Yinka Odumakin is a Pro-democracy activist and publicity secretary of pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and political group, Afenifere. In this exclusive interview with INIOBONG IWOK, he alleged that the lack of a vocal civil society in Nigeria in recent years is because most of them have become an appendage of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He also spoke on the 2019 general election, the presidential election tribunal, among other issues in the polity. Excerpts:
There appears to be a dearth of civil society in Nigeria in recent times, or simply put, they are no more vocal; what has happened?
It is because they are now close to the establishment who mobilised them to the APC project. When it started, a lot of them became spokesmen for APC, either as a regular analyst on TV or newspaper columnist.When they spoke, they were more for APC. That robbed the civil society much of its potency; because for them to speak against APC, it would be antiparty activity. So, this people did not want to damage the people they just joined force with.That is why many of them are courteous; they choose their words, when they are not mute, and even when they criticised the government, there are some clauses.
And the other side is the fact that you cannot compare the mood in this administration and the Jonathan government; Jonathan was a democrat, who you can abuse and go to bed without the fear of anybody coming after you, it is not the same like that today. There are people who have been in detention for four years without trial.
There are people who have got judgment from court for their release but the judgment was not obeyed by the government. The kind of muscles that have been displayed by this administration, there are some military regime that did not display such muscles. So, when you combine that, the civil society lost a sizeable number of members to the APC. When you look at the mood of the nation which is undemocratic, you would understand why there seem to be quietness among civil society movement in Nigeria.I remember in those days in 2012, when we staged the anti-fuel price protest, it was five days’ protest that touched Nigeria; but now- for a day, you can now mount a protest because government will send soldiers to shoot at you. At that time, due to the large crowd of people who came out for the protest, we the leaders were afraid that there could be a stampede, and if there was a stampede we would be in trouble.
Among the leaders, we decided that we should have a break; it was when we had a break and when we resumed back on Monday morning that Jonathan brought soldier to invade the place.
So clearly, we are losing the democratic space in Nigeria; all the gains that were made over the years in terms of enabling democratic environment have been defeated, and that is why we are here today.
We are getting to a stage where the government would execute people without trial; it can happen because of the things that they do and get away with them.
Does it mean democracy has not grown in Nigeria beyond conducting elections every four years?
Yes, democracy has not grown in Nigeria in anyway; in fact, we are far from where we were in 2015, when we had a semi-free election.
An incumbent losing election and conceding defeat even before the result was announced. We went into the 2019 election without an electoral law; the president refused to sign. We are now seeing why he refused to sign; which is because of electronic transmission of result.The drama going on now tells it all, in 2015, we had an election where the APC went to court to challenge the use of soldiers for the election; but we saw how soldiers were used in Rivers State and some other states across the country, so many people lost their lives.
There was a report recently in the foreign media that indicates that the country has gone down in all indices of governance; we have not been able to build on what we have had before.
But it seems the civil society thrives more in only one part of the country than the other?
That is because we had early exposure to education in the Southwest region and we had strong institutions, viable media; we are far ahead of other regions.We heard the president say recently that the Southwest region was the easiest for them to woo in 2014 because of their organisation.
So, what happened was that they wooed politicians in the Southwest; they also wooed their civil society partners and that did a lot of damage to the independence of civil society. The moment the civil society became an appendage of the ruling party, it became a problem.
Nigeria was not like this before, even under the late Sani Abacha; we had a strong and viable civil society that stood for years against Abacha. Under Babangida, we had a strong civil society. These were military regimes.The Southwest wing of the leadership of the APC brought the chunk of civil society in Nigeria into APC.So, for them to fight APC would be anti-party because they dissolved into APC.Most of the people who would have fronted the civil society have joined power.
Under the military, the line was drawn, but most of the people allied with certain elements in the APC and they collapsed and ones they had that collaboration, that is why they are where they are now.
Was the outcome of the general election what you expected?
We saw the state of the country months to the general election; there is no reason for the incumbent to win the presidential election.
There was widespread insecurity, hardship; life was becoming unbearable for the people. So, when you say the same people voted for the same President I am surprised.It is to say that the will of the people was not allowed to prevail.In other part of the country, like in the South where there was some level of freedom, the will of the people prevailed; look at the result of the election.
But look at the result in other places, like the North, it shows that the election would not have passed international best practice for an election. So, the election was not a reflection of the mood of the people.
Ayo Adebanjo said recently he would not recognise President Muhammadu Buhari administration beyond May 29; how do you react?
Of course, he has a democratic right to his views, and I heard some people say that he should be arrested. Adebanjo also answered them; saying they should come and arrest him, but they have not done that.
AtikuAbubakar is in court to challenge the presidential election result. Do you think it is necessary?
Well, a lot of things have happened in the last few months that have made the spirit of Nigerians very low about the judiciary interms of the attempt by the executives to muscle the judiciary. The raid on the homes of some judges was deliberate and it started with the night raid.You saw what happened, the CJN was also brought down; we had the judgment of the Court of Appeal some days ago, that what the Code of Conduct Tribunal did was wrong. Sometime ago, a prominent lawyer lost his temper in Court with a judge, he said; it seemed the judge had a prepared judgement from home, because it is not what happened in Court that he was quoting. At some point, he was quoting Quran, clearly the judiciary may have been cowed.
There is also the controversy that the President of the Court of Appeal should not preside over the presidential election tribunal since her husband is a Senator-elect under the ruling party?
I think it would be honourable for her to step down since her husband is a Senator-elect under the APC.
Some cloud is hanging, if she must be above board the right thing is to step down. If the panel ruled against Atiku there would be insinuations. I think for the sanctity of the judiciary she should excuse herself and allow independent people to do the job. It is not here alone; it is about the whole process. We should care about the whole institution and the Court. But we cannot comment on the case because it is already at the tribunal.
What is happening in Afenifere; there is a faction led by Ayo Fasanmi now?
I think it is wrong to say that Ayo Fasanmi group is a faction of Afenifere; that is not true. They are just an election group put together by Bola Tinubu. In all the issues that affect Yoruba nation, have you heard them talk?
When there was problem in Ife and all the Obas were arrested and locked up in Abuja, when the herdsmen where killing people, did you hear their voice? Election came they gathered themselves and said they were Afenifere faction, the media shockingly called them so. That was the lowest point in the media; which faction? It is just Tinubu fans’ club who are Buhari supporters.
Why did you leave Afenifere Renewal Group?
We were at Ibadan for a meeting; when the meeting was about to start thenthere was crisis between the leaders of Afenifere; so me and Wale Oshun, Agbaje, and a few others came together and said since the elders are not agreeing we can bring the two group of elders together.Along the line, some other people like Femi Ojudu joined us, quite a number of people.We then decided that we should have a retreat to bring them together, we were then calling ourselves Yoruba Retreat Group;so, we had retreat in Ibadan at IITA and we invited the elders.I remember that on the last day of the retreat we had Bisi Akande representing the governors and Ayo Adebanjo was there.
When we started, everything went well, until an elder in his speech said; young people remember that no matter the number of nice dresses you have, it cannot rival rags of elders.
Meaning that since the elder is older and has much experience he would have many rags. He was also trying to say that experience is vital and better.
Then BisiAkande stood up and said; you young men, it is this nice cloth you are wearing that I want.
There was a brawl after that comment and the retreat ended on a sad note.When we came to Lagos after the retreat, we asked ourselves, what should we do now?We were not happy that our leaders have not taken the opportunity to settle their differences.
We then said what are you talking about here; among us there are people who are over 50 and 60 years old; Awolowo did all he did before he was 50 years and we said what are we waiting for?
If our leaders are not ready we should move on, when they see that we are moving on they would know that they should forget their fight, and I remember it was Agbaje that asked, are we ready for this? Femi Ojudu replied, what do you mean by being ready?
Another person said being ready means that we should be ready to severe our unbiblical cords.
Then we said we are ready, and set out, and we said why do we call ourselves- Retreat Group, we should call it Afenifere Renewal Group to send a message to our leaders that the young ones are coming to take things up.
And I remember immediately when we set out, the immediate response was that this is a Tinubu group, this was in 2008/2009, and we told them no;Tinubu had nothing to do with this; we are independent.
I had to put all my integrity on the line. So, when Agbaje said we had severed our unbiblical cord I thought we had done that.
That was the time KayodeFayemi was contesting for election in EkitiState and we went to support him. We were in Ekiti State; at that time Tinubu had rebuilt Fajuyi House and was there to commission that house that same day.I just opened the Nation newspaper and saw an advert in the name of Afenifere Renewal Group; that we thank our leader Bola Tinubu for rebuilding Fajuyi House.
I called the head of the group, Wale Oshun and asked him, who put this advert? He responded that he was not aware, and told me to calm down that when we get back to Lagos he would find out who did it, and I kept my cool and stayed back.
We started the meeting, but from the beginning to the end, the issue was not in the agenda and I walked out of the meeting quietly till this morning.
I realised it was a deception; beyond that, I don’t do that; I take cautious decision.If am with you, you would know.
Although the agitation for restructuring isstill loud, it appears the President is not favourably disposed to it; what is the next step towards realising it?
Well, you see that when the President said recently that we need a true federalism, he was not sincere. If you are a President, you are not an agitator. You can do it if truly you want it. If he says; I would send a bill to the National Assembly, I will set up a committee, and we will know he is serious, but he has done nothing.He is saying now he would have swearing in on May 29 and celebrate the real democracy day on June 12, then you know there is no sincerity.In 2014, when the APC brought their manifesto, they said they would do something about restructuring when they came to power. But that is no longer on their card.
