Fred Agbeyegbe is a renowned lawyer, human rights activist and a foremost member of the defunct National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). He is also a playwright. In this interview with Edozie Udeze, he tackles many national issues bordering on the corporate existence of Nigeria and why religion and oil will continue to dominate national focus in the country.
At 78, and in retrospect, would you say that most of the social ills you attacked in your plays such as The King Must Dance Naked have been solved?
Of course not. They’ve not been achieved. To achieve those things, we need a change of mind on the part of the leaders of Nigeria. The people who rule us in this country – they are called all sorts of names, the elites and so on and so forth. For me, elitism in Nigeria is fake. The people who go into politics in Nigeria are not the elites. The elites are in fact far removed from government administration. They are the people who have been frustrated out of their minds because all the thinking they have to better the lives of Nigerians are not allowed. This is due to the usurpation of the political space by those who call themselves politicians.
You mentioned NADECO and then paused. You played a major role in that group; how do you think the coalition fared in achieving democracy for Nigeria?
Well, maybe I should put the question back to you. I was part of it. Do you think NADECO did the right thing to achieve democracy for us or to remove the military from government? I will say they did. NADECO did well. Ah, maybe NADECO did not do the right thing. The only thing we’ve been accused of most of the time now is that we brought out the modalities to ensure that we have a good country. But when it comes to actually taking over government, we either shied away or ran away.
Maybe we cannot now complain from what we are seeing because of that, people feel we should have stayed to put the real government in place. Well, it depends on how you look at it. We were not canvassing to become governors and presidents or whatever. We were just simply saying you cannot have the country the way it was, and we are still thinking even now that you cannot have a country as it is now.
Yes, the military is gone. There is no more (Gen. Sani) Abacha and so on. But I don’t think things are much different from what we had before now. The situation, to me has not changed much and that is why we feel we would have done much more thereafter.
You are from the Niger Delta. How do you assess the situation there where thugs and kidnappers hold sway in a democratic environment?
Well, I don’t know if you are correct by suggesting that that is what the youths are doing – the thugs, the kidnappers, the hoodlums of this country, all come from the Niger Delta. Far from it, in fact, the issue of insecurity you are talking about never started from the Niger Delta. No. The truth about the Niger Delta is that we were being oppressed. And even now, we are still being oppressed. Never mind that somebody from the Niger Delta is the head of the Nigerian government.
The rules Jonathan is operating – the constitution he swore to uphold was not written by Niger Deltans. And nobody consulted any member of this society before the rules were put in place, not to talk of the Niger Delta. So, he is not doing what the Niger Delta people asked him to do. He is doing his own.
What the Niger Delta people are saying is that you came to our backyard, you dug the place, pollute the air, give us ill-health, and then take the thing and go share it somewhere else… Now you come back to give us crump from the table. And we say that is not acceptable to us. Then they came with what they called amnesty. Maybe they don’t know the meaning of the word amnesty. Amnesty has a specific meaning either in English or in the dictionary or in law or in whatever. What the Niger Delta people were doing does not need amnesty. The fact that they have accepted it like that is just to make peace.
So, for you the amnesty thing is not right?
Of course, it was never right. What has it achieved? Have the people of Niger Delta got what they wanted? Have they? I ask you. What they set out to get with the struggle has it ended? Don’t you read what Asari Dokubo says every day? Does he not make sense to you? So, often, you ask yourself, what has the government done? Jonathan is in Aso Rock, so what? Is that what the people were fighting for?
But the amnesty is said to be one of the reasons we have Boko Haram today?
(Laughing) Ah, ah, well, they have to say something. They have to! Did Niger Delta people talk about religion? Do you do this because of what? What is the real reason for what Boko Haram is doing compared to the reason Niger Delta began what they did? How are the people being oppressed, that will bring about Boko Haram? What sort of injustice has been meted out in this country to the Northerners that will bring Boko Haram? How do you compare the two situations that will make them to do what they are doing? Nothing.
So, what sort of political rubbish is that? Didn’t you hear what the Sultan of Sokoto said recently concerning the Boko Haram menace? That all the problems of the North came from the North and created by Northerners! Don’t listen to any excuse because I say don’t come and pollute my backyard. Don’t come and cause me health problems. Don’t come and take our God-given resource under the soil. And then Boko Haram people are annoyed. Why should they?
In fact, as far as I am concerned all of us are misreading what the Boko Haram people are asking for. They are saying that they are the sovereign people and owners of their land where they stay. And they want to practice Sharia laws and nobody in this world can stop them. It doesn’t matter how many constitutions you make; they want a Sharia state for themselves and probably for the nation.
And they have been practising Sharia laws a long time ago. The Northern states had Sharia laws, cutting off people’s limbs for offending their laws. Nobody has stopped them from doing it. Keep your Sharia laws to yourself because I am not a Muslim. Don’t come and operate it in my area. In fairness to them, they are not even saying they want to come and operate it in my area. They are saying leave my area alone for me. I want to have it alone and I want to practise Sharia Law.
Then shouldn’t we say also say leave my Niger Delta to me? Don’t touch my oil or pollute my air or inflict health problem on me? These are the issues and we have to get them right.
What is your stand on the 1999 Constitution?
In the first place, we have no constitution. As long as what we have as a constitution was concocted by the military, it will not serve the desired purpose for a democratic society. The constitution we have today is far from being a perfect document to govern the nation well.
It is a military document. And with that, you cannot genuinely practice democracy. They did it in an attempt to continue to lord it over all Nigerians. Well, we are a long way from perfection. What is the nature of the judiciary? It is not everything that happens in the judiciary that you can call the dispensing of justice.
So, what is the constitution when people’s rights cannot be adequately protected or guaranteed? No matter the nature of the constitution you give to this country, so long as the Nigerian factor is there, we’ll never make progress. If you like bring a Togolese or Ghanaian to come over here to rule.
As it is now, the National Assembly itself has no power to make the constitution. They have not been given the power to do so. All aspects of that 1999 Constitution are not only concocted, but a forgery. And any document that tells lies about itself does not stand. It is a forgery. At least from the little law that I know, that is the true situation. So then, the nation itself is run on the basis of forgery.
Even the power to review the constitution doesn’t belong to the National Assembly. They cannot even be given the power to review it by anybody. That is the much I can say about that.
Now, the federal government has decided to send troops to Mali to help quell the insurgency there. What is your take on this?
That is international politics as far as I am concerned. You might argue and say they have not been able to take care of insecurity under their nose, then why are they going to save other people? But there are some valid points in saying that these things have a domino effect. If one place is likely to carry on as they do in Mali now and no one intervenes, more will come up sooner or later. The issue of contiguity are also involved in this matter.
So, the policy of the federal government is that they want to contain it before it gets to our shores. I cannot fault them that.
Now, let’s go to your artistic involvements. When you started Ajo Productions in 1983, what did you really have in mind?
Ajo Productions is my theatre ensemble. It was established in 1983 to put up plays written by me on stage. And that is what we have been doing ever since. We also have what we call Lagos Theatre Associates. It is a collaboration outfit with Ajo Productions to do a lot of things. While Ajo Productions is a theatre group meant to put up plays by professional theatre actors and practitioners, Lagos Theatre Associates is an attempt to ensure that plays are always on stage. And you can immediately know the implications of that. Being always on stage means that there should continually be entertainment for the working people of Nigeria, who, after their tired week can relax. It means that the opportunity will be provided for the theatre or the actors to comment continuously on what is going on in the society.
It means that there will always be employment for actors and actresses. So, it means that there will be attention all the time to art education. So, when you put all that together, it is a social service that Lagos Theatre Associates are rendering.
How do you combine theatre and your law practice?
(Laughs) Well, the theatre thing; I never went to any formal school to train as an artiste or as a playwright. So you have to ask the good Lord where that gift came from. The prowess with which I have been endowed, I am not the one to determine it and so I am carrying on with it. But I have been writing ever since I can remember and I enjoy every bit of it. So far, I have over eight plays to my credit.
On the law side, it is my profession and I am still there. And I so believe in it that my children – two of them, are also lawyers. I have a grandchild who is equally a lawyer. So, I think that is enough commitment.
What level in life has theatre taken you to?
Well, I am sitting on top of the world. My plays are being distributed all over the world. It is on Amazon and so on and so forth. And I am sure you know that at the last Olympics, The King Must Dance Naked was one of the official plays staged in England.
So far, I can never stop writing plays. At least I have six in the works now. And we just pray for long life so we can continue to write more plays.
Do you hope to put them into movies someday?
You see, that is the problem with this country. I shouldn’t be the one to do that. People should be interested in what other people do. But who knows, maybe when I find the money, I can do that.
There is no theatre in Nigeria because the government who should be providing the infrastructure does not care. The government is not prepared to invest in theatre.
