At 84, Professor Anya O. Anya is one of the few Nigerians who understand the country well. His knowledge of Nigeria – its politics, failures and triumphs – is encyclopedic.
He brings his wealth of experience to bear on his analysis of the problems. With a razor sharp intellect, he, despite his awe-inspiring accomplishments in the field of natural science, is also at home in every other academic field.
In this exclusive interview with IKECHUKWU AMAECHI, Prof Anya, a chartered Biologist, who is distinguished for his work in Parasitology; 1992 Nigerian National Medal of Merit awardee; former Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Economic Summit Group, former President of Nigerian Academy of Science, dissects the problems confronting the country under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch. His conclusion: “Buhari’s era, worst period in Nigeria’s history.”
Nigeria is boiling and many people are wondering if there will be a tomorrow for the country. Are you also worried?
Of course, like most people, I am concerned about the state of the country. But in the long term, I am not worried because I believe that what we are seeing is the birth pangs of a new Nigeria. God in His own way is exposing the incompetence, the incapacities and at times the evil intentions of those who govern us. And that is for a purpose.
I am not worried because I believe that many things are no longer in the hands of we human beings in Nigeria of today because we have passed all the divine redlines. When you think about wanton killing of people, either through insurrection or through bandits, kidnappers by whatever name, it has gone beyond reason. And it is clearly indicative of the fact that as we speak, governance is on autopilot in Nigeria. Nobody is in charge.
Unfortunately, the little effort that is made indicates that we are not getting the signals that are all there in the society. ENDSars came and went and those in government could only see it as an attempt to overthrow them. No!
It was an attempt to show that Nigerians can organize to the point where there will be no violence, there will be no untoward attitudes until government agents intervened. But even then, there was still a lesson to be learnt – the lesson being that Nigerians are capable of reorganizing themselves but the leadership has to be in the lead of birthing that new Nigeria. And they have shown that they have no capacity for it.
Is the problem really a question of the country being on autopilot or mischievous leadership that is taking us down this dark alley?
Remember that leadership has different cadres. Certainly, the indications from the East is showing that there are within the government agent provocateurs who are deliberately setting up situations where we can get the wrong scapegoats for the situation we have.
We can have the wrong profiling. For example, it will seem as if people are concerned to show that the East is ungovernable. But it cannot stick because that is not the inert capacity of the Easterners. For example, Hope Uzodimma, the governor of Imo State, has said that they have arrested over 400 people and over 70 per cent of those are non-Igbos.
He has also been recorded as saying that Ahmed Gulak’s murder was a political assassination and again that the people who did it were non-Igbos. What does that say? That tells you that we have to look more deeply but unfortunately, it looks as if the security agencies are anxious to foreclose the issues. They don’t want us to know the truth and the result of course is that anywhere there is evidence that suggests that they should be looking elsewhere, in addition to where they are looking at, they want to stop that.
A good example is even how do you have Gulak killed, and the people you say killed him, you kill all of them to the point that there is no evidence.
It means either you have already made up your mind or you are hiding something. That means that the government people have to start looking among themselves to know who and who is up to whatever mischief before we start looking at how do we as a country get ourselves out of where we are?
Beyond this issue of agent provocateurs which you have alluded to, where do you situate the crisis in the Southeast?
Well, this government must take full responsibility for the way the crisis in the Southeast has developed and is developing.
How do you mean?
Because they seem to have their own mindset and they brought that mindset to impose on what the actual situation is. Let me remind us that Nnamdi Kanu was virtually an unknown quantity in the Southeast. He was coming and going, playing his game over indigenous people and so on and nobody took notice and he didn’t really matter. But the government arrested him and threw him into prison. First, somebody that most people regarded as non-existent, you suddenly focused on him. What is more, the way he was treated started reverberating with the youths because the experience is that of injustice; the experience is that of oppression, because everybody knows that for the last five years, once you cross the Niger Bridge into Onitsha, you must now be prepared for police checkpoints literally every 20 to 50 yards.
You get Customs checks and all sorts and at the end of the day, you recognize that you are in an occupied territory. That was already happening and it reverberated with the younger ones once you touched Kanu. So, they made him to attract attention and what is more, you now made him to look as if he was a martyr. And then, from there, he became a folk hero. At that point, you can no longer talk sense to him and nobody could talk sense to him any longer and you couldn’t reach him and you couldn’t reach the people who set him up. They too could not control him any longer. That is one side of the picture.
The other side of the picture is that we must remember for example, over the May 30 sit-at-home order, the reason people sat at home in the Southeast was not because they were obeying Nnamdi Kanu or IPOB, No. They know from past experience that once IPOB says we are going to demonstrate or do whatever, the whole area will be swarming with security agents all over the place. And in the process, at times you can have shootout between the security agents and whoever else is on the other side. So, people didn’t want to become statistics, collateral damage of people who were killed because of the confrontation between the government agents and the protesters. That is the reason people stayed home – out of concern for safety and out of concern not to be involved. It is not because anybody was obeying anybody.
Igbo elders like you have been accused of sitting on the fence and doing nothing in the face of the wanton killings in the Southeast. Is it that the fear of President Muhammadu Buhari is the beginning of wisdom, to borrow a cliché? Why are Igbo elders not speaking out as they ought to?
It is not true that Igbo elders are not speaking out. But rather, you should ask, what is it you should speak on? Are you going to start talking about the same things that are already self-evident? What is the new element that been introduced into the Southeast situation except the fact that agent provocateurs are being set up to cause confusion in the hope that it can give them the opportunity.
I don’t have to say what I have done. It is not important. In any case, elders are also learning that there are times it is more important to watch, listen, and to see what is going on in order to be able to know what advice to give. The truth of the matter is that there is a deliberate effort to provoke. So, in such a situation, what is it you want to say? That the people who are doing should be allowed to stop what they are doing? Especially when it is not clear what their ultimate goal is?
Elders are discussing and elders are intervening but it is not by shouting on the pages of newspapers, it is not by abusing people that you have influence. If you watch, you find that the relationship between the Southeast, South-South, Southwest and the Middle belt is closer as we speak than it has ever been and nobody has worked for that unity more than the Igbo elders.
You, Ikechukwu, I am sure you know over the last three to five years, what one’s involvement has been. Indeed, you know the two major initiatives that I am involved in with Dr. Christopher Kolade and other elders because we have a vision of a Nigeria that we think is the rightful place. All these other things are distractions.
In President Buhari’s first media chat in early 2016, he asked, when challenged on the Igbo question, what do they want? For those Nigerians who claim, like the President, not to know, what do the Igbos really want out of Nigeria?
Many people have told him we want a society that is fair to all its components, a society that is just, a society where there is equity, a society where there is no nepotism, a society where there is no sectionalism and it is possible to have that in Nigeria.
But the President has always insisted that he has given Ndigbo their fair share based on what the Constitution says. For instance, he insists that the Constitution mandates him to appoint at least one minister from each of the 36 states and he has done that. Are you saying he ought to do more?
There are 17 units in the security services. Almost every single head of the security service in Nigeria as we speak is northern and Moslem. Second, if you look at the big government agencies whether it is the Customs, NPA, NIMASA or whatever, there are 18 of them and every single one of them is headed by a northerner, Muslim. Is that an accident? Or God fixed it that way? Even the laws of statistics will not produce that result. And when things are self-evident, you don’t go arguing about it because you are joining in to look foolish. Because it is so foolish that such arguments can even be made and when you make them, you simply confirm to people how foolish you are.
But in his latest interview on ARISE Television, he also said those who criticize his appointments into the security services don’t understand the issues because they are based on seniority. He insisted that he won’t in a bid to do ethnic balancing subvert the rule. Are you saying he has no point there? He also seemed to be blaming the Igbos for their predicament when he said if you don’t join, then you will not get there.
Let me not say anything more. The truth of the matter is that there are times our President speaks and it is difficult to know whether he recognizes that he is the President of Nigeria and therefore, the father of all. As I said in a recent lecture, I think he has to tell us whether his responsibility is to Nigeria or to Niger Republic.
It is only when he clarifies that that we can start taking his arguments seriously. In any case, I respect the President of Nigeria, I also respect Muhammadu Buhari as a person but whether he makes sense to himself, I think his last interview, it is that interview that will tell us whether he believes what he is saying.
Talking about his last interview, the President referred to the Southeast and by extension Ndigbo as “a dot in a circle.” What do you make of that characterisation?
It is the argument of people who are either lazy or ignorant, or both. Let me remind everyone, Singapore has the highest per capita GDP in the world and if you are talking about dots, I don’t know what you will call Singapore. It is one island, nothing more. But their per capita GDP is higher than that of the U.S., the only surviving superpower in the world. It is a dot that is producing that stellar performance.
You see, I think people in government have to start asking themselves what merit means. What does competition mean? They will look at other countries and see what pursuing merit and healthy competition has produced in other countries and Nigeria should not be an exception.
Why is it that people who don’t do well in Nigeria go to the U.S., they go to Britain and suddenly become stars? Because the condition here, surviving is in itself a battle. And the two problems we have – poverty and unemployment – and the demographic problem that our youths who are unemployed are increasing in number.
Those are the problems that any government in Nigeria should be concerned with right now. But what do we see? Nobody in government is talking about those problems.
You said that the relationship between the Southeast, South-South, Southwest and Middle Belt has never been better than it is now, but Buhari said in the Arise Television interview that South-south youths and elders assured him that they would deny Ndigbo access to the sea. Where is the evidence of the unity if such a commitment was given?
I believe that the leaders of the South-South include my elder brother, Chief Edwin Clark, Governors Nyesom Wike, Emmanuel Udom, and a few others. Well, I hope you will ask them because those are the leaders of the South-South. Of course, I wasn’t at the meeting where they assured him, so, I cannot speculate who he saw, and what they said but if you go by the newspaper accounts of what is going on, they are all united – North Central, Southwest, South-South and Southeast – in the condemnation of the state of the country and the state of the country is under Buhari’s watch.
But let us hypothetically agree that that discussion took place, what possibly could the president be discussing to elicit such a weighty pledge and what did he promise?
I am not interested in what they were discussing. I know the future of Nigeria is better than its past. And the worst period in Nigeria’s history, I am 84 years old, is the period we are in now. You know I don’t make idle statements. As we speak, you know some of the initiatives I am involved in to rebuild Nigeria and put us in a different direction. And it will happen. It will happen because God has decided that enough is enough.
At times, there are some excesses you see in government and it looks as if it is God himself that is deliberately orchestrating it in order to let us know that we cannot assume that all will be well until we start working for it.
But can one man even if that person is the president be blamed for where we are today?
I am not blaming anybody, I am only stating the facts that are available. How Buhari runs his government, he alone knows. How the people who work with him are working with him, they alone know. But what I know is that the situation we are in is worse than any situation we have been and that most people with all due respect, respect him and listen to him as president of Nigeria and then sign off because at times, the angles that discussions are taking do not sound as if they know where we are coming from.
You talked about the President telling us whether he is the President of Nigeria or Niger Republic. But Buhari is saying he owes as much responsibility to Niger Republic because he has first cousins in that country and that is why he is developing infrastructure in the country with Nigeria’s resources.
Do you think any sane Nigerian will be worrying himself to listen to that talk? I raised the issue before, he has to make up his mind whether he is the president of Nigeria or the president of Niger. So, there is nothing more to say.
Shouldn’t the National Assembly demand accountability from him on how he spends Nigeria’s resources?
I can’t answer for the National Assembly but the day will come because history unfortunately, when it starts, it is no respecter of persons and I assure you, in this country, everybody will account for his role in the present Nigeria we are in whether in the National Assembly, whether in the state Houses of Assembly, whether it is in the presidency or wherever, somebody must accept responsibility for the state we are in, and it is not a good state.
What gives you the confidence that a better Nigeria is not only possible but assured, that tomorrow will be better than today. I am asking you this question conscious of the fact that nothing ever gets better in Nigeria. It only gets worse.
The youths of Nigeria give me that hope because despite all we are saying, young Nigerians are doing fantastic things. What we need is to challenge and organise them. Nobody is doing that right now. As we speak, as you know, in one of the initiatives I am involved in, we are actually training and rechanneling the thinking and approach of young Nigerians to the challenges of Nigeria.
Last year, we produced 57, we call them ambassadors, under the Nigeria Prize for Leadership. People are learning what leadership entails because I am more interested now in the succession generation. My generation has done its bit, the generation that succeeded us has not done a good job of it but the problem is mindset. So, you must reposition our youths to the point where they have a new mindset that knows what it is to work together and build a nation, to know that healthy competition brings out the best in people. And the fact that you are doing well does not remove you from the responsibility to help those who are not doing well.
These are the values that shape a society. In the lecture I mentioned earlier, I drew attention to a leadership strategy in management that is used to build relationships that finally end up in cooperation and consensus between groups of people that have differences, they are not from the same ethnic group and yet, you can make them work together for the greater good of all. It has existed, it is existing and some countries are using it.
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Good old Singapore, who like me is a dot, works on the basis of merit, productivity, and honesty. If you reestablish these values in our young ones, they will take over this country. There is a biological solution to all the problems of Nigeria. We, the infected ones will die off whether we like it or not. But if you properly train the younger ones as we are trying to do, they will take over. And they will be the successor generation that will take the country to where Nigeria should be.
In his Democracy Day speech on June 12, Buhari said his administration has lifted over 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty since 2019 but a couple of days after, the World Bank lamented that the inflationary pressure in Nigeria has pushed over seven million Nigerians into poverty. Who do you believe?
You should ask the President where he is getting his data from. Am sure that if you as the World Bank, they will tell you where their data is from. In any case, let him ask the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics. The statistics they have on poverty and unemployment are different from what the president is quoting.
How do we solve the problem of poverty in Nigeria?
Create wealth. We have not started planning for the Nigeria that can solve the problem of poverty. A country must get onto the path of fast paced development if it is to run away from poverty. Fast-paced development means that your GDP growth rate must be at least above 7.5 per cent. Because at that level of GDP, an economy doubles every ten years and until you get into that groove that your economy doubles every ten years, you haven’t started.
In the case of Nigeria, 7.5 per cent is not enough because our population is growing at nearly 4 per cent, while the latest figures that World Bank has released says our GDP is growing at 1.8 per cent. In other words, the people coming into poverty are more than those who are not. So you must add that 4 per cent to the 7.5 per cent. Nigeria’s minimum GDP growth rate, if we are serious, must be at 11 per cent. You do not hear our economists talking about that and you do not hear anybody with that responsibility in government today aware that those are the realities on the ground. 1.8 to 11 per cent means we are growing at less than one-tenth of what we should be growing at now. And we are talking about development. We are talking about infrastructure. That is why we are drowning in debts.
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Looking at this government from outside, all I see is when in trouble, borrow. And who will pay? Take the case of Niger Republic, what is that economic value that is going to be transferred from Niger Republic into Nigeria? Do you know what their GDP is? Do you know their ranking in terms of poverty level? So, your train to Maradi will bring back more poverty not wealth. You create wealth out of competition that increases productivity on the basis of merit. And then, out of that, if your social values include honesty, then you start moving and as you move, because you are creating greater wealth and sharing it equitably, more and more people will get wealthier.
The poor will get fewer and fewer until everybody is out of the poverty bracket. There is no other way to do it. If there is, it has not been discovered.
At the end of 2020, Nigeria’s total debt stock (national and sub-national) stood at N32.9 trillion (or $86.8 billion). Since then, more debt has been accumulated. The government has historically justified its rising debt profile by the compliant debt-to-GDP ratio of less than 30 per cent. But many Nigerians are beginning to worry that this debt overhang has become unsustainable. Do you agree?
The figures are clear and you don’t manufacture them. You cannot sustain that level of debt especially when from the same government sources you find out that 60 to 70 per cent of all your earnings goes into servicing debts. Servicing, I didn’t say repaying debt. You have to service them to pay the interest before you start repayment. We are not repaying anything right now, so the debt will continue to increase. And as we get to the point where more and more of our recurrent budget takes all the revenues that come in, where are you going to repay from and how are you going to stabilise your economy.
There will be no production any longer and the level of criminality which is growing tells the whole story because half of the people who are involved in some of these terrible things have been pushed beyond survival. I am not now saying that people should steal because they are hungry but what is the alternative that you can give to them?
A government is meant to also give hope even when it is not solving the problem but tell them, if you do this, and you follow us on this path, this is what will happen in the future. The problem with Nigeria right now is that there is no basis for even hope but there can be hope. And I am also saying that even now, as bad as things are, Nigeria can be changed and it is already changing.
Where exactly do you situate Nigeria’s woes? Ignorance of those in leadership positions or wilful negligence?
It is too hard to say it is wilful negligence. It is also not fair to say that they don’t know. You see, leadership is an art. A leader gives signals. That is what this government calls body language. But that body language, if it is positive, if it is inclusive, if it takes care of the higher ideals, you will then see that despite difficulties, people are prepared to make sacrifices. But when the leadership and the leadership here is not only Buhari, but the entire collectivity of the political class are taken together, when they are concerned with themselves and not concerned with what the future may bring, where then is the hope for the young people.
And if you cannot give hope to young people, what are you doing there? Let those who can sow hope and nurture it take over. But that, of course, is a different subject.
Southern governors met recently in Asaba, Delta State, and agreed that there will no longer be open grazing of cows in their states. But the President is up in arms. In fact, he said he had mandated the Attorney General, Abubakar Malami, to dig up a First Republic grazing gazette. Why is it difficult for the Presidency to agree that ranching is the way to go?
The problem we are faced with is a historical one. Many of the people who rule us in the north have a mindset that is 18th century, not even 19th century because if they have experience of the 20th and 21st century, they will know that nobody dealing with livestock is doing open grazing. Ranches are what people are building and animals raised in ranches are bigger and more productive. Look at the scrawny things after a 1000 miles walking down from the north to the south, do you expect the cattle to look healthy? But that is what we are insisting on because the mindset is 18th century mindset in a 21st century context. So, what do you expect?
So, I think there are questions we should just tolerate whatever he says, listen carefully, respectfully and plan for the future of Nigeria.
But that future will depend so much on what we do today. In any case, we will still be part of that future.
Oh yes, the energy that can be released in the north when the north is educated will confound you. There is a lot of creativity locked up there. Even today, there are young northerners that are doing fantastic things. But the constraints in the society does not allow the youths to explode creatively as they can.
In the experiment we are dealing with in the Nigerian Prize for Leadership, the new ambassadors who have been transformed and doing fantastic things, include northerners. They are from all parts of the country. There is no part of the country where there is a concentration of geniuses. Geniuses are scattered all over Nigeria. But what constraints them is the operating environment and the operating environment in the north is particularly constraining because even basic education is not available to them.
This is actually the reason why those who have a different viewpoint should run this country. And when they do, they will get the best out of the north into the mix of the new Nigeria. We are not going to import new talents and geniuses. They are already there.
Is restructuring part of your solution?
We have no alternative but to restructure.
What then does restructuring mean to you?
Restructuring means different things to different people. But the important point is to open up the system so that whether it is at the local level or state level, people do the things they can do best because they are the ones nearest to the problem. You cannot stay in Abuja and plan for all parts of the country. The local people are the ones who know the problem, so, devolve authority and power, get healthy competition among the federating units, and create an atmosphere where assurance of equity and justice are guaranteed. And then you will be surprised what will happen. The place will explode in talent.
In the absence of equity, fairness and justice, do you then subscribe to the secessionist agenda that seems to be gaining traction in the Southwest and Southeast?
Anybody who knows the development of the world in the last 50 years knows that the world has been growing closer together. Therefore, secession cannot be the answer. You must forget, I was not only a member of the National Conference of 2014, I was also a member of the Senator Okorounmu-led committee that set the parameters under which the conference was established and the selection of the membership and so on.
It is the most representative conference that has been held in Nigeria when you take the delegate list and look at where they were coming from. And we were told that they won’t even look at it. If you don’t look at it where then will you get the new ideas from? So, part of my confidence is that wherever you go, at the end, you will end up with that report of the National Conference because the problems of Nigeria have never been looked at more comprehensively. And those that participated in the conference have never ever been more representative.
Indeed, embedded in that report is, in fact, the possibility of a new constitution. If you tease out that new constitution, you will find out that all these questions have been answered. There is only one thing left, which is to take that emergent constitution out of the 2014 National Conference report, place it before the Nigerian peoples in a referendum.
Once that happens, you have a new constitution in which we, the people of Nigeria, assented and then the new journey of Nigeria will start. It is possible. It is doable but those who are not prepared for the better future to come will ultimately be caught up with history.
History does not recognize cousins, brothers, etc. It recognizes what is right and what lessons we have learnt from the past. Those who don’t learn lessons from the past will always repeat the same mistakes. Indeed, the question has often been asked, when you continue doing the same thing the same way, and things are getting worse and worse, what is the basis for confidence that the people who are doing the same thing the same way will ever find the answer.
That is where Nigeria is today. We have repeated the same things, in fact, even worse. So, where is salvation going to come from? But I am saying that salvation is already here and can come here from Nigeria.
The insecurity in the Northwest, particularly the kidnapping of innocent school children for ransom is defying logic. Why the government is throwing up its hands in helplessness, there is this Sheik Ahmad Gumi, who not only knows where the bandits are but is effectively their liaison in ransom negotiation. Isn’t that curious? What is the problem?
I wouldn’t know. You should ask the government why when they have an ambassador that can negotiate and release all the kidnapped people, they are not using him. They should use him, he has all the answers.
What do you make of the Federal Government’s ban on Twitter? Can the action be justified?
I don’t think that question needs an answer. And the reason is simple. When you start ignoring your own ignorance, and start delving into areas beyond your understanding, then you are bound to have conflicts and that is the situation.
It is now a digital economy. I know my limitations, the things that my children have to teach me. The difference is that instead of going to know what is happening and what ought to be and getting the youths who know more about these things than our generation, to lead the way, Lai Mohammed, very appropriately named, insists on dabbling into something beyond his understanding and reach. What do expect in such circumstance? More confusion.
The truth of the matter is that we don’t want to face the issue. The Twitter-Government issue is a simple matter of ego. Unfortunately, nobody anywhere in the world considers heads of state the final word on anything because in which ever area, there are always people who know more than the head of state which is why his first duty is to assemble competent and knowledgeable advisers. When you don’t have knowledgeable and competent advisers because you don’t believe in merit, then of course, you have the kind of confusion we have now. And you go on stumbling, making avoidable mistakes. But ultimately, what goes up will come down.
Editor’s Note: This interview was first published on June 28, 2021
