Alhaji Tanko Yakasai is the Chairman Northern Elders Council and former Special Adviser to Ex-President Shehu Shagari. In this interview, he says Nigeria has fared well 57 years after independence and that the agitation for restructuring is unnecessary. SAMINU IBRAHIM reports.
Nigeria at 57, what is your assessment? We are grateful to God that we are alive to witness this and also during the period, we have recorded tremendous progress. If you look at the progress we have made in the fi eld of education, healthcare, administration, politics, business, then you would agree that we should be commended. By 1960, Nigeria had only a university college; the University College Ibadan, but today we have over 150 universities apart from polytechnics and other tertiary institutions like teachers’ colleges and so on.
Th is shows tremendous achievements, particularly if you take into account the fact that though the British occupied Nigeria right from 1900 to 1960, they could only give us a university college. If you look at the secondary school system in the country, the same progress, primary education the same progress, health care facilities the same progress. Th e only thing is that we have not made very good progress is in the fi eld of democracy and administration. And this is largely brought about by military incursion into our politics.
Th e period we spent under military rule we didn’t make much progress compared with countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, India etc. So, we have made lot of successes. By October 1st in 1960, you could count the number of millionaires, today you cannot, you cannot even count the number of billionaires. In fact, we have the richest man in Africa. By 1960, Aliko Dangote was a small boy, today he is the richest man in Africa.
Th ere are many more like him like Otedola, (Mike) Adenuga etc. Before independence, in the entire banking system in Nigeria we had three or four banks and these were not owned by Nigerians, they were owned by foreigners. Today, all the banks in the country are owned by Nigerians.
Th ere are so many areas that we have made tremendous progress. In spite of all the achievements, if you compare our journey to Ghana that got independence just three years before Nigeria, would you say we have fared well? I don’t agree with you that Ghana is ahead of Nigeria politically, even though Ghana got independence before us. But you see Ghana is about one fi fth of Nigeria, in fact, it is not up to one fi fth in terms of population and landmass. So you cannot compare Ghana with Nigeria. There are agitations across the country over restructuring.
What is your take? Th ese are people who are lacking in ideas, all the time we are wasting, all the energies we are expending on debate about restructuring, Biafra etc, could have been better utilized for the economic development of the country. If we had done that, we would have taken Nigeria many miles ahead of where we are today. You can imagine pages of newspapers that have been wasted on this debate. Imagine, if the whole pages of newspapers that were printed over the years on restructuring were books written on economic development, development of agriculture, science and technology, you can imagine what Nigeria would have been today.
We are wasting time on something that is not important. Why I said this is not important is because this constitution which we have been operating for 18 years, we have not die. Did will die? Did heaven fall? Th ere are three people who sat and took 1999 constitution and compared it with 1979 constitution. Th ey followed it paragraph by paragraph, page by page and they concluded that the 1999 constitution is basically the same with the 1979 constitution. And who are the people who started the campaign against this constitution.
Th e restructuring debate was started by people who took part in drafting 1979 constitution, Rotimi Williams, Richard Akinjide, Professor Ben Nwabueze and the rest of them. And all the things they are saying the constitution against today were the draft of 1976 and they were there in the constitution drafting committee of 1976 and they submitted it to the constituent Assembly of 1979 and it was adopted. I can assure you 95 percent of the constitution was what they recommended. (Richard) Akinjide, (Ben) Nwabueze, they all chaired subcommittees of the 59-member drafting committee, which Rotimi Williams headed. Th ere were seven committees, four of the seven committees were headed by Southerners. Rotimi Williams chaired the committee for the drafting of the report of the conference, Nwabueze was a member, Richard Akinjide was a member, among them. Th e majority were southerners, from the West, East and South south. And from 1979 to date, we have been operating that constitution. Heaven did not fall, we did not die. A section of the Nigeria populace is of the opinion that the Nigeria constitution was impose on the country by the military? Th at is a lie, quote me. If the 1999 constitution is 95 percent a replica of 1979 constitution, which was drafted by 59 members, of which only 19 were northerners.
Are you saying the north is comfortable with the present constitution? I am not speaking on behalf of the North, I am speaking on behalf of myself. You can go round and ask northerners. I was telling you Nwabueze chaired the sub-committee of that drafting committee on objective and public accountability. And Pious Okigbo, another southerner, presided over subcommittee on the constitution drafting committee on economy, fi nance and devolution of powers. But Rotimi Williams chaired the legal drafting sub-committee of the drafting committee and in that committee you have Richard Akinjide, Kolawole Abayomi, Femi Okunnu, Bola Ige, Professor Ben Nwabueze. Rotimi Williams was the chairman of the seven committee, so out of the seven, four of the sub-committees were headed by southerners. Northerners headed only three.
With these narrative, do you think we should expend energies on more productive things rather restructuring? What do you think will happen if we had spent all this time we are using on restructuring, Biafra, IPOB on our agriculture, how to develop our economy; how to develop our power and set up industries? Look by 1970, the Igbo, after the civil war, had no money. Because all the money they had in the bank were said to have been stolen, and, therefore the Minister of Finance at that time, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, approved that they should be given 10 percent of whatever amount they deposited in the bank. But the Igbo’s today are controlling 70 percent of industries in Lagos.
Th is was stated by late General Adeyinka Adebayo. He wrote a memo to Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu. So you can imagine that without the civil war, if the money belonging to the Igbo were returned to them you can imagine how much progress they would have made. Mark you, the Igbo’s had properties in northern Nigeria as well. All the properties they left were rented out and the money was kept in a special account in each state in the north and when they came the money was given back to them to start their business.
What is your message to Nigerians? We should face the problem of development. We rely too much on oil, but now we know that oil is going to fi nish very soon. But if we can develop agriculture, we have the population, we have the arable land that we can grow any crop in Nigeria. We have the capability to cultivate any crop. If we devote our attention to that I can assure you in a matter of 10 years Nigeria would be a diff erent country, people that are going abroad would come back and invest.
