Nigeria Is at War — Kayode Fayemi Sounds the Alarm

Añadido: 2026-05-18

[00:00:20]Let's talk nation building.

[00:00:22]Let's talk international affairs.

[00:00:26]And in talking about these subjects, we'll talk about politics at home.

[00:00:33]My guest is an auto. He writes books.

[00:00:38]And here we will read his book.

[00:00:43]On page three of his book, the book we are about to review, he defines himself.

[00:00:52]Listen.

[00:00:53]He says, "Beyond my early fories into the public sphere as a student leader, my abiding faith in the oneness of our country has been further reinforced by all my subsequent engagements in national affairs.

[00:01:15]as a scholar public intellectual.

[00:01:19]Take note as a scholar public intellectual.

[00:01:25]Mind you, the author of this book is a former governor.

[00:01:32]Can a Nigerian governor be a scholar and a public intellectual?

[00:01:39]He continues, "He has engaged himself in civil society, so he is a civil society voice.

[00:01:48]He defines himself as an institution builder, political organizer with an unapologetic pan Nigerian and pan-African outlook.

[00:02:06]Hey, my guest is the author of the book, If This Giant Must Rise: Interventions on Leadership and Governance in Africa. My guest is Dr. Kyode Fami, a former governor of Ekit State. Dr. Fi, it's good to have you on state affairs.

[00:02:31]>> Good to finally be here, Edmund. I know this has taken some time um but we finally got around to it.

[00:02:38]>> So, welcome to state affairs.

[00:02:40]>> It's my pleasure.

[00:02:42]>> Who is a public intellectual?

[00:02:47]Well, a a public intellectual uh by definition is someone who uh assesses what goes on in society informed by knowledge of society beyond its own limited sphere. Um and who comes into this uh with a courage of conviction of what ills society, what is needed to improve the challenges of society. A public intellectual does not have all the answers. It doesn't even always have to be right. but is guided by well informed when well well articulated perspectives and provides evidence to back up such convictions.

[00:03:46]>> Can a politician be a public intellectual?

[00:03:50]As a matter of fact, if you are a serious politician, reading is leading.

[00:04:01]What do I mean by that? If you're going to make a good leader, you must also be a good reader.

[00:04:11]And you cannot be a public intellectual if you're not a reader of a diverse set of literature, political, uh, literary works, um, technical information, something you digest and that you can then apply to your own immediate circumstances. So there, as a matter of fact, if you're going to be a successful politician, you really should be a public intellectual.

[00:04:44]>> As governor, did you find time to read?

[00:04:47]>> Always.

[00:04:49]>> Always.

[00:04:50]>> I never stopped reading as governor. I not just administrative files, not technical materials, but uh I'm a lover of biographies. I'm a lover of history. I'm a student of history. Uh I'm a student of um war and strategy. So you cannot do any of those without the benefit of extensive background information and reflection.

[00:05:19]>> You have a PhD in war studies from King's College.

[00:05:22]>> Yes, I do.

[00:05:25]Are we at war in Nigeria at the moment?

[00:05:30]Well, you know, in in the literature, war is not just defined by actual combat.

[00:05:39]And even if you want to define it as actual combat, you have low intensity conflict, which is defined in the literature as conflict in which you lose less than a thousand people.

[00:05:55]If you analyze what has been happening in our country in the last decade or if you want to go back till 2009 or even you want to go further back to 1981 Matini Bologonut crisis or you go back to the civil war in the 60s you may want to argue some may see it as an overreach that we've never really stopped being at war. The number of people we've lost to Boohh Haram insurgency to banditry and uh kidnapping in the last decade is certainly over a thousand when you check acred record and records from independent uh survey of global terrorism we rank very highly on the list probably the second or third most terrorized nation in the world and and we see it it's palpable people experience it daily in in in our country. So we are maybe you say it's low inensity conflict maybe you say it's in a particular section of the country but by academic definition we are in some form of uh uh conflict.

[00:07:09]>> Why is Nigeria at war?

[00:07:13]>> You can reduce it to a whole range of things. Um any society where extremes wealth lies as stride extreme inequality that is extreme poverty.

[00:07:31]You are almost always likely to find conflictual tendencies in such societies. And that is why nations strive to close the inequality gap so that you reduce tension in society in a way that people will not see those who have as the enemies of those who have not.

[00:07:56]That's a sociological underpinning of conflict.

[00:08:02]But it does not completely explain conflict.

[00:08:05]There are also conflicts that happen because of ethnic rivalries, some historical, some contemporary.

[00:08:18]There are resource conflicts linked to whatever is in the ground where such conflicts are uh are intensified.

[00:08:30]say mineral resources.

[00:08:33]You can almost find a correlational connection between societies that are rich in resources where there is failure of governance or let me say weak governance and societies that are in conflict. So I've mentioned identity conflicts, I've mentioned resourcdriven conflicts, I've mentioned poverty related inequality conflicts, not to mention religious and that's also identity.

[00:09:06]>> In the case of Nigeria, it is all encompassing.

[00:09:09]>> It is all encompassing.

[00:09:10]>> Why is it so?

[00:09:13]Because we are a multithnic, multi-religious societies. most multi-ethnic, multi-religious societies that have not fundamentally addressed questions of diversity and difference.

[00:09:35]By giving everyone a sense of belonging and ownership of that geographic space referred to as theirs, you almost always end up with that. And it's not unique to Nigeria.

[00:09:49]You see the conflicts in in places like India also ethnically and religiously divided like us places like Indonesia Northern Ireland if you want to go to so-called developed societies you have that has one reason we have not successfully managed our diversity and difference. Well, and our politics also has not been as inclusive as it should be because in most diverse and ethnically divided societies, the key to resolving permanent tension is the nature of management of that diversity. And that is why most diverse countries almost always go for federal constitutions that allow the different parts to take ownership of their own developmental strides whilst also being part of that managed center. Is that why you called for the devolution of power in your book?

[00:11:01]>> Oh, clearly that is why calling for devolution or decentralization of power is not calling for the unmaking of nations.

[00:11:14]I am suggesting the remaking of the Nigerian state without the dissolution of the Nigerian state. I'm an unapologetic Nigerianist if there's anything so-called because I believe there's more to gain from being together than going our separate ways because if we do all those issues that bedevil the Nigerian state today will be replicated in in those atomized forms if we end up that way. I hope we don't. You said on page four of your book that but while the night may belong, the dawn must come and it always does.

[00:12:00]>> Yes, >> it always does. Did it happen in Yugoslavia?

[00:12:06]>> There was a form of dawn in Yugoslavia >> and that was dissolution of the state.

[00:12:11]Well, it was dissolution of the state because of the nature of the postcold war arrangement.

[00:12:19]It was also dissolution of the state in the USSR and we're still dealing with the fallouts of that in Ukraine today.

[00:12:29]But those were different entities soldered together by force >> like Nigeria.

[00:12:42]Well, yes, like N but but but the the flip side in Nigeria is that actually our leaders negotiated what we eventually came out with. It's not what we are now, but what we came out with in 1960 was a negotiated settlement.

[00:12:59]>> You're talking about the conferences.

[00:13:01]The conferences, the Lancaster House conference in London saw to it that the voices of the different groups in the country eventually became reflected in what was the federal constitution that we got, the Republican constitution that we got. It wasn't everything that everyone wanted, but it was an approximation.

[00:13:30]>> Is that what you call consensus building?

[00:13:33]>> That's consensus building. And it could have worked if it had not been mediated by inmperate politics.

[00:13:42]>> Intemperate politics.

[00:13:45]We are always going through in tempmperate politics. Yet we are alive.

[00:13:50]There must be something special about us.

[00:13:53]Well, there are those who say that God is a Nigerian because when we get to that precipice, >> that brink, when it appears to all that all hope had been lost, something happens and we pull back from the brink.

[00:14:13]>> Is that why we dance in a circle?

[00:14:17]It encourages complacency because I think what we really ought to do is to be intentional about organizing our state. Yes, nation building is always going to be unfinished.

[00:14:32]There is no perfect union. Every nation is in search of the perfect union. But nations always strive to improve on what they have. We I've come to the conclusion that that improvement cannot be revolutionary that it will be incremental but the incremental nature of it is debilitating in Nigeria it's not progressive >> it's not progressing but you are a progressive >> I would like to think that's what I am and that's how I describe myself >> and you are a member of the all progressives congress >> I still am >> yet we are not progressive Well, that may sound like a contradiction in terms, but maybe maybe I am being a little unkind because I I would have loved us to have progressed further than where we are.

[00:15:30]It's not as if we're not making progress at all, but it's so minutusal for a nation that has a manifest destiny to lead the continent.

[00:15:47]This was the country that led in the 70s when Jamal Muhammad led his government in support of the liberation of Angola and led the African countries at the African Union summit that Africa has come of age.

[00:16:12]We're no longer dependent on dictation from any so-called powers. That was an assert assertion of our place in history. and we then put our money where our mouth was at that time. And that is why it's unfortunate when you see what is going on in Southern Africa, particularly in South Africa now. But then again, the Gunfree generation that never knew Mandela or knew anything that are confronted by the debilitations of the moment in their country don't have a sense of that history.

[00:16:54]whose fault?

[00:16:56]>> Well, fault of their educational system.

[00:16:59]But even if they did, even those who had a sense of that history are confronted by their own daily challenges of unemployment, of hunger, of poverty. And when you are narrowed into that debilitating situation, you often don't have the opportunity to broaden your horizon and not see the person who is doing the minial job as your enemy. It happened to us too. People forget >> Ghana must go.

[00:17:31]>> Ghana must go. We we believe that Ghanaians were the source of all our problems. And we were also sent away by busier in 1969. So what Shagari did in 1981 and 83 was a replica of what Busia did to Nigerians in G. So when Nigerians are I mean apoplelectic enraged over what is going on in South Africa now. We seem to have forgotten our history too that we did this as a country too or other and we are supposed to be a leading Panaffrican nation that embraced all that provided our space for anyone who found his or her way into our country. So maybe we need to t a while and reflect more on how to deal with these issues holistically.

[00:18:18]Busy dismantled what Unruma built.

[00:18:21]>> Absolutely.

[00:18:22]>> Perhaps Shagari wanted to take revenge.

[00:18:26]Perhaps Mortal Muhammad was just idealistic saying Africa has come of age. Look at the Africa from the Sahel to the horn of Africa.

[00:18:39]>> And yet Mala Muhammad said Africa has come of age.

[00:18:42]>> Yes.

[00:18:43]>> In 1975.

[00:18:44]>> And he backed it up. The point he was making then was that as a collective we have the opportunity to make a difference if we don't allow ourselves to be divided.

[00:18:59]Mala had a vision of panafricanism along the lines of enroma.

[00:19:07]But the reality we're confronted with is that we're not just one Africa.

[00:19:14]Africa is not a country.

[00:19:17]It should be a country.

[00:19:18]>> Well, that's the vision of those of us who believe in panafricanism.

[00:19:24]And that is a common sensical vision because when you look at the way the world is structured, 1.4.5 billion occupy this continent.

[00:19:39]China is roughly about the same.

[00:19:44]India about the same. The European Union is even less 800 million probably and and the Americas. So if we to really have a chance to organize ourselves in a developmental sense, we cannot do it by cutting up ourselves and negotiating individually.

[00:20:14]That I think is the common sense approach that we must take. What is in the overall interest of Africa? Take critical minerals. Everybody talks about critical minerals now. uh I was privileged in the past to have occupied the office of the mining minister in this country and just as we handled OPEC in the past we at that point the world needs what Africa has everybody is after it China is competing for it the Americas are competing for it Europe is competing for it yet. We have not organized ourselves even though there's an African mining vision that mining ministers developed as far back as 2010 that clearly privileges beneficiation that is local production of whatever raw materials we have in our soil rather than allowing them to be taken away as raw materials to wherever else. they then get turned into lithium battery or uh materials for our phones and computers and so on and so forth. So when we having these conversations, it should be possible for Africa to come back to that same point and say, "Okay, you want our minerals. Yes, we have our minerals. This is the minimum irreducible minimum condition for us to even engage in this conversation.

[00:22:01]You have the expertise.

[00:22:03]Bring the expertise here.

[00:22:06]develop the minerals here and then you can utilize it for whatever industry you want to utilize it for. That way we will not lose value. It's like we're back to the era of our cocoa in the 50s and 60s being taken to Cadbury in Birmingham and turned to Bomb Vita before it is returned to us at a great greater cost.

[00:22:29]>> Are you talking about a people that don't learn from history?

[00:22:32]>> Well, I'm a student of history. I can't but keep referring to history.

[00:22:37]>> You have just confirmed a continuous scramble for Africa.

[00:22:40]>> Oh yes. It's just a different type of scramble now.

[00:22:44]>> So the scramble never ends.

[00:22:46]>> The scramble has never ended.

[00:22:49]>> And we and we make ourselves even susceptible to it. I mean we get called today. Um you you can see what is happening in Kenya. Our president is in Kenya attending the forward Africa summit. France Africa summit it's even an improvement maybe because of our earlier criticism of that model of taking 54 African countries to China uh Beijing and say you have China Africa meeting or taking the whole 54 to uh Washington and say you have China America meeting maybe there's a variation there and France has been forced to come back but this is the same France responsible for some of the heiniest crimes that we're dealing with on the continent some of what you referred to in the Sahel, France has been at the roots of it.

[00:23:38]>> Tell me more how >> how well what has happened to the franophhone African nations is what has encouraged the dependency in those states more than ever before.

[00:23:53]>> What has happened to them?

[00:23:55]>> Yes. Whether you're talking their economy, even their reserves is tied to the French Franks, the money that they earn from agriculture, from uh whatever resources are in their land has been tied since apart from Seutur, >> Guinea, >> Guinea that went against that, the rest of that axis The franophhone Africa axis whether franophhone west Africa or franophhone central Africa had been tied to the apron strings of the French republic and their leaders have always been protected quote and unquote even when they're the most unpopular with their citizens at home.

[00:24:48]So this has been long in gestation and the deep resentment that we now see that has led to the eviction of France from many of these countries.

[00:25:02]Some may describe it and it may be correct to a certain extent that it is um exuberance on the part of the young military leaders. But it is an exuberance that has been informed by a history of dependency that has not produced any concrete development in those states. And you can see that virtually across the board even the defense packs that they used to have all of them are stepping out of it. But the tragedy of that is that what is the point of replacing a Franco phone defense part with a Russophone defense pack.

[00:25:45]>> That also brings us to the point Africa has always been dependent.

[00:25:50]Is it is America? Is it that is France?

[00:25:53]Britain.

[00:25:55]Today we talk about Mali.

[00:25:58]Russia is in charge. Bkina Faso depends on Russia. Central Africa Republic Russia. So we have replaced France with Russia. What is it about the African that cannot stand alone?

[00:26:12]>> First it is not correct that we've always been dependent.

[00:26:15]>> Have we not always been dependent?

[00:26:16]>> I don't believe we've always been. just gave us a historical analysis of franophhone countries.

[00:26:21]>> I have. But when those countries failed to come to the rescue in our most critical moments, Africans rallied.

[00:26:31]African fought appetite to a standstill.

[00:26:35]Many of those countries you refer to were lukewarm in the struggle against racial discrimination.

[00:26:49]It was left in the hands of the frontline states. Nigeria playing a very critical role in that. That's one.

[00:26:59]when Europeans and the Americans refused in the late 80s and the early '90s to contribute boots on ground in Syria in Liberia. It was left to us and we did a human task again led by Nigeria.

[00:27:21]So I do not subscribe to the notion that we've always been dependent >> the weapons you use >> where we have been determined to take on our own responsibilities. I I think we've done reasonably well. What you can argue is that this has been few and far between and it has not been consistently uh huh on an upward swing. The same Nigeria that did that ran into stormy waters in Nij.

[00:27:57]So there is leadership question, there is capacity question, there is commitment to pan-Africanism as the single most critical condition for our foreign policy dynamics and the totality of that which would also enable us to sensitize our citizenry because sometime if the citizenry is not on your side, foreign affairs is seen as an an unnecessary intervention on the part of people who are trying to ek out a living and they don't believe that the country should be putting resources that should be expended on them on matters that may have a bearing on them as we have seen with Boo Haram now which has tentacles in all of our neighborhood.

[00:28:56]If Nigeria had not been playing the role it was playing earlier in those neighborhood, we probably would have seen this much earlier than we did.