His Excellency Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife CON, who holds a doctorate
degree in Economics and who has a Commander
of the Order of the Niger, CON, award and was
Third Republic Governor of Anambra State as well
as being a former Presidential Adviser on Political
Matters to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. He
was also a member of the 2014 National
Conference in this interview, the retired permanent
secretary who hails from Igboukwu, Aguata Local government, Anambra State, speaks on burning national issues including economic recession, the debate on sale
of national assets and the Biafran agitation,among others.
The economic recession is real. How did we get
here?
THE Federal Government pushed the country into
recession. Some of the actions are inexcusable.
Some are very pitiable. What affects the confidence of economic agents is what they see,what they hear, what they feel. If the government of the country begins to say
the government is broke, they (investors) have
nothing to doubt. That accounts for so many
exits from Nigeria. There were all kinds of
normally unprintable things said by our
government: that we are bankrupt, we are broke,
we are this and that. They took over and within a
very short time they started making negative
statements about the economy. This is not a
matter of blaming anybody. You just look at how
many companies have quit Nigeria.
I know of a friend who brought in some
expatriates to co-invest with him here. They were
just about to get started when the first salvo from
government was fired that the country should not
be invested in, because that is what it means;
that the country is broke, that it is a poor
economic decision to come here. So, the
foreigners ran away and the man is still
struggling now to get new partners.
Check the number of companies that were here a
year-plus ago and how many are here today.
Even the airlines, at least the ones that spoke
out, said they had no confidence in Nigeria and
that was why they were leaving. I have told many
people that the blame-game must stop. Now,
that (blame-game) is the most stupid thing to
do. If it was the fault of the last administration,
let him take us to all the things as they were
during that administration. Let him take us to the
price of rice that was obtainable before he took
over; take us to that petrol price; take us to the
exchange rate; take us to the market as it
existed; take us back to what it was when you
took over. Any blame-game is a waste of time.
What is your view on the issue of restructuring?
The issue of restructuring should unite us. There
is no reason for disagreement; maybe we do not
even understand. I was recently misquoted
somewhere as saying that this issue of
restructuring is political. Indeed, it is more
economic than political. We are concerned about
improving the welfare of ordinary Nigerian people.
It is not a matter of the rich. Those who are
against it may be feudalists, who do not care
very much about the welfare of the ordinary
people. What am I talking about? The present
states, which are not feasible are spreading
hunger and suffering to ordinary Nigerians
because the states are too small to cater for the
economic interests of their people.
I was trying to explain what is called “Economies
of Scale”. You don’t have it in politics but in
economics. What does it say? When you have
large population or space, you can produce
anything at lower unit cost than when you have a
very small population.
Now, it is not just a matter of lower unit cost but
also the capability to establish something like
power in any state. For now, the capability is not
there because the states are too small to afford
what it takes to generate power easily. When you
are dealing with water supply, power,
transportation, environmental problems, it is
always cheaper if you have a larger space, so, the
issue is very economic and it is ordinary
economics, not high-level economics.
Political aspect
Now, the political aspect of it has to do with how
to begin to create more states. Ironsi recognized
26 provinces, not states and we said he was
going to make Nigeria a unitary system and killed
him. Now, after killing him, they wanted to defeat
Biafra in war, they started with 12 states and
eventually we got to 36 states plus Abuja; and
northern military men created the states to favour
the North. That is why you hear some people
from the North attacking restructuring.
Indeed, the political aspect of it has been taken
care of. We can negotiate. Instead of all of us
suffering lack of welfare, we can make some
concessions to the North so that they can agree
to restructuring properly. What is there?
Only about four states can support themselves;
every end of the month we rush to Abuja to go
and take oil money and we have learned not to
do anything any more except to share oil money.
I am told of some local governments where
people only go to the secretariat just once in a
month when they share resources at the federal
level and it gets to the local government, then the
chairman calls people and says, “okay o, e don
happen”, and they share the money and go away.
States were created to fight Nigeria-Biafra war.
After the war, subsequent military leaders from
the North created states to favour their areas.
That is why the North-West has seven states and
Kano has by far more local governments than
Lagos. Bayelsa produces oil but has only eight
local governments and we are sharing money
based on that.
Somebody opened his mouth, a big man from the
north, and said, Nigerian oil is northern oil. You
see what comes out of our mouth? The North
and the South were always treated equal, that
was why Ironsi recognized some provinces, equal
number in the North and South. The regions were
not the same. We had extra region, Mid-West.
Out of four regions, one was north, three were
south but we then developed a fair system of
having six geo-political zones; three in the North
and three in the South like it used to be, equality
of units. Now, let’s use the six geo-political zones
as federating units that enables each unit to be
big enough to take care of the needs of the
people and benefit from economies of scale.
Think about the past when we had the regions,
there was “ownership” of regions and therefore,
not too much corruption. If you squandered our
money, we could literally kill you but today,
“Nigerian money” is like nobody’s money and so
people steal anyhow.
There was also competition among the regions.
Eastern Nigeria was very developed.
Look at what Awolowo did in education in the
West and it lasted up till today. Educationally, the
West is still ahead, the foundation was laid by
Awolowo. So, the issue of restructuring should
not divide us.
Unfair number of states
If the North is so sad about losing some majority
institutions, the unfair number of states given to
them, we can make some political amends by way
of compensation, but they should not go about
telling outright lies that oil belongs to the North.
What about the Biafran agitation? What is your
take on that?
I can say it many times because it is the truth,
our people have some bottom lines, principles,
which guide their actions. One of them arises
from this statement: Life without honour is not
worth living. The second is: He that is rejected
does not reject himself. If you don’t feel accepted
by your neighbours, what do you do? So, Biafra
becomes inevitable when injustice is made
permanent.
People like me don’t even think of any division at
all because I believe that nobody in his right mind
would want Nigeria to break up and the people,
who seem to be pushing the break-up, the Fulani,
are the least well-placed, if we were to break up
because they would lose the most from a Nigeria
that breaks up. The Igbo, somehow would
manage to survive and thrive; the Yoruba are
already surviving; South-South, God blessed
them; Middle-Belt, well, they might have
problems, being the closest people to the Fulani
but the bottom line is that Nigeria is better off
with the same people it has now and that there
should be no break-up if we think about the long-
term interests of each group.
Let us look at the Igbo, they feel the most
rejected at this stage. What is the problem?
The Igbo come to a place empty-handed, he
might even carry faeces on his head to make
small money and gradually he gets a kiosk,
eventually, he builds a palace in the place.
Unfortunately, without knowing it, he would sit in
front of his mighty palace and appear to ooze
more confidence than the original owners of the
land.
And, if the Igbo is from Anambra, he may even
insult some people without knowing it when he is
boasting. Therefore, jealousy would set in and
from there to hatred, then the next thing is blood-
flow. This is the problem we have in the country.
But I am pleasantly surprised at Nigerians.
In spite of what I have just explained, you find
some people writing that Igbo are needed in
Nigeria. I mean, these are people who can see.
The truth is that Igbo are a gift God gave Nigeria.
Look at anywhere you are talking about. Ijebu-
Ode, go and count the houses.
Go to Lagos and even in Abuja here or Kaduna,
count the houses. Another Igbo principle is,
“where you live, you mend it”, that is, you develop
it. But we have over-done it and people are
jealous of them and those who are jealous of
them sometimes forget that they did not steal
money and those who are Igbo forget that they
can get a lot better by studying the people of the
immediate environment, giving help and making
friends with the local people.
The best thing is to restructure now; the earlier
we restructure, the tighter the federation. The
later we restructure, the more our federation
would be more like a confederation. Those who
are stealing money and dumping money in foreign
banks come back here and talk nonsense about
restructuring because they have so much money
and they do not want anything that would bring
money to other Nigerians.
What is your take on the debate on the sale of
national assets?
Who will buy them? National assets are very
heavy things. Only those who dumped our money
in foreign banks can bring tiny bits of what they
stole to buy our national assets. It is a matter of
thinking about fairness. When you call the people
who have stolen our money, who would compete
with them? Let them sell the assets and you
would find out who bought them and from where.
You would find that it is not a fairly-spread
participation. So, it is unjust to compound
injustice and to give advantage to the more
corrupt members of the society.
The House of Representatives has taken steps to
establish State Police. Do you see any merit or
demerit in this?
The 2014 National Conference of which I was a
member approved state police. Today, with the
marauding cattle-rearers, everybody would call
for state police instead of the one that is
controlled by the Federal Government and which
closes its eyes as people are being killed; seeing
somebody with AK-47 tending to their cattle and
they are not asking questions. So, I think this
time, we need it.
In the beginning I was opposed to it. Many years
ago when I was governor, I found that those who
use the powers of governors can abuse state
police. I said, for instance, a man is having dinner
with his wife and men of the state police storm
his house, abuse him and arrest him only on the
excuse that the man is also aspiring to be the
next governor. What that means is that if we
allow state police, when it comes to aspiring to
the office of the governor, the state police would
behave so callously like what happened in the Edo
election, like what INEC also did in that election.
America said ours is another brand of democracy.
The US Ambassador to Nigeria said what INEC
was announcing was different from what were in
the wards. The rigging was done at the Collation
Centre.
How about plans by the Federal Government to
establish grazing reserves and ranches for
herdsmen?
This brazen islamization cannot work. They even
said they would import grass and then, I don’t
know if they will take over the cattle to sell to us
or leave it to the individuals to sell to us.
It is based on ancient practice where people must
go about. There is a new technology for fodder
production and this technology recycles fodder in
just six days.
So, you don’t need to move around and even
when you want to move the cattle to the point of
sale, you truck it down. How callous can our
minds be?
Are we decaying in the mind? You plant
something, you come to look at your farm and
you find cattle eating what you planted. You talk,
they shoot you down. What kind of society are we
running?
Grazing reserves
So, the South as a whole declared against
grazing reserves; I know because I chaired the
meeting of the whole South (Southern Nigeria
Peoples Assembly) in Delta and it was a
unanimous decision among southern people. I
heard that the Federal Government proceeded to
give money to some people to twist them but
people have rejected grazing reserves. I don’t
even support it being done in the North.
Those people are also Nigerians and they have
right to cultivate. In fact, we are eating more
from the North than the North is eating from us.
So, we should not allow the cattle to go and eat
up the farm produce of the North. Government
should encourage cattle ranching not grazing
reserves.
The Buhari administration said it would not
implement the report of the 2014 national
conference, describing the exercise as essentially
a job for the boys. What is your view on this?
As a member, I know what transpired there.
Nigeria for once, working together made
decisions. Not all the decisions were palatable to
all sections of Nigeria but they were unanimous
because you may not agree, but we would
persuade you. For the first time, Nigerians met
and took decisions by consensus most of the
time because voting was scarce.
So, if people who should know, people
representing every group in Nigeria, that is the
greatest achievement of that period and anybody,
who says he does not want it is only trying to
play sectional game. If you are talking Nigeria,
that (confab report) is the answer but if your are
talking about sectionalism, well, you go ahead and
do your own because you are in power. Imagine
what happens when you are out of power. Or, are
you insisting on the country breaking up?
The president made three major promises, anti-
corruption fight, war against insurgency and job
creation. How would you rate the government
now?
No, that’s a lie. There were many things he said.
One, petrol price N45, one dollar to one naira and
such other things. Even the ones you mentioned,
Boko Haram is still there killing people. I said to
myself, at the beginning, when Buhari appointed
over 40 people and not one south-easterner was
appointed, I was talking, I was writing. But when
he appointed ministers and I saw the distribution
of portfolios, how it was, I gave up criticizing. For
example, even today, no Igbo man is in the
National Security Council and no group is more
populous than the Igbo, none. You see the
herdsmen, marauding and killing and government
is not concerned. You see in Nigeria of 2016, you
kill somebody and say the reason is blasphemy
and the government does nothing. I must doff my
heart for Ganduje, the Governor of Kano State,
who said the right thing.
Indeed, I am a Christian but what made me a
Christian is because I arrived as a Christian. I did
not choose to be. I was Christian on arrival
because my parents were Christians. If you are
from my village, town or local government, you
are a Christian and even largely 99 percent, if you
are from Anambra, you are a Christian. So, it is
not a matter of choice. Some of us were Muslims on arrival and some were pagans. We had no choice to make as per the circumstances of our birth. If there is a blame, you go to God but, on our part, we only know how to praise God. So, no need blaming Buhari. It is not a matter of choice for him but it may be a matter of how much he knew.
Ego Kristi Media Reporting from Awka Anambra State.
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