The initiator of a draft bill seeking the restructuring and new model of government in Nigeria, Akin Fapohunda, in this interview with OLAOLU OLADIPO, talked about developments since he submitted the bill to the government a few months ago. Fapounda maintained that restructuring remains the only way to reposition the country to the path of development. Excerpts:

You were reported to have submitted your proposed bill or document for the restructuring of the country to the government earlier in the year, what is the situation with regard to your proposal since then?
It’s true that I proposed a modality to the president (a bill for restructuring) with some other documents on June 12, 2024 but as I speak with you today, there has been no official action on the part of the government. As a follow up to my move, a body of respected and eminent personalities in the country called The Patriots led by a former Secretary-General, Dr. Emeka Anyaoku, paid a courtesy call to President Bola Tinubu and they made a demand similar to all the demands that are contained in my document to the government. Unfortunately, in response to their demand, the president dismissed the call with a wave of the hand. The president told them that rather than do that, he would prefer to face the economy and that he is not in any way interested in such. He told them that he was not in any way interested in any form of structural reforms being proposed to him. That has been the situation since then. There has been no action since then from official government quarters. There is no doubt that Nigeria is currently being misdirected on this matter.

Has there been opposition to the bill and what kind of opposition have you been facing since you made the proposal?
On the opposition to the bill, one or two people can say one thing or the other but the civilised way of finding out what the people want is to organise a referendum or if you like a plebiscite. What I can say is that the Nigerian political class is very pretentious. They are playing the ostrich with this proposal, so they are not in any way ready to pose the question of a plebiscite or a referendum. In civilised societies, you do not get 100 per cent support for any idea or proposal. All that is required to push an idea or a proposal forward is just 51 per cent or at most 60 per cent and the idea or proposal gets approved by a simple majority. There is no absolute consensus on any issue anywhere in the world. The situation is the same even in communist countries, where the leadership will always try to get 90 per cent approval from the people for any proposal that it is pushing forward. There will always be people within any society who would always oppose the idea or proposal. In any case, there is a very strong opposition to any form of change in Nigeria. It has always been the norm and tradition. The reason that can be adduced for this is that the people who are benefitting from the current arrangement will never allow it to change. They will always be relentless. These elements will never give up except they are pushed by stronger forces. What can push them? I don’t know and I can’t say. The reality of things as we speak today is that the current structural arrangement is very defective and unsustainable. There is a fundamental dispute about the way the country is being governed. That dispute will not go away but the longer it stays, the longer the masses will suffer.

Why do you say so?
(Cuts in) Nigeria as a country and entity thrives on lies and deception. When we talk about the cost of PMS as it affects the well being of the Nigerian people and once it is refined as a product to be consumed, if properly managed and we have a people oriented government in place, petrol can be given to the people free of charge. Contained in a barrel of crude oil, there are products such as diesel, petrol, kerosene. We also have aviation kerosene in it too. There is bitumen, items for manufacturing plastic products too. There are also petrochemical derivations for making drugs in crude oil too. These are some of the things that you can derive from crude oil but because we live in deception and lie, we are being told that Dangote Refinery is selling products at some rate but what has happened to all other products that Dangote gets from his refinery? Nobody is telling us anything, we are just being deceived. I say so because the minds of Nigerians are not being properly educated with regard to what is going on. To me, this is so sad.

Since the last time, have there been any form of modifications to the bill or is it the same document that was presented to the government?
There has been no modification of any sorts to the bill pending before the government. I can tell you that the bill is correct on all fronts. The essence of it is that we just need to reduce the size of government to cater for the needs of all Nigerians and the current situation where the government has no fewer than 51 ministers is very untenable and unsustainable. There is the need to reduce it drastically to about 20 in view of current economic realities in the country. This is an indication that we are heading the wrong direction as a country. My proposals on the need for restructuring as contained in the document that I submitted to the government need not to be changed at all. From all indications, they are still very valid and tenable. I am very sure that it will be valid and tenable for a very long time to come until we are ready to face the reality confronting us as a people. In effect, we need to restructure politically, economically. Nigeria as a country is very broke. We have no money again to do anything tangible. As a country, it is living on borrowed money. We are borrowing from places like China and Middle East countries. Most projects in Nigeria are now being funded by Sukuk Bond that are obtained from Middle East countries. This is an Islamic instrument that allows individuals and entities to borrow money without payment of interest. What is paid is a certain contingency that amounts to paying interest too. Most of these loans would be paid back in no less than 20 years. There is always a moratorium of five years that you will not need to pay anything on the loan. The present government is borrowing loans and they are spending it.

In your reckoning, how serious has the country sunk in terms of how it is being governed by the ruling class?
Sincerely, the country has to change from the way it is now. We cannot continue on this same trajectory and expect a better outcome for ourselves. The wealth of Nigeria has been transferred to private hands. The Nigerian state is no longer solvent but some Nigerians are extremely wealthy, some Nigerians are richer than the country. Indeed, in the long run, something will have to give. There has to be a concerted effort to bringing the wealth given to private people back to the state. In fact, the government doesn’t fund education anymore, as we speak, our universities are being funded by TETFUND which is a corporate tax initiative that even though the Federal Government controls tertiary education, it doesn’t provide money to fund all the universities it created. There are now almost 180 private universities operating in the country. So, the essence of this is that university education in the country has been privatised. People cannot go to government universities anymore. Just today, SSANU and NASU have commenced a nationwide strike action indefinitely. This is just an admission that all is not well with the country. Power grid keeps collapsing so much in the last few weeks. As I speak to you, the entire North is in darkness. The whole country is grounded. Unfortunately, the only means of addressing this problem is that the government has been merely amending the Constitution. They have been making cosmetics approaches to solving the problem rather than tackling it headlong.

Are you saying that those in government don’t appreciate the enormity of the current problems plaguing the country?
Yes! Nigeria is now like a very badly used cloth. What the owner has been doing is to patch it from time to time. These patching and periodic amendments to the Constitution would not solve our problem in any way. What we should do as a nation is to discard the cloth in its entirety. What I am saying is that we need to break Nigeria down in a logical and reasonable way and then build it again. The Constitution is not even the problem as such. As a people we lack the sense of morality and decency. This must be the starting point, I mean instilling morality in the people. When this is done, justice and equity will spring forth. Then again, a proper and workable constitution will come out of it. If we are to do a critical and proper appraisal, this current Constitution is based on an unjust system and it cannot stand. The next round of electioneering process is scheduled to commence next year. If nothing is done before the next election and the next election is based on the current Constitutional arrangement where political parties have been taken over, where you have to at least cough out N200 million to purchase forms to contest elective office, particularly the Presidency and N100 million to contest a seat at the Senate, cannot be sustainable. If you think that the country can be changed through the ballot alone without a fundamental reform of the Constitution, it would amount to a popular street slang ‘one chance.’ It is so disappointing that members of the political class are being pretentious.

Why do you say so?
They have become so delusional and enjoying themselves like nothing is happening when the masses are bleeding and reeling in pain and hunger. The masses are suffocating yet we keep living on borrowed time. This situation calls for concerted efforts on the part of the people to rescue the country.

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