Courageous Professor Remi Sonaiya, a columnist with TheNiche, is the presidential candidate of Kowa Party (KP). In this interview with Assistant Editor, South West, MUYIWA OLALEYE, she speaks on her preparations for the election, her vision for the Nigerian electorate, among other issues.
What actually informed your choice of Kowa Party (KP) as platform for your presidential ambition?
Kowa Party is the alternative party that Nigerians can bank on. It is a requisite party owing to its outstanding values that will highly entrench the operation of proper political system which is presently lacking in the Nigerian polity.
The rationale behind the setting up of Kowa Party is to ensure that what is in Nigerian constitution and party’s manifesto are brought into practice and not just a document.
Why did you elect to go into politics, given your pedigree as a renowned professor and educationist?
It became absolutely evident that politics is one of the major platforms to reach the masses and affect their lives positively and to do the utmost.
If I am lucky to attain the position of leadership in this country, a lot of great opportunities would be opened to people, especially the needy.
I have been in politics for a long time. Since I got involved in politics, I have always been concerned about social issues like justice and fairness in the society.
Why the presidency?
Situation demands for it. As a nation, we need a new image. The country is in a precarious stage (no apology to anybody, even those at the helm). Our present position is affecting us tremendously. Look at the way the International Community views this nation. I think we don’t have enough time to fumble around anymore. Regardless of that, the fact of the matter is that I was born in Ibadan, but spent all my life in Osun since 1972, and don’t want to believe in politics of godfatherism. I should have contested long time ago.
My agenda is to make Nigeria a nation where justice and fairness operate; a nation where everyone is taken into consideration without any bias; a nation where no one suffers exclusion.
How do you feel being the only female presidential candidate?
My challenges are numerous, because some people are having retrogressive perception about women and their place in the society. Based on that notion, the impression is that Nigeria is not ready to have a woman president. This is nothing but a fallacy. Look at Liberia, Asia and Brazil. I want to say it clearly that such perception is changing with time.
Another challenge is that, I don’t really have the funds to do things the way I would have loved to. Not in the mega way or scale to do a huge flash like some of the other political parties are doing, but there are some basic things that are required for a serious campaign. This means that I have to work harder.
What new things do you intend to introduce into the system by way of election promises?
A government by example; one that is disciplined and sensitive to people’s plight. How can you say you are a leader and you are not responsive to the people’s welfare? If majority of the people are living in penury and you the leader are in luxury, how can they trust you? For instance, look at the National Assembly, what is their salary and total package compared to the minimum wage of an average Nigerian worker?
The former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, at some time said that 20 percent of the overhead budget allocated is spent on them. Where else does such a thing operate? It is senseless. With this kind of disposition, we cannot develop. Injustice is deterrent to development. Unfortunately, Nigerian leaders refuse to fathom this out.
What is your view on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)?
For now, INEC is trying, but they should not disappoint millions of Nigerians in the coming election.
How would you assess the nation in the build-up to the election?
I am quite ashamed that there is so much fighting, bickering and dispute going on between the two major political parties in Nigeria. This is a sad pronouncement on the political situation. Right now, I am looking forward towards the actualisation of my ambition. Once this is achieved, that is when I become the president of this country, I will have 24 hours solving the problem.
We need to completely overhaul the educational system of this country. We need to make Nigeria a learning society. There is presently a wrong orientation in the country’s educational system. We need a complete re-orientation for both the learners and those imparting the knowledge. Since we all know that education is for development, that is the more reason we need to embark on a crucial thinking approach in our educational system.
Kowa seems to be stronger in the northern part of the country than East and West. Why?
In the recent governorship elections in states like Anambra, Ekiti, Adamawa, Kowa participated. We already have 167 candidates contesting in 17 states in the coming general election
How would you address the issue of absence of political culture in Nigeria?
The sad reality about political leadership in Nigeria, in my considered opinion, is that the terrain is basically devoid of true leaders, for much of our years of independence. Indeed, we have had a few personalities with some good ideas; but reflecting deeply on the issue, and especially as I have had the opportunity to travel the world a bit and to read about leaders in other climes. I have come to the conclusion that even the most acclaimed among our leaders have fallen short in areas that are critical for true leadership. For one, most of our leaders have not been visionary enough. At best, they can be said to have been ‘managerial’ in their approach to governance –recognising some important goals to pursue, but in essence merely seeking the best ways to manage the resources at their disposal. In addition, most have failed woefully in terms of mobilising and inspiring their followership.
We shall examine these two areas of failure in some detail. One of the most glaring proofs, I would argue, is the lack of imposing monuments upon our landscape. Where are our castles? Why were our own deities undeserving of being worshipped in majestic temples or cathedrals? How come our leaders did not think of commissioning a ‘Status of Liberty’ to commemorate our Independence? Why are we so earth-bound, so glued to the immediate and the material, our minds seemingly unable to conjure up lofty projects? Why are our ideas so common, our thoughts so pedestrian?
Yes, we do have the Oranmiyan Staff in Ile-Ife and a few other items scattered in groves and caves here and there; but how do they compare with the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel Tower, or, to take some more contemporary examples, with the Sydney Opera or the Burj Al Arab? What feelings overwhelm the visitor who stands to behold these monuments of ours, compared with those of other nations? Why, for God’s sake, have our leaders over the centuries been incapable of dreaming big, leaving us mostly to what we have forced the United Nations Organisation for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) to recognise as our ‘intangible heritage’, while many other regions of the world are able to boast of an equally tangible heritage, in terms of sites and monuments?
I visited France for the first time in 1974, with a group of French students from several Nigerian universities, to spend a year in Vichy, our mandatory year-abroad programme having been converted into a preparatory training course, so that we could return to serve as hosts for the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) which was to hold in 1975 (but which eventually held in 1977). A major highlight of the year spent in France was the tour of different regions of the country, among them the Loire Valley where we visited several of the castles for which the region is famous (many of them are now part of France’s tangible contributions to the UNESCO world heritage). As we toured those castles and were told their history, I could not help wondering how people could have succeeded in building such structures that long ago, some of them having been built as far back as the 13th century. What was more, they were not all built on solid ground – a sizeable portion of the Chateau de Chenonceau, if I remember correctly, stands inside water, with pillars the size of which I had never seen before going down into the riverbed. I wondered how many lives were sacrificed in the process of building that majestic edifice. Indeed, the thought of the number of lives that perished in similar efforts would frequently come to my mind as I travelled around the world and beheld magnificent edifices, like the castles and cathedral of Germany which had been erected in the pre-technology era.
Thinking along that line actually revealed a fundamental, traditional African mindset in me too: did we fail to build such structures precisely because the venture would have been too dangerous and costly in terms of lives lost? We were probably already losing many of our peoples to lions and hyenas in the forest and, more importantly, to our inter-tribal wars as well as to invading marauders from Arab lands and Europe; surely, it would be foolhardy to engage in some dreamy project upon which our immediate survival did not depend and which could further deplete our population! Is this a fundamental differences between us and the ‘white man’, the same attitude that has landed them on the moon while we are still very much here on the earth, our feet solidly on the ground, our backs constantly bent hoeing and swinging cutlasses to clear the bush on our lands?
The second aspect of failed leadership, which I highlighted earlier, is the inability to mobilise and inspire the followership. Indeed, this is directly linked to the inability to dream big dreams. In an interview which CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on the programme ‘Global Public Square’ early in November 2013, the outgoing mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, shared his views on political leadership and made the point, among others, that the primary job of a politician was to have a vision and then succeed in gathering around him people who could help to turn that vision into reality. In A Trust to Earn: Reflections on Life and Leadership in Nigeria (Prestige Publishing, 2010) I, too, identify the ability to inspire as a key element of leadership.
‘Politics in Nigeria is a dirty business and no decent person would (or should) ever think of getting involved’; this is the opinion held still by many Nigerians, although more and more people seem to be gradually recognising the need for ‘good people’ to get involved too. The realisation seems to be growing that politicians ultimately determine what happens to the rest of us; and since our experience of them in Nigeria has been almost totally negative, some of us are beginning to realise that we cannot continue to leave our fate exclusively in the hands of people who have no good plans for our lives. In spite of growing realisation, however, there remains a real fear of politics, its power to corrupt as well as its tendency to grow violent. For this reason, decent Nigerians keep their distance and counsel others like them to do the same.
As I started in my Ife talk on May 25, 2013, one question I have frequently been asked since I decided to take an early retirement to devote more time to reflecting upon and writing about the Nigerian condition and to participate actively in politics is: what is a person like you doing in politics? Each time, this question leaves me feeling somewhat frustrated. Of course, one cannot miss the underlying insinuation about politics being a dirty job for dirty people, and that public service in Nigeria is not deserving of the time and effort of ‘clean’ people. Then there is the phrase ‘a person like you’, the intended meaning of which I am not so sure. It clearly raises the issue of what kind of person people perceive me to be, but I find it difficult to tell whether this is completely positive! I always sense a hint of reproach beneath that question – like they’re really saying, ‘Are you out of your mind? I thought you were more reasonable!’ This reproach – if that’s what it is – is actually quite understandable when one considers that I quit the system the very time university lecturers finally began to be paid livable wages, after decades of earning a take-home pay that couldn’t take us home’, as aptly coined by our union, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Getting a right leader is not an easy feat for a nation to accomplish, and even more bewildering is the fact that the opportunity to choose their leader through a democratic process does not guarantee that the best individual will emerge. I returned recently from trip to Dubia in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Whatever else one might have against the leaders of that state, they certainly cannot be accused of lacking in vision.
Our federal government owns all the mineral resources within the country, no matter where they are found. This is a great anomaly. Should resources not belong to the localities in which they exist, such that the people in that region are the primary beneficiaries? The current system of having the federal government own all of our resources and then hand out portions to all the states has made us lazy and complacent, especially since the discovery of crude oil in the Niger Delta. Since everybody was being given their share of the income derived from the exploitation of petroleum, other areas of economic activity have become neglected, particularly agriculture, with the production of important crops like groundnuts, cocoa and cotton plummeting.