The presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party in the last presidential election, Chief Martins Onovo, in this interview with ADELEKE ADESANYA, says Nigeria’s problem is not restructuring but bad leadership. He challenges Nigerians to see the need to take their fate in their hands by consciously putting an end to the politics of money. Excerpts:
How would you assess the current state of the nation, especially now that the country is 57 years into independence?
The current state of the nation is very unfortunate and precarious. It is unfortunate because it is precarious. Proper assessment of credible people in the country can reveal that the state of insecurity is getting worse. Even the Inspector General has raised the alarm about two months ago about the rise in crime in the country. Not he alone, the National Assembly also raised the alarm about the rise in crime. So, you see that crime is just rising all over the country. Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari had mentioned resurgence of Boko Harram in the country immediately he came back from his medical trip to London. So insecurity is worse, corruption too, is clearly worse.
Is it non-restructuring that stopped them from doing Lagos/Ibadan expressway? How did lack of restructuring stop them from doing the second Niger Bridge? How did non-restructuring put our money in their pockets and they are using it for election, and they say their party is a big party, even with stolen funds?
But the government seems to have been highly rated in the fight against corruption.
This government does not deserve any good score in the fight against corruption because the menace is waxing stronger in this country. Why corruption seems not to be very visible to people in the country during this administration is because the media is not reporting it widely as it used to report it. But the indices are clear. Corruption is worse, and the environment of corruption is worse. Now the economy is the one that nobody can debate because all the major indices, starting with GDP, unemployment, poverty rate, inflation, national debt, have failed the nation.
The current national debt by the Debt Management Office is N19.6 trillion. That means that it will take us four full years without paying any salary, without buying anything, without paying military and others in the country before we can settle it. I mean it will be settled in those four years if we commit the whole national revenue to it. And don’t forget that it is not possible because the total estimated national revenue for 2017 in the budget is N4.9 trillion. And don’t forget that the debt is yielding interest.
So you will pay it if you commit the whole national revenue to it in four years. And you know it is not possible to commit the whole national revenue to payment of debt because that means there will be no governance, because there won’t be money to run the country at all.
Are you saying this government has not in any way improved on the economy?
Already, we are in a debt trap, and we were not there before this government came into power. It is this government that took us there. Imagine, the President recently said the inflation rate had come down. Yes, it has come down, but it hasn’t come down to where it was before he came to power. It has come from 18.7 per cent to 16.8 per cent, but when he came to power, it was 9.9 per cent. So this is the way they use political propaganda to deceive the people in the country. Look at the poverty rate; a national newspaper published it to be 75 per cent. Meanwhile, it was 51 per cent before this government arrived. If you look at unemployment, it has doubled, and according to the National Bureau of Statistics, in the second quarter of 2016 alone, 1.5 million people lost their jobs. So, if you multiply that by four, that is six million in a year.
So, the Nigerian situation is very bad, and the state of the nation could have been a lot better if we had the right political leadership, which is the critical thing.
Do you think that Nigeria’s problems will be ameliorated if the country is restructured as being widely advocated?
We all know that the structure of the country is skewed. But the question is this; is restructuring the solution to our problems in this country? I say no. The priority is good governance.
If we have the right political leadership in this country, we will definitely have good governance. If you have good governance, you can ameliorate the effect of this skewed structure. Don’t forget that we have had this structure since this fourth republic started in 1999 and nobody cried restructuring until now. Why? It is simply because the current political leadership is deceitful and dictatorial. People don’t want to be under it. And that is the real cause for the call for restructuring, not the imbalance.
Apart from this, don’t forget that Nigeria has had different structures under different governments. We started with three regional structures. When the mid-west complained of marginalisation, instead of us to address the issue, we restructured to four regions. Can you see how we avoid our problems instead of solving them? And that was the first restructuring. Thereafter, we restructured to 12 states, from there to 19 states, from there to 21 states. Today, we have 36 states and one FCT.
If you report it, DSS will turn to you, or EFCC will say you are a thief. So the people are intimidated, that is why it looks like corruption has been killed. But the reality is that, corruption is now official
Are you saying structure, in the country, is not a problem?
The problem with Nigeria is not restructuring, it is leadership. Someone once told me that Chief Obafemi Awolowo performed well because of the structure of the country then, but I shut them up, that Awolowo performed well because he was a good leader, not because of structure. What is causing corruption, what is causing insecurity? Is it restructuring? Awolowo performed well in education, infrastructure, in economy, simply because he was a good leader. So, it is the leadership that is our problem in this country, not the imbalance. Restructuring is a deceitful tactics that is being sponsored by the political elite to divert the attention of Nigerians from their failures.
Corruption is worse under this administration; but because the media is intimidated, they cannot report it properly. If you report it, DSS will turn to you, or EFCC will say you are a thief. So the people are intimidated, that is why it looks like corruption has been killed. But the reality is that, corruption is now official.
So, if you follow this restructuring noise that the failed corrupt politicians in Nigeria are sponsoring, you will realise that they are telling Nigerians that it is not their fault; that it is the structure that made them (leaders) fail in government. But let me ask; is it non-restructuring that stopped them from doing Lagos/Ibadan expressway? How did lack of restructuring stop them from doing the second Niger Bridge? How did non-restructuring put our money in their pockets and they are using it for election, and they said their party is a big party, even with stolen funds?
But don’t you think Nigerians truly need the restructuring?
See; let me tell you, people have called this restructuring a national disease. It is deliberate to use this restructuring to divert the attention of the people so that people will not hold the political elite responsible. What they are simply saying is that it is not their faults, it is the fault of the structure. Our money is in their pocket; they have looted. The money for the Lagos Ibadan expressway is in their pocket. Money for the second Niger Bridge is their pocket. The money for national integrated power project is in their pocket. But they are saying it is not their fault, that it is the structure; and because they have money to sponsor media debate, that is why restructuring is very popular. But we don’t follow the popular side, we follow what is right. So this restructuring thing is achieving the objective and it is to distract the attention of the people from the reality.
That is the reason a very old brilliant man like (former President) Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is not deceived by their antics, because they cannot deceive him. We too are not deceived. The priority today should be good governance, because people are no longer able to pay school fees. Why should we spend 11 hours from Lagos to Abuja? That is a distance of seven hours. Why does it take 11 hours now? And when there is an accident on the road, it takes 14 hours.
Why should we tolerate that and they tell us the problem is restructuring? The problem is not restructuring. Yes, the structure is imbalance, we agree with that; but the primary problem of people today is security and welfare.
Do you think implementing the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference can help under the circumstance?
No. You need to know that political elite is very deceitful. Don’t forget that when they went to the confab, they told you they wanted to create 18 more states. Now, they have forgotten what they told us and instead said, ‘Let’s go back to 1963.’ You need to understand that this thing is based on political deceit. It is politics. This call for restructuring is not patriotic at all. We have been accusing this government of being divisive. That divisiveness is annoying a lot of people, and they as a result want restructuring, so that they will have their own autonomy. So, you have to understand the underlining driver. The same people that went to the 2014 confab and said ‘18 more state!’ have turned round and said what they need now is 1963 Constitution.
Then another group said what they wanted was 1960; then another group said 2014 confab. Nigerians should not allow all these reckless and corrupt politicians to continue to mislead the whole country. Professor Chinua Achebe was very clear when he analysed the trouble with Nigeria, and every leading ethical intellectual Nigerian has agreed with him that the problem is leadership. Let us get the right leadership and we will stop all this mess.
What do you think we need to do to get the right leadership?
It is very simple. The first thing is that the leaders we have had have been illegitimate. They usually come by rigging election and that is not legitimate. So we must have a free and fair election, where the leaders will know that it is the people that put me there and not my rigging power or my money power. As long as they come to power by using their money, they will trust the money more than the people and that is what our problem in Nigeria is. That is why we are having all these excessive looting, because they are not looting to pay school fees. They are looting for election. What do you think they are doing with the loot? Are they using it to buy food? It is for election. Look at Ondo governorship election for instance; they were giving people N10, 000 each to vote for them. Is that their father’s money? They are looted funds, and all these are affecting the economy. We need to understand that until we curtail all these and get rid of all these reckless and unpatriotic political leaders, we cannot move forward as a country and that is what we believe in National Conscience party.
We don’t have money to bribe people during election. We are not thieves, we are not planning to loot, and stealing is not a virtue. As long as they come back to power, loot again, the country will not make progress.
The money for the second Niger Bridge has been shared in election; money for Lagos Ibadan express road has been shared in election, and money for Lokoja-Abuja road has been shared in election. So you can’t have the road done when they have shared the money for election. We need to understand this and break the jinx for the country. The media needs to concretise the people. A leader that is put in power by people will fear and respect the people, but if they get there with money, they will not respect the masses. We need to take our fate in our hands like the Senegalese did for Abdullahi Wado. They took to the streets, he killed them, they ran back home and also went back. They didn’t rest, not until they flushed him out. On election day, they were collating and counting the results themselves. So, we Nigerians need to decide, mobilise to stop all these useless leaders who have not helped us in this country. If not, I am sorry for our children coming.
