campaign more or less said they would restructure and Atiku has also confirmed it. That is what they promised and Atiku recently went ahead to even say that the 1999 constitution was not what they agreed on as the constitution when they sat down to come up with a constitution.
So, what he is actually saying is that the 1999 constitution is a lie and a deceit because he was one of the people that put the constitution together. He said that when the constitution was signed into law, people accepted that it had changed. That is why I started this conversation by saying that the answer to the problem that Nigeria is facing today is telling ourselves the truth. We must tell ourselves the truth. The politicians are not doing what would keep Nigeria one. The politicians from top to bottom have to go. The reason Senators and governors are there protecting their positions is because of the way the system was set up; they want to protect their political positions. But very soon, they would find that there is no political position to protect because, come 2019, they would be very shocked to see that whatever they thought they are protecting today, they would never even have it in the first place. The deceit and the lies are ongoing and unless we tell ourselves the truth, Nigeria would come to a standstill.
Look, we are getting somewhere and there must be an end to where we are going. Sooner or later, we would meet that brick wall; there is a brick wall ahead. We cannot continue to run around; we cannot continue to have a situation where the herdsmen are running over the whole country and killing people; we cannot continue to have a situation where the Boko Haram is in control of the country; we cannot continue to have a situation where what the constitution says is one thing and what the people who have sworn to uphold the constitution are doing are completely different.
In the area of restructuring, my group, the Niger Delta Self- Determination Movement and so many other people who have keyed into the call for self determination at a very minimum within Nigeria believe that the time for restructuring is over. This is because the people calling for restructuring are not sincere in the sense that what they are calling for and what we are calling for are not the same. If that be the case, we would reach a clause in the restructuring argument where we would have to abandon it because nothing would come out of it. That is why my group has said that the time for restructuring is over. We are serious in the discussion and conversation of restructuring because we want to see it taken to its logical conclusion. Now, if we do not get it right, the next call is for a referendum. That is where we are now.
The Niger Delta Self Determination Movement and I as a person are looking for a call for a referendum. Let us ask the people, the Fulani, Igbo, Idoma, Yoruba, Tiv and so on, let them decide what they want. Somebody brought my attention to what was written where somebody said that the call for Biafra is actually the call for the Igbo nation. It is about ethnic nationality. At the end of the day, at the referendum point, you would find out that all these arguments and discussions from independence period and time of Adaka Boro,and even during the amalgamation till today, the argument on Nigeria has always been about the ethnic groups.
There is the argument that if you allow a referendum, Nigeria may disintegrate whereas, if we have one big country that would provide a level playing ground for everybody, it would be better for us. So, some are saying that rather than split into smaller groups, the ethnic nationalities should work hard to sustain Nigeria. Do you agree with this position.
Looking at that argument as a reality and a possibility, of course yes. But it has to be possible first before it becomes a reality. The question is will the people of over 400 ethnic nationalities where people have been so marginalised, abused and denied believe that we can sincerely have one country the way we have it today without the separation of powers. Will they believe that it is possible without restructuring this country and every ethnic group owning what is in their land and having the right to determine what their future would be like.
Are we saying that we truly believe that it is possible to have one united, strong, indivisible Nigeria where everybody is equitable, at liberty and feel comfortable?. I personally presume that it is not possible without giving the ethnic nationalities the sole right over their destiny. We cannot have a Fulani man sitting in Abuja deciding what is good for the Ijaw man in Bayelsa State. The Ijaw man cannot sit down in Abuja and decide what is good for the Idoma man in Benue in his farm.
The British people were the ones that told us that we can govern ourselves as a federation without our suggestion that Nigeria would be a federation, knowing full well that they would use a handful of Nigerians from a particular region to govern Nigeria. It is only now when the Yoruba, Igbo and the other ethnic groups started insisting that they also should have the opportunity to govern Nigeria that we started having all these issues. Those issues would remain and the more we prolong it, the worse it is going to get as we are today in Nigeria. We must accept what we are confronted with today which is that everybody is recognizing their ethnicity. It is very clear that the Yoruba man is first a Yoruba man before he is a Nigerian; for the Igbo man, it is very clear to the extent that some Igbo people want to go. The Niger Delta people are very clear about who they are. The Isoko man says he is Isoko. The Ijaw man says he is Ijaw, Ogoni man the same thing and so on.
You definitely cannot put all these things under the carpet. On restructuring, there is a possibility; if the APC government and the people that are in the government want Nigeria to stay together, there is no way they can stop people from getting what they want. We are asking for 100 per cent resource ownership so that we pay something back to the Federal Government. The Igbo people are saying they want to break away. Some Igbo are saying we have enough investments in the North and we do not want to break away. All these arguments, we need to address them. You cannot address the issue of Nnamdi Kanu and leave the issue of those who say they have investments in the North and they are ready to die in the North instead of going back to Igboland. We cannot abandon the argument of the Niger Delta people who are saying, we are the ones providing all the wealth in this country that is shared by everybody. We do not want everybody to share in our wealth any more. You cannot put all these arguments under the carpet and the only solution to the whole issues is for us to tell ourselves the truth.
