…Reveals why he’ll not speak publicly on CBN, economy under Tinubu
On move by the CBN to Recapitalize the Banks
I have sat on the seat of the governor of Central Bank and when you are there, you have a lot of information that people don’t have outside. So, I’m generally reluctant to make a quick judgment on what the Central Bank is doing because I don’t have information on the data they have. The only thing I always advise is caution. When you’re recapitalising banks and you’re raising that huge amount of capital in a narrow market, you need to be careful not to make the timelines too short because we had the same experience under Governor Soludo where in an attempt to meet N25 billion we had a lot of bubble capital which later led to a banking sector crisis. Having said that, many of these banks, anyway, are sitting on a lot of capital in terms of those that at least have positive foreign exchange positions based on forex appreciation with which they could recapitalise because at the end of the day, the devaluation of the currency has given them a lot of unrealised foreign exchange gain. So, there’s already a lot of capital sitting in the banks that they could realize by simply turning those dollars into naira to take that profit, and that goes into their capital. I think that there’s conversation going on. I do talk to the CBN governor, but I have not discussed this particular issue with this government. Because I do have a direct conversation with the governor, deputy governors, the finance minister, I have a direct conversation with the president and with the vice president, I would rather not make public comments on these issues because my views and my advice I give them privately. The only reason in the last government that I was making public comments was either they invited me to give a lecture on the economy, in which case I had to give my view or I felt that the advice was given but was not being listened to. And also, I felt that the path that was being taken was too dangerous for some of us to keep quiet because history would not forgive us. If I start talking today about the last government’s economy, they’d say, where were you when they were doing it? So, some of us have to speak up so that history would record that we, at least, spoke when we should speak.
It’s very easy when someone leaves office for people to come and be abusing him. So, many people that are talking today about Buhari, when he was there, they were defending him. They could not talk. We don’t want to be like that. So, I would rather not speak on the Central Bank or on the economy. All the people there are my friends. From President Tinubu down. I sit down with them and I talk to them privately, So, I would rather not say anything.
25 years of unbroken democracy or mere civil rule?
I think we have a democracy. I think that it’s a process that we will keep making progress and then sometimes reversals, and we have to go back and forward. My views are known. I think there are a number of fundamental structural issues that need to be addressed. I’ll give you an example. Take the cost of governance. The constitution we have makes it impossible for us not to have a high cost of governance. You are a small country. You have a president, a vice president. The constitution says you must have at least 37 ministers. You have 109 senators, 360 members of the House of Representatives. We have 36 states, each one with a governor, a deputy governor, commissioners, advisers, special assistants. Then we have 774 local governments, each one with chairman, vice chairman, councillors, secretaries. Just take the cost of that. Their salaries, their allowances, their staff, and you will know that the bulk of the revenue that comes to this country will be consumed by it.
We have to ask ourselves some basic questions. So, controversially, I would say, why do you need to have elections at the local government? You are a federation of states. If you started from there, why don’t you just allow the state governors to appoint the administrators of the local governments, competent civil servants, give them a budget and take development there. Politicians may not like it, but it will cut off a huge cost. If the state governor were to take a director in the civil service to go and run a local government, that would be a much higher quality than many of the local government chairmen you’re electing. And you will get better results. Plus, what happens anyway? How many states have you seen elections where the ruling party doesn’t get 100 per cent of the seats? I mean, it’s a farce. Even if you talk about the economy, if you give them their money, the state governors will take the money and spend it the way they want. If they order them to bring back the money, they’ll bring back the money. Why do we need a bicameral legislature? Why do we need two houses (Senate and Reps) in Abuja? Why not one? Why must we have a minister from every state, even if we don’t need him? Why? Why do we keep pandering to these things? So, I think there are a number of things you can do to address those structures because at the end of the day, if you allow the state governors to run… the thing with devolution… is we have 36 states, if only half of the governors are good, at least half of Nigeria has good government, another half will come. We have too much power and resources at the centre. The centre does not do primary education and primary health care. The states are where the vast majority of Nigerians are. Shouldn’t those resources come to the states who should then have that resource to do those things instead of everybody going to Abuja? What’s happening in Abuja? So, there are a number of issues that we need to look at. And also, simple constitutionalism and federalism, just given the respect of separation of powers. If you take the example of what’s happening in Kano today, chieftaincy matter is 100 per cent a state matter. What is the involvement of the Federal Government in a chieftaincy matter? So, we have the rules, and we also have to be able, as Nigerians, to abide by the rules that we have. Politicians say they want an election. Let’s them be honest enough to say let us allow the system to work. Today, if you have an election, and Senator Bature wins the election, and INEC declares Dan Buram as governor, who should he be suing? Dan Buram and his party or INEC? We should start suing INEC, because INEC is the one that declares. It’s not Dan Buram’s fault that INEC declared him or rigged on his behalf or whatever. Even if he went and paid, we should hold INEC responsible. It is their result. What do we have now? When you now go and sue Dan Buram, then INEC becomes his ally because they now have to help him defend. No. You start suing the electoral body that did not apply its own rules. And let INEC be defending itself in all these elections. These are simple things we need to do to improve our democracy. But honestly, I still have memories of Nigeria under military rule and as bad and as faulty as democracy is, I would rather have that than the military rule. I mean, for example, I was suspended by President Jonathan (as CBN governor), I was removed by (Governor) Ganduje (as emir). Maybe if it was a military governor, I would have been shot or put under Decree 2 in a prison for many years. So, honestly, I know this whole Nigerians saying, that our democracy is flawed, but it’s better than what we had (military rule). And you can see even the US democracy with all the issues that they have with Donald Trump and all that. There’s no perfect system, but we can at least be honest with ourselves and respect what we have agreed on as a constitution and work on it.
Paliamentary system and regionalismas options
It is. But we had a parliamentary system in the First Republic. What happened? You know, at the end of the day, it is the human beings that operate the system.
Yes, people talk about regions. Initially, the regions we had in this country were North, East, and West. Then we became North, East, Midwest and West. You now have this creation called six geopolitical zones. Where did they come from historically? I mean, we can keep dividing and subdividing this country and thinking of ourselves as belonging to regions and regions. But are we really being honest? Are these regions homogeneous? If you go to the Niger Delta, since when did the Itsekiri stop fighting wars against the Ijaw? Since when? Jonathan was president of Nigeria. Does the man from Edo feel that his person was president because an Ijaw man was there. Since when did we become homogeneous? In the North, before the Sokoto Jihad, even though they were all Hausa, largely Muslim, Kano, Katsina and Zaria were at war with each other. Same language, but different people. Sokoto Jihad brought us together. And then the Sokoto Caliphate became one. Then northern Nigeria became one. At the end of the day, it is a failure of leadership to build a national consciousness because we moved from being Kanawa to being members of the Sokoto Caliphate. From members of the Sokoto Caliphate, we became northerners, from northerners, we became Nigerians. I grew up when I was in King’s College, I grew up under Yakubu Gowon, in a country where Nigerians were thinking like Nigerians. So, what happened? The political leadership is the one that exploits regional and ethnic identities as part of the struggle for political office. And when they get in there, they all sit together. If you look at the president’s cabinet, what do you have? You have everybody from every state. You have Christians, you have Muslims, you have northerners, you have southerners. Why are they not fighting each other there? It’s about an elite that is irresponsible. We had the Regional system of the first republic. How did it end? We had the parliamentary system in the first republic. How did it end? I’m not talking about the coup. I’m talking about the crisis that led to the coup. Before Nzeogu and Ironsi, how was the system? Is there any documentary evidence that that system was fundamentally better than what we have? We can’t shift responsibility away from the human beings, from the people who are responsible for operating the system. If you go to the Senate and the House of Representatives, and you are there for 16 years and you have never passed a bill, you don’t even know that your job is to be a lawmaker; you are going to the House of Reps because you want a car, because you want allowances, because you want to be in Abuja and get contracts. How will the system ever work? If the president brings a budget and the National Assembly, which is supposed to do appropriation, all it’s saying is, ‘okay, we’ll approve everything you come with if you also approve X for us’, how will the system work? Legislators are doing constituency projects. Why should a legislator be building hospitals, schools with money from the government? If you do it personally, that’s fine. But under our constitution, where do legislators have this role of being entitled to being given budgets to come and build schools and hospitals as supposed to be done by governors and ministers? Where? So, we have not operated the constitution that we have properly. We don’t understand our roles. If you want to build schools and contracts, go and contest for governor or contest for chairman of local government. If you go to the assembly, you are there to pass a law for the good of society. So, whether it’s parliamentary or presidential, at the end of the day, I think, if we don’t understand what our role is, you know, in a democracy, it’s never going to work.
On declaration of state of emergency on eduction in Kano State by Governor Abba Yusuf
We need to have more and more governors, especially in northern Nigeria, have education as their number one priority. If you look at the history of the north or the history of the north, take the NEPU or the PRP, or take Abubakar Rimi, Kwankwaso, Nasir El-Rufai, the first sign of a progressive northern governor is a focus on education. I use that as a rule of thumb. Once you have any governor in the north today, and his primary focus is not education, I write them off because that is the heart of the problem. If a girl in the village gets married at 12 or 13, she ends up with seven, eight children. It increases the dependency ratio. It increases poverty levels. She doesn’t have an education. She doesn’t pay attention to nutrition. So, you have the malnutrition numbers in the north. Today, you know, 50% of under-fives are malnourished. It boils down to lack of education for the mothers. The women themselves are anaemic. They don’t go for ante-natal. You continue repeating intergenerational poverty. You continue producing children that will not have nutrition, that will not have education, that will not have earning capacity. Therefore, poverty continues to increase.
The only way to put a stop to that is to keep them in school, educate them. With education, they are able to earn a living, they are able to know how to take care of themselves and have space with their children. They are able to give their own children an education. And then you begin to reverse that process. And as they begin to have fewer children, the total fertility rate comes down, you then have a demographic dividend. The only way you’re going to have that dividend is when those who are earning exceed those who are dependent on them. And you must have that turnaround from where you’re having seven, eight children to where you’re beginning to have two, three children. Then those seven, eight that you had, if each of them has two or three children, and they’re earning, they’re now able to take care of this. And that’s how per capita income increases.
But as you all know, for every one of us who is earning, there are 20, 30 people who are dependent on us – from wives to children to grandchildren. Some have even graduated and they don’t have work. You’re not going to exit poverty.
So, for me, I think what the Kano State government has done is good. So, gradually, more and more states begin to do the same thing, and hopefully if it continues for eight years, for 16 years, for 24 years, we’ll begin to get serious improvement.
The real problem is lack of consistency. I think in Kano State, it has happened before. But then you have a change in government, and it’s abandoned. And then you have to restart. So, the real challenge is how do you have continuity?
How I want to be remembered
In the Quran, the prophet Ibrahim had a prayer. He said: “Grant me an honourable mention among those who come after.” All I hope for and all I pray for is that when I leave this world, when people remember me, they will not be cursing me. They’ll be praising me, they’ll be praying for me. That is all. How that happens, I don’t know. But this is my prayer. That the people of Kano and the people of Nigeria will remember me and say, He was a good man. God, have mercy on him. When you are in leadership, you will end up in one of two ways. You can leave leadership and everybody is cursing you, blaming you. God will never forgive that person. You’ve seen leaders that, even in their lifetime, they’ve left office. People are already saying, God will not forgive you. It will not be good for you. I do not want that. So, how I want to be remembered is, I would like to leave this world and have the people that I leave behind remember me and pray for me for good.
• Concluded