Senator Femi Okurounmu was elected Senator
for the Ogun Central Senatorial District at the
start of the Fourth Republic, on the Alliance
for Democracy (AD) platform.
He also led the committee that midwifed the
2014 National Political Conference as chairman
of the National Conference advisory
committee set up by former president Good
luck Jonathan.
The former senator, in this interview, assessed
the Buhari-led administration and more,
declaring that President Buhari is promoting
Northern hegemony.
We bring excerpts:
What is your assessment of the Buhari
administration?
My assessment is that Buhari administration is
going just the way I expected it to go. It’s doing
just the things I expected it to do. It’s only
those who are not familiar with Nigerian
history and Nigerian politics that will be sur
prised about what is going on now. People like
me are not surprised, and that was why we
warned our people before the elections about
the dangers of voting for the APC in the
presidential election, that in the long run, it is
not good for Nigeria, it is not good for our
people, so I’m not surprised about what is
going on.
Clearly, what is going on now shows that
Buhari is a president out on a mission, and the
mission is to reinstate Fulani hegemony over
the whole of Nigeria. We’ve always said that
Buhari is a Fulani irredentist. This is not a new
posture of his. He has always been so, even in
his first coming as Head of State, he behaved
the same way. You will remember that when
he was fighting corruption as a military Head
of State, those who were most persecuted
were the UPN governors, the progressive
governors of the UPN, NPP and the GNPP.
They were the most persecuted, even though
they were the least corrupt. Their
administration between 1979 – 1983 were
most progressive, they achieved the most for
their people, but when he took over power, it
was they he persecuted the most, so this is not
new with him. Every time he has the
opportunity, is to reinstate Fulani hegemony.
That is what he is doing now. Look at the
appointments he has made. The first nine
appointments he made, only one was from the
South, I’m not talking of Yoruba now, I’m
talking of the entire South, all the other eight
were from the North.
The subsequent 32 appointments, because
we’ve been keeping track, only six was from
the South, 26 of those 32 were from the
North.
There were six appointments he made
yesterday (penultimate Thursday), again only
one of the six was from the South. How does
one justify that in a country where there are
so many ethnic nationalities and the South and
the North are almost about equal? Why will
the appointments be so preponderantly
favouring the North to the disadvantage of the
South? Even if you are to say its time to punish
those who didn’t vote for him, did the Yorubas
not vote for him? The Yorubas under the
propaganda of Tinubu and his acolytes kept
crying this agenda of change, supporting
Buhari, even though we were warning them
that the agenda of the APC of North are totally
different. The APC of South were making them
selves to believe that there will be change,
whereas the APC of the North had only one
agenda – to reinstate Northern hegemony, to
get power back to the North and get the Fulani
back in the control of Nigeria. That was the
only agenda they had, nothing else. They only
exploited the APC in the South so that they
could achieve their aim. One would have
expected that Tinubu, with his years in politics
should have seen it, but because of his selfish
interest, his selfish ambition, he couldn’t. He
was been driven by selfish ambition and so he
went along and supported the agenda which he
knows was not going to be in the interest of his
own people. I kept reminding him of Afonja of
Ilorin who was betrayed by Alimi. Afonja was
betrayed by Alimi even though he was the one
that sought the cooperation of Alimi because
Afonja was trying to rebel against the Alaafin
of Oyo. Afonja achieved his purpose, but after
achieving his purpose, what happened to him?
Alimi killed him off and took over and the
Fulani established their Emirate in Ilorin, and
that was how the Yorubas lost Ilorin forever.
Tinubu is the modern day Afonja. I remember
I wrote this in several papers because I’m not
saying this for the first time. What we had
anticipated is what we are seeing now.
Don’t you think it was a grave error that an
agreement was not reached on power
sharing among the different blocs in the
APC?
Tinubu had his own agenda. The agenda of
Tinubu was personal, purely personal, and
Tinubu was only using the Yorubas to achieve
his personal agenda. Tinubu did not
understand the Fulani man. He believed he
could use Buhari and that once Buhari is in
power, he will effectively be in control. That
was why I said he doesn’t understand Nigerian
politics.
He should have listened to people with more
experience. Money is not all you need to do
politics, you also need experience. Tinubu
underestimated what Buhari will do when he
gets to power. He thought he will be dictating
to Buhari. He tried to dictate who will be
Senate president, he flopped. He tried who
will be Speaker, he flopped. Those controlling
Buhari are the northern hegemonies, not the
Tinubu party.
What is your take on Buhari’s anti-
corruption campaign?
The anti-corruption campaign so far, I think it
just mere propaganda. I say that for several
reasons. One: as a president seriously
interested in fighting corruption, you must try
to wage a war that must be effective. If you
want to try people for corruption, you try
them in court, whether they are special courts
or regular course. It is the judges who will try
these cases, how innocent are our judges of
corruption?
There have been so many studies done saying
the judiciary is the most corrupt institution in
Nigeria. In 1994, there was a committee under
the late Justice Kayode Esho that investigated
the judiciary which strongly indicted our
judiciary, which led to the retirement of so
many judges. In 2002, there was another one
under Justice Babalakin, which strongly
indicted the judiciary. Since then, the judiciary
has become even worse, to extent that judges
openly lobby to be appointed to election
tribunals because elections tribunals have
become where people just take money and
get judgment. Election tribunals are just cash
and carry affairs.
A lot of attempt to fight corruption has been
stalled by the judiciary. Between 1999 and
2007, there were several cases of
investigations, but they couldn’t prosecute
them. Most of the cases in court against these
former governors have been stalled by judges.
More than 12 cases of governors who have
been indicted between 1999 and 2007 are still
lingering in the courts because the judges will
not give ruling. The first step is to clean the
judiciary. The judiciary is filled with corrupt
people, and you cannot be passing judgment
on corrupt people if you are corrupt. Secondly
to fight corruption, we must go back to when
corruption became a serious cancer on
Nigeria. A lot of people have diagnosed this to
mean the Babangida era. It was during
Babangida‘s era that corruption became
institutionalized.
It became a fad because everybody was doing
so, and nobody was punished. It has to go back
to the Babangida era which led to the Abacha
era. All of us know the extent of corruption
under Abacha. Although Abacha is dead, a lot
of those who worked with him are still alive. A
lot of money stolen under
Abacha are still abroad. The agencies fighting
corruption are also very corrupt.
We must go back to Babangida, Abacha,
Abubakar administrations and also Obasanjo
when we had the 16 billion dollars power
contract scam. Nothing was done. After all the
noise and fury, it all died down. Nobody was
prosecuted, nobody was punished.
Why then is the Jonathan administration
being singled out for probe?
Because his mission is to fight Jonathan. Look
at a person like Obasanjo in alliance with
Tinubu, in alliance with Buhari. Their mission is
to fight PDP and Jonathan. If you want to fight
PDP, PDP didn’t start with Jonathan.
You have to look at what the PDP did between
1999 and 2007. It was then Obasanjo used the
EFCC as a witch hunt instrument against his
opponents, and those who were loyal to him
could get away with anything. In fact, it was
because Obasanjo’s regime was so corrupt,
that it became difficult for Yar’Adua to fight
corruption. Of course, Jonathan is an extension
of Yar’Adua who did not want to become
president. He was not interested. The people
interested were people like Ibori, Odili and so
on. What Obasanjo did was to show them their
files, which had been compiled by Ribadu
about the extent of their corruption, and
threatened them with prosecution.
He said if they did not want to be prosecuted,
they should drop their ambition and go and
fund Yar’Adua. He made these people to fund
Yar’Adua’s election and Jonathan. When
Yar’Adua got there, knowing who funded his,
campaign, how could he go after these men?
Obasanjo made it impossible for Yar’Adua to
fight corruption and it now turned to a
situation where when Yar’Adua got to power,
those who were always hanging out with him
were the Iboris and the corrupt clique within
the Obasanjo administration. If you are going
to fight corruption, these are the people you
have to go after. Nigeria should have seen that
Yar’Adua’s not fighting corruption was due to
the way Obasanjo imposed him and made
corrupt people to fund his campaign.
Don’t you think the Buhari’s emergence is
similar since his election had to be
sponsored by politicians?
In fact, look at the leader of the APC, Nuhu
Ribadu when he was still active as the EFCC
Chairman in 2010, appeared before the
National Assembly during plenary to give them
a list of governors that had been indicted. He
made a special reference to Tinubu that his
own was of international dimension. So, if you
are going to start fighting corruption,
certainly, you cannot leave Tinubu out. Ribadu
has the files on a lot the governors in APC. If
you say the PDP was corrupt, how come its
leaders came from PDP? If they were corrupt
in PDP, did they become saints an soon as they
joined APC? They were all in the same camp
with Jonathan but because of their Northern
agenda, they crossed over to the APC. A lot of
people in APC today will have to lose their
shirts if Buhari is going to really fight
corruption. Amaechi and Tinubu should be
some of the first to be probed and jailed.
But we learnt there is no documented
evidence to probe Tinubu.
That was not Nuhu Ribadu’s EFCC.
The EFCC as I’ve said is also corrupt.
Let them call Ribadu and ask him.
Even all of us in Lagos State know the extent of
Tinubu’s corruption. We knew what Tinubu was
worth in 1999.
Today, he has three private jets. We can even
start by asking him the source of the funds for
those private jets. He has almost acquired the
whole of Lagos.
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