By Ebele Orakpo

Chief Euriel Chukwuka Chukwudum is the Chairman/  Chief Executive Officer of Denis Hotel, Ltd., Abuja. In this encounter with Vanguard recently, the business magnate says unless Nigeria is restructured, no president, no matter how well-intentioned, will get it right. Excerpts:

POLITICS affecting businesses:

Generally, instability in any society has always been very dangerous to the economy and to the peace and stability of the society. Nigeria will not be an exception. In as much as I am saying that instability in Nigerian politics, viz-a-viz the government/politicians not doing what they are supposed to do and not taking care of the people they are serving, we will give kudos to government to a certain degree because the problem of the country is perennial.

I don’t blame whoever is on the driver’s seat. Even if you bring President Obama to govern Nigeria today, he will have the same problem because the way Nigeria is structured is very faulty.

Mediocrity:The way Nigeria is structured cannot allow anybody there to function and get it right. It is impossible because the person must have to compromise. The structure encourages mediocrity. First and foremost, it is divisive, it encourages mediocrity and there is no way we can progress. All these countries we talk of today progressing and excelling in one thing or the other, are all merit-driven. Nigeria is not merit-driven. A country that is run by concession, quota system, allocation, federal character etc, cannot progress. Anybody presiding over Nigerian policies is bound to compromise because it is structured to be like that.

Euriel-Chukwudum

So as far as I am concerned, it is really a very big problem. I believe that those people who probably have been favoured by these draconian policies, should have a rethink and know that it has actually not taken us anywhere.

Today, we are more civilized, things are no longer the same, therefore, they should take away that fear that is in them and come through the right path to progress. I have never seen a place where the weak pulls the strong. It is in Nigeria that it is happening. It is supposed to be the strong pulling the weak.

Level-playing field: A student cannot come up all of a sudden to become a professor without going through the process, he has to be a student, before he becomes a professor but in Nigeria, you can become a professor overnight because of federal character and quota system. So if the government and politicians will come together and create a level-playing field, if not for any other thing, the National Conference reports should be enshrined into our constitution so that it will create a level-playing field for everyone; that is what an average Nigerian requires today.

He does not require all these dichotomies in the country. Such level-playing field will help the business environment and the country to progress. I believe the problems of ethnicity, tribalism and fanaticism, will be a thing of the past because a busy person will not have time to go and foment trouble; he will be so engaged that he will not have time to be used as a thug by anyone. But for the fact that unemployment and the Nigerian factor are there, a lot of people find themselves roaming the streets and the politicians are having a field day over it. I am talking out of experience as a businessman. We know where all those being fed with silver spoon today in Nigeria are, and the ones that struggled by themselves, we know where they are so government should just create a level-playing field for Nigerians so that it will give room for merit and at the end of the day, we will have progress.

Merit can only work on a level-playing field. Nigeria will be a better place if the right thing is done. There is an urgent need to restructure if we must make genuine progress.