Revered activist and university don, Prof. Tunde Fatunde in this Special Independence Day interview with Olaotan Falade of TheNewsGuru.com examined the 58 years of Nigeria’s nationhood under successive leaders to the the incumbent leader, President Muhammdu Buhari.
The unassuming former Secretary General of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) also touched down on the challenges bedeviling the nation and recommended solutions, the new minimum wage as demanded by the NLC and other sundry issues.
Enjoy!
Question: How would you describe the journey so far as Nigeria clocks 58 on Monday (today)?
On Monday, October 1, 2018, Nigeria will be 58 years old as a nation. However, there are two questions begging for answers.
What have we achieved?
And where is the place of Nigeria amongst the comity of nations in the 21st century?
Nigeria’s 58 years of independence have been marked by two negative landmarks.
- We have 10 million children out of school. And this a world record.
- Half of Nigeria’s population cannot read and write after 58 years after independence.
The consequences of the foregoing are two;
Despite the fact that we have enough human and material resources to make sure that out of school children and adult population of illiterates are resolved, what we have is mismanagement of resources by subsequent governments from 1960 to date. None of the governments are interested in fixing Nigeria’s problems. Consequently, Nigeria is not in the 21st century. And what this means is that 21st century is governed by knowledge economy. It simply means that it is only those countries that have invested in education and vocational training that will reap the positive effect of knowledge economy. And unfortunately, Nigeria is not on that list.
Nigeria is on the list with Afghanistan. Nigeria is on the list with some Arab countries that are involved in terrible civil war and destruction. However, we have all the needed resources to be part of this 21st century revolution but our ruling class lack the orientation to catapult us into that realm.
We spend only less than seven per cent of the annual budget on education and vocational training and this is not limited to the government of the day alone. It’s been a recurring blunder since independence.
At independence, two countries came to Nigeria to look for a model of development. These are Singapore and South Korea. However, these countries soon look elsewhere for inspiration and salvation because our leaders since independence refused to invest massively in education and vocational training which are the two engines of development in the 21st century.
And that is the tragedy we are facing now as a nation. On top of that tragedy is the mounting population. It is been projected that in the next ten years, Nigeria will be the third most populous country in the world, trailing after India and China. However, India and China have what it take to be part of 21st century but not Nigeria.
So, from all indications, we are celebrating this 58th anniversary in distress, tragedy and gloom.
Question: You’ve spoken quite passionately and constantly about the need to invest massively in education and vocational training. How is the Nigerian government taking these recommendations?
Any government in power is guarded by a philosophy of vision. Any government in power must have a blueprint of the way forward for the development of that country. But unfortunately, over time, even when we fought the civil war, we thought Nigeria was going to be in a position to regenerate herself and move forward and look for what will make us a better nation.
Since 1960 that we gained independence, it has been business as usual. That is using the state resources to settle the purse of the few ruling class without any quota of resources left for the improvement of the livelihood of Nigerians. The improvement of the livelihood of Nigerians can only happen by massive investment in education and vocational training. Those are the two ingredients that are responsible for the greatness of countries like America, China, Russia, Western Europe and so on.
You see when a nation refuses to invest in those key areas, what you get in return is poverty, under development and national crises. Government officials know what is required to make a great nation. The president, ministers and other key government officials have attended international conferences and seminars where some of these policies were formed and strictly adhered to by truly progressive countries. Aside from this, Nigeria is a member of UNESCO, United Nations and other agencies of United Nations where all these issues have been thrashed. But for them (Nigerian leaders) that’s not the priority and that is the tragedy that we are facing and will still face.
What recently happened in South Africa is a slap on our face. You would recall how much Nigeria invested heavily in the liberation of South Africa. However, to repay us for our kindness, South Africa recently came up with a list of countries that can come into the country without VISA, but Nigeria was conspicuously missing on that list. Ghana and Senegal were on the list. That showed how low we have gone as a nation.
Nigeria currently operates an unsustainable feeding bottle federation. It can not just continue like this.
However, there are two ways out of this mess that we’ve found ourselves. It’s either we refuse to accept that we have problems as a nation and keep abiding by the 1999 constitution which simply encourages feeding bottle federation like President Buhari recently advised or we restructure. Those are the two scientific options before us now as a nation.
Question: Nigeria is some few months away from the general elections scheduled to hold in 2019. With the elections conducted recently in Osun, Ekiti, Anambra and other states, do you think the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has what it takes to conduct a free, fair and credible elections?
I will explain the political situation in Nigeria right now using a mythology. Snakes like frogs but there is limit or quantity of frogs snakes can swallow. However, if a snake becomes so greedy that it is determined not to respect the quantity it can take and goes direct to swallow above the quantity because of the number of frogs at its disposal, then it also consequently has to endure the painful process of indigestion.
What I’m saying is that if you look at the composition of this federal government led by President Buhari, it is a federal government that does not reflect federal character in the choice of those who work for it.
The federation is characterized by what I call endogarmy. That is a government of cousins, clans, friends and village heads. Buhari is running an endogarmic government and what this means is that in a federation of multiple ethnic and religious diversities, he (Buhari) decided to narrowly choose people from his ethnic group as supposed to cross pollination of ideas which would have led to more robust, dynamic and open minded kind of government.
So we have find our selves in a situation where the federal government is been ruled by Fulani cabals.
And in a situation like this there are two options. It’s either the Fulani cabal that are bent on capturing power by all means in 2019 succeed and again decide not to share power with elites of the federation thus getting us ready for a big crisis and we can also anticipate going the way of Somalia and this portend great risks for Nigeria and other parts of West Africa.
The other alternative is to ensure that we run the federation on the basis of equal opportunities and representation.
If the country is not run in the spirit of federal character which allows for cross pollination of ideas and talents, the country may be plunged into disaster and that might lead us into the way of Somalia or Afghanistan.
The way the structure of the federal government is conceived now is simply aimed at ensuring that many other ethnic groups do not participate in the governance of Nigeria.
Look at the service chiefs, look at other individuals who occupy strategic positions in the federal government, ninety percent are Fulanis! Check the statistics and you will find out the level of repression and oppression of other ethnic groups by the present Fulani ruling class.
As far as the 2019 elections are concerned, what happened in Osun rerun election is what will play out again. With what happened in Osun, it is now clear that INEC is no longer independent. We are in an era of instant information dissemination. Photographs and video clips of people willing to vote for the PDP being deliberately disenfranchised or molested went viral online even while the election was in progress. The intention of INEC was to ensure that the APC candidate wins and that was cleverly achieved. However, that is not the end of the story. You see in any election, you must be convinced in your mind that it is free and fair. If you are not convinced in your mind that the election is free and fair, and you go on to cling to power, like a snake that has swallowed more frogs than it can digest, there will be problems.
Once a nation has a population of people that does not believe in what is going on, then that nation cannot move forward.
The non payment of new minimum wage is a combination of several factors. Buhari’s government is a disaster. And the consequences of the disaster is that sooner or later, this country will be at the level of amplified political crisis.
Let us take a look at the health sector as another example. Before and after Buhari came into power, he’s been going abroad using tax payers’ monies to treat himself of undisclosed illness. As the president of Nigeria, the citizens should know what kind of illness has motivated him to spend huge amount of government funds on a particular sickness in London.
As a leader i its not a shame that you have so many teaching hospitals and doctors that if the conditions are right one does not have to travel abroad for medications?
But he (Buhari) is is so rigidly convinced that when he takes a decision nobody can reverse it.
And In the 21st century any government or head of state that does that is not only portraying himself in bad light but the entire nation he governs.
To cap it up, 2019 will be a year where APC under Buhari wins virtually all the elections in Nigeria because the elections will not be free and fair and we must be ready to face the consequences.
Question: The organised labour recently embarked on an indefinite strike over the implementation of the new minimum wage. However, past experiences have shown that such strikes don’t eventually achieve its purpose and Nigerians seem to be going about their normal businesses…
Well you cannot say the strike is undermined because everybody is going about their normal business. Even in civil war situation, people go about their normal businesses. That does not obstruct the fact that vast majority of Nigerians are living in abject poverty while a tiny percentage are living in opulence.
Check the salaries and allowances of the political class. How can a senator be going home with about thirty million naira (N30,000,000:00) a month in the midst of poverty?
The political class is completely irresponsible! They don’t care about what happens to the rest of other Nigerians. A tickling time bomb is waiting for Nigeria.
NLC’s campaign for a national minimum wage is justified and over due. For the past years, NLC has consistently argued that Nigerian workers don’t have living wages. Yet monies are squandered to maintain the expensive lifestyles of the political class. And some of these political class cannot pay even the paltry old minimum wage in their states. And we are talking of a nation and government of equality and equal rights? No!
Nigeria is on a fast track towards self destruction on this mission. If NLC says it is tired and cannot continue with the strike, other group of Nigerians will take over from NLC. The battle has started and it must be won. They can decide to release military tanks to the streets, it will not solve the problems because what is in your mind is more formidable and convincing than what is outside your mind.
The minimum wage is a further manifestation of the failure of this government and they are behaving like they don’t care and truly they don’t. If not how can they go ahead and conduct such a glaringly stupid election in Osun and still refer to themselves as progressives? What kind of progressives are those? That is what the late Fela called ‘power show.’
Well, good luck to all of us but I know it will soon get to that stage where we all we come together and fight for our rights.