Interview
Structures of governance in Nigeria are designed to steal, corrupt – Dr. Adebowale
Dr. Doyin Adebowale is a legal practitioner, teacher and former Senior Special Assistant on Special Duties and Strategy to the late governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu. He was regarded as the most powerful aide of Akeredolu who was saddled with many functions and who had the power to look into any Ministry not working according to the main objectives of the Akeredolu’s administration.
He was also in charge of security matters and reports directly to the governor. Adebowale was one of the aides that held forth for Akeredolu during his turbulent periods before he eventually died. He was even the first non Indigene of the State to have held such a powerful position, specially designed for him by his principal, Akeredolu.
In this exclusive and explosive interview with Olusesan Laoye of the Business Hallmark, which Dr. Adebowale said was the first with any journalist since he left office after the demise of his boss, he narrates his ordeals; how he was able to nip in the bud many corrupt activities of the civil servants in Ondo State, events of the past in Nigeria which brought the country to its present state and concluded that the only way out and for peace, justice and equity to reign supreme in Nigeria, is to adopt true federalism through regional governments, under the present structure of the Six geopolitical zones.
Excerpts:
What was your relationship with the governor because it was argued that he ought to have given such powerful position to someone who is an indigene?
What people don’t realize was that we have been very close as lawyers before he became the governor. My relationship with him was that of brothers and friends and he always had deep conversations with me about issues and personal matters. So picking me to work with him was like picking a confidant to work with and that was why he gave me free hand to operate and I was responsible to him only not to any other person.
In that case, how did his journey towards the governorship start, and how was he able to scale through the huddles to eventually become the governor?
You see, Arakunrin though, he was not interested in politics, and said he was not going to have anything to do with the politicians, knew virtually all those in government. Apart from that, he acted as lawyers to all of them during their election petitions, especially that of Aregbesola in Osun State, Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State and even outside the South West. He was even a member of the legal team that defended Rashidi Ladoja when he was illegally impeached in 2006.
When his people then came to him to contest, he shunned and quarrelled with the movers such as Egban Kola Olawoye (SAN), who later became his Attorney General. We were all together in Ibadan. Even while he was still reluctant, it was Egban Kola Olawoye and late Okunribokun, a former CBN director also an indigene of Owo, that engineered the printing and pasting of his posters all over the state. Again Chief Akin Olujinmi went to Akure for a case and he was followed by Ibrahim Lawal, the current Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Chairman of Ibadan branch.
It was Ibrahim Lawal, who used his BlackBerry phone to take the pictures of the Akeredolu’s posters already pasted all over Akure and that was 2011. When the picture of the posters were shown to him, he was furious with Egban Olawoye. He rejected it and asked that they should be removed because he was not interested neither does he want to have anything to do with the politicians; that he just didn’t want to be in their midst. At that stage, I asked him who was he quarreling with on phone and he told me that it was Egban Olawoye. He said, ‘I know them, Raman Mimiko is my friend, those politicians are not straight forward and why should I go and mingle with such people?’
At that point I had to calm him down. I told him not to abuse them even if he was not going to accept what they wanted. But later his people from Owo came with three loads of buses and appealed to him to come home; that the people wanted him because it has been long they had anyone from Owo for the governorship, after Pa Adekunle Ajasin. That was how the journey started. I was the last person he told, after he had consulted widely, that he had accepted to contest.
We held the election and won and when we got to office, we were not unmindful of the challenges we were going to face. The magnitude of what I saw and with the nature of my assignments made it very interesting, but it later became very dangerous because several attempts were made to kill me. I have been shot more than twice and it was not a thing that anyone should be proud of. I went through it, I did my best and came out of it. It was a serious and tedious assignment and it was not easy at all. At the same time I was happy that I was given the chance to show people that it is possible to live your dreams, and that it is possible to do what is appropriate, and correct at any time. I was the SSA to the governor on Special Duties and strategy and the way Aketi designed it, it was so powerful that I reported only to him. He gave me the power to move into any Ministry to ask for things and I could stop anybody, even a commissioner, from whatever they do, which I considered was at variance with the visions of the administration.
It was a position that anyone could easily abuse, because I had unfettered access to the governor. We both operated without memo, except when we were doing the Amotekun thing. That was the only secret memo that I wrote to him. Other communications were made through WhatsApp.
With the way I operated, it was a thug of war with the people. Although I am not from Ondo State, my wife is from the state and these people forgot that my children are half Ondo. Honestly it was really hectic because I happened to be the first non-indigene to have occupied that powerful position in the history of the state. I interfaced with security agencies, the governor would depend on me to fact-check whatever reports were given to him by the security agencies. I was always on ground to quell any riots and crisis in any part of the state; and to ensure that the peace of the state was not disturbed.
The position opened my eyes to so many things and made me to know many terrible things going on in government, even in all the ministries and parastatals. There is corruption everywhere, Ministry of Education, Health, transport, honestly, it is virtually everywhere.
This was so because things have been so designed in a way that the people believe that you are in government and in the service to make money illegitimately, and that you are expected to steal to live beyond your means. If you don’t do it, you are a crazy person and if you prevent them, they would curse and abuse you. They would ask if the money belongs to you or your father. The government officials would wait on till the Assembly approves the money and after appropriation they would not do what the money was appropriated for. For instance, the vocational centres were not taken care of, so were SUBEB and other agencies. A lot of contracts were awarded but not executed. Honestly, if we go on like this, Nigeria would not progress. Let me say, frankly, being in government based on my experience, one should be able to live comfortably without stealing government’s money. I spent seven years in government, I was one of the first appointees. Your allowances and running grant in your office is enough to live a comfortable life without stealing.
I believe that those in government stealing public fund are doing disservice to Nigeria with. With prudent management of legitimate resources at one’s disposals, there would be no need to steal as public officers. Even the opportunities you have are enough to carry you through because it brings favours. So, what makes them steal in government to me, is greed, which has become the habit of people serving, because they see money in government as free money. The structure of the system of operations here in Nigeria gives room for stealing and honestly this must change for Nigeria to grow and move forward.
The theft in government is so much that you find a civil servant earning N250,000, building Estates, and what is the Accountant General of the Federation doing with several billions found on him? To be Frank with you, we are sick in this country. This is because the structure as I said before, is tilted towards stealing.
How do you think we can get out of this?
As a matter of fact, I don’t want to sound too pedantic by taking us back to what happened when we were under the colonial system, when the so called nationalists started their agitations against the colonialists, for freedom and when they started the resemblance of self governance in 1951. That was the period we were allowed to chose our leaders and Awolowo became the Premier of Western Region, Eyo Ita that of the East and Ahmadu Bello that of the North. Until 1954 with Littleton Constitution, which allowed the Regional governments to take place and we are living witness to what those people did in their different areas; the achievements witnessed under them. At that time, we were running a federal government, at the centre, with federating units. To be honest with you, there are two tiers of government in a federal system, and it is now that people are dubious and idiotic that they are talking about local government autonomy.
When the Western Nigeria government took off, we had flashes of inspirations and nobody was in doubt about those at the helm of affairs in the West, the East and the North. There was healthy rivalry among the regions but the West, which received the least in terms of Federal allocation from the colonial administration, was the best governed and there were reasons for this. When Awolowo was in charge, he took certain decisions that were considered very harsh. The Universal Basic Education Act of today started in the Western Region, when Awolowo introduced compulsory free basic Education.
It was not free as such, because it was financed through taxes. He made sure that the revenue from the sales of Cocoa was well utilized. When the Colonial government asked him how he went about the free education – because they were not comfortable that many in the region would be educated – he simply told them that he depended on cocoa and there was the cocoa Marketing Board. The beauty of governance at that time was that every region was given the wing to fly. While the west depended on Cocoa, the North had its groundnuts pyramid, hide and skin and cotton, and there were many textile industries across the North, while the East had its Rubber plantations, coal, palm oil, and other produce, to execute its own programmes. Well, not that the arrangement did not have any flaws, but the people governing us were able to work genuinely with the resources at their disposal.
Awolowo, who said education was the focus of his agenda, established scholarship board and gave scholarships to people based on merit, not on account of where they came from. The arrangement was that they were on bond and those who studied Engineering, Agriculture and other disciplines, had to come back to serve the region. That was the period when we actually had real federal system of government. Even at Independence, when the Independent Constitution was adopted, we had agent generals. The present day High Commissioners were the agent generals. Every region was allowed to explore, given its peculiarity. The current Nigerian House in London belonged to the Western Region. It was the Military that took everything over.
The regional system took into account the issue of contiguity and it was the North that refused to break. Apart from the Hausa Fulani in the North, there are people from Middle Belt of Benue, Plateau that we now know as North Central. Ahmadu Bello refused and did not allow the North to break, likewise the East, but it was the Western Region that was carved out to have the Midwestern Region, known today, as Edo and Delta states from it. Though the present day South South belonged to the East, Zik too did not allow them to go, but West was broken because the West started from Jibowu in Lagos to Asaba at that time because it was a parliamentary system. At the time, there was accountability because those in the opposition too had their own shadow government that would look critically on the policies of government in power. The system of government then was that those in the parliament were also the cabinet members.
Those in the oppositions too had their shadow government with portfolios like those in government and they scrutinized every policies of government. Things would be debated on the floor of the house, as the government would want to justify its policies while the opposition would also come out with reasons why the policies are not good for the people and this would come with good and genuine criticism too.
All these were done for the best interests of the people and this always guided the people to determine the party they would vote for, in the next election. Based on this rivalry then, the West was the first to have Redivision and Television. The redivision was all over and it was a small box that transmitted government programmes and policies. Not for entertainment but to educate the people on various issues and policies of government, such as education agriculture, science technology and entertainment was the least of all the activities.
The same was the television, where experts were brought to discuss various topics, beneficial to the people. What is NTA today was WNTV and the FRCN was WNBC. Again as part of the peculiarities in each region, the Eastern region did not have the House of Chiefs because it was not in their own local culture, it was a Republican system. At that time too, the sittings in the parliament was part- time. No body earned millions and billions then like the parliamentarians that we have today. There was no oversight functions as we have now because government and the civil servants took charge of that. Where it should stop is for a legislator to make proposal and tender the request of his people to the house.
Even the idea of having federal agencies that are of no use is killing Nigeria. The National Assembly rather than asking questions about the relevance of these agencies would go along with them and approve their allocations, which would not be used judiciously, for the benefit of the people. Honestly, our constitution sort of gives room for all these lapses. Unless we have a system that is working, Nigeria would just be moving in circles. I think we need a constitution that would not give room to all what we are witnessing today. When we were operating a Regional government, every region had its own constitution, own judiciary and every region was allowed to legislate on arms and ammunition, (the facts are there to check) in the 1963 constitution. So, what we had in the exclusive legislative list was minimal, as against what was in the concurrent list.
Let me say this, this illiterate arguments on local government autonomy could not have arisen, if people read books. In a federal system of government there are two tiers of government, which are the Federal and the State. Everything that has to do with the local government is residual. Why they are restricting themselves to this idea of local government autonomy, is just about allocation and not revenue generation. If it is about the issues of revenue generation, there should not be argument about creating more states and local governments because their creations should be in accordance to needs. Agitations for more states and local government is just about allocation because we should not be creating states and local governments that are not viable.
The local government autonomy to me, is a way of centralizing everything so that anybody that wants to be local government chairman can go to Abuja to meet. It is never done anywhere that you create local government to be parallel to to state. The present state of Nigeria is not right and we can’t continue to run a fraudulent constitution, depend on it and expect progress in Nigeria. No, it is not possible. The system is so much faulty to the extent that people in power used to operate on party affiliation. Because the party that controls the center would always want to favour the states in the same party with it and neglect other states not belonging to the party. We have seen this happening several times in Nigeria.
You said that Nigeria is operating fraudulent constitution, which is not making things work for the country, what then are we going to do about it?
As some of us have been saying, we just have to throw away the present constitution we are operating in Nigeria. You see, we have amended this present constitution five times already (I have the constitution as amended here with me); they are now on the sixth amendments. What we have failed to do, is to realize that when there is a structural defect in a building you have to pull it down. Those in the National Assembly would not want a new constitution because when we talk about regional government, they would not have a place there because the issue of permanent sitting would no longer be there and it is going to be part-time sitting. Again when we talk about Regional government, we would also talk about resource control. We are talking about local government autonomy but not about resource control, Is that not fraudulent?
What is in local government autonomy, which does not make them control their resources? What makes nonsense of the whole thing is that someone would bring a piece of paper from Abuja, enter Ilesa and start to mine gold, destroying a whole village. He pays money, which was not captured anywhere.
You can imagine Dele Alake, Minister of Solid Minerals, came on air bragging that he paid $5million into the government treasury, from mineral resources. That is not acceptable because there was no body who quantified what he sold, he did not tell us about the impact assessment and who did it. You only need to go to Ilesa to see what these Chinese are doing; you will pity us in Nigeria. They bring people from the North, Niger and Mali and armed them with sophisticated weapons because they control the mining sites.
In fact that was what started the problems in Zamfara State and it is because of their gold. Nigeria is no doubt in a colony of slaves and country of liars. People talk about local government autonomy, saying that the state governors are stealing their funds, what about the federal government; why is the Federal government controlling 52 percent of the total revenue of the country? Let us look at those in the Federal government. We have the President, the vice President elected, we have the people at the National Assembly, the rest are appointees managing the 52% of the revenue.
During the regional government, the West was the least paid in terms federal allocation and it was the best developed because the region did not depend on handouts. When you even talk about Federal appointments, the West was not favoured; it was the East that controlled the Federal, the East headed the ports with Aja Nwachukwu, the Nigerians Railways we had Ikejiani. In fact 80% of those manning the federal corporations and agencies are from the East. Let me say this, this was one of the basis of the quarrel between Chief Akintola and Chief Awolowo that people have refused to talk about. Akintola was not as disciplined as Awolowo, but more at home with people and flamboyant.
Akintola foresaw tomorrow but Awolowo was too idealistic. He pointed all these to him but Awolowo did not listen. But notwithstanding, when we all minded our businesses as individual region. Yes, the rivalry was there but no one disturb the other. The west chose education as its priority other regions chose something else. The South West also chose Agriculture and established farm settlements, sent people abroad to learn animal husbandry, bulls were brought from Argentina, and cattle ranches were also established at Akunnu, Auga and one at Ibarapa. This is why some of us here in the South West are baffled when these people want to teach us about how to take care of cattles and telling us that cattle must be moving around. All these ranches were there until the military came to scatter everything in the regions. The history is there and when people want to put cotton over our eyes they would continue to say for the purpose of unity regional system would make people secede. Is that not balderdash?
When are we brought together, first in 1900 and then 1914. What is sacrosanct about a union that does not work. It is ironic that it is the region that depends on all of us that is now shouting and opposing regional government. Many states, especially in this region, contribute nothing to the revenue of Nigeria and even get more than the places, where the revenues are coming from. To be sincere to ourselves, is that not fraudulent? Even using population to share federal allocation and not on account of generation, is the most fraudulent thing we are experiencing in Nigeria.
You made mentioned of the Military causing the major problems that we have in Nigeria today can you explain further why?
You see after the first Military coup, Alhaji Dipcherima was to be the Acting Prime Minister until another election was held but the intervention of Major General Aguyi Ironsi disrupted the whole plan when at gunpoint, the Nigerian Republic that day was signed over to the Military and that was what happened. The real problem started when Ironsi empowered an economic advisory council. It was this advisory council that advised Ironsi as the Military Head of State to abolish the regions, harmonize the Civil service, which created the unified salary structures we now have in Nigeria.
At that time the Western Region was paying its civil servants the highest. When you talk about the minimum wage the Western Region was able to pay five schillings, while other Regions were paid two and half schillings. These are facts, which are verifiable. The council also asked the Military to stop each region from investing and whatever investment in any region the federal Military government should take over and that was what brought decree 34 of 1966, which Prof. Ben Nwabueze drafted for them. The decree came in May 1966 and that was one of the major the problems of that administration.
After him, Gowon took over and he repealed that decree of Aguyi Ironsi and brought decree 8 of the same 1966, with the same provision and that was how we fell into this error. When Ojukwu came and the issue of Biafra surfaced, they went to Aburi and Ojukwu insisted that the country must go back to confederation, which they agreed but Gowon instead came back to create states to weaken Ojukwu and to consolidate the hold of the Northern region on other states and that was why the Western Region lost most of its land.
Ikeja, Oregun Apapa were the industrial hubs of the Western Region now under the present Lagos State. So people can now see why Lagos State is rich because virtually all the industries in the Western Region now fall under the Lagos State. The money in Lagos is western Region Money. The state is just lucky to have inherited the western region huge sources of incomes.
From Gowon’s 12 states, it became 19 under Murtala, 21 and 32 under Babangida, and Abacha to 36. That was how the whole system was centralized without considering incomes generation but consideration on how to share revenue. This is what is causing trouble now.
For instance, on the issue of taxes, some people operate hotels where they sell beers, some people pay taxes of pigs and all the things regarded as forbidden in other parts and you still share from what you termed “Haram”. Why should that be the case; are they not being hypocritical?
The Federal Inland revenue services to me, is not just right because they are competing with the states with offices in them. You find them competing with the states on some revenues and this makes you wonder what is there again for the state to collect as revenue. Recently something was posted on our NBA platform about new charges for number plates and licences and called joint tax board or something, it is amusing that this is happening in a federal system of government. These are revenues and taxes to be collected by the State.
It is in here that we make mockery of the system that we run, when customary matters are adjudicated by the Supreme Court which is to be a constitutional Court and a court of policy, while all cases should stop at the court of Appeal.
We had our Regional Courts of Appeal before what has happened to them? Now if you file an appeal it takes years and most times the plaintiffs and the defendants must have all died before their cases are looked into.
How do we now improve our Judicial system?
All is about the structure. Once we adopt a structure with true federalism every other things would fall in place. Let us take off from the six geopolitical zones that we have now and still retain the states, because people would not want the states abolished. We would then create Regional Assemblies do away with the too expensive National Assembly, that we presently run. With the regional Assembly, members would be chosen from the states with equals representations and they don’t need to be there full time.
With this it will be purely peoples Assembly and we don’t need to peg membership on the kind of qualifications you have to attain. If the people decide that it is going to be a mechanic, carpenter, bricklayer to represent them so be it. This would now even make us to abolish foreign language in our ways of life. It will also make us to change our curriculum in our school to focus on individual area’s local challenges and languages. This would even encourage skills acquisitions. If from primary school you can’t make it to secondary school there was Modern School. After that, you move to technical school, called trade centres then, or Grade three teachers college and you move on like that.
This was the system that produced what we now have as our legacies in the South West.