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Category: Interview

  • ‘No crisis in Rivers State, but wind of change is blowing’

    ‘No crisis in Rivers State, but wind of change is blowing’

    For the first time, the Minister of State for Education, BARR. EZENWO NYESOM WIKE, opened up on the crisis in Rivers State and his grouse with GOVERNOR ROTIMI AMAECHI, whom he served as Chief of Staff. Our correspondent, SANNI ONOGU was at the interview session. Excerpts:

     

     

    What is the cause of the crisis in Rivers State ?

    When you say cause of the crisis, what crisis?

    I mean the political crisis in Rivers State that has assumed a life of its own. Every day we hear one thing or the other by those in support of Governor Rotimi Amaechi and those not supporting him that even Amaechi has to say “I will talk o” and then you gave him back, “I will talk also”. What is the back ground to where we are?

    Ordinarily I try not to discuss about this type of issue. First of all, I don’t want to come from the angle that there is a crisis. What I will say is that it is natural in life that we are not agreeable to change. For example, in 2007, when there was a pronouncement that Celestine Omehia was not the governor, it was difficult for people to accept it. That is to say, when change occurs you don’t expect people to easily accept it. But with time you will find out that everybody will begin to live with it. So, it is better for people to accept change in life because the only thing that is permanent is change. If you say crisis, I will not agree with you but rather you know that in politics, if you are not in control of the party machinery, there is always fear that probably what you want will not be realised or achievable.

    Can you define the change you have just alluded to? Because like you always say that Governor Amaechi is the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party in Rivers State, whereas people are of the view that Amaechi is no longer in control of the party but rather you are the de facto leader

    No, I am not. This again is the problem. I am not the head of the party. I am not the chairman of the party. And by the Constitution of the PDP I cannot be the head except where there is no governor from that party. So I am not the leader of the party as provided in the organogram of PDP. I am not, because we have a governor who is from the party. But assuming there is no governor, as a minister I would have said that I am the leader of the party.

    Are you saying Amaechi is still your leader in PDP Rivers State?

    There are no two ways about it. Whether you like it or not, he is. Take for example today, you may not like Jonathan but will you say that he is not the leader of the party at the national level? No. So people must face the reality. If you like his face, if you don’t like his face, what it means is that by the constitution of the party, he remains the leader, except he is no longer in the party.

    You are talking about the structure of the party. You have also spoken about change. What is your basis of talking about change?

    The change I am talking about is this. People contested for positions. It is like we go for general elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission clears certain persons. Even in the people polling units. But when it gets to the general collation centres, somehow another person is declared as winner. In that case anybody who feels aggrieved goes to the tribunal to say, ‘look, by the results as announced in the various wards or polling units, I ought to be declared as the winner.’ Now when that follows, at the end of the day, the person is declared as the winner by the tribunal, you will see reactions. The person may be the governor, a senator, a House of Assembly member or the Chairman of local council as the case may be. There will be reactions. In this case, people contested elections. People said they won. The other people said they won. At the end of the day people went to court to challenge what happened and they looked at the facts and said based on these facts, I think it is this way. Having done that, you will not expect that people will keep quiet. Why? Because unfortunately we are going towards 2015. A lot of people have ambition; I have an ambition to be this, I have an ambition to be that. Now, because of what has happened, if these people are no longer there, there will be likelihood that that ambition may not be achievable or realiseable. Assuming the verdict has nothing to do with 2015, even if you change people every day, who will cry? So people are just narrating the stories as it suits their own peculiarities. So, when things of that nature happen, you expect that people must react. You expect that people will give one explanation or the other. It is a natural thing. But again, whichever way it goes, it does not remove that party’s constitutional provision on how its leaders emerge.

    Having admitted that Amaechi remains your leader in the state, are you saying that you are still answerable to Governor Amaechi?

    When you say answerable, it becomes very difficult because I am not working for the government of Rivers State now. I am working for the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But if my leader calls me that there are issues to be discussed, obviously, I will discuss and make my own input or contributions.

    Ok, are you agreeable?

    What do you mean by agreeable?

    I mean are you agreeable with the governor on the differences in the party structure. That is who won and who lost in the party setting?

    What’s the noise all about? What I am saying is that we can disagree but that does not remove the leadership from him.

    How do you reassure the people who lost out at the court that they have not lost out of the party?

    That is why I said that what they are doing is the natural thing they should do. Therefore, the party chairman should try as much as he can to ensure that they are carried along. He is now like a father. You must not say because they lost, you must not say because they are abusing you and, therefore, you say no, they should not come. No. You should be able to go there and bring them which they have started by constituting a reconciliation committee. It is a thing that if you give them the opportunity to say look, nothing is lost, we are still under the same umbrella but like you know, a typical Nigerian politician is always afraid.  It is a natural fear and that is what we are saying. Why should that fear be there? That fear should be there because of the way we are running our democracy. Because of the way we have been imposing people. Now if we allow popular choice to emerge, if we allow popular candidates to emerge you will see that nobody will entertain fear again.

    There have been so many solidarity visits to the Governor of Rivers State and again they are saying you are the leader in Abuja. How did it come to that?

    Now let me tell you, it is rather erroneous when you say Abuja. I challenge anybody in Rivers State who will say that I cannot win my village. I cannot win my ward. I cannot win my local government. I challenge anybody. The mere fact that I work in Abuja does not mean that I do not go home. If so, all the National Assembly members who live in Abuja are also Abuja people because they are working here. So if you are saying Abuja, it means all National Assembly members are also Abuja people. Is that right?

    It is instructive that you and Amaechi for the first time have publicly disagreed but if you look back at history, you were instrumental to Amaechi regaining his mandate. How did this position come to be?

    First of all, I will not say I was instrumental because God uses people at a particular time to achieve something. So it is God. God may have used me but I am not instrumental. That I made myself available to be used, I am satisfied with that. But that is why people do not understand politics. The mere fact that 15 years ago that you were all in the same page does not mean that in the next five years you will continue to be in the same page. In politics things occur. Things change. Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and Aminu Kano were in the same political party, the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) but when he wanted to emerge he left Aminu Kano. But he never said Aminu Kano was not a good person. So we have to play politics of maturity. Today, at my my age, does it mean that I cannot disagree with you on any issue? Or when we disagree is it because we are enemies?

    What about the insinuation that Mr. President uses you to fight the party leader?

    That is another problem. When did the problem of Amaechi and the President start? Did it start as I became a minister? So, people forget history. If Mr. President would use me and then still leave me as a Minister of State, what do I have to gain? Mr President would use me to let me know about my political future? These insinuations are very insulting. At this level I am, I will wait for Mr. President to wake me to tell me that my political career is finished. You know there are things you just hear. Okay, like you are saying, in 2007, who sent me to fight?  In 2007 that you said I was instrumental, who sent me to fight? No one sent me to fight. I used my brain to know how I should fight. Now, because I am working with Mr President, somebody has sent me. But that time I was not working with Mr. President, nobody sent me. It is not correct. In 2007, I laid my life, who sent me? I was to be assassinated in Uromi. All those things I was doing then, who sent me? When Amaechi was in Ghana and I was taking all the bullets, who sent me? When there was no hope and people came to promise me all manner of things which I refused, who sent me? It is time Nigerians should try to accept that some people have come of age. That you have decided to do something today does not mean you have been a threat.

    So is it about your gubernatorial ambition?

    What gubernatorial ambition? I also ask: in 2007 what was my ambition? In 2011 what was my ambition? Now, because I am supporting Obuah, it is now I am having an ambition? To start with, every human being in life has an ambition. Even you have an ambition. Is it your ambition to remain the way you are? They day you were born, why did you go to school? Why did you further your education? Why do you want to marry an educated wife? Why do you want your children to go to good schools? What ambition? There is no person that does not have ambition in life. Why do you think it is governorship? Why is it not presidency that I have ambition for? Why do you think so? Why must it be governorship?

    You have called on the newly installed PDP Executive in Rivers State to reconcile aggrieved members, but fears abound that there is a plot to impeach the governor, following the crisis in the House of the Assembly where 27 members suspended five of their colleagues and the 27 were in turn suspended by the new party executives. Now how do you explain that?

    Now let me tell you, the party suspension is not meant to remove them from the Assembly. There are two different people. Let me tell you, no Assembly person can challenge me because I know how all of them came in. No one of them can look into my eyes and tell me anything. Nobody. They can say anything at my back but nobody can speak to my face. These boys are just trying to make money. They are just making money from the system. They are heating up the polity to make money.

    Which of the boys?

    The Assembly boys, that is what they are doing. I can show you some of their text messages. Most of them said this is the first time they are making money. Let the crisis continue, that they are now getting money. Every day they send one story out. They will say Amaechi wants to be impeached. In a 32-member House you have 27, who is impeaching who? There are so many ways people can be fraudulent. You can be fraudulent by getting into the chambers and trying to make money out of the system. How did the suspension come about? A democratically elected people, nobody is talking about that. You wake up one morning, sacked the 17 councillors, sacked the Chairman and the Vice Chairman. You did not even say let the HPM take charge in the interim. You brought a caretaker committee made up of politicians to take over the place. Now the party under whose platform you were elected said this is not in consonance with our beliefs. We believe in democracy. This is not democratic. Don’t do this. You flagrantly refused to obey your father, to obey your party. What can they do? You went ahead and suspended the chairman and the deputy, inaugurated a caretaker committee and then you want the people to fold their hands? Okay, you are doing a legislative work but you could not do a legislative work without the part. Therefore, for now they remain suspended from the party. They were not suspended from the Assembly. The party has no power to suspend them. The best they could do is to start a process of recall. Now, what these boys are doing, they shout wolf. Most of them now go to radio stations every day. They will say I am bold I have criticised and they will give you money.  There are all sorts of rumours flying around and I said what kind of system is this? Based on the rumours the system will bring money. They said police took over the Assembly, where? You ran away you don’t want to do your work. You are journalists, they are fighting Amaechi, they are fighting that. Take for instance, a court sacks an executive and you use a military fiat to dissolve my local government. People who were elected by the people? You sack them and nobody is saying anything. I tell anybody that the police today is the saviour of that place, not those who are speaking from Lagos. If the police had not taken over that secretariat maybe we would have heard a different story. Nobody is afraid of death because you will die one day.  Even you journalists have not asked questions. How can you dissolve or suspend elected people that can cause crisis and cause fire to engulf everywhere? Nobody is talking about that. It is like the President waking up one day and sacking a governor and all the legislators. Tell me the type of crisis that will come up? People are only shouting for nothing. You are a human rights activist, you don’t see anything wrong in the dissolution of a council or suspension of elected people. What you see wrong is that the police have taken over to ensure that there is no breach of law and order. Let the police go tomorrow and then you will see the crisis that may emanate. We should not be sentimental about this type of grievous issues.

    There are fears right now that if the crisis in Rivers State degenerates, the federal government may be forced to declare a state of emergency. How would this benefit the people?

    How long did it take the federal government to declare a state of emergency even in a war zone? You see that is what I say. This is how they try to make money from the system. Since the Boko Haram crisis in Yobe, Borno and others, the federal government did not declare a state of emergency. Now that it has been declared in three states, the political structures were left intact. Now in Rivers State, nobody is at war. Politicians are quarreling among themselves then you go and declare a state of emergency and ask the political structures to go? I mean this is nonsense. This type of rumour is stale. It is old and nobody will want to hear it.

    Where will this  supposed crisis in the state take Rivers State? What is the future of Rivers State with what is on ground there?

    The future like how? Let me tell you, PDP has always won in Rivers. PDP will continue to win Rivers. Go and check the results. As I am talking to you my local government has the highest registered voters in the state. It has over 500,000 voters followed by Port Harcourt local government. During the Presidential election my local government gave 377,000 votes. During the governorship election my local government gave about 369,000. Now this covered about 10 local government votes in that election. There is nobody that can win elections in Rivers State without winning my local government. It is not done anywhere. If you like, go and bring all the armoured tanks, it won’t work. So, Rivers State will continue to be PDP.  Don’t make any mistake.

    So when are you going to reconcile with Amaechi and the two parties?

    You see, there is no quarrel. Have you ever seen me criticise Amaechi’s government? If we have problems, probably there might be for one reason or the other the governor is not happy. But right now we are talking about politics. So I don’t have any personal problem with the governor. So if they are doing something and they invite me to Government House I will be there. People should get this clear. If the government has a function today and I am invited, I will be there.  The history is there. Rivers State does not vote for opposition, it is not done.

    Now that you say it is not a crisis, what is the solution to the disagreement?

    This is why I said people like to over-blow things. It is a political thing. We agree to disagree, disagree to agree.  That is the interesting thing in politics. You don’t know who will call who in the mid night. In the midnight anything can take place. I have told you people don’t kill yourselves. You are not in the arena. It is only those in the arena that know what happens. You will just guess. Sometimes you will guess well, other times you guess wrongly. In fact, most of the time you don’t guess well. There is one paper that reported that my governor went to Ekiti State and said Nigerians are cowards. That they don’t stand up for opposition. Now you went to dissolve a council and people are now revolting. How does the revolt occur? People are no longer cowards. People are saying, no, we don’t want to accept it and then you are blaming them.

    Where are we now in terms of actually transforming basic education to drive Nigeria ‘s development?

    You will understand it very well if you know that basic education is not in the purview of the federal government. Basic Education is wholly in the purview of states and local governments. So it would be very difficult for me to say this is where we are. What I can say is the efforts the federal government has made in supporting those whose duty is primarily to oversee basic education. So when you appreciate that you know that the federal government is doing quite a lot in complementing the efforts of states and local governments whose responsibility it is to oversee basic education. So if you come from that perspective, since this government came on board, what was the level of our performance in public exams, particularly getting five credits including English and Mathematics as at the time this government came we were 28 per cent? Today, what is the percentage? Today it has risen to 40 per cent. We are not saying that is good. What we are saying is that if we were 28 per cent and we have gotten to 40 per cent in 2013 and then if we continue that way, there is a likelihood that by 2015 that we get almost about 50 per cent or above. You will now see that government is doing quite a lot. What I am saying is this, before now most state governments do not access their funds from the Universal Basic Education Commission. As at 2011, we had not less than N70billion lying idle in government coffers un-accessed by states. Most of them had not accessed 2008 to 2009 funds. So what did we do, because not accessing these funds would not lead to the improvement of the learning infrastructure in schools that leads to enhancement in the performance of students in public exams? We embarked on aggressive campaign to reach out to reach out to state governors. You cannot be building bridges and your pupils are sitting on the floor. You can’t be building hospitals and you have not had good doctors that will be in those hospitals. Therefore, there is a need for you to access your funds and improve on the infrastructure you have in your schools that will lead to the improvement of students’ performance or improve the quality of education in the state. As at today, it is only a few states that have not accessed the 2011 funds. Eighty per cent of states have accessed the 2012 funds. This was not the case before we came. You will understand that the federal government has continuously released funds to various states to train and re-train their teachers. There is no year that we do not release to the states not less than N5billion to train their teachers in the primary and junior secondary schools. But let me tell you what has happened before we came. These funds were going to State Universal Basic Education Boards without their governors or commissioners knowing that the funds were coming. Therefore, these funds were diverted from one area or the other. I can remember when I visited one of the states, when I asked the governor that whether the chairman of SUBEB told him that they have given him this type of money? He said no. I said, okay, chairman when did they pay this money? He said about four months ago. But the governor was not aware. The governor was embarrassed. So what did we do? As these funds are being released we now write to governors that the money has been released. Now the governors are aware that such money is coming to the states. It may not be enough, but it is for you to use it to complement whatever money the state would have set aside on training and re-training of their teachers. Now in the local governments it is the policy of the federal government that most of the children who are in the public schools are poor. The government decided that we cannot allow them to be buying books. Government would take the responsibility of purchase and giving it to students and teachers to use free. But as it happens, most of the pupils would not know, most states would not know, some of them connived in spite of the security inscriptions in these books to sell these books to book vendors. So what have we done since we came? These books are now being given with the support of the State Security Services in every state. As they are distributing it in the state the SSS are taking records and from that state it goes to the local governments and how they get to the various schools we have records. So, on my way to Owerri, Sokoto or Gombe I passed through some of the schools and said can I see the books? Let me see the children using the books. I have done that several times. So I can tell you that it is no longer business as usual. The federal government has also in making sure that not just us, having access to basic education we have the problem of girl child education. In most of the states the girls do not go to school. Take for instance the north. We have the Northwest and the Northeast where we have a peculiar problem because of traditions and other things. We have to engage on aggressive advocacy by going to the states to tell them the need for them to allow their daughters to go to school because it is believed that when you train a woman you have trained a whole nation. Apart from the advocacy, the federal government said maybe because of the religion, we will build special girls’ schools to enable them to go to those schools and have education. As I am talking we have completed these projects in at least not less than 13 states of the federation. Now, you remember that the boarding schools owned by the federal government are the Federal Government Colleges. Today, you will not see the Federal Government Colleges the way they used to be. We have 104 of them and when I came, I visited not less than 80 of the schools. I went to all the six geopolitical zones in this country. In fact, I was the first Minister that went to Borno to go and see things for myself. When I went there I saw that it would not be easy for us o carry these schools at a time. We decided to do phased rehabilitation of the schools. In this year’s budget, we took 30 schools with emphasis on hostels, classrooms and laboratories. Next year we will not give these 30 schools the amount of money that we have given them. We will give them small money for maintenance. Then we will take another 30 schools for another set of rehabilitation. Now, one thing I have discovered, none of the schools has its own library. What they have is what they call reading halls. We are talking of education. No books, no library and then you are expected to perform miracle? So, one thing we must do to encourage reading habits or to encourage students to read books, make sure that the books are there. The facilities should also be there. Today, as I am talking to you all the Federal Government Colleges you see have new libraries of 450 sitting capacity. We call them E-Libraries. Some have been completed while others are ongoing. What advantage do we want to get from there? Those who live in the school, they will go and have their normal siesta while those who are day students will go and use the libraries. Now when they wake up from their siesta, they can use the library while those who are day students have used the library and have gone home. Teachers have libraries where they can prepare the exercises. What we did was go provide separate lights for these libraries which are all furnished and air-conditioned so that nobody will say we have no light. With this the reading culture will come back. With that, students will be encouraged to go to the libraries and make notes and add to what their teachers have taught them. Before, as you were coming out of the class you are going to the library. Now if you are coming out of class you are going home because there is no library to go to. That is why if you compare the results of the Federal Government Colleges and that of the state governments you will see that the difference is very clear. I am not saying that we are doing very well in what we are supposed to do, but comparatively, we can say that students in federal government schools have done better than those in state schools. Before now nobody has emphasised the training of our teachers in Federal Government Colleges. When I came on board I have made sure that every year we must train teachers in Mathematics and English. This year alone we took the teachers to the National Mathematical Centre to live there for two weeks and the feeding was free. Most teachers said for over 15 years they have been teaching, they have never gone for any training.

    In summary, what I am trying to say is that the federal government is doing quite a lot to see that basic education gets the boost and enough support that would affect them as they move forward to the other level of education because without a strong foundation in basic education no matter whatever you do at the tertiary level it will not work. This few things I can say the federal government has been able to do to improve access and quality in basic education.

    What about the special task you embarked on about the Almajiri education?

    That again is encouraging access to education. You know that out of over 60 million in the world that are out of school I think over 10 million are Nigerians. Out of that 10 million the Almajiris are about nine million. So government said this is a peculiar problem we must tackle. On the Almajiri education, we were supposed to commission some of the schools about one month ago, but because of some official engagements of Mr. President, we have to reschedule. We are going to do the commissioning at a date that is convenient for Mr. President. They schools have been built, they are well furnished. They students will be fed while in the schools because if you don’t feed them they will still be tempted to go out of the schools and go and beg.

    How many schools are involved in the Almajiri Education?

    Virtually all northern states are involved but their number differs based on the task force report on the strength of the almajiris in these various states. So the number we have in Borno cannot be the same with Nasarawa.

    Which means none of the Almajiri schools built by the federal government is functioning right now?

    Some have started functioning. We are only talking about the commissioning. What we are saying is that instead of waiting for the commissioning they can start so that they can improve on the enrollment figure.

    From the about nine million Almajiris what is your target to go back to school?

    We have not less than 100 of the Almajiri schools out of which about 60 have been furnished and the other 30 are all near completion.

    From the nine million Almajiris, how many do you target to attend these schools?

    From now till 2015 we a looking at a target of 70 per cent. We cannot say we will get all of them because that would not be realistic. But we hope to continue to improve on that.

     

  • Nothing contests my time with my family

    Nothing contests my time with my family

    Ever dashing Prime Time Entertainment and Prime Time Africa Tv Presenter, Dayo Adeneye is a delight to talk to any day. Soft spoken he maybe, Dayo Adeneye, keeps a private lifestyle despite his conspicuous TV screen appearances. After a successful Grammy coverage in USA, he returned to Nigeria to mourn Goldie, a friend and artiste with whom he had worked so closely. He had to celebrate his birthday, on a day that coincided with Tuface’s wedding in far away Dubai. For him and his business partner, Kenny Ogungbe, their absence was a controversy not needed! Family-loving Dayo Adeneye tells why family comes first and more. He spoke to PAUL UKPABIO.

    It’s wonderful to see you at home, so involved with your family, we posed to Dayo Adeneye a.k.a D-One. He shot back: “My family comes first. I don’t put any job ahead of my family. You can ask my wife over there (points at her). I don’t leave this house until 10 am and by 4-5pm, I am back. I don’t care if you call me, ‘come and pick N20 million,’ I will tell you wait till tomorrow. My children know that too.
    “Sometimes, I come back home before they get back from school. Look, my philosophy is that ‘you don’t have to struggle.’ I deserve to have an amazing life. Won ni toba fe lowo laye, mase sole (If you want to be rich in life, don’t be lazy) but then again, the Yoruba also say, Kirakita ko dola (Struggles don’t guarantee wealth). I believe my God knows what I need and He awould take care of my needs.
    “I don’t need to work 18 hours a day. You don’t have to work 18 hours, 24 hours a day when you find your calling. When you are within the purview of your calling, it would be easy. God would make a way. He is an omnipotent God, He is God of abundance, He would give me everything I need. So, I make out time for my children. They are here, you can see them right here with me; at 5pm I am at home. Weekends, I am at home with them, Saturdays, Sundays, I am home with them. So, I don’t joke with my children even though I travel quite a bit. I travel a lot but we are on Skype everyday. I talk to them everyday. I talk to them every morning and they understand that this is what I do. This is what Daddy does”.
    And just as he spends much time at home with the family, D-One, as he is fondly called, cherishes his marital relationship. He is also quick to tell you, that his wife has been a blessing to him. Caroline Adeneye (Nee Negbenebor) a Bini princess, is his charming wife.
    “Ha, that’s my Oga on top! I hope you noticed I didn’t say ‘my oga at the top’, I said ‘my oga on top! ‘That’s because when I wake up in the morning, she tells me, ‘wear this trouser, wear this shirt, wear this shoe. This looks better, this looks trendy, eat this, eat that, it will make your day better’. And I thank God for her. I am grateful to God that I met this woman. I thank God that I married her; there have been nothing but blessings in my life. Blessings upon blessings since I married this woman. I mean, my life has been tremendously blessed. She is a plus to my life.
    “After Baba God, it is her. I mean she has done wonders in my life. I can leave this house for six months and when I come back, I know my house will remain intact because I know she will take care of everything and she will not bother me with phone calls saying ‘Omo need eleyi (I need this), diesel ti tan (diesel is finished) or “I need school fees etc,’ she would take care of everything. And that makes me proud to call her my partner”.
    Dayo Adeneye who has won style awards in time past believes that being a snappy dresser earned him the recent Best Dressed Television Personality Award.
    “I have always been like that, my pictures from secondary school can testify. I like the good things a lot; I like good shoes, I like good clothes, I like good cars. I have always had taste for good things of life”.
    D-One on set may instantly appeal to viewers at home as a brash, loud extrovert. What with the top range entertainers that get featured on Prime Time different entertainment programmes. However, meeting the same person at home is quite a different ball game.
    “Well, most people are surprised that I am a very shy person despite the fact that I am in entertainment; I am on radio and TV. I think that is also good for me because I am a very reserved person. I am a very private individual and I like to keep to myself a lot. But my wife is very outgoing and she loves people, she mingles with people. When I celebrated my 50th birthday recently, as at the day before the party, I had nothing of such in my mind. But people kept calling and saying ‘we are coming over to your house, we are coming to celebrate with you.’ So, we had no choice than to light stoves, like Nigerians will say. To light stove and buy drinks. But I am grateful to God. I think I have friends and people like to come and celebrate with me. I am grateful that I have the love of friends and family.
    However, we have to celebrate everyday. Everyday is a Friday, everyday is your birthday, everyday is Christmas. Don’t wait till Easter, don’t wait till Christmas to celebrate. Every single day is your birthday. When you wake up in the morning, thank God, give God all the praises and celebrate like it could be your last”.
    The favourite TV Presenter has also in recent times featured in Nollywood movies. Asked if he was about to dump his radio and television jobs, D-One replied: “You know what they say ‘when you find your calling, you never have to work a day in your life.’ I actually started with acting in the days of ‘Palace.’ So, acting is a part of me, it is part of entertainment. It is something I enjoy, whether it is Radio, TV, Sports, I do the things that fulfil me in life. I don’t do anything for money. It is part of my philosophy in life, whatever I do, I believe, just be the best at it. And I go to schools, I go to secondary schools, I go to universities and I give speeches and I give lectures.
    Whatever you do in life, be the best at it. And whatever it is that I have to do, it must be something that I enjoy. I have been a teacher, I was a teacher for seven years. I left a tremendously good paying job to be a teacher because I just felt I have some knowledge to impact. And I dare say I was one of the best teachers in the State of California because my students won just about every award that was there to be won in the State of California. Right now I feel I am one of the best in what I do on Radio and TV. When I feel I am no longer happy doing it, I will move on to something else. But for now, it is what I do and I enjoy it. I have interests in other things; I do real estate. I do other things but for now, entertainment gives me the best motivation. Being able to help young people actualise their dreams whether it is singing, becoming an actor or actress, gives me joy, that gives me fulfilment. But the moment I get bored with it and I feel I have to move on to something else, weather it is politics, will move on to it. I do the things that make me happy, I don’t do anything for money”.
    At the end of the day, when all that concerns his life has been fulfilled, what would Dayo Adeneye love to be remembered for? “That rings in my head every morning when I wake up; what would I be remembered for? I don’t want to be remembered for how much I left in my bank account. I don’t want to be remembered for how many houses I have. I don’t want to be remembered for how many cars I drove or the brand of cars I drove. Nobody remembers you for those mundane things. If they ask you which kind of car did Late Pa Awolowo drive in those days, would you remember? But everybody will tell you Awolowo gave free education in the Western Region; everybody will tell you Nnamdi Azikiwe was the first president of Nigeria, they will tell you what Tafawa Balewa stood for. That is how I want to be remembered. I dare say that if they write the history of entertainment in Nigeria, you will at least leave one paragraph for Kenny and D-One and that gives me
    fulfilment. To feel that I have contributed my own small quota to the development of this country and that makes me happy.
    “I want to live long. I want to see my children marry and have a feel of the character of my grand children. We have contributed our own small quota but there is a lot more we can do given an enabling environment, there is a lot more we can do. But you know how the country is, you can talk and talk. Without money you can’t get anything done but even with the limited resources, you can see what the entertainment industry is today. The Idris Abdulkareem of this world, the Banky Ws, the Tiwa Savages of this world, all of them had to return to Nigeria. Even D-Banj would tell you he had to return home. So, we thank God that we contributed our small quota to that industry. Once government understands that and creates an enabling environment, we can do more”.
    The show biz personae used the opportunity to clear the air on why he was conspicuously absent at Late Goldie Harvey’s funeral and of course the much trumpeted absence at Tu face Idibia’s wedding in Dubai.
    “Well, the plans were already in place actually. I had appointments before we left Nigeria. I had scheduled meetings with some clients based in Atlanta, Anguilla and in Canada. And you know white people, even on your worst day, the show must go on. Even if your mother dies and they gave you that day, you have to be at the meeting. If you don’t make the meeting, it could be in the next six months before you get another schedule. So, I actually left herself and Kenny behind in Los Angeles to go for those meetings when I heard she had passed on. And I practise a philosophy, I don’t cry over things that are obvious. As close as we were, I didn’t cry. Yes, I didn’t sleep for five nights but I didn’t cry. Because I was happy that Goldie fulfilled her life, she did what she wanted to do in the very short time that she lived. At the age of 13, she had started dressing like Madonna and she said to her father, ‘Daddy, I am going to be a star’.
    “On Tuface however, I must congratulate him and his better half Annie. but their wedding day was also my birthday in Lagos! I couldn’t go because a lot of people started calling me, my uncles, my friends that they would be coming over to my house. Of course, I had the invitation from Tuface, he told me personally that he wanted me to come. I wish them nothing but the best in life. But I just couldn’t travel”.

  • ‘Asari Dokubo , Clark are problems for Jonathan’

    ‘Asari Dokubo , Clark are problems for Jonathan’

    Former Minister for Petroleum, Professor Tam David –West is a known social critic and political activist. In this in this interview with Taiwo Ogundipe, Associate Editor, in Lagos, he addresses the state of emergency, recent comments by Edwin Clark, Asari Dokubo, Kingsley Kuku and sundry matters.

     

    What is your opinion of the state of emergency declared by President Jonathan in three northern states?

    The action is constitutional. There is no doubt about that. But is it necessary? I will say it is not. I have listened to people, even legal experts on the television, saying it should have come earlier or that it is better late than ever. To me, they are missing the point. It may be necessary because there is breakdown of public order in the three states. But he could have handled the situation differently. Either he or his advisers, or both of them misled themselves. I often quote this Machiavellian statement: “For the Prince or the Leader to be advised wisely, the leader must be wise in the first place.” There is no problem with sending the armed forces to the states. It has been done in America before during the period of integration. But couldn’t he have sent the troops to the states without declaring a state of emergency? By declaring state of emergency in any area, one obvious thing is that civic liberties which are guaranteed by the constitution are suspended and derogated. The president should have sent the same troops without declaring state emergency. By declaring state of emergency, he is sending a very strong signal to the world that Nigeria is not stable. There is emergency and emergency is insecurity. The president is the number one law enforcement personality stipulated by the constitution. If as a person holding that position, he declares state emergency in an area because security has broken down, you are indicting yourself. It is a personal indictment. As Truman said, the buck stops at the table of the president. As the president and commander-in-chief, the buck stops on the table of Jonathan. He could have sent army to the troubled areas without declaring state of emergency.

    But up till now, the Joint Task Force had been deployed to the troubled spots without being able to bring the situation under control…

    I’ll come to that. I’ve also said that state of emergency is even worse than fire brigade measures. Fire brigade measure addresses sudden unexpected accident but with state of emergency, there is gradual, progressive breakdown of order and security that get up to a crescendo. Even in the Niger Delta, as I’ve said before, the deployment of the JTF has not achieved peace. I still maintain that it will never achieve peace. The Chief of Army Staff also said it. You cannot quell this problem we have with force of arms. The fundamental issue should be addressed. The problem can be solved. We are not approaching the problem with a clear mindset. For every failure on our part, it makes the other side bolder. I doubt very much if state of emergency will bring about the desired result. I wish it could.

    You said a civil approach should be adopted, don’t you think the amnesty programme, offered by the government, which Boko Haram also rejected, is designed to achieve that?

    I don’t have superior wisdom but like any other Nigerian, I pray to my God to guide me. I said Joint Task Force would not solve the problem in Niger Delta. The use of force of arms will not also likely solve the Boko Haram problem. The case of Boko Haram is even worse than that of Niger Delta. In Niger Delta you know who you are facing, you know the target. In Boko Haram you don’t know. The president himself has indicted himself.

    I’m very critical of Jonathan. One day he will realise that my criticisms are constructive. I don’t want Jonathan to be destroyed as a leader. I want him to perform as a leader. What would I gain from wishing the president of my country to be destroyed, especially when he is an Ijaw man? Being an Ijaw man is even very irrelevant to me. It doesn’t matter to me whether you are an Ijaw man or not. If you are not doing well, you are not doing well. Period.

    He came up with amnesty. Jonathan is not consistent. Sometimes he says one thing and changes. Sometimes he confuses himself in logic. Was he not the one that said the Boko Haram were ghosts? Can you negotiate with ghosts? He went further to say he would not negotiate with them because they are ghosts, I don’t know them. If you don’t know them and they are ghosts, then why are you negotiating with them? Why are you talking about amnesty? Amnesty is not a blanket thing; it is not one-way traffic. The two sides would sit down to talk and offer some concessions respectively.

    He then went further to say that he had Boko Haram in his government. If he has not been able to identify the Boko Haram whom he claimed were in his government, how can he identify the Boko Haram in the larger community? He is always contradicting himself. I wish he puts more thought process before he makes pronouncements.

     

    Recently, some Ijaw chieftains – Asari Dokubo and Kingsley Kuku – issued statements to the effect that Nigeria will experience turbulence if Jonathan does not return as president in 2015. What do you have to say about this?

    Absolute nonsense and rubbish! Asari Dokubo is related to me. He is my cousin. His mother and my mother were of the same father although the two wives were married under different marriage status and customs. Jonathan sees me as an enemy. I told Jonathan that Asari Dokubo and Clark are one million times more problem to him than Tam David-West who criticizes openly and constructively. The problem of Boko Haram is there. And more insurgent groups would spring up if care is not taken. When these people make Jonathan an Ijaw president, not Nigeria president, they create more problems. They are talking rubbish without facts. They call the Hausa/Fulani people parasites; they call Awolowo a criminal. Jonathan as president should not allow his ethnic group to insult other peoples because they are creating enemies for him and no friend. They are adding ethnic dimension to insurgency. This makes the situation more dangerous. Instead of them to be less belligerent in their utterances, they are making the other people to be more resistant. They are talking rubbish and nonsense. Asari Dokubo even said oil production will stop if he is arrested. He said he is the leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force. That group does not exist any longer. Asari Dokubo is leading nobody. The other day when he came to Port Harcourt in Rivers State, he hired people to follow him. I know a number of his former followers. The breakup of the group came when he took all the money from government and never gave them their share, and was rather buying property all over the world. So they left him. The group’s name has been changed but still with the same acronym. He told Jonathan he had 40,000 people. Jonathan never found out if he had four or four hundred people and he gave him millions.

    The president should dissociate himself from these irresponsible utterances from his ethnic group. He could send his media outfit to please tell the country and the world that these people are not reflecting his views as the president of this country and of all Nigerians. Jonathan is president today not from only Ijaw votes. The total vote he had was about 24 per cent from his area. Jonathan is president today of some sort – illegal and unconstitutional. First, the Save Nigeria Group, SNG, founded and headed by a Yoruba man, Pastor Tunde Bakare and his compatriots forced the National Assembly, when it was reluctant to do the right thing as stipulated by the constitution, to do something. The person that said, look, we must take a stand as government because of the vacuum created by the person the long absence of the late President Yar’adua; the person that moved that motion in the then cabinet, is an Ibo woman, Dora Akunyili.

    The person that finally moved the motion in the National Assembly to make him acting president was an Hausa man. There was no Ijaw input. So, can’t he sit down as a PhD holder and think and analyse the situation like an intellectual? Though PhD does not make you an intellectual but it makes you to be broadminded in analysing situations. Everything that made Jonathan what he is today as president, 24 per cent of it came from his ethnic group. The other inputs were from other ethnic groups. His being made acting president was illegal and unconstitutional because our constitution has no provision for acting president. The act was branded doctrine of necessity which has no provision in the constitution. He metamorphosed from acting to becoming the president. With all these considerations, it behoves him as president and an Ijaw man to ask members of his ethnic group to please not make things difficult for him. They should help him to solve the problems he is facing and not add more to them.

    I’m more Ijaw than Clark. Clark cannot love Jonathan more than me. Clark is not even partial Ijaw, he is patch-patch Ijaw. When you say someone is partial, you are talking about half and half. Only his father is Ijaw. His mother and grandmother are Urhobo and Itsekiri. When Clark was studying in Britain, he was secretary of the Urhobo Progressive Union, not Ijaw Union.

    When Clark and Dokubo talk, they are creating more problems for Jonathan. I don’t know Kingsley Kuku. When he accused Buhari of inciting people, he got it all wrong. Buhari never incited anybody. He only said defend your votes if they wanted to steal your votes. In fact, I would say election riggers should be killed because they are worse than armed robbers. If you have death penalty for armed robbers, election riggers must also have it. Election riggers are worse than armed robbers because they target the whole country not just individuals. Until the day we take proven election riggers and shoot them, there will be no more election rigging.

    Asari Dokubo, Clark, Kuku and the rest of them are compounding Jonathan’s problem. He himself has been very docile not to stop them.

    Maybe the president feels that on the long run, their utterances and actions would help him.

    They cannot help him. Look, if in 2011, the Ijaw votes were 24 per cent, they would be less in 2015. And you cannot be president without the support of other ethnic groups. There cannot be any northern, western or southern president. There cannot be any Moslem or Christian president. The constitution is clear. You will not only win majority of the votes but you have to have 25 per cent in at least 24 states of the federation, that is two third of 36 states. So, Ijaw cannot make you president.

    With all these crises that are raging in the South-South axis of the country – including the Bayelsa scenario when erstwhile Governor Sylvia was forced out of office, and now the case of Rivers State where Amaechi is under a lot pressure presumably from the presidency ….

    It cannot be presumably. It is certainly from the presidency. Let President Jonathan himself deny that his hand is not there. It is the voice of Esau and the hand of Jacob.

    Do you think Amaechi has not done anything wrong to bring the pressure on himself?

    Not at all. I will come to that later. Every time they talk, they call Edwin Clark elder statesman. One can be an elder without being a statesman. Edwin Clark may be an elder because of biological age but I’m not sure he is a statesman. A statesman doesn’t talk like he talks. A statesman does not make pronouncements that divide the society. Also, Asari Dokubo’s recent statement that Ijaw people are violent is utter rubbish. The Ijaws are never violent people. He gave examples of the fact that we fought tribal or ethnic wars. He referred to the conflict over fishing rights. The Ijaws were never violent. If they were, the white people that came in through the south wouldn’t have been allowed in. All that is happening now in the South-south engineered by these and sometimes with Jonathan’s collusion or encouragement is making things more difficult for him. It is not endearing him to the bigger Nigerian society and the world.

    And I’ve said it before: if all this is being done for Jonathan to be president in 2015, then 2015 has been lost in 2013. 2015 has been forfeited by the excesses and irresponsibility of 2013 coming from people close to him or by his acts of collusion or commission. Take the case of Bayelsa State, I don’t know Sylvia but when they had Kangaroo impeachment of Alamieyeseigha and Ladoja, I came out in the papers, saying the impeachments were illegal, unconstitutional, and null and void. I was vindicated by the Supreme Court. Now, what has Amaechi done to Jonathan? Amaechi is PDP. I had not been in any political party. Amaechi is Ikwerre. I am partly Ikwerre too. Buhari is a Fulani. I’m a die-hard Buhari supporter. I’m also a die-hard Amaechi supporter. I have no apology for saying I’m not in support of Jonathan. I can never be in support of Jonathan because he has not performed well. He has not carried himself well. He has not been able to control the situation. What did Amaechi do wrong to him? Rivers State gave Jonathan the highest number of votes. If the governor was against Jonathan, he couldn’t have got it. The child that forgets the hand that feeds him is not only a bad or wicked child, but also one that is digging his own grave. Amaechi is a solid supporter of Jonathan. And I’m close to Amaechi. He always speaks very glowingly of Jonathan. Whenever we discussed together, he would always remonstrate with me whether my articles were not too critical of Jonathan. And I would explain to him why I was doing what I was doing. I would tell him I was not doing against Jonathan; I’m doing it for us as Nigerians and Ijaw people. If Jonathan messes up there, an Ijaw man would not see that seat for over 60 years in our lifetime. So Amaechi does not deserve what they are doing to him.

    The Minister State for Education, Nyesom Wike, who is now fronting for Jonathan, is the closest bossom friend of Amaechi. He was also Amaechi’s Chief of Staff before he became minister. So why are they treating Amaechi the way they are treating him? Jonathan is tilting at the windmill as Don Quixote in the book, The Man of La Mancha. Jonathan is seeing the windmill as enemy, a giant fighting him. He is tilting at an enemy that does not exist. In fact, he is creating more enemies for himself. Amaechi does not deserve what they are doing to him. Every measure has been put in place to deal with him. They are even planning to institute state of emergency against him. They have even brought into the state a fake mace. They are trying to do to him what they did to Alamieyeseigha. I was reading one book on war strategies. It says it is a bad general that opens war frontiers. He dissipates his energy. Sometimes, Jonathan is his own enemy.

    Another topical issue is the merger. Obviously, if the merger works, an Ijaw man might not become the candidate.

    I don’t care if an Ijaw man is not candidate. I care that a good Nigerian is candidate. I’ve said it before and I mean it: If my father contests against Buhari, – I’m not saying that Buhari is going to be the president , Buhari himself has said it, if the APC has more formidable candidate than himself, he would step down – I will vote against my father.

    And talking about the candidacy of Buhari, some people believe he should leave the political space for much younger people. What do you think of this?

    That is nonsense. Mandela (of South Africa) and Ronald Reagan (of USA) became presidents in their 70s. Mandela was president up to 80 something. So it is not about age. What is the guarantee that a younger person would do better? In Nigeria we have this nonsensical mindset that we need a younger person with degree. When Buhari met with Mandela, the Madiba said, look, you’ll be president. The story was published. He said he should not abandon the ambition. Mandela and Reagan were older than Buhari when they became president and spent their two terms of eight years. The criteria for candidacy should not be about age. It is irrelevant. Performance should be the criteria. Corruption and indiscipline are our major problems creating setback for us the most. Any candidate that is not corrupt; any candidate that is disciplined; he can be as old as Methuselah, I will not only support him, I will campaign for him to get Nigeria out of darkness. It is not about age or degree. People were jubilating that for the first time we had graduates in Yar’adua and Jonathan as the president and vice-president. Yar’adua has degree in Analytical Chemistry; Jonathan has degree in Hydro-Biology. I said rubbish, degrees don’t make leaders. Jimmy Carter of America had two PhDs in Nuclear Physics and Chemistry. Was he a better American president? Winston Churchill was among the worst in his class in Harrow, very dull in school. He was one of the greatest leaders of the 20th Century. Yar’adua and Jonathan never proved that degrees make better presidents.

    The president of Nigeria should be a man of character; a man that can be trusted; a man that is not corrupt; a man that is disciplined; a man that believes in God not by mouth. Some of them go to church on Sunday; some go to mosque on Friday: some to babaalawos to look for miracles. They come into government to rape the country dry. They are not even ashamed. They have houses all over the place. People are suffering. They cannot be pay N8,000 minimum wage. Graduates are looking for driver’s job. Graduates are serving in the restaurants. If we are not yet a failed state, we are fast failing.

    Some people believe that Jonathan, a South-south man, should be allowed to for a second term and that the Hausa Fulani should not always expect to always rule the country.

    This is another case of what I call lazy intellectualism. First, does Jonathan have the right to go second term? I think the constitution allows him. The interpretation that he had been sworn in second term is contentious. First, he completed Yar’adua’s term. I don’t dislike him. I just don’t like the way he rules the country. I’ve told him I’ll never support him. I don’t need anything from him. What I need from him is good governance and consistency which he is not giving us. He should talk less with some rationality. He can only ask for a second term when the first time is glorious. He should act with clear conscience. He should go to the Redeemed Church and kneel down before the great man of God, and say God, I’ve done well. Can he say that? No! His performance in the first term has been woeful. Another issue is the allegation that he signed to rule for one term. Jonathan has to disprove this allegation with facts and figure.

     

     

     

  • People think I’m flamboyant but… -Dele Momodu

    People think I’m flamboyant but… -Dele Momodu

    He may have missed being the President of Nigeria by a defeat at the polls in 2011, but undaunted Publisher of Ovation International magazine Bashorun Dele Momodu, is still glowing and living life large. He moved his classic Bentley car back to Nigeria from Ghana, but refused to drive it around, simply because, “I think for me to be cruising around in Nigeria in a Bentley under the condition that the country is presently, will be highly insensitive.”

    However, Momodu has developed new past times, as he travels around the world and lives in three different countries. He spoke to PAUL UKPABIO after an octane event in Victoria Island, Lagos.

     

    What does it take to be the publisher of an international magazine like yours at this present time?

    It takes a lot for to be the publisher of a magazine that has been publishing in the last 17 years, especially a magazine that has been publishing from London all these years. But we thank God. Being such a publisher means being at different places almost at the same time. I have had to criss-cross the world to find people in Dubai, America, London, Kenya, South Africa and many more places. We are going all over and the publisher has to oversee everyone of its activities. We are bilingual, that is, English and French, and the financials are not always easy. The media is not a very profitable business anywhere these days. It is a very tough job, advertising is shrinking all over the world; the internet has come in, so a publisher has to be on top of things to stay afloat.

    You went into politics and went as far as being the presidential candidate of a political party, what impact has that created in your life?

    I have always been in politics. I can say I have been in it 30% of my life since I was 22. I have met and interacted with some of the big politicians in Nigeria; from Chief Adisa Akinloye to Dr. Omololu Olunloyo to the Late Chief MKO Abiola, to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the Late Chief Bola Ige, to Chief Richard Akindele, I have been interacting with people nationally and internationally, and with world figures too. My foray into contesting election in Nigeria was triggered by my frustration with the state of the nation. I saw that we were all grumbling about the leadership of the nation, but nobody was ready to risk their comfort zone. I realised that what was needed in Nigeria was just one man with a clear vision and direction of where he wants the country to go. Until we find that one man who must have executive power, Nigeria will never change.

    A nation is most often changed by one enlightened man; sometimes he could even be a dictator, but he must be enlightened and have a clear vision of his direction. That is what is lacking in Nigeria. Leadership is not about how long you’ve stayed in politics or government, leadership is about the ability to manage people and resources. And what I find out about Nigeria is that most people in leadership are people who have never managed people or resources before. They have not managed businesses or people and cannot even manage their families. What does it take? It is vision, tenacity, commitment selflessness. That was what propelled me to go into politics.

    Did you make an impact?

    I made a huge impact. The greatest thing that can happen to a man is to aspire to the highest office in his country. People know today that I was principled. I did not just jump to go and join the big parties. I realised that to build Nigeria will require new hands with clear vision. I am happy I did that. I started with Labour Party, my idea was to use that to create a welfare party, where we care for the ordinary people. Our focus in Nigerian politics is tilted towards the rich; elsewhere the wealthy try to spare moments to think how they can alleviate poverty in their land. The reverse is the case in Nigeria; most politicians think strictly about going into politics for achieving selfish pecuniary gains. When I saw that Labour Party was not ready for the type of revolutionary ideas that I had, I had to quit. That was my saddest moment in politics. Though I am still hoping that they can because, every Nigerian who is gainfully employed is supposed to be a member of labour technically.

    So I linked up with the British Labour Party and I met some of the high ranking members and they were ready to assist me in bringing some of their Labour policies to Nigeria. We would have been able to revolutionise some of the things here. But perhaps I was ahead of my time, it didn’t materialise. When I left Labour Party, the closest party I saw was Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s National Conscience Party and I am still a member of that party. I hope that a day will come that we all will realise that Nigeria needs to be restructured not by breaking up, but by cementing bonds, friendship, religion and ethnicity. We all co-existed before now. Nobody complained of breaking up. But because politicians are selfish, once they can’t get what they want, they talk about disunity. There is unity. In football, for instance, when Nigeria is playing, you can find nine Igbo people on the field, nobody complains, so far they can deliver. So it is the same spirit that we need for the leadership of the country. The important thing should be, can the person deliver? It is politicians that try to divide us for personal gains.

    The story about rising from grass to grace seems so beautiful to tell. Did you walk without shoes too to school?

    Oh, I don’t like to make a fetish of poverty! Like Chief Abiola used to tell us, ‘Poverty is not something to glamorise’. I know that it is sweeter to say that I had no shoes, I had no shirt, but my background was modest. My father was a civil servant, they were not corrupt like we find today. My father rode his motorcycle, a Jawa, WF 333. We had a telephone in our house, but we were not rich, though we had pipe borne water. My father died when I was 13 and I was left with an un-lettered mother. My mom could not speak one word of English; a petty trader who sold rice and beans, later opened a beer parlour, but we managed to survive. We do not have rich people in our family but we have scholars. My most senior brother is a professor of Physics, a PhD holder from Stanford University in America.

    Some people refer to you as ‘Ajala Travel round the world’

    I don’t know why Ajala was travelling around the world o, may be he had too much money! But in my own case, my travels are in the course of duty. I am sure I have covered 60 or more countries by now, some of them I have repeated. I have been in London more than 500 times; often to USA, France and many African countries, but every trip has been an education for me. There is no better school than travelling and seeing other places. That was one of the things that made me go into politics.

    When I go to some poor countries in Africa and see the quality of their education, health services and other infrastructure, I am always amazed. I don’t compare Nigeria to big, rich countries. The former President of Ghana, John Kuffour, had a spinal operation in Ghana. He didn’t have to travel out. The late President of Ghana, John Ata Mills, died in Ghana, he didn’t die abroad. Our President was evacuated from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia. If Saudi Arabia is first in oil, Nigeria is probably among the top seven. It’s a shame that with all our oil money, Nigeria does not have just one hospital of international standard that our president could be comfortable with and rely on.

    How ri ch are you?

    When I travel, I do not go on frolic; I travel for work and probably do not have time for holiday. People say that I am flamboyant but I know that it is the glamour of the magazine I publish that they see. I’m assumed to be flamboyant but I am a man of modest means. I am not a rich man by Nigerian standard. But I thank God for building me a global brand. Some people don’t even remember or know my name but they stop me and say that they know me. One of the greatest brands to build is a product that reminds you of the founder and vice versa.

    Living in different parts of the world, do you sometimes forget where you are when you wake in the morning?

    People say that too. They say: ‘Sometimes, you can forget where you are when you travel so much’, but for me, I was forced by circumstances beyond my control to be an itinerant person. I live in three places, London, Accra and Lagos. I was even living in Abuja at a time but I gave up the house two years ago. I realised that Abuja was too artificial for my liking; it was a place where most people are just wheeling and dealing and the city can easily corrupt you, from the way people hustle for money there. That wasn’t and isn’t my life.

    I come from a scholarly background; my dream was to be a university teacher, possibly marrying a teacher and living happily thereafter. But because I couldn’t get a job, that forced me to Lagos to look for a job. My background has not left me totally. I’m still hoping that Nigeria will get back to that point where people will respect others for what they have in their brain and not how much you have been able to grab.

    Living in different parts has helped me raise my horizon and to kill boredom. Ghana is not mainly to do business; what I have there is a library, a conducive environment for an academic. People think I do not do business in Nigeria, but that is wrong. I’m happy that we have been able to cement the bond of friendship in Nigeria through Ovation. These days, you attend an Hausa wedding and you see people dress like Yoruba people and at Yoruba events, you see people dress like the Hausa. Same with people in the eastern part of the country. Before, people said you cannot photograph an Hausa bride, but today, we know that is not true. The events in the North are even more colourful these days.

    Your ideal day?

    I sleep very late but wake up very early, especially when I am around my family and my children are going to school. They leave about past 7am; thereafter I go to the wash room. I like to meditate there. I think about everything, what I want to do and where I need to go. I make phone calls too and check my messages. When I’m there, I can spend one hour or more. If I have the time to catch my breakfast, I do, if not, I leave. If I need to type, I do it then because my brain is fresh. If I need to go and honour an appointment, I leave. I try to get back quickly to beat traffic. I am not the kind of person who goes out a lot though. I am almost a recluse. Then I fly a lot; you may find me hopping from one plane to another or driving to Cotonou, Togo or Ghana sometimes. I wish our roads and security are better, I would have been driving across the country. There is no much difference between a day or the weekend. My life is like a routine. The only thing is that we are busier on weekends because most events take place then. Though I don’t usually have to attend.

    What fashion accessories do you not do without?

    As long as I wear something, I do not really care much about accessories. But I love my Buba and Sokoto with my cap. Usually, you will find me with a cap and an OV logo which stands for Ovation. I love wrist watches but I am not big enough to buy expensive ones. My biggest investment right now outside Ovation is paying my children’s school fees. The fees are so heavy, they make me very sober. I have two sons in school in London and two in Nigeria and both ways, it is expensive. I am happy because the end result justifies the means. My first son has gone through six international languages. He was first in Japanese class. He is good in French, Italian, Latin, Spanish and English. He has done us very proud. He is going to university to study computer and mathematics soon. That’s all I work for.

    Any new passion?

    I drive. I have driven different cars at different times; the king of them being my Bentley. It is still there, parked at my friend’s garage somewhere because it will be very disheartening for me to be cruising around in Nigeria in a Bentley under the condition that the country is presently. I am even more sensitive now than I was as a younger person. I told my friend to sell it off but he said it is a vintage car, that I should not sell it. I used to drive it in Ghana but I brought it back. I’ve had Mercedes in London and here, Range Rover, but these days I love the jeeps, I use an Escalade. It convinces me that American cars are not as bad as I used to think.

    Your most cherished gift?

    My most cherished gift is good health from God. There is no gift better than that. I have been most fortunate. I know people who don’t eat or drink or do all the bad things, yet they are not healthy.

    Which grandest party have you attended?

    So many I think. One of them will be Hajia Bola Shagaya’s wedding, the first one they had in Lagos, it was very grand; everybody was there. That is one memorable wedding.

    Which Nigerian at home has most impressed you?

    Alive? Dr. Michael Adenuga Jnr. Nobody has touched me like that. I learnt so much from him. For me, he is a book that I will always read, a book I cannot discard. A lot of times when I want to do things, I tried and imagined how Adenuga would have done it. It used to be MKO Abiola, everybody knows that, but currently, it is Adenuga. I like to describe him as a spirit you don’t see but you feel his impact. People call him different things, but I call him a ‘positive spirit’. He may have his foibles like all human beings, but he is a great character God created. I have never seen that singular person who has the vision to do things that most people will be afraid to do.

    And which Nigerian abroad has most impressed you?

    Abroad, I have always been fascinated by Ambassador Antonio Deinde Fernandez. When I met him eventually, he became like a father. That is one of the greatest Africans I have met and I pray for good health and long life for him. He’s over 80 now but if you see him, you won’t know it. I call him the aginigini ogun. It means a fiery man, a man that can bend knees, a very influential man.

    Tell us about your family’s most memorable day

    That was when my half brother, Professor Ajayi, returned from America around 1975/76, I was about 15 or so. He was an icon to us, getting a degree from a university like Stanford in America, he was smelling nice and lodged at Mayfair Hotel, the best then in Ibadan. The university then could afford to keep their lecturers at such hotels. He was recruited right from school abroad. He had a great influence on me and I lived with him outside and inside campus. I must have stayed with him for about 13 years before coming to Lagos.

    Then, I remember my mom in her dying days. I went to her one day, she was lying down in bed, I laid down beside her, she couldn’t talk. I was stroking her hair as if I was her husband. I was crying because I didn’t want her to die, though I knew she was going to. When my cries got to a crescendo, she suddenly opened her mouth and struggled to say ‘Ayobamidele, are the tears not too much? Don’t worry, Jesus will be with you.’ Those were her final words to me. And when she died, the world celebrated with me at her burial. Gbongan, a little place in Osun State, that has produced many great people, knew a daughter was being buried that day.

    Your greatest possession

    A good family

    Can you describe your style?

     

  • ‘I planned to run to Benin Republic when I got hints that I would be named monarch’

    ‘I planned to run to Benin Republic when I got hints that I would be named monarch’

    The Traditional ruler of Epe community in Lagos, Oba Kamarudeen Ishola Animashaun, has reigned for 13 years. Within this period, he has overseen the transformation of Epe from a sleepy community into an urban settlement. In this interview with OKORIE UGURU, the monarch speaks about his experience as a royal father. He also recalls how he almost ran away to avoid becoming king when he was initially chosen. Excerpts:

     

    For 13 years, you have been the Oba of Epe. Could you share your experience so far?

    Yes, this is my 13th year on the throne and we have crossed so many hurdles. But at the same time, I have enjoyed the interaction with my people. This is in the sense that Epe is the fishing basket of Lagos State.

    There has been a lot of improvement since I came to the throne. The Free Trade Zone (FTZ), the Lagos airport project and many others. The FTZ has opened up our community more in the area of industrialisation. It has also helped in enlightening our people in terms of how the project is being done and what it means. It has been a very big experience for me.

    Then, there is the modernisation of Lagos State, which has brought a lot of things for the Epe people. There has been more enlightenment, industrialisation and development in terms of roads and provision of basic infrastructure for the people. We also know that the government listens to our requests to make life easier than before.

    One thing I can say in all is that I am really enjoying my people. They are happy with me and I am happy with them.

    Did you envisage some of the challenges you have had since you became the king?

    The challenges are more than I had envisaged. To be a traditional ruler is not an easy task because you have to deal with different kinds of people. You have to oversee a community with different tribes and ethnic groups. You know, we have many tribes in Epe. We have the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Ijaw and many other tribes. You have to look after these people. You are not supposed to treat them as outsiders.

    You would like to develop your area. You would like to see that your people are not cheated both in the government and the parastatals. And when a matter is brought before you, you have to think very well before you know the judgment to pass. The role of the royal father in the community is very important because he is a kind of bridge between the government and the people.

    Has being a traditional ruler inhibited your ability to do certain things or given you the freedom to do a lot of things?

    As a royal father, there are so many things you can do now that you could not do before, just as there are so many things you could do before that you cannot do now. I can do more, but this is in certain areas. In some areas, I cannot, because the way you used to move with people, play with people here and there, play outside, you may not be able to do that. You have to put yourself in the position of a royal father. You also have to admonish yourself that there were some things you saw as fun in the past which you cannot do any more. You have to look after many things and many people. You would want to take care of the people and control them.

    How was growing up like?

    I was born in Epe and I did my primary and secondary schools here. I proceeded to YABATECH, Lagos. Even after I left, there was no year I wouldn’t be in my home town.

    Any special reason for that?

    My parents were here and there is nothing like home. If I was so far away from home, I would not be in this position. It is because I move and interact with my people. Even this position, I never thought that I was going to be there. I was thinking of another person.

    Another person?

    Yes. Because I did not know how they were going to do it. I was thinking that the late Prof. Agbalajobi would become the next royal father and I would give him all the support. I did not know that all the while, the elders were just laughing. They knew what to do. They had to consult the Ifa oracle. They said they sent about 38 names and I was the one picked.

    Were you surprised?

    I was surprised because I never wanted it.

    Why?

    I was a business man. I had my workshop; a big machine shop. I was selling machine parts to companies like the Nigerian Breweries, Guinness, Flour Mills and so on. I have equipment and they are still intact. I believe in business because I did not work for anyone, I was on my own.

    You never worked for anybody?

    Nobody would say he paid me salary. I have always been on my own. I have many children I have to look after. So, my whole mind was centred on my business. When I spoke to one of the elders who is about 97 years old, Baba Daudu, although somebody from my family had hinted me, and he said I had been picked, I just laughed. I wanted to run away.

    Run away?

    Yes, I am telling you. If not for Baba, I would be in Cotonou (Benin Republic). I am telling you the truth. You may not believe it. All my family members were aware of this. I started making arrangement on how I would run away. That was before I saw the elderly man.

    So, what did he say that convinced you to stay?

    He told me, ‘Kabiyesi, please I know you want to run away.’ How the man knew I wanted to run away is what is still baffling me up till today, because I had not discussed it with anybody except two of my wives. I knew they were not also interested in the position then. The old man referred me to my mother. He said I should go and ask her and let her confirm or otherwise whether at my younger age, the thing had not been mentioned to her.

    That was many years before when I had an accident on the Epe water. I was then about eight or nine years old. It was a ghastly accident and I spent over a year at the Ijebu Ode General Hospital. The day Dr. Adefowope came back from London to work at the hospital was the day I was discharged. It was then that they had already known this and nobody told me.

    Did your mum confirm this?

    I went back to my mum and told her I saw Baba Daudu and he mentioned so, so and so to me. My mum said yes. That was why when they gave me chieftaincy titles, I did not reject them. This is because they were always giving me chieftaincy titles, and when I asked her whether I should accept or reject them, she would tell me to accept.

    She told me Baba Daudu was an Ifa priest. He was among the people who had seen and mentioned this thing in the past. She told me to accept it. She then gave me the Ifa oracle’s name and asked me to go and ask anybody.

    I consulted the churches and they set up prayer groups for me. They told me I had to accept it; that I should not run away. I consulted a Muslim cleric and it was the same thing. I went to Ososa, Hubert Ogunde’s town, and it was confirmed. It was then I surrendered myself.

    Let me be frank, before all these, I never wanted to be the king. I surrendered to lead my people and I must say that I don’t regret it.

    You talked glowingly about your mum, what was her influence on your life?

    Why I talk about my mum is that my father died before some of these things came up. So, it was my mother that I was relating with. I was very close to my mum. A woman who gave birth to 12 children and had only three left, you know how it would be. I was the first born. On what I told you earlier about my accident on the water, she slept under my bed for one year in the hospital, looking after me and not sure whether I would survive or not. My mother and I were close.

    Could you recall one advice your father gave that you would always remember?

    He said: ‘You must be straightforward in whatever you do. Don’t tell lies. Whatever you are doing, be honest with people. No matter what the situation is, don’t deceive people; don’t tell lies’. I took it. If I tell you the truth now and you don’t believe it, I don’t care. I will tell you I have said my own. I know that my mind is clear.

  • ‘Nigerian scientists have failed woefully’

    ‘Nigerian scientists have failed woefully’

    Professor Oyewale Tomori, a renowned virologist, has earned many plaudits both nationally and internationally for his contribution to the field of virology. Tomori, who is a former Vice-Chancellor, Redeemer’s University and current president, Nigerian Academy of Science, a foremost science institute in the country, has been leading the campaign against polio eradication for decades. In this interview with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf, he shares his concerns on the polity. Excerpts:

     

    You have been in the forefront in the campaign against polio eradication these past decades. How far are we close to winning this war?

    Nigeria’s eradication campaign faces substantial challenges. However, we can say that we have made remarkable progress. This year, we expect nearly 50percent drop in cases in 2013 compared to last year.

    But thankfully, the Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan was shared at the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi, where world leaders showed their support through a series of historic commitments, including the UK’s Department for International Development commitment of £300 million. The Gates Foundation pledged US$1.8 billion, and a new group of philanthropists committed an additional total US$335 million.

    His Highness, General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, pledged US$120 million

    Qatar Charity and the Gates Foundation signed a co-operation agreement in support of the eradication effort.

    The Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi which held from April 24-25 2013, was hosted by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Bill Gates and the UN General-Secretary. The Summit endorsed the critical role that vaccines and immunisation play in saving lives and protecting children from preventable diseases such as polio. The Summit is expected to continue the momentum of the Decade of Vaccines – a vision and commitment to reach all people with the vaccines they need.

    The new commitments make clear the confidence of global leaders and the vaccine community in the new plan’s ability to both achieve a lasting polio-free world by 2018 and help build systems that will deliver critical health services, including vaccines and maternal healthcare, to those most in need. The commitments bring the world almost three-quarters of the way to the US$5.5 billion needed to fully fund the plan.

    As at the last count, a total of $3billion has so far being raised leaving a shortfall of $2.5billion.

    The endorsement of the Global Vaccine Action Plan by the World Health Assembly which again set 2018 as the new target for the global eradication of polio saying Nigeria must ensure that no single case of polio is reported anywhere in the country by 2014.

    The hope is that by the year 2014, the world will have the last country with the last case of polio and by 2018, the world will be declared free of polio.

    Is 2014 realistic as far as Nigeria is concerned?

    Presently, northern region specifically constitutes major concern for global polio fighters, who now worry over the quality of local personnel and efforts. At least, 12 per cent of the Northern children population is said to be left out of polio vaccination due to numerous issues, including itinerancy, security challenge and other socio-political concerns.

    But to answer your question, I think we are taking a gamble because the year 2014 is only subject to the fact that Nigeria, Afghanistan or Pakistan (the only three remaining endemic countries) will not have any case of polio in 2014. If we do have any of these countries having one case by 2014 it means we have to shift the year of eradication by an extra year. It is thus very important that we, as a country, must play our role, otherwise, we will be holding the world back.

    But the question to ask again is, why should we be the last? Why can’t the Federal Government and other tiers of government for instance, accord polio eradication the kind of priority given the spate of flood disasters in some parts of the country where President Goodluck Jonathan personally garnered support from individuals and corporate bodies?

    Has our President ever said anything on polio without stimulation from outside? The only time we’ve heard him make pronouncements are when he was invited by the Commonwealth, the United Nations or when Bill Gate came. We are not putting enough into polio eradication.

    We need education. We need to get our people to know the advantage of immunisation; we need good leadership and community involvement. Nobody should be left out of the fight.

    Imagine Bill Gates the other day was bearing a list of state governments in Nigeria doing little or nothing to curtail the malaria epidemic. It is a shame. After all, we don’t need outsiders to tell us how many children to give birth to so why do we have to wait on them to take care of these same children for us? It doesn’t speak well of us at all.

    Do you think the recent killing of vaccinators in northern part of the country can adversely affect the campaign against polio eradication?

    The killings drew comparisons with a series of incidents in Pakistan last December where five female polio vaccinators were gunned down, apparently by Islamist militants. It also signalled a fresh wave of hostility towards immunisation drives in the country, where some clerics have claimed the vaccines are part of a western plot to sterilise young girls and eliminate the Muslim population.

    So to answer your question directly, the sad episode is certainly a setback for polio eradication in Nigeria, but not a stop. The best we can do is to work harder and see the end of polio … so their loss will not end as a useless sacrifice.

    But like I have always advised, the war against polio should not be fought in isolation. We all must be involved.

    There are lots of misconceptions and stereotypes about what the north wants and do not want. There is need for understanding. For instance, how do you expect a family which has just lost a loved one to the cold hands of death say through measles, happily come out to partake in vaccination? These are some of the issues. Unless we understand these peculiarities, we will continue to go round and round the circles.

    If you go back in time, you will recall that the polio vaccine boycott which started in Kano in 2003 was as a result of the now famous Pfizer’s Trovan clinical trial scandal in 1996. But what we are yet to find out is who gave approval for the clinical trials? Certainly, approval didn’t come from outer-space, someone, somewhere gave the approval. But there has been a lot of blame game here and there.

    Is Nigeria still one of the countries in the yellow fever belt?

    Of course, Nigeria is one of the 17 endemic countries in the belt. Unfortunately, while every other country in the yellow fever belt had immunised their citizens against the disease, Nigeria remains the only country yet to embark on mass vaccination against the disease.

    But thankfully, the government currently had 66 million doses of the yellow fever vaccine and hopefully, should commence immunisation soon in some endemic parts of the country adding that the quantity could not cover the entire country.

    But we still don’t have enough yellow fever vaccine. There’s a plan to gradually go round the country and there’s hope that by the time we go round the country, the producer would have produced more. There’s not enough but the little that will be available, people should go for it.

    Why can’t Nigeria produce enough vaccine to serve the teeming populace?

    I agree it’s a big shame that Nigeria relies on other countries in the world for its vaccine needs. As I’m talking to you now, I know for a fact that we can’t manufacture reagents. But this wasn’t the case in the 80’s. There’s no reason why Nigeria should be depending on other countries for its vaccine. We had a vaccine manufacturing firm in Yaba, Lagos in 1994 which has gone under. We need to resuscitate it. Is it not lamentable that a country like Senegal is also one of the countries producing vaccine for us?

    But again, a number of factors might be responsible for this. Brain-drain is a major factor. Most of our doctors and scientists, especially my generation, took flight out of the country when government policy practically reduced us into paupers. There was a situation in this country where professors could no longer live decent lives. What do you make of a situation where as a professor you could not have a roof over your head talkless of being able to eat three square meals a day. It was that bad.

    So, like they say the first law of nature is the law of self-preservation. We had to leave in order to maintain our sanity. But then, those we left behind never had the benefit of good mentorship and that is why there is too much dependence on foreign vaccines because you are not so sure of the quality produced locally.

    Is this not an indictment on our local expertise?

    Yes, we all share in the blame one way or the other. In those days, we didn’t have improved techniques but we were able to detect any variant of yellow fever and thus were able to administer the right vaccines. But these days we rely too much on advanced techniques which come with a lot of baggage.

    See what China has done, despite the advancement in science, China for instance, has not done away with its roots.

    Take their traditional medicine, the acupuncture, it has become widely acclaimed. Right now, there is an acupuncture centre in New York. It is good to go back to the roots… China as a country keeps what makes them Chinese.

    Let me also make this point that our scientists have not done creditably well over the years.

    If you look at scientific journals all over the world, what make the news are the scientific discoveries, but what have Nigerian scientists done so far?

    In my acceptance speech at the Academy, I made the point that as professionals we must make our impact felt in the society. Let’s see how we can make a change. My hope is that in the next four years, Nigerian scientists will become more relevant in the scheme of things because presently we have failed the country.

    It doesn’t require a thousand people to change the world, it takes just a few people.

    Little drops of water make an ocean but I always say that you must gather the drops in one place to be able to make the ocean because if the little is scattered, you can’t achieve the utmost aim. Let’s see where each of us has a common purpose and plug our force into that.

  • I’d rather help the needy than flaunt a pet project – Ogun First Lady Olufunso Amosun

    I’d rather help the needy than flaunt a pet project – Ogun First Lady Olufunso Amosun

    Ogun State First Lady and wife of Governor Ibikunle Amosun, Mrs. Olufunso Amosun, was recently honoured at the City People Awards for Excellence. But unlike many other first ladies who flaunt their pet projects, she was honoured as the Best First Lady in the South-West on account of her charity work. The holder of a master’s degree in Guidance and Counselling from the University of Lagos told MERCY MICHAEL that her weakness consists in not being able to ignore the needy and the vulnerable whereever she finds them.

     

    What would you say has earned you the recent award as the Best First Lady in the South-West? Did the award come as a surprise?

    I reach out to the vulnerable in the society generally. I have assisted them in my own little ways. I have a weakness for helping them wherever possible. I am of the view that a little care for the needy in our society can make a huge difference. One of my first major outings as the wife of the governor of Ogun State was the flagging off ceremony of the 2011 Maternal Neonatal and Child Health Week in Abeokuta where I charged mothers to always ensure that their children were well fed with nourishing foods in order to reduce infant mortality. I believe that if children are adequately fed with nourishing foods, they will gain the needed immunity against the diseases that are responsible for child mortality.

    You also flagged off the school-based de-worming exercise, which was organised in collaboration with Emzor Pharmaceuticals Limited in 2011. Tell us about it.

    The exercise was conducted for primary school pupils across the 20 local government areas of the state to reduce worm infection among children. My office as the wife of the Ogun State Governor has also initiated many significant programmes aimed at supporting the present administration in its mission to rebuild the state, such as the education standard in schools in Ogun State. In a bid to wake up the motivation in the students and complement the free education scheme and free text books distributed to students in the state by my husband’s administration, I felt that a reward system of some sort could assist in motivating the students to strive to do better.

    As a guidance counsellor by profession, I decided to seek sponsorship to support a motivating programme for SS3 students. In our campaign to make life more comfortable for the less-privileged in February 2012, the UPLIFT Foundation collaborated with Tulsi Chanrai Foundation and Enpee Group to organise a free eye campaign for over 4,000 people from the 20 local government areas of the state. An event such as this became particularly necessary with my observance over the years. I mean, it is painful to see people go blind simply because of cataract, a disease that could have been cured easily through medical treatment. Ignorance has cost a lot of less- privileged people their sights, and that breaks my heart.

    After the free eye camp, we also carried out free surgeries where necessary. Through our programmes, we are giving a sense of belonging to aged people in the state. During my husband’s birthday in 2012, for example, instead of felicitations, we invited over 1,000 aged persons to join him in celebrating his day. We gave them health tips at the event, including free medical screening. Realising that this was just one day in the lives of these people, on my birthday last year, 100 of these indigent aged citizens were identified and have now been put on a monthly plan to receive essential commodities and a monthly stipend to assist them in their daily lives. We also have other programmes for the people of Ogun State, which time will not allow me to mention.

    What does this award mean to you?

    I feel it is a very reputable one. I had never attended any. I was called out from the blue and told that the work that I had been doing had qualified me for the award; which suggests that they had actually done their homework and were not just giving awards frivolously.

    Would you say you really deserve this award?

    I would like to believe so, to the glory of God. I had never gone personally to receive any award. But when this one came, stating all the work that I had done, I knew I had to be here myself because this award is obviously being given on the basis of merit.

    What is the nature of your own pet project?

    I don’t have a pet project. Unlike other governors’ wives who have pet projects, I only reach out to anybody that I can help in the society.

    What about your foundation, Understanding People’s Limiting & Inhibiting Factors Today (UPLIFT)?

    It had existed before my husband became a governor. The foundation’s activities are divided into six groups, namely, Uplifting the Widows, Uplifting Unemployed Graduates, Uplifting Women, Free Eye Camp, Uplifting the Aged and Uplifting SS3 Students. In the course of our work with widows, the foundation has supported indigent widows with business start-up items like salon starter kits, table top gas cookers, sewing machines and soft drinks business starter kits, to mention but a few.

    Furthermore, as a demonstration of our sensitivity to graduate mothers, the foundation provides emergency crèches so that they too could have the chance to take advantage of the programme. These graduates are taught skills like barbing, wireworks, millinery, fabric beading, small chops and pastry, event decoration, manicure and pedicure, shoe making, makeup and gele (headgear) tying, to mention but a few.

    We have also placed priority on the empowerment of women in the state. Therefore, we have distributed deep freezers, motorcycles, generators, sewing machines, grinding machines, among other items. at distributorship prices to be purchased by members of established cooperatives within the state. They are given the chance to spread the payment for these items over a 12-month interest-free period. Our Uplifting the Age programme gives a sense of belonging to elderly people in the state.

    How to do you manage the home front with the volume of work you do as the First Lady?

    Well, I guess it has become a part and parcel of me and a way of life because we are not new in politics. As you know, my husband had been a senator before he became a governor. So, it is just basically a way of life for me.

    You mostly appear in African attire. Why is it so?

    I am an indigene of Ogun State and a citizen of Nigeria. So, I am supposed to be an ambassador for African clothing. Besides, I love being comfortable and simple. So, I would not be caught wearing anything uncomfortable and vulgar.

    How has your free eye camp impacted on the people in the state?

    I would humbly say this has been of great benefit to thousands of indigent people in Ogun State. Eyesight is something that can be easily taken for granted, and that is why we have stepped up our awareness campaign to reduce loss of sight in the state. We are generally passionate about the health of the people in our state, especially the less-privileged.

  • How I’m tortured by telephone- Sen. Chris Anyanwu

    How I’m tortured by telephone- Sen. Chris Anyanwu

    Senator Chris Anyanwu is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Navy. She represents Imo East Senatorial Zone of Imo State on the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA). An advocate of effective representation, she is of the view that no representation is worth it when the doors are shut out on those who elected you. In this interview with Assistant Editor, LINUS OBOGO, in Abuja, Anyanwu spoke on APGA, politics of Imo State as well as the secrets of her youthful looks. Excerpts:

     

    You have always looked pretty, young and ageless, and I bet a lot of women will envy you. What is the secret behind your good looks?

    I envy them too and they are more youthful. There are many Nigerian women who are very excellent in their looks and all that. Anyway, what’s my secret? I have no secret at all. I just ascribe it to God and His works. It is the grace of God. But what I do is that I try to exercise as often as I can. I try not to live a very complicated life. I think all that comes together to help.

    Are there particular kinds of food you avoid?

    Well, we’ve been told that oily food is not good for you. This is so for children as well as some adults. You are told to avoid greasy food and try to eat less of the starchy food. You know, Nigerian diet is very starchy, but I am not going to walk around like a scare crow or a piece of iron because I want to look pretty. What I have to do is to eat in small measures.

    When I am really hungry, I eat but there is a level you will eat and you are already doing harm to yourself. I try not to get myself to that level. So, I just eat in small measures and avoid greasy, fattening and extremely starchy food. There are times you see the table is so rich and so wonderful, but it is not necessarily good food. Some of our soups are very oily and greasy; the vegetables are over cooked and all that. But you really have to watch what you eat.

    What do cosmetics have to do with your good looks?

    A  lot. You have to know how to enhance what God has created. When you get to a certain level, you have to know what is good for you, what is right for you and what is not right for you. There are a lot of people who think that cosmetics are bad and that they don’t need to enhance nature, but I am of the belief that you can do a lot to enhance what nature has gifted you with. Anyway, there is a whole lot happening in the sector. Everybody is moving away from chemically-based cosmetics because there is the fear that many of them are carcinogenic. They are shifting to natural products; cosmetics that are based on herbs.

    They seem to be much more healthy and they are very good too. The face of that sector is changing.

    Cosmetics are good if you choose the right kind of product, in quality and what suits you. It is not every kind of cosmetics that is good for you, especially if you have a dark skin.

    Many people see you as a very serious-minded person…

    Yes I am.

    And having observed you over the years and the work you do at the National Assembly, how do you relax actually? What do you spend your leisure time doing?

    Honestly, I was serious the day I was born and I will probably remain so throughout the rest of my life. So how do I relax? I drive it. I drive it for a long time and then go back and compensate. You cannot drive your system or body hard forever without compensating for that time. You must find sometime in-between those times of extremely hard work that you just sit down and put your feet up. For me, I just sit down under this shelter (behind her house in Abuja) and look at nature. Also, I do my gardening and I swim sometimes; but I continue to exercise. It is a good habit for me. And then I read. You have to feed the brain. Unfortunately, we are all so wired up. You have your I-pad; you have your mobile phone coming at you. I get calls at the rate of maybe, 10 every minute, text messages and then you have emails and all that. So, there is little time to do the things one wants to do. Sometimes the greatest thing you can do for yourself is to throw away the phone or keep it somewhere and walk away.

    Telephone is becoming a source of torture for many of us. You can’t rest, you cannot do any hobby so long as you are so wired up. And you know even the people in the villages know how to use it to torture you. They are coming at you from all over every second, even at ungodly hours including 2 am, 3 am.

    Looking at you also from a close distance, one can say that you are a fashionable person. What does fashion mean to you?

    I am not a slave of fashion. I wear what suits me. What suits, to me, is what is fashionable. Maybe at this point, that is the way I see fashion. There are classical looks, but I don’t remain there. I don’t follow what is in vogue. I think that everybody should have a strong sense of personal style. I do have my own sense of personal style; if you don’t dig it, maybe too bad. What suits me, what suits my personality, my attitude; the way I see the world and interpret things around, and my Africanness; what fits into all that is what is fashionable. And if

    you have a strong sense of personal style, sometimes you dictate the fashion.

    What is your favourite colour?

    I don’t have any particular colour, but I know that some colours are very nice. Pink suits me and sometimes I used to wear a lot of brown suntans but at some stage in my life, I know I need to add a little more colour because one is getting a little older. At this stage, you need to make some extra effort to pep up your wardrobe. But green is certainly not my colour, even though it is Nigeria’s national colour. Red is occasional; it depends on the occasion. You don’t wear red and you are walking around anyhow in broad day light. Red often is a ceremonial kind of colour.

    What puts you off?

    Bad attitude, greed, vulgarity. All these put me off easily.

    The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) was one of the parties that did not suffer the casualty of Independence National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) deregistration exercise. But the party cannot be said to be having the best of times. How disturbed are you and how does the party intend to overcome the infighting currently bedevilling it?

    Let me first of all go back to your preamble which I consider as wrong. There was no way APGA would have been considered for deregistration because it produced two governors, one senator, over 12 House of Representatives members. And in a state like mine, more than half of the state legislators are APGA. The same goes for Anambra State. There is no doubt that it fulfilled not only all the requirements expected of a serious party, but it also surpassed them. APGA is a serious party and that is why the whole country reckons with it.

    I am sufficiently disturbed by the happenings in APGA, but permit me to say that the experience is not peculiar or unique to the party. Even the PDP has its own internal problems. Isn’t the PDP in Ogun State enmeshed in crisis? The same goes for the party at the national level. Even though we don’t get to hear of the crisis in other parties so loudly, that is not to say that they do not have their own undercurrents sometimes. Every party has its own issues. Of course, that is expected. APGA is an assemblage of different people from different backgrounds and it is normal to differ on opinions and views. People will have their own personal high goals which often may not be in sync with the collective goals and objectives of the party.

    You expect these differences to come up from time to time. But it gets to a point where you must come together and say hey, enough is enough, let us sit down and talk. I think that we are getting to that point where we must sink our differences as members of APGA and where the party has to get its act together and work towards the goals and objectives that we all uphold. The Anambra governorship election is coming up this year and if the problem is not solved, it is going to affect the outcome for us as party and as a state. We all know that whatever happens in Anambra State has a way of ricocheting in Imo State as well as other South East states. That is why we have to be very cautious. And it is imperative for the leaders of the party to come together and find a way to resolve whatever disagreement that has the potential of threatening its corporate existence.

    As a party controlling two states and closely knit by a common faith, one would expect that any differences that exist should ordinarily not assume the hue of a conflagration capable of consuming it. Where would you trace the genesis of the crisis the party is embroiled in?

    We still remain a closely knit family. Do not forget that APGA is more of a national movement than a political party. It started as a movement and it is still a moment. The people who started APGA are so into the party that nothing can take them out of it. What the real people, the ordinary people of that region know is APGA. For them, it represents a movement. There is this strong sense of ownership and it is very difficult to pull them away from the party. It is, by and large, a closely knit party. There is a perceptive of cultural flare to APGA.

    Does it not bother you that for all that APGA represents, it has not been able to spread beyond Anambra and lately Imo states?

    APGA is everywhere. It is in the South South, with a strong presence in Rivers State, which was why the former governor, Mr. Celestine Omehia, ran on the platform of the party. When some candidates who fly APGA’s flag do not win, it tends to appear that the party is not everywhere. That is not true. APGA is a national party and that is why the National Secretary, Alhaji Mahmuda Aliyu Shinkafi, the former governor of Zamfari State, is from the North. We have membership spread across the federation. APGA has a strong membership pull also from Abuja.

    What are your thoughts on the crisis in Imo State which ultimately led to the removal of the former deputy governor, Jude Agbaso, from office?

    I am really troubled about the development in my state. But I am very optimistic that it is not going to last very long. Once in a while, it is good for things to happen like this so that people can be jolted from their revelry. Having said this, the crisis in Imo State was a temporary thing. It was about the governor wanting to displace his deputy. Of course, it was not new. After all, it happened in Akwa Ibom State where the governor also displaced his deputy governor. Heavens did not fall. It happened in Bauchi and some other states. It was not peculiar to Imo State alone. That is part of the instability that you will witness in a democratic state that is still emerging. So, for me, it is just an extension of that. It is not something novel and it will come to pass. I am sure sanity is gradually returning to the state.

    Some people have argued that the undercurrent in Imo State is as a result of 2015. Isn’t it too early in 2013 to begin to spoil for war over political office which is still far off?

    You know, Nigerians are very restless people. No sooner have they concluded an election than they will plunge into another one. So, it is never new, especially in some of these places like Imo State to see people begin to heat up the polity. I would not be surprised if it is all part of jostling for 2015. But I will hope that people will allow peace to reign and be focused on their subsisting mandate. Everybody has a mandate, part of which includes delivering on the democratic dividends to the people. Honestly for me, it is a privilege to be allowed to serve. The only way to show gratitude to the people is to do your very best. If you use all the time fighting for an expected event which is three years away from now, it is definitely not the way to go about things. For me, I will prefer that elected officers concentrate on meeting the yearnings of the people and fulfill their electoral promises to them and hope that what they do serve as testimonies that will speak for them when it comes to 2015.

    Factionalism is threatening to tear APGA apart, with Chief Victor Umeh on one hand and Maxi Okwu on the other in a battle for the soul of the party, ditto Governor Owelle Rochas Okorocha seemingly charting a new ideological compass and Governor Peter Obi cleaving to the old ideology that defined the party from the outset. What do you make of these babel of voices or ideologies in the party?

    For the records, Governor Owelle Rochas Okorocha is now in APC and not in APGA anymore. If he has left for APC, the APGA that he left behind in Imo is no longer his own. APGA has long taken a position and insisted that it does not want to merge with any party, but that individuals could go and join new entities on their own. As a party, it wants to retain its identity and remain so in a long while to come as a political party. And that is its position. It was clear from the beginning that the action of the governor of Imo State did not represent the position of APGA as a whole. As an individual, everyone is free to hold whatever views he or she believes in. And that is what it is.

    If you were to advocate for a merger with the APC, how much threat do you imagine this would pose to the PDP?

    I cannot speak for the PDP, but all I know is that a more pluralistic political system will help Nigeria a great deal. There is nothing wrong in having other strong political parties coming up, especially if you have two or more parties creating platforms for the people. More importantly, it will create a healthy competition for a party that has become entrenched. It will make the ruling party to sit up and be alive to its responsibilities to the electorate and not take them for granted. It will also make for more negotiation. It will lead to a more robust debate on issues rather than having a coterie of people ram it down the throats of many which does not bring the best out of the polity.

    So, for parties forming alliances and coalition, it is not a bad thing. What this means for the PDP is that it will make it sit up, make it to be more rigorous on issues than what obtained in the past and still obtains today. It will make the PDP reach out to the elements that will add value to the party. They will no longer run roughshod over other people. It might also bring internal democracy to the PDP. So, I think at the end of day, if the other new parties are not merely coming to undercut people, but to add value to the polity, it will work for the good of all..

    How do you react to the erection of bumps in the way of securing autonomy for the 774 council areas in the country in the ongoing constitution review by the National Assembly?

    The only people rejecting autonomy for the local governments are the governors. The local government chairmen have not said they do not want autonomy and the people at the grassroots have not said autonomy is not good for them. When we did the public hearing all across the country, the position from all the geo-political zones was the same: that we need to give both political and financial autonomy to the local governments. I hope that in the end, the right thing will be allowed to happen because as they say, in democracy, the view of the largest majority should weigh in the actions that we take. As for the states assemblies, we just hope that they will summon the courage to accept their own autonomy. They need to do a rethink and come to terms with the huge benefits of being weaned from the apron strings of the governors.

    Owing to the occasional instability at that level, governors themselves are afraid that if the House of Assemblies are allowed the autonomy, they will be impeaching their governors every day. That is what they are worried about. The level of maturity and experience at that level is also an issue. But by and large, it is up to the state assemblies themselves to stand up to say they want their own autonomy from their governors.

    How close are you to your constituency in terms of development and empowerment?

    I have been staying very close to my constituency and constituents. The general impression that national lawmakers are not close to their constituents is really not correct. A lot of lawmakers have been voted out for not visiting home or staying close to their people. But I will imagine that in those volatile areas of the north that have come under the onslaught of Boko Haram, lawmakers will find it hard to do so. But other than that, some of us come from where there is competition to surpass or get one up over your rival in terms of affecting your constituents. So, my people have continued to benefit from my presence as a lawmaker at the federal level. They have never had it so good. On the whole, legislators collectively are doing very well. Personally, I have been working on key projects and at the end of the day we will begin to show what we have been able to do.

    As Senate Committee Chairman on Navy, how would you rate the preparation of the navy in tackling some of the security challenges along our waterways?

    I want to say that I am very pleased with the current head of the Navy because his actions are very right headed and in the right direction. The Navy is working hard to deal with peculiar challenges of illegal oil bunkering and theft. But owing to the enormity of the challenges and how far they had been allowed to fester, we should not expect the problems to fizzle out overnight. The Navy has been more prepared than ever before in combating the illegal activities of oil theft and bunkering in the Niger Delta region. The number of vessels destroyed in the last three months has been phenomenal. But because the criminal themselves are more daring, the more of the vessels you destroy, the more they return and the more daring they get. But the Navy will continue to attack the heart of these criminal activities on our economy until the saboteurs are run out. We need to applaud the Navy. They are doing extremely very well. But they need more logistic support from the government to be more effective in policing our waterways.

  • My tongue ached for three days after my first kiss – Ex-Governor Victor Attah

    My tongue ached for three days after my first kiss – Ex-Governor Victor Attah

    Obong Victor Attah is an accomplished architect and former governor of Akwa Ibom State from 1999 to 2007. A man who does not believe in sitting on the fence over an issue, he once led a protest as a student at the Ahmadu Belo University Zaria, Kaduna State over alleged frustration of Nigerian architectural students by the then British lecturers. Long before then, he had protested against his parents’ church, Qua Iboe Church, by opting out to join the Catholic communion for refusing him baptism because he was too young to raise the required dues. In this interview with Assistant Editor, LINUS OBOGO, in his Abuja office, Obong Victor Attah spoke about his journey in life, regrets, his first kissing experience and sundry issues.Excerpts:

     

     How would Obong Victor Attah describe his essence?

    There is really no one essence to describe a man. Your question is a multi-dimensional one. That is, if you were to ask my staff what kind of man I am, they will define me as a type of employer that they know me to be. And if you ask any member of my family what kind of man I am, they will define me differently by telling you that I am the kind of husband, father and grandfather that they have known me to be. Similarly, if you were to ask my political associates what kind of man I am, they will also tell you that I am that kind of politician that they know me to be.

    So, you asking me about my essence, all I can tell you is that I try to be a decent human being with principles that will stand me before my Creator and I can only say that I have done my best.

     

    How would capture the kind of family were you born into?

    Without sound immodest, permit me to say that I was privileged to have been born into the family of educated parents. My father, the late Bassey Attah was the second Nigerian ever to have a university degree in Agriculture and the first to obtain a Master’s degree in the same discipline. My wife also, was an educated woman who was a school teacher. So, I can consider myself born into a privileged family.

     

    Coming from a background where you father was Nigeria’s second graduate of Agricultural Science, and the country’s first Master’s holder in the same discipline, how were you inspired or influenced by all of this, educationally?

    I was positively inspired. I grew up to realise the value of education in human development. My father believed so much in the importance of education. When he returned to Nigeria after completing his education in the U.S., he was sent to Moore Plantation in Ibadan and later to Oil Palm Research Station (OPRS), which is now called NIFOR, in Benin, Edo State. Much later, he was sent to the Cameroun. This was a time when Quinine was our only cure for Malaria. So, my father was the one who developed and grew all the Quinine plantations used for the treatment of Malaria then as well as the banana plantations in the Cameroun.

    The reason I am telling you this in relation to education is to let you know that I was born at a time when he was leaving for his studies in the US in 1938. He returned to Nigeria in 1945. He studied through the Second World War years.

    Upon his return, to Nigeria, he was moving his children of whom I was one of the seventh from one part of the country and from one station to another. I remember that in those days, even when you studied English as a language, you actually taught in the mother tongue.

    So, at Moore Plantation in Ibadan, we were trying to study Yoruba, which we eventually did not speak. In Benin, we were also at the OPRS trying to speak Edo, which we also did not speak. It was the same situation in Cameroun, trying to learn one of the languages, which we ended up not speaking.

    With this unsettled life, my father felt if we went on like that, we were not going to be educated if we continued like that. So, he sent my mother along with the rest of my siblings back to Uyo so that we could live a settled life and pursue our education. His decision was a demonstration of how much he loved education. He made sure we did not only have to go to school, but a school good and decent one at that. He was determined to push us as far as he possibly could, educationally.

     

    How was your growing up like?

    I must say that it was quite interesting. When you grow up in what could be described as a privileged family, certain things come your way naturally or as a giving. There is this story that I am going to tell you without mentioning names. There was this incident in which someone, in an attempt to abuse us, told my siblings and me that we were trying to be like the joneses. But someone else who was listening, quickly stepped in and said the family we came from, were the real joneses and so we could not be trying to be like the joneses.

    While we were growing up, one of the enduring lessons our father taught us was humility and obedience to law as the essential ingredients, if we were to grow up as complete personality. As a child, my father preferred I studied engineering, but I was rather excited studying architecture because it was more of a creative endeavour than engineering.

     

    Given the kind of family background you belonged, what sort of awe or respect would you say you inspired in your peers and neighbours?

    Fear, definitely not! We did not have to use our position to intimidate anybody. But sadly, I see that happening today. If you are truly and sufficiently educated and you are sure of yourself, then, you do not need to intimidate anybody. However, you can inspire by offering the right thought and the right direction. You must enjoy the benefit of being taken into consideration and being consulted. That is what people expect from anybody in any society. Honestly, if you try not to open your mouth too wide when you are sure of your subjects, people will definitely respect and look up to you.

    While growing up, I found out that this was not too difficult to do because people just expected that I should know everything under the sun. So, even when I did not know, I would ask questions until we arrived at a solution.

    Our father taught us three things that would help us go through life: always say please; always say thank you when someone does something nice to you, even when you paying someone for doing something and finally, do not ever hesitate to say I am sorry to even the most lowly because you can do something wrong to him or her who is the most lowly in your midst.

     

    How rascally was young Obong Victor Attah?

    To be honest with you, I really do not know whether to call it rascality, but I was very firm on my principles. So, I do not know if that was rascality. Today, I am a Catholic and a knight of the Catholic Church, but my parents were Qua Iboe and they died Qua Iboe. I can tell you the story quite simply. I was Quo Iboe, grew up in Qua Iboe where I did my baptismal exams and passed successfully, but on the day of baptism, I was told I was too young and too small and would not be able to pay the church dues and stuff like that. Before then, I could not recall ever crying like I did following that disappointment of not being baptized. I was still in elementary school and was quite young then. I returned home that day and looked at my parents in the face and told them ‘if your church baptizes people simply because they could afford the church dues, I am not accompanying you to that church again. So, if you want to call that rascality, so be it. But I will describe that as standing on principle. From that day, I stopped being Qua Iboe. After that I went through different Christian denominational churches until finally, I decided that I wanted to be catholic.

     

    So your leaving Qua Iboe was more of what could be described as a rebellion or protestation?

    My Catholicism was not because I was born into it, but to borrow your word, it was more of protestation. That protestation marked a certain milestones in my life. That protestation also went with me when I was a student at the Nigeria College of Arts, Science and Technology, Zaria, Kaduna State, which is now the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU.

    At Zaria, I discovered that architecture was one subject Nigerians were not doing very well in. they could pass in several other subjects, but in architecture. So, I embarked on a protest. I went to our student union leader and said to him that something was wrong. How come that they would admit about 30 of us and that number would suddenly drop to half when getting to our third year and then to about three in our final year? Even then, some of the three ‘surviving’ ones would still not pass very well.

    So, what made me to protest very strongly was that most of the young Nigerian architectural students who were purportedly not passing their architectural exams found their way to England and did very well, even better than some of the English students in the same architectural course. Do not forget that at Zaria, we were being taught by British lecturers. So, I put two and two together and came to the conclusion that there must be something fundamentally wrong somewhere. If it was that we could not do very well in architecture, then these Nigerian students who left Nigeria for the UK should also not do well over there. So, I protested.

    So, I acquired the distinction or reputation, if you like, of being the first person to engineer a students’ protest in Zaria, which later became ABU in 1960. Following the protest, there was a major inquiry at the end of which it was recommended that the British lecturers in ABU Zaria would never allow me to pass out. I was a private student because my father was paying my fees. That was how I was sent abroad to study.

    So I found myself in a British school in the UK and I did very well. It was discovered that my protest had a basis. It was only when we had our independence that for the first time, a Nigerian became Head of the Department of Architecture, in the person of Professor Adeyinka Adeyemi, that we got know what the secret was. It was clearly established that the British were finding it difficult to graduate African professionals, but mostly in architecture and the building industry not only in ABU but everywhere.

    The reason for this was simple. The British had just returned from the war and could not all be absorbed in the workplace. So, they were being sent abroad. The implication was that if we qualified too early and too many, there would not be room for the British war returnees. That was why we were failing and failing and failing but would go to the UK and do very well.

     

    Given the nomadic life your father lived, having to be moved from one part of Nigeria to another a result of his profession as an agricultural officer, you must have imbibed many cultures. How much of these varied cultures would you say shaped your worldview?

    Well, the word nomadic, as you used it, would be rather too strong. But that being said, I will say that the experience exposed me very early to the country, Nigeria. We had been in the west, east, north and even as far the Cameroun, the Southern part of Cameroun. That is why when I tell people that I know Nigeria very well, I am not just making an empty boast.

    I did not speak any of the languages of the areas we lived. But the experience, however, made me to appreciate the richness of our vast cultures. It also made me to understand why certain people do certain things in a certain kind of way. I can almost certainly anticipate what their behaviour and reaction will to be.

     

    So what values would you say the different cultures you have had romance with inculcated in you?

    They inculcated tremendous values in me, because the different cultures made me a lot more tolerant of other people’s attitude and idiosyncrasies and their way of life. It taught me to be more accommodating of others, just as it has helped me to be a lot more understanding of the various people. It has also been helping me whenever I want to argue for or against certain things. For instance, if there is an issue and which I need to make an input, I should be able to say to whomever, that from the part of the country you come from, your culture does not support your position on this or that issue. And owing to my interaction with different cultures, I can afford to look at anyone in the face and say to him or her without any fear of contradiction that your action would not be permissible in your culture if you were to do that back home.

     

    As a Christian and a catholic for that matter, how often would you turn the other cheek if wacked on the other one?

    (Prolonged laughter) The scriptural requirement of turning the other cheek has been very severely abused. When God said we should turn the other cheek, He did not say we should be timid. He did not say we should be cowardly. He gave us the spirit of strength and of good understanding. If you are confronted with evil, will you close your eyes to it and turn the other cheek simply because the Bible says we should turn the other cheek? If you do not confront it, I do not think you are going to have any kind of success at all.

    Christ came and confronted the evil that he saw in the world, which led to His crucifixion and resurrection. If he had not confronted what he saw, we would not have had redemption. Let me tell you this and in all honesty, much as I do not like to be confrontational: I do not run away from taking a stance. I can take a stance and as a matter of fact, a very firm one.

     

    But was there a time that you had had to turn the other cheek?

    Very many times I have done so. We have a saying in place which goes thus ‘ekpe tuk, edu guduen’, which translate as ‘do not think the lion as cowardly just because it panics at being frightened’. Do not mistake the lion’s first reaction for cowardice as it might growl and pounce on you after realising that you are just a prey.

     

    Nigeria has continued to have more than its fair share of collapsed buildings. As an architect, what would you adduce as factors responsible for this?

    It is a phenomenon of the non-patronage of professionals in the building sector of the economy. Nigerians like to cut corners and they will always cut corners. If you go to an architect, he is going to charge you his professional fees because that is what he lives on. But if you have to deny him his professional fees, then you must seek the services of a quack. Or better still, you may decide to do it your own way, after all, who cannot build a house? That is what I often hear people say, I know how to build a house. But does that make them professional in the field of building and civil engineering? We have tried in this profession to tell the government that this is all wrong. There should be a dividing line building professionals and suppliers.

    Today, the man who sells sand sees himself as a contractor, another who supplies water at building sites is also a building contractor. So, they are all building contractors and engineers without professional expertise or skills. It is an all comers’ affairs and the government appears to be helpless. Even those who give design approvals do not insist on the design being handled by professionals.

    Occasionally, there is professional negligence on the part of the professional because he does not supervise adequately. And often, it is because the man for whom he designs says he does not want to pay you fees for supervising because he can supervise himself.

    In building, there is a cement/sand ratio for sandcrete blocks, but today, a tipper of sand is mixed with a bag of cement to produce 5000 blocks. The implication is that the building was already designed to collapse. When you build without enough reinforcement, buildings are bound to collapse.

    I can say it with all the conviction and authority that less than two per cent of our built environment is today under the design and supervision of professionals. The rampant incident of collapsed buildings must be looked at from two or more perspectives: we are building so much more now and so, the phenomenon seems to be larger than ever before; secondly, there is media spread so much more widely done now than it was in the past. Then, the media has a role to play by assisting us to tell this government and subsequent governments that the last lawyer to have ever set his foot in any Nigerian law court was Sir Dingle Foot (QC). It was a serious issue raised by the late Chief Obafemi Awolow (May his soul rest in peace), who said then that the man had no business entering the Nigerian court to practice.

    The lawyers have succeeded and the doctors have also succeeded in stamping out infiltration by non-professionals and non-Nigerians. Unless you are licensed to practice law in Nigeria, you cannot set foot in the country to practice law in our courts. For the doctors, unless you are licensed to practice medicine as a foreigner, you are not allowed to prescribe even APC. You cannot prescribe APC unless you are licensed by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA). It is a serious matter, but when you come to the building industry, people who are not even qualified to practice in their own country are bringing designs and drawings which we are accepting.

    There is no regard and respect for professionals in the Nigerian building industry and there is no enforcement of our building code.

     

    What would you consider as the high point of your architectural career?

    Have I gotten there yet? In truth, I am looking for things to do now that will be my signature project and I will retire home to the Lord. I am 74 and going on 75. Soon, I should stop practicing. As creative an endeavour as architecture is, your success depends to a very large extent on the client. If your client is very understanding and is able to indulge you and you are able to produce a good design, it becomes a reference point in a long time to come. I am still looking for that client.

    The problem with most of our clients in the building industry is that they are too impatient. Why is it that projects take long years to complete and often abandoned by contractors, yet architects are rushed to produce designs? Professionally, it is difficult to shift a line on a design than to have a structure demolished.

    The closest that I came to agreeing that I have designed a good structure that could be a reference point is the NDIC head office building here in Abuja. And funnily enough, it is the only one among several buildings in Abuja that I can point to as my design.

    What interest me about that building is that a British architect who practices here in Nigeria, and whom I met at a social function said to me that he would tell me what would interest me. I asked him what would be? He said some of his foreign colleagues from the UK came on a visit and he was taking them round Abuja, and as they were going, they saw the NDIC building and asked him to stop, according to him, they said the building looked like it was designed by an architect. They drew closer and took a look at the building. That, to me, is something to be proud of. It turned out that way because my client allowed me enough time to experiment with designs.

     

    Do you have a habit and if yes, what would that be?

    Yes, I have a habit and the habit is hard work. It is a habit that people have complained about. The fact is that I enjoy what I do. But that is not to say that I do not recreate. I go on vacations every year. I do that with my family so that when we come back, we have things to talk about together. But once I return to Nigeria, nothing else takes the place of work.

     

    What has been your saddest moment in life?

    My saddest moment was to have lost my wife to the cold hands of death. That was the best companion that I had who made life very meaningful to me.

     

    Despite that there were many beautiful Nigerian women, why did you have to settle for a woman from the Barbados?

    You should have asked me where we met. Anyway, I will give a simple answer. I met my wife while in the university in Leeds, England. Again, let me borrow your word, after my protestation at ABU, I was sent to continue my university education in England. I was so young then that my father tried to persuade me to return after my graduation to marry a Nigerian lady, but my younger brother had to personally write to my father asking him to leave me alone to marry whoever that my heart agreed with. He told my father that it was a matter of market availability. He said if I had reached marriageable age and the only available market to me then was what surrounded me in the UK. So be it. That is the kind of family I come from. So it was a matter of market availability.

    If I was in Nigeria at the time I wanted to marry, it would have been a Nigeria because I would not have left Nigeria in search of a wife in Barbados. But I have no regret at all that I found the kind of wife I did. She was a wonderful woman.

     

    How disappointed was your father with your decision?

    He was not disappointed. Rather he was so pleased that I married someone he came to regard as a daughter. He was extremely happy with the choice I made.

     

    If you had a second chance, where would she come from?

    (Cuts in) Are you suggesting that I marry again? But if that were to happen, this is the available market now. There will certainly be no need of going back to Barbados to marry another wife.

     

    So, has His Excellency started receiving applications from suitable applicants from the available market?

    (Cuts in with prolonged laughter) Do you advertise for this? No, nobody places an advert for a wife. It was just a few months ago that I buried my wife. So let us leave that for the time being.

     

    What was that invaluable piece of advice that your father gave you and which you have taken along with you up to date?

    He told my siblings and me to always remember three things: to say ‘please, thank you and sorry’. He added another: remember that hard work has never killed anybody. But if you do not work hard, you might die of starvation.

     

    What is your biggest motivation in life?

    I am motivated by the desire to succeed. If I accomplish a task and it turns out successful, I feel like doing more. Success is my biggest motivation.

     

    If you were to go back 45 years, what is that thing that you would have loved to do differently?

    Please, I will beg of you not to go back that far. Just take me back to 2007 and I would have insisted that Nigeria should elect the kind of president she should have. I just regret the fact that Nigeria has never been allowed to elect freely the kind of president she ought to have. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying that the leadership we have at the moment is bad or anything of sorts. That is not what I am saying. But the fact remains that we have never been allowed to choose our president freely. It is only then that we can make progress as a country. That is all I am really insisting on. I listen to former President Olusegun Obasanjo saying the last time that Nigeria lacks good leadership material. That is not true and he knows it. Why I said he knows it is because it was in his time that we said Awolowo was the best president we never had. Why did we not have him? Yet he was the best material. It was because he was not allowed to be president. It was also in his time that we came up with this theory of twelve two third. Over the years, we have been manipulating and manipulating to ensure that the best man does not get the job. Nigeria has abundant leadership potential and possibilities. So, his statement was not correct.

     

    How was the experience the first time you kissed a woman?

    (pauses) Wait a minute, wait a minute. Please don’t laugh. If you are asking about kissing someone passionately, it was something I did while I was in the UK. It was a feeling I can never forget. I kissed and kissed and kissed that after three days later, I complained to my roommate that I wanted to go and see a doctor because my tongue was aching. I told him I did not know what was wrong with my tongue. I had kissed for so long that my tongue started aching. That was how wonderful it was. It was the person who eventually became my wife. The experience was absolutely fantastic.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • PDP crisis is exaggerated -Senate Majority Leader Ndoma-Egba

    PDP crisis is exaggerated -Senate Majority Leader Ndoma-Egba

    Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) is the Senate Majority Leader and a three-term Senator representing Cross River State Central Senatorial Zone in the upper chamber. Senator Ndoma-Egba was at various times a member of Senate Committees on Upstream Petroleum Resources, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Information and Media, as well as Deputy Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. In this interview with Assistant Editor, LINUS OBOGO, in his office, he spoke on state creation, crisis in the PDP, zero allocation to SEC saga and sundry issues. Excerpts:

     

    There was a seeming helplessness on the part of the Senate to compel the Inspector-General of Police (IG) to arrest and produce the former Assistant Director with the Nigeria Pension Fund, Abdulrasheed Maina, over alleged monumental corruption in the agency, leading to his eventual disappearance. Was that the last Nigerians may have heard on the matter?

    Our constitutional responsibilities are carried out within constitutional bounds. The powers to investigate also include the powers to recommend. We do not have any constitutional obligation to implement or execute our recommendations. The responsibility to implement or execute those recommendations lies with the executive arm of the government.

    That is why if you look at Section 88 of the Constitution which empowers us to carry out oversights, it also empowers us to carry out oversights with the purpose of exposing or minimising corruption. So the moment we have succeeded in exposing corruption, we have carried out our constitutional mandate. What happens thereafter is for the executive arm. We have done our bit. So, we cannot, having done our bit and exhausted our constitutional mandate, be said to be helpless. So, the issue of helplessness does not arise in this situation at all.

    Implementing our recommendation is entirely that of the executive.

    So, while the executive glosses over this serious issue of corruption in the Pension Fund administration, will it be right to conclude that the matter is dead and buried as it seems?

    Well, it is for Nigerians to demand action from the executive arm. The legislature has done its bit. So the ball is now in the court of the executive. It is for Nigerians to insist that something be done. I want to believe that the matter is squarely being pursued by those who have the responsibility to do so. The matter is before the Federal Civil Service Commission. Remember also that the police had also declared him wanted.

    Does the Constitution also circumscribe the Senate from reining in the IG of Police or any other head of federal agencies who flagrantly flouts your resolution?

    The IG appeared before the Senate Committee on Police Affairs to give an explanation on the challenges or difficulties they were having. The committee is yet to bring its report to the plenary of its interaction with the IG. When the committee submits its report, we will proceed from there.

    Following the debate in the Senate on the Petroleum Industry Bill and subsequent revelations that a section of the country controls 83 per cent of the oil blocs, what is the position of the Senate on the disclosure?

    The Senate, like the executive, is a creation of the Constitution that also created the three arms of government. Every arm has its responsibility, limitations and powers. The granting of oil blocs is exclusively the preserve of the executive and not that of the legislature. Let us assume without conceding that the allegations made by Senator Ita Enang are true, it is now left for the executive to make sure that, that is corrected. Correcting a balance in the allocation of oil blocs is an executive function and not a legislative function, but I think that there is this mindset out there that the legislature has the powers to do everything, it is not true. There is a clear separation of powers. Ours is to expose inefficiency and corruption. The moment we have done that, it will be left for the relevant arms to take the necessary actions to redress it.

    Some people have called on the Senate to be scrapped while others have called for a part time legislature. As a Senator who is serving his third term, how do the recommendations strike you?

    Let us first of all look at the issue of the National Assembly or the Senate being the drain pipe. This year, we have a budget of almost N5trillion and the budget of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the bureaucracy, the National Assembly Service Commission, the Legislative Institute and our subscription to international bodies is N150 billion. The percentage of this N5 trillion is a little over two per cent. So are they saying that this percentage is the problem of Nigeria? If you have two percent of the budget, it means that you have two percent opportunity for corruption and if you have 98 percent of the budget, it means that you have 98 percent opportunity for corruption. How come the fixation is with the two percent and not the 98 percent? Now, we are talking about the N150 billion and the OPEC fuel subsidy scheme which is just one of the small programmes of the government costs almost N2 trillion. Even the pension fund that you mentioned earlier is far in excess of the N150 billion of the National Assembly budget. Using the figures that I have mentioned, it goes to prove that the National Assembly cannot be responsible for the wastage in the system. It definitely is not.

    Let us now come back to the issue of the National Assembly being part time or full time. As a child growing up, when we had the parliamentary system, we had part time legislators and I remember that the headmaster of my primary school was a member of the House of Representatives. He went to Lagos where they used to have their sittings and after that, he resumed his work as headmaster. But it was the same Nigerians who clamoured for a full time legislature. Today, we operate a presidential system of government. Tell me, in which other presidential system anywhere in the world do we have a part time legislature? Again, if the reason for the clamour is cost, I have told you that what we spend in the legislature is two point something percent of our total national budget.

    Out of the N150 billion, the Senate takes a part which is totally inconsequential when you place it side by side with the billions in the pension funds. So the issue of cost cannot be the argument because you would be looking at the wrong place to save cost. When people talk about scrapping the Senate, I wonder what the logic is in having a bicameral legislature. In the world over, you have a bicameral legislature when you have a diverse heterogeneous polity because if you check the representation of the House of Representatives all over the world, you will see that it is based on population. Now, the Senate is based on the equality of the states, so if you scrap the Senate, it means that you have taken care of only the major tribes. So what happens to the minorities who are also Nigerians?

    The minorities are accommodated on the basis of representation through equality of states. It is a bicameral legislature in a multicultural heterogeneous like we have in Nigeria that can address the fears of every Nigerian whether you are from the majority or minority tribe. If you now remove the Senate, you are leaving people like me who are the minority of the minorities to be virtually unprotected. The only people that would be protected would be my colleagues from the major tribes. Would it now be that it is because you want to save cost that you would be denying protection to minorities who are Nigerians? As far as I am concerned, the call for scrapping the Senate has no basis either in fact or in logic.

    Aside the cost which the National Assembly seemingly represents, is it not within the powers of the national legislature to recommend an alternative system of government to cut cost as people say the presidential system we are operating is very expensive?

    Did we not try the parliamentary system before? Why did we abandon it? That answers your question.

    Wasn’t the system not truncated by the military, and not abandoned?

    But when you had an opportunity to choose, you chose a presidential system. So it is not as if you are coming from a situation where you had not tried the other one. We tried it and at that time, the complaint was that it did not work for Nigeria. Now we are operating the presidential system, you say we should go back to the parliamentary. The mindset of the average Nigerian is very curious. I remember in the past when everyone was saying we should liberalise the political space by registering more political parties.

    The argument then was that if you registered more political parties, it would weaken the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), then INEC went ahead to register almost 60 parties, but the PDP got even stronger. Now they are saying that we should go back to a two party system. I think we should investigate the reasons why the parliamentary system was abandoned. Under that system, we kept slipping into one crisis after another and the belief was that we needed a presidential system where the chief executive would be strong enough to hold the country together. I do not think that anything has happened to that logic.

    What would you say about the crises in the Governors’ Forum, the leadership of the party and even the presidency?

    It is an exaggeration and I can give you an example. I was in Port Harcourt some time ago to receive the National Chairman. The next day, all the newspapers reported that Governors Rotimi Amaechi and Emmanuel Uduaghan walked out on the party, but it is not true because that didn’t happen. They refuted it because it was not true. I was there. What happened was that we were already in the bus leaving for the venue when we got information that Governor Uduaghan was nearby and we agreed to wait for him. When he came in, after exchanging pleasantries with everybody, he made it clear that he would have to rush back because he would be travelling. The Asaba Airport, as you may be aware, closes at 6:00pm. So we went to the venue and at a point he had to leave. He went to the National Chairman and took permission from him to leave. Governor Amaechi was the host, so he had to see his guest off. The next thing we heard was that they walked out on the party. If you are walking out, do you seek permission? So all these talks about face-off are exaggerations and imaginations of some sections of the public and media. These governors are PDP governors as well as so many of us. We have our forums for resolving our issues. So people should stop dramatising and creating situations just because they want to paint a particular picture.

    The country has lost millions of dollars through subsidy payments for imported petroleum products. Is it not part of your oversight as lawmakers to put an end to this through an act of parliament by compelling local refining of the products?

    If one part of your body causes you to sin, what do you do? Why are you avoiding the answer? The Bible says that if your left hand leads you to sin, cut it off. If subsidy has become the major source of corruption in this country, then do away with it. Let us not beat around the bush. What act of parliament will you make to force people to invest their money in an environment where they are not sure? People invest money where market forces are at play. You tell somebody to come and invest in a refinery and you are subsidising products, who would invest in such an environment? My take is that if subsidy has become the bedrock of corruption in the country, then we should do away with it.

    You were quoted as blaming the backwardness of the country on the creation of more states. But I want to ask that if Cross River State, where you come from was not created out of the old Eastern Region, would it have given you the opportunity to be in the Senate?

    How many states did we have in 1979 when Dr. Joseph Wayas who is from a minority group emerged as Senate President? Coming from a minority group has nothing to do with state creation. Let us not be emotional about this and let us use facts in our arguments. As at 1965, the economy of the then Eastern Region was the fastest growing economy in the world. By that time also, Nigeria was at par with countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil and Indonesia. There are certain political developments that we have shared in common with those countries, especially in military intervention. Indonesia had its fair share of military rule. One thing we did not share with them and which we must investigate is that their federating units remained the same while ours kept multiplying. Could that be the reason why they left us behind? It is something we have to think about.

    How does state creation undermine development?

    The question you should be asking is how has multiplication of states aided development?

    But people argue that the creation of more states and local governments has brought development or better still, government closer to the people. Do you also differ on this?

    As a child growing up when we still had three regions before the Midwest Region was created, you could open a tap in my remote village and water would gush out. In those days, we had what became known as county secondary schools, but during the civil war when the government took over, they became government secondary schools. Those secondary schools were built by local governments, and then they were called county councils. Local governments built hospitals, water works and tarred roads. Today when a local government pays its members of staff, it becomes news and it is celebrated. Is that development?

    I remember when I wanted to write my first Common Entrance exam in Government College, Afikpo, I was put like a parcel in a vehicle that conveyed mails for the post office. Do we still have that today? And we are talking about development.

    I went to school at a time when we were two in a room in the University of Lagos, when our law library was reputed to be the biggest and the best in the whole of Africa. Those days, when you left your room in the morning for lectures, potters came to your room, dressed your bed and picked your laundry. During meal times, you had a hall mistress that went round and ensured that your meal combination was healthy. By the time we were in our second year, we were being interviewed for jobs. Today, people tell me about development when students graduate without even knowing what a library is. I was discussing with my colleague the lowering standards of education and he told me that there were people who spend four years in school without seeing a proper toilet. These days, when you graduate, you have to wait for 10 years to get a job, is that the development that has been brought about by state creation?

    We should learn to separate emotions from reality. My training as a lawyer is to keep emotions aside and look at facts and I have been looking at these facts. State creation has served its purpose. I was a commissioner when we had 19 states and things were still working. In those days, the states were feasible and there was a lot of development then. A lot of positive things were happening. As we now multiplied the states, bureaucracy bloated, so we are now paying more on salaries than capital development. Is that development? What happened to our economy? What happened to those plantations that we used to have?

    As a child growing up, we had rich people in places like Ikom and Ogoja who made their money by being in Ikom and Ogoja. Today, with state creation, if you are not living in the state capital, you do not have any chance and they tell me it is development. It has gotten to a point when, if you are not in Abuja, you have no chance and they say it is development. It is not about saying that if there was no Cross Rives State, would I have made it to the Senate? There were people who were nowhere and still succeeded. I gave an instance with Dr. Joseph Wayas who was Senate President in 1999, so it has nothing to do with state creation.