Elder-statesman, Tanko Yakassai, 91 is among the very few Nigerians around with political origins antecedents from pre-independent Nigeria. With a dose of human right activism, Yakasai is a voice that has repeatedly erupted in challenging times. He served as Special Adviser/National Assembly Presidential Liaison Officer to President Shehu Shagari in the Second Republic and was one of the founders of the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF. In this interview, Yakassai gives his perspectives on the agitation for restructuring with a historical narrative of how in his mind the Southwest has fanned the clamour supposedly to its advantage. He also expresses discomfort on the management of President Muhammadu Buhari’s health issue among other things. Excerpts:


Is the North afraid of restructuring? In the first place, this agitation is a continuation of the agitation by people who want to dominate other Nigerians; it had its origin in 1953. The Action Group sponsored a motion in the House of Representatives through its member, late Chief Anthony Enahoro for the British Colonialist Government to grant independence in 1956, I don’t know how many graduates the West had produced that time. Definitely, they must be in thousands. As at that time, the North had only a graduate, and that was in the person of Dr. R A Dikko, who enjoyed the sponsorship of the missionaries. This imbalance forced the North’s representatives to amend the motion that independence should be granted to Nigeria as soon as it was practicable. In otherwords, the concern by northern leaders was that if independence were granted by 1956, the north would be unprepared and therefore the leaders calculated that the Action Group introduced the motion deliberately in order to have an opportunity of dominating the whole of Nigeria.

From that time to date, it is the same slogan that is changing colour. It started with the slogan for the creation of more states; the Action Group calculated that they could get the minorities in the North and in the East on their side to enable them to produce the Prime Minister. As at that time we were operating a parliamentary system. With the 1963 population census, Northern Nigeria had approximately 55 percent of the country’s population and the entire south had 45 percent and yet the British, instead of giving the North representation proportionate to her population, gave the north only half of the seats in the House of Representatives. With the result of that election began agitation for the creation of states in Nigeria. There were minority movements like Calabar/Ogoja/ River State Movement in the East where NCNC was the dominant party, the Middle Belt League in the North; that was before the formation of United Middle Belt Congress, UMBC. Because of the strength of the NCNC in the West, they shared the seats with the Action Group in the South Western Region and the Action Group strategists realized that they must concentrate their effort in recovering lost ground to their side to build up a majority. But during the 1959 elections, the Northern Peoples Congress outsmarted them, and they realized that with near total control of the seats in the North, all they needed to do was to concentrate their attention in the North in order to emerge with the majority in the House of Representatives. That, therefore, qualified them to be invited to form the central government, they did that and secured the majority in the House of Representatives. So by 1961/62, the Action Group strategists were convinced that they could never match the North in a competitive election and it would be difficult for them to govern Nigeria. That was the reason why their leaders resorted to coup plotting, which resulted in the arrest of leading figures of the party in 1962. It also resulted in the famous treason trial where leaders were tried and convicted, after that, we adopted a Presidential System, and this same group did not give up. The NPN won, and they came second. They also thought they could concentrate their efforts on the Social Democratic Party, SDP, hence their support for late MKO Abiola, even though some notable figures from that same region were not supporting him. When Abiola’s election was annulled, they came up with the new slogan, NADECO and June 12. After the death of Sani Abacha and Abiola, they changed the slogan to PRONACO; it is the same trend, the same strategy. PRONACO was confined by and large to the Southwest, and they realized it has no national appeal; they quickly changed to Sovereign National Conference to court national appeal. The idea of Sovereign National Conference was to renew the strategy of bringing the minorities in the North and the South together with the remnant of Action Group in a different form and the strategy has failed them again. The question of restructuring is a product of agitation from the South West. Now that there is an increase in agitation from the South East and South South, they now cashed on it to fuel and fan dismemberment of the polity. Unfortunately, nobody has come out with a definitive explanation of a detailed blueprint. If Nigeria is restructured, how is it going to look like, what will happen to me and you and everybody in Nigeria? Now to your question, Northern leaders are not afraid because you cannot restructure Nigeria without the participation of the North. You cannot change Nigeria democratically without going through the process as defined in the Constitution and this is the support of two-third of members of the National Assembly, a two-third majority of State Assemblies. I assure you that without the support of the Northwest and Northeast, who if put together boast of 13 states, you cannot have the two-third majority to scale through. Any northerner, who is aware of the strategic position of the region would not be afraid of any constitutional changes because he knows that it (restructure) cannot happen without his consent. For him to give his consent, he must know how the future looks like to him; so the argument is that those who are agitating for restructuring should please put in black and white how Nigeria would look like. If you look at the arguments in the North, nobody came out openly and said he is opposed to the slogan, what we are saying is to make it bare for us to assess and evaluate what you are talking about. It is wrong for anyone to say that we are afraid. From your analysis, it is evident that the federating units are not comfortable with the present structure, and ….. (Cuts in) No.Why is that? (Cuts in) Hold it. It is wrong to take the 36 states as the federating units. We borrowed this word from United States of America. In the USA, 13 states revolted against British rule, they came together and proclaimed their independence and after the declaration, they agreed to form a union, which resulted in the formation of the United States of America. It was later other states joined. The 13 states were the federating units in America. They decided to donate their power to the central authority they created, but the reverse is the case in Nigeria; there is nothing like federating units in Nigeria. You can call them federating states; they did not create Nigerian states. Instead, it was Nigeria that created the states. It is the centre that created the states. First, the constituent units of Nigeria were Southern Protectorate, Lagos Colony, and Northern Protectorate, and they were brought together in 1914 and were named Nigeria. After sometime, the British colonialists decided to create Eastern Protectorate around 1921 or thereabout, by the time of amalgamation, there was nothing like Eastern Region. The 36 states did not create Nigeria, and any changes that happened in Nigeria was created by Nigeria. If Nigerian state assemblies pass a resolution and you find that majority of them are in tandem with raging political issues, it will be correct to say that the agitation is coming from the grassroots. What is happening now is coming from small, but vocal pressure group exploiting their monopoly of the media making a lot of noise. When you have people controlling the media at the centre of unpopular agitation, the result is the overheated polity and conscious attempt to impose their minority view. To the best of my knowledge, no single elected representative, be it at the state or National Assembly has identified with this latter day slogan or passed a resolution supporting restructuring. Those shouting themselves hoarse are doing that in their private capacities as individuals as guaranteed by our Constitution. Restructuring is not a nationwide appeal because it has not enjoyed the support of the elected representatives of the people of Nigeria. You speak for the same North where IBB, Atiku are also calling for restructuring….. (Cuts in) Despite the position the two personalities held in Nigeria, you are talking about individuals. IBB ruled for eight years as Military President, while Atiku served as civilian Vice President for eight years. When they both threw their support for the new slogan, I celebrated that for the first time because of the strategic position they held in the past, they would come up with a clear definition of what we don’t know about restructuring. IBB granted an interview, and Atiku delivered lectures, and the point they harped on was almost identical but what is interesting is that I can understand IBB’s position because he was a military President, not an elected president, but for a man like my brother, Atiku… I thought as a politician that he is, that he should have read our Constitution. He said you could restructure in six months. What are the details? That the budgetary provision for Federal Ministry of Works should be transferred to the states, and the same for Federal Ministry of Education and so on. He argued that these could be done within six months. First, we already have a budget approved by the National Assembly as empowered by the constitution. How can we take the fund by the National Assembly for the Federal Government and now transfer them without the consent of the National Assembly? How do we do that? The money approved by the National Assembly was for federal ministries with their heads and sub heads cited in the Act. How do we achieve all these without recourse to the Constitution? I wonder how Atiku wants to achieve these. If you are going to change a comma in the Constitution, I know you have to go through the normal process. It means you want to amend the constitution and it must go through established protocol to avoid chaos. I am wondering how we can transfer an item slated for the exclusive list either to the concurrent or to the residual without going through a constitutional amendment. I am not a lawyer; I hope that as time goes on, Atiku will give further insight on how we are going to do the transfer. Why the controversy over President Buhari’s ill health? I am not comfortable with the attitude of those around the authorities in Nigeria, where the condition of the Head of Government is not made public, it is bad. It creates room for nervousness. At one time, when Ronald Reagan of USA was hospitalized, his handlers issued a statement about his health, and every American prayed for his quick recovery. I think we should borrow a leaf from yonder to save this country from speculation which is not helping us because when the health of the President becomes a subject of debate in the media, you are indirectly telling a would-be investor in that country to be careful that it is risky to invest for fear of unknown consequences. Those who are presently hoarding information are not helping this country. On security The imaginary crisis we have in Nigeria today was created by the media and sustained on the pages of newspapers, and there is nothing to suggest that Nigeria is in danger because we are still our brothers’ keepers across the divide. The citizens are living peacefully. The noise is only on the pages of newspapers; I think it is wrong to say that the country is not safe. The fact that in Kano today, Sokoto, Jos, Kaduna, there is no clash between the local communities and their compatriots from other parts of the country and there is no such situation in Lagos, Benin, Akure, Enugu and other Southern cities that the local people are living peacefully with their host communities. I will continue to believe that the noise is on the pages of newspapers and does not involve the ordinary citizen of the country which suggests that everything is fine. But the only concern I have is that Nigeria has passed through terrible experiences, and we are trying to create an opportunity for undemocratic forces to have their way.



Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/restructuring-southwest-troubled-nigeria-since-1953-yakasai/

what a waste

Please can someone summarise this. Whoever removed History from Nigeria school curriculum go collide with thunder and brimstones

A

Yorubas and the rest of Nigerians. We set the pace, others follow religiously while one group of lost Jews remain defiant.

Nigeria can't be restructured now. Because we are yet to have a full understanding of restructuring and its applications

Awolowo was jailed for treason.
The first unrest started here in the SW, that ushered in series of coup.

Nigeria created the states and not the other way round!!!
What a subtle way to reject restructuring!!!

I don't care, all I know is The owner of the kingdom is back to take back what it his
Yoruba get ready to be the head again

I think we all have to give kudos to the Igbos for their courage to make their feeling very clear, pump and play.

They do not partake in hide and seek game. They will tell you what they want to your face. They want Biafra, simple and short.