If he cannot take care of internal insurrection, how then can he cope if there is foreign invasion? We are not safe. If any of our neighbours should attack us, are we sure we will win, when we cannot take care of internal security?
You journalists contribute to the rot in the country.
How?
You see and pretend that you don’t see for fear that they will either close down your newspaper, radio or television stations. You contribute to the rottenness and lack of progress in the country.
Journalists are no longer bold enough. Publish and be damned. That is what I knew of journalism. Not anymore.
But journalists fought alongside other Nigerian patriots in the days that the locusts ate. The Nigerian media helped in chasing the military out of power and they have also played their watchdog role since 1999 …
Don’t come here and defend yourself, my friend. You are not talking to a baby.
I am not defending Nigerian journalists, I am only making a statement of fact. Nigerian journalists are doing their part.
You are doing your part. I am saying that you are not doing what you are supposed to do.
Like protesting in Aso Rock or what?
Are you saying that journalists of today are the same journalists of the Abacha era? Are you playing the role played by the Vanguard and Punch newspapers and TheNews magazine of that time, although TheNews has collapsed now because Jagaban (Asiwaju Bola Tinubu) has bought it? You cannot tell me anything about Nigeria.
Have we seen journalists in the streets when rule of law is being trampled upon? Have you seen them demonstrating that this should not be so?
I don’t think that is part of the mandate of journalists sir.
All of you are afraid. You don’t want your newspapers to be closed down. It is your business. As far as Ayo Adebanjo is concerned now, I am finished. It is the funeral dirge that I am expecting. I will be 94 years in April. All kinds of permutations you are going through in this country now, I have gone through them and they led us to nowhere.
Why do you think Nigeria is where it is today?
Because we abandoned the Constitution under which we agreed to come together. Simple! We abandoned the Constitution under which we agreed to stay together at independence and we have been crying, let us go back to it and they say no.
That is why you are where you are today. It is a good question you have asked. Talk about any problem you can think of in this country today and you will find out that it has to do with this Constitution. Talk about Egbesu, it is this Constitution. Talk about Biafra, it is this Constitution. Talk about Sunday Igboho, it is this Constitution. Talk about Governor Nyesom Wike going to court over Value Added Tax (VAT), it is this Constitution. Don’t let us pretend.
Are we not being too simplistic when we blame all the country’s woes on the Constitution? What about the people who operate the Constitution?
Don’t tell me what ignoramuses are saying. Who are the people? Is it not the Constitution that the people will operate? I say the Constitution is a fraud and you are talking about the people operating it.
When the foundation is faulty ab-initio, what can you build on it? That is even assuming that the people are bad.
Are you saying the Constitution is good and the people who are operating it are bad? I have told you the answer. The Constitution is a fraud. Did you make the Constitution? Are we federal?
We all know this and we are pretending that we don’t know. I am reiterating the fact that the Constitution is a fraud. All they are trying to do is to browbeat everybody. The military introduced it. People who don’t understand when we say that the 1999 Constitution is a fraud should go back to the Independence Constitution. When we say restructuring, people who don’t understand should go back to the 1960 Constitution.
When they were cornered, they said okay, we are going to restructure. They got there and said restructuring is not a priority. At some point they said they don’t understand what restructuring means. Yet, they put it in their manifesto.
Why can’t you journalists lambast this government and say the facts as you know them? You are pretending that Ayo Adebanjo must say it before you know it is the truth. Are you guys uninformed, ignorant or uneducated? What I am saying now, am I talking fiction?
So, where do we go from here? Do you see any possibly of this Constitution being changed?
What do you mean by possibility? It must be changed. If you don’t change it, you continue to stew in your poverty and whatever you are suffering from. You won’t change the Constitution that deprived the owner of the house not to take care of his house? When we say change the Constitution, they say no, they will take care of my village from Abuja. We tell the government that we need state police, Buhari says no.
So, why are you asking me? We are all in this country. It is your generation that I am pitying. At 94, what I am expecting now is my funeral dirge. Baba rele! You know what Baba rele means in Yoruba? That is the song they sing for the old man they are going to bury. What am I going to say that God has not done for me at 94? What have I not got? I am a very contented old man. Nobody can harass me with anything. I have told them, what I owe them now is a bullet.
2023 is just around the corner. People are already jostling for who will succeed Buhari …
They are jostling stupidly. Unless they restructure first, I say it without any fear of contradiction that election without restructuring is an exercise in futility.
Tell me that Ayo Adebanjo is talking nonsense, it does not concern me. When it will happen, I may have gone but you will be around and you will remember that I said it. You are contesting an election under the rules made by your opponents and all the ambushes are there.
INEC is under Buhari, the courts are under him, the tribunals are under him and you say you want to contest election. You are joking with Fulani. Fulani people know where to ambush you.
When Buhari came in and people said he was putting everything in Katsina and the North, he said he wanted to work with only people he knew.
You people in the media didn’t take him up on that.
Only the people you know? So all the people who voted for you from the South, you don’t know them and you don’t trust them?
So all those people who voted for him in APC with the help of Bola Tinubu, he can no longer trust them?
Your generation should go and think again. Me, I dey here and if anything happens, I will just say, I told you so. It is a long way I have been coming. Nobody will tell me the story of this country. Nobody will tell me this is how we do it. No! Many of them were not born when we started doing it and I told you that Buhari was in primary school when we were fighting for independence.
That is why you people cannot have the passion that I have. These are the same people who said they wanted to break away from Nigeria. I have said this before and they have not refuted it. Chief Awolowo persuaded the Sardauna of Sokoto to be a federalist. People are still blaming Awolowo till today that he should have allowed the man to go.
Have you not asked yourself this question: If Buhari is sincere about keeping the country together, and he is arresting IPOB people and Sunday Igboho, why is he not asking them why they want to secede from Nigeria? And the people will say, restructure because if you don’t restructure, we will go away because we are being cheated here. Why doesn’t he want to do that?
Put that aside, all the Southern governors said they want restructuring, they want state police, they want a dialogue, if he is a born-again democrat as he said when he was running for president in 2015, has he said a word?
You journalists should go and think. Don’t allow those who are jobbers under him to confuse you. Your namesake, Rotimi Amaechi, has been made a chief in Daura. The typical Fulani tactics, if they want to kill you, they give you their daughters in marriage.
Are you not unwittingly exaggerating the capacity of the Fulani?
Go and read your history. I am not going to tell you something you should have known as a journalist.
The question is how did we get here and I have told you it is the Constitution. How is it the Constitution? I have told you.
The news that came out of Benin Republic is that Sunday Igboho is going to be detained for another six months. How do you feel about that?
They are just deceiving themselves. They are doing very unconstitutional thing. They are just afraid of the Nigerian government. What has Igboho done? Why have you not extradited him? The man took the Nigerian government to court and the court in Abuja said he has not done anything wrong, release him. In fact, you infringed on his property. You committed murder and destruction of property. Go and refund it to him. That is the judgement of the court in Nigeria under Buhari. Those are the documents they would have sent to Benin Republic before they say this is the offence. They cannot do that and that is why they are using Big Brother on Benin Republic. Those ones do not want to offend them. What have they said he has done?
They are extending detention order. On what? These people are placing wool over your eyes. You are too educated for that. You should be dismissing that. Let us know where we are going. We are all living in denial.
But Igboho seems to have been abandoned to his fate. Those who want him out of circulation are having their way.
How would you rate President Buhari’s anti-corruption fight?
A government that claims to have zero tolerance for corruption is surrounding the cabinet with corrupt people.
Buhari has no serious intention to fight corruption. He is surrounding himself with corrupt people. Number one, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva. It is on record. The EFCC prosecuted him under President Goodluck Jonathan. They seized about 26 houses from him. Buhari returned those houses to him. The lawyer who prosecuted him, Festus Keyamo, is now in the same cabinet with him.
Commodore Kunle Olawunmi said he had submitted the names of Boko Haram people to the government. What has happened? Abubakar Malami, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice said they have about 200 names of those sponsoring terrorism, what has happened? Why should these people just be deceiving us?
What has happened to Babachir Lawal, Buhari’s first Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF)? What has happened to Ibrahim Magu?
Amaechi, your generation must fight your cause. Don’t defend the indefensible. You have a rotten administration. And the earlier you wake up and fight it frontally and not pretend, the better for you.
You are asking me about this government. Can you consider your pocket in 2015 and now?? Is rice now cheaper in the market? Are you now buying it for N7,000? Is it not still N25,000 or more?
These are facts known to you, don’t pretend. Expose this government and let people know where we are. Fourth estate of the realm, publish and be damned. And don’t come and pretend, it is Chief Ayo Adebanjo who said it. I am not afraid to say it. It is your palaver.
Let us go back to 1999. There are people who blame the Afenifere for the crisis that eventually consumed AD. It is said that Chief Funsho Williams won the AD primaries in Lagos, but you gave the ticket to Tinubu.
My dear, when you come to a person like me, don’t come with hearsay. Come with your facts.
But it is not a hearsay. You must be aware that the late Chief Ganiyu Dawodu, a chieftain of Afenifere then, left AD because of the crisis.
I have answered this question several times. I sponsored Tinubu and if you read what he said during my 90th birthday anniversary, he confessed that if I wasn’t a man of integrity, he wouldn’t have been governor. What happened? The people voted for him in the primaries and how they did it is not my business. That was what we agreed to. And Dawodu said Funsho won, and the people who conducted the primaries in Lagos came from Oyo, I wasn’t there, said no, Dawodu, you were not there.
I am not telling you a new story. You are only pretending not to know. If I am guilty of any offence, I am only guilty of due process. What we did was the people conducting the primaries in any state would not be indigenes of that state. Oyo did Lagos; Lagos did Ondo, just like that. It was the electoral body of our party that declared Tinubu winner. And those who raised objections could not substantiate their claim. That is all. That is the story.
Why are you opposed to Tinubu’s presidential ambition?
Who told you that I am opposed to him? All I am saying is that the question of presidential election does not come to me now until we restructure the country. That is the main thing. I am not saying I am supporting him but I have never said I am opposing him. All I am saying is that that is not the question now. The issue now is the fraudulent Constitution. And I have said, if my son steps forward as a candidate under this constitution, I will oppose him. What more do you want to hear from me.
People say I am opposing him, what for? Let those who are sponsoring him sponsor him to the full and let us see. It is not my business. If you read my interview in Alaraoye, I said, don’t bring me in.
I will allow Tinubu and Buhari to fight themselves out. Don’t bring my name. For me the only thing that matters is change the Constitution. Then we can talk about the presidency. Presidency is not my priority now.
Maybe you don’t know, I am not just opposing this Constitution. So, you don’t say, why now? I have been doing that since 1999. And because they didn’t do it, that was what gave rise to Igboho and IPOB. I never met Igboho. I don’t support secession but I don’t oppose it.
That sounds rather ambivalent?
I have invested so much in Nigeria. I have told Buhari, I have been working for ONE NIGERIA when he was in primary school. Where Boko Haram is fighting them now, in 1979, I spent one year there campaigning for the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). I was already a lawyer. I was not jobless but Chief Awolowo sent us there to campaign for one Nigeria. We were already in charge of Western Region. Some people asked me why I went there. I said I was there to campaign for a united country under a federal system. So I have invested in Nigeria. That is why I say, let us go back to what worked for us.
If they refuse, that is where secession comes in. I will not stay in Nigeria under this fraudulent Constitution. I don’t support secession and I don’t oppose it. If you push me into it, I won’t beg to be in Nigeria under slavery. It is as simple as that.
It is consistent with what Awolowo laid down for me. It is consistent with what we agreed to at Lancaster House in Britain until the military changed it in 1966. Follow my argument and fault it. That is my answer. I don’t want secession, I will fight with everything I have to keep Nigeria together because there is beauty in unity.
My father was not born in this Nigeria. Neither was Azikiwe, Awolowo nor Sardauna. Azikiwe was born on November 16, 1904, Sardauna was born on June 12, 1910 and Awolowo was born on March 6, 1909. Even Tafawa Balewa was not born in Nigeria. He was born in December 1912. Nigeria came into being in 1914 with the amalgamation.
Awolowo said it in his book in 1947 that a country of multi-lingual and multi-ethnic and cultural groups must be a federal state if you want to have peace. It was at the Lancaster Conference that he converted Azikiwe to be a federalist.
Given where we are today, do you still have any hope for a united Nigeria?
Well, if people like you can pressure Buhari and those who are opposed to going back to federalism, may be. If we don’t go back to federalism, Nigeria is doomed. I have said it before. Restructure or break up Nigeria because nobody is staying under the slavery of the Fulani. That is clear. I have not hidden it. Chief Edwin Clark has said it. I am saying it. Many other well-meaning Nigerians are saying the same thing.
Why is IPOB there? You are in a Nigeria where the North can have the presidency, the South-West can have the presidency, likewise the South-South, but the South-East cannot. Yet, we are one Nigeria and you want peace. You are deceiving yourself.
That is the basis of my support for the South-East. When Chief Nnia Nwodo and others came, I told them all that the Easterners did to me and Awolowo, which is why some Yoruba say they don’t want Igbo? But Awolowo told me, “No, you must work with the Igbo because you cannot defeat these Fulani people alone.”
Awolowo said only that the Igbo are misguided down from Azikiwe. “They use them against us. But don’t allow yourselves to be used against them because they don’t see.”
They stoned Chief Awolowo in Aba. Let me tell you because you ought to know many things. May be you may not have heard about it, so put it down. We went to campaign there in the First Republic. You were not born then. They stoned Chief Awolowo. The stone hit his head. It was the Awo cap that saved the impact, we didn’t know. I hope you are listening because you often hear that these people (Yoruba) don’t like the Igbo. Your leaders are always talking like that. When we got home after the rally, Awolowo said, do you know these people stoned me, we said ah! We were afraid but he said, you have to work with them. You cannot defeat the Fulani alone.
The same thing happened during the Biafra war. Your people misquoted him. They claimed that Awolowo said if the Igbo go, then the Yoruba will go. And then the Igbo left and Awolowo deserted them.
Gowon didn’t want that war to be fought. He said let them (Igbo) go. Awolowo said, well if you want the Igbo to go, that was what led to the statement, if by any act of commission or omission, you allow the East to secede, the West will secede.
Awolowo went to Ojukwu in the East during the war against the wish of the Federal Government that said no don’t go to the East. He said no, I will go. It was after the war that they saw the tape of what he discussed with Ojukwu.
Awolowo told Ojukwu, come back, let us agree to separate. You don’t leave this burden alone on me. We are carrying this burden of these people together and you want to go? No! You have to come back.
What I am telling you, put it down and let somebody come and criticise it. Ojukwu said he had agreed. Before Chief Awolowo came back to Lagos, Ojukwu attacked Mid-Western Region.
This narrative doesn’t add up. The Eastern Region had seceded, why then ask them to come back to agree to do what they had already done? In any case, is it not the same Awolowo that didn’t want to carry the burden of the North alone that joined them to decimate the Igbo?
You are going to this thing again?
Yes sir because I don’t buy your argument. Why would Awolowo be asking for a fresh sitting down, what was Aburi all about – standing up?
If Ojukwu had waited for Aburi by coming back to discuss, would it not be so? Did he wait for Aburi?
How do mean sir?
You are talking to an intelligent person. I was already a lawyer when these things happened. We are telling you that this is what was agreed. Come back, let us agree to separate. Carry on with your ignorance. I have told you the fact.
Sir, I want to interrogate that your so-called fact because it does not add up. I am educated also. Does it make sense that you are asking a people that had already seceded and you are waging a war against them to come back and discuss the same secession?
They were fighting. They wanted to separate. You people, put up some common sense my friend. Listen, you had not separated. You were fighting to separate. You don’t know the difference? If you had separated, will they be fighting you? Will Awolowo be asking you to come?
Why will Awolowo be asking them to come back if they had not left? With due respect sir, I think this is sheer sophistry in order to shield Awolowo from blame in the role he played in the civil war. All the problems we claim to be fighting today in Nigeria would have been sorted out if he acted otherwise then.
Don’t tell me you have a degree without common sense. They had not separated. You were fighting to separate. Put up some common sense my friend.
I have common sense sir.
If you have common sense, you have not separated. You were fighting to separate. With your degree, you don’t know the difference? If you had separated, will we be fighting you? Will he (Awolowo) be asking you to come back?
You are not talking to an illiterate. If you had separated, why should the war go on?
The war went on because the other side didn’t want Biafra to go which is quite contrary to what you said Awolowo was trying to achieve.
Don’t reopen something that is not on the floor now. Carry on with the impression that we didn’t support you in the war. That is okay.
But the truth is that you didn’t.
Okay, carry on with your ignorance. MCK Ajuluchukwu wrote a book about it and you people are still carrying it on. I am still explaining to you and you are arguing. You refused to listen, carry on with your ignorance. What do you want to gain? It is like my own people now saying that they want to separate. They are saying Baba, you are wasting your time, these people won’t listen. I say, if you want to separate, they will just crush you. Have you got arms?
If you are not prepared to listen to facts, that is your business. Those are my own facts. Go and develop them and say what I told you is not true.
Go on with your questions or is it because of Biafra that you came?
I didn’t come because of Biafra. You brought it up and I needed to interrogate your “facts” on Biafra.
Yes, I brought it up and I have given you the facts as I know them and you are saying no, no, no! It is alright. I have given you the answer and no more. If you are not satisfied, that is your problem. But those are the answers I can give you. I have lived my life for history to judge. Some will agree, some will disagree. That is life. I am not bordered about praises. I operate on the facts because I lived through them. And I lived through them honestly without any blemishes.
You know, I never held any position politically. Do you know that? I never held any position neither in the party nor in the government. And I am still where I am.
But your critics say that is because you don’t have the capacity to contest and win elections. So, you would rather shy away from elective offices rather than testing your popularity.
I leave you to judge. I don’t know how to win elections but I put people in office.
So, why did you decide not to run for public office yourself?
Those who run for public office know what they want. They want to get something. Let me tell you this if you don’t know. There are people who are in public office to serve. But there are others who go there for what they can get or to be known like Bisi Akande. Akande couldn’t have been known but for Bola Ige who made him Secretary to the State Government and Deputy Governor. That is why he is in politics.
I am in politics to serve. You journalists should have asked why this man all these years, I am not in government, I am not in Corporation, I was never Chairman of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) or Nigerian Airways, or anything. And I am still in this game. That is what the young people should emulate not to question why I decided not to go for elective positions.
Of course, the military has made us to lose all sense of value. What you should have appreciated as value is regarded as a vice. You have the mentality of Bisi Akande who think that until you serve in public office, you are not there. Those who served in public office, what have they done for you?
What is it about Chief Obafemi Awolowo that so much catches your imagination? Why did you believe in him so much?
Thank you for this question. I am a fanatical supporter. That was the man who preached and acted what he said consistently – in private, in public. I had the privilege of working with him as his secretary in his constituency. What he said in private, in public, anywhere, he practiced. No more, no less. If I am to come back to this life again, I will be an Awoist. Go and read his books and you will see consistency.
This question of federalism, he had been talking about it since 1947. He told the colonialists, you want to rule this country under unitary form of government? It will be a chaos. Go and read it. It was Awolowo who told us that Nigeria is not a nation but a mere geographical expression. You have Igbo nation, Yoruba nation, Hausa nation, Ijaw nation, is that not so?
You know I was a Zikist. Have you read my book? Azikiwe cut my teeth in politics. He cut the teeth of even Awolowo. Fantastic nationalist. I was buying his newspaper. Have you heard about the West African Pilot? That was the newspaper that enlightened the whole country. Can you remember the motto of that newspaper? The motto was “Show the light and the people will find the way.”
I started buying it from 1942 when I was in Primary 5. It was my copy that my class teacher would read because I took my own from home. I bought it with my pocket money. It was 1 penny at that time.
So, my dear, that is why I tell Buhari, you cannot teach your grandfather how to suck. I am the contemporary of the leader. When you talk about Nigerian issues, I will tell you the why and wherefore, what led to them.
That is why I am not contesting any election because I am so lazy. If that is a defect, I am so happy.
Do you think that President Buhari can change?
No, no, no! He has a goal which you people don’t know. He has an agenda of his own which is to Islamise Nigeria for the Fulani. That is what you don’t know. No matter what you tell him. For instance, all the time we have been talking about this Fulanisation agenda, what has he been saying?
You remember when the Fulani herdsmen started, and we say they are Fulani, he said no, don’t call them Fulani. And when it became apparent that they are Fulani, he said no, they are not local Fulani, but Fulani from Libya.
Now, we said if they are foreign Fulani that are causing havoc here, kidnapping and raping, and you have a duty to protect lives and property, why don’t you arrest them?
When they went to Agatu, killed, maimed and destroyed properties and Samuel Ortom, Benue State governor went to him, I know the people who are troubling me, they are the Miyetti Allah, they wrote me letter that they are coming, that they are going to take my land and that they are the owners of the land, come and help me, what did he say? Buhari said, “Go and live in peace with your neighbours.”
They told him, these people carry arms, arrest them. Did he do that? The herdsmen that I know and grew up with in Yoruba land only carried sticks. Now they carry AK47. Do you know how much that costs? A word is enough for the wise.
The man in charge of your security is now negotiating with bandits and criminals. Is that not so?
But he has assured Nigerians that he will end banditry and other forms of terrorism and insecurity before he leaves office
Stop that my friend, you are talking to a sensible person. I said he has done this and that, don’t tell me what he has assured. Say that is not so. What are you talking about? If you are not serious about your question, don’t come to me.
It is like when they kill someone in an area today, they say president has given orders to beef up security. All these you can’t put together?
Where does the country go from here?
You should ask yourself. I have told you, the first thing is change the Constitution. If you don’t, Nigeria will be in pieces. When the thing happens, I would have been in my grave. I will be enjoying myself there. You will be alive and you will say that man said it and I thought he was talking nonsense.
You allow a small minority to dominate you all because you are taking the crumbs from the table.
Do you have any hope for Nigeria?
Well, if people like you will change. If you don’t change, there is no hope for Nigeria. If they can’t see what is obvious. If they don’t know their enemies and their friends, there is no hope. There is no doubt about that. If you continue to live in denial, there is no hope for you.
The president of the country said a substantial part of the federation is just a dot, did I say so or he said so, and after that he went to the heart of Igbo land and they were praising him. You didn’t feel insulted. It is me, Ayo Adebanjo, crying more than the bereaved. Azikiwe will shake in his grave.
I told Nwodo here that when I see the way the present Ohanaeze leaders are behaving, I shake my head. I remember the fire that Azikiwe put into us even against the Governor-General before independence, Sir Arthur Richards.
When he moved against the nationalists, Azikiwe told him, “The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of tyrants.”
And that was why I told your leaders who went to beg for Nnamdi Kanu, I said to beg for Kanu’s freedom is to surrender to tyranny. I think we should close the chapter like that. I have had enough.
But sir, you will agree that Ndigbo have pushed back against Buhari’s excesses more than any other group in Nigeria, including the Yoruba. So, creating the impression that they have been subservient in the face of tyranny is untrue and unfair characterisation.
That is not the question now my friend. I am defending what Ndigbo are doing now. Don’t come and defend that one here. Where they have done wrong we should join hands to say they are wrong. Why do you continue living in denial?
They have stood against Buhari more than others.
More than who?
More than any other group in Nigeria, including the Yoruba. It was the Yoruba that brought Buhari to power in 2015. Ndigbo neither voted for him in 2015 nor 2019. So, why talk as if Ndigbo brought Buhari to power?
So, you are taking me up for that?
Indeed, I am. I don’t want you to get away with that patronising disposition towards Ndigbo.
Agreed. Carry on. Go and publish that you said the Yoruba brought Buhari to power and I said I agreed.
You are that ignorant. Well, I have met Igbo that think like you, the Igbo that have lost their fire. You cannot claim to be descendants of Dr. Azikiwe. No! Anyway, history will judge all of you.
