BusinessDay 22 Oct 2017

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C002D5556 24 BD SUNDAY SundayInterview Sunday 22 October 2017 ‘I don’t believe Buhari was equipped to run a country like Nigeria’ Professor Mark Odu, popularly known as M.A.C. Odu, is a real estate professional and charismatic intellectual. He is an acclaimed realtor and appraiser in the real estate and building construction field, with extensive experience in Oil Valuations, Urban Real Estate Development Studies and Farm Valuations. Odu is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers and a leading proponent of the “Cooperative Paradigm for Rural Development.” He has taught in many institutions of higher learning, such as the University of Lagos (senior lecturer and acting head of department), the University of Nigeria Nsukka (as visiting lecturer), and Imo State University (adjunct pioneer establishment faculty). Today, he is a traditional ruler from Amaohuru Nguru in Aboh Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State. He spoke to SABY ELEMBA, tracing the cause and origin of the alleged hatred for Igbo by other ethnic groups in Nigeria, including the fever of fear of domination by the Igbo which, according to him, has gripped the Hausa-Fulani; the disunity among Nigerians, among other issues. The monarch said that that Nigeria may implode if the process of restructuring was not started now and that it would be like an ill wind that blows no one good. Excerpts: My interactions with many Nigerians show that a good number of them are of the opinion that the country is drifting in many respects. May we have your perspective on the current state of the nation? Alright, I am Eze, Professor Mark Odu. I was born in this village (town) Amaohuru Nguru in the year 1944 and we moved to Lafia in the Southern Plateau then but now Nassarawa State four days after I was born. So, I was technically born here but where I got my certificate was in Lafia; that is, I grew up in Hausa land. I have travelled along the road and rail lines through secondary schools but I am thoroughly Nigerian. I schooled for secondary school in Lagos in St. Finbars. I speak Yoruba; I speak Hausa, English and Igbo. There is no plural for Igbo “the Igbos”, I do not like it, it is not correct, but “the Igbo”, the plural or singular is Igbo. So with that background, the first thing you asked was the current state of the nation. You know, to have lamentations at my 73 years on earth is not so nice because I saw when this country was moving up. I saw Ndigbo spread out so evenly through railway through transportation, through education throughout Nigeria. And Ndigbo held sway in most parts of governance that people were frightened of us because we held up for one another. When a fellow got to the position of power he brought his own people to help them more, unfortunately through this historic war experience and so on we fragmented our unity and it is no longer comfortable with our neighbours. One of our serious errors is not to have developed the North when we were there; we did not give education to the Hausa down-trodden; had we given education to the Hausa people they would have been doing their fighting by now themselves. There is a class feeling over the heads of their majority preventing them from rising. Why should a community have people whose job is to beg for food around in the villages and towns where there are big people? These were the people who have grown up to become the Boko Harams of our time. Our problem is lack of love for one another even within each ethnic group there is no love. The Hausa believe in the fragmentation of the society, the elite must not be touched then the down-trodden, there is no middle class. But the problem they have now is that Mark Odu the middle class is claiming their space and it has to be turbulent. The East, the war made us atomic, the point that held us together is no longer there. Property and possession have taken the frontal brain of all Igbo people; our neighbours, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers even up to Delta and so on and so forth they are frightened of us because we did not love them enough to spread resources when we were in charge in the Eastern Nigerian. I am sure that you know that the war was fought on the basis of the importance of the Igbo man in the Nigerian geo-politics. Ojukwu was hasty with that war, we were not prepared. He gave the impression that no power in black Africa could subdue Biafra, it was wrong. To start with, he was Quarter Master General in Nigerian Army; he ought to have known the massive nature of the armament in Nigeria as Quarter master-general. He ought not to have chosen to even go to war because with that knowledge he knew we did not stand a chance. He also had an opportunity to revisit Aburi, consent to going back even when Gowon denied the agreement reached over there. It was the greatest error of the past century. This century is a difficult kettle of fish. Now that war led to our losing the bond that held Ndigbo together. As soon as it ended, everybody to himself, all the structures collapsed. I am a witness that before that war we could send a message over night through Amel transport or other transports like We-We, Wahehe, etc throughout this country to North, South East and West of this country and tell Igbo how to react to political situation but after the war, it is ‘to your tents O Israel’. To worsen matters, after the war we recovered so fast that Nigerians hated us so much. The Hausa people who came first after the war went back to report to their people that these men, the Igbo have started a new civilisation and that they (Hausa) were in trouble, the hatred worsened. We rebuilt our place, the scars of war did not last ten years, I saw because I was in maximum security prison as a prisoner of war. I saw when I came back the damage of war, buildings blown down, holes in almost all the properties in major centres and war theatres. But we did not have love as bond anymore; people were ready to sell one another. The Hausa people knew that and that is what they have been capitalising to create distance between various elements of the Nigerian polity to have elements of the majority entrenched. The other factor is of course the English man, who left us angrily, favoured the Hausa in allocation of population. They gave them 33 percent more people than they had in order to put population over to them to control the Houses of legislature, the Westminster system of Government. The man who did this, wrote it in a book called ‘White Collar Law Man’, the name is Harold Wilson; he was a senior personnel of the British government, Lagos. He wrote this book as a confession of what Britain did to rule Nigeria and made certain that they kept to that margin of population. And that is why till today counting of population is difficult in the North, they just write what they want but it is dishonesty and dishonesty must have its reward or punishment later in history of the people. I have driven through this country to every local government in various services including my profession and having served as a member of the commission on review of Higher Education in Nigeria. But beyond that, I have been president of University of Nigeria alumni association for four years and we had meetings all over the country. I have been an estate surveyor, I have travelled round down jobs in all the parts of the country, and the Hausas do not have the people they claim to have. Their ability to bear children is not as high as in the South, they make fewer children even though they marry up to four, and the Koran allows them to marry. But I am not angry with the North even with all they have done, they fear domination and this fear brings their aggression in their own psyche. Their elites fear domination so all they do is to protect their access to power. And that is why they have wrong people in the parastatals running this country. In the ministries, departments and agencies, they want to nominate people to be there whether they qualify or not because the technically qualified people are in the south. Now what is your opinion on the current state of the nation? We must restructure. And we must restructure to give each state or zone the power to develop at its own pace. If that is not done the country will implode. The Yoruba have accommodated this in the Yoruba Agenda; I read it page to page. I have written Igbo Agenda in Nigeria project, nobody has cared about it, it is on the internet. I have done what I can do in the life time. I have also written eight books about the Nigeria experience; whoever wants can read it.
Sunday 22 October 2017 C002D5556 BD SUNDAY25 SundayInterview Now, the condition is that Nigeria cannot move forward until the restructuring is done. In your view, when do you think this restructuring should be done and how? It should be started now because it is clear that greed and avarice have powered corruption and corruption is killing the country. And not even because of want, people are greedy and avaricious. Can you imagine a woman who was in the Petroleum Ministry is owning much? It is not necessary; she does not have love in her heart. If they fail to restructure, cataclysm will be our product and we will also suffer it. What do you consider as Nigeria’s most pressing issues that need urgent attention? The most pressing issue is to decide on restructuring. Let individual component states have autonomy to develop, that is very urgent. When the autonomy is granted, nationalism can feature in the Nigeria project. People will now believe in the Nigeria project and subscribe at will by their own will and in their measure what will make Nigeria great. Agitations for secession and self-determinations have been on the increase recently in Nigeria- Oduduwa, Arewa, Niger Delta, Biafra etc, how did we get to this story state? You can see that the structures are shaking by agitations of self-determination which arose from imbalance occasioned by the treatment of the states from the centre. And you know the Army caused this because they unified the country and took most powers that the regions originally could share, they took the most powers from the states to the centre; it was a wrong step. Now the federal disposes of all the resources in favour of the North because they are now in the majority. The South is given very little, and because our people are greedy and avaricious they do not even contribute the required quota funds, those funds that are deposited by states for the federal funds, they do not make it available to the federal because their problems are so compounded. Bad leaders have been the inheritance of states in the south except a few that are fairly stable- western states. The Eastern states are full of greedy people even Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom. They are greedy people but the important thing is that let every component of the federation develop on its own with little attention to the centre. Some observers say that Nigeria is more divided now than at any other time in the history of the country; do you share the same view? Yes I do. And the basis is greed and avarice as I said. Love is lacking, nationalism is lacking, nobody believes in the nation state of Nigeria, very few people can conceive it. They see people as Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa- Fulani. The Benue used to be a warrior nation they have been cowed to submission by the Hausa-Fulani. The Alafia chiefs have been subdued by the Hausa-Fulani, in fact, there are mosques in Nassarawa State whereas when were growing up there was a Christian zone. Kafanchan in the North Central was where I read my Standard Six; the Catholic school where I went is now a mosque. I do not have record of my Standard Six now because no school there again, that Mark Odu is the gravity of the situation. Can you assess the incumbent administration’s war against corruption? I can only guess, I can say that they are accumulating a record of those whom they will fight. I do not know how long it will take them to start prosecuting but I have not seen much prosecution. There is this plea bargain which they are adopting. When somebody has stolen N2billion you first take what he offers and hold it in an account, but no real disincentives to corruption has been taken, nobody has been caught and tried and given the essential punishment required for such a crime. But Buhari has at least started to name people and get people go after them and seize assets that are congruent with fraud. But do you share the view by some critics that the fight is targeted at the opponents of the government? Not totally. To start with, there is no defined line between the parties, they are the same human beings; they just change party when it is not favourable for them. We don’t have politicians or leaders. Politicians are those who look for leaders, leaders are those who the people respect. We do not have them yet and leaders are not in the corridors of power. The chaps who are politicians are those who should look for leaders, accept power now because they are in the corridors of power. Politicians do not become leaders, they look for leaders and bring them to come and run the public offices as technocrats and only technocrats can run government effectively, politicians can’t. There is no reasonable basis for people who do not know the country enough by dint of personal experience to angle to lead a country. Technocrats use the resources of the country to bring about development. You have toured almost all the regions of this country; what can you say of the level of development in Nigeria, 57 years after independence? It is true there is no real development. The problem is indices are not known by the leaders. Look at Mbaise, there is a power project here, a massive substation that cost the government billions of naira. It is now taken over by weeds because they have put the money in private pockets that should have brought life to that substation. Compensation has not been paid to people whose houses have been marked for demolition so that the power line does not affect them, this is my own community. So, that is what is happening, projects that are viable and important for the evolution of people are left because the profit from it has been extracted by those who made it possible at first instance. That is not nationalism that is destructive governance. Do you think there is a deliberate policy by successive governments in Nigeria to keep the Igbo nation down? Yes. I told you already- the envy, our people are looked at as people too daring for the rest of the country, and our neighbours fear us. Our opponents up North are very upset with our progress. In actual fact, we have overstayed our welcome in all parts of the Nigeria in the sense that we do not know where to stop accumulating wealth. You came to a man’s place and you alone Look at Mbaise, there is a power project here, a massive substation that cost the government billions of naira. It is now taken over by weeds because they have put the money in private pockets that should have brought life to that substation have 50 percent of the buildings there; how would he feel? So you carry your building and go to your place. Our people are not selective of their investment destinations. And we still have Igbo land to develop. So, that feeling of being too forward is in the minds of our opponents and countrymen. We should learn to stop and invest back home. I am insisting that we should not front our images in distant lands in Nigeria. We should make this place, Igbo land the industrial and commercial hub of Nigeria and leave them to come here and purchase what they need, we can do it. Technically, Nigeria is said to have exited the recession, what is your candid understanding of the whole recession and do you read any political meaning to it? Recession was real in the sense that two much money was chasing few products. Manufacturing has gone down since six or seven years. We are mainly consumers of foreign industrialists’ products and individual productivity has gone down because there is much chasing of goods not produced here. Do you know that in Abuja more champagne is had, and flown in from Europe than has ever occurred because the people in Abuja are over spending our government money; they are not producing? The houses springing up in Abuja are the highest growth point in the whole world in terms of building production but nothing is manufactured there; they are all brought in from foreign lands to assemble here. Very little has backward integration potentials. Until we have nationalists to drive productivity recession cannot repair itself. We have to sweat to get out of real recession into sustainable growth. And you know that in the Eastern Nigeria, palm trees produced the income with which Okpara developed this part of the world and built university of Nigeria. And those palm trees are idlying, unkempt, palm nuts are wasting in the vast plantation which he built because the farm settlement scheme has collapsed. And our Eastern Nigeria brothers have no sights in that direction. We are doomed to low productivity until we drive agriculture, use it to power industrialism and industrialism will produce jobs, jobs will create further income, income will lead to further investments and people will have prices down for food and there will be peace and plenty for all. Finally, can you assess the Buhari administration? I do not believe that Buhari was equipped to run a country like this frankly. He was a soldier and he came first as an autocrat. Buhari should not have returned because things have changed. I don’t think he is computer literate; if he were, he would have measured himself and not contesting for president. See the army recycling itself, getting to civilian regime and all that as if there is nobody else; is annoying. Obasanjo went as a soldier and came back as a civilian, Danjuma has been there now he is doing the North East rehabilitation and chairing the committee. Is it scarcity of leaders or technocrats that made them to come back, it is greed. I am against any other military coming in to run this country, they do not have the qualification they do have the ingredients.
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BusinessDay 22 Oct 2017

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