Omololu Ogunmade
11 November 2009
interview
Lagos — Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, former Minister of Works, has been maintaining a taciturn political posture for more than two years now. He however, breaks his silence this week in an interview with Omololu Ogunmade, where he takes a retrospective look at the state of Nigeria and laments the country's degeneration into chaos. He also speaks on the state of the Nigerian roads, deregulation of the oil sector, power supply, among other issues
About a year ago, you said your commitment was mainly to carry out a research exercise. In the past one year, what have you made out of the exercise?
I have concentrated more for a while, on the books of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He wrote about 50 books that are very relevant to whatever we are doing now. And the one that excites me most, is this book on derivation. What it talks about on derivation, is very instructive, to read the thoughts of that man at that time.
He foresaw everything that is happening now at the Niger Delta and provided solutions. What he wrote there is unbelievably relevant now. Let me give you an example. In discussing this principle of derivation, listen to Awolowo: 'First, in a capitalist society, whether it is a federation or not, it is untenable and dishonest, to insist on sharing another person's or another state's wealth on the basis other than that which the rules of capitalism allow. In this kind of society, every state is entitled to keep any wealth that accrues to it either by its sweat or by unaided bounty of nature.'
We have been preaching for a long time, the need for us to have a special consideration for oil producing states and unless we do that, where are we going? So, there is nothing new in Nigerian politics that had never been addressed either by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Zik or Sardauna. What was their position? What were they saying at that time? What difficulties did we have? Why are we not moving forward? I have done research. I had seen what happened before. So those were the areas I had been into. How did we suddenly come about the use of generators?
When we were young, we didn't know anything about generators. When we were in secondary schools, all our schools didn't have generators. Even in our universities, we didn't have generators. Even in the civil service, in the entire Alausa (the seat of Lagos government),there were no generators. What happened suddenly, that every home, every institution, every ministry must have generators? Why are we in this position? I cast my mind back to see what happened when we were younger - the type of primary schools we attended, the type of secondary schools we attended, the level of dedication of teachers. We lived in a community on Lagos Island. We had club houses, where we were playing riddles, sports and I wonder what is wrong with us. Why can't we sit down and look back?
In our sports administration, there was school sport at that time. We knew the fastest school then in 100 metres at the state level and at the national level. We had national champions. We had national football team champions. Athletic championship was all over the place because there was school sport federation. All those days, somebody should sit down and read about them. What went wrong? Where is the watershed that allowed us to deteriorate to this level? The secondary schools in Lagos at that time were among the best schools all over the world. There was no way you could distinguish. Talk about local government administration in Lagos State, they were coming from every part of the world to study about local government administration at the City Hall (on Lagos Island). International communities were coming because it was the best place for primary health care. We had the best doctors in the local government. Our best engineers were in the local government; our best accountants were in the local government. What went wrong with us as a nation?
It is a pity. All of you who are younger will never appreciate what we are talking about until we have the opportunity of telling you that this country was not like this before and unless somebody sits down to look back, we will not be able to tell you or confirm what I am talking about.
You asked the question - what went wrong? rhetorically, up to three times. I think you should be able to provide an answer because you had been a major player in the system. As a civil servant, you rose to the pinnacle of your profession as a permanent secretary. Then you became a senator and later a federal minister. In the course of the research that you did, did you find out how Nigeria came to this sorry pass?
You need to spend more time to study. It is confusing because I can never believe when all these things started. In the civil service we knew, it was impossible for you to buy a car that was not in conformity with your salary. It was not possible to own anything above the salary that you were taking. We were structured. We knew what we were there for. It was a competition and it was for excellence. Honestly, I don't know what happened that things just scattered, why we had 3,000 students participating in WASCE and only 500 passed. In our days, it was customary to have everybody having A. It was competitive. If you didn't have an A, you were not part of the community. We celebrated excellence. Unless you have the opportunity of discussing with some other people, you will not understand.
Do you think that the long stay of the military in power contributed to these woes?
Yes, it could be a factor, but that wouldn't have destroyed the state or destroyed the local governments or destroyed the community-based associations that we were used to or the football of the old clubs. In 1956, Nigeria had the best Stadium in Africa, Liberty Stadium, where Gene Fullmer and Tiger fought. Can you believe that in 2009, Liberty Stadium is not one of the stadia being used for under-17 football tournament? Our National Stadium was a thing of joy in 1977, when we had the African Games. Something must be wrong!
How do you think Nigeria can come out of these woods?
Well, maybe by divine intervention. God can intervene and let us sit down and address all these issues. They are not insurmountable. It is just for us to realize that enough is enough. How do we move forward? Because it is dangerous for 50 per cent of Nigerian children to be out of school. It is dangerous for less than 50 per cent of our children to fail school certificate examination. Where will they go? Where will they be? The children of the elite will move up, but the children of the haves not will suffer.
Let us move from here to the issue of federal roads. When you look at how federal roads were managed when you were Minister of Works and what obtains now, when there is virtually no good road in the country, what do you think is the missing link?
There is a law that describes the percentage of the sum that users of the road should dedicate for road repair. In Nigeria, we want good things. We run what I term a street beggar economy; no contribution from the people. Everything must be government. So many other countries have passed that stage. We talk about Ghana. In Ghana, you pay a percentage for road repair. In South Africa, in London, in America, what we are saying is that you dedicate a sum and share between the federal, state and the local governments for road repair.
Two, let us have a revived railway system. Believe it or not, we enjoyed railway transportation when we were young, even water transportation. But these do not exist anymore. So our over concentration on roads, is our problem. Our funding or no funding of roads is our problem. We have 33,000 kilometres of roads. How much do you need to repair 33,000 kilometres of roads? Where will the money come from? It is a big problem.
Are you saying our roads are bad because we don't have enough or enough is not being budgetted for repair or construction of roads?
It can never be by budgeting alone. Everybody wants to take from the government purse what is not available. Where is the money? They pay users' charge all over the world to enjoy certain things. Like telecommunications now, why can't it be free? Why can't it be the Federal Government that is providing it? Do you know how much people spend to buy recharge cards? If it is government, will they pay?
It is just like power. It is only in Nigeria that Federal Government and the state governments spend money on power generation and transmission or distribution. It is not a commodity that is free. The equipment are expensive. What you need to generate and transmit are not made in Nigeria. You have to pay. As long as you believe that it is the government that must provide electricity, I don't know how it is going to work.
You talk of insufficient funds, but it is generally believed that even the provisions for road construction or repair in the budget are not well utilized
It is.
At the end of this year now, you 'll hear of a good amount money being returned to government coffers from the budget for roads, yet a number of major roads are in a terrible state of disrepair and you say the allocation is well utilized.
They return the money for projects that need government's design. The ones (projects) that are existing, no money is left there. For instance, the road from Lagos to Ota, is N20 billion naira contract sum for the bridge. This year, it is N1.9 billion. How many years do you think it will take to finish that road? Onitsha-Owerri road will cost N37 billion. If you put N2 billion into it every year, how long will it take to finish the road? Kano-Maiduguri Road is N175 billion. How much will you put every year to finish the road? The East-West Road is N265 billion. How much will you put in the budget per annum to finish that road? Nigerian journalists, all of us, we don't know the total contracts in the budgetary provision that make the number of years it can take.
But a former Minister of Transport remarked that what has been budgeted for road repair in the last ten years, exceeds what had been spent on road construction from 1960 - 1999. Yet all the roads that are still available for use today were constructed during the time and you emphasize insufficient funds here.
How many roads was that person talking about? How many vehicles were available then? That was when we had a very efficient rail transport system. That was when it was possible for you to take a vessel from here to Lokoja. What has happened since then? We didn't have enough tankers like those plying our roads today. Where are the railways? We had trains going from here to Kano, to Kafanchan.
If I want to sum up your submission now, I will say that you are arguing that the state of our roads now are justifiable because there are no sufficient funds to put them in good shape.
How?
Because you are saying that we don't have enough resources to put them in good shape.
I'm only talking about how the roads can survive. They cannot survive as they are now, when we don't have a good railway system that can carry the heavy loads that go on the roads. We don't have a good transport system that can carry a vessel from our water to Lokoja. In Onitsha, before now, there was a port. In Asaba, there was a port. If you learnt Geography in primary schools, those were the things we were taught. But they are no longer in place. That is what I am saying.
You don't also believe that our roads are in a state of disrepair because ministers that are in charge at one time or the other are corrupt?
No. There is no correlation. It is the structure. I am telling you. If you have a facility between the Nigeria Society of Engineers and government to maintain the roads, how can you talk about the minister now? He's not the one that will build the road. It is the structure that is defective
Do you think that the 6,000 mega watts target at the end of this year is still realizable about six weeks to the end of the year?
It is. But they must evolve a structure that will make it realizable
What is your take on deregulation? The debate is going on now that if there is deregulation, the masses' plights will be compounded.
The masses should be given a choice. It is because we have made so much noise about deregulation. To my mind, it will be a government policy - that the government will import petrol and sell at the (Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation) NNPC mega stations at N65.00. Private individuals will be allowed to import their own petrol and sell at their own prices. There must be competition. The government will have mega stations. If you can wait for five days, queue there and buy. If you are in a hurry and can't wait, go to the private sector and buy.
Lagos PDP to which you belong seems to be virtually non-existent since the 2007 general election ended. What is the problem?
You know that you journalists know how to elaborate and exaggerate things. As far as I am concerned, that is your own view. As far as I am concerned, PDP is existing and kicking. When there is a government in place, there is nothing the party should do other than to allow that government to function.
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