Born in 1944, in Ekeremor Local Government Area, Bayelsa State, Chief Thompson K. Okorotie was about 16 years old when Nigeria got her independence in 1960. Okorotie, who rose through public and private services to be conferred with the Order of Federal Republic (OFR), witnessed the lowering of the British Union Jack and the hoisting of the Nigerian flag. The elder statesman served in the Second Republic as the Majority Chief Whip of the old Rivers State House of Assembly. He was a pioneer special adviser to the first democratically elected Governor of Bayelsa State, the late Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. A private businessman who has held many positions in the state, Okorotie sits as the Chairman, Governing Council, Bayelsa State College of Health Technology. He shares his experience from 1960 till date to MIKE ODIEGWU.
How was life in 1960 when Nigeria got her independence from Britain?
As a matter of fact, that was the year I went to Lagos from the village. My uncle came from overseas to the village and said that they heard about my brilliance and decided l should come to Lagos. But at that time, I had already entered Model Secondary School at Bomadi, which was established by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. When I finished in 1959 l went to Lagos. One of the remarkable things I remember my late uncle said then was that I was able to trace Ije Village part or adjunct of Obalande, and I found myself there with a wooding box on my head.
I saw the lowering of the Union Jack and the raising of the National flag whose colours were written and designed by a Yoruba man in London then. We were full of hope. There were issues. Some parts of the country were not ready for Independence. But at some point, Independence had to come because the agitation from the south was vehement, so the British didn’t want to delay further. I must say that the founding fathers had great hope for this country. They had aspirations that were supposed to be the best. And I think that the First Republic did quite a lot. They were positive, transparent and corruption was not as pronounced as it is now. Life was easy. Security challenges were not there. In some areas, you could open your door, sleep with your two eyes closed.
I remember that at some point, I became a reporter with the Morning Post, a Federal Government-owned newspaper at Kirikiri, Apapa. We were not having any challenges. Food was cheap and it was then in shillings. Some people’s monthly salary was three shillings. If you had 50 kobo, you would have gone to the market and come back, and food was ready. So, life was quite simple and there was love despite the agitations in different directions once the unification took place and once the independence came. Three years later, we became a republic. The three big tribes did not force it down our throat too much at that time. That was perhaps the beginning of the problems. But it was not an obvious problem that we could not manage at that time, because it was not put on our face. They didn’t spite us.
I can’t remembered how much a bag of rice was sold then. But in the Second Republic, at the time we were leaving in 1983, a bag of rice was N25 and Nigeria Airways ticket was N25. I still have one Nigeria Airways ticket. I didn’t use vehicles a lot, but I don’t think that there was anywhere that was more than one pound, no matter the length of Nigeria you were going. The buses were clean and the people were not rushing. They had speed control. There were no night travellers. At that time, the rush for material gains was not there. The spirit of hard work was there. You would make sure that you go to work and put in your best for the eight hours that you had, whether you were in public sector or you were in private sector. So that was how interesting things were.
How was the economy generally and where did we miss it?
The economy was sound in the sense that the naira was stronger than the dollar. In 1981, it was 75k to the dollar. That was how strong the naria was. But after the Second Republic, you see, we miss the point. Many people talk about the past administration, but we should be talking about past administrations. The problems of this country were not created by one administration. Policy summersaults, frequency of leadership change, these are the issues. Many people don’t look at these issues. They look at the palliatives. They look at the sentimental issues. They look at political grandstanding.
The Second Republic under Shehu Shagari was a very interesting one, because it was still close to the First Republic, and we worked. Life was still very good at that time. There was value for money. It was during that period that it was 75 kobo to a dollar. But everything just suddenly changed and that was why I was talking about my visit to Germany and somebody said after the military was overthrown and it came up to Babangida, that the naira would soon be N40 to the dollar at a time that it was less than one naira. At that time, even the pound was one naira to one pound.
I am bringing up the subject because I came to understand that it is the developed world that was manipulating the exchange rate. It was still a major component of neocolonialism to still put us under their wraps. China decided to close themselves for 20 years without having anything to do with them. When they came out, they became a world power because the United Nations was forced to admit them in the Security Council. That is one of the things Nigeria ought to have done. There is no country that is as blessed as Nigeria. Every state has its natural resources. If only we can look inwards, we are capable of not looking elsewhere. At most, we can look elsewhere on the basis of equality.
The military was one of the major problems. We had 14 years of military regime. In the Shagari period, investors were beginning to have confidence in Nigeria when Shagari won the election for a second term. But a coup took place and they went back, and somebody said that Nigeria had gone back 50 years. Nobody wanted to deal with a military regime. So, for 14 years, there was military regime and that was a major setback. Because it was not democracy, it was now negotiations to be tolerated at the international level. so our financial position was compromised.
How do you see life in the country now?
The culmination of all these adversities, all those incongruities of national policy, of change of government, of not allowing democracy to grow, because if as from Shagari we had allowed government to change government through the ballot box alone, democracy would have stabilised. We will not be learning it each time we come. In fact, each time democracy comes back after a regime, the politicians feel ‘we don’t know when the army will come back again’, so they start amassing wealth. And the military who said they came to stop corruption turned out at some end to be even more corrupt because all the money we had made, all the oil money, most of it are in the hands of the military. If that is not corruption, then what is corruption?
So right now, I do not know how to describe it. Now, we can hardly go to our home because it is either the place is occupied by agitators or occupied by Operation Crocodile Smile. Nightlife is curtailed. The exchange rate is so high that even ourselves, businessmen, particularly traders, are exploiting the system. Something they bought before Buhari came in, they hide under the exchange rate to increase prices. It is very difficult. I think one of the areas where we have got it wrong, apart from military intervention, which is a major cause, is also that we did not install any institutional framework to prevent corruption.
I have also discovered the truth that the civil servants are even more of a problem. The civil servants are even the teachers of the politicians in the art of corruption. Because if you go to some states, including this one, assets on ground are discovered to belong more to civil servants than politicians. So we must develop happiness, we must develop contentment and we must develop sincere hard work.
How do we get out of this mess?
All the things I have been saying is how we can get out of it. That is why to some extent, I support the campaign, ‘change begins with me’, when it comes to national matters, not politics. I support it because the Nigerian must be reorientated. You have resources here and you would not use them to develop yourselves. You will send them as raw materials outside and the cow will come back as corn beef which you are buying at higher price; the fish comes back as sardines which you are buying at higher price and we have everything you can think of outside of oil and gas.
So, we should look inward. We should not allow the industries to die. There should be proper fiscal measures and monetary measures. These days, the fiscal planners and the monetary planners are crashing instead of coordinating so that the private sector should be made the real driver of the economy. Let us patronize made-in-Nigeria goods so that it can stimulate the local investors, local manufacturers, and beyond that, export our products to the world, beginning from the West African coast. And leaders in the ECOWAS should try and make sure that this free movement should be properly done. The road to these countries should be properly done so that movement will be free.
