YOU have been quiet for some time. Any special reason for that?
Times are changing. Even in the political domain, there has been a lot of changes. So it requires one to really adapt to the situation on ground. And, of course, things are usually quiet between one election and the other. One, when a new government comes in, they need time to settle down to forge a direction politically, economically and so on, and everybody recognises the fact that a new government needs time to settle down. So things are generally quiet during such periods. But once we pass the half way mark, things start getting warm and a lot of activities come up towards the next election.
You talked about a new government coming in. Do you think the Buhari government is settling down well?
Well, I think the government is taking a lot of time to settle down. Some may understand this because it is a change from one party to the other, but most Nigerians may be impatient and rightly so because what they expected to see was a lot of changes economically, which has not happened. So, I think the government has its own strategy and it is taking its time.
Some may not agree with them. I think now the government should be fully settled after one year. The government should be fully settled so that in the next two years, we will see the full thrust of activities by which they will then be judged, when they will now be ready to present either the same candidates for the same election or bring in some new candidates.
Talking about settling down, your former constituency, the National Assembly, also seem to be finding it difficult to settle down…
Yes, that is true. Well, it has been a lot of problems, particularly from this current National Assembly. A lot of things now seem to be coming out, which shows that the National Assembly has not fully positioned itself to carry out its functions. My advice is that the leadership of the National Assembly has to really settle down to the business of giving legislative expression to the feelings and aspirations of the people. There is a lot of in-fighting, rivalry and all that. Of course, the ruling party has a lot to do to get them in the right direction.
Talking about in-fighting, the Speaker and some principal officers of the House of Representatives are at daggers drawn with one of its members, Hon. Jibrin, over allegations of budget padding which runs into billions of naira. As a former member of the National Assembly, how do you see all this?
You will appreciate that some of us were in the National Assembly for a very brief period. I was elected in 1992 and the transition had not been concluded. It would have been successfully completed with the election of M.K.O. Abiola as president, but it was annulled by the military and then everything came crashing down. That is a pity because I think we had in that National Assembly highly respected people who were totally committed to making Nigeria a great place. But all the manipulations at the time and the grand design of the military to perpetuate itself in power had serious consequences for the nation. It drew the nation back so badly. But then, with the coming of democracy in 1999, the sacrifice of people like Chief MKO Abiola and those of us who had the opportunity to be there paid off eventually with democracy coming back in 1999.
While the President thought he had his hands full with executive work and concentrated on bringing changes, the National Assembly was left to its own devices and the result is what we are seeing. The National Assembly has been left so much to its own devices and unfortunately, they did not take advantage of this. To a large extent, governors have been very dominant in their states. So, you do not have too much of arm twisting by the legislature. Governors were able to put them in check and I think that is to the credit of the governors. At the national level, we have had at best some ad-hoc arrangements which did not work for the interest of the nation.
I will give you one example: the so called constituency projects. I think it is very unfortunate. Because if you look deep, it means the legislators are executing, and that is not supposed to be. The executive has its duty clearly defined and the legislature has its duty clearly defined. But when it gets to this stage of legislators now executing, legislators having allocations, I think both the executive and the legislature are to blame. That is a kind of very shoddy arrangement at best, which was bound to lead to this kind of disastrous consequences we are now witnessing.
In other words, you are seeing the crisis more from the fact that the legislators left their statutory responsibilities and tried to make incursion into what ordinarily should be the responsibility of the executive?
Definitely, that was what happened. And having successfully created the so called constituency allowances, projects which the executive did not certify, they felt also that they are free to manipulate the budget.
Are you saying legislators have no business executing constituency projects?
Definitely yes. You see, the basic duty of the legislators is not even to propose budget. But when you start putting something like constituency projects, then you are also proposing budget. Mr. President was supposed to come and say, ‘I want to build this dam; it is going to cost me N700 million.’ The legislature is supposed to, one, check. Do we really need this dam? Is it in the right place? Is it at the right time? And then check whether the N700 million in the budget is in order. In other words, acting on behalf of the people to say, ‘This should not cost 700 million, it should cost N600 million. But a situation where the President says he wants to spend N700 million and the legislature says N700 million is too small, spend N800 million, it is crazy. That is totally out of it.
Yea, it is possible that the executive has not done proper homework. In which case, N700 million may not finish the project. In such a situation, the legislators should reject the project and point out the deficiencies, not to now turn around and increase it to N800 million or one billion naira. That has been happening under this republic. I don’t think that it had been like that before. There are a lot of things that have gone wrong.
Don’t you think the president was arm-twisted by the legislative arm into accepting the additions to the budget? I remember that after the initial alteration by the National Assembly, the President refused to sign the budget.
A President who is competent should be able to stand his ground. That is why he has the mandate of the people to be President. If you want to stand firm and do the right thing, it is extremely important that he should. In fact, no president could have a valid excuse to say he was arm-twisted; that will never be a valid excuse. So, that is where we started getting it wrong. So, it now got to the point of the so called insertions and so on. Those things are wrong. I think this is an opportunity for us to go back to the drawing board and get it right.
I think I have a lot of admiration for Hon. Jibrin for being able to come out. And also some of his colleagues. These things have been there for years. Now to see one of them come out and stand firm, I think he should be commended. And I think the government should seriously investigate and once and for all clear all these mess.
You were the Nigerian Ambassador to Cuba. The Cuba you left behind then is not the Cuba we have currently. Its row with America has been settled, with the American President visiting the country. How do you think that this development will impact on the country and its relationship with countries like Nigeria?
Well, in the last 60 years, Cuba has been changing. Don’t forget that Cuba was under the former ruler, Gen. Batusta. Things were very bad for the people and then the emergence of Fidel Castro. You know sometimes things have to get worse to get better. When Fidel Castro was there, a lot of Cubans migrated to America, and many of those people who migrated were the highly skilled and the rich people. There was great disparity between the rich, very rich, and the poor, very poor. At that time, life expectancy was very poor, particularly among the very poor. So, over the years, the government started this mass programme of paying a lot of attention to training in the area of medicine, health care and so on, which has paid off because after about 40 years, they became so self-sufficient that they began to export medical doctors and medical personnel all over.
Of course, that came at some cost. One of the costs was incurring the wrath of the United States of America and coming under the embargo of the United States, a neigbour that was just 120 miles away, and a very powerful neighbour. The people have been able to withstand that at a great cost.
But things started unfolding with President Obama coming into office some seven years ago. Apparently he has that as part of his plans to ease tension between the two countries. So, the development that we have witnessed in the past one year has been a tremendous boost to socio-economic development of Cuba, because as you know, Cuba depends a lot on tourism and Americans were barred from travelling to Cuba. It does not mean that no American went to Cuba. Some of them did go, but they had to go through a third country.
Two years ago, Cuba still managed to have about two million tourists, but with the easing of tension, it has jumped to three million. I think that is a positive development; an initiative of President Obama. I think the two countries should be able to build on this and establish diplomatic relationship up to ambassadorial level.
You have served your term in the foreign mission and you are a bit quiet on the political terrain. What are you currently into?
I have always been in business since 1983. I have a profession, which is safety management. I am a safety management consultant. So, even in between the time when I served, I always had to come back to business. Since I returned from my diplomatic assignment in Cuba in 2011, I have been back in business.
Of course, I have also been active in some sort in politics, giving support to my party. So, if I am called in any capacity to serve, I will. Otherwise, I will be back to business.
How would you describe your early life?
I am from Ile Ife. I was born in Ile Ife and I spent my first five years there. But my father was an inspector of education. He was an employee of the Western Region. So, every two or three years, he was moved from one town to the other. So, I found myself in Ilaro, now in Ogun State, where I had my primary one, and then to Lagos where I had primaries two and three.
Again, I had to move to Sagamu in Ogun State and finished in Ado Ekiti. For secondary school, I was at Ekiti Parapo College and I had my HSC at CMS Grammar School, Lagos. I had a stint at Ahmadu Bello University. I studied Education. In 1978, I did my youth service in Lagos and started working for a number of years before I started my own company.
Do you see yourself as one from a privileged home?
I would say middle class home.
How did your father’s position influence your growing up?
It did. I was able to mingle with people from different parts of Nigeria from very early age. From age five to about 12, I moved to so many towns, even tried to learn the dialect. For a while, I thought I could speak Ijebu. And in Ekiti, I was able to grab some words. So, the exposure was very good for me. But I was always coming back to Ife for holiday, particularly in December. I was still able to maintain some level of contact with my age mates.
Your father was an educationist. What are some of the things you picked from him?
I discovered that in those days, inspectors of education were well respected. Any time he had to visit a school, the level of preparation that went into receiving him was so much that the pupils and the teachers would make sure everything was in order. And because the inspector would come at any time, they were always on their toes. The quality of education at that time was very good.
Did that put extra burden on you?
Well, I wasn’t thinking that far really. But I enjoyed schooling and everything. But one thing that was clear to me was that I would not end up in the civil service.
Why?
I wanted the freedom…
And you don’t think your dad had that freedom?
Well, I think he was confined in a way. If you are a civil servant, you were not supposed to make money, and you were not supposed to have any other job, and we were a fairly large family. So, I just reckoned he still had it tough paying school fees for all of us. I remember that my father paid my school fees in installments. My school fee was 60 pounds at that time, and he issued a cheque of five pounds a month to cover the year, because I had three people ahead of me and others behind me.
I knew that despite his position, he still had to be meticulous for him to be able to cope. So, I did not see myself as a civil servant. I saw myself either in the private sector or going into business. That was very clear in my mind even though we did not discuss it.
How was the home front with a large family?
It was good. Everywhere we went to, we were well received and we quickly settled down. We enjoyed school and we made good friends along the way, then moved on, and equally made new friends again. So, it was nice and home was good.
Let’s talk about your social life…
I am an outgoing person even though I may be more reflective. But I enjoy meeting people. I enjoyed sports in school. I consider myself a sports enthusiast. I enjoy watching television, I enjoy watching sports channels, I enjoy watching documentaries. These days, I also play golf. I enjoy the exercise and the challenge the golf course proofs.
I am a member of the Lions Club. I joined the Lions Club about 30 years ago. I was quite active there, I became the president of my club, Ikeja Lions Club and I held so many other positions at the district level and became the district governor. I have attended many conventions within Nigeria and internationally.
How did you meet your wife?
Well, we happened to work in the same area…
Was it love at first time?
No, it was not love at first sight. But it was friendship at first sight. She was working with First Bank in Marina and I was working at Femi Johnson also in Marina. So, we met, chatted and had a couple of lunch. Then we became interested in each other. It was like that for about five years before we eventually got married.
