A northerner succeeding Buhari is third term — Bewaji

Dr. Wunmi Bewaji, a one-time member of the House of Representatives, is the Executive Secretary of Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reform (CODER). In this interview, he speaks on the agitation for power shift to the South, restructuring and other sundry matters.

Some people are of the opinion that Nigeria is facing a lot of challenges due to lack of spread of political patronage, thus the agitation for the zoning of the presidency in 2023 to the south. Do you think this is a problem in our polity?

We have a very checkered history of long years of military rule and as a result in the near 40 years of the existence of Nigeria, the North ruled Nigeria for nearly 95 per cent of that period and that was what led to the emergence of Obasanjo but upon his emergence there was an unwritten agreement that power would rotate between the North and the South. Despite the fact that our democracy is 20 years, we must recognize the fact that the Nigerian federation is a very fragile federation. So that gentleman agreement must be respected.

My advice to politicians within the major political parties is that we should tread softly. The situation in the country does not allow for these reckless statements. Whoever is trying to fight should know that he is playing with fire. We have IPOB in the South East, we have Boko Haram in the North and we have ISIS in the West African province. Our security agencies are stretched thin. I do not think that this is the right time to make reckless statements about the issue of rotation.

Rotation has come to stay, Buhari is from the North and by 2023, he would have spent eight years and then it would be the turn of the South, any attempt to make anybody from the North succeed Buhari would be interpreted as a third term agenda by the Buhari administration.

What is your view on the agitation for restructuring?

Of course, we must restructure, that’s the only way to go. We need to restructure in the sense that you know we talk about unity in diversity. Nigeria is a federation and you know at independence, we were familiar with the Lancaster Conference, the Independence Conference in London. The founding fathers of Nigeria, made it known that the solution to the diversity was to be able to use that diversity as raw material for unity.

You can’t deny the fact that Nigeria is diverse; there are many ethnic nationalities in the country and all over the world you have such diversity. The solution has always been a federal structure.

But why do you think Nigeria has stagnated. What is responsible for our

failed dreams as a nation?

Like I said earlier, we have achieved so much. Earlier on, we spoke about the issue of corruption. Corruption is a huge problem that the country is facing because all the programmes, infrastructure that will make the country great need money. The country has been plagued so much by corruption since independence with the better part of our resources taken outside of the country. That is why we must fight corruption with all seriousness and sincerity.

For me, I hold corruption for those failed dreams. This is because Nigeria is blessed; we have all the resources, materials and human resources. In spite of that, we still manage to become the best economy in Africa.

I think we should tackle the problem of corruption. The lesson that we can say we have learnt is that it is a journey. Nationhood is a journey, it is not an event, we will continue to explore.

What about the security challenges facing the country?

Well, there is poverty in the land. A lot of people taking part in banditry are unemployed. This same thing has accounted for the Boko Haram in the West African province. You will not be able to employ someone who has something doing. It is this idle mind that you have in groups such as Boko Haram and the rest of them. Therefore, we should monitor the problem of poverty.

We must all work towards the success of any president, governor or local government chairman irrespective of whether we voted them or not. When they succeed, the country will succeed. You will wait till another four years to put your own man there. But, when we think that at all costs we must undermine the person, then we will cause problem for the country.

The armed forces or police are overstretched; the same people that are fighting banditry are the same people that you want to use in fighting Boko Haram, the problem of herdsmen and the militants. So we must be careful. Again some people want to start a revolution, you still have to deploy the security agencies to go and take care of that. We must not politicise security.