The National Leader, National Democratic Coalition Renewal Group Worldwide, Atilade Adeeyo, tells ABIODUN NEJO in this interview that Nigeria’s democracy should be protected from being scuttled under any guise
The National Democratic Coalition rose against those who scuttled the 1993 presidential election and here is NADECO Renewal Group again against forces opposed to the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission. What informed NADECO’s actions?
NADECO Renewal Group is an entirely new body. Those who formed NADECO then had contributed their own quota and are now aged. But when we saw the volatility of politicking that heralded the last election and the way the politicians were handling it, we realised that politicians had not learnt anything. We anticipated what could happen after the election and that the best thing was that we should come together in case of any eventuality. We should not wait until what happened in 1993 happens again before we act. Thus, we started planning that in case there was something similar to 1993, we would be able to counter it. We know our politicians as they are, statesmen are not common among them again. We give kudos to NADECO members of those days. We cannot expect them to be fighting for us again. It is time for the younger generation to come up and deliver this country. That was why we made contacts with people across the country and outside and we came up with NADECO Renewal Group. We want to create awareness in such a way that we could create statesmen, not politicians because it is only statesmen that can deliver the country We have been trying our best to ensure the sustenance of the country’s democracy. If it had been another person that won the presidential election, this is how we would have fought so that his mandate would not be truncated. It is not about the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, it is about the sustenance of democracy in Nigeria.
You spoke about statesmen…
A statesman is someone who plans for the future generation, he thinks ahead. We had statesmen in our First Republic, politicians like the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa, Aminu Kano etc. But do we have people like them again? Now, some people are calling for an emergency rule, and some are calling for a military takeover. I think such people are selfish and very myopic. We are ready to engage them. In one of our press releases, we expressed readiness to engage them. Awolowo once said that the worst democracy is better than the most benevolent dictatorship. We have seen it all over the world.
Do you see similarities between the issues surrounding the 1993 and 2023 presidential elections?
There are so many similarities, but I don’t want to go into that.
What is your assessment of the 2023 presidential election?
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), said he would leave a legacy of free and fair elections. This year’s election was the first I saw that people did not collect money, they were not bought and they still voted their conscience. But the agitators of cancellation of the election are basing it on the fact that the election was not posted immediately as promised by INEC. The commission told us that the server was attacked several times within 24 hours. Had it been that the results have been uploaded immediately, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, would have been put in disarray because you would have been seeing different results on the server and that would have thrown the country into chaos. I think we should salute his courage that he anticipated that. The election was free and fair to the best of my knowledge because I was involved.
What is the state of democracy in Nigeria?
It has improved. I started participating actively in voting in 1993. I was 23 years old then. I trekked from the University College Hospital, Ibadan to Eleyele in Ibadan to cast my vote then. Even until last year, people were not voting without being paid. But in the 2023 general elections, people came out without being paid to vote. Again, the issue of hooliganism was reduced significantly by my experience. We have really improved compared to what it used to be.
Why then do you think there is opposition to INEC’s declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the election?
As said earlier, our group was formed in anticipation of the reaction we expected from politicians after the declaration of election results. If you followed the trend of the campaign, instead of discussing issues, the politicians were attacking personalities. You could see the selfishness in their approach to the campaign. When people campaigned based on selfish interests, there would be this kind of reaction. If it had been Atiku Abubakar or another person that was declared the winner of the presidential election, there would have been this kind of reaction. Most of our politicians in the ruling and opposition parties are not statesmen.
What is your reaction to those calling for an interim government even when there is a president-elect?
We in the NADECO Renewal Group have condemned those proposals and those behind them. For those who said there should be an interim government, we have called on the Department of State Services to arrest them. We should not allow this democracy to scuttle. It took us 15 years, from 1984 to 1999, before we could get what we have now. To be sincere, what was obtained during the military era and now is not comparable at all. Every lover of development, democracy, Nigeria, and the human race should condemn all their proposals.
I want to call on the opposition to allow peace to reign. We have had the election, and INEC, the umpire recognised by the constitution, has declared the president-elect. The only thing expected of them is to congratulate him and if they are not pleased, as they have gone to the court, they should wait for the court’s decision. What we are against is the resort to unlawful means. All we want is the sustenance of democracy, we don’t want dictatorship again.
Also, they should join hands together and form a virile opposition. That is what we need so that they can put the ruling party on its toes. We have not been able to get a virile opposition. We need it for the sustenance of our democracy.
Why did you condemn the views expressed by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie, who in her letter to the United States President Joe Biden, described the process leading to the emergence of Tinubu as the president-elect as illegal and fraught with malpractices?
She has her rights, but with the societal value that people attach to her, we did not expect her to be biased. We expected her to just be objective. She said there were so many irregularities, ballot snatches here and there. From her portrayal in the letter, any right-thinking person would know where she was coming from and where she was going. We could see that she had a biased mind toward a particular candidate. Our expectation of her through her writings is to attack societal vices, and to seek and proffer solutions, but the letter betrayed her. She did not address those issues objectively, that was our grievance with her. Had it been she picked those issues and approached them in an unbiased manner, nobody will be bothered. Much is expected from her, but she was biased. We are not the only ones who condemned her letter; a majority of people who are not even politicians condemned it. We have written a counter letter to President Biden in which we tried to puncture her comments.
What are the expectations of the NADECO Renewal Group from the incoming president?
We want him to start from the formation of his cabinet. It should not be delayed. He should look for professionals to solve the country’s problems. Though he could be under pressure to take care of politicians, there are professionals who can deliver among the politicians. Just as he did as the Lagos State governor then, I think he borrowed from the late Oyo State Governor, Chief Bola Ige. When Chief Ige came to Ibadan years after he left Government House, in response to a question, he told the Students Union leaders that he would tell us his secret. He advised us to borrow from it if we wanted to go into politics. He said whenever there was to be a discussion at the EXCO meeting, for instance on education, he would have called professionals, and renowned educationists and hold several meetings with them, and they would come up with papers. He said that at the EXCO meeting, he would ask members to contribute, but when he began his comments, everybody would say he was very intelligent, not knowing that he borrowed his intelligence from professionals. I think that was what Tinubu did as the governor of Lagos.
Again, going by the way the country is now, the incoming president should try as much as possible to unite the country. It is a general problem across all the tribes. He should bring all the tribes together, and let us believe again in one Nigeria.
What about in terms of policies and programmes?
Economy, infrastructure and education. One key infrastructure is the issue of power. If he can solve the problem of power, I think a large chunk of our problem is solved. If there is a constant supply of power, it will cut down the cost of production. Most of the companies closing up are doing so because the cost of production is high and they cannot meet up with imported fake substandard goods. He should maintain control of importation and in the process encourage local production. Agriculture is also key for food sufficiency and economic growth. The incoming president should encourage solar energy. He should not forget education. I know he has listening ears, he should discuss with the Academic Staff Union of Universities and see how to reduce or stop the incessant strikes by ASUU.
There should be a proposal to stop medical tourism. By the time we stop medical tourism, our leaders will be forced to improve our hospitals; not the ones they are trying to propose now that doctors should serve for five years before going. Even if I am serving and not satisfied, I will not be able to give you, my best. You don’t have to force or bond people to serve you. If you make the environment conducive, there is no way people will not serve you. Another thing is that all the people in political positions or public offices should be made to send their children to public schools. It is embarrassing that children of public school teachers attend private schools.