By Dickson Okafor
Former National Secretary of the defunct National Centre Party of Nigeria (NCPN) and an accomplished legal practitioner, Chief Johnny Ucheaga has revealed how the late nationalist and one of the founding fathers of Nigeria’s Independence, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, known as Zik of Africa, declined the offer made by the then military regime to hand over to him in 1979.
He said that if the Zik had accepted the offer, the Southeast would have produced the first executive president of Nigeria.
In this interview, he also talked about other relevant issues and commended President Bola Tinubu for appointing Iyom Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu as the new Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.
A viral video trended recently in which people called for the return to military rule. It has also been suggested by some people that Nigerians are fast losing hope in the Bola Tinubu-led federal administration. What are your thoughts on this assertion?
I think it will be an overstatement to say that Nigerians are no longer comfortable with or have lost confidence in the state of the nation. Nigeria is not under any invasion or any occupation by external forces. Nigeria is being governed by democratically elected and appointed officials. There are some countries that are being occupied by invaders. There is economic hardship and everybody is feeling it and it hits everybody differently. So, those that have fallback positions have fallen back to it in order to make ends meet. But the problem is that those who don’t have anything to fall back on may have no alternative. It is important for decision makers and the government to allow money to be in circulation. Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. So, everything is about the people even if tough measures are being taken, they should not assume everybody is an economist who understands how policies will be in their favour at the shortest time possible. We are talking about peasant farmers and sick people because the kind of salaries Nigerian workers earn is too poor. Sometimes when you tell citizens from other African countries the salary of a Nigerian worker, they say it cannot be true. Because they know that Nigeria is one of the richest countries in the continent with a lot of natural and human resources. But if you tell them that a Nigerian worker earns as low as $41 a month, they will say give me a break. Naturally, it couldn’t have come out from my mouth that somebody is earning such an amount as salary. The commercial rate of $1 as I speak with you is N1,720 which means an average Nigerian worker earns $41 which is N70, 520 a month as a take home pay at the present high rate of inflation.
Shall we say that Nigeria’s economy was sustained by fuel subsidy because the nation’s economy plunged into an unbearable state immediately fuel subsidy was removed on May 29, 2023?
Yes, Nigeria is a country of subsidy because virtually everything is subsidized. Parents pay huge amount of money as school fees for their children in private universities because there is no subsidy there. Look at how much parents pay as school fees in one year and other expenses when compared to public schools such as primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. You will see that it is cheaper in state and federal schools up to university level. Federal and state universities have more professors and more classrooms, but look at the differentials in their fees for the same degree. When you also take a look at private primary and secondary schools that are not subsidized, how much they charge for a term or a school year. If you also compare that with what is obtainable in public schools where there are even larger compounds, larger and more classrooms and perhaps more trained teachers. Why parents send their school to private schools is because of perceived laxity in the way certain things are done. For example, teachers at private schools don’t go on strike like in public schools. Granted that strikes are not happening in public schools like before, but that was what put a lot of parents off, including me, because my children went to private schools. So, you have to pay more hence I just used it as a microcosm. Those differentials are called subsidies and because the removal of fuel subsidy has hit us hard which shows we are drinking our fuel. And they say it is our own, but the problem is that you are now wittingly or unwittingly subsidizing West Africa because it is very cheap here. Even if you buy it here and you send it across the borders, you make double profit. So, which business can you be doing to be making double profit? And some people who are supposed to stop you will look the other way because you gave them a bribe, because you will still have a lot of money after all. And it is not helping the government to grow the economy. But if you are an investor willing to sell at international price, but you are directed by the government to sell at local price; that is the reason foreign investors started leaving Nigeria. Some years ago, many companies were operating three shifts as people were working morning, afternoon and night and the workers were well paid. Subsidy worked because eventually it was for us, but later we destroyed everything. Now we are absorbing shocks that were not there before.
Nigerians clamoured for a functioning local refinery in the country to reduce the price of petroleum products, but with the commencement of Dangote Refinery the price of fuel has gone higher. What do you make of this?
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo sold the Kaduna Refinery when he was president to a company that was run by Alhaji Aliko Dangote because they were the highest bidder. Unfortunately, the government that took over cancelled the sale of any of the refineries and we have been spending so much money to run refineries that are producing nothing. If all the refineries are auctioned, we could save a lot of money instead of them being parked like rotting engines which only private investors could maintain. Now, has anybody apologized? The Ajaokuta Steel Mill in Kogi State has been abandoned. Again, during the era of Obasanjo he saw that the project was built by Soviet Union engineers and would require some people who could understand them to revive and maintain them. Also, the construction was given to some Indian companies and that deal too was struck down. How many tons of steel have come out from Ajaokuta? Part of our problem is policy somersault. Why I’m making reference to Obasanjo’s move to make these projects functional is not because of my closeness to him, but because he meant well. Look at the steel rolling mills. How many of them are rolling? We are still paying staff salaries to these moribund companies because they still have staff. It is unfortunate that many years after Obasanjo’s reign we are still paying salaries to organisations that are producing nothing. Because somebody says a particular section of the country has a hand in these projects, it doesn’t matter because somebody’s relative has interest in something that a whole country will be paying salaries for nothing. So, who has gained? We are now owing people because President Tinubu said he would continue from where the last administration stopped. If he continued the same pattern, where 95 per cent of Nigeria’s total earnings were being used to service debt, we won’t make any progress. I’m not an accountant, but that is what we are being told. Dangote said that the cartel in oil business in Nigeria is worse than drug barons. It is like when you are at the very top of a very big iroko tree and you want to come down, you either fly, jump from that place or start coming down gradually. The choice now is ours and that is exactly what Nigerians are going through. And it will be painful because at the top of an iroko you have all sorts of breeze and those breezes are not your own, they are for the iroko.
Can Tinubu solve these problems he inherited within the remaining period of his first term?
That is what he is doing. When I was a small boy if I had malaria my mother would give me something that is bitter. I would immediately spit it out and they would pick it and wash it and give it to me again to swallow. And being a small boy I must swallow it and that is the way you get better. Which child will eat sweet something and spit it out? You have to swallow it. If you don’t swallow a bitter pill when you are sick, you will go into a coma.
Check this story on Part 2
Why presidency eluded Igbo in 1979 –Ucheaga, NCPN Secretary (2)
