In this edition of A Metropolitan Ideas’ Copy, we played the 21 Questions segment with a former Governor of Oyo state, a retired police officer, and an elder statesman, Otunba Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala. He spoke on issues ranging from cessation agitations to #EndSARS protest.
Thank you so much for speaking with us sir. The call for secession has gained much prominence in the last weeks, some interest in the south-western part of the country calling for the creation of the Oodua nation, that’s the Oodua Republic. The argument in some quarters however is an increased clamor for restructuring instead of secession.
Where do you stand?
They are being too over-ambitious. I don’t think secession is the answer but restructuring, yes. We cannot secede now, they should let us agree to restructure the country. As of now, the country needs to be restructured.
But what’s your definition of restructuring sir?
My definition of restructuring is whereby a lot of concentration, a lot of power is given to the state; they make the center, less powerful.
Now the presidency is too powerful, reduce some of the power of the presidency and they should rewrite the constitution that will accommodate all these things. In fact, the most important thing is to rewrite our constitution.
The constitution we are currently using was not written by us, it was written by the military. In that constitution, if you look at the first words, it says ‘We the people of Nigeria’ and I don’t think ‘you’ were part of the people that wrote the constitution. When we want to say ‘we the people of Nigeria’, it means we must have selected some people to represent us to go and make the constitution for us, we never did that, there’s nothing like Constitution now what we are just using is an ad hoc constitution for General Abubakar to be able to hand over power to Civilian government because we were all clamoring for the civilian government.
So we did not want to make a lot of complaints at that time, we took it wholesale that was what happened. When I’m talking about restructuring, it is one that we will enshrine in our constitution, and to do that they should let us have a brand new constitution made by Nigerians not made by militaries.
Still on restructuring, are you talking about giving more powers to the state or regions?
Well, state or regions whatever you call it. You see the 36 states presently are too many. People who are still clamoring for states, I just laugh, if we can reduce it more to a manageable size…
Let me tell you one secret, you know I was once a Governor, some states in this federation, if not for the money we are taking from Abuja, they will not be able to pay anything. They don’t have any resources, everybody depends on Abuja and it wasn’t like that in those days.
In those days you depend on your government, earn your income especially from Agric, the Agric sector was very powerful at that time. We neglected agro-economy because of this advent of this ‘black goat’ called Crude oil. I’m sorry the crude oil will still become a thing of the past very soon, in fact not far because they’ve started saying that even motors should be using gas, not petroleum again so we’ll see what will happen.
So what I would have loved to do is that each state, each region should develop at its own pace. That is if I have cocoa to sell let me sell my cocoa to my people and let the people enjoy me with the cocoa I have, if I have palm oil let my people enjoy my palm oil, the people that have oil let them enjoy my oil. Then they will be taking some token to the central but not for everything to be there and we’ll be going there to be sharing.
In those days when we were developing at our own pace, I was lucky to be a small boy but I knew what was happening at that time. Baba Awolowo was able to build cocoa house that time with cocoa money, you know in those days our cocoa farmers used to have a lot of money, they were very rich because when we were in school our cocoa farmers’ children will pay school fees before our own because their fathers had a lot of money.
What they did that time was that there was what we called Cocoa Board, Cocoa board will buy all the cocoa from the farmers, the farmers don’t export themselves they give it to the government- the cocoa board will buy from the government, the government will now export that cocoa, and the proceeds will come to the government.
By the next year, the farmers know how much they are going to sell their cocoa to the government, they prepare for it. By the next year, the government will know how much they are going to buy cocoa and how much they are going to sell in the international market.
Beto palm oil from our palm trees, beto rubber, the whole of part of Ijebu come to Ikire side, we have rubber and were exporting rubber. Because of oil, because we have a place in Abuja that we go cap in hand, we stopped developing everything.
So that is what I mean by restructuring, we should restructure and let everybody be their own.
The introduction of the Community Policing Initiative by the Federal Government is geared towards combating the rising scale of insecurity in Nigeria. As a retired Police officer sir do you believe this initiative will go a long way in addressing terrorism and banditry across the nation?
It will, it depends on the implementation. It’s easier said than done, they must take care of the implementation of that particular policy. To do that policy they need experienced policemen especially retired police officers, who will help them in implementation, that’s number one.
Number two is the provision of logistics to the state governor, if you hear them very well they are shifting logistics to the state governor, good. They can do that but when they do that more power should also be given to the state governor. They just said the Governor is the Chief Security Officer, I want to tell you that the Governor is just called Chief Security Officer of the state but he’s not in charge, he’s only in charge of providing logistics for day to day running of the Nigerian police.
Governors provide, apart from salary, at least 80% for the running of the police, the state government provides for police in every state, I’m aware of that, that’s number one.
Now community policing should be that each local government should do its own recruitments, anybody recruited from Saki should not think he will enjoy in Ibadan and be looking for deployment in Saki, no, stay in Saki and take care of the community in Saki.
The main is this, in beer parlors we gather a lot of intelligence from all these joints and for a police officer if you are around that area you will be able to gather intelligence from people to be able to operate, that’s number one.
Number two, if a stranger or somebody who does not belong to that community comes to that community, you should be able to identify that fellow coming to that community that doesn’t belong to your community.
Then the inhabitants of the people residing in that area themselves should be able to give the report to the police that this man has come to our area, he said he’s hiring a house, we don’t know his job please come and question him so that we’ll know more about him.
So those are what they call community policing, community policing is for you to know the police. I remember when I was being trained as a police officer, there’s a subject we called Local Knowledge, Local Knowledge is for you to know everything about your locality. As a matter of fact, you are expected to cram the plate numbers of VIPs in your area and you are expected to know all the VIPs in your area and know those who are not VIPs in your area that is why the subject is being introduced.
Now that we are trying to experiment with community policing, community policing must be handled by experts, not just anybody. I’ve always been saying it and I’ll continue to say it, community policing has nothing to do with soldiers. I told them when they were doing their Amotekun that it has nothing to do with soldiers, they should not bring a soldier man to be the head of Amotekun.
We have a lot of retired police officers around, a retired police officer will be able with a serving police officer better than a soldier man who retired from the military. The military is for our external security, internal security is entirely that of police.
Now sir between state police and community policing, which do you agree with?
I agree with community policing, state police we shall misuse it, we are not yet ripe politically enough to have state police. We are not all that strong not to misuse state police politically. If I’m the Governor of the state and you are my opponent in a particular election and I have state police there’s a tendency that I will say they should go and arrest you for any flimsy excuse and you will be arrested and you will be kept behind bars until we finish the election. These are some of the things they are going to use the police for, not for the crime itself just for their personal interest but community policing will still be under the Federal Government.
You were not born at that time but let me tell you a story, there used to be what we call Local Police before. The Local Government Police belongs to the local government and they are under the control of the Regional government but they were misbehaving, they could arrest anytime, anywhere, anyhow, they could even cook a story against you and you would be arrested.
I know of a politician in Kwara state that was implicated by dropping a goat in his house because he was not NPC, NPC owned the North at that time. This man was AG, they dropped a goat in his house, specifically at Ofa. Immediately they got to his house the local police were there to arrest him, the local policemen arrested him and there was an Alikali, like a local trial, that was around to try the offender.
The man was tried, already at the gate of the prison, they were already waiting with the clothes for him to wear as a prisoner.
So you see it would have been very good to have state police, the disadvantages are more than the advantages, so I don’t think we should have it but I want the federal government to saddle the responsibility of this community policing on the state government. Already they are already taking care of their welfare and that I can swear an oath that the Governors are the ones taking care of their welfare apart from salary that the Federal government is paying, every other thing the state government is providing. I did it when I was a Governor but it is even worse now.
But I think that’s what they’re supposed to do with the Security vote?
Yes, it is part of what we are supposed to do but not for them to take care of the Federal agency, their own security within their states is not to take care of the Federal agency. Police is a federal agency but they should not try State police but I support community policing.
We’ve had calls for the scrapping of the unit SARS in the NPF occasioned by the alleged brutality and extortion for which most of these operatives have been accused.
I thank God that the high commander of the police has said something about it, SARS should be scraped. For me when I was in the police force there was nothing like SARS, when you have SARS it is an ad hoc committee. In police you do prevention and detection, SARS should detect and not prevent, they should allow people patrolling to prevent.
If there should be SARS at all, they should detect, detection ends prevention. The people that should be doing prevention are the people on patrol who will be in uniform, who will be recognized as police officers, not people who are SARS that will just wear one cap and singlet and see with iPhone and ask you how much you bought it and if you’re a yahoo boy. What is their business with whether you’re a yahoo boy or not? It has happened to me even as a big man, there are times I drive myself.
In police hierarchy there is nothing like SARS, it used to be an ad hoc committee of each state government. The state government had to own that SARS and it depends on the prevailing crime rate in that area and what they do is to detect and not to prevent.
The detection means that a crime has been committed somewhere, robbery has been committed somewhere, they’ll now be drafted to that place to go and see what they can do to what happened there. That was what SARS was meant to do when I was in the police force, I’m not talking about when I left the police force.
SARS is nothing in the police hierarchy, we have State CID, one thing about Nigeria is this: they’ve taken all power from Police. We have State CID, there’s an anti-robbery section, there’s anti-fraud, and others there in the State CID, an assistant Commissioner is there that they’ve now raised it to a Deputy Commissioner of Police which gives it a very high command.
If there’s SARS, it should be under the Commissioner of Police. The Commissioner of Police of that State will now be supervising that SARS and that SARS should be doing detective work not preventing work, they should not be going about searching people.
So, Sir, you’re lending your voice to the END SARS campaign?
Absolutely
Now let’s touch base with Oyo State, as a former Governor who has occupied Agodi Government Office before, what would you say about governance in the state since after your tenure?
I always say this every time I have the opportunity to talk to people like you, anybody aspiring to be a Governor wants to do well but unfortunately, he cannot do beyond his capacity. So whoever is there now is trying his best that is the best he can offer us.
I’m not in a position to compare anybody’s term with that of my own, allow people in the term to what they enjoyed in a person’s term. If I am saying that it doesn’t speak well of me as a Stateman which I am but everybody trying to be a Governor will try to give his best offer.
The best may not be enough for the people of his government but that’s the best he can offer and they voted him in so whatever he’s dishing out to them they should take it whether good or bad but I believe that every Governor wants to do good, no government we voted in will want to perform badly.
Don’t ask people like me what I think about what is happening, ask people who have never been in government before what is happening in the State, they’ll be able to tell you objectively what is going on but if I tell you will I be praising myself? Everything is there for posterity to judge whether it is good or bad, people will talk about you when the time comes, they will give you your portion of the blame.
Your Excellency Sir, do you think the APC party can be together as one big party?
What you don’t know about politics is this: politics is about conflict resolution. You will continue to have a conflict here and there especially when you are not in power and that is exactly what is happening to us. As far as I’m concerned in APC we don’t have any problem, when the time comes water will find its own heaven.
Don’t let us go to that, there’s no problem in APC, it’s one of those few things that is expected to happen and that is what is happening. It is all about 2023, luckily for me I’m not going to be a Governor so whoever wants to be a Governor should start doing whatever he wants to do but that does not mean they should disrupt the party.
Finally, Your Excellency, Nigeria at 60, is this the Nigeria of your dream?
That’s a very good question, if I have to be honest with you, in some areas we are there because we have to be there not because we made effort to be there. What is happening now, I’m not very happy about Nigeria we developed some things that we did not do.
Do you know there was a woman who cried heavily throughout big towns in Nigeria, she was in support of the Northern people at that time, she was a Yoruba woman who said we should not have independence, that we were not ripe. Her name was Adunni Oluwole, that woman cried everywhere in Nigeria that Nigeria was not ripe enough to get independence when we wanted to get independence. She died here in Ibadan mysteriously, she was from Ibadan. She even tied a bell to her behind and was ringing it all about that the people should not go for independence because she saw that the people were handing over to were not… I was a kid then, I could not comprehend what she was saying but after some time I did.
This woman was banished from Ibadan, she went to Akure and was banished, she was driven away from Lagos. She was driven away from so many places, she died mysteriously, I was told she had whitlow which should not kill as at that time.
She cried that we should not have independence, what she said will happen later happened six years after. She said we were not prepared, it’s just like a child who has not started crawling that wanted to walk which is exactly what happened to us at that time, the child will end up having polio or crashing.
We tried in some places, we tried but we are not where we are supposed to be. I’m sorry to say this because I know what we were enjoying, you guys are not enjoying it.
I finished my papers in December, January I started work, I was looking for which work to do but at that time I preferred Teaching because it was very good to be a Teacher at that time. So we didn’t have it, ask the people who went to University, people were going to University to ask them if they wanted to buy cars…
Yes, in Nigeria we are known, are we notorious or popular? I’m sorry, we are not taking care of our citizens. We took care of our parents, now children cannot take care of their parents, that’s the problem we are having. They said Nigeria is moving, they are still asking me for food; we did not do that during our time.
That is why we have to restructure so we can develop at our own pace, we should use what we have. In 1959, the whole of Nigeria we had WNTV as early as the early 60s we had what we call Liberty Stadium. Imagine we were developing like that, during Bola Ige’s time when he came in, the army had spoilt everything, Bola Ige built so many schools because we had a population explosion, we did not prepare for it. People were giving birth at a high rate, we were now many. In those days when we were playing football around the Western region, we knew all the schools but now we don’t know all the schools in Nigeria that is what they call population explosion.
Otunba Christopher Adebayo Alao Akala thank you so much for your time sir
Thank you for having me…
