Former Minister of External Affairs and ex-Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, talks to DANIEL AYANTOYE about the gains and challenges in the country’s journey towards growth 63 years after independence.
In your honest assessment, how will you describe Nigeria’s 63 years of nationhood?
There have been ups and downs. We’ve had good times and bad times. We’ve had administrations that advanced Nigeria and we’ve had administrations whose years could best be described as the years of the locust. There are areas where we have made a lot of progress. In the area of housing, urbanisation and infrastructure, we have made some progress. You need to visit some African countries to see situations where after their capital city, perhaps one or two more cities, that’s where development ends. For us, we have been able to spread infrastructural development. But in other areas, such as education, social welfare and health, we haven’t done too well at all. We have done badly. So, it is an uneven development.
Will you say the same thing for the economy?
Yes, the economy is bad. If you look at the value of our currency and industrialization, if that is an indicator…industries have closed down and moved out of Nigeria, and new ones haven’t come in. When I was growing up, there were textile industries, which employed thousands of workers. Where are they now? They have closed down. In the area of power supply, we should be ashamed of just talking about how many megawatts we are supplying and that is despite the amount of the money that has been pumped into it.
How did the nation get it wrong?
The reason is very simple; corruption and bad leadership. I once served on a commission where we tried to say to the President of Nigeria, ‘You must have a first degree’, and we couldn’t get an agreement among members of the commission. So, the constitution provides that you must have a school certificate or its equivalent. How can a country in the 21st century be ruled by a president who doesn’t have a school certificate or its equivalent? How will he understand the need for technology?
Some leakages impede development. We have issues with bad leadership; people who don’t understand how to put a square peg in a round hole appoint people who don’t even understand what the job entails. You put such people there and you hope that their permanent secretaries and civil servants will help them along. If you are appointed as a minister, you must provide leadership and direction; but if you don’t know where you are going, where you were appointed to, how can you direct people onto the path of progress?
Some countries that Nigeria is older than are far more developed. How do you feel about this and should there be concerns?
Who says there is no concern? Newspapers are filled every day with lamentations. But another fact that worries me and makes me laugh is the high level of hypocrisy. People, who were in charge of affairs yesterday and didn’t do well but made matters worse, today go around yelling at the top of their voices how bad things are and the papers give them space. Nobody scolded and told them that they were in charge many years ago, what was their contribution to the mess? People capitalize on that amnesia. People forget what they did yesterday, but today, they are preaching.
The high level of hypocrisy is one of the factors keeping us down. People who should hide in shame are still out there confusing the young, just because we don’t teach history for people to know those who created this mess at one point or the other. Also, at the same time, Nigerians are difficult people. I remember this joke that a friend of mine told me several years ago. He said the people in the world led a delegation to God to confront Him on the abundant natural resources He gave Nigeria and God told them to also see the kind of people who are there. So, we have all of these things but we are difficult, impossible and ill-disciplined people. This is because as soon as you make a law, Nigerians will find ways around that law, yet we are among the brightest people in the world. As you find Nigerians doing credit card fraud in America, you also find Nigerians, who are among first-class surgeons there.
Are you saying it’s not only the leadership but also the people who need to change their ways?
Yes, even when you have good leaders, you have bad people, who will test you to no end. We have this issue that we must face squarely and that is what I will call the exploitation of the negative aspect of competing ethnicity. Nothing is wrong with individuals competing provided it’s a positive competition, just like we sit for examinations and we are graded fairly and not bring in the aspect that the registrar is not from my tribe, that’s why my mark is low.
After 63 years, we still don’t want to do things on merit. We still want to be operating based on a quota system. I believe very strongly that there is no part of this country where you don’t have geniuses. As long as people believe that they will judge on merit, you will be surprised as to how people will join hands to labour for the country. This is why Nigerians do so well abroad because they know nobody will grade their papers based on their ethnic background. So, they study hard and they pass, but as long as we continue to practice this quota basis for position, promotion and advancement, we are infringing on our development. We have to put a stop to the quota basis for recruitment and promotion.
With Nigeria’s population and her enormous natural resources as you earlier mentioned, why has the economy refused to grow?
It is because of corruption and several leakages within the system. The oil, gas, gold and other resources are stolen. People just come and cart them away. It’s not only in Nigeria (that this happens), it happens in Congo as well. No part of Nigeria is not in control of one resource or the other. So, we should not allow people to come into any state to extract the resources there and cart away solid minerals.
Why do you think the governors are not protecting their states from such exploitation?
There are two reasons. One is that they bribe and give you a cut in whatever they dig up, and the other is because of the laziness that the kind of revenue allocation system we practice has encouraged. This is because, at the end of the month, you go to Abuja to collect money. So, why should you try to generate more money? If we go back to practice what we practiced before 1966, where at that time, it was the regions; each region was in control of what was within its territory, there was an agreement of what percentage you give the Federal Government at that time.
With that, the people will use their talent and their intellect for internal revenue generation. Since the constitution provides that solid minerals are under the Federal Government, you see a situation where they go through the back door to get a pittance from the smugglers. We have to take another look at our constitution to allow states to control whatever is in their territory and agree on revenue allocation and what percentage should go to the Federal Government.
There is nobody in Nigeria who does not believe that we need a new constitution. After all, the National Assembly has been amending this constitution. We often refer to it as the ‘1999 Constitution as amended’. If they don’t believe in the amendment, they won’t approve it. Even (former President Muhammadu) Buhari signed a lot of amendments into law before he left office, but what we are talking about is an overhaul of the constitution as we did at the 2014 National Conference.
You were the Deputy Chairman of the 2014 National Conference, how do you assess the issues of federalism in Nigeria?
I believe in a return to true federalism, which will be amended by our local factors, because there are several models of federalism. So, depending on your environmental factors, that will determine what you will adopt. We will have to do our draft and adopt our model of federalism, but basically, the essence of federalism is that local issues should be dealt with at the local level. What you can do at the state level, don’t go and do it at the national level. That is a waste of time and resources, and it is anti-development. What is best handled by the states should be left to them and the states should be given the resources to do that. So, there has to be a revision of the revenue allocation formula. You cannot ask me to go and repair the roads in my state without giving me the resources to do it.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan failed to implement the resolution of the 2014 Confab. What is your take on this?
He claimed that the resolutions came too close to the 2015 elections and that was why he didn’t attempt to implement the report. He was expecting to win the election and that he would then implement the recommendations, but unfortunately, he didn’t win, and the man he handed power to didn’t want to have anything to do with the confab report.
Since Buhari could not implement it as well, do you think President Tinubu should convene another national conference or implement the report of your committee?
President Tinubu was a member of NADECO (National Democratic Coalition); I am a senior man in NADECO. That confab drew heavily on the values and ideas of NADECO. So, I expect that President Tinubu will also be faithful to the report of the conference.
With the outcome of the general elections, how will you describe Nigeria’s democracy?
You have had elections at the states, you had at the National Assembly and presidential levels. Nobody is quarrelling with the election at the governorship level. Even though there are issues to be determined in court and very few quarrels on the election of senators and of the House of Representatives members, you can score INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) and democracy pass marks at the governorship, senatorial and House of Representatives levels, but there is a contentious issue over the presidential election and that is at the Supreme Court. I will say frankly that we deserve applause that even where we had disputes, we are not resolving them at the street level, and they are resorting to the judiciary as provided by the constitution. So, I think democracy is hale, hearty and well in Nigeria.
But you once said Nigeria did not have democratic rule, but civilian rule. With recent developments, do you still hold the same opinion?
No, I don’t. With the introduction of BVAS (Biometric Voter Accreditation System), as I said earlier, INEC scored perfectly in the governorship, senatorial and House of Representatives elections. Let us wait for the judgment of the Supreme Court (on the presidential election), because at the level of the panel, somebody must be the final winner. Why will my views now be better than the views of the five judges who sat down to listen to the evidence and apply the law?
Despite that, many still don’t have trust in the judiciary. What can you say about this?
Nothing! When I have issues with the American Supreme Court, many Americans do as well, but it doesn’t mean that the judicial system is not good. That is the way the judicial system works. People’s definition of a good judiciary system in Nigeria is that if you lose a case, you hear it is because of witchcraft or the judges have been bribed. If you win, then it is good; but you have seen that this same judiciary at times, awards election to the APC, at times, to the PDP, and other times, to the Labour Party. It is not as if the judiciary is constantly behind one party. There is no evidence to suggest that. People don’t believe that they can lose cases on merit even when there is a dispute over a royal stool. If you lose, the judge has been bribed; and if you win, then that is good judgment. When Al Gore lost to George Bush, he accepted it and wasn’t going to pursue the matter any further, but here, we pursue it and our attitude is like if you can’t dribble the ball past him, break his leg.
Are you saying Nigerians should trust the judicial system?
Do you have any other system to trust? We must develop an attitude of graciousness in victory and graciousness in defeat. You know we have a very bad culture, which we close our eyes to. And the culture is that, when I know I am not entitled to the throne, I know you are the one entitled to it, but I say, ‘I want to make 35 years of your reign uneasy for you’. So, I will take the case to court, even though I know I am going to lose. That culture, we must change.
How can the culture be changed?
The only way to do it is to make sure that there is a heavy cost that the court will charge. I wish I had the power to make the law in this country. I will make a law that number one, if a case is lost at the Supreme Court, it must award not less than N200m against the person or entity that took the case to the court. Also, he/she must be made to pay the cost of the man who won the case. That way, frivolous cases will not be taken to the court. After all, how much do they pay Senior Advocates of Nigeria for cases? So, don’t tell me Prof wants to close the judiciary to poor people. Poor people don’t go to court anymore; they don’t have the money for lawyers.
The level of underdevelopment has led to increasing claims of marginalisation. Do you think after 63 years, Nigeria still has the chance to be united?
One man who ruled this country came up with a good solution in my assessment of a two-party system so that we don’t begin to have tribal and ethnic parties. (General Ibrahim) Babangida gave us a two-party system which is good because it brought about the reformation of ethnic-based parties. It is unfortunate that (General Sani) Abacha came in and scrapped that. We have to go back and revisit the nature of the political parties. I laugh each time it is election time and all of a sudden, you see large numbers of political parties spring up from nowhere and I watch their primaries, which sometimes are held in one little hotel hall that does not have up to 50 people there, and they elect a presidential candidate. This is a party that has never elected a councillor not to talk about a governor, and here they are with a presidential candidate.
It is laughable and a person will hope they can change things in Nigeria by belonging to these mushroom parties. Take a look at the people that are there, they are young. Is that the way to change the system? They are so fragmented. If all the young people in Nigeria enter just one political party, they will challenge the establishment.
With all these issues and claims of marginalisation, do you think Nigeria still has the chance to be united?
I am opposed to any group monopolizing jobs, appointments and recruitments, and I am totally against marginalization of any group. However, I am opposed to the hypocrisy of people who monopolize posts when they have the opportunity and then attack others when others monopolize the post back. Those who are masters of the monopolization of appointments are equally the ones who will then scream at the top of their voices when others get a chance to monopolize appointments. What is bad is bad and what is good is good, but remove the log in your eye before you try to remove the pin in the eye of other people.
But since the assumption of office by Tinubu as the President, will you say he has been able to ensure spread in his appointments?
I will say go and read Lasisi Olagunju’s article published in Tribune and that is my answer to your question.
Will the search for foreign investors, which informed most of the President’s foreign trips, yield any returns or do you think it is needless?
The invitation given to foreign investors will yield results if you cut down the process that it takes to get approval for projects, cut down the corruption level, and concentrate on the provision of power, because there is hardly any factory that does not depend on power. If you address these three things, foreign investors will come in.
There are claims that Nigerian missions abroad are poorly funded. Why is this so?
Frankly, I don’t know because the first thing every Nigerian government official does is that when he travels abroad, he asks the Nigerian embassy to provide him with a car or two and other things, and yet when it comes to budgeting time, they forget that the embassy needs to be provided with funds to carry out its activities. There is that dichotomy in the attitude towards embassies, whether it is based on jealousy that they are enjoying or why should we give them more money. If you don’t fund your embassies well, your foreign policy, no matter how well conceptualised, will be a failure. It is not as if they don’t go out. National Assembly members and even ministers go out, and they all depend on these same embassies to provide them with the facilities. Don’t they know it costs money?
The Federal Government planned to close some missions years ago. Was that a right move or should the plan be reviewed?
It has never been a right move to close missions and still expect to play a prominent role on the global scene. Nigerians screamed their heads off when they were not invited to join BRICS. Nigerians screamed about marginalisation when they were not a member of the G-20, yet South Africa that you are competing with for a seat in the UN Security Council is a member of BRICS and the G20. You say you are closing your missions. How do you expect to win your diplomatic battles?
Apart from having the largest economy in Africa, do you think Nigeria has maximised its potential since independence?
First of all, I have been told that we don’t have the largest economy in Africa and that we are the third. I understand Egypt is the first, South Africa is the second, and Nigeria is the third. But the fact is that we have underdeveloped our economy. We were talking some time ago about how we failed to tap into our solid minerals, instead, we have allowed foreigners to carry out illegal mining. We are not even an oil-producing country but a gas-producing country. We have more reserves of gas than we have oil, but in our typical laziness, somebody tapped into oil, the oil flowed and we all turned our backs on other sectors of the economy and focused greedily on oil. I’m sure that if in the First Republic, Awolowo, Azikiwe and Saudauna, who were in charge and were leaders, who saw far ahead and sought to maximize the utilization of the resources available to them, we probably would be among the first seven economies in the world.
Source: Punch