Category: Interview

Having written about the civil war, what is your take on it considering the fact that part of the war was fought at Asaba?

I lost my family in the war. And this is a product of the civil war. There was a genocide committed by the Nigerian Army at Asaba. We were not Biafrans. The Biafrans would take their case anywhere. We Asaba people, we were not in Ojukwu’s Biafra map. We were in Nigeria’s map. Some of us fought for Biafra. Some people fought for Nigeria. General Iweze fought for Nigeria. My uncles, some of them fought in the Nigerian Air Force. So, for anybody to come and tell you there was no genocide is talking nonsense.

How about Biafran involvement in genocide?

There was no Biafran genocide. Because the underlying word in genocide is plot. Did they plot for any Nigerian side to be wiped out? There is a United Nations conclusive finding under Dr. Edem Kojo, in 1969, that there was a genocide against the Igbo. I can give you the paper. It is not a question of somebody cheating anybody. Nobody sat down and planned that this part of Nigeria would be wiped out.

What is your impression about General Alabi Isama’s war memoir, Tragedy of Victory?

General Alabi Isama’s book is incomplete because he failed to talk much about Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The leader of the January 15th coup was Christian Anuforo. Nzeogwu was not in the coup. Nzeogwu came later because of his way of life. Nzeogwu did not drink. Nzeogwu didn’t smoke. Nzeogwu’s driver was a Hausa boy. Nzeogwu never attended any Ibo town union meeting. He never attended any local, tribal meeting. His best music was martial music and his mentors were Gen (Tito) of Yugoslavia, Patrice Lumunba, and Che Guevara. Those were his mentors. And he would wake up 7am and go to mass but he was a Hausa boy, shaving, and wearing babariga. He never chased any woman. He wasn’t going to get married. His mission was to go and fight in South Africa. So, he needed a Nigerian leader that would help him. That was why he switched from the Sardauna to embrace Awo, no Igbo. The other leader was Emmanuel Ifeajuna, who has been into revolutions from the University of Ibadan. Revolution has been on his mind. And if you’re from my side, Onitsha people say that they are Igbo, like Ngwa people say they are not Igbo. Some people from Nsukka area, they relate with Idoma. We know who are the Igbo. Ifeajuna at his time was the greatest high profile athlete when he scaled 6.9 (metres) in Vancouver. He was the first black athlete. He pulled off his shirt, like what these athletes do now. And there was pandemonium in the city of Vancouver. If you go to any exercise book in the 50s, 60s, 70s, you will see him on the cover. All his life was at Ibadan and his best friend was Segun Awolowo, Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka. Achebe was not a revolutionary, he was just a writer. And they were chasing the best women in Ibadan. That was why Christopher Okigbo was able to marry the princess from Attah. These boys were not talking tribes.

Some of those authors of books on the Nigerian Civil War were players in the war and could not have had the benefit of hindsight and research which you had. Why do you give much credence to Gen Olusegun Obasanjo?

You know Biafra surrendered unconditionally. I won’t come here to denigrate Ojukwu. But if Ojukwu had listened, Biafra could have gotten back its currency, it could have gotten its army reintegrated. Go and read the Think-Tank Memoranda of the Addis Ababa Peace Conference. A man, (Habeeb Bogiva) from Tunisia, said, when the British troop came, they said they’re bringing Obasanjo, he’s the only one who has the humanity that can make Biafra surrender and you’re telling me that he is a coward, that he was shot in the buttocks. That is their problem. Then, you have demystified the surrender. Biafra can now go and claim that they didn’t surrender. That is the meaning of that lie. What happened when the Biafrans came to Mid West, they were involved in collateral damage. And it was not a Biafran Army. There was no order from the headquarters for them to do what they did in Warri, which I acknowledged in my book. In fact, they were to move straight to Lagos. Gowon was flying to Zaria until the same Obasanjo you’re saying had no courage said no. And it was the same Obasanjo that took Nzeogwu’s paper from Kaduna to come and negotiate with Agunyi Ironsi during the fledging days of the 1966 coup. And I’m telling you, the coup was a perfect success. Go and read the biography of Mallam Aminu Kano. Aminu Kano was to be deputy to Awo in that coup. The principal aim of January 1966 coup was to install Obafemi Awolowo as the Prime Minister of Nigeria. And the boys would now move to South Africa. Nzeogwu was not interested in Nigeria.

We have spoken enough about genocide. Let us move away from that. There is this argument that the battle in Owerri was not conclusive. What to you were the elements that made it impossible for each of the sides to cave in during the crisis that lasted more than one year?

You know, I’m not an authority in military battles but I know that in a way, you’re asking me about the commander. They said Scorpion (Gen. Benjamin Adekunle) was the best that Nigeria could offer. I do not disagree with him on battleground confrontation. That is not my area. My area is on civilian consequence but I know about Owerri. The greatest Biafran commander was not my uncle Achuzia. Achuzia would go to battle with a battalion, he would come back with a company, sometimes the mission was not complete. He would shoot some of them himself. The greatest commander of Biafran Army was Timothy Onwuatuegwu and that is why I am saying here that Danjuma and all of them, in military convention, after the war and you announce that you have surrendered, you don’t touch soldiers, you arrest them. Obasanjo did that. He arrested all the soldiers in Owerri. And he was very nice to them, even though they said they didn’t get this or that. Up to when they got to Lagos. Black Scorpion would not do that. And I told you the story of Murtala Muhammed. Three trailers had koboko, (whips) not bullets. So, what would koboko do, if they had entered Biafran heartland? Koboko was for us – for gentlemen to be flogged to death. So, in answer to your question, Owerri was concluded. Remember that Major Utuk, the Calabar commander at Owerri, was surrounded by the 8th Brigade commanded by Timothy Onwuatuegwu who was the best. Any time that there is crisis, he’s the one they call. So, Owerri was taken back from the federal troop but at a stage, they allowed an area for them to escape back.

Who wanted to bomb Port-Harcourt?

The man is alive. I can give you his number. It was these people who did Ogbunigwe. So, when the British came and they knew, that was reversed – that they were bringing this commander down who had a lot of humanity in him. In fact, the man who stopped the war was Akanu Ibiam. Ojukwu was not ready. Ojukwu believed he was going to win because they knew (Aju Ala). The Ogbunigwe became (Aju Ala). In artillery acquisition, the Russians are better than the US. The Russian mortar can go 24 miles but the Biafran artillery, the (Aju Ala) was going 26 miles. The Russians were alarmed. That was the main reason they supported Nigeria. They had sympathy for the Biafrans because every revolution claims sympathy for the Eastern countries, like the MPLA, Ethiopia, Lumumba, they had this. For the first time in Africa, Russia said ‘we’re suffering from yellow malaise – that is China.’ This black danger is coming – 26 miles was this Biafran mortar. It’s very crude, it may not be direct. There were many other problems but people were still dying. So, what I’m saying is that, I’m not here to defend Obasanjo. I’m here to say that man has managed, whether it is luck, whether it is destiny, to remain like Peron of Argentina in the balcony of the power corridors of the world.

January 15 coup’s main purpose was to topple the federal authorities under the corrupt regime of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and at that point in time, there was genocide established going on in Gboko, Tiv land. There was mayhem on the streets of Lagos, Ikorodu, Ibadan, Ijebu-Ode, Ijebu-Igbo up to Ekiti area. Balewa was like Jonathan. He couldn’t arrest the situation. Go and read The Man Died; that is why I don’t joke with Wole Soyinka, no matter what they are saying. Nzeogwu was the first Nigerian trained intelligence officer. He started the SSS at Apapa in 1963. It’s in my book, Nzeogwu, the unknown. So, they knew there was going to be a January 17th coup. The coup was to eliminate all the western intellectuals; Tai Solarin, Wole Soyinka, Bola Ige. What happened was that they were fed up with what was happening. If you come out to the streets of west, they burn you alive, whether you’re for this or that. This was the situation when the boys came out. You cannot just say somebody murdered Sardauna or Balewa. Nobody shot Balewa. This was corroborated by Segun Osoba. He was there at the launching (Isama’s Book). He (Osoba) was a Daily Times reporter at that time. And I wrote my own because my aunty was a girlfriend to Balewa at that time. If you want a wife, you must come to Asaba – Babangida, even Balewa who wasn’t chasing women, they gave him my aunty. She told me that Balewa had asthma. Balewa couldn’t swim in that their State House, Marina. Living opposite Balewa was Okotie-Eboh, the richest man then. And when the January 15th boys came, they came for him. He was to be shot at sight. Mbadiwe was to be shot at sight. Balewa, not to be touched because he was a gentleman. Sardauna of Sokoto shot at sight. Akintola shot at sight. Agunyi-Ironsi shot at sight. People are mixing it up. So, Nzeogwu said, give me Agunyi-Ironsi, I know him. If you don’t get him dismantled, that is the word, not shot, the coup would not happen. They said, ‘go to Sardauna’. So, what he did in Kaduna, the coup was successful, coup was successful in the west. So, which place was the coup not successful? Lagos. Who stopped the Lagos operation? Major Obienu, another Igbo man. He was the commander of a unit in Abeokuta. He didn’t show up. His boys had taken over the key security structures. The man who was to announce the coup who was not Nzeogwu, not Ifeajuna, it was Ademulegun. That was his only job. Up till now, we’re still researching why he didn’t announce the coup. And he was to announce that there was a revolution and Obafemi Awolowo is released. That was Nzeogwu’s number one purpose. He said, ‘if you don’t bring Awo as the Prime Minister, I will not join you because he is the only one talking about free education,. And his best friend was Segun Awolowo. How did he die? Mystery. How did the man that they suspected killed him die? The same place that this publisher of Tribune had his own motor accident.

So, when Nzeogwu waited for them for four hours, he made that spontaneous announcement in Kaduna. He wasn’t supposed to announce it. So, who is telling me it is tribal? So, in summary, what I am saying is any book that starts writing Nigerian military without first acknowledging that first, there was a lot of blood on the streets. I’m not talking about military people. Blood in Ibadan, you couldn’t come out on the streets in 1966. I’m coming back to the second phase of Nigerian crises – the war. Gowon benefitted from the coup. There was nothing like revenge coup. Nobody did any coup. What happened was that the Nigerian federation came together and every group wanted something. The Igbo, I don’t know what they want – up till now, I cannot find their interest. But, I can tell you straight, the northerners always wanted power. They want to control the army. They want their religion (Islam) to be dominant in our culture. The Yoruba want all the banks, the stock exchange, they want to control the financial events of the country. And they want Lagos to remain the capital, no matter if Abuja is there. And they want the Yoruba language spoken not only in Nigeria but up to the world. And I acknowledge them for that. The minorities, I’ve read The Kahama Declaration by Isaac Boro. They wanted to be out of this federation because their wealth was being depleted but now that things have changed, it looks like they want to stay. Now, during serious conflagrations by these major tribes, they always go with the north. This time, they’re there. It seems the easterners are the main support. I’m looking at the two sides before we make our conclusions. Those of us who are Midwestern Igbo had it so bad during the war from both sides. Because the Biafrans came, they didn’t tell us they were coming in. And if they were coming in, that plan originally was Nzeogwu’s plan. Nzeogwu said he was going to lead it. And he told Ojukwu, don’t declare Biafra, let us fight against the north. These people have everything. Like now, the whole military instalment is just in Kaduna, Zaria. So, if there is a massive air force attack on Nigeria concentrated on Kaduna and Zaria, we’re finished. There is nothing here. So, I’m saying we cannot write a Nigerian civil war book without telling us about Nzeogwu. I thought the General, being a commander of a training school – he started with training school according to his book, should have told us more about Nzeogwu, whether he believed or not. He should have started with what happened before the military came in. He just went straight into the war and tried to defend what they were doing.

You cannot prescribe what someone is going to write. Someone is writing a book, he has a right to say, this is my focus.

I am being called to comment. I have a right to critique also. There are areas I agree with him. I’m not saying he has no right to write the book. It’s just that somebody said, why did Achebe do his own? I agree with you. What I am saying is if I’m doing a review of that book, I have a right. In fact, to me, that book should have been three books because I know Nigerian readers. They won’t finish that book.

But what is your overall impression about the book?

This book is a classic. It is the first chronicle coming from the Nigerian side since the edited Nigerian Army book from General Momoh. That one is vast and very complete. But, this one from a personal diary – that establishes Alabi Isama as a General. Most generals never kept diaries; this man kept diaries, kept photographs – so you can compare his book to the other category on the other side of Alex Madiebo. I’m talking about field diaries of Generals. The only thing that I’ve said is missing is he could have told us about the man who started it all – Kaduna Nzeogwu. And he didn’t.

Secondly, I agree with him that even though the Nigerian First Division was the most favoured in armoury, in administration, in support, in equipment, the Third Marine Commando gave the Biafrans black eye. They were the most deadly army Biafrans faced. I agree with him there.

You said something like there was never a counter or revenge coup.

There was no revenge because when you say revenge, that means some people were against it. The people who organised the January 15 coup were not Igbo.

That’s your claim

It is not a claim.

Before the war, the Igbo were prominent in politics, in the army and there was co-habitation. That first coup truncated that. So, the perception was that the Igbo wanted to take over and the first coup was to go back to status quo.

Scientifically, from our studies, there is nothing like a revenge coup. When somebody took away your wife and you go for revenge. When somebody stole your money or beat your child up, you go for revenge. That word, I want to define the word revenge. When you say there was revenge, that means somebody did something to them, right.

Let me say this. Up till now, the mainstream of Nigerian politics, even the Igbo, believe that there was a revenge coup. Even if you go through There was a Country, Achebe said that, ‘okay if we killed them on January 15, killing the 200 Igbo officers, why did we go to civilians?’ I’m saying the boys may answer Igbo names. (But) Nzeogwu was not Igbo, he was Hausa. Nzeogwu is from my area, Okpanam in Asaba. He spoke Hausa more than any other language. What I’m saying is that Nzeogwu was extraordinary. Nzeogwu had a brother – a professor of Agro-economics, one of the best in United States. His name is Okeleke Nzeogwu. He went to school at Mayflower School, (Ikenne). He was trained by Mrs. Sheila Solarin. And who brought him there? Olusegun Obasanjo. He didn’t bring him to Lagos. And if you go to that part of Nigeria (Ikenne), there is Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu Street. There were still fighting when Tai Solarin put the street there. There is a reason. Nzeogwu was the one who wrote the people who were to be – Tai Solarin was to be minister of education.

You said something now that if Obasanjo had been there and Nzeogwu was coming, the forces would have been resolved. I want to compare that to when Soyinka went to meet Obasanjo. He gave Banjo message to him. And he said, so long as he was the head of the Ibadan Garrison, his allegiance was to Lagos. Would he have given a different answer to Nzeogwu?

I don’t talk battle line diaries. I’m not a military expert but I’m an expert in conflict resolution in Africa. I have in my confidential report that originally, it was Nzeogwu’s plan. Nzeogwu had told Ojukwu, ‘don’t declare Biafra. If you declare Biafra, you’re inviting Nigerians who can fight on any pretext.’ At that point in time, the northerners had everything. There was only 89 enlisted Yoruba in the Nigerian Army. It’s there in my book. There was Daramola, Majekodunmi, Obasanjo, mostly Majors. The biggest of them had been killed – Samuel Ademulegun and Sonije killed because of their positions. So, what I’m saying is that Nzeogwu planned it. ‘Don’t give these people frontal confrontation. Let’s go through the west. Ogbemudia was part of their group. Obasanjo is not with Alabi. It is clear. He has shown it.

So, it was to be south against the north. Soyinka, Solarin, all were prepared to support it. Gowon was about to fly to Zaria. That was why Wole Soyinka came and he didn’t come with the Awo group. They were extreme radicals. He came with the Aluko, who was still teaching at University of Nigeria, Nsukka then. He mentioned three forces – the first one was Gowon, the second force was Biafra, then, the third, anyone that wins. That was why they were incarcerated. He wrote it in a book, ‘The Man Died’ in prison. But for anybody to come and denigrate Obasanjo while I’m still alive is not possible.

What do you mean by denigration? That the man did not run away from enemy fire? That he wasn’t shot in the rump? Because Daramola was there at the launch and he said that the general fled!

What I’m saying is that commanders are different. He wants to demonstrate that Obasanjo had no courage. I don’t think so. It shows that the Biafrans were not push-over. So, if Obasanjo saw the fuselage coming, it would be suicidal not to run away.

But, look at the context. The man wrote in ‘My Command’, and if you link it with ‘Not My Will,’ you’ll see the full gamut of the Obasanjo personae which ensured to put everybody down and pronounce himself as the only hero. That is the context in which the author wrote.

I’ve defined what that man said. He has destroyed the myth surrounding the Third Marine Commando and the Nigerian Army winning of the war when you say your commander ran away. That is what I’m saying. And I’m comparing what has happened.

The Father’s House, a Pentecostal church in Akute, Ogun State, is a Mecca of sort for the celebrities that live in that community and its environs. Popular actor, Emma Edokpayi, is one of them. He maintains a front seat in the church and his almost completely grey beard and hair stand him out in the congregation.

On this particular day, the reporter’s attention was drawn by Edokpayi’s animated responses to the preaching of the pastor, Dr. Richard Udoh. Until he ran into a health crisis a few years ago, things were really looking up for Edokpayi as an established cameraman and an A-list actor. He was easily one of the golden boys of the era when cinema was just becoming a culture in Nigeria.

Until the ‘Benin boy’ began to experience the other side of life, he never thought that life could be cruel. In August 2004, he suffered a stroke while shooting a documentary on an oil field. He was down and out of circulation for years on account of the ugly incident.

He said: “I came to realise that the stroke affected me not only physically but mentally. It affected my mind. I lost almost every memory. I was brought back to Lagos and I remained in my house. I could not remember my friends. I could not remember any phone number. People came to see me but I could not recall their faces.

“I was more or less hiding from people. I was just a different person from what I used to be. Before then, if you gave me a script, I didn’t need to spend hours studying it. All I needed to do was to read a line and I would get the whole picture and get ready. I stopped seeing people. I didn’t want anybody to pity me.

“At the time I had stroke I had N6 million. I told my wife that by the time we finished this money, I would bounce back. By the time it was six months, the money had been exhausted but I was still not okay.”

At the height of his predicament, he dwelt in self-pity and he became impatient with people. Stringing sentences together became a problem.

“In an attempt to correct it, I messed up. I was avoiding people. People felt my wife was hiding me, whereas I was the one that did not want to see people, because when people were talking, I would not be able to talk, my contribution would be nonsense. I could not articulate. I could not piece two sentences together so that at the end, everybody would just keep quiet.”

Since he resumed from the unsolicited sabbatical, he has participated in a film called Alero, but he recalled that it was a painstaking experience. “They knew that everybody had to relax for me. Most of the lines were patched and towards the end, my brain started grabbing things,” he said.

Edokpayi may not be very active in the entertainment industry right now, but people like Wale Adenuga, the producer of popular TV series, This Life, still recognise his acting dexterity and gave him a role in it.

It is not as if he does not want to act in movies. The problem, he said, is that he no longer gets invitation from producers. He said: “I don’t really select movies. It is just that I’m not sought after by producers. Maybe I don’t go out or frequent the environment or maybe they don’t know about me. If you don’t know where to find this man, you may not look for him when you have production.

“It is a question of producer looking for me and fixing me for a role. I’m living more of a quiet life now. But living a quiet life does not mean that I’m not willing to act. It is a question of me going out again. If I’m beginning to circulate, I will find roles.”

The two-seater cane chair inside his compound is where he spends his time enjoying fresh air and reading the Bible. And he counts himself lucky that he lives in his own house, because many of his colleagues are not that lucky.

“Most of the people find themselves in the industry of glamour and the glamour takes away from them the consciousness of what they should do. In the industry, you find glamour. Everybody hails and patronises you. If you are not careful or God-fearing, you may not realise that you are losing out in life. You have to build for tomorrow,” he said as a matter of warning to other artistes.

Of course, he is well positioned to counsel the younger generation of artistes. He was once like some of the wealthy ones among themcomfortable and rich. At a time that many of today’s A-list artistes were still struggling, Edokpayi could boast of more than four state-of-the-art cars like Mercedes Benz Concorde and SUVs. He recalled that at a time as far back as more than a decade ago, he had started earning between N100,000 and N300,000 per week.

“When the money comes, you want to go high to the top. You go partying and drinking. And because it is a thing of glamour, you want people to see you at your best, even when it is not the best of times for you. You always want to show yourself in the best form and mood so that people would not see you as not living quality life.

“Most times, even the little money we made, instead of using it to build the future for ourselves, we use the money to live in glamour. Even the business itself is glamour. You drive in the best car, you live in the best house that is not yours and in the end, if you go to the innermost recesses of people who live this kind of life, you will see that they are just doing window showing of themselves.

“At a time, I was at my peak and suddenly it crumbled. Events will overtake you and you begin to see that you are not the kind of hot kid you used to be. You find that the flow is not there and you had not prepared anything for yourself. You had not built anything that will sustain you. So, you begin to die. I’m not saying clinical death, I mean spiritually.”

Edokpai said the house he lives in today was built in error, as he never wanted it. But he is full of thanks to a good friend he said “cajoled” him to build it because he never saw himself as one that would live in the backwaters of Lagos. But that is where fate has put him and he is thanking his star for making the right choice of friend.

“I lived like many of the present crop of artistes. The luck I had was a very wonderful friend named Dayo Ojo. He was working at Mobil at that time. He used to tell me: ‘Emma, go and buy a land. But I was always looking at land as a problem,” he said.

He said it was even his friend that made money available to buy the land. The land, valued at about N10 million today, was bought for about N550, 000. He said he did not want to have anything to do with the house until the reality of life forced him to live where he would not have lived.

He said: “When you are blindfolded by glamour and the worldly pleasures that accompany stardom, a life of idolism or idolatory, it takes you away from reality, which is the path to God, the road that leads you to everlasting peace. Before I knew it, he said ‘old boy, come and stay in the house.’ Before I knew it, I bought a 35KV generator. I did suspended borehole. Everything was in the house, but I still didn’t want to come to the house.”

After his experience, Edokpayi now speaks like a preacher. And he believes that although he can no longer carry the camera the way he used to do, this is the time he is more useful to the society because he can teach drama and language as a graduate of English and Literary Studies.

In his neighbourhood in Akute, he is known as both an artiste and a pastor. As he was seeing the reporter off, a commercial motorcycle operator stopped and offered to take him to wherever he was going. That, he noted, was a testimony to the benefits he enjoys. But he says he would feel more fulfilled if he is able to help others too.

Explaining his seemingly deep knowledge of the Bible, he says it did not just start today. He was brought up by strictly religious parents, especially his mother. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, his mind was tilted towards the theatre. He said although he was not leading his class as a student, he was one of the best.

“My mother would send me to the market to go and buy something. On the way, I would watch Ajasco. Those things attracted me. At the time I told them that I wanted to do drama, they asked me if it was a job, because nobody saw drama as a job then,” he recalled.

He said he embraced Christianity because his mother was a fervent Christian. He was taught bible stories and he still knows them very well, and that is why it is convenient for him to preach. “Even when I was following women, drinking and walking round the town, I knew all these but did not realise that all they were being controlled by the Spirit of God,” he said.

Twice he gave his cars out because God instructed him to do so. The first was a Mercedes 230 he gave to a pastor who had just got married. “God told me to give it to the pastor. He was not my friend. God told me to give it to him but I did as if I didn’t hear. I refused to give the car to the man. But my ear was pricking me until I gave the car,” he said.

The second car, he said, was a Pathfinder. “I drove to church in a Pathfinder and went home in a taxi. Since then, I have been here, no car. They were contributing money to the church and I had no money to give, so I gave that car.”

Right now, jazzing up Christian drama is uppermost in his mind as he plans to replicate what he is doing in the church outside of it. “I foresee an explosion of this type of production,” he said with confidence.

Since the stroke he suffered had led to amnesia, he enrolled for a leadership course at Daystar Church in order to regain lost memory. “In the school, everybody knew me. They would see me and say good morning sir. I would sit at the back. I could not write, so I would sit and listen. And immediately I left there, I would not remember anyone.

“But I kept going to school. I was changing the cognitive intake. My brain was now trying to take in things. I was not talking to anybody. The lecturer would think I was hearing well.”

The fighter that he is, he drove himself to school while a part of his body was still paralysed. Explaining why he had to do so, he said: “I had a driver but he left suddenly. I entered my car and everybody started shouting. I normally left home at 5 am, because if you came late thrice, you might not graduate. When my driver did not come, I entered my car and drove to Daystar. I also drove back home and the second day, I drove too. That was how I started driving. The amnesia lasted one year and one month”.

He is still passionate about a project he started with the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC). But he doubts if he would be able to make the dream come true because “the people who were working with me at that time messed a lot of things up”.

Reynolds Dagogo-Jack is the Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Power as well as member of the Presidential Action Committee on Power. He spoke with Steve Osuji in Lagos recently shortly after the federal government divested control of major unbundled electricity generating companies. Excerpts:

If there is any timeline to the power sector reform programme (PSR) you must know about it; please can you tell us where we are right now?

The power sector reform programme was started by President Goodluck Jonathan in June, 2010 to that extent it is about three years old. The focus of the PSR is market reform, change of the current ownership, attracting new investment in generation into the market, expanding the transmission capacity to increase the ability to wheel more power and then transfer of the distribution companies to private sector to reduce losses, to increase efficiency, to increase metering penetration. Now it’s all these efforts that will combine to produce electricity. So pretty much we have been focusing on the electricity supply profile more than we should be focusing on the critical steps that must be taken so that the market reform will be concluded. Where we are now is that the market reform has come to an advanced stage. As at end of July, the last remaining assets – the generating company at Afam and the distributing company in Kaduna – the preferred bidders were announced and soon the National Council on Privatisation will declare whether these bidders have succeeded and will be given the offer to buy. So to that extent, in the sense of the elements that will drive us to a sustainable electricity market, a lot of work has been done.

But it just so happens that Nigerians want to measure the progress on the number of hours that we have and the quantum of power that they have which will come when the structural changes take root. So we have two challenges, first is to change the market, bring in private sector players. That of course takes some time to deliver. As we all know, just getting labour to come with us so that they will play their own role till new owners come has been one long round of negotiations, but until the new owners come, the expected efficiency will not come, until the efficiency comes, the supply cannot ramp up. Therefore, structural change of the market is more critical than power output because one leads to the other. But because we know that Nigerians will not appreciate it if we say we are doing a structural change and power is dropping everyday government has deployed resources to keep supply at the level we met it if we cannot add more but not to allow it to drop. That is what we call the service delivery leg of the reform. That is working but that has more challenges than the structural changes because that one requires people to continue to be as committed even knowing that there is a change of ownership. That one requires funding the sector even when you have sold some of these utilities. So that is slightly more difficult to manage but in the transition window, we are doing our best to make sure that we achieve a balance between changing the market and also sustaining the service level.

You are saying in effect that we are at the crossing over point of the transition. So how soon are we going to begin to reap results?

The truth of the matter is that until you have moved the ownership and the management of the sector into the private hands and until the private people have configured their business agenda, created the additional capital that they need to recover the lost capacities in our grid, changed manpower, retooled ICT, start to do those businesses the way private people do business instead of government, those things cannot be catapulted; there is so much speed you can run in that space.

But is it left solely at their whims, are there not some timelines no matter how loose?

Yes but let us look at it this way, you have sold them the assets. You cannot reprobate and approbate as the lawyers say. You can’t sell them an asset and the set a timeline for them as if it is not theirs. No. Remember they are profit driven people, they know the cost of these facilities, you don’t have to go and wake them up in the night to do their reform and their readjustment and reorganisation. It’s something that you should presume that it will happen. They borrowed money, the banks are on their back, you don’t need government to tell them to give us light tomorrow; light now becomes cash to them. Electricity supply is now their cash flow, you don’t need to teach a businessman how to make money. They are faced with a situation of no electricity, no cash; this is what we have been trying to communicate to the people for some time now. It is a step-wise thing, we move from one step of progress to another so we need people to understand that it can’t happen overnight, we need people to understand that we can’t take our eyes off the ball, we have to move in one direction no matter how slow that may seem but we have to move forward one step at a time.

I still think my point stands, I understand your explanation but this a strategic asset, there still must be some oversight, there must be a perspective on all these and I am saying that all these taken together, six months down the road, we expect so and so hours or quality of power supply in so and so areas of the country…?

I get you and I also think that Nigerians are very knowledgeable people, very knowledgeable. Such times when you want to hold down to a projection, it’s always good to caution yourself; sometimes it’s good to use benchmarks which will tell you whether you can approximate to it. This is because if you ask the people who did the telecoms reform to give any kind of projection as to where Nigerians will be in terms of teledensity, access to telephone, what they delivered and what they could have projected are miles apart. But you see a lot of pressure from Nigerians to kind of lock in a particular prediction whereas it is not scientific because to predict a market, you can only do so knowing the fundamentals. Yes our fundamentals are right; we are 167 million people and we need light and there is a market waiting to be tapped; we have capacity to pay and pay even more as we have seen in the telecoms sector in a relative sense as many have two or three handsets. So ability to pay is not the problem, availability of the population is not the problem as there are 23 to 24 million households in Nigeria. So, the demand is there. So are you saying that you will set the right platform for the private sector and the right tariff and the private sector will not cash in on it? So let us be faithful on the things we know which is to allow the private sector to take leadership here. By what you are asking, you are still trying to bring government into the mix. You need to support us to take government out then we go to the next step.

Labour matter is a major challenge. What is the situation right now?

Labour union has played a very critical role in the PSR. As most people know, we have reached the point when payment will start and as soon as that happens, the process of concluding this whole transaction will be pretty much assured. We believe that from the recent press release from the Honourable Minister’s office and from all the signals we have had from the Ministry of Power, payment will start very soon and that will be a major milestone and hurdle that we would have crossed. Let me also say that in terms of the cost of privatisation as relates to labour settlements, Nigeria is about to record one of the highest levels of financial settlement packages in order to reform power and move forward, but it’s a price the president is willing to pay because he clearly understands that there is no price you can place on darkness.

What are the figures?

It’s in the works, the Ministry has the accurate figures and it is better we get it from them but it’s slightly under N400 billion.

What is the gas situation now, we know that has always been a problem, is that problem solved now?

Okay, gas is a fuel for the generating plants just like all other elements in the value chain. They are moving targets. As we speak, molecules are being explored by the oil companies, pipelines are being built by the Nigerian Gas Company. So, every new capacity that is being added by way of molecules or pipelines increases availability of gas to the power plants. But to address your point, the truth is that in the past, the relationship between the gas owner and the generating plants was not contractual, it was what we call best endeavour. It was vertically integrated, government owns everything, if you are able to bring, bring, if you are not able to bring, don’t bring. We are moving away from all that. Part of this reform is that there will be a contractual relationship between the owner of the gas and the owner of the thermal plant. Such contractual relationship will be the basis for investment in gas; the basis for paying for gas that has been delivered without anyone saying that it is the government that owns them both. All of that is tightening up the system for efficiency. So, if the oil companies know that there is a contract, they know too well what a contract means. So, all of that are being put together and contracts are being signed as we speak.

Apart from gas, are we exploring other fuel options?

Yes, Nigeria is blessed with fuel sources but each source has a technology relationship and each fuel and technology matrix comes with construction time constraints. For instance, water, a typical medium to large hydro plant will require not less than six years before you have electricity, whereas a thermal plant, effectively delivered by a good project team will take about two and half years to realise. Of course, we could export coal if we want because we have a huge deposit of coal, but to convert coal to electricity will take a minimum of five years to realise. There has been a little bit of oversimplification of what is required to have electricity. Though there are other shorter sources, the renewable like sun which is technology-heavy. So, the cost of that is way higher than gas, way higher than coal and way higher than hydro, but again with improving technology, the prices are depressing. So we are looking at it. We have a lot of sun in the north and even in some places down south. Wind is another source of energy. We have a lot of wind and our wind map is very strong with potentials for wind turbines. So, all this will kick in when you see that the private sector has taken over the space. Even they will know well not to put their investments in one source but all this have to be market decisions. And because of our fundamentals which include heavy demand, and mark you, the population I told you is just home consumption, we have not factored in industrial needs large and small. At the end of the day, even the industries that relocated to Ghana will return because in Ghana you produce and bring it to Nigeria to sell, so why don’t you produce where you have the market. So, we expect an explosion of a dimension that we cannot quite stay here and project; it has to be methodical.

Talking about Ghana, how come they seem to have gotten there power right over these years while we lag?

No, that is not quite correct. Ghana is about 20 million people; it is about one fifth of Nigeria in land area. So, their transmission cost is almost zero compared to Nigeria’s. To transport power from Port Harcourt, for instance, to Yola, you know what that means. And after all the money you must have spent, it gets to Yola at half current so we are not in the same league. We supply them gas to fire their turbines. Ghana currently produces fewer than 2000 megawatts. When it produces up to 2500 megawatts the whole country will have power for 24 hours uninterrupted but we are on 4000 and we haven’t started.

So are there any more challenges to realising the complete reform of the sector in the next two years?

Yes some of the major issues which we need to keep our eyes on and close-mark in order for us to totally realise the power reform agenda include gas, which you raised earlier. But we are talking about gas disruption through vandalism, some people have argued that there can be some sinister motives to frustrate our progress or whatever their motives might be, so you see gas lines breached for no reason because we know that it is the tapping of crude oil and condensate pipes that we knew but now they are bombing gas lines. You can’t even take the gas, so again we are worried as the rate is growing. If we continue to have that challenge, there will be no gas to fire the plants and we can’t get the electricity we are designing; people are right now building massive generation plants in the hope of using this gas. So, vandalism is a major concern. As we do our utmost best, we also appeal to Nigerians to show some sense of patriotism and respect and safeguard our national assets for the good of us all.

The Second challenge is labour. We need to close out on labour issues. We need the whole Nigerians to impress it on labour that it cannot get a better deal than we are offering them. Besides, after all this money is paid, the people will not go to China to pick the workers for these plants, most of them will come back the next day to continue work because there are no other people to do this work apart from them. Only those who have reached retirement age or those who think they can venture out with the money in their hands may opt out. Every other worker who decides to roll over has a good chance to roll over. So the earlier they put the issue of severance behind them, the better for everybody.

The third challenge is transmission. As we work on generation, we must put transmission in view because it is the only aspect of the three segments that government is still holding as an asset for reasons of national security and issues of skill. We are doing that through the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). So, there need to be conscious investments in this area in the short, medium and long terms.

Are you saying transmission cannot be privatised?

There is nothing that cannot be privatised but national grids in most countries are not privatised but can be concessional. But what we did is to bring in a management contractor, Manitoba, to manage it but the typical thing is to concession.

The other challenge is distribution losses. The distribution companies are the ones yielding the money, they are the customer interface. It is the distribution company that puts meter in your house and comes to bill you so we have to ramp up efficiency in that area. Currently, because they are government companies, the losses are very high; we have to bring them down. When the losses come down, the tariff comes down and the customer is protected from increases in tariffs. When the new distribution companies take over, they then begin to deploy the tools for bringing down the losses including metering; there are still a lot of people who are not metered. We have to spend money to even bring the losses down. So I am telling you those areas we have to be efficient in so that this light that you and I want so badly will materialise. As you know, Nigerians are just interested in light, light, light –

About time too –

But it is also important to know how the light will come. It is like someone saying he must go to Lagos but he doesn’t have any idea where Lagos is or how to get there. There is also the challenge of serious technical gaps. PHCN for 20 years has not employed yet we want to grow our current capacity from 4000 megawatts to 20,000 megawatts. So that is a ratio of five. These megawatts we are talking about are equipment which will be manned by human beings. So, we have a huge skills gap. What that means is that labour ought to be working as one with us because if they understand where we are going, they would know that this place will explode and they are the ones to reap the immense benefits of filling the skills gap, they will be the ones to be given crash training programmes to take new vantage positions.

Finally is the regulatory concern. This market can only work through strong regulation. We have NERC (National Electricity Regulatory Commission) in place. It is well constituted and has very capable people. So constantly, we have to keep looking out for areas where we will continue to make adjustments in the process so that both the customer and the investor are happy. These are basically the core issues we have our eyes on in order to wrap up the PSR.

Let me drag you into a bit of politics. By virtue of the fact that you are from Rivers State and also by virtue of the fact of your position, what is your take on the crisis in Rivers State?

Yes, being an indigene and a stakeholder who is impacted by what is going on, if you ask my honest opinion, what is going on is pathetic. But the more you look at it, you see in it, a deliberate agenda by the opposition, if you ask me, to distract the Goodluck Jonathan administration. It seems like a carefully orchestrated agenda to make sure that the president takes his eyes off governance because it is only governance that will yield the concrete milestones upon which the 2015 narrative will be engaged. We can’t go into 2015 in Nigeria talking about tribes or talking about zones. In 2015 we are talking about deliverables, what did you drop on the table while you are there? And that people know that the narrative of Nigeria is changing from tribe and region to performance, so if they can take his eyes off performance, when we get to 2015, the only thing that will be on the table is tribes and regions. This is the agenda of the opposition. Now what is upsetting people like us is that why should the people allow the opposition to define an agenda like that and suck them into the vortex of it.

But the president doesn’t have to be distracted, he doesn’t have to be concerned about the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) for instance, he has his duties well cut out for him in bundles?

You are right but do you know that when somebody thinks that his strategy will work, he doesn’t care if the strategy is actually working or not, he just works at it. But the strategy is obviously not working. The president is an administrator, he has line managers, some of the best, in finance, in agriculture, in trade and commerce. Look at the ministers there, they are top-ranked people, they are doing their job and they are delivering for the president. But because these other people’s interest is in the president and the presidency, so they come up with all this agenda, thinking that they are distracting the president but it is not working because they have to be distracting the whole executives; they have to stop them from working. But people are working 24/7. So, when it comes to 2015 will they realise that their strategy is not working. And you know most of these things people are saying it doesn’t come from the president, you know how it works.

In Rivers State, it is clearly a case of – both the people who grandfathered the governor and those that he appointed into his own cabinet are talking in different tones with him – is that the work of the president? The people who made him who he is in politics and the people he made are in the same room saying something different from what he is saying, was it the president that sent them? So, for me it’s a dysfunctional setting and it is unfortunate because it is the state’s resources that are suffering, it is the focus that should have been put in Rivers State that is being expended in Abuja, in other places and sometimes abroad. It is a loss of focus; it’s a loss, loss for us. We tackle somebody we shouldn’t tackle because we are thinking of politics, then you use all the energy you should have used to do your work to do something else and everybody loses, that is not on.

There are a lot of issues and we can debate it from now till tomorrow, so let’s look at resolution. How can the Rivers crisis be resolved?

To be honest with you, if the activities in Rivers State are a part of a grand opposition strategy, it will go on in one form or the other because it is an opposition strategy. But if it is as a result of a misunderstanding within a political family, it can be resolved, it is not too complex to resolve.But if it is a grand opposition agenda to needle the president and make him lose attention and focus until it is time for the next election, then it is an opposition strategy and you cannot tell the opposition not to play their game now. So, until we decode exactly what the problem is, to design a solution around it will be a nullity.

You see a lot of people are giving different dimensions to this problem, there is a programming of public opinion to talk about David and Goliath; there is a programming of public opinion to make it seem like a big man is trying to crush a small man which is all not true.

Which is why I ask again, can’t this small man be ignored?

No, the small man cannot be ignored if being in this position gives him visibility, relevance, importance, national narratives, drama – these are the values that are being played out. There has never been a debate as to take Nigerians to the next level in any of the areas of our national endeavour, it’s who should be governor-general and all that; that is all we have down there now.

Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State has been saddled with the responsibility of heading a committee that will oversee the reconciliation of dissenting voices within the Peoples Democratic Party. In this interview with newsmen in Abuja last week, the governor explains why another committee is needed to look into the crises plaguing the party in most states, noting that the focus will be on non-PDP ruling states with the hope of presenting a cohesive party during the general elections. Managing Editor, Northern Operations, YUSUF ALLI and Deputy Editor, Nation’s Capital, YOMI ODUNUGA, were there. Excerpts:

What does your committee hope to achieve?

Ithought we should begin by looking at a few of the challenges that we are trying to solve arising from the mandate given to us by the working committee of our party. Already, as you may be aware, we have taken several steps to address some of the issues in the state chapters of our party. You will recall that the focus of our mandate essentially is on non-PDP states—reconciling the various factions and stakeholders and some members in the states that are not under PDP control for now. That in itself is challenging, and those states are about 13 or so in number. We have held series of meetings since our inauguration and because we are aware of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s guidelines released on the Anambra elections, which has made it imperative that actions must be taken immediately, we are taking that as a priority. In fact, I have just signed a circular calling a meeting for the members of the working committee of their state chapter and they have to be recognised by the national committee. As regards Anambra, we know there are so many factions, there are so many court orders and situations to resolve but we are starting from the known to the unknown. I think a day or two ago, the national committee recognised one of the factions and we want to start our interactions by engaging them and thereafter we will also have a section with all aspirants under the platform of our party. These series of interactions will take place from Thursday at Legacy House, which is the official secretariat of this committee. We also intend to interact with the chairman and members of our working committee in Ekiti State. You will recall that in the last couple of days and weeks, events in some state chapters of our party is fast deteriorating from bad to worse and we don’t want it to get ugly. So, it has become necessary for us to take some proactive measures and step in. So what would then be the immediate objectives of your committee? Of course, in all of this, the ultimate objective is to reconcile various stakeholders so that they can now understand the commonality of interest that should exist in a political party. In a party, we know people take personal interest too far. Inasmuch as the personal interests are legitimate, the party itself has its interest and that is what we are there to promote. We want to see how we can bring them together, play by the rules and then see how they can maintain a united front going into the general elections in Ekiti State. We hope to do so in almost all the state chapters, particularly state chapters that are not under the control of the PDP. As states that have PDP governors, that is a different challenge and that is slightly outside the area of our immediate focus even though it still falls under the general umbrella of some kind of reconciliation. For those cases, I think we need to work with other stakeholders and senior members of the party and maybe a different approach will be required because we have sitting governors who are also leaders of their party in those states who will also need to be part of the reconciliation effort. And that is why, in the wisdom of the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, and the Working Committee, we have been told to focus on the non-PDP states. Since you have harped on the need to reconcile your party members in 13 non-PDP states while the PDP is already controlling the levers of government in 23 states, is the ultimate objective of this reconciliation to win more states? As a loyal party man, I believe in the capacity and potentials of our party to provide leadership in more states than we currently do have. But, as a democrat, it is my hope and belief that every party will sell its message as best it can and follow democratic due process and the best organised party with the best candidate should, at the end of the day, emerge. Again, as a democrat, the product of that outcome is what we will respect and work with. So, let the best party win. That is why we are democrats. Yes, it is my duty as a loyal party man to work for my party, advance the work of my party and its candidate duly selected and talk about the programmes and potentials of the party. I won’t stop without adding what is unique about the PDP. It is the party with the greatest potentials for uniting our diverse nation. The party, from pre-independence politics till now, is the only party that has provided a common platform for all Nigerians. It is the only platform that is not built on the fault lines of our nation, be it ethnicity or religion. It is the only party that has made it possible for a so-called minority to emerge as president. That is akin to what the Democratic Party did in the United States of America by sponsoring the first African American in the person of President Barack Obama. These are the unique features of the PDP. Other political tendencies are legitimate but we know that a number of times, they are built on the fault lines of our country. Whether fault lines of ethnicity, religion or even regionalism. The PDP is not an insular party, it is not a religious party and when the campaign starts, I expect that that message will sink. Yes, I will work for my party and we expect to win more states but we should win it fairly. Others also have the right to sell their message but we should respect the choice that Nigerians make because politics, as they say, is a market place of ideas. You have reconciled some aggrieved members. What were their grievances and how were they convinced to drop the case in court? Well, some of the operations, by virtue of oath we took, are confidential. Some of the grievances I have listened to were given in confidence and we will take them up with the appropriate authorities and address them. Members of a party have a right to their expectations, aspirations and views. I am a political liberal and therefore, I am in support of protecting the sanctity of individual opinion. But the party is a collective and so there comes a time when your individual’s views and opinion are subjected to the collective overall goal of the party. We are doing some of these things quietly. The important thing is that the gentlemen have submitted their grievances to the party under this committee and we are very grateful. I want to commend them again for that act, for realising that there comes a time individual expectations and aspirations end and the collective interest begins, otherwise there will be no organised society. So, this is what the gentlemen have done and my committee and I are looking at it and we will pass our recommendations to the appropriate authorities to address. Fundamentally, our appreciation is to them for withdrawing their case. If you said you have reconciled and the parties have agreed to withdraw the case, how come the lawyers refused to agree in court and the judge did not give a verdict that aligns with that line of thought? Well, let me say this. Firstly, it is not the duties of lawyers to take matters to a court for adjudication. It is also not their duty to take or resolve these matters out of court. That is the prerogative of the client. A lawyer is only a facilitator of process. Now, it is an on-going proceeding in a court and I will not want to go into the merits and demerits of the proceedings in court. I also don’t want to comment on what the judge should have done or shouldn’t have done but I know that the party will resort to the rule of law, follow due process to handle the challenge. Fundamentally, once you establish a desire on the part of a litigant to withdraw, from that time the desire is indicated to the court, the matter is dead. All that you have is a question of procedure. So, these are minor procedures because the cause of action is gone once a man says ‘I have withdrawn my case.’ The world is even moving towards Reconciliation and Mediation now. It is called Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and that is what every court exists to facilitate in the first place. It is only when that fails that you go for litigation. I think it is a major success because the parties have communicated the desire to withdraw the matter at the court. I know, as a lawyer, that there are some rules about how counsel is changed and those ones are technical legal things that don’t affect the fundamental issue which is that a man who has gone to court is at liberty to say, ‘judge, I have settled my matter.’ For me, that case is dead and because they have a right to counsel, that is a good thing with our constitution. The right to counsel is sacred; they can go to court with you and decide to change their mind. Still on reconciliation, is your committee looking at the larger picture especially now that some PDP governors appear to be engaged in a war of words with national leadership of the party? With the adversarial role being played by the Chairman of your party, how does that help the reconciliation effort? As I said earlier, you can only have too little reconciliation, we cannot have too many reconciliation. We have to reconcile, reconcile and reconcile. The Chief Tony Anenih-led committee is doing a great job which we are also going to look at. I am saying that in the context of the remark I earlier made that our primary focus is the non-PDP states and we are doing so precisely because of this issue. In the PDP states, we have governors in charge and therefore, if there are differences as there should be, we can always resolve them. We need to be clear about this. Maybe because of the long years of military rule, we have this attitude to politics that is not democratic. In a party, there must be allowance made for differences of opinion because democracy thrives on diversity of views. But when you have all these diverse views, the party is there to harmonise them and hold them together. I know that the Anenih committee is doing a lot of work in terms of engaging the governors and I am not aware of any PDP governor who is not happy with the party. All of us are in the party. Yes, there may be one little complain but these are all legitimate because politics allows for that. The important thing is how we reconcile all of these. There are efforts going on by the Anenih’s committee and the Ekwueme’s report and I believe that, by the end of the day, you will have a truly reconciled set of governors because they are major stakeholders in the party and none of them will want the party to disintegrate contrary to what you hear. We are colleagues and we talk. They all want a strong PDP but they are also entitled to their expectations and even when there are ambitions tied to it because it is politics and also because, sometimes in this game, you have got to manage differences of opinion, ideas and sometimes a clash of interest and sometimes even a clash of ego. So, all of that is part of the game. So I think, with what the senior members of the party are doing and I am happy that the seniors drive some of these efforts with our little humble support, we will resolve the problems. I don’t think it is true that the national chairman made the kind of comment that you talked about. It is very possible he was quoted out of context because the national chairman is the head of our party and subjected to the person who is the overall leader, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. You are also aware that the President himself, a few days back, engaged some of the governors you are talking about. I am also in touch with some of them because they are my leaders and I am privileged to work with some as colleagues. What you read does not matter, we meet at different levels and all share common idea of a united strong party. At all times, we should be united by national interest. Differences of views are allowed but you do all of that within the context of a common view about the national interest. A few weeks ago, a workers’ union described you as an absentee governor, how far have you gone in piloting the affairs of Bayelsa State? No comments on that because everybody knows what I am doing in Bayelsa and the absenteeism has nothing to do with what we are doing. I am okay when people disagree and criticise. It is all part of it but I cannot be an absentee governor when we are building primary schools, secondary schools and roads. We have done a lot of things in the state and I like situation where people visit and see things for themselves because I am not a propaganda governor. I am addressing the real challenges of development of our people. There is the challenge of providing security such that, in one year, Bayelsa has become the safest state. We are also turning Bayelsa to become a tourism destination, to be an investment destination within our country and within our sub-region and I have just started. I keep telling the people of Bayelsa that they have not seen anything yet. When I was campaigning, I told them to get ready for a big bang and they knew that what was coming their way was big and revolutionary. We are fighting poverty, we are addressing issues of human capacity development and we are at the same time transforming the rural infrastructure that we met on ground. We want to modernise it and then get it to be a springboard for the industrialisation that we seek. You know, Bayelsa is a state where we have deployed CCTV cameras and in the next couple of months, you are going to see a model society emerge. In the health sector; we are building hospitals and then the health insurance: it is an overall comprehensive development. We are building the first storage pharmaceutical centre in this country so that you will not talk about fake drugs in Bayelsa. We are investing a lot in tourism and very soon, you will not need to go to Dubai. The infrastructure must be provided, the atmosphere must be created for that and I think in no distant time, we will extend an invitation. In fact, when people visit, they cannot understand how we are able to put all of this within a short period and they keep asking themselves, ‘if this was possible, why was it not done before now?’ Why are we talking about free education now when in one year, we have sent over 100 Ph.D scholars across the world? In one year, we have selected primary schools pupils into boarding schools all across the country, in one year; we have built constituency secondary schools with boarding facilities. And they have not seen anything yet because I know that education is the most realistic tool anybody can use in transforming any society and I want that society transformed. Not only while I am there as the governor but even when I am out because I don’t want the society to be a breeding ground for militants, criminals and people who have no capacity to take part in their own economy. I want to arm them with the tools, skills and confidence that they must have in themselves to make a difference. Now, what is going on in the state is a revolution. It is something that you need to be there to understand and appreciate. What we have in the state is what is possible when there is leadership and commitment. This office that I hold is by the grace of God and the support of my people. There is enormous potential for good in every state and that is what I am demonstrating. When these secondary schools start, because we are building 30 secondary schools with boarding facilities because what has happened in this country is because we have neglected human capacity development. Even schools like Barewa College that has the honour of producing the first president of this country, we have allowed all those schools to die. Schools that Soyinka and Achebe attended, I am sure it is now in shambles. In this country, education is the key. Sometimes people tell me that I am investing too much on education and I tell them I have not even invested enough. When these schools are finished, you will see that it will be compulsory boarding from SSS1. I will take the children and put in these schools, that is why I am building schools close to the communities and they will be fed at the expense of the state. Now, they don’t pay school fees, they don’t pay for WAEC or JAMB, I pay because I proclaim free education and I meant it. I buy textbooks, uniforms and sandals; for a government in one year to build 400 schools, it is not a joke. I am building teachers’ quarters because when I send teachers out there, I don’t want to hear that they have no place to stay and the key to all of this is the Teachers Training Institute that I am building. You cannot be a teacher in Bayelsa without going through that school, I will say no to it. Yes, there are constraints I am dealing with. I have not imposed any new tax but I told them, they should all pay according to federal tax. Before now, workers in Bayelsa were paying 10% of tax and they feel it is too much money and I said no, everybody must pay his own part according to the federal law. That is, the Personal Income Tax Act. I have also done the welfare bill where, for the vulnerable members of our society, I give them stipends of N5000 once they are up to 75 years, the state maintains you. Also, the disabled and handicapped, the state has a responsibility. I am a people politician. I am in this game for service to the people. To make a difference in their lives and I am determined to make them have the highest possible best from their government and I am institutionalising these things. I am setting these things based on laws so that when I am gone, the laws are there. Just as I am doing on transparency, it’s a law because I don’t want any governor to take us back to where we were. Every month, the governor will do what I am doing. Today, I was happy when a local government chairman was doing his transparency programme to his people because for you to be a chairman in Bayelsa, you must announce what is coming to your people every month. Very soon, because of the terrible rot we inherited, you will see the benefits of what we are doing. We are doing a lot and we need support and understanding of our friends because for a long time, that place was like a dumping ground, nobody cared. Big men stay far from home. We are wiping all that and giving government back to the people. Like the criminals and cultists that renounced, after coming up with a law and enforcing it well, we will address their condition because, as a governor they are my people too. So, we have made it possible for their rehabilitation. You talked about the pension funds in Bayelsa, and there are speculations that you did not really deduct their envelopes well before taking the step. Sir, would you confirm to us that you don’t really know what happened to some pension arrears in the state? Let me tell you, pension arrears were owed for five years before my government came in. They had not paid pension liabilities for five years and I know who was governor for five years in case you don’t. Now, that is criminal. You cannot allow old people who served to go home without their entitlements. I came up and set a small administrative panel and they came up with unpaid pension of about N4bn. People are taking advantage of the weakness of institutions and laws in this country. So, the pension arrears were not paid and every month when I came, I made it a policy to save in addition to paying loans and facilities of about N4 bn every month. That is what Bayelsa sets aside to service loans and useless liabilities. In addition, I said these people are in this situation due to no fault of their and so, we must address it. And so I began to save N250m every month to address to backlog. So you see what I am doing that was not done before? I have paid over N1 bn. Later I said I will not pay the N250m again and I will set up a commission that will tell me when the payment of the pension arrears stopped, who were at fault, and my concern was to really find out what went wrong. And I am going to find out. It is not a question of not reading large, no. You see, the problem is that people thrive on propaganda and blackmail and I hope that we don’t promote criminals to take over leadership in this country with the way we are going because it is the criminals and despicable elements whose voices are heard loudest. It is a major challenge to our democracy. I know we are all savouring our new found freedom but we have to be very careful because people should be asking questions that they need to ask. So, I want to establish facts and then introduce measures that will prevent a repeat of this. I hate what has been done to these old people. My own small gratuity for the ten years I served as a police officer, I get it. I want to sanitise the pension system and when the result comes out, with the kind of interest you have, I am sure you will know. Still on the reconciliation, Nigerians expect that your committee will do all the reconciliation and go the whole hug. Nigerians expect that your committee will come up with a solution to the Rivers crisis. So, what is your committee doing to bring peace to Rivers? On Rivers State, I don’t want to talk about developments in Rivers State because I don’t even know the basis. But for you to say I started it because I am an interested candidate, I am not. I am interested just as other Nigerians are and nothing beyond that. It is not the duty of my committee unless there is a specific referral from the national leadership. It is not our intention to go into Rivers scenario reason being that we have so many matters in court and we have intervention by the National Assembly and there is an international dimension also coming up with people granting interviews to the international media. The only thing I can say is that Nigerians should pray for the mental stability of their leaders because it is part of what they owe us. They should pray that all those who take executive decisions should have stable mindset with which to do their job. When you say leaders should have mental stability, are you suggesting that they should undergo psychiatric test before aspiring to political office? I won’t say our leaders should undergo psychiatric test but I know it is a suggestion that has been made by so many people but I think in the light of some of these developments, it is something we need to discuss.