September 28, 2015
Written by: KUNLE ODEREMI and DARE ADEKANMBI

Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, a nationalist, legal luminary, astute politician and renowned philanthropist, is a repository of history and knowledge. In this interview with KUNLE ODEREMI and DARE ADEKANMBI, he speaks the core issues impeding Nigeria’s quest for stability, growth and development, as well as other issues. Excerpts:


Having been very close to the Awolowo family, how would you analyse the life and times of the sage, Papa Awolowo and Chief (Mrs) HID Awolowo as a couple?

They lived a wonderful life as husband and wife. Both were people who could profitably be emulated. And those of us who were very close them really emulated them and we thank God for this. Both of them were stout Christians. The qualities of Baba Awolowo were many. First was discipline; second were fairness, justice and promotion of equity. Papa was a worthy and wonderful leader. I can illustrate the quality of fairness and equity, which Papa Awolowo espoused. Let me give just two examples. One of them was in respect of Alhaji Balarabe Musa, whom I believe you know very well. He was a successful gubernatorial candidate in Kaduna State. He won the election as governor but he was of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and the majority of the members of the state House of Assembly were of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). From the beginning, they wanted him to be impeached. Papa Awolowo felt that was wrong. Why do you want to impeach someone who contested election and won? Impeachment is a criminal action, a constitutional offence and what offence has he committed? He engaged Chief GOK Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, myself, and his late daughter, Mrs Ayo Soyode, to go to the North and do our best to ensure that the attempt to impeach Balarabe Musa did not materialise. So, Chief Ajayi went to court and I was asked to go to the state House of Assembly to watch the proceedings. Of course, it was an audacity of a sort for me to sit in the midst of NPN in their bid to impeach their governor, particularly because I belonged to the opposition), Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN).

However, they succeeded in impeaching him. Of course, we were in court but the court attempt also failed. Then Papa called the governors of UPN and said that Balarable Musa represented the progressives, therefore they must assist him. He asked him to go out of the country to breathe fresh air; to have some time to think about himself and his future. So, he told the governors that whatever assistance they could give, knowing he was out of the country, they should do so as a sort of respite. So, the governors did it: the likes of Lateef Jakande, Adekunle Ajasin, Bola Ige, Ambrose Ali and others.

Then some time later, the Leader of the House of Assembly in Borno State, Abdulraham Shugaba, they said he was not a Nigerian; they deported him out of the country. Then Baba Awolowo again said should go to his help and see to it that Shugaba was taken back. He contested an election (Great Nigeria Peoples Party), a popular election, which he won and the people made him the Leader of the House and yet you said he was not a Nigerian, and then bundled him out of the country. So, it was by that act of fairness on the part of Papa Awolowo that Shugaba should be brought back.

Of course, you know that’s politics. But Baba Awolowo was a very strong, persuasive and good lawyer. He won the respect of all the judges, both in the High Courts and the superior courts and all along his political life, Mama was always around him, providing to him all that Baba Awolowo needed, particularly in the area of funding. Baba had no money. He was a successful lawyer but when he exhausted his savings, he wouldn’t take government money at all (to be his money). If you remember, throughout his life and throughout the period he was in government, he never lived in Government House and never used government cars. As a matter of fact, when he was released from prison and they made him the vice chairman of the Federal Executive Council and Commissioner of finance, he should be living in Victoria Island or a very good house in Ikoyi, but he rejected it and rented a flat at Surulere, which was where he was living.

As a matter of fact, as at that time, he had no car. He relied on Mama’s car, which was what he was using. So, they were wonderful people and Mama was exceedingly generous. You will find out that when Baba was alive, he was always a well-dressed Yoruba man. But, he never used his money to buy a yard of the cloth he was using. All were supplied by his wife. It was his wife, who would give him materials to sow the beautiful apparels, which he was wearing all the time. As a matter of fact, the salary Baba was earning as the commissioner of finance and vice chairman of the FEC, was not enough to pay the staff at Surulere, Ibadan and Ikenne. Mama took over the responsibility.

It’s a pity that we have lost the two of them, particularly Baba Awolowo at the time he left, because we still needed him in this country. But God knows best. He left when it was honourable for him to leave, because all the useless lies, corruption, kidnapping, stealing, and so on that is going on now, if Awolowo were alive, I am sure he will be terribly frustrated. Not that there was no corruption in his time, but not in the current magnitude.

Could you tell us some of the challenges that Papa Awolowo had with trying to galvanise the Yoruba to come under the same umbrella?

He had no problem at all, because he was in England as a student when the Egbe Omo Odua was organised. When he came back to Nigeria in 1946, he was the Secretary of organization, which was more or less the precursor of the Action Group (AG). Do you know how the AG came about? I can tell you, because so far, apart from UPN and succeeding political parties coming after the AG, no other political party in this country was established as a proper political party.

What exactly made the AG the main party?

There were three important political parties in the First Republic: the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC), Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and AG. The NCNC came about as Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was campaigning, going here and there, gathering supporters. But the group didn’t come up as a political party. Then, some people went to him one day and said sir, why don’t we organise a political party; why don’t you ask the old boys of Kings’ College Lagos, to join us so that we can form an association and of course include the Cameroonians who are here?’ So, the old boys of Kings’ College were invited. Some Cameroonians, who were some of the people following him about, also joined the group. Then they said, ‘what name shall we give our association? Let us call it the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroun.’ Well, with the passage of time and changes to the political structure, the Cameroonians decided to go out of Nigeria when Nigeria was going for independence. But the NCNC remained the same in name.

For NPC, there was a local union. The leader of the union said, ‘since we have no political party, why don’t we change this union into a political party and call it the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC)?’ They saw it as a good idea and that was how NPC came.

In the case of the Action Group, Awolowo called for a meeting, wrote a circular, inviting people for a meeting to discuss the future of western ideas. For the first time, very few people came, even up to the fifth time. Then the sixth time, Awolowo said, ‘let’s put our name down in the meeting, and not summons any more meeting.’ Then Baba Jackson said, ‘let’s not do that. Let’s try once more; whoever attends the meeting, the seventh one, let’s make the go for our purpose. So, they called the seventh meeting and those who came were very fair in number. And then they constituted themselves into a would-be political party. Then, they were holding meetings with Awolowo being the driving force of the organisation, with ideas coming forth from each meeting as to the action to take on the organisation that wants to grow. They had asked themselves: ‘Shall we look towards the elite, the haves or the masses?’ They decided they would embrace the masses as opposed to the middle class or the elite. Furthermore, they decided that their meetings towards forming a political party should not be publicised because if they did, some political opponents would destroy it. So, they didn’t make any noise about their political party. The party came into being at about March/April 1951.

At that time, a lot of important decisions had been made as to what they were going to do. Then, of course, they had something that is not heard of now and that is shadow officers; shadow ministers. What is the purpose of having a shadow cabinet? For a shadow minister of education for example, it will be part of his binding duty to know what is going on in the ministry of education. He will know as the proper minister of education. So that when they came to their meeting by way of planning, for that time when election would be conducted, and they would take over and form government, they would be quite prepared; how to prepare their budgets and how to prepare for various projects they would embark upon. For example, the shadow minister of agriculture will know where cocoa will be quite profitable and be best planted. He will know the problem of cocoa farmers. He will know the sale of cocoa products. Then on arable farming, preparing food crops, the shadow minister of agriculture will know where they will be profitable and how to encourage yam farmers or cassava farmers. That was why you found that the number of places in the old Western Region, you had some places where there were poultry; cash crops and others.

That was possible because we had a parliamentary system of government. Can we have that kind of system now?

Why not if we know what we are doing? Take works, for example, the shadow minister of works would know what goes on in the ministry of works. He would know the total mileage of roads in the whole Western Region. He would know how many of them are tarred, how many are requiring repairs, how many miles of new roads should be provided, particularly the ones leading to far settlements. He would know what it would cost to a mile of tarred road; he would know how much it would cost to repair an average road, depending on the state of disrepair. When it comes to making budget, agriculture ministry would come with its ideas, works, finance, health would also come up with their own. So, when we take over government, there would be an announcement of our budget of our party. If you want to know what this is like, you can read a book written by Gordon Brown. In 1996 or so, when they were preparing to take over government from John Major. In preparing for the take over of government by the Labour Party. Gordon Brown did a lot with some young people in the party. One of the boys is now the leader of LP, his senior brother was in the government of Blair, Leremy Corbyn. The senior one was working very closely with Brown, preparing very hard to take over government from the conservatives. That was the sort of thing that the Action Group was doing. AG prepared very well for government and therefore, when it took over government in 1952, the colonial government voted so much for education. But when the AG got there, because they had prepared themselves for governance, they just raised the amount provided by the colonial government because the money was not enough to cover the running of education in the region. AG provided 200 scholarships for people to go overseas- Oxford, Cambridge and other countries. Was one of them was Allison Ayida, Phillip Asiodu and many others, including I think Aboyade too.

Then, there was a lot of discipline in the party so because in the constitution of the AG, there was party supremacy, party loyalty and party discipline. These were the principles upon which AG were run. I tell how they managed the party then. In preparation for the appointment of ministers, the leaders met and bearing in mind the number of ministries there were in government, then there should be corresponding number of ministers. So, they sat and met to have six or eight ministers. What will illustrate the point I want to make about party discipline or loyalty. The National Working Committee of the AG said Remo should get two slots. Awolowo said Remo was too small to have two ministers, that how Remo could be compared with Egba and Ondo, for instance. The other NWC members insisted Remo must have two and Awolowo didn’t argue further. He said if that was the decision of the party, so be it. So, they decided the number of ministers and who the ministers should be. About three days later, there was a man called Bode Thomas, now very many years late. He went to another leader called Chief S.O Gbadamosi in Ikorodu. Thomas said “SOG, the meeting we held the other day nominating candidates for ministries was most inadequate because we didn’t give any slot to Lagos Colony.” Lagos Colony then was Ikeja, Ikorodu and Badagry and the other parts of of Lagos were separate entity. SOG realised the oversight and they both went to Ikenne to meet the leader, Papa Awolowo who, upon being told, called a meeting of the NWC where a slot from the two slots for Remo was given to Lagos Colony, after the leaders realised it was a serious error. That slot was given to the Akran who later became the Oba of Badagry. The NWC of AG decided that second person to Awolowo in Remo would no longer be made a minister. Some leaders were mandate to talk to the nominee, M.S Sowole from Ipara. The leaders told him he would no longer me minister. He agreed with the decision of the party. But the party decided that when election came and it won, Sowole would be given a comparable position in government.

Today, if people had been told they would be ministers or commissioners and the promise was later changed. What would such politicians do? They will tell the party leaders that they will leave the party because they have spent so much money to build the party. They will threaten to and even join another party. But party discipline in our time would not allow that to happen. Another instance of party discipline was the case of an Akure man called Olu Ibukun who wanted to contest with a man called Olumofin in the House of Assembly. Awolowo was in Akure one day where he and Olu Ibukun met. He told Olu Ibukun to start to campaign for Olumofin and ensure the candidate win. Olu Ibukun agreed and worked for Olumofin. Election came and we won and Olu Ibukun was made the chairman of the Western Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (WNBC). He was alarmed and said if he knew he would get such position he would not have ventured into contesting the Assembly seat. If today, party leaders tell some politicians not to contest against certain individuals, would such politicians accept?

On party loyalty, I give another example. There was a man who was called Reverend T.T Solaru who later became a Bishop. He was schooled at Oxford and was very brilliant. He was one of the best speakers of English in Yorubaland at that time. AG appointed him to be a member of Airways Corporation. The government at the centre then was a coalition between NPC and NCNC. They invited us to nominate someone or two and Solaru was sent to them. When they were behaving funny and acting in ways inconsistent with our own philosophy, we asked Solaru to resign and he did immediately because that was the instruction from the party. Today, can such people resign? These were the attributes that made the Action Group very tick and so loved by the people. These were what differentiated the AG from other parties.

At what stage in your life did your come across the Awolowos and what was the attraction?

I was about 21 years when I came in contact with the Awolowo family and that was in 1946. I was at Wesley College, Ibadan then. But at that time, there was a friend of mine from Ode Remo who was an employee of Cooperative Bank in Ibadan and was staying in the Boys’ Quarters of the Awolowos at Oke Bola. Whenever we had an outing, I would go there and spend time with my friend. So, with the passage of time, I was getting to know the Awolowos. Then of course the acquaintance then started to grow and grow till the Acton Group came into being in 1951 and I joined in 1952. At that time, I had left Wesley College and was teaching at Sagamu and I was secretary to various organisations-the Wesley Guild, quarterly meeting of the church and the Boys Brigade. So, as the secretary of Wesley Guild, occasionally I would be asked to invite Papa Awolowo to come and lecture us. So, these things made me closer to Chief Awolowo.

Did this account or why you mere made a commissioner in the old Western Region government?

That was many years later, over 20 years later. It was the military period and Brigadier General Rotimi was in charge of the Western Region in succession to General Adeyinka Adebayo. I got a telephone call from the secretary to the government at that time, P.T Odumosu. He told me the governor would like to see me and asked what time I would come. I replied him by asking what the governor would like to see me for. He said he didn’t know and I told him if he didn’t know the purpose, I wouldn’t come. He exclaimed and said it was the governor that wanted to see me. I told him I heard that. I must know what I was going to do with the governor and if I didn’t know I would not come. In any case, this was a military period, emergency period, and I said even if he was going to put me in incarceration, I must know and be able to tell my wife to manage the affairs in the house. He then rang off.

He called the following day and I asked if he had known the purpose of my being asked to come and see the governor. He said I was being very difficult. My wife who was sitting next to me said I should honour the invitation. I told Odumosu I would come the following week on Wednesday. I said next week because I had to prepare myself and couldn’t afford to leave my office just like that without making some preparations. The appointment was for 1:00p.m amd by 12:5pm I was on the doorstep of the governor. I got in and he greeted me and then pleasantries. He started asking me some questions which I didn’t answer because I knew he was trying to size me up. He said he knew it had been very difficult getting me and that I asked for the purpose of my being asked to see him. He said he had been trying to put up his cabinet and wanted to appoint some people for the corporations. I asked if he wanted to make me a cabinet member of was going to appoint me in a corporation. He told me I was the last person he was interviewing and I was the first person to ask him that question. I told him I must know what I was coming for. He said he wanted me to be a cabinet member with him. I said “Fine, I will give that a thought and let him know my decision will be.” He said “You can’t tell me your decision now.” I said I could not because I had a wife and friends I would consult. I told him I would let him know my decision the following week. To be a member of cabinet is a very serious affair and I told him I couldn’t accept the offer without giving it a serious thought. I got up to leave after our discussion and he escorted me. By the time we approached the door, he said “May I take it that your response would be yes?” I said that would be grossly misleading.

In the evening, Odumosu rang me again and asked if I was going to phone or write him to make my decision known. I said I was going to write and post a letter. He said I should phone him as soon as the letter was posted. In the evening of the Wednesday when I posted the letter, I phone him and told him. He asked what the content was and I told him it was a ‘yes.’ The following day, my picture was on the front page of the Daily Times. That was I made commissioner for education for about two years and later moved to the health ministry. After three years in his government, I went to him and told him I was leaving because to serve only for three years and would not stay any longer.

Many have described the transition of Papa and HID Awolowo as the end of an era. What do their deaths portend for Nigeria? What are the challenges ahead?

The challenges are serious in the sense that, when Papa was alive, he was the person around whom we rallied. We would go to him, consult him for one thing or the other. He was relevant throughout his life. Mama was equally relevant. They were more or less inseparable partners, like Siamese twins, when they were going by and as years went by. In politics, if you found Papa campaigning at Ife, you would be surprised to find Mama, supported by a few women, campaigning at Osogbo or Epe. The beauty of their service was that Papa, as Premier for eight years, you would not hear that his wife assisted him so much to get to where he got and therefore the wife was going to be commissioner or minister or any of his children. Have you found that in any record?

Did Mama act as the First Lady of the Western Region then?

There was nothing like that. Mama was Mama and Chief (Mrs) HID Awolowo full stop. It was service as far he was concerned; service without acquittal, real service. And of course, when we talk of service, we are talking of religion, particularly service that is rendered without anything in return. So, that was Mama for you. If anybody who had any problem went to Mama or Papa, the person would leave their residence satisfied that their problem had been solved. What is important is that Mama HID, without being ostentatious or obtrusive, was a valiant heroine because in politics she fought; in church matters, she fought; in the locality, she fought; in Remo, she fought. Mama built a number of churches for the Anglican Communion. The church never can forget her. She made the home really conducive for her husband because the leader of a people like the Yoruba has to have his head working correctly. So, Papa had a lot of time to think and not trying to settle problems. Even problems might arise that Mama would have solved without Papa even hearing of them. So, that was Mama HID.

And the challenges their transitions pose for the country?

Papa fought valiantly for a country that would be true federalism, himself and his wife. So far, we have not succeeded in that. And because of that, we are not able to make progress as a country. We are now about 60 years old as a federation, but those who were at the same stage of development as we in 1960, namely Brazil, Russia, India, Malaysia and others are far ahead of us. Definitely, Brazil is moving out of the status of a third world country, but we are not. Unfortunately, we have the wherewithal to be a great country- men and materials. But we don’t give room for these to operate in our favour and interest.

There is the partiality with which we started this country. It is a fact that Nigeria was constructed contrary to geometric principle because we are a multilingual, multinational and multicultural country. And because of this diversity, we should have real federalism, just as we have today in Belgium and in a place like Malaysia. Singapore was part of Malaysia, but in 1965, the government of Malaysia said the Singapore people were becoming useless to the federation and must find their way out of the federation. It became a problem for Li Kwan Yu who was a member of government at that time. He wept and called his people to a meeting to chart a way forward. Singapore was a very small country with no resources, nothing to rely upon. But maybe because he started to organise Singapore on the basis of meritocracy, it was all merit all along. The first to do was to make sure the atmosphere in Singapore was very good for business to thrive and therefore inviting outsiders to come and invest in the country.

The set of problems which Nigeria had, they also had. For example, education or traffic problem or women not marrying educated men because they felt the educated men were making themselves superior to them. Those were some of the problems for Li Kwan Yu and he had to face the problems and solved them. The same traffic congestion we have now, they had and they solved it. They organised their country. Today, Singapore has the best airport in the world. They became independent in 1965, but we have refused to learn from them. Look at what is happening to us in Nigeria today.

A lot of people have traced our problem to corruption, arguing that if we are able to tackle this monster, Nigeria will be on the right path.

Corruption is a bye product of management and leadership. Our problems started from not being constructed properly as a federal country. I agree that corruption must go. There is no country in the world where you don’t have corruption, not even in England or the United States. As far back as 1944, they still bribed people for votes in Scotland. The magnitude of corruption in Nigeria is beyond measure. Our basis as a country, our foundation is not proper. Nigeria was built on quicksand and that is why the country may collapse. The name Nigeria was not our name. It was given to us by Flora Shaw who later was Lugard’s wife. Nigeria came into being in January 1897. But then, France has been France; Italy had been Italy; Belgium had been Belgium; Mali had been Mali and Ghana was there all the years. In about 11th century, when we had the Ghana Empire or the Mali Empire or even the Shongai Empire and Ghana Empire was destroyed in 1235; Mali Empire destroyed in 1335; and the Shongai Empire was destroyed in 1585. With the destruction of these three empires in Africa, there was no country whatsoever in Africa we would call until about 1833. Ghana, you may recall, used to be called the Gold Coast, and after independence, the Ghanaians said “let us go back to our name; the name by which we were know at birth, that is, Ghana.” Ditto for Mali which became French-Sudan but after independence returned to the name Mali. But when became independent, there was no name by which we would go because there was no name to call us except the one given to us by the British woman. That was not the case with Ghana and many other countries in Africa. The countries we used to call Rhodesia and Tangayika are no longer known by those names since independence. We have to operate on the principles of federalism as a country. Although we now cannot go back to say states should be created as we wanted in the 50’s, we now have six geo-political zones. So, let us give teeth to those zones. I f we do that, there will be peaceful co-existence. When we had the three regions in the 50’s we were making progress. But now we are not making progress. We have an Emperor or a Monarch whom you call President. He is a Monarch?

How do you mean?

Who is a monarch or an emperor? You know the meaning of a monarch or an emperor.

With its literal meaning as the head of an empire?

Oh yes, that is what the president is. The President dictates to the governors. He shouldn’t because he has no control over our governors. Every governor is under the control of each state House of Assembly. But the President dictates to them. Of course, the governors have to be dictated to because their hands are not clean; their hands are as unclean as their minds.


Are you saying it is because their hands are not clean that he is dictating to them or because it the constitution that makes such arrangement possible…

Of course, it is the constitution they gave us that gives the President such powers. We don’t how the constitution came about; we just woke up and found it. We don’t know who the authors are. We should know our constitution and be able to say “we the people...”

If the President is an emperor, then it is the constitution that made him one?

Yes. The constitution was just forced on us and we don’t know how it came about. It should not be our constitution. If you go to the 1963 Constitution by which we became a Republic, you will find out that the functions of the Federal Government in that constitution were about 60 in number. But go to the 1978 and 1999 Constitutions, the functions have been increased to nearly 70 if not more because it is they who are in charge. President Muhammadu Buhari has made some appointments recently and you will find that majority of the appointments are in the North. But the principle of federalism is that there should be no government that will be so strong as to control the other parts of the federation. They should be coordinates, that is to say, each of them having its own function.

Some people have also interpreted it to mean a northern agenda to subjugate the South of Nigeria

I told you that we have an emperor by the name of a President and this is inconsistent with federalism.

Is there no way the National Assembly can address these issues you have raised or do you think the recommendations of last year’s conference will be relevant?

The recommendations are absolutely relevant. The National Assembly should accept the conclusions of confab and as true and honest patriots give institutional effect to the recommendations. But because the thing had been coming all along till 2014 gives them a lot of room to steal and take a lot by way of salary and allowances in millions. Our legislative institutions are the most costly and expensive in the world. What are they doing? The joint account between the states and the councils will not pay the governor if such is cancelled because the governors won’t be able to steal from council funds. The functions which the constitution provides for the councils to do they can’t do them because the money has been taken from them by the state government.

16 years after civil rule, it appears most of the challenges are still noticeable. For example, banditry, kidnapping and all what not…

We have security personnel as though we do not have them. How can a person be safely kidnapped and not found for days or weeks. Why should that happen? Why should I be on my farm and some people come to kidnap me? Why should I be in my house and I can’t have peaceful sleep because burglars are going to burgle me because there is no security? Why should Bola Ige be killed and nobody is talking about it. The other day, a Nigerian- Daramola Taylor, was killed in the United Kingdom and there was nothing the British government did not do to unravel the circumstances that led to his being murdered. That will never happen in Nigeria. Do you know how many Nigerians have been killed and killed in vain? Both political and spiritual murders go on in Nigeria. Why should our money not be safe in our banks? Why do we have to put special equipment in the banks to protect them and despite this the robbers still go to rob the banks? We have an electoral law and a very good person as election umpire, yet elections are still rigged. That is a pity.

Will the Yoruba remain sheep without a shepherd after the demise of the Awolowos?

I am not an Oba neither am I a governor. But the thing is that, if we realise who we are as Yoruba people, we will know what to do. Of all the nationalities in this country, the Yoruba are the only people who can point to one ancestor as their progenitor. The Hausa-Fulani can’t say that; the Igbo can’t say that. We need to use our heads; we need to get together and discuss how we are going to run our affairs as a nation. If we can’t do that, then we are in for it. Some people have taken benefits from these people who gave patronage to some Yoruba people who keep quiet in the face of injustice because they don’t want to lose their privileges. Unless and until we get together as a nation and try to get restored to us those great things which God has given to us, we will continue to suffer. But whether we like it or not, salvation is going to come some day and God will intervene. At that time, some people will cry; some will not be alive to cry. They will suffer because of what they are doing to this beautiful race called the Yoruba. The Yoruba people have as their heritage the status of being regarded as Omoluwabi. But do we have Omoluwabis among those who sold us to the Caliphate? It is a great pity and that is why the death of a person like Awolowo was a great loss to us. The other day, when census was on and it was terribly rigged, journalists approached Awolowo and they asked him about the exercise. Awolowo said “Census? That is a futile exercise.” And that was the end of that census. They heard what Awolowo said and they knew it meant something. They stopped it. But since then, we never have had an authentic census in this country. We never have had any election that will not be contested in court. It was God who intervened in the last election; otherwise, we would have had serious violence.

In spite of these challenges confronting the country, do you see in Buhari Li Kwan Yu?

I don’t know. Buhari has just come. I pray that that may happen for this country. If it happens, whilst he is in charge, we will owe him a great debt of gratitude for saving us from collapse. If it does not happen, Nigeria will collapse ultimately.

As a renowned lawyer and consummate politician, how do you see the approach of Buhari to the war against corruption?

It is very beautiful to the ears. But I have a serious prayer that he will go to whole hog; there should be no sacred cows at all. If he could do that, Nigeria may arrive.

But from what you have seen so far…

Nothing to judge so far. How many people have been sent to jail since Buhari got there? It is promise, promise and promise. We want to see the actual thing, that the thieves are in jail. It doesn’t matter who the person is. We must kill corruption. We must kill kidnapping. We can say good or bad to the attempts being made so far.

Some people have complained that they are being hunted in selective approach to corruption war…

What do you expect them to say? Will they say the people who are against corruption are right? They won’t say that.

Source: http://tribuneonlineng.com/nigeria-built-quicksand-may-collapse-olaniwun-ajayi

This interview is a reader's delight and more importantly for the youth, enough of ethnic bashing. Let the youth unite and fight for our right.

they cant do without garnishing their comments with lies

Sighs....the usual masturbation.