammar School Police Station to get some police and they arrested the thugs he sent. A man who can go to that extent can do anything. I fear for my life and that of my children. The case is in court and it is not in my place to imprison. Moreso, I have a child for him. I just want him to realise the gravity of what he did to me.
What is next for you?
I don’t know. All I know is that I have to take care of myself because I still cough out blood and I have to undergo a surgery. I have to make sure that I am okay.
Prior to this incident, had he ever accused you of sleeping with other men?
Yes, he always accuses me of dating everybody. He has insecurity issues. If he sees anybody close to me, he would accuse me of dating the person. At some point in our marriage, I sat him down to discuss it because I was no longer comfortable with his assumptions. If I go out, he would accuse me. Even on set, he would question why I kissed an actor or why I allowed an actor to hold me. He knows my job and we never had an agreement that I would stop acting either before or after we got married. I had to ask him if I have ever given him any reason to doubt me. He is just plain insecure.
People believe you live above your means, could that also be part of the problem?
I don’t live above my means. I am content with the little that I have. My trip to Dubai was sponsored by Emirates Airline. Being a brand influencer, they had a package which they wanted me to help them put out there. I drive an Acura MDS. People close to me know that I am a hardworking woman.
He said you are mentally unstable, what can you say about that?
When I read it online, I was shocked. I still can’t comprehend why he fabricated such a lie. I don’t have any mental issue. My husband and everybody close to me are aware that I am mentally okay. Anybody that wants to investigate my mental health can do so. I am ready to subject myself to any test just to show that I am 100 per cent okay.
Emmanuel Macron taking over from Francois Hollande
Emmanuel Macron has promised to restore France’s global standing, as he was officially inaugurated as the country’s youngest president at the age of 39.
“My mandate will give the French back the confidence to believe in themselves,” President Macron said at the elaborate Élysée Palace ceremony.
He vowed to see the EU “reformed and relaunched” during his time in office.
He takes over from François Hollande, whose five-year term was plagued by high unemployment figures.
Macron being presented a necklace being worn by Great Napoleon I
Mr Macron was proclaimed France’s new president a week after his resounding victory over the National Front’s Marine le Pen, with 66% of the vote in the run-off poll.
The former investment banker, who had never contested an election before and only formed his centrist political movement a year ago, has vowed to shake up the country’s political order and reinvigorate its economy.
Tight security was in place across Paris for the ceremony at the president’s official residence, with hundreds of extra police on patrol.
France has been under a state of emergency since terror attacks in 2015 and a large section of the city centre was closed to traffic all morning.
‘WORLD NEEDS FRANCE’
During his inaugural address on Sunday, President Macron pledged to restore the confidence of the French people in their country’s future.
“The division and fractures in our society must be overcome,” said the 39-year-old centrist.
“The world and Europe need more than ever France, and a strong France, which speaks out loudly for freedom and solidarity,” he declared.
He said he would convince the people that “the power of France is not declining – that we are on the brink of a great renaissance”.
He was presented with a necklace once worn by Napoleon I, as a symbol of his position as Grand Master of the Legion of Honour (a title usually given to the leader of France).
Before the ceremony began, he spent nearly an hour with his predecessor, who handed him the country’s nuclear codes. It was Mr Hollande who launched the new president’s political career, appointing him first as advisor and later economy minister.
Despite historic low approval ratings, the former president tweeted after leaving the palace: “I leave a country in a much better state than I found it.”
The sage and foremost Yoruba leader, Pa Obafemi Awolowo died on May 9 1987. It was exactly 30 yrs ago that he transisted to the great beyond.
Professor Banji Akintoye was close to the sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, when he was alive. The senator speaks on what papa’s view would have been like if he were to be around now that the country is beset with serious challenges in many fronts, in this interview with BOLA BADMUS. Excerpts:
IT is 30 years since Chief ObafemiObafemi Awolowo, went to the world beyond. Who was this man that everybody keeps talking about in glowing terms?
To us, to people like me, who walked by his side, he was a very special gift to all of us. He was a special gift to our world, the world of a Black man of Nigeria and of the Yoruba nation. The impression I always had about him is that he knew quite early that he was a special gift and he was ready to give that gift fully without looking for anything for himself. He was wonderful.
Today, we must be grateful that Chief Awolowo walked this earth on our land. We can see things disintegrated all around us. If we didn’t have an Awolowo in our midst at some point in our history, we would be in total disarray. He has become the pillar that we hold to. There would be people of course. We were political leaders in our own right too, but all of those don’t mean anything when you look at Chief Awolowo carefully. When you look at him deeply, you find that this was a rare gift to mankind. He was a rare gift to us and we thank God we had him. As I said, if we didn’t have an Awolowo at all to refer to as our point of reference today, we would be in total moral, intellectual and developmental disarray.
But, Awolowo was born like any other child?
Any other Yoruba boy.
You were very close to him. At what point did he decide to chart the course he went through to that enviable position?
When he was just a big boy earning a living in Ibadan, he was already sure he wanted to serve his people. He was already prepared at that early life. Most of us don’t know until you have become a university graduate and you look around and you find that you are not feeling the way other people are feeling. You are now casual about it; then you begin to recognise that your people see something in you. You notice too yourself that you desire things that are a little beyond the ordinary. I think Chief Awolowo began to feel that very early in his life, as a teenager right from the time he went to Ibadan. I think that was it.
I asked the question, because I wanted to know if at that particular time, Nigerians became restive under the colonial rule and that made Chief Awolowo to think that it was something he had to challenge.
Yes, to Chief Awolowo, colonialism meant you were being trivialised. The people who ruled; who were not better than you in any way were the lords of the earth around you. Europeans came to Africa thinking they were the best in the world. They were everything, but they were not different from any other children; from any other boy, who went to school, and so on and so forth, and they were not as intelligent and as incisive as a person like Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikwe, and Ahmadu Bello, as we know they were not
One top British official in Nigeria in the late 1950s wrote a memo and said the Yoruba are one people who refused to accept the idea of superiority by the white man. He said “other black people might not look you in the eye because you are white, because they regard you as god, but the Yoruba are different. Even, the Yoruba messengers in our offices, you can see there is dignity the way they carry themselves.” That is the man who wrote the book entitled, Blue Collar, Law Man, and his name is Harry Smith.
In fact, he said “the Yoruba think we sent inferior people to Nigeria and that they were inferior to them.” Chief Awolowo was part of that thinking and in my lecture, a few weeks ago, I said one major thing about Chief Awolowo’s achievements—it is this determination that we, Black people, are not inferior to anybody in the world; that if they can do it, we can do it and we can even do it better in our own land. What the British cannot do for our people, we can do it by ourselves for our people; that was his thinking.
He went to a conference in Kinshasha, when he was serving in Gowon’s government. He gave a lecture and stunned the entire audience. We, black people, he said, “are not inferior to anybody. In fact, when it comes to understanding the problem of our own society, of our own land and facing the problem of our land, we are superior to any other people in the world. There are no other people who can understand the problem of our society the way we understand our society. There is no other people who can face our problem the way we can face our problem, so we are superior to them.” That is the thinking of Awolowo and the white colonialists in Nigeria couldn’t stand him. He was too different from all the other politicians they had to deal with.
Harry Smith wrote in his Blue Collar, Law Man, that when we gathered together with the Governor-General and we were drinking and joking and so on and so forth, we used to talk that Chief Awolowo is different; he is not an ordinary black man; you know, he is a man. The idea of the black man is that it is about all this pleasure-loving person, who you can manipulate with all sorts of things, with women, money, position, promises of support. You can’t use any of those things to buy Chief Awolowo.” So, he was one man you could not buy; one man you could not bully. If he believed this was the path to go, that was the path he would go, no matter who you were. He feared nobody. He respected people, but he feared nobody. That was Chief Awolowo. And the foundation of all of that was his belief that we are men, we are human, we are equal to other people; we are superior to them in some things, especially when it comes to dealing with the problems of our own land. We are superior because we know our people, they don’t know our people. So, the result was that Chief Awolowo was able to give to Western Region in seven years what the British were not able to give in more than 50 years.
The Awolowo you portrayed was a genius no doubt, but in a situation that we have found ourselves today, even the Yoruba would say, Igi kan ki dagbo se (literally meaning a tree does not make a forest). What support do you think he got from those who were his associates for him to have achieved so much?
Awolowo was created by his God to be a leader of men. He was made to be a leader of men. He knew how to mobilise other people and bring them together without any feeling of superiority to anybody, to achieve worthy purposes for people. When it comes to gathering people, mobilising people, motivating people, Awolowo was the best that we’ve ever had. We have other leaders, but I don’t think it would be easy to find, in a long, long time to come, a leader with the capability of gathering people together, giving them more confidence in themselves that they could change their society and that they have the power like Awolowo. And when he gave you something to do, he backed you up with all the authorities of the system. Chief Awolowo was different.
Chief Awolowo came out of prison and in 1976/77 after serving in the Gowon government, he decided: ‘Let us try and build Nigeria. We can make Nigeria great country.’ He would say ‘let us go and build.’ Young men like me, I was in Ife as a young professor with people like David Oke, Wunmi Adegbonmire, and so on and so forth, including the older Professor Sam Aluko, Professor Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, the vice chancellor and we would go into deep talk and thinking about Nigeria; on how to make this country a great country from every angle. Chief Awolowo was the centre of it all; he was the motivator of it all. And when it came to such moment, it was as if he was incapable of getting tired. We could sit down talking all night and he would sit down there as the younger ones like us. Chief Awolowo would sit down at the meeting as chairman, and he would not stand up to go anywhere no matter how long the meeting lasted.
We younger people, who were like his children, who were like his sons, one day after a long meeting in Ikenne, two of us went to him and said, ‘Baba, you need to take it easy a little; take a rest a little.’ There were series of long,long meetings and he would sit. He was sharp all the way, from the beginning to the end. In his response to what we said, he said, ‘Thank you my sons, I will be okay, I assure you.’ That’s the type of father we had.
Chief Awolowo was premier of Western Region. To what extent would you say he had the support of people who had a similar idea of what Nigeria should be?
He had a group, but outside of his group, no. Within yes, he generated the idea; he started it all by gathering a few friends together in London in 1945. He was also a student. He gathered his friends together and said we needed to do something to our society back home. Yoruba people are brilliant people, capable of development, better developers than any other people in Africa, but they were hopelessly divided. So we needed to create some unity in order to maximise their capability. That was how they started the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and then they came back home two years later and had it inaugurated.
He was good at doing that, and that was what he did all his life: bringing people together. And as to the idea of developing Nigeria, he had no illusion at all. Nigeria is not a nation; it’s a country of many nations. Therefore, it cannot be governed as if it is a nation. It has to be governed as a country of many nations. So, that means we are in a federation, and we must make sure that the different component parts of the federation have enough autonomy to do their own things, and then we must have the Federal Government that coordinates, not to control – a Federal Government that controls will destroy Nigeria, but if it is just coordinating, that’s fine. There are other big men in the situation, they didn’t do like that.
It’s 30 years now after he died, what would you say we miss dearly with his passage?
The morning he passed, I was in Ado-Ekiti and my telephone rang. I was working around the garden tending some flowers. My telephone rang, I cleaned my hand and grabbed it and it was a voice that said, ‘Senator, have you phoned Papa this morning? Have you phoned Ikenne this morning?’ Then I said, ‘no, who is that?’ And the person dropped the telephone. So, I tried to call Papa, the telephone kept ringing, nobody was answering, so it was busy. I decided to go to Ikenne. When I got there, I found out that Papa had gone.
I found that a few of our people were already there who knew before me, and I stood there and looked and the world suddenly looked empty. I had never imagined that we would ever be without him. So, here we are without him! We have never gone back to the path of solid times, the type of very creative moments, the type of unity, the type of achievements, the type confidence, the type of pride that we used to have; we’ve never gone back to that.
What do you think has been responsible for that? Or was the fault with Awolowo himself? Could it be that he failed to raise a possible successor?
No. I have heard people say that Papa did not lay out his successor. He did. This is Awolowo’s style of leadership. He is not saying be loyal to me as a person; that is not what he is saying. He is saying you create a body of ideals and principles that become the mark of us all, my master, your master; we are all servants of these ideals and principles. And it is that servant-hood of those ideals and principles that martyrs us as a group. So, whoever does that has already provided for leadership forever. It is just that the Nigerian situation is destructive. Don’t forget that when he died, we were in the military regime; that was under the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. So, where was the space for the Awolowo type of leadership to emerge in that type of situation? When all that Nigerians were being told was that everybody had a price and that there was no ideal, no loyalty; all that is important is that you make money. The Nigerian type of situation has no room for the Awolowo type of leadership; that is the truth of the matter. It is not that Chief Awolowo did not provide for succession to himself; he did. He created a team that was very solidly dedicated to ideals very high ideals and principles; and that team could have led Nigeria or any country in the world to greatness. I was invited to come and help write a cultural policy for Nigeria under regime of former military President Ibrahim Babangida. I couldn’t see myself serving under that type of government. No way! I couldn’t see myself doing so. I would have loved to sit down. I had taken part in some discussions of cultural policy for Nigeria in the past. I had attended the conference over it in Ghana; I was sent by the government under Murtala Muhammed. It was a subject I was interested in. I was the director of the Institute of African Studies.
But, Chief Awolowo served under Gowon, who was a military Head of State. Why didn’t you want to serve under the Babangida regime?
I didn’t want to go near the Babangida kind of government at all. I didn’t want to. Awolowo served under the military in a situation of dire emergency. The country was breaking up and when they asked him to come and serve, he met with us. He didn’t just grab the opportunity that they had asked me to come and serve, no, no. We held meetings. There were some of us who said don’t do it, and there were some others who said ‘Papa, if you don’t do it, you will be creating a bad historical record. This country is about to break up and we know with you in that government, you can help Nigeria to survive, so go and serve, but come out as quickly as possible, as soon as it is over.’ And that was what he did. As soon as it was over, he walked out of the government. That was the type of man Chief Awolowo was.
Chief Awolowo had the tradition of offering candid views and suggestions on prevailing situations in the country periodically. What do you think could have been his suggestions if he were alive, given the current predicament of the country?
If Chief Awolowo were around, he would speak with a bigger voice than people like us can and he would be telling the world about the thing I am saying now – that they are destroying this country, that you people, you are destroying this country. It is not that there are no people to rule Nigeria decently, it is because some people think that it is their exclusive right to rule Nigeria. A political party was put together mostly by the energy and resources of the South-West under Bola Tinubu and others. The first thing that the Buhari government did was to push them aside and to make them nonentities. That’s not how to rule a country. A political party came before all of us Nigerians and Nigerians said Buhari was our candidate. That party has a right to rule Nigeria. There is a contract between that party and Nigeria; and if anybody goes to push that party aside and then presume that you can rule Nigeria without it, you are doing something terrible. So, that is it. It is not a question of whether one likes Tinubu or anybody, no. It is a question of order. That’s how to have order. A party came before Nigerians and said this is our candidate, he is a good man and all that. They told all lies that political parties tell. We bought it, we voted for the man, he became our president. He is president only within the context of that party. For you now to come and gather some people who we do not know and hide them in some corner and ask them to be ruling us is a disorder. That is the situation, and Chief Awolowo, if he were alive, these are the things he would be saying with bigger voice than people like me, a university professor. He was our leader. This is what he would be telling the world.
For how long will Nigeria wait for another Chief Awolowo to emerge in the country?
I have always spoken with hope. I say some day, some of these boys playing around, little kids they don’t know themselves yet, these boys, you know, two-year old going to school, their sisters are carrying them on their back, one of them someday would show up and be the Awolowo of his time. I believe that will happen, I don’t think Awolowo is gone forever. The Awolowo quality will show up in some child; it will come.
To rule this country.
Maybe not rule this country, at least, he would give mankind the type of decent leadership that Awolowo represented.
People are already clamouring for restructuring of the country. What is your take?
Let us restructure; that is the solution. We should restructure the country in a way that more powers should be devolved to the states. There is every need now to whittle down the powers at the centre. The centre is too powerful and controlling nearly all the resources of the country. That should not be so. We should make it in such a way that the centre, the Federal Government, should be left to control lesser resources to the advantage of the states. That’s how it should be. Let us restructure the country now.
