Guardian

Chief Ayo Opadokun, former Secretary General of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and promoter of Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms (CODER), tells SEYE OLUMIDE that Nigeria has not learned anything from June 12, 1993 election debacle.

Twenty years after the June 12, 1993 election debacle, do you think the country has gained anything from it?

Certainly no. That is my reaction. The fact that the most credible, freest and fairest election was annulled by the military oligarchy, and they have not been brought to book, shows that we did not learn from that experience. Ironically, those who were responsible for the act are still dominating the political atmosphere in the country, either directly or indirectly, which speaks volume of our inability to be masters of our destiny.

The fact that the Nigeria military decided to ignore and undermine the collective will and aspirations of the people when they voted for Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola and Babagana Kingibe constitute a testimony that we are not ready to run a modern state.

The Nigerian state, which is an offshoot of the military oligarchy, is busy using central authority in every phase of our activities, and yet, calls itself a federation. I think June 12 had been rubbished.

Some of them even say that June 12 is just like any other day. They remind us that Shehu Musa Yar’Adua’s victory during the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primaries was also annulled, and so, what is the big deal about Abiola? I reply them that they are being hypocritical. Yar’Adua did not go for the direct vote of Nigerians and who knows whether the SDP people voted for him.

In the case of Abiola, over 14 million people voted for him across the country. The fact that our system provided opportunity for a group of people, military caucus to annul the wish of Nigerians people has placed us deeply among the group of the failing nations.

If we talk about failed nation, we are still in it, considering that nobody could have done what the military did if we don’t have a flawed, skewed and lopsided structure that gave room for what they did.

Since the era of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the average oil export has been around 2 million barrel everyday and the price has never been lower than 75 dollars per barrel. If you now multiply this by 2 million barrels everyday imagine what that will give, and yet over 70 to 75 per cent of our people are living below the poverty level — less than a dollar. That cannot be reconciled, we are selling so much oil, but there is so much poverty. Few elite in the country are not only over-exploiting, but turning us into spectators while they play the game.

With the scene you painted, don’t you foresee a situation where Nigerians may be forced to revolt?

I will say that the challenges are onerous. Whether these cabal believe it or not, this current situation is unsustainable. We are so rich, but we have the most decayed social service and the people are extremely poor. We need to ask ourselves what is responsible for our situation? The answer is simple because we have a round peg in square holes in our political landscape and in such a situation anything could happen. The late Gen. Sani Abacha told Nigerians when he was announcing the coup of December 31, 1983 that Nigeria health centres had become consulting clinics in several parts of the country.

Today, the situation is far worse than how he described it, then. This is in opposite to what happened to our public office holders and elite. They travel abroad to specialist hospitals for treatments while the majority languish in the country. Sometimes, they are taken abroad by air ambulance paid for by the country. Obasanjo was in office for eight years and could not build or commission one road. Tony Anenih, in collaboration with Obasanjo, spent so much money on road rehabilitation, and yet there are no good roads. They even organised some meetings with the Chinese to work on the railway and what they did were not completed, but to make Nigerians happy with the old narrow gauge railway system.

Human society have not developed a better means of transporting large number of population from one point to the other than the rail system, but we are different. Almost every Nigerians today is a local council to himself providing basic social amenities such as water, electricity and others while government does nothing. We have too much governance in the country and yet there is no government.

Put it in perspective, do you foresee revolution?

That would be my wish, but unfortunately, I cannot say it will happen in my lifetime. The reason is because in every developed economy, those who would have made up to what you asked are the middle cadre people. They occupy the space between the elite and the poor; they provide leadership for the lower cadre, who takes their destiny in their hands, by going on the streets to make the leaders accountable.

As long as we do not have these categories of people in the country, I am afraid we may never have an ordered society that would respond to its destiny.

It is unfortunate that we have the largest population of the black race and we are expected to live by example, yet we constitute a disgrace. Everything about Nigeria is negative. We export what we do not have and import what we have. We go to other African nations to help them conduct free and fair election and we do not have here.

What I am saying is that the chances of remaining the way we are, are strong. I pray it does not happen, but the fact remains that the current situation is not sustainable so anything can happen.

Everywhere in the world where political office holder either the military or civilian force varieties of people to be governed together has resulted that things would never last. USSR and Czechoslovakia are no longer on the world map. Great Britain, a great colonial master, has been forced to concede significant freedom to the Scottish and Irish people.

The Nigeria state is busy coaxing people together but that will not solve the issue we need to get back and convene a sovereign national conference for us to deal with the national questions. Not until we do that the possibility of Nigeria going under is becoming closer and closer everyday.