Philip Asiodu has held different positions at various times in the country but not many are aware of his dexterity in cracking jokes. Before the commencement of this interview with INNOCENT DURU, he showed his skill in cracking jokes and spoke about his wish for Nigeria before he exits to the world beyond. Excerpts:
You will be 80 years old in a few months time but you really look agile and far younger than your age. What is the magic behind this?
I am glad to hear that I look younger than my age. Thank you very much. First you thank God if you are not born with some genetic disease that might worry you. Next is to acquire early enough good habits like eating moderately, if you drink, drink moderately. Then obey the rules of hygiene. Keep as clean as you can and exercise yourself so that you don’t become too fat because the body must maintain a balance. When you become too obese you over task your heart. For every extra pound of kilogramme more capillaries, your heart has to work harder to push blood to all those parts of the body. There used to be this American doctor who tried to counsel people that were a bit over fat. He would ask them ‘would you imagine putting the engine of a Volkswagen beetle to drag a nine-seater Cadillac? Try to avoid needless obesity, work hard enough, play well, take exercises but learn to sleep enough. If one may add, because these days with our processed food which is not as good as the natural food which our elders used to eat, people sometimes look at suggestions by dieticians and doctors about taking vitamin supplements especially anti-oxidants like vitamin A. People think you have to be a very old man before you can use it but quite early in the middle age, you supplement dieting with recommended supplements. I think it is simply all about doing things moderately.
How has life been after your retirement from public service; how do relax and do you socialise?
I told you that we were brought up in this tradition where games and athletics were as important as or even more important than academic work. While in school, I played and represented the school in cricket, tennis, squash, and hockey. After leaving school, one played a little of cricket in clubs but, after sometime, became too busy to participate in sports and games involving so many people. You can’t hold 21 people waiting because you couldn’t finish your meeting in the office and of course you grow older. So gradually, one played no more cricket, one played no more hockey but one kept to playing tennis and squash and when because of developing arthritis, one couldn’t play squash and tennis anymore, I moved on to golf. I started my public service career in a foreign office. If you are a games’ man and you go to the cricket club or squash club, you make friends easily. Even after retirement I kept playing tennis and occasional squash but now I play golf. I was a member of Island Club, Ikoyi Club, one goes there occasionally and we have Kings’ College Old Boys Association, I associate with them. We also have the Oxford and Cambridge Club here in Lagos and London. I belong to both. I have been able to keep socially meeting people that you like and that has been extremely useful.
Your profile shows you are a man of many achievements but given the opportunity to turn back the hand of time, is there any part of your life you would want to amend?
Strictly looking at it, I have been fairly lucky and fortunate in the decisions I took. There is no part of my life that I really regret. It is true when I was in school; I thought I might engage more actively in political matters. Therefore I chose that I would try to become a lawyer because as a lawyer you could still have time for politics. If I became a doctor, I thought it may not give me time. So when I first went to Oxford to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics I was expecting that at the end of that I would do Law, come back as a lawyer and be able to practise the profession of law and also have time to engage in politics. But as I drew nearer to the time of graduation and saw the way politics was developing, it was no longer of much interest to me. Although when I left Oxford I went to London with the intention to study Law but when the British were leaving, Nigeria had to have a diplomatic service and they advertised for people to come in as trainees for the foreign service. I applied, I was interviewed and accepted and I gave up the idea of reading Law and came back as one of the 12 pioneers of the Nigerian Foreign Service. It is possible that if my father had not died when I was 16 years, he might have influenced me to be a lawyer. If I were a lawyer, I probably would have gone to the root of private practice and politics but he died just about when I was about to take school certificate and he was the only person who could have influenced my decision. Looking back really, there is nothing to regret about myself. Thoroughly, I enjoyed myself as a young boy born in Lagos in February 1934. Before I became conscious, my father who was a Customs Officer was transferred to Calabar. Calabar was where I became conscious, started schooling, learnt to read and write Efik as my first language and ten years later he was transferred back to Lagos.
At what point did you find love, especially getting married to somebody outside your tribe at a time inter tribal marriage was not common?
(Cuts in) Not so uncommon. I married in 1964 December. Asaba people have been pioneer civil servants if you like. Even in the census of 1961, the two towns with the greatest numbers of pensioners were Abeokuta and Asaba. Throughout the Warri province, Asaba people were the first teachers. Being literate people they were among the first civil servants. They were found everywhere; you would find them in the Customs, in the P & T . It was one Nigerian civil service and you could be transferred from Lagos to Calabar. My father served in Lagos, he served in Burutu and Calabar. Asaba people, because they were posted to all these places, many of them had wives from there. If you go to Asaba today, there is no language that you speak that somebody would not answer you. Inter marriage was not so unusual especially in the south but in our own case, you grow up somewhere, you go to school, you socialise with people around, your father was literate, so you grow up in a sort of cosmopolitan atmosphere where people visiting you were not confined to tribes. In a place where you grow up, you may pick up an association that may lead to marriage later. In short, there was in the background, approach to life, I am a Roman Catholic same with my parents, my wife also came from a Catholic family so in terms of religion there was an affinity. Although I speak Asaba because my parents came from there, I have never really lived in Asaba so the chances of finding a damsel there when it came to marriage, geographically, was not that easy.
You took a shot at the presidency in 1999. Why have you become so inactive politically?
Well one is 79 years old and who am I going to appeal to? The younger ones will say ‘this old man should go and sit down his time has passed’ or they may say that we created problems for them. But more importantly what are the conditions of politicking today? Unfortunately the 1999 constitution insists that you cannot be a candidate except a political party sponsors you. There is no provision for independent candidacy and as far as I am concerned there is no proper political party in Nigeria today. Properly defined, a political party has a manifesto. It says this is what I want the country to be. It cannot tell you that I am going to power to loot the state or to enrich myself. It has to say I am going to power because when we implement our policies, the nation will develop and the people will be happier. There is no party today with that; they are not issues oriented. They are simply cabals for selecting people for office. That system must be changed. What are their demands for you to be their candidate; to come and take a form for N50million. Even in my days trying to campaign, I fixed a meeting in Asaba, Delta State for 11 o’clock in the morning. There’s no point from Delta in those days you would not reach Asaba if you left your house by 8o’clock that you would not reach there before 11 and I made sure the meeting would end before 3 o’clock so that they could go home on time. Even the man in Igbuzor that is 20 minutes from the meeting would say I should send money for transport and money for hotel accommodation. You see what we have become? In my days as a student, I used my pocket money to go to Glover Memorial Hall to listen to Zik. Now we are saying that a man coming 10 minutes away from the venue of a meeting is saying send me money for hotel. The cost of seeking political office is too high and compounds corruption; we would have to address it. Secondly, parties must become issues oriented. Planning, like I said earlier, is important. We abandoned planning effectively after the coup of 1975. Never mind jokes we cracked about holding plans which were never respected.
Now we are again trying to say we believe in planning but like I showed recently in a comparison of statistics of budget allocation in 2010 to 2012 compared with the planned provision of the planning estimate, you will find that the allocation in vital sectors like education, infrastructure, productive sector hovered around 36 percent. The allocation to the assembly was about 647 percent. That just shows we have not accepted the discipline of planning. If we could have a situation now on which parties could build their manifestoes on the desire for Nigeria to become what we said it should be in 2020, and let the partisan competition be which party can deliver it quicker, then you are back to issues. I am disappointed that we are talking about forming APC to challenge the PDP, but on what basis.? Some people want to replace some people. I have not seen a party that comes out to say Nigeria’s approach to governance must change; we believe in good governance. First we believe in re- arranging allocation of resources so that capital projects led by education, health and infrastructure take the majority and they get 60 percent. We now believe that the cost of governance must be reduced, therefore these are the salaries which would apply to party officials, apply to party members in executive ministers and apply to the legislatures. We establish career long training pattern but merit and productivity would be the yard stick of promotion. If we can do this and remove this question that you can only be a candidate if you are sponsored by a political party, remove this question of paying money from public purse to political parties automatically and if we must, go to the German model whereby a party has to win a minimum percentage of votes to qualify for any public support so that you are limiting the number of people who can say I am a party. If we do these things, we must encourage people of talents, of good pedigree, people who have gone through a good educational system which emphasises honesty and integrity, people who are not hungry, people who are not looking for public office in order to survive, we must then encourage them to participate in politics. It would be too late for me but I will be happy to see that situation because it will then give me the comfort of knowing that Nigeria will be on the mend so that my children and more particularly, my grandchildren do not have to be sentenced to a life of being economic fugitives.
How do you wish to be remembered?
Me? Well, how do I want to be remembered? We are not the type of people Nigeria remembers a lot. As I said, one has enjoyed a reasonably good life. I was able to come to a Nigeria which could give you good education, I was able to go to the best educational institutions, I have enjoyed my career. I will just like to be remembered as a Nigerian who had hoped that before he disappears Nigeria would have helped to restore the respect for the black man which we lost with the introduction of the Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century. Unfortunately, we thought we could have done that by the end of the 20th century but we have not. I hope that before I go, the basis would be laid and good governance will return to Nigeria so that at least latest by 2050 we would have been able to do for the black man what the Japanese did for the yellow man in 19th century. They restored them to international respect. Then I will be remembered as one of those little public servants who tried to contribute to creating the basis for this renaissance
You worked with many leaders in the country from the pre independence era to the post- independence era. Which of these leaders would you want to work with again if given the opportunity and why would you?
Well that would be a negative way of putting it. I would rather be more positive and say that while in school, we used to take our pocket money to go and listen to late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe talking about freedom, and African renaissance and Nigeria being a vanguard of African renaissance. He was a leader who considered himself as a citizen of the world, preaching that Africa must resume the respect that it had before. I am still inspired by that kind of idea and when you met somebody like Dr Azikiwe, he was urbane, friendly and at home with you. When I became permanent secretary in 1965, it was before him I swore an oath of allegiance. Later on, I had the opportunity in the time of General Gowon when eventually politicians were brought into the cabinet after the military coup because after the January military coup when Ironsi became the supreme commander, the army did not want politicians in the cabinet. In fact, they wanted perm secs to assume that title but we said no. No ministers were appointed, so permanent secretaries played their old roles of coordinating inputs for policy, preparing council memoranda for policies which the ministers under the civilian regime then took to cabinet and when decisions were taken the permanent secretary was responsible for coordinating the resources of men, material and money in the ministries to implement decisions of government. That was quite fulfilling. Now with no ministers, permanent secretaries presented the memoranda themselves to the supreme military council and when decisions were taken, unlike when there were ministers to explain to the public the decisions of government. The permanent secretaries had to play this role and that gave us an unusual exposure to the media and the public.
One was happy working under Prime Minister Balewa who was the leader of the federal government. Later on briefly, Ironsi was in power for about six months. He left the civil service intact and we were able to play our roles. After him General Gowon came along; very fair minded, genuinely patriotic, wishing to do his best for Nigeria. Of course his first years were difficult with the rejection of his succession to Ironsi by Ojukwu, the attempted succession, the civil war and the attempt to have reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction after the civil war then unfortunately for him, he delayed handing over and was removed by a military coup. He was genuinely patriotic, he respected civil service, he genuinely listened, and took decisions to move the country forward. I was quite happy to work with him. Of course when he was removed in 1975, quite soon around September of the same year, I was asked to retire, of course with full benefits. I was asked to retire in public interest. But before they went public, I must say, the chief of staff supreme headquarters, the secretary to the government and I think the IGP, three leading members of the supreme military council, called me and said ‘you have to retire because you can’t fit in into the new image of the permanent secretary that we want’. May be they were correct because I was brought up in a tradition where you spoke the truth on the basis of objective data you could gather; you did not doctor your recommendations to suit any whims or caprices. You honestly told government what the options were. You made suggestions but it was left to them to take the decisions and once the decisions were taken, it was my duty to implement it faithfully and that I did. I would not have liked the situation in which civil servants were not allowed to say clearly, objectively and fearlessly what they thought was correct. They were correct because I couldn’t fit into that image, so I retired with the pension of the time.
After my retirement, I was able to go into private sector, do one or two investments and on the basis of my reputation in service I was invited to serve on the boards of a number of multinational companies. So in terms of personal comfort, probably I was better off, but in terms of satisfaction as a Nigerian and in terms of satisfaction as an instrument for positive change, of course my career was truncated. I believe that if we had continued on that path of development and if the abrupt coup of 1975 did not end the Gowon regime, I think we might have been able to influence the general to go through an orderly handover to the civilians more or less on the Brazilian pattern. With the destruction of the public service which happened after I was removed when 10, 000 people were retired even from states which didn’t have enough civil servants. Newly created states were even forced to even bring people for retirement. They retired people who were obeying rules correctly. I didn’t mind if I as permanent secretary and few others associated with top policy suggestions and implementation were asked to go. But for them to go below us and retire deputy perm sec, senior assistant perm sec; people who were obeying lawful orders, some of whom were being recommended on the basis of excellent performance, that demoralisation, that injustice has impacted so badly on subsequent development in Nigeria.
In essence, you are saying that there is none of the leaders you worked with that you cannot work with again?
As a civil servant as I said, I worked quite happily under Balewa, under Ironsi, under Gowon and then I retired. Subsequently, briefly in 1983 I now came back not as a civil servant but as an economic adviser under President Shehu Shagari. Shagari had good intention but unfortunately a bit too lenient to some errant ministers in his first term. In fact as a private adviser, I know that we made some presentations to him to remove some of them but he didn’t. He waited until the second administration and in his second administration, in selecting the people, the guidelines he gave for the functions of government were quite clear that he was determined to give us an excellent administration. Under the 1979 constitution the president was entitled to seven special advisers, two for the vice president and two for him. In selecting those seven only two were from the north. He wasn’t going to play the politics of just taking anybody putting him there. Every memo under his new guideline had to indicate that the ministry of economic planning had contributed to it. In short he was going back to planning and observing the discipline of planning. The abandonment of two principles has left Nigeria in the unfortunate situation we have found ourselves today. I was quite happy to work with President Shagari but it was very brief. Then later on in 1992 -1993, when things were so bad and the people were crying out, General Babangida was obliged to form the transitional council under Chief Ernest Shonekan and selected quite a number of people based on past technocratic records to be part of that transitional council. I went in as secretary for petroleum and mineral resources. I thought we were meant to serve for at least 18 months. My understanding was that we were supposed to be the people to organise election for a succeeding civilian administration but we would not be candidates so that there would not be question of conflict of interests. If we were able to do 18 months of implementing more or less civilian administration and were seen to supervise genuine free election, then the take-off into democracy would have been smoother. That did not happen and it was unfortunate.
In your early days and some few years ago this country was never like this. Where in your opinion did we get it wrong?
If we come to the latest situation, that destruction of the public service in 1975, the mass purge of people that needed not to be purged as it was established later when Monsignor Pedro Matins was asked to look into it he found out that more than 95 percent of those that were retired should not have retired if due process was well followed. That destroyed the morale and the fearlessness of the public servants.
A good number of these people that were prematurely retired had no resources anywhere. They thereby enthroned the principle of make hay while the sun shines which is a euphemism for corruption. Once civil service lost its prestige and fearlessness and could not keep telling ministers, sir these are the financial instructions, this is possible this is not possible; it would destroy checks and balances. That was terrible for Nigeria. Unfortunately for us, even though Gen Murtala Muhammed and Gen Olusegun Obasanjo were members of Gowon’s cabinet which approved the 1975-1980 plan which stressed that oil is a wasting asset and in the meantime we must use the resources of oil to diversify the Nigerian economy and develop it and proceeded to identify a number of capital goods and intermediate good industries, metallurgy from iron ore to steel, oil and gas to petrochemical, fertilizers, all these plans were there but unfortunately in the process of denigrating what happened under Gowon, were abandoned. But most seriously abandoning the discipline which planning imposes; where you before hand identify priorities for national development and when resources come, you will apply them to that. What has then happened is that having abandoned the plan, money came and was spent but where is it? What can we show for it? I keep emphasizing this point and you media people should please take it up because we must be saved from the present waste of resources and excessive self-seeking by people in leadership positions.
Insecurity has almost become a way of life in Nigeria. What is the way out of this?
What is at the bottom of insecurity and why are we not effectively anticipating incidents of terrorism? The answer, I believe are twofold. First, the signals coming from the top down are not signals which will enforce the core values of integrity, honesty and transparency. The cost of seeking political office is too high. The behaviour in office of then seeking to cover that money leads to massive corruption. So when the signal coming from the top is that anybody can take as much as possible as he likes from the coffers of the state and flaunt it, it doesn’t give you the moral authority to tell the people to be patient. Because of that resources have been shifting from what we should be spending in order to enable Nigeria go to higher levels of development into private pockets. The self -seeking is too much.
What is your view about sanctioning of corrupt officers?
What do we do about sanctioning people who have been found guilty of corruption? You saw the terrible case in which somebody who misappropriated N26 billion was fined N760, 000 and somebody who stole a goat is sentenced two years. What signal do such send? Those are part of the underlining factors. Now because of corruption there is a situation in which we are often as a country, am sorry for the government, operating as if we are blind and do not have the data to anticipate problems. In the old days, money for security votes trickled down the ladder even to the position of the police inspector, making and rejoicing with people in the market square in the village pubs. Here was a situation of having little money to entertain and whosoever stranger that came into the village within 24 hours the residents knew. Now is there the resources for intelligence gathering at the bottom for us to be able to do that? This is another terrible situation. When you have a situation in which the citizens because of the massive self -seeking and self -appropriation of resources by the people at the top are not caring for the public good, the citizens become, if you like distanced from the leadership; the willingness to obey is not there and even the willingness to exert sanctions for corruption is not be there, the resources at the bottom to gather intelligence data is not there, then this terrible cocktail results in the situation in which we find ourselves.
We must communicate good values from the top. We must re-instate the situation in which the leadership has the authority and that can only come from exemplary behaviour; behaving according to precepts, making sure that there is discipline, making sure that what you are doing is in the interest of the public good and not of private interest.
What is your take on the state of emergency declared in three states in the north?
I am happy and in support of the state of emergency. I am in support of trying to find the people who have declared war on the state but that is the first step. The next big step is for the president to proclaim an ethical revolution to bring us back to the core values of discipline, transparency, honesty, integrity, respect for the public good, pursuit of the public interest and the utilization of resources maximally to improve the possibility of Nigeria resuming rapid economic progress, diversification, and wealth creation for the people.
The hope of the common man seems to have been dashed. What is the way out?
We must try to be constructive. I do not believe in extreme pessimism. I believe that people ruling today should please look again at where the country is going and if it is sustainable. What we are doing now is not sustainable and it is time now for us to say from the top down enough is enough and to go back to things which would enable this country to resume growth, development and to know peace. First thing is this we must drastically reapportion the allocation of the resources available. We cannot continue with the amount of money being paid to the legislatures and the executives. We can’t! Whatever anybody is able to earn legitimately in the private sector is okay. At independence the salary of a minister, a permanent secretary and a professor is about equal. The difference was about N2, 000 to N3, 000 or thereabout. What is it today? It is terrible. The executive too would have to look at it. If you look at our economy, by the time you pay the chief executive of Nigeria, the President N30 million per annum that is salary and allowance, of course he would live in presidential house, he would entertain with public votes, I think that is okay. We need to reach the situation again where we can devote may be for a start 60 percent and little more later to public expenditure and a great deal of this public expenditure to education because education is the route to escape from poverty; it is the route to upward mobility. Many of us who look okay today and many of them in government it is the education they had that made them to get to that position. It is the primary duty of any religious leader to try to ensure that the broad masses of Nigeria are enabled again to get good, quality public education. America is a land of capitalism by excellence but there is no American who doesn’t have access to quality public education and that is what we must do here. We must also put in place good health care and infrastructure. If we had enough power (electricity) available today, a lot of the people who are going into crime because of joblessness would be employed. A tailor who can only manage one machine now will have four and four apprentices. The poor woman who comes home to grind pepper for two hours on stone, in five minutes would do it and have more time for other things.
