•Why Nigerians are holding Buhari responsible for recession

•President should be open to advice

Senator Tunde Ogbeha, a two -term Senator representing Kogi West and former military governor of Akwa Ibom and old Bendel states, in this interview conducted in Lokoja, bares his mind on some national issues and justified the ongoing war against graft. Excerpts:

Crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP appears unending and is hampering  the emergence of a credible opposition, a sine qua non in any real democracy, to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. As an elder in the party, I have to ask – What are you doing?

Some political crises take a long time to resolve. The elders of the party are trying to resolve it. The problem in the PDP is  bound to hve an impact on  the 2019 elctions. People are forming alliances and want to surpass others and that is the problem. There is a problem of ambition, personal ambition  as well as a lack of willingness to engage in self-sacrifice. However, I am hoping that PDP will get their acts together very soon.

Ogbeha

There are moves being made here and there to ensure there is reasonable settlement. It is not in the interest of individuals, not even in the interest of the party, or in the interest of the nation to be where we are today. As it stands now the PDP is in pole position, as of today, to take over the reins of government.

You said PDP is in the best position to take over the government, but some months ago, you said it is too early to comment on the APC led Federal Government. Are you now saying the Buhari administration has not done reasonably well?

That is not what I mean but you must agree with me that there is a lot of disquiet among the populace. Salaries are not being paid, and you can imagine when civil servants are not being paid the multiplier effect on the citizenry.

We, Africans, believe in extended family, and if you cannot help your extended family, they will think you are a failure. Some people have not been paid for 10 months, some 11 months. So what I’m saying is because of the disquiet, the low productivity,  and economic recession we have in the country. These are factors.

Economic recession

The economic recession is not in the game plan of the President MuhammaduBuhari administration, but it is unfortunate that it is  happening under his administration. The average Nigerian will place the blame on the current administration because it has not cushioned the effect of the recession, which should be one of its primary duties.

There are divergent views on how government should tackle the recession. What is your own view?

Though I’m not an economist,  I think we can get out of recession by borrowing and investing it on infrastructure.

We need to revive the construction industry and  subsequently infrastructure, because these are the things that will provide employment.

There must be a solution for the problems in the power sector, and it is left for the government to revive that sector because right now, the government owes  companies in the power sector a lot of money.

The last time I read the papers, it was about N86 billion. How can these companies sustain their operations, if they are being owed? How can investors invest in our power industries if they are not being paid?

So, if we don’t have the money, we have the credibility to take loans, and utilise the loans to create jobs; boost construction industries, manufacturing industries, and most essentially invest in farming and agriculture.

We must be able to feed ourselves. It is ridiculous that we are importing rice when we have fertile land for rice cultivation. We have Abakaliki rice, Bida, Kebbi and so forth. We should encourage agriculture because it is a prime employer of labour.

And when you do this, you can be sure that a lot of people will be touched and this poverty and hunger will be considerably reduced. It hurts me when I receive text messages or calls  by people who say they don’t have money to feed their families. It is saddening that the resources you want to use for other things you have to give it to some people, and this all culminates into not paying salaries.

Even in the religious book, the Bible, in particular, says you must pay a worker his wages. It is a crime not to pay workers their wages. If you can’t pay a worker, then don’t employ him. I think government should have a crack economic team, a team that is devoid of political interest and has competent technocrats who are known to have delivered in this area to give it an economic blueprint that can salvage the country otherwise, there will be no improvement as nothing is happening now.

But it seems the president is not thinking along that line

I don’t want to think for them (government), but I’m giving my own advice. These strategies cannot be sacrosanct. It cannot be the only option. Buhari must open his mind to other advice and it is left for them to choose, which is the most appropriate for them.

Considering the statement of the government on recovering monies, what is the essence of going to borrow again?

Well, if government had recovered money, it should deploy it. Recovering money and keeping it in the bank is not a solution because the common man on the street is not feeling the effect of the money in the bank. I’m not feeling the effect. But if you deploy the resources there must be an effect. It is just not enough to say “we have recovered money” we must see the advantage of that. If you recovered money and you deploy it appropriately and transparently it will affect the economy. I’m sure the people will feel the impact.

On Kogi, given the endowments of the state, how can it turn away from being dependent on federal allocation?

The state must create the enabling environment. And I thought that was what the administration of Captain Wada was trying to do. You must create the atmosphere. Investors cannot come to an environment that is not ready for development.

Diversifying  the economy

I think kudos should be given to the Buhari administration in the area of diversifying the economy. They are placing a lot of emphasis on farming and other sectors.

Recently, some money was made available to the Ministry of Solid Minerals for the development of solid minerals. I think that is a way forward. We must diversify our economy because not long from now, we may not have the benefit of oil production. Our  customers on the international market are already finding alternative sources of energy, to substitute  for the importation of oil and that is why we have this oil glut in the system. We cannot continue to rely on oil as it now.

It is in the interest of the government to envisage the revenue accruing from oil and diversify the economy to manufacturing and farming, in particular.

You see that we are just a consuming nation, we don’t produce anything. If we produced things, the naira would not have fallen to the level that it has today. Now the naira is devalued, we havn’t used the opportunity to increase productive capacity  we are still importing more than we export, which is putting pressure on the naira. That is the sad state of this nation.

You served under the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and are  conversant with the issues. How best can the Federal Government handle the Niger Delta issues?

I’m sure the Federal Government has sufficient advice on the issue of Niger Delta. I think the issue must be looked at in two ways: The responsibility of the Federal Government, and the responsibility of the Niger Delta people themselves. They cannot sit back and hope that the Federal Government will do everything for them.

Oil revenue

The oil revenue they were getting, some common leaders in the then old Bendel will prefer that the money be distributed for the people rather than for it to be used for development within the state. And I believe those things still happen. You need dedicated, honest and credible individuals to drive the development of Niger Delta using the Niger Deltans themselves. If you look at the failure of the issues of Niger Delta it involves the Niger Delta themselves.

First point of  development

They have failed their people because some of them have not transparently addressed their kinsmen.

However, government  must lay emphasis on  Niger Delta because for now, they are still the ones laying the golden egg. The first point of development should commence with the Niger Delta before you spread it out because, if you do not do that it will be a great mistake.

With the activities of militant groups in the Niger Delta, it seems they are not in “support” of development?

That is what I’m referring to. I said the Niger Deltans themselves restrict development because of some reasons. So they have part of the blame. But the Federal Government too shares in the blame in the sense that they must invest in the Niger Delta and they must put committed Niger Deltans in charge of these developments.

The tactics deployed by  President Buhari in fighting corruption have been criticised in some quarters. What is your take on this?

Corruption itself is not in the constitution. So, if you do things illegally, you should also expect illegal things like this too.  If you are corrupt, you are corrupt and if you are doing illegal things, the system can use illegal means to correct these things.

Obviously, it will not go down well with people but when I hear people talk about Due Process, I laugh. In taking bribe you did not utilise due process, so why do you want due process to apply to you? That is my position.

But the crackdown on judges…

I don’t want to call it crackdown. If we call it crack down it means we have already concluded on their innocence or guilt. I think government is in possession of some information that we don’t know, and based on that information, it dictated what steps to take and I don’t want to query them because I’m not in possession of the facts, and we keep hearing different angles to the story.

Raids on the judges

But the important thing is that the constitution provides that everybody should be given a fair hearing. But it will be sad if we blame the system for the way it works. If you are talking specifically about the raids on the judges, I want to believe that government has information that we don’t have for them to do that because, it will be travesty if they did that and the judges are innocent.

So I don’t want to draw conclusions. Let us see how it goes.

The Kogi State government has instituted a panel of inquiry to probe the past administrations. What is your take on that?

That is absolute laziness devoid of any initiative to do something. I believe in life, you look forward, you don’t look backward. The state is wasting resources and you can see the vengeance in it. They are going back two administrations, what are they going back to look at? Is there a specific case of corruption or illegal things that happened? There is no particular case, just going on a wild goose chase and it is going to commit resources to it. And in the interim they will not be able to do anything. Months ago, the roundabouts were destroyed, has there been any replacement?

It’s easy for you to be accusing your predecessors of all kinds of things, you should practically demonstrate that you are different so that the people can say this administration is better than the previous one because they’ve done A,B,C, or D but what you do is talk, talk and denigrate people.

You call me an elder; I don’t think the state government sees me in that light. I have contributed immensely to the development of the state and without praising myself, I played a major role in the creation of the state, yet the state didn’t have the decency to send me an invitation to the 25th  anniversary of the creation of Kogi State. Other states like Akwa Ibom, Edo, and Delta extended their invitations to me, to come and celebrate their states’ creation with them. You see the disrespect for elders?

Without elders, they can’t go anywhere. Yes, we encourage the young ones to follow the path of glory, but you cannot completely neglect the elders, because they have their role. They may have their faults and short-comings but they also have their good sides.

I believe that the present administration is not doing enough to justify power-shift because one would have thought that as an administration it will do more to justify power-shift, but for me, I am not seeing it.

The governor is a young man but has not done anything for the youths. I don’t want to criticise him, he needs people with credible pedigree to run the administration because, it’s not just about talking. In Bendel they say “Talk na do.” You came months ago, destroying roundabouts and said you want to put the best there, but nothing is happening.

He’s just defacing the capital. And he came with a slogan: “New Direction!” Where is the direction? And I think what is most important and sacrosanct for me is the inability of the state government to pay salary in spite of receiving bail-out fund.

It’s very painful and yet the state government has the effrontery to utilise funds in other areas that are not productive like buying cars.

When I was appointed Governor of Akwa Ibom State, I went there to sacrifice. I was living in a one bedroom apartment. I was staying upstairs, my orderly and boys were staying downstairs. It didn’t bother me. But I did the job I was sent to do and I’m not praising myself, but as of today, the people of Akwa Ibom have deep respect for me.

Absolute respect

The people of old Bendel have absolute respect for me. And when I see these governors and the respect they have, I feel fulfilled. The present administration is a wasteful one. He did not show us why we should always encourage the younger ones.

It should have been, “there is a young man, he has done well, let’s vote another young man like him”. But as of now, I’ve not seen that in action. Unless there is a change, this administration will not take us anywhere. If election is here today, PDP will win in the state.

The opposition in the state is docile. No formidable opposition to put the state government on its toes. Could this be the reason for the government’s attitude?

I agree with you. When you lose election it is difficult to rise back immediately. And in this our area, what they practice as politics is following government in power, which should not be. But I hope we’ll get our acts together.