In this concluding part of the interview with IKECHUKWU AMAECHI, OGUWIKE NWACHUKU and EMEKA ALEX DURU, erstwhile Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Limited and immediate past Chairman of Nigerian Population Commission, Festus Odimegwu, looks at President Jonathan’s administration and why Buhari must not fail.
What is your impression on the role of Ndigbo in the last election?
First of all, the votes you saw from the South East were not the votes of the Igbo. Some Igbo people supported Jonathan due to lack of analytics, guided by corrupt, unfocused and criminally-minded political leaders, who pretend to represent the Igbo but represent themselves, and some people listen to them. I don’t belong to that category. But even at that, the votes from the South East and South South were not the real votes of the Igbo. They just wrote the figures. Jonathan could not have scored the votes ascribed to him from Imo and Rivers where the governors are of the All Progressives Congress (APC). It was not possible. But the general tendency in the South East and South South was that they were supporting Jonathan, just as the general tendency in the South West and the whole North was that they were supporting Buhari. That was where I did my analysis and said Buhari would win and it turned out so.
Now, the elections have come and gone. The Igbo supported who they wanted to support. Other peoples supported who they wanted to support. That is the beauty of democracy. That is the first point. But let me warn that the Igbo support in the election should not be limited to the five South East states because the Igbo are not only in these states where they have been marginalised and cut off from the sea and had their oil wealth excised to other states. There are Igbo in the seven states around Igbo land. There are large populations of Igbo in Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Bayelsa, Cross River and Kogi. In these seven states also, the Igbo voted.
There are also large populations of Igbo, ranging from 15 to 20 per cent in every other region in Nigeria. This is because everywhere you go, after the local population, the next significant group is the Igbo. That is why the people who want the Igbo down refuse to do proper census for Nigeria. Even in the false census they do, they don’t want people to put their states of origin and religion. If they allow state of origin, you then add all the people from Igbo states to get the real population of the Igbo.
Many people that voted from the North and South West were also Igbo. The Igbo are spread widely because they are very enterprising people. They are the only ethnic nationality that the whole Nigeria is their home. So, don’t use only the South East to judge the Igbo. The Igbo are more than the South East.
Finally, there are lessons to be learnt. If you want good governance, vote the right people. If you don’t want good governance, stay away; and when they put anybody there, his policies will affect you.
What I have said has bearing on the Catholic Church that many Igbo are faithful. The seven themes of the social teachings of the Catholic Church command all Catholics during political issues to look for people who are ethical and vote for them because it is only those ethical people that can maintain the seven themes of the social teachings. That was why I wrote at a time that Buhari is more Igbo and Catholic than those who say he is a Muslim. If Christians are these criminals in PDP, then I would want to belong to another religion.
Also, the Igbo should get organised because politics is a game of numbers. And the Igbo have the numbers in Nigeria.
There is this allegation that at the election, the Igbo put all their eggs in one basket.
You cannot measure Igbo votes by only what happened in South East. Many Igbo voted differently. I was in Lagos and voted for APC. All my workers in Lagos and Abuja did so. So, what happened in the South East will not be enough to judge where the Igbo voted. In the forged figures that they sent, Buhari defeated Jonathan with more than two million votes. A lot of Igbo were in the figure, but they are spread all over the country. But the most important thing is that everybody voted for who he wanted. So there was nothing like the Igbo putting their eggs in one basket.
The second side of the argument is that even if all the Igbo, including me, had voted for Jonathan, Buhari has won. He will soon be the president of all Nigerians, including all the people that did not vote for him, and he said so himself.
It is now left for APC, who did a merger between the South West and the North, as it were, to have a progressive policy, programmes and projects to convert the Igbo to become members of APC, so that it will become a mega party.
The Igbo should also try to join APC to create a strong platform for the region. APC, on its part, should do special programme and projects to attract the Igbo, so that it can really stand on the three legs that hold Nigeria. It is when the APC stands on this tripod, that it will be sustainable. If the party fails to do this and it is comfortable standing on two legs, when the demographic statistics of Nigeria is properly defined, its leaders will see that they cannot win elections without votes from the South East. The Igbo constitute 33 per cent of Nigerian population. You cannot win election in Nigeria, with proper voters’ register, without the vote of the Igbo. So, for APC to be sustainably successful, it must stand on three legs – the Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani. This will foster genuine unity among the people and banish the politics of divide-and-rule. Even if PDP reforms itself, it needs this wisdom. That, for me, is a vision that we shall continue to pursue, so that we shall begin to discuss issues.
Do you see PDP playing effective opposition politics?
The party has been stealing Nigeria dry in the last 16 years. They have also gone to rig election in oil-rich states. And they did it deliberately. So, the way Bola Tinubu used Lagos as base to help create APC, if after the court cases PDP still keeps Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Delta states, it has a base for the governors to keep funding the party for it to be a strong opposition. Again, by the time they begin to play proper party politics, they will register their members to contribute in funding their party, appropriately. It is the members of the party that should be funding it. They should not allow the governors to be funding the party because that was how they destroyed the internal democracy in the party. There is a lot of work to do. But PDP has people to guide it in doing that. They have oil-rich states to be supporting them before they can restructure themselves for the party members to be funding the party.
Now, APC has gone, for the first time, to the centre and has more states that earn their money as Lagos. But if they do their politics and party development very well, in 2019, they may capture Akwa Ibom and Rivers states. That is, if they fail to do so now through court cases. Even the Delta result is in contention. When there is free and fair election, the oil-rich states would be shared between the two parties. The economically powerful states will be shared. It will be governance that would matter. But the basis is that there must be accurate census figure. What we have now is holding down the Igbo man. That is why they don’t want accurate census. That is what has killed Nigeria. But now, everybody’s eyes are open and we shall be shouting until the right thing is done.
Do you think the Hausa/Fulani who allegedly benefit from this faulty census regime would agree for Nigeria to have an accurate one?
Look at the entire North and tell me the advantage you see. Do you like what you see in the North East? The level of literacy is least in the North. The North West has the highest failure rate in WAEC (West African Examinations Council) tests– about 90 per cent. The least is South East, with 47 per cent. They have no advantage. Nobody will have advantage under falsehood. Because these things are built on falsehood and confer sense of entitlement, that is why they are not working. And that is why the region is not developed. They have a few people who, while in government, made money and are living in opulence, but the rest of the people are in total darkness.
An Igbo gateman in the house of a managing director is praying to be bigger than his boss. That culture is why the South East is vibrant. The South East doesn’t need government to exist. It does not mean the Igbo will not be in government to even bring in the entrepreneurial spirit to save Nigeria. But the North has no particular advantage.
It is an intellectual thing – mindset thing. We will engage in this dialogue to prove with historical facts and figures that it is because of the prevailing falsehood that Nigeria is in a mess. And it is better for us to get accurate figure.
If we do so and stop this attitude of sharing cake instead of baking cake, you can tell the South South to keep their oil wealth in a true fiscal federalism. But they should also do the investment to mine it. It is not cheap. After the business of mining the oil and selling it, you pay certain percentage of tax to the federal government. When, therefore, the North East knows that it will not get easy money, it will develop agriculture in the region. The whole North East can feed the entire African continent.
The South East can be based on industrialisation and commerce and become the Dubai of Africa. The North Central can become the power zone of Nigeria. Every region in Nigeria has things (of advantage), but it is this sense of sharing and accompanying laziness that is holding us down.
When the situation is now based on production instead of consumption, value addition instead of useless entitlement, everybody will begin to work hard. Because you need to go and work hard, you need data to plan. So, you need your demographics, you need economic indices. Without data, you can’t plan, and without planning, you can’t make economic successes. You cannot control what you don’t know.
So, there is no advantage in the North. Buhari couldn’t have won the election if the South West did not join him. He would have lost because he could not have become president of Nigeria with only Northern votes. He needed at least 25 per cent of votes cast in at least 24 states to emerge president. The people who put that clause in our constitution did it so that it can be well for Nigeria when it is good for all Nigerians.
So, nobody has advantage over the other. It is convenient for some people to say ‘oh, the Igbo are marginalised’. It is a mindset thing. Nobody has more advantage. Everybody is equally powerful, but you have to know your strength. When we know our individual strengths, we begin to tell ourselves the truth and not what is currently going on.
How can the Organised Private Sector (OPS) assist the in-coming government?
The in-coming government has so many issues that the OPS is completely insignificant in addressing them. Do you really have an OPS? What you have are rent-seekers and people who run around, collaborate with government people and steal money, get tax waivers, get concession, get subsidy money, steal with private sector people and share it. You don’t really have a robust OPS. If you check the Nigerian corporate landscape, what do you see? You see banks who steal people’s money and make profit without adding value to anything people are doing, or telecomm sector where the service is poor. The same thing happens in the power sector where people are billed for services not rendered. So, there is really no OPS.
You can have one multinational (firm) here and there. But even then, because Nigeria is not properly structured, they are not doing the right thing. So, the ball is in the court of the federal government. Buhari has to come and step up to be counted. When the fight against corruption is stepped up, a lot of the people in the so-called OPS will be in prison with their collaborators in public service. Everybody will sit up. Fighting corruption will solve 80 per cent of Nigeria’s problems. When, then, you bring demographic, scientific, economic data as well as science and technology and blend, you begin to have economic revolution in Nigeria that will create jobs. With that, you banish crime, stop kidnapping and put the street urchins (area boys) to use.
The moment you address the incidences of multiple taxation, militancy, favouritism, we shall move ahead, because they are signs of insecurity. Once you take care of these factors, particularly insecurity, you cause an industrial economic revolution in Nigeria and then fund it with money retrieved from people who had stolen from the country as well as plug the necessary loopholes.
It is easy with a committed president, who can show you that he is a sovereign who can affect every institution in Nigeria. The president can affect the efficiency in all arms of the government. If it is becoming difficult, we abolish immunity in our constitution, so that everybody can face the music.
Are you done with the governorship of Imo State?
Are you now insulting me?
No.
You shouldn’t ask me that question. I ran for governorship of Imo State in 2007. If I am going to run for elective position again, after talking with you like this, would you expect me to go and run for governorship of Imo State when the problem is in Abuja? I am too big to run for governorship. I am 62. If we support Nigeria to move forward and the day they say the presidency has come to the South East, who are the people who will come out that are credible to run? It is people like us who have the training, experience and good ethical background.
So I can’t run for governorship again. But the issue now is not who will run for presidency. Buhari, I believe, will do well, by reputation. He should be there till 2023. Let us wait till then and see what happens.
How would you assess the governance style of Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha?
Rochas is a cowboy! What he is doing in Imo State is not governance. He has brought disgrace to governance. He is my brother. I like him. He is my friend. But he has brought total disgrace to governance in Imo. Rochas has privatised governance in Imo. Why I don’t talk about political problems in Imo is that the state is too small for me. The entire thing is obscene and he makes it up with all these populist razzmatazz. One of the things the Igbo will begin to do is to hold their government to account. What Rochas is doing in Imo cannot be done in any of the western states. That was a comment a former Nigerian leader made while I was discussing with him. And I believed him.
If Abuja is good, all the states will be good. But Rochas is a disgrace in government. He is my brother and friend. But this is the truth.
But he belongs to APC. What about the touted change? Should it not have affected him?
Don’t forget that in his first term, he originally came on the platform of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) before becoming a member of APC. Now that he is under APC government, maybe the president, who is his party leader, will make him change, because the approach he used in the first term is not sustainable in the second term. If he tries that system in the second term, we will call him to order.
He has really not done well in government, forget all the caricatures he does with his “my people, my people”, jingle. Leadership is more serious than such empty populist sentiments.
What makes you have such confidence in Buhari?
Personal example! There is nothing as personal example. Buhari had been military head of state. Some others who had occupied the same position simply emptied the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). But he did not. He had headed the Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), but he did not steal. He had been military governor, he did not steal. There is nothing as personal example.
Second, Buhari doesn’t talk much. He is a man of few words. He is measured. But anything he says, he is clear. He doesn’t talk from two sides of the mouth. That clarity of thought and speech mirrors intention. A leader will never do well unless his intentions are good. Everybody knows where he stands on corruption. General Buhari will perform at least 100 times better than Jonathan. So, that change is already good to that level. My only concern is his health, especially on the old age part. But my grandfather lived up to 110, even without being a soldier. So, Buhari can live up to 110 with the military discipline he has and his lean frame.
But I worry for him because fighting corruption will come up against devil incarnates in Nigeria. Everything must be done to protect him. Buhari will be one million times better than Jonathan. Jonathan betrayed the trust of Nigerians.
But the fear, as you know, is that the expectations are quite huge and the economy is bad, especially with the dwindling price of oil.
I don’t fear; I can never fear. Nothing in life should make you fear. It is the eyes of the children that fear the painted devil. You should have the ability to look at any issue, analyse it and deal with it. It doesn’t need fear. The situation in Nigeria is simple. One trillion dollars was reported by African Business Council to have been stolen from Nigeria from 1960 to 2005. For somebody to put a figure on this money, he had idea on who had it. This money is somewhere in asset. It is not mysterious; it is real.
If we auction Nigeria’s oil and gas tomorrow, we can have N1 trillion again. How much do you need to develop Nigeria? A president of Nigeria can raise the money to develop the country in six months. But he should invest it prudently. All it requires are huge physical and social infrastructural projects, huge agricultural projects, huge data projects, and after few months the country will take off.
Japan has no resources. Singapore has no resources. Lee Kuan Yew (the late Singaporean Prime Minister) came and found the best Singaporeans from everywhere in the world and encouraged them to come and develop their country. What fear are we talking about? If we start by retrieving Nigeria’s wealth from those that had stolen it, you will have enough money to equip the schools in the country.
How would you assess Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economy?
Okonjo-Iweala is a total failure. She is my sister. At personal level, we respect each other. But as Finance Minister or Coordinating Minister of Economy, she is a failure. It is a disgrace that she is doing that job the way it is. She does not even understand the economy she says she is coordinating. She is rather part of the problem of the Jonathan administration. Don’t exonerate her because she supervised the fuel, kerosene subsidy – the two sources through which corruption took place.
But even beyond that, she is too naive, given her background, to know what the militants are doing with our oil. So, for her to say that she is coordinating the economy means that she does not understand what she is talking about and what is happening. If she knows, she won’t be using that title. Even in the Finance Ministry where she is, she has not performed well; else, the economy would not have crashed. She is a major part of Jonathan’s failure, because she is trusted.
Okonjo-Iweala de-branded herself in this Jonathan’s administration. The economy, under her, is lying prostrate. Part of Jonathan’s problems is that he allowed some unreliable people to have their way through him. He trusted many unreliable people who actually do not know what they are doing. It is either he is not interested in governance, hence he does not care or he lacks the intellect. Okonjo-Iweala is one of those who had their way through Jonathan. And it is a shame. If I were Jonathan, I would have sacked her after a year or two for failing the administration.
This shows that her performance with President Olusegun Obasanjo was rather provided by Obasanjo’s clout and not through her own proficiency.
It was obvious that the international community took particular interest in the election and supported the opposition.
Forget the international community. Buhari was voted president by 15 million Nigerians. There was no (member of) international community in that number. He should rather try to find out what those Nigerians who voted for him and even those who did not vote for him want and begin to work for Nigeria and Nigerians. That is his mandate. If he is doing the right things, any country that loves Nigeria and Nigerians will support him. The way it happens is that if you are performing well and your country loves you, the international community has no choice but to support you. All you need is to serve your country, focus on your country and every other person in the world will come and support you. It is your country you are serving, not the international community.
You don’t pander to the international community. When they see that you are on the right track, they will reach out to you.
Nigeria has what it takes to be made a great country by Nigerians. They are all over the world. All you need do is to assemble them and inspire them to perform. That was what Obasanjo did in his economic team where Okonjo-Iweala became a star. But her performance under Jonathan and the reasons she is giving for failure have shown that it was Obasanjo who performed and not her. There is what you call leadership inspiration. It is a technology, an asset. The human beings you have with ideas who can add value are more important than all other resources in Nigeria.
It’s time we began to look for good people and stop promoting those who come to have their way and talk rubbish, when 25 million Nigerians do not have jobs, and 12 million children are out of school. This is the country with the highest number of out-of-school children. These are time-bombs. Government must be responsive to them and give them meaningful life as Nigerians.