By Ochereome Nnanna
FESTUS Odimegwu, an Eze and former Managing Director of Nigeria Breweries PLC, has bounced back to public limelight after about five years in the shadows. But this time, he has been appointed as the Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC). By this appointment, I am convinced that President Goodluck Jonathan is prepared to totally rejig and modernise the Commission because Odimegwu is a system reformer.

A very brilliant though often very argumentative technocrat, Odimegwu is the kind of person who fears or favours nobody when he sets his sights on achieving results. Within his five years at the NB PLC, he was able to restore it as the absolute industry leader in Nigeria.

He deployed his brain power to crumble conventionalism within the system and earned the respect of its international stakeholders who mandated him to go ahead and do the necessary to make the company Africa’s number one.

Odimegwu once boasted he would acquire Castel Breweries of South Africa, and single-handedly set up Heineken’s largest plant in Africa in rural Ama, Enugu State. Today, Heineken, despite being the most expensive beer in the Nigerian market, has become a preferred brand.

Journey into politics

At the top of his fame, Odimegwu became interested in politics, joined the Olusegun Obasanjo corporate boys (and girls) club and even vied for governor of Imo State where he got his hand burnt. At the highest point of his travails, his amiable wife was snatched by kidnappers while in church. She, mercifully, survived the ordeal. Now, we expect Odimegwu to have become politically more matured enough to face the tough new challenge before him.

The new Board of the NPC is coming at a time the world is getting worried about the rapid increase of our  population. The 2006 population census put our population at 140 million, though this was thought to be less than the real figure. Barely six years down the line, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) through its country directorate in Abuja, told a media gathering that 27 million more people have been added to bring the estimated population to 167.

The fear now is that unless something drastic is done, by 2050 Nigeria could top 400 million people. Already, she has risen to the sixth most populous country in the world behind China, India, Brazil, USA and Malaysia, having just displaced Pakistan.

While inaugurating the Board, President Jonathan disclosed that a law would soon be enacted towards reining-in the spiralling population and to ensure that every Nigerian gets authentic identification card.

The challenge facing us is beyond mere law-making. After rolling out a similar policy restricting each family to four children, former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida violated it a year later in 1990 when he and his wife welcomed a fifth baby into their family! He blamed it on his faith. Our ever-increasing population is driven by politics, culture and religion.

It is used as a bait to attract more federal allocation and political representation, which is why our population figures have always been falsified in favour of ethno-religious groups in power. Children are seen as blessings from God and those who don’t have them are often stigmatised. This is in total contradiction to developed countries where more emphasis is on quality of life for those born, and hence greater effort towards population control.

The main challenge before Odimegwu and his Board is to re-orientate the Nigerian public’s perception of population more towards ensuring higher quality of life rather than numbers. Happily, Odimegwu is a man with enormous personal marketing skills.

The NPC must come out in full spate with enlightenment campaigns on the need for voluntary population control. It must evolve policies that will reward those who meet the official policy targets while drastically reducing political rewards for real or imagined large populations.

It will not be an easy task. But there are very few problems that cannot be solved by getting people to buy into them. If a theocratic state like Pakistan can slow down and let Nigeria overtake it in population, it means that religious hang-ups can be overcome to achieve national goals. Let the compulsive salesman in Odimegwu come alive and get to it!

Ajimobi: humour and candour in motion

ABOUT three weeks ago, the Governor of Oyo State, Alhaji Abiola Ajimobi invited senior writers and editors for a chat at the Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos. It turned out to be a night of laughter, with the governor as the “stand-up comedian” able to snow even former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the shade in a two-cornered humour combat.

He swung from extreme wit to extreme candour. Here are just a few samplers.

“If you look around Oyo State”, he said, “You will discover it is the dirtiest state in Nigeria”.

Oyo may not really be the dirtiest state in Nigeria. As a reporter who has been to 34 of 36 states in the federation, I have seen really dirty states. But for the governor to admit this simply means he is ready to do something about it. Some would rather grandstand. Contrast this with a former governor of Imo State who gloried in describing Owerri as the cleanest capital in Nigeria, but beyond the major roads you saw heaps of refuse in the wrong places! Ajimobi continues:

“Ibadan used to be the largest traditional city in Africa south of the Sahara, but it is one of the dirtiest. So we embarked on environmental sanitation. There has been a substantial improvement since we started the campaign against dumping of refuse on medians and the roads. If you want to go to Ibadan tomorrow I am sure you have a car. I will provide the fuel (laughter). As you are entering Ibadan now you will see the difference. When we started and we told the people “don’t trade on the streets” and started seizing their goods they came back to say:

“Where do you want us to trade? After all, when you were campaigning you told us that your mother was a trader” (laughter).

I said my mother doesn’t trade on the streets (laughter) and they went to the house of our party leaders and started singing (translated) “trouble is coming, trouble is coming”. I told them that unless we clean Ibadan Oyo State will never be clean. The first impression is very important. When you enter a town it is the first one or two kilometres that will give you the impression of how people live there. So we have pushed ahead with environmental sanitation, beautification and then infrastructural development.

Before reeling  his achievements in one year: “It is said in politics that if you blow your trumpet people will say you are too arrogant. To me even if you cannot blow your trumpet make sure you whistle so loud that everybody will hear you (laughter). Unless you keep making noise about what you are doing people will not know you are working”.