Former minister of state for works, Senator Dayo Adeyeye in a no-hold bared interview with UKO ETIM while on a working visit to Uyo recently says for the country to move forward, now is the time for so many things being managed presently by the federal government to be decentralised.
You have been at the forefront campaigning for Bola Ahmed Tinubu for president in 2023, why?
The current situation our country needs Tinubu. It is a period we require a very competent leader, an astute politician, a man of wisdom and experience. I am talking about someone who is bold, focused and courageous to tackle the mirage of challenges facing the country without any fear. It requires a man who would be ready to confront anybody or group constituting a clog in the wheels of our progress as a country. We have searched around and some of us who are experienced in politics have concluded that the right man at the moment is Asiwaju Tinubu. I would say the man needs the moment and the moment needs the man. Nigeria needs that kind of man now: so, we cannot afford to make mistakes as any mistake may affect the very foundation of the country and the country may never be the same again.
Will the current challenges in the country not work against the APC in 2023?
Let us first acknowledge that Tinubu was part of the people who brought the APC. APC was supposed to rescue the country from what people perceived as mismanagement of the PDP. It was a known fact that Nigerians were not happy in 2015 with PDP. We should not allow amnesia to reign over us. They wanted change and it came but they may not be happy with the change they got in 2015 and Tinubu was one of the people that brought about the change. However, people may be dissatisfied with APC now but the argument can be made in both ways. APC has tried because what they met on ground was extremely bad. I think what would determine vote in 2023 is the personality of the person contesting the election. Nigerians want to see a person who has integrity not the party alone. Tinubu will be contesting on the platform of the APC, the individual who is driving that ship is crucial and very important. The APC ship is okay but the direction the captain is moving is very important. I believe when we make public the glamorous records of Tinubu, majority of Nigerians would want to give him a chance. Tinubu is the only governor since 1999 that not only succeeded in his administration but has successfully encouraged credible successors. Tinubu has a cult like followership that saw one party running Lagos state since 1999. In Ekiti state where I hail from, no government has succeeded to come back since 1999. Therefore, I want you to understand that the quality of a leader is what encourages huge followership.
Don’t you think that for the purposes of fair play, the presidency should go to the South-east?
I don’t think that is expedient in the present Nigerian circumstances. Don’t forget that zoning is just a gentleman agreement. It is not in the constitution or any known law of the country. It doesn’t even prevent people from coming out in other zones. Even if they said the presidency is zoned to the north, people would still come from other zones to contest.
Looking at the security situation in Nigeria today, the South-West has set up Amotekun and other states are working in that direction. Do you support the establishment of other security outfits outside federal security agencies?
Honestly, I have been an advocate of state police. It has been my belief for a long time now. I am also an advocate of community and local government police. The security challenges of the country are too enormous for security to be centralised. In the US, they have City Police, State Police and the federal government has no police. What they only have is the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which is an investigative authority because policing is a local issue. In my hometown, what we do to assist in providing security is to operate local vigilantes to police the town and the community pays them. I can tell you that they are doing a better job. How can you post somebody from Uyo to Katsina to become a Divisional Police Officer in a completely strange land? He is not also emotionally attached to the environment. If they kill 100 people there, he will not feel the impact like when they kill two people in Uyo, his country home who may even be his relatives. People should be allowed to police their local areas. The banditry we are facing today is thriving because security personnel are posted to areas that are completely strange to them to fight crimes. If you post a DPO who is from the same town with policemen from the same environment, you will see results because it is their community, and they will know how to organise it. Information would be flowing and there may not be a need for them to carry too many guns. What we have today is people posted to strange lands whose terrain is unclear to them, and they go without their wives and children and every weekend they are home bound to visit their families. It is therefore pertinent to build a security structure that would recognise community local and even state police. It is more essential than federal police. People have also argued that state police can be used by governors to attack political opponents, but to me the important thing is to secure lives and property first.
Come to think of it, it is more difficult to use brothers in police to fight against their own brothers and easier to bring strangers to manhandle strangers. So, I don’t buy the argument that they will be a veritable instrument to be used to suppress political opponents. It is easier for a top politician to use strangers in the police against his people. What we are running in Nigeria today is artificial security. Tinubu is an advocate of state police and believes that security should be decentralised. We have over the years used the federal police to oppress and suppress ourselves. I personally call for decentralisation of the police and practice of true federalism in which case more powers would be given to the states to manage their own affairs.
But your party came on the mantra of restructuring which it has failed to actualise
That is why we are eager to actualise it. Lots of people within party are calling for it even from the north because the present system cannot carry us far. Let’s face the truth. We in Afenifere wanted a Sovereign National Conference to discuss restructuring of Nigeria, but Obasanjo vehemently refused and instead accumulated more powers to the centre and even annexed state responsibilities. There is no business having a Federal Road Safety Corps in Nigeria to give people licenses. I got my first driving license from Shomolu local government area in Lagos. They also issued number plates to generate revenue. Now, they have federalized everything and you wait to get number plates and license for months. What is the need for a National Judicial Council to control who would be a judge in Akwa Ibom? Microsoft and Apple, some of the biggest companies in the whole world, registered in their home states but do business in the whole world. When the states cannot generate enough IGR and are broke it is because most of their areas to generate money have been taken over by federal government. Therefore, we need to decentralize to allow the people of each state to manage and have healthy competitions among themselves. In the First Republic when Awolowo was building Premier Hotel, Dr Nnamdi Azikwe was building Presidential Hotel and Ahmadu Bello was building Durbar Hotel. There was competition among the regions. The same goes to other major projects like universities and stadia. There was healthy competition and no one went cap in hand every month to the Federal Allocation Accounts Committee (FAAC). In such a situation, money would be difficult to embezzle and corruption would be reduced, because it is the sweat of the people and that would not be tolerated. However, what we have now coming from the federation account is like free money which everybody wants to share from. We must fight for federalism in the country to move forward. India, Canada, Australia, America are all-time federal systems with different constitutions. When we have federalism, every state would determine its own affairs.
