By Ishola Balogun & Ebun Sessou
Mohammed Fawehinmi is the eldest son of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi. A critic,almost in the mould of his father, defied his condition and participated in the protest; a regular face at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos last week.   In this interview, he explains why he joined in the rally among other issue and why he will continue to protest.  Excerpt

Why did you join in the protest?

I joined the protest for one reason and that is to ensure that the masses of this country are not cheated. Right from independence the masses have always been cheated.

Everyone knows the history of how my father spent his entire life securing the interest of the masses with the instrumentality of the law.  My condition is not relevant but what is relevant is the interest of Nigerians and these people constitute the majority, the poor, who cannot fend for themselves. The government in most cases do not cater for this constituency which I inherited from my late father.

Mohammed Fawehinmi

My Mum organised the protest on December 31 which I had to partake. We marched and I rode on my wheelchair  for four hours in the sun alongside her and other members of the civil society groups and some members of the organised Labour.

It is time for Nigerians to enjoy. Nigerians are the most intelligent people, yet we are the ones deprived of the good things of this country. The resources and the money is there but it is being stolen by a few people because they have the opportunity of being in government. I considered that as insult and assault on the people of Nigeria and that is why I had to go on the streets.

The protest seemed to have yielded positive result by the reduction of the pump price to N97 per litre, aren’t you satisfied?

No, I am not satisfied. I expect the pump price to go back to N65 and even lower. Let our government start working for us. Our president should not be spending N1billion to feed or budgeting N11million to travel around the world when we lack basic infrastructure in this country.

I grew up during the era of Agric, I know what we enjoyed even during the military era. And now, we are in democracy when we are meant to have technocrats at the helms of affairs. It is now that our currency is being bastardised. It is now that we can’t see the money, it is now that the Ministers of Finance and Petroleum are telling us that government has been paying subsidy.

They should be ashamed of themselves.  General Gowon, increased the price of fuel to N8.80 and left it like that in 1975. General Murtala Muhammed met it at that price and left it at that same price. Then came Obasanjo who increased it to N15.03, then Ibrahim Babangida, Shonekan, Abacha and the worse of all was Abdulsalam.

So, when will Nigerians begin to enjoy? When are we going to get free education. We have experts who can generate funds for power, we have coal to liquify within three months to some megawatts. We have liquified natural gas which can generate more than what we will need if we are going to build Lekki trains, skyscrapers, develop this place like Dubai.

So, you don’t seems to buy into the transformation agenda of the present government…?

What transformation agenda?  For one year, Boko Haram has been killing Nigerians, more than fifty thousands Nigerians are dead regardless of  what the press have published because I know the effect of bomb and what it can do to people. The president was the vice-president when the ASUU agreement was made, no implementation has been made; what damage will it do to his government; how many hospitals has he built? 

He is surrounded by all kinds of people who don’t have the interest of the masses at heart.  Sanusi has spent more than N1.6 trillion, the first time was N620billion which he said some five banks have to remit and the people he has put there haven’t improved the banks.

Then, he came with another policy of nationalising three banks, and right now, non of those banks can generate the actual income that they were supposed to. He has been giving policies that will not work without facing the  reality. If those are the technocrats of President Jonathan, then, he should have a rethink.

What did your father do that you would rather not do?

I’m not like my dad. Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi was a critic, a social reformer, brilliant advocate for the masses but was a semi-politician, I’m a full skinned politician. We will play politics the way, it is played.

 Petrol is now N97 per litre, do you still believe, there is subsidy?

Of course, there is no subsidy. There was no correlation between the figures the Minister of Finance and the Senate brought to the house. That was the argument until January 1 bombshell.

Obasanjo started this subsidy thing, it never existed but it was a perfect excuse to steal money. Until Abacha made it known that there was never any subsidy anywhere which informed the setting up of PTF. He made us to know that for every litre of petrol, the Nigerian government earns 49 per cent of the cost.

Is that the reason for going out to protest again?

We cannot fold our arms. I’m taking my Mum along. Soldiers cannot occupy that place.  We are going on the streets again because we believe Labour has sold us out. What Labour told us was that, “we are not going to answer them until they revert to N65 and then, we can start talking”.

The same Labour midway went to have meeting with  government. The second thing was the funny dimension of negotiation until when the chairman of the governor’s forum said: ‘wait till midnight’, then, I said these people have compromised. Then the president announced N97 and the Labour said, it was a unilateral decision of the government. Esele is a member of the PIB commission. It is a means of settlement.

Every commission sets up by the President which doesn’t have the approval of two third majority of the Senate, is illegal, unconstitutional null and void. I am surprised that Belgore took up the job, the Kolade commission is illegal. The current commission to reveal the Petroleum Information Bill is illegal because we have 74 Ministers that are appointed. We expect that the National Assembly should caution the president on the commissions he is setting up.

What do you think about the deployment of soldiers on the streets of Lagos?

It is the most disgraceful policy any democratically elected president would ever do. People were protesting peacefully but because the President felt that his government is threatened, he brought in soldiers. You can only bring in soldiers for two reasons. First, when you know the enemy is within and the police is incapable of taking care of that problem, like the issue of Boko Haram which should have been tackled long ago.

Secondly, when you are at war and the reason why the soldiers will be on the streets is to protect the interest of Nigerians. But now, you are deploying soldiers against the interest of Nigerians. He has violated so many sections of the constitution including Section 16,i A,B,C,D, 17,ii C, 24C, 33,34,36,40,41 of the 1999 constitution as amended.

This is not the time for sentiment.  It is not difficult to transform this country, if only the excesses in government can be cut down.