Col.Tony Nyaim (rtd) is in the fore front of the people agitating for restructuring of Nigeria,he belives that this will bring fearness, healthy competition and equity into the Nigeria polity. He was deeply involved in one of Nigeria many military coups tagged Orkra Coup of 1990 during the infamous rule of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, but Iyam was so lucky to have escaped unhurt ‘miraculously’ while others could not live to explain their nasty experience because the superior gun power of the then President Babangida(IBB) boys overpowered the coup ploters. This made the Okra Coup of 1990 aborted. Once a senior military man but turn democrat, Col.Tony Nyaim (rtd) has been lending his voice on how to move Nigeria forward. His belief is that Nigeria can grow and develop faster through regionalism. The former Army officer took time out from his tight schedules to talk to the duo of Adewale Ogunniran, Executive Editor and Festus Akporok in this exclusive interview.Exerpt:
Can we meet Col. Tony Nyaim?
Thank you very much for that question, Col. Tony Nyiam truthfully speaking is a man who doesn’t like many adjectives. A Nigerian who has been blessed, who the Nigerian government gave the opportunity to serve, and I must say that I have gained a lot from the Nigerian government and I am grateful to God and I am ready and willing to pay back.
You were in the forefront for the agitation for National Conference, you were known for it and it was eventually held during the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan, are you fulfilled?
Fulfilled, I would be fulfilled when the resolutions which were conceptually agreed at that conference are put into action, by then I will be fulfilled. At the moment I can only but pray that God gives the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo the courage to persuade his boss, President Mohammadu Buhari to, for the sake of Nigerians and for the sake of dealing with the challenges we face, look at the resolutions of the 2014 National Conference of Nigerian people and implement the content.
Sir, before the Conference was called, there were committees in which you served, and then you moved from one state to another, when you got to your zone, you had confrontations with your good friend, the then governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole. Have you been able to resolve the issues with him?
We have resolved it. We actually met on the day of the inauguration of the Conference and Chief E. K. Clark called both of us and we resolved the problem. Of course, it was not a personal problem between me and the ex-governor Oshiomhole, it was an issue of what I will call a conflict of values, conflict of the way of prospective. I am of the view that you cannot discount ethnic nation when you talk about nation states. Nation states are artificial constructs which arose in the last few hundred years. Ethnic nations have always being in existence, by ethnic here I mean to give an example, the Yoruba nation is as good as the English nation, as good as the Scottish nation. The Tiv nation is as good as any other nation, my nation call Buki is as good as any other nation because all these nations were created by God, they were not created by man and you cannot discard and act as if they don’t matter, the idea is backward, it is not backward you see it rearing itself in Brexit in the UK, you can see it rearing its head in the aspiration of President Donald Trump in America. It is a right of all created nations to propose to seek their rights. That was the conflict we had, it wasn’t personal like Gov. Oshiomhole reminded me, he came to the burial of my mother in my village. So we have known each other from time, he was one of my students when I was a guest lecturer in Nigerian Institute of Management and Professional Studies, NIMPS in Kuru, Jos.
Sir, you believe so much in the restructuring of Nigeria as a country, can you throw more light on how Nigeria can be restructured to make it perform better?
The believe in restructuring is founded on the believe in the principles of Justices, fairness, equity, and liberty. These are laws of nature that are fundamental in trying to make people co exist, without these principles of fairness, justices, equity and liberty, people can never co exist.
This is why one of my greatest Nigerian mentor, Chief Obafemi Awolowo said by implication that without building Nigeria on the federal system of government nothing will hold. Nothing will hold, as we have seen these things that Awolowo saw like in Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was a big country, but when it did not adopt the concept of federalism it is no more a country today. But the ethnic nations are there.
The same thing with the Union of Socialist Republic, it’s no more but there is the Russian Republic and the other republics which are all ethnic based republics. You cannot wish away the ethnic nations, all we need to do in our own case is to have a system of government in those facts and allows them to be and that the federating units should have co-ordinate powers.
Currently, the Igbos are asking for a Biafra Nation, how do you think this will workout or what is your position on this?
First of all, I do not agree that the whole Igbos are asking for Biafra, it is some youths that are asking for what you call Biafra. And even with those who are asking for Biafra, they are called IPOB, Indigenous People of Biafra. The adjective they use, ‘Indigenous People of Biafra’, is deliberately used to prove that they are exercising their human right. The human right which was agreed and accepted by the September 2007 United Nation’s declarations for indigenous people’s right. The right is a UN declaration which recognizes that any indigenous people can seek the right to determine how they want to be governed, to co exist with and that is what IPOB is doing in all respect except if the leader is talking about violence which I do not support, if he is seeking for the independent of the Igbo people it is his right.
Are you saying the Arewa Youths were right by telling the Igbos residing in their region to quit, by giving them ultimatum till 1st October?
Far from it, I am saying that we should not equate someone asking home rule with someone threatening attack on people or give people a quit notice to leave their country, when the said people have all the legal and legitimate right to leave in that country.
Having said that, we have in some way made so much out of this quit notice. First of all, the question to ask is, where is the quit notice given coming from? You will observe that the group issuing it is called Arewa, and Arewa is a language of one ethnic group within the region, it is not the language of many ethnic groups in the north. It is not Birum, it’s not spoken within the Lantan people nor is it spoken among the Tiv nation, nor in Idoma language. What am I trying to say, I am saying that those who are asking the Igbos to leave do not have the right to speak for the North, because, the North they are talking does not include most part of the North Central which are under siege and attack by Fulani herdsmen. Or is it a deliberate approach to tell the Igbos to leave by extension telling other parts of the South to leave so that they can now take on and exterminate the people of the Northern ethnic minorities?
What I am trying to say here is that a man from Taraba which is being attacked as we speak does not agree with that North, in fact Taraba people wants the people who are talking on their behalf to leave them to be free. It does not include someone from Southern Kaduna, where they are being exterminated. Is the quit notice a way of pushing away people who will be in solidarity with the people of Southern Kaduna to defend their lives? Is that the aim? So, what I am saying is that the quit notice is neither here nor there because, it does not talk for the people of the North, it does not the place where people like Prof Anglo Abdullah comes from, it does not talk for where even Paul Unongu comes from, a man they have carried to show that he is one of them from the North. It does not talk for his people, the quit notice does not talk for the insensibility of someone from Benue whose Governor as obvious as his stands on the area of the grazing land bill is being opposed every day. It does not talk for the people of Taraba who are for grazing land, in fact the armed Fulani herdsmen attacked their assembly. So really, the talk about quit notice is what I will call very provocative. And that the fact that no arrest have been made of these guys who made these instigative statements shows that we are close to a near failed state. What do I mean by a near failed state? A near failed state is when the state have no agencies which have the courage to arrest those who go against the laws of the state.
We have confronted with several problems in this country. From Boko Haram to Fulani herdsmen killings to militancy, how would you rate President Mohammadu Buhari in handling these issues so far?
Ehm, it’s too quick to put the blame on one government because the problem we are talking about is actually a system problem. That is why many of us believe that the priority we should have now is for a system change. In other words, even if Jonathan is gone, Buhari come, and another person comes in this system we will continue to have the challenges we are having, let us not blame the persons. The only thing I will pick is that I have met President Buhari once and if you will remember, I did an interview where I warned that I foresaw that he is being held hostage and the presidency replied that the President Buhari I know cannot be held hostage by anybody, I am afraid to say that he has been held hostage by the cabal. The cabal that Governor El-Rufai alluded to, the cabal that his wife Aisha, the great Lady alluded to.
It is this cabal led by his own Uncle, Mamman Daura, that is misleading President Buhari. Am not the only one stating this facts, I have mentioned two people who have alluded to this situation and I can as well mention somebody who has mentioned his name clearly and authoritatively, someone else has mentioned Mamman Daura and from my own findings he is always the arrow behind what is going on. And in fact this group of people are not unconnected with the people who have made Buhari’s war against corruption not as effective as it ought to be, this is as obvious as for them to want Magu out of the scene.
Sir, Buhari has been out of the country in the last few weeks, leaving Prof Yemi Osinbajo the acting president in-charge, do you think Prof Osinbajo can take the decisions that can liberate the people of Nigeria in this trying times?
First of all let me not try to join others to create division between President Mohammadu Buhari and Prof Yemi Osinbajo because both of them are there as a team and we are happy for that team. I am praying that Osinbajo by the grace of God should be able to create the necessary environment for Nigerians to seat together and dialogue and decided the way out towards restoring Nigeria towards true federalism.
Talking of dialogue are you advocating for another conference?
I am not talking of any conference, for me the way we are now if some key Nigerians can come together to look at the 2014 constitutional conference and work towards its implementation it will be better. The names of the persons I will suggest are from both the political class and statesmen, they include from the South west, Prof Wole Shoyinka, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, from the political class is Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, from the Southeast people like Prof Ben Nwagbueze, Prof ABC Nwosu and from the existing political class, the likes of the Governor of Anambra State, why the governor? There is clear evidence in the way he is governing that he is an exemplary governor, when you mention some of the successful governors who are working very hard, he is close to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos and the Governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun. These are people who are doing very well and in the North of course the Governor of Kebbi state. From my zone, the South-south we suggest that the likes of Anty Brikes, Chief I K Clark and if I may mention a person you may not expect, his name is Tompolo, these are the three to represent the South-south and in the North Central I think I will leave it to them to suggest who will represent them but I suggest that Prof Jerry Gana have to be one of them, and in the Northwest and Northeast I will only say that in the Northeast the members should not only be Hausa/Fulanis and Kanuris they should allow the minorities which are part of the zone to be part of the delegation, in the Northwest they must also allow someone like Gen Lemani Lukwat to be part of the delegation.
I think three persons coming from all the different zones to work toward the implementation of the resolution of the 2014 Constitutional Conference will have a way out, because the conference dealt with all the challenges we are currently facing. The herdsmen issue was well discoursed and solutions suggested. The issues of whether to return to regions or federalism is well discoursed. The unique thing about the 2014 Constitutional Conference was that unlike the tendency for someone to dictate the turn as to where somebody will belong in the region, the conference agreed that instead of going the top down approach we will go the bottom up approach where by communities can decide after conducting plebiscite who they want to be in a region with. For instance if the people of Okun in Kogi and the Yorubas in Kwara who infact speaks better Yoruba than many Yorubas in the Southwest decides that they want to form a region on their own so be it, it’s their right if they want to join their brothers in the Southwest it’s their right. That is how democratic the process and framework of the 2014 conference agreement as to how we can co exist.
So now, any group of people will choose who they want to belong to, not being forced down by anybody.
The National Assembly have just called for the 2014 Conference document, now that you are suggesting another set of people sitting together for the implementation and discussion, is this to say you don’t have trust in the National assembly to implement the resolutions? Beside, you suggested many Octogenarians why?
This is a very important questions, as you will see in many of my write-ups Nigerians have been led to ignore the fact that when you have representative government, that is government via elected executives it is what is described as indirect democracy, in other words the legislators have only one duty. And again this is the mistake people are ignorant of the difference between law making and constitution making, or where there are major amendments made in a country it is not left to legislators alone. Take for example in other countries if they are going to take the law on whether there should be capital punishment they don’t live it for their legislators they go for referendum. The reason is that when something is going beyond the making of laws of a constitution, you go back to the people who according to Section 14 or Clause 14 of our constitution, sovereignty belongs to the people. We just put that thing in the 1999 constitution in name, the instrument to effect a change in the constitution which is referendum is removed from the constitution.
In fact, I will go as far as saying that I am surprised that Nigerians do not realize that the 1999 constitution is only legal but not a legitimate constitution. I must make this clear, there is a difference between legitimacy and legality. The 1999 constitution is legal only in the sense that those who sat to make a coup did it, that is completely anti-democracy, it is quite shameful that the so call democrats that have been governing Nigeria since 1999 have not seen the need to free themselves and bring in a people’s constitution.
Now the global best practice is that any constitution that is not subjected to the people’s approval through referendum is illegitimate. To that extent, the Nigerian constitution may be legal but it is illegitimate. So what is the point I am making, the people determine their constitution, and where major amendments are being done, the country returns to what is call Constituent Assembly and usually this assembly are mostly of accepted leaders not necessarily elected.
For instance in Scotland, the convention that led to the Scottish Resolution was not done by elected officials, they were contributions of accepted leaders from various groups, the civil society, the Church of Scotland, and community leaders. They gathered and the constituent assembly is made up of none-partisan politicians for obvious reasons, what is the reason? A politician is by nature seeking for victory in the next election, his concern is about how to win elections, while the people I have suggested are more like statesmen, their concern is the wellbeing of present and future generations.
In other to respond to your question, you see you cannot have those who are focused and obsessed with winning the next election to determine the future of a country.
You are one of the military officers Nigeria has produced and you were involved in the Okah Coup of 1990 during the IBB regime, do you still believe in coup?
I never believe in coup. What took place then was just an insurgence in the military against a rogue military dictator. Rogue in the sense that it is not the duty of a military man to takeover government from elected officials. The fact remains that when Shagari was overthrown it became the duty of any army officer to overthrow that government and give power back to civilians. We took an action because we’ve seen that if we did not rise up things will go wrong because there was a build up to creating a permanent system where the military will always produce the presidency and the civilians will be allowed to produce the prime minister, the model we were to use were the model we had in Egypt that they still have in Egypt till today. The military being a very powerful community will produce the president, it is like when Gowon was the head of state, Awolowo was the coordinating minister or prime minister of its own, that is what they wanted to impose on the country and to stop that we rose up. So what we did was a fight for democracy and that is still what I’m doing. I have since that time been fighting for the restoration of true Nigeria federalism.
We worked with MKO Abiola, some of us, I in particular warned him when he was coming home that a trap is set and he told me to hold on. He did not take our advice and I must say that recently a close friend refused to take this same advice and that was why he was badly short-charged. The important thing is that if the figure I am talking about was still playing a key role in this present government, this Buhari government would have been more successful. Since the great man I am talking about was not with them, the light of APC has gone out.
Sir, you escaped miraculously from being arrested after the failed coup, can you tell Nigerians how you escaped?
I think I have answered this many times, it was completely not me saving myself but God saved me. All I can answer you is that for now I can only but give thanks to God, the details is not in my power, it was never in my powers. The details were of God and I am grateful that I am still alive. It is not time to start going to the depth of the things that added up to make for that insurgency, because the focus now is how to sensitize our people to exercise their rights so that we can achieve all the great opportunities the great Lord has given to us Nigerians. Nigeria is a great country, one of the greatest in the world, certainly the greatest, I have travelled to Asia, to China to everywhere I have never seen a country as blessed as Nigeria. The unfortunate thing, the irony of it is that those who are so blessed are ungrateful to God by their actions and by their ingratitude to God. My prayer is that may God give the Acting President and his boss the wisdom to create an environment that allows us to dialogue towards restoring Nigeria to the imperatives of true federalism.
The recent pronouncement by Chief of Army Staff that some politicians are instigating the military to stage a coup,what is your take on this?
There are insinuations that the quit notice and the coup rumour are one ways of texting the waters towards creating the ground for instability that would lead to interim government so that democratic process won’t be given a chance. The respond to that is that it is the duty of any commission officer to ensure that they do not allow any against any the civilian authority. And if that attempt is true, it is the duty of the commission officer to rise against such an attempt.
Let me state categorically, the military is no more as it were. Before, some elements were used as a willing tools by some elements to do transfer of power. Most of the real soldiers who come from the areas that are really the fighters in the country are from Tarraba, people from the Tiv land. The people from Southern Kaduna, who are being attacked. I don’t think any of these people will favour any coup because most of this people, their voice are better heard under an elected government and that is why few weeks age, our brothers in the middle belt came out to denounce the quit notice. So if any person or group think they can resort from what they did to deprive MKO Abiola fron gaining his mandate, this will not work in our nation.
Looking at EFCC, can the organization live up to its billings?
If water is polluted, to expect a clean fish from such water is strange. That is why some of us argued that the place to begin corruption is to clean the system. It is when you clean the system, the processes, the imputs; it is when you clean them that you can do with the particulars. The present system of government is corruptive; corruptive in the sense that the FG takes things from people who produce them. A good example is the Niger Delta which produce resouces, Lagos State who produce most of the VAT. You have to legitimately centralise them. Create a feeling that the money is centralised, it is no man’s money so it can be used by anybody.
So the most effective way of fighting corruption is to fight the corruptive way revenue is mobilised from people who produce them. If you deal with that, then you’ve really begin to deal with corruption. By the way, I was one of the people that suggested to this government that fight against corruption should not be limited to President Mohammad Buhari’s fight; the government should make the fight more participatory.
I suggested what now turn out to be whistle blower; I wrote to the president and said, he should sensitise Nigerian by allowing two to five percent of the money to be given to anybody who brings information that leads to recovery of the loots and that a part of that money should be given to the agent; that is the EFCC agent or Police, who ensure that the people are brought to book. The reason is so to prevent collision between the agents and the looters. They only did the whistleblower thing.
When I suggested this initially, people say that is so radical, until I did an interview in Channels TV where I analysed what I meant. I was so happy that people started phoning in and askeds series of questions on the programme that day. It was when I mentioned it in that interview that government took it seriously. The incentive I suggested was 5 percent to be shared. For example, 3 percent to the person who brings the information and two percent to the agents because you don’t expect the EFCC who pursue billions of looted funds and recovered it to be paid N200,000 per month. So you can see why the EFCC is not effective. And secondly, they should stop being selective in the way they go after people; they should also obey the court orders. Dealing with the mother of all corruption which is the stealing from Nigerian states from the Niger Delta and Lagos should stop.
