Professor Alphonsus Bosah  Chukwurah (ABC)  Nwosu was a political adviser and later Minister of Health in the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2003.

*ABC Nwosu

He is one of the Anambra State delegates to the ongoing 2014 National Conference. In this exclusive interview, he, amongst other contemporary issues, speaks on the innovation that resolved derivation at the Conference.

The nation just lost one its finest, Professor Dora Akunyili, a former minister and erstwhile Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC). Many Nigerians just cannot stop speaking good of her. As someone who supervised her in the Ministry of Health, how do you feel?

At times like this, words fail me. I knew Dora and the husband a long time before she came to join me in the Ministry of Health as Director-General of NAFDAC.

I saw Dora in her elements when as Commissioner for Health in Anambra State, I was trying to get Agulu General hospital moving and I saw that Dora could handle ten things and handle them very well. So, after that I recall vividly that I had lunch that day in the house with Dora and Chike Akunyili. And so, it was like that again. Many people saw her at the conference.

But I saw her at the house even in her fighting moments for her life. All I can say is that her soul will find eternal rest in the bosom of the Lord. You can not begin to think Dora as some people think is a wonderful woman that did women proud. Dora had a human soul. Her humanity drove her in whatever she did. She tried to touch lives. It is our prayer that the lives she touched will earn her favour in the eyes of the Lord.

Let me recall the feelings in some quarters when she was nominated for the job. You were the Minister, an Igbo man coming from the same state with her. The impression was that there would be unhealthy compromises when two Igbo people hold such positions in one ministry. How did that make you feel?

Dora told the story in her interview when she was alive. We are not two Igbo people. We were two Anambra people and you know Dora’s home town is in the same senatorial zone with mine. It is her husband’s own that is away. So, that is how close it was. And people who were hustling for that office thought they could use it against me and said Minister was from Anambra and DG NAFDAC being recommended by the Minister was from Anambra. The people making fake drugs were from Anambra. God save Nigeria! Of the President I served, President Obasanjo was not going to listen to any such talk and as you could see God saved Anambra. That is all I can say. God saved Anambra. She did her work. She elevated NAFDAC and brought it to the front burner and outlined many of the principles that are being used now. So, she did her job.

Until her death, she was a delegate to the ongoing 2014 national conference as you too. Recall that a plethora of tributes poured in for her. To that extent, what legacy would you say she has left?

I can’t pay tribute. Dora was family to me. So, how can I pay her tribute? It has been so much pleasure for me to listen to other people talk about my sister and I am content listening to people saying this is how they met her.

This is what she did. This is how she changed their lives. I am glad about it. I am pleased about it. The last time she gave a speech at the conference, she left us with a parting word that a true good human being is he who almost killed himself to plant a tree knowing fully well he will not be under the shade of that tree. That was Dora’s last message to Nigeria and the world.

That is what I said it was a human spirit that she had. The lessons to be learnt from Dora’s life and work are: one, Dora is not known for what she did in Information. She is known for her blazing trail in NAFDAC. So, Dora’s job showed that when you have one single competent person, that is all you need. We focus so much on corruption that we don’t see incompetence as a form of corruption.

When you put an incompetent person in a position, it is the worst corruption you can inflict on Nigeria. When you get a single good person that is competent, the work will transform the lives of everybody and I think Dora’s life and work in NAFDAC proves that all you need in Nigeria is a single competent man in any sector where we need change.

Dora’s death was hinged
on a wrong diagnosis by Nigerian medical doctors. As a health and medical professional, what does that tell of the medical practice in Nigeria?

Dora was married to one of the finest physicians in this country. Dora’s husband, Chike, was a lecture in medicine before he went to set up his own hospital. I think it will be wrong for Nigerians to be commenting on the nature of Dora’s illness and the cause of treatment without really hearing from the family? I think it will be wrong. I know Dora gave an interview on this wrong diagnosis but the husband is a very good physician and matters of this should be left with him and the family.

Now to the National Conference, talking about unanimity,
I recall there was a dissension in one of items of the committees report, precisely the derivation percentage. One of the members presented a minority report. You are a member of that committee, what really happened?

I was not just a member of that committee. I sat next to the member that submitted the report. I was also the chairman of the writing subcommittee of the committee. And I want tell you that we had a consensus.

You see, we discussed the legislative powers of the center and the federating units. We discussed physical federalism. We discussed resource control and revenue sharing formula and other matters. Without preempting what anybody would say, it was completely within right to submit her report but if you look at her report, the number that signed compared to the number that signed the main report will tell you whether consensus was achieved or not.

Unanimity, No; Consensus, Yes. But if you go with the discussions there, you would see it was a contentious issue but when contentious issues are settled by consensus, it is the consensus that gets put there. Let me say two things about derivation. It is within the right of somebody where a resource is placed by nature to give his or her opinion on how that resource should be used.

And I think every body was aware that in some of these creek areas, you don’t even have red earth. So, the cost of construction and materials is phenomenally higher. People have that sympathy. So, it comes to the plenary. At plenary, it will be discussed. The consensus will also carry. I am hoping that nothing will be put to vote at the plenary. It will not be good for Nigeria for us to be distributing voting papers at the plenary. The second thing I want to say is that it will be wrong strategy and wrong tactics for a brother to threaten another brother or to give ultimatum to brother in a family that is meeting. It is not right. One of the things I don’t like is that we must all see the need for all components parts of the same body to play their role. I will give you one small anecdote on this: The eye says without it, human beings cannot see.

The mouth says if I close you won’t eat. You may even breathe, but you won’t eat or drink. The nose says If I close you won’t breathe. And the anus says but if I shut myself, you will have trouble. Everybody laughed at the anus.

The anus then shut. After 2,3 weeks, the eye was begging the anus. The nose and the mouth were also begging the anus. There is no part of this country if you want to build a truly federal system that is a beggar.

There is also no part of this country that is so strong that it will threaten to expropriate what belongs to another part. We should all look at ourselves as component parts of this same body and work with the understanding to reach an agreement even on an issue such as derivation. It was for this reason that that committee was innovative in recommending a minerals development fund.

That fund has also been recommended by the Public Finance Committee and it has passed. So, I think that if that fund is applied with the abundant mineral resources in Nigeria, everybody will be contributing to the revenue pool and everybody will now be talking about derivation. The people who will now talk about bitumen will be talking of derivation. The people who have precious metals, golds will be talking about derivation. The people who produce coal will be talking about derivation. So, we thought of a way that we can introduce this and the person who stimulated this was really the co-chairman of this committee.

So far, how many major
decisions has the conference taken?

There are quite many of them for me to begin to give a list. You can see it. When we considered religion, certain decisions were taken. When we considered land matters, major decisions were taken; Immigration, major decisions were taken. And each one you stand it on its own, it stands. That’s what is making me happy. Each decision stands. There is nothing that will make you kick against those decisions. And I rather talk of the only decision that saddened and still saddens me and that is the Bakassi issue.

If I was moved by anything, I was moved by Delegate Oruk Duke’s poem on Bakassi. He concluded by saying it is finished. I really pray every everyday and night that it is not finished. Bakassi should not be finished. If Bakassi is finished, it will be like the camel and tent owner. Can I put just my neck. That is what the camel asked. Oh! The cold is too much, can I bring my front leg and gradually the tent owner found himself in a situation that he didn’t envisage. The current delineation that is even in contemplating Obudu Cattle Ranch is offensive to the extreme. It is provocation to the extreme. It is aggression to the extreme. I sincerely hope that it is not finished.

One disturbing decision taken by the conference is that religious bodies- churches and mosques- are to pay taxes to the government. That is both novel and alien to Nigerians. Already, it is generating concerns from the members of the public. Are you home with the decision?

It will be playing the ostrich to deny that all is well with the churches. A situation where churches get waivers, a situation where church leaders fly in private jets flies in the face of what many of us have been raised in about churches, about salvation, about the basic teaching of `carry your cross and follow me’. So, what you are getting is a reaction to that. Whether it will ultimately stand or get modified, I don’t know. And personally, I don’t care whether it gets modified or not. But I think that the churches will learn that when you go too far, you pay the price of going too far. We should not go back to the basics and not seek to commercialize religion. I think it is commercializing religion that is bringing about the tax issue. But it is neither here nor there for me as a human being. But I think the signal has been sent to the churches that they should do internal cleansing.

Similarly, Nigerians in their numbers jubilated when the conference decided that no pension, gratuity or whatever package should be paid to elected executives when they leave us. You have served within the public sphere. Do you think politicians like you will allow the decision to fly?

Politicians should and must allow that to hold. I am one of those who put in as my profession in my national identity card, “Politician”, but I earn no pension. Even as a university teacher, go and check the records, I left my gratuity and pension to my Department in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. We must restore the spirit of public service. When I served many governments in old Anambra, I was given land, very good land at Independence Layout, Enugu. I took loan and built a house. The process of getting loan was easy for me. Serving the federal government, I was also allocated land in Abuja. I also took loan from a bank. The process was good and then you pay your loan. If you regard yourself that people voted for you and you were in a place or somebody appointed you and you were in a place, what is the moral right you have to go on to collect money? Have you considered the person who voted you? What does he have in return for voting you in? In return for his loyalty to your government? In return for his being a patriotic citizen? What does he get? So, what examples are we giving them?

I will take my most
respected public officer, Dr. Micheal Iheonukara Okpara. It was when I was a Commissioner in old Anambra that Governor Emeka Omeruo (late) said this man didn’t give himself a piece of land in Enugu where he was Governor and that government of Emeka Omeruo got land for M.I.Okpara. He gave GRA Port Harcourt, he took none. The one he was given in Ikoyi, he did not take. The only house he built in Umuahia, he gave. That is public service. God bless him. He is with the Angels. God bless him. Let us see if we can recreate that. If we don’t recreate that, then we will not build a society that is better for our children.