A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and medical doctor from Ekiti State, Dr Adebayo Orire, bares his mind on the fate of the smaller parties, strength and weakness of the APC, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party and other issues.
WHAT do you think of the All Progressives Congress (APC0 as the party in power at the national level?
The APC as a party at the centre has been transformed into a typical Nigerian political party structure. The aim and objective of forming the party that metamorphosed to APC was pure progressive and framed or formed to reform Nigeria, but it is unfortunate that we have had a period of close to 10, 11 years since the formation until we were able to get Muhammadu Buhari there as president. You will know that the activities of the party when Goodluck Jonathan was there were almost diametrically opposed to what obtains now. That is number one. Number two, you discover that there is no pure political party system in Nigeria. More than half of the ruling forces in APC now were in PDP if not more. People have not demonstrated policies, belief system and the constitution of party because a lot has happened. Everything has run amok. You find out that to talk as a politician is different from talking as a normal Nigerian. Talking as a normal Nigerian now, I will say this is not our APC we dreamt of. Another thing is that, what APC now inherited under Tinubu is abysmally obscene and ignoble. You will see the insecurity that we were crying wolf about during Goodluck Jonathan. You know it metamorphosed into something draconian under Buhari. And it is just flowering and flourishing even now. So, talking about the party now, you will think there is no party in the country. It is my party; we started it together. From ACD to ACN, to everything, and I actually brought the party to Ekiti State in company of two or three other people: the late Chief Akinlaya, Idowu Odeyemi of Ilawe-Ekiti and Chief Jide Awe, the former state chairman of the APC. Now talking of corruption, you find out that you cannot actually say whether we are having results in the anti-corruption struggle or it is worsening.
Talking about the morale of people, infrastructures, you don’t see anything as a success result. It is my party but I am a Nigerian and we see what is happening. I am talking from the Nigerian angle because if I am talking as a politician, I will be a liar. I was already investing money when naira was less than three naira to one dollar. In fact, I was in school when naira was seventy-five kobo to one dollar. We now talk about N1, 500 or more to one dollar now. What did we make out of removal of subsidy? It has actually not brought any relief in this country and these are policy somersaults, policy failures, policy misdemeanors that could be well-intended but turned out to be injurious and hurting. Yes, Tinubu will not do it in a day. But can Tinubu take away tribalism from Nigerians? Can Tinubu stop corruption? Can Tinubu stop insecurity and banditry? Within how many years, how is he going to do it because the interest of the North is different from the interest of the West? The interest of the Middle-Belt is different from the interest of the South-East and the South-South. The only thing that is now obvious in all the regions is that everybody wants to leave Nigeria purely. The Arewa was saying it —- a certain Igbo group as been fighting its own war. You know there is a Yoruba Nation struggle. There is a Middle-Belt struggle. The South-South has already written to the president that they want their own nation because everything looks hopeless. That is the truth. So, we have to excuse a party now. We have to come to the personality, the nation-states and their interests in Nigeria.
What of the ideological orientation of the party, is it still there?
That is what I am saying. It has to be lost because the problems are so multi-dimensional that one ideology will not actually apply because it is not going to gel. You are trying to fix the economy, Boko Haram is striking, and Arewa is bringing up the Russian flag.
Do you see the party being hijacked by a cabal or reactionary forces as being said in some quarters?
When we want to parry issues, we talk of cabals, we talk of interest groups. What are interest groups or cabals in a family that is well structured, that does not have impunity against the law and that is not given to its motives? But when we want to parry issues or make things light, we want to excuse ourselves and apportion blame and say it is a cabal. I am not interested in calling some people cabals. Is everybody who has stolen money in Nigeria a cabal? Does the cabal extend from the presidency to the local government level? Are you going to say that people that are fueling insecurity and funding Boko Haram are cabals in government? We are going to distract ourselves from the problems and the solutions if we say so. There will always be cabals. There will also be people who are close to the government. There will always be people who don’t like the government. They will form caucuses and groups to work for their interests. Me, I don’t recognise them. They are all contributing to the failure of the policies of the government and the failure of the state. That is the way I see things.
Why is it that there is no noticeable presence of small parties except the APC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the dominant parties? Does it mean they have been muzzled out of the limelight or we are moving towards a one or two-party system in the country?
There is no party; there is chop-chop level. The issue is this: I contested for governorship twice in Ekiti State and we had about 10 small parties grouped under one condition. By the time the election is won, those parties will go to the ruling party to beg for bread. And they are quelled. Even PDP as an opposition party, what can it do now? More than half of its senior citizens have gone to APC. That is what happens in Nigeria. There is no ideological stronghold or willpower behind their party system. So, a mushroom party, which does not have two local governments, cannot really make any impact. By the time it is making any impact, they will just invite him to the governor’s office and say what you want; you know you cannot do anything, take N5 million and he will jump up and take it. We cannot talk of these small parties making any effect. Look at what Labour Party did. It was a surprise to APC, It was a surprise to PDP and it was a surprise to Labour itself because nobody knew that Labour Party could make such a success. Why did it have that success? It was because people had become disinterested and dissatisfied in the big parties. They thought it could gel. It didn’t move. It will not move. INEC is there, money is there, tribalism is there; so many things are there. So, you cannot talk of those small parties making any effects. Any party that will be able to make inroad must be a revolutionary party. And I won’t pray for that because that will be bloody.
Many have described the APC as a party of strange political bedfellows who are just united to share the national cake. How do you react to this?
It is not a party of strange political bedfellows. It is a conglomeration of senior political leaders who have actually mastered the act of politics in Nigeria. When the PDP was there, people from ACN, ACD moved there. Now that it is APC, I have told you the majority of the ruling class today are PDP members. So, it is not about describing APC as this or that. We are all Nigerians. Those politicians have mastered the act. They knew Nigeria will not stand. So, let them make their money and leave. If they can continue it in the future, fine. If they can’t, they go home smiling to their banks. There is only one unity: unity of corruption, unity of amassing wealth; unity of deceit. It is not peculiar to a party. Even in the Labour Party, there have been allegations of fraud, mismanagement of funds, and it has not got to power. What we saw in the PDP we were crying. What we are seeing now is worse. Look at the people in the Senate. If you don’t have money now, you cannot win any election. So, it is the people that have the money that will win elections. How you make the money is not important in Nigeria. So, saying that one party is this or that, no, it is the same thing everywhere, and it has been like that for the past 20 years in Nigeria. It is just getting worse.
What do you say to the calls for restructuring?
If we had restructured Nigeria 15 or 20 years ago, it could have been a solution. And when you restructure, you will have total regionalism like we had in the sixties. If the Northern Region is there, let’s call it zones or regions now, and we have a Western region or an Eastern region and we are still in the same Nigeria, are you going to stop the Fulani man from entering any region? So, we are back to zero. Are you going to tell me under regionalism that the Federal Government is still not going to handle the security at the national level? Is the regional government now going to be facing the Federal Government or central security system? Would that regionalism stamp out corruption from Nigeria? Would that regionalism assuage the ill feelings of one tribe against the other? How is regionalism going to clear the mind of an Igbo man against the suspicion and hatred for the Yoruba man? How is regionalism going to make the Yoruba farmers or Eastern region farmers fall in love with the the Fulani? These are the things that we want to sweep under the carpet. Twenty years ago, there were no such demarcations. There was no such impunity, but now when people die especially if some groups of people from one sector of the country kill on the farm or on the street, nothing happens. It is when another set of people carry a dane gun, it becomes an offence. So, even regionalism or restructuring cannot work again. The feeling is so deep inside you and inside me that the Fulani man does not trust you. You don’t trust him. The Igbo man is not at peace with any part of this country. And the South-South man feels you are still going to be taking part of his oil. And so there is a lot of confusion. You see, if we want this geographical location to remain intact, all we need to do is to your tents, O Israel! Let the Arewa that have started saying they want their own go. In another ten years, if they don’t have wars against themselves, they will become prosperous. Let the Yoruba that have been saying they want to go, go. If in another five years, there is no intra-tribal war, it will be a most successful and progressive state.
Controversies have trailed President Tinubu’s tax reform bills. What is your take on the reforms?
President Tinubu’s tax reform is one of the ways that he is trying to right the long existing wrongs or inequalities in the distribution of revenues. Inequalities and absurd disparity in a case of let’s talk about what we make in the South, what we generate as revenues in the South, petroleum, revenue from the ports, revenue from the Customs Service, revenue from alcohol and sundry matters. You will find out that more than 70, 80 per cent of these revenues accrue from the South-West, South-East and South-South, especially the South-West and these revenues were distributed almost equally state by state. So, what the North does not generate, it takes on equal basis from the states that generate them. I think that is what he is trying to do to make for equality and equity but I know and almost too sure that the North will not accept it and the Senate and the House of Representatives will almost thwart it because of the population of the representatives.
The North has more representation in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. If the Senate and the House of Representatives rebuff this and it doesn’t see the light of the day, where are we headed? If they don’t rebuff it, there will still be that evidence for consideration of a Nigerian State where there will be no total correctness in the distribution. They will still give part of what is meant from the South to the North and where the southern states should have enjoyed more from their labour would be distributed to the North and this is why the North will not accept it. They will feel they are being marginalised because of the sense of belonging, sense of possession; the fact that they are Nigerians and those taxes are for Nigeria and Nigerians and they have an entitlement to feel that way but the people that are making this money will feel robbed and that is why it is just whitewashing the problems of Nigeria, that is why there will be no peace. When you feel wronged and there is no equitable solution, you feel cheated and so these are the things that are just not going to make Nigeria work. The inter-tribal hatred will continue to enlarge as people get more enlightened and it will actually rob in on their feelings. The North will be pitched against the South and the South will be ready to express their anger. Nigeria has been bastardised beyond repairs. Nigeria has been robbed beyond repairs. Nigeria has been fraudulently managed beyond repairs. You rob Peter to pay Paul and this will not engender peace. What that tax is supposed to encourage is to encourage each state, each zone of this country to produce and generate revenues.
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