Ciroma sends words to Buhari, Says North not afraid of restructuring

•Consult more people to solve national problems
•Speaks on 2014 CONFAB, Budget padding, Dogara
•Insists there’s no end to problems

Mallam Adamu Ciroma, journalist, administrator, politician, former minister of different portfolios and erstwhile governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, is one of Nigeria’s leading statesmen. Ciroma, who will be 83 years old soon, was third in the 1978 presidential primaries of the defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN, but subsequently became a close confidant of President Shehu Shagari and served as minister in the Second Republic.

The Elder Statesman was also a close confidant of President Olusegun Obasanjo in the Fourth Republic and a rallying figure in the northern opposition to the 2011 presidential bid of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Ciroma has largely kept out of the public eye despite the active participation of his wife, Hajia Maryam Ciroma in the affairs of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Mallam Adamu Ciroma was one of the G8 members who later metamorphosed into G34 which eventually led to the formation of the PDP. In this exclusive interview with Saturday Vanguard, Ciroma speaks on national issues, restructuring, President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the 2014 National Conference, the PDP, among others.

Excerpts:

As someone who has been around, if you look back to the days of Nigeria’s struggle for independence by late Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and others, would you say that this is the kind of country they had envisaged during their struggle for for self governance?

I don’t know, what is your business with how Dr. Azikiwe or Awolowo wanted this country to be?

In the country at the moment, there are agitations by the Niger Delta Avengers in the South South; Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB and Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB in the South East as well as Boko Haram insurgency in the North East. If these are sustained, don’t you think that indivisibility of the country cannot be guaranteed?

What is indivisibility? Every country has its problems and the problems arise from how people are living with one another. In the meantime, we are talking of this Nigeria where we are living in. There is Boko Haram, the government said they are going to bring it to an end at the end of last year, some of it is still there and if you are well experienced, you know that no trouble ends in one place and that is it; full stop! Something will linger. Now the Riverine people who live in the oil producing areas are having their trouble, they are called Avengers, I believe they are dealing with their problem as we see.

There is this loud cry for restructuring especially from the South, they are saying Nigeria should be restructured, but the North is saying no. What is your view with regard to restructuring Nigeria and why is the North afraid of restructuring?

I don’t agree that the North is afraid of restructuring. I don’t believe that even the people in the South want restructuring, but I believe every country has a problem at one time or another; some may be economic, some may be social. So every country has problems. The Americans are just having problems now with the black people and we thought the problem had been solved long ago. But the problems are arising.

The South Americans are having their problems with corruption and manipulation. So everybody has problems. Europe is having problems with immigrants from Asia, from Africa, from everywhere so which country does not have problem? If you have a problem, it is the duty of the leadership to solve the problem.

Professor Ben Nwabueze, an Elder Statesman said recently that north’s resistance can’t stop restructuring, what is your take on that?

Why should I reply him? He is old enough to know what this country was before. He is old enough to know what this country is like now and he is old enough to propose solutions to what he thinks are the problems we have now. Why should I bother to reply him? We have discussed with him several times and we don’t always agree, but we know how to live together.

So what is the way forward since the leadership has the responsibility to solve the problem but appears unable to find solution to it?

What I know as a person is that problems are there to be solved. When human beings live together, they have problems, it is their duty if they want to survive together to solve this problem. We were run by the colonialists from one country that negotiated with us and they left us with the problem of living together and we are trying to live together. So what is the wonderful thing about that?

It seems like we are not living together, but tolerating one another?

Living together means tolerating one another.

So we should continue to tolerate one another?

It depends on who is talking from my own point of view. As someone who has been to school, who learnt about how people live together, I know we have to tolerate how to live together and in fact I believe Nigerians are doing well.

Back to the earlier question of our forebears, is this the kind of Nigeria they had negotiated for?

It can’t be the same, they are not the people living here now, we are the people living here now and we are the people that are going to solve the problem now. The economy has changed since 1960 and people are changing and they have to learn how to cope with the change.

How can we tackle these issues that have continually led to agitation by the militants, IPOB, MASSOB and Boko Haram insurgents?

There was a time when the economy of this country was based on cocoa, groundnut, cotton, Palm oil and stuffs like that. Gradually oil came to take a dominant position and the agricultural production has changed and this government, at least I know since independence, Nigerian leaders have been trying to ensure that agriculture is revived so that the economy can still rely on agriculture in addition to oil.

So looking at solving the problems there will never be an end to this country not going to have problems. Britain is having problems, Europeans are having problems amongst themselves, Americans are having problems with the black people, a problem we thought had ended. So, these things never end, it is a question of life and survival. As long as you are alive and you are not the only one living in this world, you would have problem of how to live together with your neighbour, with your friends, with your relatives. So what are all the hullabaloo about?