• Those criticising Obasanjo should look for other things to do
Aformer Minister of Health, Prof ABC Nwosu, has again made a strong case for restructuring. In his words, the very survival of Nigeria as a country depends on restructuring.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, spoke a former chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), reacting to the attack on Obasanjo by the presidency, said whoever that is criticising Obasanjo really should look for something else. He noted that Nigeria is the most over-administered country in the world, with about 500 parastatals.
What is your view on the state of the nation?
The state of the nation at any time is measurable by the state of the citizens of the nation. It’s not by the opinions of people. If the citizens are good, feel good, or are comfortable, then the state of the nation is good. But, if there are pains, inconveniences, suffering and hunger, then the state of the nation is bad. And currently everybody can measure it for himself. As for me, the state of the nation is not good, because the state of the citizens is not good.
The government is asking the citizens to make sacrifices, tighten their belts. But the same people in government are living in opulence. Are they good examples of what they’re preaching?
You can decide that for yourself. For me, I was a minister, and I remember that we graduated from Peugeot 406 to Peugeot 505 and they were locally made. They were made in Nigeria and they were supplied by Peugeot Automobile Nigeria. The SUVs were for field trips. SUVs were usually for field trips and for field activities in ministries that engage in field activities. They have so many SUVs now; so many in the National Assembly and the government in particular, and nobody wants made in Nigeria vehicles; they must all be foreign vehicles with the outflow of foreign exchange, with the consequent impact and effect on the foreign exchange activities. I think I have been as direct as I can on this matter. If you want a simplistic answer, it will be that the tightening your belt on the people is completely in dissonance with the opulence of those in public office. That’s the simplistic answer.
Former President Obasanjo and the presidency have been at daggers’ drawn over the former’s comments on the state of the nation. You were in Obasanjo’s government. What have you got to say?
I was part of Obasanjo’s government, and I’m proud of my service. Whoever that is criticising Obasanjo really should look for something else. That we can communicate now by mobile phone is because of Obasanjo’s government. Mobile phones did not exist in Nigeria before Obasanjo; he made sure that mobile phones existed. He auctioned the thing within his first year. If that is not a profound achievement, I want to know what is.
Obasanjo cleared the debts of Nigeria, he built the foreign reserve. Now we have built the debts again, back over time. And if you served Obasanjo, if you brought a Peugeot 607 car to the council, or you bought it, it was investigated and you had a query. I think I will leave it at that. Those who served Obasanjo knew that he was not going to tolerate certain things and the opulence in office. He would not. I was Minister of Health, so I know.
What is your opinion on the cost of governance in this administration?
Nigeria is about the most over-administered country in the world. It has about 500 parastatals; these were the things the Oronsaye report said you have to stop. When Obasanjo came in, he had 36 ministers and I was the Political Adviser; I was appointed on the first day of his administration. He had 36 ministers and all the ministers know that it was I that have their CVs for them to go for clearance. He then said that he wanted a unified country – that was why other parties were asked to bring in ministers. That is how Bola Ige and Adesanya’s daughter, Mrs. Dupe Adelaja came into government. He did it based on geo-political zones. In places like the South West, he took two ministers who were not in the PDP. Any zone that had different a political party, he took two ministers and that was 12 ministers from the six zones, which brought the number of ministers to 48, and when the country started calming down, the number of ministers went down gradually. Remember that Obasanjo succeeded June 12 and Abacha directly, so there was the need to calm tension, and that was why the number of ministers went up to 48. Where you had the All Peoples Party (APP) like in Abia State, where Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, who contested the governorship election with Orji Uzor Kalu, was brought in to the government. As a minister, I had one Peugeot 504 car as a pilot car and another Peugeot 504 car. That was all. I had one policeman and one intelligence officer.
The Patriots are calling for the scrapping of the 1999 constitution. They want President Tinubu to initiate the process of getting a people’s democratic constitution. What’s your position on this?
I’m with the Patriots 1000 per cent. The survival of Nigeria depends on having a new constitution; the survival of Nigeria depends on restructuring. The survival of Nigeria doesn’t depend on, for me as a Christian, for Archangel Michael, Gabriel or Raphael coming down from heaven to preside over the affairs of the country. If you bring the most perfect leader, he would fail because of the structure of Nigeria.
I will give you three examples. The country that our forefathers negotiated was not for the federal government to take over 50 per cent of the national revenue and to have 68 items in the Exclusive List. That must change immediately. That is why you see the federal government getting involved in local matters. In which federation does that take place? A federation is the centre and the federating units. This nonsense about sub national must stop. This is how far we have deviated and that is why a new constitution, a new rule must be.
Secondly, see what is happening with the electoral system. The one that pains me most is that everybody says that June 12 was the best election; everybody has said that June 12 shall be the Democracy Day. Everybody is happy that MKO Abiola was declared the winner and given the honour of GCFR and his deputy, GCON, but nobody remembers the chairman of the NEC, Prof Humphrey Nwosu that brought the June 12. He just died. I went to his home two weeks ago to drop my condolence. It is like people after eating a meal acknowledge that it was the best meal they have eaten, but nobody remembers the chef. The chef got humiliated for coking the best meal, which everybody was enjoying. Even the president when he was naming the heroes of June 12, everybody omitted him completely and everybody was happy over that. May God receive the soul of Prof Humphrey Nwosu, B Sc first class honours, PhD University of California, Beckley, and Professor of Political Science, who taught us the Option A4.
The third one is the level of uncompleted projects in Nigeria. Even in the time of Gen Kontagora, he identified about 8,000 uncompleted projects. Look at the National Library of Nigeria. Is it not a shame that the national library in the federal capital remains that like since I came to Abuja over 25 years ago? If you look at the level of uncompleted projects, it is worrisome. Why not start a project and complete it? I will give you my own in the Ministry of Health. We faced guinea worm eradication. This brought me closer to Jimmy Carter, even when I was in Anambra, and today, Nigeria was declared guinea worm free in 2012. Nobody can remember what guinea worm disease looked like. We started and we finished. It wasn’t me that initiated it.
Two months after I came in, President Obasanjo called me into his office and said, ‘we are going to have an African plan health meeting, I have invited everybody, if you disgrace me, I will also disgrace you; I won’t forgive you.’ I became minister in February and this thing came in April. We worked till the early hours of the morning. Sometimes I would remove my shoes and put my legs in a pan of water and that came out, and now everybody talks about Africa Plan of Action. Bill Clinton, the former Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Anan and other people came. We held meetings and from there, we had global fund for HIV, TB, and AIDS. The fight I had to get involved in was because Uganda was already there and Senegal was insisting on being there because you have to have an Anglophone and Francophone. I got a Nigerian, the legendary professor, who was the first director in Tropical diseases, WHO, from the University of Ibadan. We were not thinking of ethnicity, we got him there and Nigeria benefitted over half a billion dollars from it. Other people who succeeded took it on. They didn’t drop it; they finished it.
If you look at what is happening now, there is so much money spent even in difficult times and only a little that can be seen. What we are hearing is ‘have patience, we have drawn up a plan, we did this and that.’ And I can say it to myself; I was a minister for just two years. I replaced Dr Tim Manakaya, and I can point at what we did. I was going to the new site of the University of Jos to make sure that the job is finished. But, here we hear of plans, we hear of MoUs, we hear of this and that, but we don’t see anything. I started and made sure that HIV, which was only five per cent when we took off, and we had to diagnose properly to ascertain the person’s status.
You remember the Abalaka controversy over the cure of AIDS? Fortunately for me, I’m not a medical doctor, and I’m a simple PhD holder from Imperial Collage, University of London. I told Abalaka to take his argument to medical doctors somewhere. I said, once you are diagnosed, you must be on treatment, and I knew there are some nationals who were charging hundreds of thousands of naira for treatment, but I pleaded with Obasanjo and he granted my pleas and it was N12, 000 for the cocktail of three, which we got from a company in India, CIPLA. Remember at that time Obasanjo came, AIDS was the fear of everybody.
Why Dr. Manakaya had all the problems, I believe, was that people who had AIDS were praying that Abalaka should not be wrong so that they would not die. We had to get the drugs. Now, AIDS isn’t the fear of everybody. There must be certain measurable and there must be certain tangibles and there must be something to be given to the citizens in return for his patriotism; there must be something to be given. You cannot ask somebody to be patriotic and you have no obligation to him. That is why we coined the words, ‘democracy dividends’.
President Tinubu has been accused of nepotism, like former President Buhari, by giving most appointments to his Yoruba, or Lagos, friends. When can we have a leader that sees the entire Nigeria as his constituency?
That is a dream. That dream will begin to come about by restructuring the country. If we can have six geo-political zones and have people in their own geo-political zones, and with the devolution of powers, the things that are best done; that are nearest to the people would be given to the government nearest to those people. You can’t be handling primary school from Abuja to my town, Nnewi in Anambra. Why can’t the Anambra State do it? What business does the federal government got to do with the local government? All that the federal government has is with the federating units and the federating units are the states now.
By this federation account thing, we are depriving them of the will to source their own internally generated revenue. So, I don’t know why the federal government has become a behemoth, that is responsible for the do-and-die – it is no more do-or-die – it is a do-and-die business to become president of Nigeria. Everybody wants to become the president because of this question you have posed. When you are the president of Nigeria, your people benefit. So, it is let’s do everything for our person to be the president so that our people will benefit.
Nigeria can either restructure or devolve powers to the federating units and stop this nonsense of sub-national government, which is unheard of in a federation and then the kind of cooperation you expect would come. After all, we were found in each other’s area before Nigeria was created. There were Igbo in Kano before even Lugard came. They were also in Lagos. Look at the kind of inter marriages we have now; how many of us don’t have grandchildren from other ethnic groups?
With the proper structure, Nigerians are capable of loving themselves and uniting. The level of unemployment can easily go. If you activate the Second Niger Bridge, it will take many people. If you begin to build this coastal road, it will take so many people. If you begin to build new railway system and to connect many places, it will take so many people. It just requires imagination. Governance is about vision and imagination.
What is your reaction to the agitation for self-determination from many parts of Nigeria?
Those who are ready to think deeper about where these things are coming from should know that they are coming from bad governance. These agitations are coming from the fact that some people felt that they are being cheated in Nigeria. Some people feel that the wealth from their place is being used to develop other areas to their complete exclusion.
There are things that are being done blatantly that annoy people and these people say, a person rejected doesn’t reject himself. If you think for example that I shouldn’t be a citizen of Nigeria, then let me create my own citizenship. But nobody has thought of it this way that if you restructure and remove many of the powers from the centre to the federating units, those in the East will stop blaming Abuja, they will start blaming Enugu for their problems if Enugu is their capital.
You will find that Nigerians, especially if there is no threat to security, will make happy homes where they are and if they fall in love , they will have their children and grand children and overtime or in a generation, nobody would be talking about ethnicity, but not when there is this feeling of cheating. For example, you name 18 appointments, and when you are about one quarter of the population and there is absolutely none from your own that constitutes the one quarter of that polity, you don’t expect there won’t be agitations.
I respect Prof Ango a lot and for him to say it, it means we should actually come together. For me, the most important document is the 1995 Constituent Assembly, which was attended by all the eminent Nigerians. On the side of the Igbo, Ekwueme, Ojukwu, Mbakwe, Nwala etc attended. They were elected. I was Ojukwu’s campaign manager for Nnewi. Look at the draft constitution that was to be promulgated. That conference had full constituent powers. The draft constitution was to be signed by Abacha just before he died; he would have signed. You have a section that said, the presidency of Nigeria shall rotate between the north and the south.
He put it in the constitution. He refused to leave it to political parties to decide. The argument was about the geo-political zones being the federating units. The sticking point was that some people were feeling, for example, how could we have a Mid West Region with capital in Benin and now being lumped in a South-South region with the capital in Port Harcourt? It is a legitimate point and which people should work out.
I believe the conference Abdullahi is talking about may be tilted to this direction; looking at all things – whether the presidential is the best form of government for Nigeria or we should return to the parliamentary system that was before. All the conferences have always harped on the devolution of powers. How we went from 28 items to now 68 on the Exclusive List is amazing.
You can go to your father’s farm and see people there digging up everything and they will say they have a license to mine something. Why can’t you involve the government closer to the people to do the mining? Who does the mining in your area is determined at the federal. Look at the level of pollution in the Niger Delta. I recall, on May 29, 1999, after my appointment was announced. I was with people in the house to congratulate Mr. President. As he was going, I told him that I’m Prof ABC Nwosu. He just looked at me, and asked: ‘how did you know such and such a person?’ He took me to the small room (God is my witness, I have said it so many times in the media), put his hand in his right pocket. What he had was the draft bill for the Niger Delta Development Corporation (NDDC). He said it was wrong for people to be giving so much and you don’t really develop the area. You are only polluting the area. On the left pocket, he had the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) bill, and said if we must succeed, we must fight corruption. We may have succeeded in some; we may have failed in others. I’m giving you this for a fact. I immediately got in the mood of what was required of me.
How do you think the Nnamdi Kanu issue can be resolved for peace to return to the South East?
It is not dependent on the South East to have peace or for the Monday sit-at-home to be stopped. Nnamdi Kanu should be released immediately. Not for political reasons, because he has been freed by a court of law. Nnamdi Kanu is not a threat to the existence of this country. He is not a terrorist. Only recently, he was the chairman of APGA, London branch. People forget this. So much is being made of Nnamdi Kanu. I don’t know why. But, I recall that there was a small group when Buhari took over on what should be done. We had a leader. I had the privilege of being a member of a delegation to discuss with another delegation to see Buhari (I didn’t follow to see Buhari) and we said, release him. My position now is, release Nnamdi Kanu. It will not make the situation to deteriorate. It will not make the situation much better, but I don’t think he is the cause of it.
