By Dapo Akinrefon

Chief Supo Shonibare,  a lawyer, played an active role in the defunct National Democratic Coalition, NADECO,  which resisted military rule. In this interview, Shonibare, a staunch member of the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, insists that restructuring remains the panacea to the several problems facing the polity. He also  bares his mind on some other burning national issues. Excerpts:

Chief Supo Shonibare

NIGERIA just celebrated 18 years of unbroken democratic rule. How  has the country fared?

We have evolved to a civilian rulership from military dictatorship. We were not quite into the polity one can actually say is democratic and all-inclusive because a few people have been controlling the polity. Those who were able to effectively have a political structure on the ground were those who had the financial means of doing so. It was only in the South-West that there was a semblance of a  movement that was not based on financial might which evolved through the struggle for democracy.

The leadership of  Afenifere  was able to entrench democracy in all the six states with barely little resources. All the other zones were places where the military largely enabled power brokers to emerge. The succession since that period has been laid on that foundation. Gradually, I hope we will evolve a more inclusive democratic system that enables us to have the people decide who would best manage their collective wealth. We are not yet there.

What are those stumbling blocks that may prevent us from having an all-inclusive government?

I think the problem lies with  the reticence of the middle class and the productive class in our society. They are reticent in being engaged in political formation. A lot of people like the  professionals, the middle class and the elite  want a settled platform. If several members of the middle professional class are willing to invest in a political vehicle, they will be able to challenge the moneybags and that political vehicle will not be hijacked and it will be more all- inclusive.

They will be in a position to choose individuals that will be capable of managing their collective wealth. We must be mindful of the fact that each time we elect people to represent us, we are asking them to manage our wealth. We are telling them to make laws that will govern the society; you are electing people who will protect everybody.

Most people one sees claiming to be political leaders have never entered the political space by stating their political beliefs. Politics should be about ideas you want to evolve, but we do not seem to have that, we just have people who see politics as a business enterprise and not as a means of serving the society.

But do you think the APC-led government has been able to meet the needs to Nigerians, having been in the saddle for two years?

My point is that there is no ideology. No government has claimed any ideological direction in alleviating the challenges that the poor face in the society. It is only a political intervention that evolves a better society. I do not see any of the main political parties, APC or PDP, having any form of ideology.

How can a foundation for political parties based on ideology be laid?

We need to have more participation of the intelligential, those who have spent their time and prowess reading about political systems. We need to have people who are thinking about political systems and how to evolve a better political system.

Do you think restructuring can lay a foundation for a better Nigeria?

Restructuring is the panacea to the several problems facing the polity; it is the panacea to the issue of tribalism. If you devolve power and enable the various ethnic groups, regions or states determine their priority in infrastructural development, education, health, even if there is corruption at that level, it won’t be an ethnic issue, the blame will be widely posited in that state of such an ethnic group. So, that lessens the tension at the centre. For instance, if a structure consists of Akwa Ibom and Cross River states, they have equal representation in that particular structure.

Actually, if we halt for a minute and think through what is being debated, I think devolution and restructuring will be even more beneficial to the North. It will allow the states to have an economic structure that is legal, that is able to develop the resources in the North.

For us, there is no part of this country that has not been endowed with resources, which, if properly exploited, will increase our collective wealth. Really, we can have minority rights and vetoeing powers within the regions that there will be no discrimination against the minorities. The point is that the way the entire world is going is in devolving powers. But there are opponents to this agitation.

I think they have not actually thought through it, even countries like the United Kingdom, powers are being devolved. I have no doubt that powers will be devolved in Nigeria but the question is. Do we waste time and risk the disintegration of Nigeria in the process of our still debating what is inevitable? You cannot say that people should not have the right to determine their future. At the end of the day, we have to devolve power.

There is a great advantage in big countries but that advantage will only endure if all the constituent parts of that big entity feel that there is fairness in the system. The only way you can display fairness in any system is by devolving power so that the issues in contention are limited to  few functions that you leave for the centre to decide.

Do you think the 2014 recommendations of the National Conference should be used as a template for the nation’s rebirth?

Yes. I think we need to actually move away from feeling that anything that is being suggested by a group of people should not be looked into. We tend to do that a lot in our country. If a set of people come up with certain ideas, rather than look into the merit of those ideas, people just look at the messenger and not the messages. The 2014 Confab had wide reaching recommendations that will effectively reduce the cost of running governance even without any amendment to the Constitution.

There are suggestions that the President can actually effect in that report; it is a pity that President Goodluck Jonathan did not immediately adopt those recommendations he could have done himself. It is a pity that the current President has even said he is not looking at the report. There are even suggestions that are aimed at developing the North. I am quite surprised that some delegates from the same North  are against it.

There were resolutions that were passed unanimously. How can people who were part of that conference now turn round and play politics with the lives of the people of the North?

We need to take issues above some representatives of the North, who seem to be playing  dumb in adopting issues that are beneficial to the North.   We need to go beyond them and reach the young and those who have been part of the oligarchs in the North to know that those who have been representing them seem to be wasting their lives; they seem to want to keep them down as outcast and retain them at the level of poverty.Without restructuring, I don’t see how we can achieve growth and take care of the North.

In 1998,  Afenifere  played a prominent role by presenting candidates on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy. Are there plans in the offing in this direction in 2019?

I do very much think so because there is an on-going debate within  Afenifere  as to whether or not  Afenifere  should be consistent with the foundation the founding fathers laid which is  clearly partisan left or centre social democratic movement.  Afenifere  was Action Group, it believed in the evolution of an egalitarian system and all polices have been enunciated by the leadership of that group since 1951. There is another school of thought that believes that  Afenifere  should evolve and be non-political and, like you rightly observed, if we had been non-political, we wouldn’t have been to bring about the political party that were able to entrench in the six South-West states in 1999. We will see how the debate evolves and, at some stage,  Afenifere  will take a decision and everybody will know what decision has been taken by  Afenifere.