Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is a former minister and special adviser. In this interview, he spoke on the controversies over his recent articles, the state of relations between ethnic groups in Nigeria and why the country must address its nationality question. Keep reading…

Since you wrote the series of widely circulated articles about the relationship between the Yorubas and the Igbos, there have been a lot of responses, with many condemning you. Did you regret writing those articles?

The answer to your question is emphatic no. Why should I entertain any fear or regret about what I wrote? I don’t regret a word of what I wrote. And I don’t entertain any fear about anything. If people don’t want to hear the truth, that is their problem and not mine.

Some people believe that you went overboard in those articles, that some of the things that you wrote, you should not have written them

Nobody should tell me what to write or what not to write and neither did I go overboard. It’s an intellectual exercise and those essays were based on my knowledge of history and I will be more interested in somebody pointing out where I get the history wrong, rather than trying to telling me what I should say or what I should not say. In a debate like this, I expect informed opinion, I expect somebody to write and challenge my assertions based on their own knowledge, not just abuse and threats and lectures about what to say and what not to say. People should stop being lazy intellectually, they should try to rise up to the occasion and learn from these things, go and do their own research, find out what their history is and come and tell us about their views or opinion about that history. I have no regrets and as far as I’m concerned, this debate is an ongoing one.

So, what is your reaction to those who said you sound more or less like an ethnic champion in those articles?

I think you cannot refer to me as an ethnic champion because I have been a nationalist for many years, I have put my life in politics for the past 20 years, I fought for this country, I stood up against military government, I stood up for the Northern children, the girl child, I stood up for the Igbos and the non Yorubas that were killed in the North. I stood up for people whose rights have been violated by government and I have paid my dues. I was a federal minister in this country, not a Yoruba minister. I was a spokesperson for the presidency, not a spokesperson for the south west. So, I am not an ethnic politician and I believe in Nigeria. If I were, I will tell you and I  have no regret about it. However, I don’t believe it is proper for people to lay claims to other people’s lands and other people’s territories. My essays were a reaction to something and that is what so many other people seem to have forgotten. When you create the impression that the Igbos not only own Lagos, but also that the Igbos contribute 65 percent of business and also contribute 65 per cent of revenue in Lagos, I have to reject that because those assertions are not true and I have to react to it. Now, I reacted to it not with insults, not with calling my brother and friend, Orji Uzor Kalu a tribalist or anything like that. What I did was to simply say I disagree and I told them why I disagree and based on their reaction to my first disagreement, we now went into the full scale debate. I haven’t insulted any individual, what I have done is to analyse our history and draw conclusions from that history and that’s the way it is supposed to be in a civilized society, not getting up and insulting people both night and day and trying to intimidate me into silence. And if I am silenced and intimidated by all these insults that is going on, all these subtle threats going, it will them mean no Yoruba man will be able to speak again on this issue because it will then mean that we have been intimidated, but I cannot be intimidated. No Fani-Kayode can be intimidated and no Yoruba man can be intimidated. I am a Yoruba man before being a Nigerian and I owe no one no apology for that. But at the same time, I love Nigeria, I believe in Nigeria and I love all nationalities in Nigeria, but that is not to say I will forget my heritage, I will forget my history, I will forget where I am coming from. I will never do that. I will not sacrifice my Yoruba side on the altar of a greater Nigeria and I will find to defend the interest of my own ethnic group, my own part of Nigeria any day, anytime because I don’t see how any Yoruba man can go to any other part of the country and claim their land and say that they are the ones generating all their money because the local people are stupid and they have no business acumen and they don’t even know their rights. I am not going to accept that.

But the argument, even by those who agree with you, is that you could have made your point without making some references you made in the newspaper articles?

I don’t need the approval or support of anybody. This is not a football match, it is an opinion. Did they understand the meaning of the word opinion? And people are entitled to their opinions and in civilized, pluralized societies, people ventilate their opinions and I am putting it to you that nobody has put a better argument of this matter than me when it comes to the issues concerned. I am looking forward to a person that is in support or against me that can put a better argument on these specific issues. And each of those essays is pretty good. I have been writing for 20 years, they were pretty good, they made the point.  The problem here is that many of our people don’t like to say what is on their mind. But I am not like that, I always speak my mind and that’s why with me, sweet or bitter, you will get the truth. I am not like most of our people who will pretend saying something here, saying something in another place. You know very well the articles I wrote painted the mind of every single person in this country about how some of our people behave, particularly the Yorubas, but how many of you will say the same? But I don’t play like that, I speak truly and it is important to speak the truth in order to avoid conflict in the future. It is when you refuse to speak the truth that you are courting disaster and possible violence in the future. You know why? If we don’t say these things and speak up, we will not be able to resolve our differences. We are making what I call the ‘Zik mistake’, I am not attacking Zik, but I will explain what I mean. When Zik and Sardauna met, Zik told Sardauna ‘we should forget our differences. Sardauna said ‘no, we should understand our differences’ and he was absolutely right. Unfortunately though, majority of Nigeria took Zik’s position which is that we should forget our differences and move forward as if we had none. And that led to terrible conflicts in which many people were killed in the first republic and then, the civil war in which so many people also died. That was the price we have to pay for not understanding our differences. If we had followed Sardauna’s advice and not Zik’s advice at that time and had tried to understand our differences and had tried to understand one another, those terrible things would never have happened. And I am afraid that the same thing is happening today. We are pretending as if we had no differences and we are courting danger and disaster.  And that is why it’s important when people get up to make very provocative comments,  statements and assertions about the rights of other ethnic nationalities in their own areas and we react to it in a very vigorous manner, somebody will get up and say we have no right to do that. And that’s absolutely absurd. It should be the other way round- people that come to our part of the country should be sensitive to the fact that they are visitors and guests and that is not part of the country where they actually come from and so, they should not behave as if they own the place or build the place from their own sweat.

Why do you think the mutual distrust and suspicion between the Igbos and Yorubas have persisted in spite of years of intermarriages, friendship and all other type of relationship between the two ethnic groups?

I don’t think there is really any mutual suspicion or distrust. What I think, as I argued in my article is that the Yorubas have been so accommodating to a point that they forget that at a point you have to draw a line and say enough is enough. I don’t know how it got to a point that an Igbo person will think he owns Lagos and that 55 per cent of financial resources are generated by them. I don’t know how they can say that and then they expect the Yorubas to say nothing in return- those ones that responded have been called all sorts of names and subjected to all kinds of humiliation. And that is what worries me the most because when you do that and you push people into a corner that we cannot even speak for ourselves or for the rights of our people, you are courting disaster. And we do not want to go down the road of Kigali. We got to build a plural society where everybody right is respected. I will not go to the East or the North or any part of the country and try to impose my will or claim territories of other people. I wouldn’t do it and if I did it, I will not complain when the other people raise an objection. Let me tell you the more fundamental aspect of all these analyses and this is something I want to say with all seriousness. The greatest act of wickedness that the military inflicted on Nigerians is to ban the teaching of history in our schools in the 80s. It was an act of sheer wickedness because today  younger generation of Nigerians don’t know anything about their history. The consequence of that is that they are easily influenced by historical revisionism and lies. People tell them anything they want to tell them and these young ones believe what they are told and the consequences are that we may now repeat the mistake of the past. And I am talking of all them and not just one section. If they have been taught history in the schools, they would understand where we are coming from and why we have to be very careful about what I will call the nationality question which till today has not been answered in Nigeria and which needs to be answered whether anybody likes it or not.  Who are we? Where did we come from? How did Nigeria come together? Do we really want to stay together? If we do; can we not agree on what terms of staying together? Can we not fight on the devolution of power from the centre to the regions, to the states? Do we want to continue on this unitary system of government? These are the fundamental issues of the day. But most Nigerians will prefer that they are buried under the carpet and act as if all is well. But that is a very dangerous thing. But it is very important that we do not make the mistake of yesterday and if we want to avoid the mistake of yesterday, we must ensure that we learn from those mistakes and avoid them. In the South west of Nigeria, there is too much resentment-even though they won’t say it, most Yoruba people are too polite to voice this opinion, but the time for being over polite has long gone- because today, we have graduate unemployment in this country and 70 per cent of our people are living below the poverty line and the country is back in debt and everything is going backward for us in this country. And let me tell you the problem that we have here- from the 50s, if you look at the way in which the Western region of Nigeria was developed- and when I say the West, it is not just Yorubaland, but the Midwest, Nigeria-Delta and Edo States- they were part of the old Western region at a time- the rapid rate of development was really remarkable. That was when we had the first television in Africa, we had places like Cocoa House, Western House was built, Obafemi Awolowo University was built- these were the fruits of Awolowo and Akintola government in the Western region. The Western region built an industrial estate in Ikeja which was part of the region then, it wasn’t part of Lagos. And all those wonderful things were funded and developed from the resources we derived from cocoa production. So we got our money from cocoa export and we funded all our infrastructure development, all government programmes from that money. To add to that, you also have the natural resourcefulness and the ability to work hard as Yoruba businessman, Yoruba professional class and it was so outstanding compared to anywhere else in Africa. Our people have graduated as far back as the early 1800 whereas other people didn’t even know what a school looks like. Our people have gone to Oxford and Cambridge as far back as the mid 1800. We are very advanced people and that reflected in the way in which our region developed so fast in such a way that no region comes close to us. And if we had been allowed to develop that way, today we would have been the Dubai or the Singapore of the African continent. That’s how good we were. But unfortunately for us, when the military came in, everything changed. They centralized authority, the rest of the region through the federal government arrested our development, tied us down to progressing at their own space and that is why we are where we are today. The only benefit that we got in the South west from developing at the slow pace of the rest of Nigeria was the fact that we got some crumbs from the oil money to build the bridges in Lagos, built the airport, built the third mainland bridge and all these things in the 70s and these are all things that we enjoy. But at the same time, we could have done those things ourselves if we have been allowed to develop at our own space. But we were held back by the rest of the country and unfortunately, that is where we are today and it is something of a tremendous concern. And we say okay, fine, we have to develop at somebody else pace and it is a slow space, but don’t now come to our territory and say you own it, you built it and you control all the money there. It’s not acceptable because it is not true. And sooner we all appreciate the fact that if we  concentrated more on developing our own areas and our country as a whole, rather than going into another person’s territory and saying we own it and make it what it is, the better it will be for all of us.

But many people believe that the root of the distrust between the Yorubas and the Igbos are rooted in the pre and post independence events like the way the late Dr. Nnamdi  Azikiwe, according to the Igbos, was not allowed to assume the leadership of Western region parliament, an act which was assumed to be the beginning of introduction of tribalism into Nigerian politics…

It is a good thing that we are all talking about our history. People in my generation know the history very well. If they have done their research, they will know the answer to these questions and that was why I wrote the second essay. The first essay was simple, it was just a straightforward response to the claims that my friend, Orji Uzor Kalu made. But the second essay was provoked by the reactions it generated and I say let me go into history and analyse the historical facts for you, not opinion. Now, if anybody goes to read that, he will know where tribalism itself started, he will know who started it and what the result is. Now, if you start the narrative from the 1959 regional election result, you are starting from the wrong point, you will miss the narrative and that’s the problem with our Igbo brothers and sisters, they always start there- ‘oh, it is the Yorubas that started it by betraying Zik in 1959.’ But if you want to go further back and I challenge anybody to bring evidence that I am wrong, the first statement that was made that created the division between the Igbos and the Yorubas came from an Igbo man and it was a very, very decisive statement and that was where it all started. That was in 1945 when Charles Dadi Onyeama who was a member of the legislative council representing Enugu in Lagos, a very great man who was a representative of Nigeria at the Hague, a great jurist, he made a statement that Igbos domination of Nigeria and of Africa is only a matter of time and he made it at Ibo State Union Address. At that point in time when he said it, nobody in the West is even looking at tribe. Herbert Macaulay, a Yoruba man established the NCNC and handed the party over to Zik, an Igbo man, he didn’t care. NCNC was controlling the whole of the South west, nobody cares. But these Igbo nationalism began to manifest and Zik himself said the god of the Igbos would ensure that they rule Nigeria and Africa that was in 1947. And it was after those two major comments that Yoruba leaders now got together and said we cannot go on like this. If we are not careful, these people will turn us into slaves. Action Group was now created as a consequence of all those things that were said. And then came the regional election which in fact, Zik would have won, but for the fact that AG joined forces with Ibadan Peoples Party to give Awolowo majority of two or something like that. It was that close and Zik would have been the first Premier of the Western region, but because of the statement that was made and things like that. Now, for anybody to say that the Yorubas have not been accommodating when an Igbo man nearly became the first Premier of the West doesn’t make sense at all. After that, came the attempt by the Igbos to grab power in January 15, 1966 coup which was an Igbo coup with about three Yoruba Army officers. It failed and the rest is history. But till today, the Yorubas have never killed the Igbos in our region and by God’s grace, we will never do so. We’ve never attacked anybody from any ethnic group and we believe in peace. But we must stand on our rights and that is how civilized people behave, we are very civilized.

What is the way forward now, how do you think this mutual distrust can become a thing of history?

I don’t even believe that there was distrust. If it is true that there is distrust, the Igbos would not have been so welcomed in Lagos and in the other parts of Yorubaland. The problem is on the other side. The Yorubas are not welcomed in the South east the way  Igbos are welcomed in the West. The kind of thing Igbos are allowed to do in the South West, no Yoruba man is allowed to do it in the East. I love the Igbos, that’s the funny thing, I have many Igbo friends. My father was at a time the leader of the NCNC as the leader of the opposition in the Western House of Assembly. My grandfather taught Zik at Methodist Boys High School. When Zik came back after his degree in America, it was my grandfather that chaired the occasion when they did reception for him and we have so many strong links with the Igbos and so many other Yorubas did too. Today in Lagos, you have the Igbo commissioner, Igbo councilors, Igbo spokesmen. The Yorubas have been so accommodating and that’s a good thing. We are open, but some of them believe that as a consequence of that, we have forfeited our right to our heritage; to our history and that we have forgotten that we are coming from somewhere and this is our territory. Why should we be jealous of the Igbos? No, we welcome them and allow them to flourish in our territory and we also want them to also welcome us.

But the argument is that it is not that the Yorubas are not welcomed in the East, but that the Yorubas prefer to operate in their own enclaves?

Maybe we should do more to make them go there. If we say you don’t open your area for somebody and you said it is because those people don’t want to come, maybe they don’t like it for a reason, maybe they don’t feel welcome. But whatever the reason is, that is the reality. I am not saying we are particularly disturbed by that. I am not sure how many of our people want to go there. But the question is if we go, would we be accepted? Many have gone and they tried to establish businesses, to buy land and they come back to say these guys are not opening the place for us. But it’s not an issue for us, it’s okay. I believe in an integrated society, but I also believe that we must not lose our identity. There are many nationalities in this country. Chief Obafemi Awolowo wrote in his book, ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’ in 1947 that Nigeria is not a country but a geographical expression and within that geographical expression, there are many nationalities, each had its own history, its own heritage, its own ways and its own word view. And that we must recognize those differences and appreciate them. It doesn’t mean anybody is better than the other. What it means is that we must accommodate those differences and treat each other with utmost sensitivity and understanding, so that we can join hands to move Nigeria forward together. And that is what I believe in.

You talk about the nationality question…

If we don’t answer the nationality question, we run the risk of running into a terrible storm and it might lead to a lot of problems in our country. The old Yugoslavia was similar to Nigeria in terms of its ethnic diversity and religious plurality and the kind of attitude we are manifesting here was manifested by the leadership of Yugoslavia. Under Tito, Yugoslavia was held together against the will of most of its people, by a very strong central authority where the President seems to control everything but give little money and resources to the various states and regions just like we have in Nigeria today. But unfortunately, when Tito died, the various ethnic nationalities and also the various religions comprising of orthodox Christians, Catholics, protestants, the Muslims and so on, and all the different nationalities- the Croats, Serbs, Kosovars, Bosnians, very diverse, just like Nigeria, the place started to warm up and eventually disintegrated. And that was because they refuse to sit up and iron out their differences in a humane and civilized way and fashion out a constitution which could guarantee the rights of the various ethnic nationalities and religious inclinations, all of a sudden all hell broke loose and it resulted into one of the most terrible wars in Europe and millions of people were killed, concentration camps were set up and the rest is history. We don’t want to get to that point in Nigeria. If we don’t talk about our differences, and we continue to pretend that we don’t have them, if we don’t answer the nationality question, eventually Nigeria may end up like Yugoslavia; it may not be now, it may not be 10, 20 years from now. People will say I don’t wish Nigeria well, but I pray to God that I am wrong on this. Everybody knows that ethnicity and religion play important role in this country and we have to get it right.

But how can this happen when there is so much fierce opposition to Sovereign National Conference, an avenue which many have argued will be the appropriate platform for addressing such issues?

Those that are opposed to national conference are those at the top of the political class. They are very irresponsible group of people. They are not bothered about the consequences of their intransigence because they are comfortable about the situation as it is because if you are top in this country, it is either you have been a minister, you are a senator, you have worked in the Villa or you’ve been a President or even a governor, you just accept the situation that that things are better for those of us at the top. So, why do you want to change the situation? Why do you want to devolve power? They all want to protect their vested interest and the power configuration that existed in the country. I don’t think there is any country in the world that has come to the sovereign national conference because people decide to do it. Nobody gives up power easily. What usually happens is that some terrible things act as a catalyst and some people will say it’s better to sit down and do this. But we haven’t got there yet in Nigeria, that’s what scares me. We are sitting and acting as if we don’t have a problem. Those at the top don’t want the status quo to change.  At the end of the day, the only way you can guarantee that Nigeria will remain in the distant future is if we devolve power from the centre as it is being done in the United Kingdom where power is being devolved from Westminster to Northern Ireland, to Wales to Scotland and so on. We need to understand that it is important that we devolve power to various regions and nationalities and let us have a real federation in every sense of the word and not a unitary state with a federal façade which is what we have today. If you weaken the centre and you devolve power, you will find that the fight for who becomes the President in this country will not be as cut throat as it is and everybody will feel let me control my own part of the country at my own pace which is what most of us want.