What is your assessment of the Buhari administra­tion?

My assessment is that Bu­hari administration is going just the way I expected it to go. It’s doing just the things I expected it to do. It’s only those who are not familiar with Nigerian history and Ni­gerian politics that will be sur­prised about what is going on now. People like me are not surprised, and that was why we warned our people before the elections about the dan­gers of voting for the APC in the presidential election, that in the long run, it is not good for Nigeria, it is not good for our people, so I’m not sur­prised about what is going on.

Clearly, what is going on now shows that Buhari is a presi­dent out on a mission, and the mission is to reinstate Fulani hegemony over the whole of Nigeria. We’ve always said that Buhari is a Fulani irreden­tist. This is not a new posture of his. He has always been so, even in his first coming as Head of State, he behaved the same way. You will remember that when he was fighting cor­ruption as a military Head of State, those who were most persecuted were the UPN gov­ernors, the progressive gover­nors of the UPN, NPP and the GNPP. They were the most persecuted, even though they were the least corrupt. Their administration between 1979 – 1983 were most progressive, they achieved the most for their people, but when he took over power, it was they he per­secuted the most, so this is not new with him. Every time he has the opportunity, is to rein­state Fulani hegemony. That is what he is doing now. Look at the appointments he has made. The first nine appoint­ments he made, only one was from the South, I’m not talking of Yoruba now, I’m talking of the entire South, all the other eight were from the North.

The subsequent 32 appoint­ments, because we’ve been keeping track, only six was from the South, 26 of those 32 were from the North.

There were six appoint­ments he made yesterday (penultimate Thursday), again only one of the six was from the South. How does one jus­tify that in a country where there are so many ethnic na­tionalities and the South and the North are almost about equal? Why will the appoint­ments be so preponderantly favouring the North to the dis­advantage of the South? Even if you are to say its time to pun­ish those who didn’t vote for him, did the Yorubas not vote for him? The Yorubas under the propaganda of Tinubu and his acolytes kept crying this agenda of change, support­ing Buhari, even though we were warning them that the agenda of the APC of North are totally different. The APC of South were making them­selves to believe that there will be change, whereas the APC of the North had only one agenda – to reinstate Northern hegemony, to get power back to the North and get the Fulani back in the control of Nigeria. That was the only agenda they had, nothing else. They only exploited the APC in the South so that they could achieve their aim. One would have expected that Tinubu, with his years in politics should have seen it, but because of his selfish interest, his selfish ambition, he couldn’t. He was been driven by selfish ambi­tion and so he went along and supported the agenda which he knows was not going to be in the interest of his own people. I kept reminding him of Afonja of Ilorin who was betrayed by Alimi. Afonja was betrayed by Alimi even though he was the one that sought the cooperation of Alimi because Afonja was trying to rebel against the Alaafin of Oyo. Afonja achieved his purpose, but after achieving his purpose, what happened to him?

Alimi killed him off and took over and the Fulani established their Emirate in Ilorin, and that was how the Yorubas lost Ilorin forever. Tinubu is the modern day Afonja. I remember I wrote this in several papers because I’m not saying this for the first time. What we had anticipated is what we are seeing now.

Don’t you think it was a grave error that an agreement was not reached on power sharing among

the different blocs in the APC?

Tinubu had his own agenda. The agenda of Tinubu was personal, purely personal, and Tinubu was only using the Yorubas to achieve his personal agenda. Tinubu did not understand the Fulani man. He believed he could use Buhari and that once Buhari is in power, he will effectively be in control. That was why I said he doesn’t understand Nigerian politics.

He should have listened to people with more experience. Money is not all you need to do politics, you also need experience. Tinubu underestimated what Buhari will do when he gets to power. He thought he will be dictating to Buhari. He tried to dictate who will be Senate president, he flopped. He tried who will be Speaker, he flopped. Those controlling Buhari are the northern hegemonies, not the Tinubu party.

What are the lessons from all these?

The lesson is that people must always know their his­tory. Today, a lot of those in school don’t even know what happened twenty years ago, and there is no nation where people don’t know their histo­ry and make progress. In every Jewish school, they are taught the history of second world war, how Jewish people swere persecuted in Europe, how six million Jews were killed. Ev­ery Jewish boy knows that. If you go to America today, and you want to become an Ameri­can citizen, they will give you an exam. If you don’t pass it, they won’t give you citizen­ship.

When you talk of Buhari’s record as Head of State, how many voters were mature then to know what happened, so it’s easy to deceive people. That is the problem. Our people don’t know history

– Courtesy: The SUN