Unless we restructure, #Nigeria’ll not know peace –Okurounmu

In this interview with SAMUEL AWOYINFA, Afenifere chieftain and Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the 2015 National Conference, Senator Femi Okurounmu, talks about what the confab report recommended and the implication of not implementing it, among other issues

Sometime in 2015, you said the neglect of the Confab report fuelled pro-Biafra protests. Is that not making excuse for the protesters?

There must be an excuse for people to protest when they feel marginalised. We felt cheated in 1993, we protested. After the Biafra war, the Igbo have been struggling to integrate themselves back into Nigeria as equal citizens with every other Nigerian. Successive regimes have done their best to reintegrate them back, but (President Muhammadu) Buhari’s administration has re-opened their wounds by extremely marginalising Igbos simply because they did not vote for him.
The President  in his speech on May 29, 2015 said he belonged to nobody but to everybody, which means he will treat everybody equally. But the same Buhari later contradicted himself, by saying he could not treat people who gave him 93 per cent of their votes the same way he would treat those who gave him five per cent. Apparently it is the latter principle he has been following. Recently, we looked at the 59 appointments which he had made, only three came from the South East whereas the North West, the zone from where Buhari comes from, had 26. So where is the justice? Why will the Igbos not feel marginalised? When people feel marginalised, they will resort to all sorts of measures, part of which is to seek to take their own future in their own hands. That is what IPOB is all about.


Don’t you think the plan to secede may be treasonable?

The agitation for self determination is allowed by the United Nations. It is a right of all people across the world. Last year, there was a referendum in Scotland, they wanted to break away from the United Kingdom, but it did not sail through. If it had sailed through they would have been somewhere else.

One of the issues confronting the country at the moment is the issue of the Niger Delta Avengers and Fulani herdsmen. Did you discuss these during your deliberations as well?


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