 The pan-European social-political organization, Afeni Farah, has warned that Nigeria may be drifting towards a dictatorial and tyrannical state urging the federal government to shun nepotism, confront insecurity, and restructure the country. In a statement by its acting leader, Chief Ayio Adebanjo, the National Publicity Secretary Comrade Jerry Ajayi, Afeni Farah said that it was forced into this unpleasant conclusion in view of the various actions and pronouncements of the federal government in recent times. They stated that the dictatorial tendency of the presidents can be seen in his insistence to go ahead with the reopening of grazing routes and the signing of the Petroleum Industry Bill into law. Well joining us to discuss this further is Mogadji Adejumon. He is an Afeni Farah chieftain. Thank you very much for joining us. Good evening. It's good to be here. Great. Why is Afeni Farah taking this position? This is not the first time we've heard many people actually say that the president is dictatorial in nature, the government of Nigeria is heading down that road. But why is Afeni Farah so certain and has decided to take this position? It's not a new thing for us to come out this way and to make a statement categorically about the trend and the trajectory of this government which of course is leading us into some kind of tyranny and not only that there's so much impunity disregard for the rule of law and a bitrary rule to say the least. And of course we can really explore all of this and you will find out that we have only come out to say exactly what has been happening since the beginning of this administration of Major General Muhammad of Buhari in the course of governance. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic configuration, multi- religious composition and very little is given to the rights of the indigenous people and we have all manners of impunity and chief of that is this fixation on grazing, grazing roots and then the wrong nomenclature. Let's even start from there. What is exactly about the header that goes into somebody's farm uninvited and it goes over this cow to graze on somebody's food produce? That is no clash. That is impunity, that is criminality. So why call it farmers headers clash? This is the 21st century. Why would you want to believe that nothing has moved since somebody drew some roots? We have had developments all over in which case whose roots exactly? The one that passes through an airport and are you going to stop the plane from flying and taking off and for crying out loud what Abraham and Lot did 4,000 years ago realize it wasn't going to pay and then they had to go into some ranching exactly what was jettisoned 4,000 years ago is what we are reproducing in Nigeria. It is derisory. So it is impunity to call it farmers headers clash, call it by its real name. It is impunity to say that bandits are here and there abducting people that is terrorism. You don't call them bandits, call them by their real names. These are terrorists and why would you want to impune upon the laws of the land that you met and have not been repealed? In 1969 there was a judgment given in Ibado. That banned open grazing. That law has not been obtained, it is still subsisting and so other laws and legislation in which case many states of the south west have legislated already against open grazing and yet we still want to have a precedent which is so fixated on creating roots for cattle to move in this jet age when people are going to space. I want to give the president the benefit of a doubt and I'm not in any way trying to speak for the president, I'm not a presidential spokesperson but in this regard the president neither is he here nor is his people here or are his people here to help to speak on this matter so I would be the devil's advocate on this one. What if the president who has surrounded himself by the way with a lot of technocrats and personal assistants and people who know how to deal with and do some damage control maybe what if the president has seen that this is the only solution to the issue that we're facing today and he might at some point or to some extent douse tension and that's why he's very insistent on this. Why don't we give him that benefit of a doubt? We cannot because I can remember there was a time he wanted to be president in 2011 and such a question was given to the contestants that came on a television program and I have the tape I have the video with me and in 2011 he was still talking he was talking about the grazing roots. The grazing roots is no solution let us face it what we need is what others do and they have been successful instead of is the state of Israel let me just begin to give examples now. Uncannily is about the size of your states about 30,000 square kilometers that is the state of Israel but then just about the size of one of the states of the Southwest but they produce the best meat in the whole of Europe they don't graze you don't go I have been to Israel four times you don't you don't see cows on the road they have the ranches everywhere even where you call the desert they be able to create arable farming land and they have the best cows the longest the biggest and the one that give the best milk why would we want to regress thousands of years into the kind of situation in which we'll read about in the holy books and believe that is the solution to the 21st century problem if we have a problem it is about creating solutions fixing the problem if we have those who want to simply feel free to go and destroy other people's lands we treat them as criminals that is the way to do is not to give them the permit and let us face it there are northern governors northern senators that have openly said this open grazing thing shouldn't be followed anymore in fact the 19th state governors actually said so at one time I remember somebody an official of the of the Senate actually said that it's not going to be possible to be talking about grazing woods they said all of that but mr. president wouldn't listen so it is not for the lack of the kind of advocacy that would suit a situation that we have in Nigeria is about the obstinacy of mr. president in wanting to do what he thinks is the solution and of course this is not nothing to be sentimental about he's a fuller me and he identifies with his group I have no problem with that I'm a woman and I identify with my people but that is not to now make my people to impune upon the rights of others simply because I am a woman I remember when president of passenger a woman was in government and there were issues of insecurity and family situated in the in the in the in the corner of the order on account for e-bar gani Adams when the OPC was found to have been involved in certain insecurity the president's did president of the bus he did what was need for in fact he went to the extent of issuing a shoot on site order on the convener of the OPC and but but but the president has done that but there has also been we do respect respect and the president has done the same in the scientific he has done scientific well the president at some point declared a shootout shootout site for these bandits and terrorists he did so sometime this year so let's give him that benefit of that but because of time let's move to the pia which used to be the pib now your um the affinity also seem to touch on that um you seem to have an issue with uh you know the pia what are your concerns well um the truth of the matter is this uh Nigeria is not exactly a federal state because if it were then we wouldn't even be having a pib in the first instance it's it's being run as a unitary state um this petroleum the kural is situated on somebody's land and it's it is their land and the only thing that can happen in a federation a true federation is to have the people who administer where such things are found in situ to pay taxes and perhaps to remit part of the process to the center but you don't take over the whole thing and uh ascribe three percent so the communities and then thirty percent to the river basin authorities of which we have um almost tried the number in the north it is not just right you you you just don't trample upon the principle of federalism and and that is the reason why we always have to question uh the structure and and that is why we will always have people agitating and not for self control not for not for resource control anymore but for self determination if they are not going to be given the little things that really matter in a in a true federal state and that is part of why we believe that this country is now being run on the basis of dictatorship but can we can we also blame the pia on can we solely keep this blame on mr president's table because this bill that became law was legislated by people who represent us and people who represent the people who have the oil right under them so can we really say that it's mr president's problem he only has to accent to it and there are several lawmakers on the floor of the national assembly both on the uh the upper house and the lower house is this really the president's problem okay now now let us look at it critically i started by saying that we have a problem with the structure and that we are not truly practicing what is called true federalism and let us start let us look at it critically in the municipality of cano city in the 60s they had only two local governments in the principality of legos in the 60s we had four local governments and in the 70s legos was even in crystal six but today we have only 20 local governments while we now have cano and jigawa that was taken out of it having close to a hundred local governments and that is about representation and that is the problem we have with a structure that is so defective where you go to the house of assembly what do you find you find that uh the southern states are 17 the northern states are 19 that's the lopsided nest but then it does not only end there it ends with representation there are over a hundred in terms of number of those who represent the north over the south in the house of reps and if you go to the senate there are um six senators because of the 1917 dichotomy six senators that the north have over the number that we have in the south and if you add a budget to it it becomes seven so there's nothing you take there that should fail for what is called equity that will be found to be useful because of the sheer number that they will throw at us and once they throw the number they can pass the bill and it only be hopes on a precedent who believes in equity who believes in equality who believes that there should be there should be no inequity that such a bill is not put to law looking at the fact that we have seen this president refusing to sign even certain bills that have been on his table for the past two years why quickly run to put his accent so this particular bill and i'll tell you something else quickly quickly because we have to go sorry let me let me just finish this because this is very important a group in the north actually congratulated uh the members of the national assembly from the north for doing what they call the right job of making sure that the bill was passed in both houses that gave the north an edge over the south so the president went ahead and put his accent so inequality and that is the point we are making the restructure itself is bad the constitution itself is bad authentically as said said that many times that we cannot continue with this defective structure we cannot continue with this defective constitution and there's no point in trying to patch a tire that has suffered a hundred punches all we have to do is change completely make a new constitution we cannot continue with this bad structure this country believe me is torturing torturing towards being a failed state and all because of the bad structure or because of the defective constitution well we want to thank you Mogadji Adejima is an a fairly fairer chieftain and we want to thank you for being part of this conversation you're welcome all right well thank you all for staying with us we'll take a quick break and when we come back i will give you my take it's time for my take so um it's very shocking that we take a lot of decisions without consulting the Nigerian people this is what we call a democracy but then the government is not for the people it's not by the people it's not in the interest of the people unfortunately so we've been asking for restructuring day in day out and we've even politicized the word restructuring because now it means different things to different people how do people get the kind of government that they deserve the kind of governance that they need if the government is not listening to the people whereas the room for a tete tete with the people who lead us if government is not going to listen to us who are you governing if the governed does not feel heard how are we going to be reopening our doors to people who have killed who have maimed who have destroyed our minds of livelihood taken our homes from us we've had to run away from places that we once knew as home because a group of people said they do not want western education and today it's easy for our governments and our leaders and even our security agencies to come up with an idea and i'm not in any way saying that it's wrong for us to try to rehabilitate people who say that they're repentant but how easy is it going to be for the people who've lost children who've lost husbands who've lost brothers the soldiers who are fighting at the edge of this war trying to keep our borders safe how easy will it be for these people to accept these so-called repentance people back into society are we making the right choices here but yes we want to win the war against this insurgency yes we want to put an end to terrorism but are we going about it the right way so i want our governments to do the right thing think about it because Nigerians are watching and you will hear from us soon i am mary anacol thanking you for watching