Prince Adewole Adebayo was the flag bearer of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 presidential election. In this interview, he speaks on calls for Nigeria to return to regional government and other issues
The Northern League of Democrats recently visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo and discussed, among other issues, regionalism which had a lot of fond memories for everyone. What do you think of the visit and the discussion?
Every contribution to a public discourse must be put in the context of why the discussion was made, why the comment was contributed. From what I gathered, it was a courtesy visit by the League of Northern Democrats.
That name suggests that it is a League of Northerners whose members have democratic aspirations for the country and in that context, I wouldn’t think it’s to be a speech or regionalism generally because regionalism will mean different things.
I think what the former president was trying to drive at is that any discourse about a common problem in Nigeria should not exclude anyone. It should be made available for everyone who wants to contribute.
From the group’s chairman, former Governor Shekarau to the convener, Dr Umar Ado, many of my brothers were there. These are my friends, supporters.
These are my believers and these are people I consider to be democrats. If they form an organisation that is just seen as the League of Northern Democratic, what President Obasanjo was saying is that to some people, it is that ‘Northern’ that they see, they will not see the ‘League’ and they will not see the ‘Democrats’ in it.
But if you’re able to see all the three words, you will understand that these are Nigerians of northern extraction, who are concerned about democracy and there’s nothing unusual about that.
But for a president like General Obasanjo, who joined the Nigeria Army, not Northern Army, not Western Army, who ruled as the head of state and as president and joined the national party called the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), when you come to him for anything that is sectional, that is regional, that is not all-inclusive, he will buck at it.
My view about regionalism as a system of government, as a method of administration is a different discussion.
That is Political Science discussion; that is discussion of History. It doesn’t mean that the regions were not good, the regions were great. But in modern times, when you are discussing national issues, you need to discuss it on a national basis.
What I believe is that many things that are national today started as regional. Even the Federal Road Safety Commission started as Oyo State Road Safety Corps.
So many things can start from the region, it can start from anywhere, as long as it is for national benefit, we should try to listen and we should try to expand it.
What is your perspective on the regional system of government as it affects national governance?
My perspective is that problems that are regional and local should be addressed locally. You cannot federalise every issue. Nigeria is a reasonably sized country, and it’s just the right size to be one entity, and I believe in that one entity.
However, many things were done better in the regions, not just because they were regional, but because the nature of the problems was localized to those regions.
And it is also because the regions were very effective. Some of them have to do with the effectiveness of the British administration generally.
They were good with the civil service or public service, but I don’t think that we can rule out regionalizing certain aspects of things. For example, on the issue of collapsed national grid, maybe, if we had regional grids, at local levels, state levels.
And I made that speech during my campaign, two years ago, with respect to how to manage power, how to decentralize the national grid, and make the national electricity grid to be a backup, so that if there is a collapse in one section of the country, you could send power to them for the time being.
But the idea you assume that if something is called federal or national automatically works better or automatically unites people, no. In fact, it will surprise many people that, in the regions in the past, it didn’t matter if you came from those regions.
There were people from the East and West, who were senior in government service in Northern Nigeria. So, none of it guarantees success. None of it guarantees failure. I think efficiency matters, but regionalism will be used on many occasions because of geography, because of the localization of the issues, and things like that.
If you consider where we are today, with many asking questions about whether or not our federal system is really working in the real sense of the word, if a senator comes up with a bill to strengthen the regions, what would your response be?
My response would be nuanced. I would engage on three basic principles. One, the regions worked not just because they were regions but because the people around them were interested in running proper government.
Even if you don’t change anything today in terms of regionalization, if you keep the structure and the constitutional framework that we have now, if you have patriots, and highly knowledgeable people to run things, things will run well. So, don’t say those regions ran because they were regions.
They ran because of the quality of the political leadership, the quality of the public service, and the general direction and the moral compass of the country at that time. And there was the leftover of the efficiencies for which the British were known in public service.
What I will say in addition is that those who are running the country today, if they were asked to run the regions, they would ruin the regions. If they had displayed the same attitude today, if they displayed them when the regions were there, they will ruin the regions.
So, it is not the form of government that is the problem of the country, but the quality of leadership that is running governmental institutions and frameworks. The second thing is that you do not over regionalize. You don’t overcorrect. Don’t go and eliminate everything in the country and regionalize.
It seems you are arguing that it wasn’t just the regions…
The regions didn’t work because they were regions, but because of the quality of the people who operated them but some people will argue that as a result of government being everybody’s own and nobody’s own is one of the reasons why we are where we are.
Would you accept that argument? I will respectfully disagree for three reasons. One, people steal local government money nowadays; they steal town union money; they steal money belonging to temples, churches and mosques.
So it’s the general moral decay because if you look at those who were at the federal level in those days, they came from the regions, but they were very loyal to the Federal Government. It didn’t matter where they came from. They were highly loyal and they did their job effectively.
The problem now is that if you go to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) records, they steal state’s money more than even federal money. You’re more likely to have a governor who finished his tenure and report himself to the EFCC or be looked for by the EFCC.
So, if you think that only the Federal Government people don’t have a sense of belonging, why would somebody who was born poor, who was raised by the public, who was the child of nobody, and turned out to be a governor, still be stealing everywhere dry?
And all of these people, who are doing all of these things called governance today, they don’t know anything about governance. Even if they wanted to do what is right, they don’t know what is right. We need to have a new philosophy about our government.
You can do a survey around the government to find the number of people in the public service, whether elected, appointed or career, who understand the three pillars of modern governance, which the British call PPE – Philosophy, Political Science and Economy.
They are less than per cent and the people we elect nowadays are not politicians; they are financiers who believe that politics is like investing money in any other venture. So, when you invest money, you will reap in abundance.
So many people, who ordinarily will be in business, will realize that if you invest in banking, agriculture or whatever, you get a single digit return but if you invest in politics, you get a million fold. If you give a billion naira to support a political party or a candidate, you could have a whole ministry given to you.
And that is what is dominating the issue. Ministers, commissioners and other senior government people are recruited to help the boss get his money back, to protect procurements and other business opportunities for their clan, for their clique. So, no pure government is going on.
They are recruiting themselves to govern it. The reason why our politics is failing is because our philosophy of governance has failed. You will see a lawmaker, he doesn’t care about law-making; he is evaluated for law-making by bringing goodies back home, motorcycles, and giving money to people.
What we are running is essentially a quasi-criminal organisation called government, where we go there to audit our own laws, organise together and do things, which if you did them in your private capacity, you will spend a long time in prison. That is why the system is not working.
