BusinessDay 18 Feb 2018

Sunday 18 February 2018
BD SUNDAY 25
SundayInterview
e no 2019 election – Guy Ikokwu
you’re influenced by the outsiders who
want, not a democratic civilian system,
but an autocratic military system so that
they can talk to just one person and get
their result, that was what happened.
So, if you take all the military rulers
that have ruled in Nigeria in the last
57 years, it was just a military command
system. In the military, one man
at the top says something and others
must follow. So it’s a command and
control system. And when you check
all of them, you find out that they
did not promote necessary culture
of democracy, of good governance,
of challenges that could make our
country better than others outside our
country until things have degenerated
so much that the ordinary man can no
longer bear it; that is the challenge
we have today. So, in the last 50 years
Nigeria has spent over or almost five
hundred ($500billion) for nothing.
Five hundred billion dollars went down
the drain. We were emancipated at the
same time as Singapore, but Singapore
had a very disciplined, altruistic leader,
Lee Kuan Yew, with whom we were
students together in Britain. I was in
London, he was in Oxford. We graduated
about the same time.
But he now went home with absolute
discipline and he was a Singaporean
of Chinese extraction. The
other Malaysians were not Chinese,
so they were to have a federation
which others didn’t want, they told
the Singaporeans that didn’t want
them to go. So, they went. Lee Kuan
Yew moved Singapore from a third
class nation to a first class nation in
how many years. Mao Tse-tung moved
China from a third class, squalid nation
to a first class nation. Today, with
the population that they have more
than one-and-half billion, the most
populated country on earth, yet Tsetung
too gave them discipline, gave
them education. The Chinese were to
study and learn, and that’s why they
are where they are today.
They have the market because of
their population. They have strong
leadership even of the military kind,
but that was a different kind of military
rule from what we have today. So, Nigeria
also is a country with the same
sort of character as Chinese. We have
the population, we have leaders who,
if given the opportunity certainly will
translate our own system into something
better than what it is now. Some
people say ‘it is too late, they are just
crying over spilled milk, it is too late’,
but a few of us say it is not too late.
If you take an Almajiri boy in Kano or
Sokoto who has no parent, a beggar
and without education, and put him
into a very serious educational start,
you will be surprised that in the next
ten years, you may get one or two of
those boys who will be very, very scientific
and will be able to manufacture
nuclear weapons.
So, education is not something that
you just classify as tribe or ethnicity,
no. it is a question of emancipation of
your mental capacities. In Nigeria we
have ethnic groups that have those
challenges that are really willing
to move their people. I tell
you for example – see what
free education did in the West.
Awolowo introduced it. They
didn’t have the money, but he
said ‘let’s have fee education,
don’t pay’. Some of the schools
were under trees, some of them
were under ramshackle buildings,
even in Lagos you can see
the old schools, but you have
teachers who were motivated
to teach the children; whether
the children pay or they don’t
pay. So, out of a hundred of such
children who went through a
free education in the west, today
you can count out of 100,
55 of them who have first class
brains, and who have done well.
So, these are challenges which
we must take up, not just for
ourselves but for the future,
and this will certainly make our
nation better and greater.
You are a member of the Southern
Leaders’ Forum (SLF);
what does the group aim to
achieve?
Yes, today we have got the
southern leaders’ forum and
that is a challenge we have
taken for the past two years to
ensure that the best of Yorubas
team up with the best of
Ijaws in the South-South, and
the Akwa Ibomites team up
with Easterners, the Igbos,
that the level of education in
the south, when they unite and
leave all those old-aged prejudices
which they have, we can
transform this country, and so far
with what we did last year having
strengthened the south, we have
now moved to the Middle Belt.
So, we are changing the history
of Nigeria. The civil war was the
South East versus the rest of the
country. You had the Yorubas
fighting the Igbos during the war;
Obasanjo was a general, a Yoruba,
and took over the 3rd Marine
Commando from Adekunle, you
had the Tivs, the Middle Beltans
joining first division of the Nigerian
Army, and so on, where you
have even Buhari and all these
people as commanders. And then
you had the Ijaws fighting the Igbos.
So, with all these, they have
seen that having conquered they
have moved down instead of up.
When you conquer, you are supposed
to move up, but they are
moving down. There’s nothing
they can enjoy as conquerors.
So, that’s the problem today.
Now, everyone says, no, no, no,
we have to look for better ways,
and that is what we are doing
right now; we are galvanising;
we are making headways. Let
me tell you, it was the Yorubas
that made Buhari president;
many people forget this. Buhari
was not the popular candidate of
the North in 2018. Their national
convention, where the APC held
its presidential primaries, took
place at Teslim Balogun, a very
stone throw from here (where
his office is located).
Buhari only got only one-third
of the votes from the north; Atiku
also got one third of the votes
from the north; Kwankwaso got
only one-third of votes from the
north, then Okorocha also got
the same block votes from the
South East.
So, across the North and
South East, Buhari only got 25
percent; Atiku got 25 percent;
Kwankwaso got 25 percent and
Okorocha also got 25 percent.
So, there was no clear leader or
winner. But the Yorubas- Tinubu
took the block votes of the South
West and of Edo State together,
1,200 (one thousand two hundred)
votes and gave to one
person.
So, it was a synergy between
the South West and a fraction
of the North, but the Yorubas,
the South West, have seen that
they have been prejudiced; they
got nothing, contrary to their
expectations. In fact, the person
they put as vice president does
more work than the president.
What Osinbajo does in three
weeks, the president can’t do in
six months, and then it has become
clear to the whole country
and it has also become clear to
the president’s wife.
So, Buhari has some good
theories but he can’t put them
into practice and that is the bane.
Not in a country like Nigeria now
you come and say one Naira will
be one dollar, just propaganda
to win election and now instead
of making one naira to exchange
for one dollar, it is now five hundred
naira to one dollar, and you
think people are stupid or that
they are idiots; they can’t see the
rate of inflation, the recession; it
takes you six months to appoint
ministers and the whole country
is grounded, and then you make
statements that infuriate people,
and you forget that there is
a constitution which says you
should not discriminate and you
start telling them that those who
gave you only 5 percent votes
cannot get more than 5 percent
of equity.
What kind of talk is that? So,
we are trying to mend the present
coloration of Nigeria which
is bad and by God’s grace, it will
happen. Nigeria will move forward
to a better future.
What we are saying is that it is
for everybody not only for Igbos;
Igbos have what they can do and
they should be encouraged to do
that; Yorubas have what they can
do and should be encouraged.
The Ijaws in the South-South
have what to do and they should
be encouraged to do that; the
Middle Beltans have what to do
and they should be encouraged
to do that; the far north- the north
east and the north west, they all
have what to do and should be
encouraged to do that. The war
of insurgency in the north is in
the North East not in the North
West. The people there are not
Fulanis, they are the Kanuris.
There has been an age-long struggle
between the Kanuris and the
Fulanis. But the Kanuris have
very, very poor education; very,
very poor infrastructure and
they are asking questions. And
the moment you show them
that by applying the right policies
they can rise up, it will be better
for the whole country. If Nigeria
Continues on page 26