BY CLIFFORD NDUJIHE

Former United States envoy to Nigeria, Ambassador. Walter Carrington, who, yesterday, turned 80, speaks on sundry issues including how to conduct credible elections in 2011, combatting kidnapping and how the late Gen. Sani Abacha regime almost abducted him. Excerpts:

Congrats on attaining the age of 80. How do you feel on this milestone?

I feel a little bit the way I felt when I was 60. I have got a wonderful wife,  who is taking very good care of me and so, I feel very young.

Apart from your wife, you seem to have another secret for your healthy looks.

I try to feed healthily and exercise regularly. We have a treadmill at home, I try to work out on that every day.

Looking back at the way you led your life, do you have any regrets at 80?

No! I think I have been very fortunate in the things I have done. I don’t really have any serious regret. I think I would do pretty much the same if I will do them again.

You were posted to many countries as an ambassador during your career. Which of these countries was the most memorable, tasking and interesting?

The answer is Nigeria. It was the most tasking because being here during the Abacha regime was not easy. Nigeria is the most interesting country that one could be in and it was the most rewarding because this was where I met my wife. That makes it very special.

Why did you choose a Nigerian wife?

It was not a question of choosing a Nigerian wife. I met her soon after I got here. Immediately, I took her and got to know her better. It happened she was a Nigerian. No matter what nationality she was, I was fond of her.

It was all the better she is a Nigerian because now I am an in-law of my second favourite country next to the United States.

How did you cope under Abacha?

It was difficult under Abacha. US had a policy of sanctions against the Abacha government. As the Abacha government became more dictatorial, it became necessary to speak out against it. And the more I did it, the more the Abacha government did not like it and tried to make things difficult.

How did the Abacha government make things difficult? Did they go after you?

Yes, there were two instances that they went after me and the US embassy thwarted them.

Could you recall the instances?

There was one where they were planning to intercept my vehicle on the way to an occasion. We found out and thwarted it. There was a more elaborate plan to try to kidnap me or put me in a compromising position that we found and thwarted. They were clearly not happy.

Talking about kidnapping, it is rampant now in Nigeria, what do you make of it?

I have been reading about kidnapping that has been going on. It is very disturbing. We, at one time in the 1920s, had a lot of kidnapping in the United States.

But the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, made its name by foiling kidnapping because it became known to the kidnappers that they were not going to get money or when they got money, they would be tracked.

The FBI developed a very sophisticated way of being able to track the money and apprehend the kidnappers when they come to collect the money. Once they showed that they were able to this anytime, the kidnapping stopped.

That is the kind of thing, I expect that the government here must be in touch with our government because they are going to learn a lot from our experience. I think they should meet one-on-one.

Nigeria will be 50 years as an independent nation in October. How do you think the country has fared?
Nigeria, certainly, is not growing as fast as I would have thought. I first came here in 1959 among a group of students on an international programme through which we lived with families all around the country. When we came, the head of our Nigerian counterpart was Babs Fafunwa.

He and I became great friends ever since. We lived with Nigerian families in Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Kano We lived with each family for about a week; we were here for about two months and that gave us a great experience and appreciation of what Nigeria was.

While we were In Ibadan in 1959, we went to the University of Ibadan; it was a new place then. I was overwhelmed with the beautiful campus, that here in Nigeria, black people have this great institute of learning.

I just felt that this was going to be one of the saviours of the country. I spoke so well of the university when I got back to the United States.

However, when I came back as ambassador in 1993, one of the first places I went to was University of Ibadan and I wanted to cry. I could not believe the state it was in. It had not been maintained. It was just a shame. It became a kind of metaphor for what happened in so many areas of the country.

In 1959, on the eve of Nigeria’s independence, there was so much hope. With the 50th anniversary, I hope it is going to be a new beginning, that Nigeria will start again and get it right and this time it is going to move to become one of the great nations it ought to be.

Nigeria has not only great material resources, but also tremendous human resources. When I was doing my preparations in the United States for my visit, I went to the Library of Congress, which has the largest collection of books in the world. I went to the African section and asked about Nigerian in general. I asked about PhD theses that had been done by Nigerians. They came up with a huge list.

Nigerians, I think, have been probably the most successful group of foreigners in the United States in terms of income. You have got people in other countries and continents.

There is a tremendous reservoir of talents that has contributed so much to many other countries that needs to have an opportunity to make that same contribution to Nigeria. I think that with the right leadership this can certainly happen.

How do you view the raging debate on whether or not President Goodluck Jonathan should contest the 2011 polls?

I don’t want to get involved in Nigerian politics. All I can say is that I have been very impressed with the way Jonathan has gone. It is up to Nigerians to decide what should happen.

When the late former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was alive, there wasn’t much US support for his government. However, things look different with President Jonathan. Why is the US supporting this administration?

I am not sure that is correct. Maybe it wasn’t apparent, it might have to do with the fact that during much of Yar’Adua’s time there was a Republican government -the Bush government – and now you have the Obama government.

That may account for some of it. However, there is great support for Nigeria back in the United States but also great frustration because so many of the problems have not been tackled. I hope that Jonathan will be able to turn things around.

The 2011 elections are five  months away. Do you see Jonathan conducting credible polls within five months?

Well, he has said he would. I think he has made a good appointment as the head of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. So, I think everything is in place. The problem I think he has is this culture of fraudulent corrupt election and whether he can change all that in five months. I don’t know.

But I feel confident that he is going to do his best. It is going to be a different INEC than the one we have known in the past.

Do we expect any assistance from the US for the polls?

It depends on the kind of assistance the government wants. I will think that there will be election monitors coming as they had done in the past. I think that there will be technical assistance. The best person to ask this question is the US Ambassador to Nigeria, she is in a better position to tell much more.

I can only tell you what I expect to happen. Nigeria is a too important country for us not to do anything we can to help.

How can Nigerians organise credible polls in 2011 as we witnessed on June 12, 1993?

It will start with the electoral commission. It is important that the civil society is organised in such a way that they become the real watchdog; be sure that nothing goes wrong; report things that are happening but shouldn’t be happening. It will be the government’s responsibility to make changes and ensure that these things don’t happen.

One of the problems is that much of these problems in the past had taken place at the state level. It is very important that the governors call for credible elections. I read in the papers about the INEC chief telling Resident Electoral Commissioners that they owe nothing to the governors and should be independent.

That is the message. To have credible elections, you have to have independent people who owe nothing to the powers-that-be. They must be seen by the people to be independent. That is real credibility so that the people can believe that the elections will be fair – not just believe, it has to be seen to be so.

What is your advice to Nigerians as we attain  50 years of independence?

There should be large turnout of people at the elections to show the desire of people to participate and that their votes will be counted and that they will see it happen. If that happens, I think it will be a good start to the second 50 years of Nigeria’s existence. It is really a time to chart the way forward for the next 50 years.