Headline : Why Tinubu should revisit 2014 confab report, by Bode George

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Do you think that what should bother the Yoruba at the moment is secession from Nigeria and where is this coming from as a Yoruba elder statesman? I wish our nation well because when one of my political sons in Oyo State sent a clip to me, I thought it was a Nollywood movie. But when I now listened to the comments made by the lady dressed in white and the one talking, I knew something terrible had gone amiss. I see it as part of the teaching of civic and history in schools. You don’t just go and arrange for people to take up arms against your government. It is treason and they were even lucky that they called the Amotekun first before the police arrived. If it had been people from my profession, who saw them as enemies, they would have fired at them. I was very angry because that is not the way you talk to your government. It is the government of the people by the people for the people. The lady who was talking about secession is from a well-known family in the western part of this country. So, what could have driven them to that point? You are not in the country and you are telling them that you are declaring freedom of Yoruba. I thought it was a joke and a bad dream. The Attorney General of the Federation is from Oyo State, the President of Nigeria today is also from the South-West. So, what on the globe could have driven them to do that? My conclusion is that maybe they are not that educated, but when you listen to them, I know the Onitiri family very well. I think the second son of the former politician was my classmate in secondary school. So, listening to that and hearing what she is saying, you don’t take up arms against your nation. Let her come back home because these guys that have been arrested are going to be treated like criminals. Well, we pray for them but it is unimaginable. Were they dreaming? It is unacceptable because it is the highest breaking of the law of the land. You can talk because you have that freedom of speech and you can express your opinion and we have been doing that because that is the most sensible way to approach this problem. Everybody including me knows as a matter of fact that the constitution we are running is not working. It is more like a defined paperwork for a military organisation. Why should everybody head to Abuja every month to collect their allocations? It is not working. What has the president got to do with my local government, with the local government in Sokoto or the local government in Bayelsa? Politics is local and we want to see that the restructuring everybody has been talking about is the path we should take. But to start taking arms and shooting people is insanity. I want to plead with everybody, the investigation will go on and they must get to the end of it. What surprised me is the fact that this attack didn’t leak to our intelligence department. They went in their military uniform and nobody stopped them on the road. You see the urgent need for state police because they could have been meeting somewhere before the attack. If we were well organized with state police, they would have picked and then prevented it but now they have carried out the attack. I don’t know when they are going to be arraigned but for real, it is treasonable and the consequences for treasonable offences are very damming.

How could this have happened for this group of people to attack the government house and where did the formation of Mrs. Onitiri come from? What happened is a confirmation that in terms of policing and intelligence gathering, we have a shortage of personnel. What is the total population of Nigerian police? What is the total population of the intelligence department at the national and the states? Every political discussion is local, so there is urgent need to establish state police because state police would be people drawn from the area. They know the culture, the norms and information gathering would be much faster. All the weapons they collected from them where did they get them from? Look at the number of cutlasses in their vehicle, where did they come from? I’m sure they would be going through interrogation. There was even a young lady who was part of them and the woman who was talking, if she truly believed in this concept of the operation, she should head home from her base. We must find out who organized this and until the time they got there and started shooting with their flag that attracted the attention of the public. First of all, when we were in primary school, there was the teaching of civic and the responsibility of the nation to you as an individual and to your general area. We learned basic things but now I don’t know whether they teach civic or not. I’m sure they don’t teach civic and history. So, how would these young men be able to handle such discussions and it didn’t leak to the government until the late hour. Something is amiss, so we need to revisit ourselves as a country and the programmes we have for these children. If they had been taught history, they would have known the consequences. When we had crisis in Yoruba land between Baba Awolowo and Baba Akintola, everybody knew how we handled it. So, I want to advise that Mr. President should wake up.

Why is it that anybody who needs fame or fortune is so quick to use the issue of secession? I don’t know what the government is doing about educating the society. Teach and educate them. History is a subject that educates and strengthens your knowledge about your relationship with your fellow Nigerians. There is nothing that is happening now that didn’t happen before. This people would have thought about the consequences and these are the things the teachers would have taught them in the class. So, education and indepth analysis of what happened in past is important, so that we can avoid them in the future. That is the most beneficial part of history. I was shocked when I received the news. Like I said, my political son sent it to me from Ibadan and I thought it was a Nollywood movie until I got the details. So, the woman should come back and face the consequences. Because I was also a member of the confab that revisited the review of our current constitution, all the discussions and everything that was accepted and written in that document were unanimously accepted before they put them down in that document. What is happening to that document today? President Muhammadu Buhari received it from President Goodluck Jonathan and said they should keep it in the archive. And I’m openly saying to President Bola Tinubu to bring it out and open it for Nigerians to discuss it because this constitution will lead us to nowhere. Take my state with the largest population in this country; we have only 20 local governments. Ogun which is next door with a population that is not even up to one-quarter of Lagos also has 20 local governments. Now, take Kano, they don’t have half of our population but they have 44 local governments. Jigawa which was created out of Kano has up to 24 local governments and every local government collects money from the federation account. For God’s sake, every political discussion is local, so let us give power back to the people. These guys may have been misinformed when they were trying to recruit them. It is not only in the South that we have this agitation. In the North, I have seen so many of the younger generation who are highly educated and they are saying that this structure we are running is not working. What are you going to do Mr. President. It is on your table, let’s revisit the confab report. If we implement the recommendations, the situation will be better. I know that because I was part of it.

Chief Sunday Igboho has said he doesn’t support what happened in Ibadan. Prof Banji Akintoye also said he doesn’t support it and he doesn’t know where Mrs. Onitiri is coming from. Do you think that Yoruba elders are innocent in this matter? That is not fully correct because nobody in life requested from the Almighty God when you are being born that he wants to be a Yoruba man or a Fulani man. So, the goodness of life is that you treat your neighbour as yourself. What you would not like to be done to you, don’t do it to any other human being. That is my concept of existence. Yes, if we see that things are not going right and there is no justice, fairness and equity in the land, we must say it out, talk about it and let them look at it. We have Afenifere in Yoruba land, we have Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Igbo land and we also have the Arewa Consultative Forum for the North. So, it is for the benefit of the people we are agitating for implementation of the 2014 National Conference. Who-is-who in Nigeria were there and discussions were done in the open. We stated our positions and I just gave you an example that Lagos has only 20 local governments, and not only that, we are the largest electoral state in Nigeria. When they go to Abuja at the end of the month the allocation we get is for 20 local governments. Now take Ogun State next door, they also collect for 20 local governments and Kano collects 44 for their local governments.

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