Dayo Johnson
1 November 2008
interview
Chief Reuben Fasoranti is the acting chairman of the Yoruba socio cultural group Afenifere.
He spoke with Saturday Vanguard on a number of national issues. In this interview, Chief Fasoranti called for a civilian revolution, saying President Yar'Adua is overwhelmed by the nation's myriads of problems and that unfortunately he has no agenda.
He also described him as too slow and should wake up. On the anti corruption war, Chief Fasoranti said Nigeria is not winning the war against corruption and EFCC boss is not making any impact since her appointment- "She has been dancing in a circle".
On the tribunal, the politician who was a Commissioner for Finance under the late sage and former Governor of Ondo State, Chief Adekunle Ajasin alleged that they have compromised as they are stamping illegalities across the country. He also spoke on the amendment of the constitution, the Niger Delta Ministry and the way forward in the volatile region and the need to make political offices part time amongst other national issues. Excerpts:
President Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua has been in the office for over a year. What is your assessment? Are we really moving forward?
May be he is getting ready to start to work, my impression is that it has taken him too much time to prepare himself, he is being too slow a far as I am concerned. I think it is time for him to brace up and let people know what he has in stock. He said he has a seven -point agenda, but it is on paper.
That is what I can say. A whole year gone, government is not moving, nothing is happening, unemployment is on the increase, the whole economy is breaking down, the value of the dollar in the international market is bad, banks are threatened. Although Soludo is saying that there is nothing to fear, I think there is more to it. Globally trouble is homing and Nigeria cannot be exempted.
So I think may be the president is overwhelmed. He has been trying to change his cabinet, he will say one thing today and tomorrow you will hear he is being affected by some factors which we don't know. If he wants to dissolve his cabinet, let him do it and be done with it. So, nothing is moving and it is a pity for a country like Nigeria with all the abundant talents, with the brain and resources, it seems to me Yar'Adua is in a doldrums. So, the earlier the better for him to know exactly what he is doing.
His slow pace in some quarters is being attributed to the belief that he was not prepared for the exalted position before he was drafted by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He was more or less drafted to become the president; we would have been given an opportunity of having somebody who was ready to become a president, somebody who has an agenda. He didn't have an agenda, he was drafted, we all know it and so he is overwhelmed. You know many forces will be against him and would be trying to outsmart him. That is why he is in trouble.
What is your assessment of the war against corruption?
We are not winning the battle against corruption at all. The stories we hear make everybody to be astonished. The publications in the newspaper are overwhelming. In fact I don't think we are making any progress at all. What we hear and what we read are astonishing and I don't think we are making any impact at all.
People keep on stealing and we hear of revelations of billions of naira siphoned into private pockets and the revelations have not deterred people who are stealing, more are still coming out. So, we need an iron hand. Some of the people who stole our money are in the House of Representatives or Senate making laws for us now. In the advanced country, they would have been banned for now.
Reports from EFCC, is that the files of some former governors who are being prosecuted are missing.
In fact that is another shock. I think that some days ago we heard that the files are missing. So I don't know if the woman who was recently appointed is really making any impact. In any case she was friendly with some of them before she was appointed. The publications we read two or three days ago showed that she was friendly with some of them.
So, it is difficult for her to prosecute effectively people she thinks she is connected to. So, we are not making any progress. We are only dancing in a circle and the waters are becoming murkier everyday. So we are helpless.
Let us go back to democracy, what is the fate of democracy in the face of all these ups and downs?
I only hope that one day something will happen.
Cuts in - Like a revolution or what?
May be, a civilian revolution not necessarily a military revolution. It has happened in some countries in South America. Civilians rising up against bad government and resisting it. In this country because people are hungry, they don't have work, no visible source of livelihood, they agreed to move along with even the most corrupt government as soon as they can get some money.
If they have their palms greased, they keep quite. Look at the way people are decamping from one party to the other. People are decamping to government party; the government is not doing too well with the revelation, with the way elections were conducted. Rigging, violence, killing, stealing of ballot papers are legitimized by politicians,yet people rushed to them because they are in government.
That is the caliber of people we have in this country. As long as we have such people in this country and as long as that continues, it will be probably be difficult to say that there will be a change. The rising of unemployed people, university graduates who are on the streets are becoming very embarrassing, and we cannot continue like this. Money is not in circulation, work is not available and yet they sat down there and pretend to be fending for the welfare of the people. So there is uneasy clam, people are not feeling happy.
But there is no credible opposition? Afenifere is not talking, the same goes for other parties?
The opposition is always talking, Afenifere is always talking, and there are things that the opposition will talk that the government will have its way. We criticized some of the measures they take but they seem to have turned their deaf ears to it and have been going ahead. Not only that, the opposition is not united, we have tried to unite the opposition groups, called a meeting of the opposition groups hoping that we will talk together that the government is a menace and unless the opposition parties can come together, the future is very bleak.
ANPP, DPA, AD, DPP unless they can come together very little can be achieved. We have been preaching this, holding meetings about how to work together until the whole thing fizzles out. We don't know what is happening, whether it is spiritual. And again some are self-opinionated, they stick to their own opinions and they want their opinions to have the way and unless they can bury their ego for the good of the people, we shall continue to suffer in the hands of the oppressive party called PDP. I always wonder whenever I hear the name of the party because they are so ruthless.
They use anything you can name, force money anything; they use any weapon to fight people to submission. So, we hope the opposition will recognize this before long and have a rethink and come together to fight this monster called PDP otherwise it is going to be a pity?
Lets now talk about Afenifere, what is the relationship between you and Chief Ayo's Faction.
Chief Ayo Fasanmi is a personal friend, we were together during the era of AD and UPN and we were also together up till a point in AD when he was deputy to Pa Adesanya. When Papa Adesanya fell ill, Adesanya said I should act for him, so I became acting leader of Afenifere. Fasanmi led parallel officers which we opposed and we said few people should not set up a parallel organization that was the origin of the crisis.
We had one or two meetings, one in Ibadan and another one in Lagos and we thought that was the end of the crisis. There are some people who have personal agenda which of course came out as MDA, later MDD, later MRDD, ACD and AC today. They were already hatching their own agenda. That was why they didn't listen to us but we still remain the best of friends. We have been meeting at different fora.
I met with AC top election, precisely with Lai Muhammed, the Publicity Secretary of the party. He said they had made up their mind that they were with Atiku. I warned them that time that they were going to land in PDP which will be termed PDP number 2 and people argued against it and they said that was where they were going. Tinubu was already on that way because he had parted ways with us long ago and of course he was using his wealth, his resources in Lagos to hold them down. You can now know why there is still division.
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