Cover, Featured
BY his calling he is a medical doctor, but Frederick Fasehun, founder of the O’odua Peoples Congress, is not a stranger to politics and controversies. In fact, he is a radical politician and strong human rights activist. As a democracy addict, Fasehun has taken a centre stage in the political arena in the past 30 years or thereabout and stuck out his neck fighting for democracy at the expense of his own life. Little wonder he has had brushes with many succeeding military governments in Nigeria before the advent of the current political dispensation and was even sent to jail without any trail.
Since 1999, when the current democratic dispensation came to be, Fasehun, 82, could not find a political party that tallied with his political ideology, hence, he resuscitated the dormant Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, which he now serves as national chairman. The party had been used by the late Obafemi Awolowo, the Yoruba leader, between 1970s and 1980s with the aim of giving Nigerians an ideologically-based political party.
Fasheun is also the leader of the O’odua Peoples Congress, OPC, a Yoruba socio-cultural group, which he founded with some likeminded Yoruba leaders. The birth of the OPC itself was to fight for the actualisation of the annulled mandate of the late Moshood Abiola, business mogul of the Yoruba descent, who won the presidential election of June 12, 1993, but was prevented from taking office by the military. Abiola died in detention on July 7, 1998. Fasehun was imprisoned for 19 months from December 1996 to June 1998 during the military rule of General Sani Abacha. He regained his freedom 18 days after Abacha died in office on June 8, 1998.
Even the regime of former President Olusegun Obasanjo could not stand the OPC activities under the leadership of Fasehun and Gani Adams, his main lieutenant. Fasehun and six others in the OPC, having stayed sometimes in prison in 2006, were charged to court for alleged treasonable felony and other sundry offences. The charges were later dropped.
The soft-spoken former executive member of the Campaign for Democracy, CD, was born on September 21, 1935, in Ondo town, Ondo State. He started his education late at 13 years at Saint Matthew’s Roman Catholic School, Ondo, Thereafter, he proceeded to Saint Peter’s Teacher’s Training College, Akure, Fasehun was later thrown out of the school because he didn’t succumb to Catholicism’s creed, even though he was top of his class. He was admitted into form two at Ondo Boys High School in 1956. After only two and a half years, Fasehun sat for the final examination and passed his in grade one with distinction in English Language.
From there he went to the United Kingdom to further his studies on September 30, 1958. He first attended Blackburn College, London, where he studies sciences and later proceeded to the Aberdeen University College of Medicine for six years. He was also at the Liverpool Postgraduate School and the Royal College of Surgeons for his fellowship. In 1976, he studied acupuncture in China under a joint World Health Organisation and United Nations Development Programme Scholarship.
Back home in 1977, he set up an Acupuncture Unit at the Lagos State Teaching Hospital, LUTH. But he resigned in 1978 because “too many people were dying (there at LUTH) ….. and my standard of medical practice was not feasible in LUTH.”
Despite his age, Fasehun still finds time to practice medicine and play politics. “Once you are a doctor, you are always a doctor,” he once told Realnews in a previous interview. According to Fasehun, being in politics is because he wants to improve the life of the ordinary Nigerians.
Not a fan of President Muhammadu Buhari, he believes the Buhari administration has been doing poorly and should be held responsible for the kind of agitations going on in Nigeria today. As some prominent Nigerians have been saying, Fasehun believes that only true federalism and another conference for restructuring can save Nigeria from its numerous problems.
He spoke to Olu Ojewale, general editor. Excerpts:
Realnews: The Muhammadu Buhari government is now two years and few days old in office. How do you assess its performance so far?
Fasehun: When Nigerians voted for a new government they expected a new government to be better than an old one. In actual fact the cheer which greeted the incoming government has sooner than later turned into jeer because of poor performance of government. People were expecting to see positive change that was why they were cheering the new administration. But after two years, the cheering has been replaced with jeering all over the country. When people vote out a government; they started with change, but the change which they thought was potential and might come has failed to come. Of course, it is only two years away, we might still expect President Muhammadu Buhari to improve on his performance.
But the failure which has been there for two years is not likely to change. If it was going to change, it would have done that over two years. So the people are still very hungry and angry. The economic situation has not changed much. So, they have been expecting for two years and the change has not matured; are we sure there is any change forthcoming? So, that is why I said a performance that has not manifested itself for two years is only tasking the patience of Nigerians. It may not come. That is my own way of seeing the government. I think the government that has been in predicament for two years may not likely change otherwise, it requires a lot of prayers. The government that has not manifested for two years is also tasking the expectations of Nigerians. We thought the president was ill that was why we had not had any change, and we precipitated ourselves into national prayer.
Realnews: Indeed, the president is far away in London receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment. If you were his doctor, would have advised him to disclose the nature of his ailment?
Fasehun: To be honest, an individual in such a position does not stand on the rooftop to announce his illness or hide it virtually forever. Now, Buhari does not belong to himself; he belongs to the nation. He is a property of the nation. So, he owes the some form of information about himself. That has not been there and that is why we have Nigerians guessing about their president. The guessing should not be; we shouldn’t be searching for information. Where information is hard to get people get involved in guesswork and rumour mongering. So, we should not be doing guesswork about our president. He belongs to us. So we should know within reason what is wrong with him. Alright, we are not saying he should expose his clinical problems. No, that belongs to his doctors; how much he tells the nation; how much he fails to tell the nation. But if he believes in prayers, the prayer of the righteous prevaileth. The moment he swore on that holy book, he belongs to the people and he should let us know, no matter how infinitesimally what is wrong with him or we should if there is nothing wrong with him? He is been in and out three times; so, even if he goes out now on the rooftop to say there is nothing wrong with him, nobody will believe him. So, the belief has been misplaced and that has given rise to various guesswork and rumours mongering. Let him tell us the truth or let his doctors tell us the truth so that we may involve in national prayers for him.
Realnews: If you were his doctor, would you tell him to inform the public about the nature of his health?
Fasehun: If I was his doctor I would be professionally bond not to expose him. But I might advise him: Don’t take Nigerians for granted for too long. A people of 170 million strong should not be taken on guessing race; No. He has his own doctors there (in London) and he has his own doctors here (in Nigeria). Doctors here are members of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, so nothing stops them from allowing a twinkling of what is wrong with our president. We should be the custodian of the clinical information about our president. Like I said he belongs to us. Buhari does not belong to himself; he belongs to Nigeria.
Realnews: Let us go to various agitations here and there and Igbo being given quit notice to leave the North. How do react to all these?
Fasehun: Nobody has the right to ask a fellow Nigerian to leave any part of Nigeria. We are running a federation. A federation has been put in place through various conferences, therefore if we believe Nigeria, strongly believe in its constitution, then the constitution must be honestly complied with. If we are unable to comply with our constitution, then we are not running a federation. A federation was put in place through restructuring or through various conferences. Do we believe in the constitution of a country? Of course we should. That’s why we are together. Alright, and having appended our signatures to various conferences, nobody has the right; even the president as powerful as he is, has the right to say that you leave Nigeria, you stay in Nigeria. Nobody has such power.
Now, unless of course, we go back to another conference for restructuring. Many people have been agitating for restructuring and nobody has listened. So, if nobody has listened, does not connote that we believe in the current constitution and we are not allowing anybody to tamper with the constitution? Of course; and our forefathers went to various conferences before we arrived at our current constitution. Are we saying they have wasted their own time? They built this federation for us. Let us be honest that the current constitution submitted to us from the past, if it had sustained us in this number of years, it requires only minimal restructuring. We were at a conference four years ago, and nobody said the constitution should be altered so as to allow anybody who wants to opt out to opt out. I think it is just the sentiment of the moment. Of course, sentiment of the moment can set up agitation that may mature to unwelcome outcome. But let us be honest, we have lived together for many years; why has our presence become unbearable as to be issuing quit notice all over the place? No, it is the sentiment of the moment.
Besides, Nigerians are too much together to separate. I am a Nigerian, I am married. I took my wife from Zaria. So, who is going to ask me to give up after five children? So, it is not a situation Nigerians can bear. So, we need prayers; we need restructuring conferences. Now, many countries are coming together, the EU, the Americans, the South Africans, the South Americans, the Germans have just come together after separation for many years. If there is no beauty in togetherness, people will not seek to come together. So it will be the embarrassment of the century if Nigeria goes the other way. It will show that the conference we had was not well put together. Some of us spoke at that time that there shall be no, no-go-area, make it a free thing; let people express themselves. If Hausa had requested that Igbo should go home they should have discussed it there. And if the Igbo think they should not go home they should have discussed it there and come a position of amity. I think it is too late for Nigeria to separate.
Realnews: Talking about constitution, the current one was given us by the military when it was handing over power; so it does not represent the will of Nigerians.
Fasehun: Then why have we been running for this numbers of years? If when we drove the military back to their barracks and we got together to say let us replace the military constitution with our own constitution. I am one of those who have been agitating for a fresh constitution. How on earth could civilian start complying with military constitution? A group of people that know nothing about democracy; that know nothing about social justice; that know nothing about the rule of law, now tossed down the constitution to our throats and we swallow it. Why did we swallow it? Some said take it from them (the military) to assuage their anger and let them go back to their barracks and we can now sit together and work out a civilian constitution. You can work out a civilian constitution anytime. Some of us did not go to that conference because we knew it would be a waste of time. I personally said we should have allowed civilians to draw up the whole constitution.
Realnews: Nigerians had a conference under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, now some persons are clamouring that the reports of that conference and we know that when the current regime was in opposition it boycotted the conference. Are you advocating that we should adopt the report of that conference or hold another conference or better still dust up of various conferences report we have had and use them to restructure the country?
Fasehun: Don’t put new wine in an old wine skin. That is what the holy says. There is no way you will have peace with a constitution not put together by the people. No way. That constitution was given to us by the military. Have we submitted our rights to the military because of the constitution? How many of them? Maybe 150 members of the military compared with 170 million Nigerian civilians. The errors are too many. Not only that. We worked on this four years back and wrote the outcome of the conference and somebody came in wanting to govern us, wanting to subject our activities to constitutional provisions; on the strength of doing that he just left the recommendations of that conference on the shelf to gather dust. After spending so much on that conference, that goes to say why is Nigeria in recession? We spent so much money on nothing. And now the people are paying for that profligacy. People are angry, people are hungry; people have lost faith in the country and so on and so forth.
So, it is incumbent on those in power to apologise to Nigerians to say sorry, we didn’t know this constitution would lead us to cul-de-sac; let us go back, sit down and let everybody express himself or herself. Then, majority will have their way and minority will have their say. But Nigerians want a reform. What we have now is an embarrassing situation. A country of this size with no head of state for this length of time; it can only happen in Nigeria.
If we didn’t have an acting president who is a lawyer Nigeria would have collapsed.
Realnews : How do you mean?
Fasehun: Governing a nation is not a cup tea. And the nation of this size will require a true president with all the constitutional powers. Sometime ago we understand that that acting president had to phone England to sign the budget into law. Nigeria is too big for that. That is why we have not been able to progress. We are deceiving saying recession has ended. A lot of Nigerians are still hungry and still angry. Many of them have not the means of paying school fees. Right there is still insurgency, there is still kidnapping. There is still raping. All those things that bedevil society are very present with us. When shall we get out this embarrassment? It is a question every Nigerian should ask. Must Nigeria continue to live in embarrassment? No. We ought to live in peace, in none violence, in prosperity. The whole agitation is a result of acrimonious situation otherwise, why have we lived together for so long? We are not yet a nation; why are we still saying he is Igbo, he is Yoruba or Hausa, after all these years?
Realnews: What is wrong with our system?
Fasehun: Our system is bad. We deceive ourselves. We say we are running a federation we are deceiving ourselves and embarrassing ourselves. We are embarrassing democracy. Democracy is rule of law. Democracy is lack of impunity and seriousness. But we run it with impunity. You know, impunity will give rise to lawlessness. Lawlessness will give rise to failed democracy. Impunity is what led to our current situation. Nobody fears the law any more. The laws are there but nobody complies with the law. If anybody complies with the law the person will not be stealing from the coffers of the nation. And see the ridiculous methods of Nigerians. You loot Nigerian treasury and going to hide it in the toilet; it is ridiculous. Money is not supposed to be hidden in toilet. It is not supposed to be hidden in graveyard. So, everything we do is embarrassing.
Realnews: This administration came in on the promise to fight corruption. How would you assess it fights against corruption?
Fasehun: They came on the platform of wanting to fight corruption, but when the swansong was changed it became very ridiculous and I personally thought there would be no change. And I remember of one of yours who asked me why did you say so? Well, I said because Nigeria has been recycling failures. We have recycled failures for many, many years; the same characters; the same oldies. When you recycle failures, we recycle to fail. When France is electing a 39-year-old as president; Saudi Arabia is contending to have a 31-year-old prince as king; we are going for old timers. Nigeria is about 71 percent youth. Everyone is going for the youth; everyone on earth is going for the youth. The president of North Korea how old is he? And the president of North Korea is daring the US the greatest power on earth. He said if America embarrasses us we are going to retaliate. My God, that is mark of a leader. We need a leader that will direct the people. If we do this hunger will disappear; students will pay their school fees, government will be able to build schools, hospitals and provide all other infrastructures. But we have been able to do any of these because we are spending useful money on impunity. That is my stand.
Realnews: As you rightly mentioned earlier about the nation’s security. What role is the O’odua People’s Congress, OPC, playing in security to prevent kidnapping, armed robbery and other security issues?
Fasehun: My brother, the OPC is still very active; if not for the OPC the situation would have been worse. Tell me is there any profession, any undertaking that is taken in this country that is not paid for? None! And OPC became sympathetic to the government and we said we are known for security, let us provide security for the pipeline and we went and we were tested. And throughout our stay on the pipeline there was no loss of drop of oil according to the report of the NNPC. We served our nation very well and two years after, OPC is still asking NNPC to pay what its owes us. They said they were going to pay us N1500 per head per day and they were going to try us for three months. After three months of finding no fault with us, they changed the tune. I have had to be court now for two years asking for our legitimate pay. The NNPC was going to pay us N1500 per head per day. There is no okada rider that does not earn more than that and we said okay let us go and help Nigeria and threw thousands of people to the pipelines. The contract was to last only three months. It lasted two months and we withdrew from the pipelines and the federal government has refused to pay. As we talk the federal government has refused to pay a kobo.
This is damaging to patriotism and puts the government in bad state. They did not say we did not perform well. As a matter of fact they commended our efforts, saying we wished we had employed you years before. And we have had to agree to government’s contract. They failed to comply to their own contract, they said they could no longer pay N1500 per head per day and we said how much could you pay and they said they were prepared to N500 per head per day. So, I said to the people that half bread is better than none. And the federal government said that they would only do that after arbitration and we went to arbitration and arbitration wrote the settlement and even gave a date by their own arbitration. And you want Nigerians to be patriotic after this? Let government be patriotic and we will copy them. Or is it our fault that we noticed that our pipelines, the main economic stay of the country was endangered and we voluntary said look we could provide protection for the pipelines.
We went to the arbitrator and the arbitrator is one of the biggest lawyers in Africa, Baba Afe Babalola, SAN. Who would arbitrate if Babalola could not arbitrate? It is over a month that we held the arbitration, the result has been submitted to the court. The government has not even responded to its own arbitrator. That is why patriotism is very uncommon within Nigerians. They say if you serve Nigeria government faithfully it would not pay.
Realnews: Is there any role the OPC can play in stopping kidnapping and armed robbery?
Fasehun: OPC can play a major not just any role. We have accosted a lot of kidnappers and submitted them to security authorities. What they do to them we don’t know, but we had assisted the nation along that line several times. If the OPC had not intervened legitimately, it could have been worse. We would arrest armed robbers and submit them to the Police. We would not take law into our hands. Security outfit is what the OPC is meant to be but it is also legally controlled.
Realnews: Still on security, do you think if we had regional or state Police crimes of kidnapping, armed robbery and others would have been minimised in the country?
Fasehun: We are running a federal system. State Police is compliance with state Police. Why are you running by half and the other one is not running at all. If you want a federal system, the Police must also be a state system. The governor is supposed to be the chief security officer of the state, but see what you have. You have a paradox in Nigeria, the governor is the chief security officer of the state and the commissioner of Police does not report to him. He reports to the inspector-general; what a paradox!
Realnews: Nigerian youths are said to be leading all kidnappings and armed robbery besieging the country. How do you think these youths can be fully engaged and settled to make them contribute positively to the development of the country?
Fasehun: The moment you re-orientate the youth population of this country towards security, they will comply and embrace it. But before you do that, education must be free in all ramifications. The students must enjoy certain privileges such free education, bursary, good food, security, as so on. Where a student goes to school and comes back hungry and thirsty and has no assurance when to find next meal, he cannot be patriotic. A hungry stomach is an angry mind. That is why look at all our newspapers our past leaders are all calling for restructuring. I can tell you before you walk down to the end of this street you will see evidence of violence.
Realnews; Why is it so?
Fasehun: Why is it so? Like I said an angry stomach is an angry mind. Everybody is angry. Those who found roasted corn to eat this morning don’t know where or when the next meal will come. In a democratic society; it is pitiable. Our democracy is taking a new dimension and advertising new meaning. And nobody cares. Legislators go to work for three days of the week and they earn full salaries. A professor goes to work five days of the week and he earns meagre salary. Everything is upside down and we are not preparing to get together to do say what do we do save the situation. Minimum wage in this country is N18,000 and states cannot even pay, whereas legislators smile home with millions of naira every month as their salaries. Where is the justice? Injustice provokes. It is incredible.
Realnews: What is the way out?
Fasehun: The way out is restructuring. If we don’t restructure Nigeria, Nigeria will not get out of this mess. Restructuring is true federation; that is what we need. Government without impunity, government that runs with social justice in view, legitimate governance. That is what will cure our problems.
We need to sit down. This time honestly and with no no-go-areas. All areas must be go areas so that we can tackle the situation one by one and truly. That’s all I want to say. Thank you!
— Jul 10, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT
Tags:
