Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu, was in Lagos recently and was accosted by Sunday Sun’s OMONIYI SALAUDEEN to speak on some topical issues in the polity such as the recent killings in Benue State, the insistence on restructuring by some southern and Middle Belt leaders and President Muhammadu Buhari’s rumoured second term bid, among other issues. Okechukwu, who is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says that the President is deeply concerned about the menace of herdsmen across the country and is working assiduously to find a solution. He maintains that the APC and the President are not averse to restructuring, noting that it will happen when Buhari returns for a second term. He also advises the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to be strategic in their approach to national issues as the 2019 election approaches, warning that Ndigbo might lose out in the power game if the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation maintains its current posture. Excerpts: 

 

Some leaders from the South-east, South-west, South-south and Middle Belt recently met in Enugu under the theme ‘Handshake Across the Niger’ and declared that Nigeria risks disintegration if not restructured before 2019. What’s your take?

  Before they started their meeting in Enugu, I was one of the few Nigerians who welcomed it as a good development. So, the handshake across the Niger is a welcome development. I still insist that the more harmonious the various ethnic nationalities coexist, the better for our dear fatherland Nigeria. And the issue of restructuring they are talking about is also a welcome development. 

  But the only strong exception I took over their stance is that President Muhammadu Buhari when he came to power in 2015, after an analysis of the situation of the country, considered it more relevant to embark first on economic restructuring. They challenged it, disregarding his view to strategically lay a solid foundation for critical infrastructure, which I call RRAP, meaning Rails, Roads, Agro and Power projects. The truth is that there will be no industrial development of Nigeria if there is no critical infrastructure, even if devolve all the powers to the local units. No industry can flourish without modern transport; no development can take place without electricity. So, what the President is saying is that he cannot put two hands in the same mouth. He wants to first make sure that there is a modern standard gauge rail network of approximately 5,000 kilometres across the length and breadth of the country – Lagos-Kano, Maiduguri-Port Harcourt, Lagos-Calabar – with arteries to all the state capitals and their commercial centres. That’s his New Year message. For me, it is the most ambitious and massive infrastructural development of the country. And Nigeria is lucky as well, that because of Mr. President’s integrity quotient, the country was able to attract loans. In fact, when he was going round, people thought he was just gallivanting. But we have now seen the benefit in the foreign loans the country has been able to obtain, soft loans for that matter. 

   Why are people now saying that the country will disintegrate without restructuring? How? Somebody is saying let us first industrialise our country and provide employment and make sure there is food on the table for Nigerians but some people are saying it’s restructuring or disintegration. Remember that when he said he was going to stop food importation, these same people that met in Enugu shouted that it was impossible. But today, there is a great reduction in the percentage of importation of major stable foods like rice. And we are saying that President Buhari should be given the opportunity to lead the country again in 2019 so that by 2023 the development circle of some the RRAP must have been completed. 

  Yes, when he comes back for his second tenure, he is going to embark on political restructuring but now, he is working on the sub-structure, which is economic restructuring. I also believe that there should be devolution of powers. It’s in the manifesto of our great party, the APC. President Buhari is not averse to it but he is saying let me finish with economic restructuring first.

 

But the proponents of restructuring believe that the infrastructural deficit in the country was caused by the flawed structure given that Nigerians enjoyed these amenities when the country was run as a true federal entity?

  What I believe sincerely is that when most Nigerians travel abroad, they glorify those countries. Why do they glorify the countries? It’s because of the availability of infrastructure – good road networks, railways, electricity and food sufficiency. That’s fundamental. I call it sub-structure; and it requires a restructuring process to make these amenities available.  Those who clamour for restructuring behave as if the federal government is more corrupt than the states and local government councils. They should thoroughly analyse the Federal Allocation Account Committee (FAAC) details, where the Federal Government takes about 52 per cent of the revenue while the state governors take about 48 per cent. I say 48 per cent goes to the states because the 20 per cent or thereabout that goes to the local councils is also in the hands of the governors. No state in Nigeria conducts free and fair local government council elections. And if you tell me now to mention the names of the members of the Enugu State House of Assembly, I might not get up to three persons because it is a rubber stamp House. It’s the same thing in Sokoto, Ekiti, Cross River and all states of the federation. So, when these people say there is under development, it is so because there is no EFCC, no oversight functions and checks and balances at the state level. The state governors are kings; they run the states like their kingdoms. 

  Now, this handshake across the Niger, was it actually the truth? I didn’t see members of my party, the APC from the South-west in Enugu at the meeting. I didn’t see members of my party from the South-east in that congregation. And in the South-west, the group that met with Ohanaeze Ndigbo led by our big brother, Chief Nnia Nwodo, was not the major faction in Yoruba land. The major faction is in Abuja returning infrastructure to their zone while our own people are shouting. The Afenifere that came to Enugu, the likes of Femi Fani-Kayode and my friend Yinka Odumakin do not control any local council in the whole of the South-west. The main group of the Yoruba, led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is in Abuja negotiating Nigeria forward and making the axis between Lagos and Ogun states the most industrial zone of the country.  I have been telling Ohanaeze even before the Chief Nwodo presidency to be more strategic and deeply consider the pros and cons of Buhari presidency and the golden opportunity it offers. Ndigbo therefore should solidly support President Buhari so that when he would be leaving in 2023 we can make a concrete appeal and canvass to provide someone that will succeed him in office. The South-east is the only region in the South that has not had a turn at the presidency going by the zoning convention since 1999. The South-west has had eight years; the South-south has had six years. We have equity and justice on our side but Ohanaeze and its leadership want to throw it aware. If Buhari did not get 25 per cent votes in any state of the South-east in 2015 and because of their noise he fails to get it again in 2019, it will be a tragedy.  If you are in Buhari’s shoes, will you give power to the South-east? As a Zikist, I always ask myself the choice Zik could make in such scenario? So, I’m appealing to the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to think out of the box. 

  Yes, there was a civil war, we all agree. There is also the skewed nature of the number of states and local councils to the disadvantage of the South-east. There is also the skewed nature of appointments against the South-east; I agree. But we should learn from the Japanese. The Japanese did not run away from the Americans because they used atomic bomb to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the 2nd World War. The Germans did the same by aligning with their former enemies. The outcome: They are leading Europe today. If they had gone the way Ohanaeze is making the Igbo to go today, may be both the Japanese and Germans wouldn’t be what they are in Asia and Europe today. They didn’t sulk; they sat down and strategically decided to leave the past behind them and move on.  So, Chief Nwodo and his camp in Igbo land are trying to throw away the opportunities beckoning on the Igbo.

They should try to be strategic to see what we are saying. The Igbo people are talented and hardworking. They need a leadership that will tell them what actually we need on the ground. What’s happening now is akin to what happened in 2015 when I told Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State not to run for president because it was not zoned to us. Look at that misadventure! We are going into another misadventure with the way the present leadership of Ohanaeze is going. We have to plan; we have to be strategic and not sentimental.   

 

Are you implying that the agitation for restructuring by the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and other southern leaders is misplaced at this point in time?

  No, not all that! It’s not totally misplaced. I am saying that the President Buhari that I have worked with for over a decade looked at two options when he came to power. Don’t forget that he is pro-people. He came and looked at the national treasury and the money from the oil boom days was not there. He asked why and was told that the money had been expended in the importation of fuel and food. And he said, ‘let me start with food first.’ That was why he called the Central Bank of Nigeria, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and even the World Bank and said he was ready to borrow to create a new farming culture. And some people are shouting because they probably don’t see meaning in what he is doing. He borrowed about $30 billion from Eurobond, Chinese EXIM Bank, American EXIM Bank, AfDB and even the one called SUKUK. He got N100 billion from SUKUK that was divided for priority road projects, for the six geo-political zones. The one for the South-east is for Enugu-Onitsha and Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway. Is that not sub-structure restructuring? So, we are not saying the clamour is misplaced, otherwise we couldn’t have found it in our manifesto. 

 

Related News

But there is this view that his administration is mortgaging the country’s future with excessive borrowing. Don’t you think so?

  The people holding such view are very wrong. They don’t know the history of development in the world. The United States of America has borrowed over $20 trillion from China and Saudi Arabia and other rich countries of the world to keep American engines steaming and provide jobs for the people. Those who are lending the money are not idiots; they have done their market survey and know that they can pull their money back. Nigeria is among the 10 largest most populous countries of the world. And they are projecting that in the next 20 years we are going to be about the third or fourth in position. Don’t forget that why people voted for Buhari is because he is the most transparent person on the ground in the leadership cycle. Nobody can query his integrity quotient. And that’s why the foreigners lent money to his government.

 

You have repeatedly said that the President will embark on restructuring during his second term but he has not said so himself. In his New Year speech, what he said was that the problem of the country has more to do with process than structure…

   (Cuts in) No, no, no! We work for Mr President. I had made the statement before; may be you read it. I am saying that his thinking is this – let’s address the sub-structure first. Let’s use my integrity quotient to attract infrastructure. And I told you it’s the most ambitious infrastructure plan the country has ever had. He is aiming at approximately 5,000 kilometres of modern standard gauge rail line across the length and breadth of the country. It has never been done since amalgamation. He is aiming at about 5,000 revamped road projects across the country. He’s aiming at food sufficiency and getting people back to work through agriculture. We used to spend about $5 million a day to import rice. Today, that’s not the case anymore. 

 

But there is still ravaging hunger in the country. Isn’t it so?

  We are hungry because we were kind of raped. There was a time in the 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in power when oil was above $100 per barrel and we couldn’t find where the savings are. Let me give you an example. I have always repeated it and I don’t want to sound like a broken record. The only rail line that the PDP awarded between 2001 and 2005 is the Lagos-Kano. And they awarded the old gauge that runs about 30 kilometres per hour of about 1,400 kilometres at $8.3 billion under a PPP arrangement. At that same period in history, the Chinese did Lhasa to Golmud, a town that is between Lhasa and Beijing about 1,142 kilometres standard gauge at $4.2 billion. To me, that is the greatest financial fraud in the history of the country. The money for that project is part of the loan we are paying today. 

  If you remember as well, on May 13, 2010 the then president Goodluck Jonathan and the Finance Minister then, Ngozi Okono-Iweala, announced to the world that the constructions of three Greenfield refineries were awarded to the Chinese at $23 billion. By then we had about $17 billion in the Excess Crude Account. The three refineries were to be built in Bayelsa, Lagos and Kogi states. We did not see the refineries; we did not see the money. That’s why we are hungry and these are the mess that Buhari is trying to clear today.

 

You are talking about a second term for President Buhari in 2019 but the killings in Benue State by herdsmen and his handling of the matter has taken a toll on his image nationally. Do you think he still stands a chance?

  If anybody says he is happy about the killings then the person is not a human being. Mr. President is not happy and none of us is happy. The menace of the herdsmen is a continental problem. It’s happening in East, West and Central Africa. Yes, we have not been able to stop it yet. It’s too bad; I agree with that. It’s painful, unfortunate and regrettable. So, let nobody think that Mr. President is not disturbed by the situation. The menace had been there before he came but with his experience as a former military leader, a lot was expected of him, which is right. So, it’s not a genocide against anybody, it’s a menace and that’s why the President is working round the clock to find solutions. 

 

But the popular view is that the President has been handling the issue with kid gloves unlike his approach to other security threats like Boko Haram, IPOB and the rest?

I don’t think the meetings he has been having are deceptive meetings. He is seriously concerned about the problem. It’s very painful that we lost even one person not to talk of 73 in Benue and over 50 in Taraba. Nobody is happy about that. But what I’m saying is simple – yes, we didn’t handle it the way Nigerians expected; we were not as proactive as they wanted. We are sorry about that. That some appointments of Mr. President are skewed in favour of some regions is also a very sorry situation, especially in the security apparatus. It’s not the best that could happen to a country like ours. It defies any logic; I cannot come here and defend the skewed appointments. Doing so means I don’t know God. The only thing I am saying is that as awful as the downside is, it should not close our eyes to the good side. And the good side is what will limit to a great extent the unemployment that is leading to the agitations across the country and keep Nigerians busy. How many years do I have to spend as the DG, VON? But a standard gauge rail line passing through Enugu might last over 100 years. The British rail we are now trying to modify was laid about 100 years ago and many Nigerians who witnessed it are no longer alive today. There are countries that have advanced to the extent that a lot of the people are not interested in who is ruling their country because they are busy and well off. Why everybody seems to look at government as the only arbiter is because a lot of us are idle. The day Nigerians are engaged and there is food sufficiency, good transport network and stable electricity, the little they will care about who is their next neighbour. That’s what I’m saying. We cannot throw the baby away with the bath water. Buhari remains the most credible choice in trying to give Nigeria the foundation for growth. That’s my argument. We have an idea of those who are nursing presidential ambitions. Now that the oil price is rising, let’s not throw the thing into their hands again; they will squander it.