 Pandivh replies Senate President Lawan on his comment on restructuring saying Presidency must return to the South and on the issue of Kaduna protest APC Governors tell NLC to return to the negotiating table and stop flexing muscles. This is cross politics and I am Mary Anna Cohen. The Pan-90 Delta 4 in Pandivh has condemned the anti-restructuring comments made by the Senate President Ahmed Lawan. It said the Senate President's dismissal of the position taken by the 17 southern state governors across party lines were disgraceful. The group also insisted that the presidency must return to southern Nigeria after President Mohammed al-Buhari completes his tenure in 2023. And while speaking on the refusal of the government to sack the Minister of Communications Issa Pan-Tami, the prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria Samuel Uche has faltered the lukewarm approach by Mr. President saying a hidden ethnic supremacy agenda exists. Well joining me to discuss this is Ola Lekon Ighe. He is a social commentator and Ken Robinson is the National Public Publicity Secretary of Pandivh. Thank you very much for joining us gentlemen. Thank you so much for having us again on the program thank you. Great I'll start with you Mr. Robinson because Pandivh seems to be in the forefront of this. The most important thing that was highlighted in the statement that you put out is the fact that the South needs to be or the presidency needs to be zoned to the south of the country and my question is why? Yes thank you so much. Pandivh had a general assembly on on on the 17th that's on Monday and the general assembly is the highest decision-making body of our decision-making organ of our organization and far-reaching decisions were made and the Niger Delta position was clearly stated and one of the issues we came out with was that the presidency must return to the South in 2023. There is some kind of on written agreement but in the parties constitution some of them are clearly stated that power rotation is captured in the constitution of some of the parties and so after eight years of the not an and in the person of President Muhammad Uwari being president of the country power should return to the South. Now our position is that where it goes in the South is not the matter at this time whether it is south-west south east or the south-south is not a matter at this time but for fairness equity and justice and in the spirit of oneness and to give a sense of belonging to all Nigerians power must return to the North and we are saying that it is irrational and unreasonable for anybody for anybody anybody at all from the northern part of the country whether it be north east north west or north central to consider and taking over from President Muhammad Uwari and it will be completely unacceptable we have said it is non-negotiable and it will totally unacceptable for anybody outside of the southern part of the country to to to become president of Nigeria in 2023. That's our position. I know that you're not necessarily a politician per se but I want to push you because you're coming up with this idea of Opandif is saying that the South must have that presidency after come 2023 but I'm curious if we were to point to the South let's for example say well we're giving power was zoning and rotating power to the South. Who are the people in the South that would unanimously say well we're going to either give it to the southeast or the south-west or maybe the south-south do you think that there's that unity or purpose in the South because of course yes the southern governors have come out for the first time in a long time to stand against the issue of insecurity across the country but when it comes down to party politics can we really say that there will be unity of purpose or will there not be a division of sorts when it's time if the if parties political parties decide that they're going to give you the South's southerners an opportunity to choose your president. Are we sure that there's going to be that unity of purpose as we're still hearing it in your voices right now? Politics, Opandif is not a political organization. Opandif is an organization that projects and protects the interests of the Niger Delta people but as you know more than I do everything centers around politics in Nigeria and politics is about the distribution and control of wealth who gets what what goes where and so we are saying that the issue at this very moment is not whether it will be south-west south-east or south-south but let me let me say that there is a new awakening a kind of a new realization that these cannot continue the way they have gone on in this country forever in perpetuity. These must change and and you can see the change that is happening that there are there are realignments going on people are beginning to realize that look we need to work together and that together we are stronger and and that's demonstrated by the meeting of the southern governors on the 11th of May where they put aside party nucleonations and party preferences and came together and spoke the mind of the people of southern Nigeria as a body as one people not whether APCPDP or any other party and I'm sure that that spirit and that that that new realization will go forward and and we will produce a Nigerian president that will be president of all Nigerians not the president of a section and in every section of the southern Nigeria whether it's south east south west or south south we have Nigerians people with capacity capability and the mentality to become to to to to become president of Nigeria not president of south west or south east or south south and that's what we say we want to give to Nigeria someone that will be the president of Nigeria not the kind of presidency that we see today that is lopsided and skewed against a section of the country in favor of a particular section we must move away from that that that situation okay let me go to you Olalekongi just following up on what he has said that Pandev and several other people are pushing for you know zoning of the presidency to come to the south south now I remember vividly a few months ago I interviewed the deputy publicity secretary of the People's Democratic Party when the party members in a dough state were pushing that the presidency be zoned to the south south and I was asking if the PDP had any plans for 2023 to zone their presidency to the south south and he said no that they that everybody should throw their hats into the ring I also haven't heard the APC screaming at the top of their voices that they are zoning the presidential primaries or giving it to the south south or even the south in its entirety so again I'm asking how feasible is this push for zoning in to the southern part of the country whether it be south south west southeast or south south yeah politics is again remember and it's all about positioning it's all about bridge period it's all about appeal it's all about connection it's all about making people really ordinarily the presidency should be returning to the south in 2023 without the northern part of Nigeria producing Nigerian presidency for eight years and it's only natural that comes to the southern part of Nigeria whether it will be south east south south or south west remains debatable the most important thing is zoning to the southern part of Nigeria to have a Nigerian presidency and the south cannot begin to put itself in order if they can put the house in order and oh we did win okay now let's talk about the reasons behind the zoning yes you have said that ordinarily but I mean like you also said it's politics and it's a gain then like I've said the PDP has said outrightly that every hat should be thrown into the ring so it could be it could be anybody that emerges in and that person may not necessarily be from the south but do you think that maybe pandaf is being a bit too emotional because of what's happening in the country because of the insecurity or maybe because of how people perceive Mr President's handling of the you know the issues that the country is facing and that's why the south is agitating for what they're agitating and if there be any pointers to people that we would want to front or political parties might want to front who are those people remember in the south there's always that division when it comes down to it to pick who should represent us then we remember where that person is from or that that the person is not truly maybe in Ida Delton or truly a south isner how do they blur those lines well I think it's for the start to determine the southern part of Nigeria as enormous human resource that can occupy the presidency of Nigeria whether be any person of any nationality we have the resource we have the material we have the humanity we have people who are competent enough to be this country we have former governor so much senator former assembly member or whatever they may come from the south has the enormous capacity to produce the Nigerian presidency remember we are not talking of the president of the south we are talking of the president that will rule the entire Nigeria's federation so the material that they allow the political parties to zone their presidency whatever to any part of Nigeria if PDP is saying look every part of Nigeria should throw its ass into the ring no problem that's out of view connection that's out of view bridge that's out to appeal to people it's left for people who are members of southern part of Nigeria or in PDP to appeal to the generality of the party to say look look at our track record look at what we have done for you can you please bring this to the south it's also for the people in APC they're not as the president as at the presidency for eight years president Muhammad Bari is a member of APC so it's also for members of APC it's from the southern part to also appeal to everybody you know across the divide to say look you've got a presidency for eight years why don't you give it to us to let us have a fair share of what is going on and to be fair to some leaders of APC and particularly the governor of Zulum and some other APC members have said look power most of the animals go to the south in 2023 so it's for people from the southern part of Nigeria to continue to build bridges ahead of 2023 appeal to the generality of the party and also remember power is not given freely it is negotiated it is battle for so they must also put a out in order please grant us this desire to have presidency for the southern instruction then allow the political parties to go through their the membership of the parties go to the party primary and whereby they imagine the rest of Nigeria will vote for such a person all right let me go back to uh Mr Ken Robinson Mr Robinson Pandev again has spoken about Mr President's handling you called it lukewarm to borrow your words and of course you seem not to be okay with how the president has handled the issue of the security now the president as we speak is in France having a meeting with other african leaders with the French president Emmanuel Macron but a lot of people have criticized the fact that he was quick to jet set to France to talk about issues other than what is happening in his backyard and of course the president also spoke recently about what's happening in Israel and Palestine but yes we do have an issue in Nigeria and the president has spoken on he spoke on the the the heels of easel featurey and he did say that he was going to put an end to banditry but what what else must the president do to show Nigerians that he's responding to our cry well let me borrow your word by saying that we have issues in our backyard and we are more concerned about issues that are in the other countries but what happened said that let let let us restate our position that the greatest problem of Nigeria today is the way and manner the affairs of state have been conducted that's the greatest problem nepotism is the greatest challenge we have there is general disaffection people are not happy there is anger there is anger in the land and when those situations exist people may do things that ordinarily they would not want to do so so the the first thing that Nigerian government president want to do is not uh soliciting for assistance from outside the country what is correcting the errors in the country that are the root causes of some of its challenges we have for instance and we'll continue to say this in a country of such a diversity we have 17 top appointments heads of top military paramilitary intelligence agencies in the country that are consigned with the security of the country 14 of them are from one section of the country only three are from the south south east south south and southwest some states in some certain parts of the country the northern part of the country as two of those kind of offices and you want people to be happy that kind of a situation and you think that the security will be right i say this with all sense of responsibility i'm sorry i'm gonna have to go right on to we are great governance is andro de nigeria i'm sorry to talk over you but i want to play the devil's advocate here that is not the making of the president is it because um i've i've spoken to a former service chief before and he did say something in the you know in the line of um you know we do not have as many people from the south you know in those ranks especially the highest of the ranks that can be picked and chosen immediately when they need somebody to be made a service chief we do have them but not in the numbers that you have uh in the north so could that also be that maybe we do not have many people in those you know um regiments and that's why we're unable to have them in those positions at the time when we need them and you know how it is you cannot really pick somebody from under to be the head of any security or armed force because you know this is how i'm sorry but we also ask that we also do not have people that could be empty of npa we also do not have anybody in the south of nigeria that could be empty of nimasa you see there has been a systematic elimination of our people in some of those organizations and those agencies and it is deliberate to put us um in the disadvantage position to to achieve aside in in nimasa recently didn't we so why was the change taking why were why were we changed and then somebody from kano or kaduna was replaced by replaced somebody from river state and then the person from kano or kaduna was retained in npa these these are the the inconsistencies and imbalances that are causing this affection on the country people are not satisfied with how uh we are running this country and we have again and again called on mr president to make changes make amendments in our runs affairs of state in appointments at various levels in government and federal agencies ministries and departments you know but but they are not listening and we will continue to have these issues nobody can salvage nigeria for us nigerians will have to salvage this country the people carrying out some of these activities in some parts of the country are not foreigners though we understand some of the bandits are from outside the country but some of the activities the persons who are who are terrorizing lives in in the creeks of the niger delta they are not from kemeron they are not from nigeria republic they are nigerians people were dissatisfied people were angry people were unemployed and so government needs to sit up and address these issues france united states uk can do their best but they won't solve our problems look at somalia it's it's been on nobody's been able to solve the problem look at afghanistan it's been on let us not allow nigeria to degenerate to those those states and it's important that these people should listen and act okay well i like um i'm going to throw the question to you uh as you know we all live in nigeria the issues that we're facing are numerous uh it started as you know pockets of violence but then it has metamorphosed into a hydroheaded monster and which has also created a playing field for all so even people who are criminal just criminals in nature have taken up arms and become you know have been named under unknown gunmen and so all kinds of things are happening in the country um why do you think that it took mr president so long to deal with this situation and now that we have a full blown problem what is still stopping mr president from speaking because there are people who've asked that mr president speak and address the people allay their fears but he has not done that there have been also people who have called for mr president's impeachment because of his inability in their words to handle the situation what do you think the challenge is well i think it's to first of all admit that the security architecture of nigeria has called it's been coming really how much have we invested into security architecture in nigeria a lot of money in the last 10 20 years how much have we invested in security security is not just about the email thing what about the or putting um i city into security and how much are we spending on security really the next obvious question is are we spending enough on security my answer is absolutely no we should be spending less than 25 30 40 percent of nigeria's gdp our gdp as are today is put at about 500 billion dollars it means minimum that we should be spending on security every year should be about 50 billion to about 100 billion how much is united states that is also secured spending on security how much is israel how much is united kingdom how much is france how much is jenny how much check how much they spend on security every year they know that nigeria is not even anywhere near security i doubt that we're up to one million policemen in nigeria it is the responsibility of nigeria police to ensure internal security when last they do you could be put into the nigeria police when last did by adams software for nigeria police how many police have function as a police station have functional cctv in nigeria how many police stations even have national data crime date how many police stations in nigeria have forensic department well equipped forensic department to help us analyze crime situations there are a whole lot of things that we need to look at otherwise even if we let another president in 2023 if we don't gently change the way and manner we can do security architecture in nigeria we will not achieve any results and there's no doubt about that say for the governors nigeria police may have collapsed remember that it is no state governors who buy operational vehicles for police buy bulletproof for voley some have even gone to the extent of trying to acquire guns for police some have built police stations for police not too long ago some security personnel were killed in reverse it it is the reverse the government that has brought about about 280 million to give to the families of the disease how much as police itself have been able to bring that how much as the nigeria army be able to bring that how much as the cost of being able to bring that for each own personnel so what are the kind of time we need to urgently secure security architecture we need to look at the issue of state police in much more decent societies where we all love to copy the united kingdom the united states in france in germany in italy we have we have metropolitan police they have even devolved beyond the level of state for example we have what is called london metropolitan police is restricted strictly to the city of london yeah we have the janisburg metropolitan police is restricted so why don't we have legos metropolitan police why don't we have protaco metropolitan police why don't we have aba metropolitan police because the more you keep security closer to the people the better you're able to know what is going on within this is a lot like the governors the the southern governors forum and of course the pdp governors forum i think just yesterday had asked that we the the president devolve the police force they've asked that he's he signed an executive order so that they can actually have state policing and this is just almost in line with what you're saying but it seems like it's rocket science it seems like it's never going to happen because it became a blame game of sorts where the apc is blaming the pdp you were here for 16 years you didn't do it why do you want us to do it but then the pdp saying well apc you used this to campaign against us in 2015 saying that you wanted to devolve the police and bring some form of restructuring why haven't you done it so and i had a guest yesterday who perceived or seemed to say that none of the people on either sides of the divide seem to really want to do what's right by nigerians because they're politicizing the issue instead of doing what the people need to be done yes can you hear me i can hear you yeah i think what's important is not to also continue to a portion blame is to look at the reality of what is on ground each state has its own peculiarity the amount of police needed in riverside might not be the same number of police listed in the kitty state because different kinds of crimes are committed in different in all manner of state so you must allow the states to tell the police to the needs of that particular state let go for example we need by far more police than than than far aside so you can see how the state police you call me because the police with the state we determine how many policemen they need how much worth of equipment are they going to buy how much worth of neighborhood safety code can they bring up how much worth of local government can be even police because security is particular to every state and that's why we must evolve if we have been doing the same thing since 1960 when we got independence and he's not giving us a different result he means that we need to change we just have to find a way going forward we need to spend more at i'm sure uh from right because i got united states spends more united states of america spend more than 500 billion dollars on security last year alone that is a nation that is well secure with the best of technology with the best of training with the best of technology 500 billion on security how much has nigerian spent in the last 10 years on security adapted us up to 10 trillion and 10 trillion is less than 10 billion years dollars or probably a little more than 10 billion dollars so you begin to understand that look we need to reject our security architecture our borders are so poor how do we police the border how do we get the best of technology the niger immigration service how many functional helicopters do they have the niger custom service how many functional helicopters do they have the nigeria police how many functional helicopters do they have we need to bring all of our base to the table and ensure that we have security because without security there's really no need for us to have the nation because everything will grant to us and that's why niger is hemorrhaging at the moment okay thank you very much let me go finally to you mr ken Robinson before we go the method is prelate had knocked mr president calling him a fuller knee president and said that what we have is a fuller knee presidency in fact he also said that the approach of the presidency to handling the isa pandemic issue and you know allegations of him being tied to terrorists is deplorable he also spoke about those he suggested that the president is a one-sided president and and that's why nigeria is facing what it is facing now i'm asking this question because in the midst of all of the insecurity that we're having we're also having ethnic tensions i'm sure you are aware because you read the papers of what sunday boho had said some days ago that an assault on ipop is an assault on the european nation even though a lot of people have kicked against it but there there are people who are saying something obviously has made room for these ethnic tensions that we've always had which have been an undertone of sorts to become so loud and emboldened in today's nigeria but how do we how do we make sure that it doesn't become a bigger problem going forward it's the mitzvah ideas bits are very up statements concerning insecurity the country and and nigeria is spending on security but we will continue to emphasize that there is a root cause of these these problems there is growing or increasing agitations for separation and we see that increasing there is the media belt movement there is the odudua movement of course there is a prayer friend movement pandef as an organization believes in the unity of nigeria but we are insisting that nigeria must be a country of justice equity and fairness and that is what is missing today in this country it is missing the the catholic priest is right the tendencies of being a sectional president are obvious they are very obvious in every sector you see we cited the situation in the military and paramilitary you you see what's going on in in the oil sector and in every every critical sector of the public service this this this tendencies and biases and inconsistencies and lopsided net is there that this president favors a particular area of this country and so people are disaffected people feel that they are not being considered part of nigeria and you see people from the south being moved from offices you know in very disgraceful manner and and treated as if they are not nigerians as if they are foreigners this country belongs to all of us the niger delta people we have contributed so much to the development of this country and we are saying that this attitude cannot continue okay all right is the is the is the beginning of pollution for the problems in nigeria okay well ken robinson is our pandev and olala konighe is the social commentator thank you very much gentlemen wonderful conversation thank you so much for this opportunity thank you we appreciate all right well we'll take a short break and when we return we hear what the abc governors have to say about the rift going on between the kaduna state governor naster al-rafai and the nlc stay tuned we'll be right back