MARTIN ONOVO, National Leader of Strategic Union of Professionals for the Advancement of Nigeria (SUPA), is an activist but trained as a Petroleum Engineer, a profession he has practiced for over 20 years, not only in African countries but also in the United States of America and Europe. In this interview with SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, DANIEL KANU, he decries poor governance in the country. He also speaks on the dangers of the planned deregulation of the petroleum sector, the failure of leadership, and suggests the way forward for the country among other salient issues.

Excerpts:

What is the organisation, SUPA all about?

Well, SUPA Nigeria is an organisation of professionals from diverse backgrounds, all across the country; because we come from diverse backgrounds it gives us a panoramic perspective of issues. Because Doctor sees things differently from architects and if you go to a typical site where architects are working with engineers, you would typically see fierce argument because they see things differently. The architects look at aesthetics and the engineer keeps looking at functionality and sometimes you need to reconcile both. We are like our name says, for the advancement of Nigeria, we also network as professionals among ourselves, we defend environmental interest, and we defend professional effectiveness and ethical integrity. We were formed in the year 2002; and all the information concerning us is available on our website, www.supanigeria.org.

Where did you get the passion from to do what you are doing?

Well, we have a passion for development especially when you are opportune to have the privilege like some of us, of both local and international high quality education for over 20 years ago in UI and the opportunity of western sophistication, you will see that Nigeria has absolutely no reason to be backward, you will see or notice that every brilliant Nigerian is very angry, if Prof. Wole Soyinka is not very angry he will not go to the street at 75, Prof Chinua Achebe is very angry, Prof. Pat Utomi is heart-broken, every brilliant person is disgusted, and this dehumanises and debases us. We need to be better than we are today and we have no reason to be backward and poor. All the allusions to global economic crisis are deceitful, what has happened to us is very self-inflicted. Imagine an individual lifting N500 billion from a bank and say it is global economic crisis, we have all relevant information from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and so this is not speculative. There is absolutely no reason for our country to be the way it is. We clearly have the potentials as was predicted by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in 1965 that Nigeria has the potential to become one of the 5 top countries in the world within 20 years and that ought to be in 1985 but we are worse off. If we do not stop this trend there will be a massive disaster. Do you know that in terms of per capita power, Nigeria has the lowest in Africa, when you divide the capital by your population, that is your per capital power and we are the lowest even in Africa. I am not talking about absolute power because we are nowhere. That is a shame and we claim to be the giant of Africa. I think we are the giant of corruption

So what can you point out is the bane of this country?

Let me tell you, Prof. Chinua Achebe wrote in his book 'The Trouble With Nigeria', and he is very clear that it is leadership. I also think the problem is that of leadership, and why do I think so? People like us call it corruption, but they are the same thing, it is the leadership corruption that creates the corruption that everybody agrees has become endemic. If the leadership were not corrupt the corruption wouldn't be endemic. When you corrupt the river from the source, it flows to every other part. The power and influence of leadership is strong on any development issue. Some people argue that the followership is not better as they produce their kind of leadership. But I say that is not true. The followership produced the Idiagbon government; the followership produced Murtala Mohammed so it is not true. So, the real issue is that as the name implies followership is just to follow. If you lead them on the part of integrity they will follow you and if you lead them on the part of corruption they will follow you. And what has happened is that consistently, we have been led on the part of corruption, so the people have followed. So, you won't to a large extent, blame the people from following because if they don't follow that will be anarchy. The people must follow and they have been following and if they stop following there will be anarchy. They must follow and they have been following and when they stop following there will be anarchy and that is why some of us think that a revolution is the option.

What are your views on the current political situation in the country?

The current political situation is tragic and as I said all the issues you see are self-inflicted. What is in a normal hand-over? What is the practice? That an officer walks away from his job? What is the common-sensical practice? What is the moral practice? What is the administrative standard? Unless we are saying that the position of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is an irrelevant position, which we cannot say. That is the most important position in the country, and if that is an important position then it means that if the occupant of that position is not available to perform the roles, he should hand over because the work he does is very important. A simple hand-over letter to a Vice President who ran with you on the same ticket who belongs to the same party who has shown you loyalty all this while, should that be an issue that will take over three months? Most of these people are people that should be in the prisons but they use criminal processes to find themselves in government. Thuggery is a criminal offence, rigging is a criminal offence that requires the person to be taken into prison and bribery is a criminal offence, there are the things that we have seen they have used to get to power, criminal actions. I call what we have now not democracy but criminocracy because it is a government they seized with criminal actions, that is the reality. We can pretend so that people cannot look at us as a backward people but everybody knows we are backward. Did you hear the choice of words of Mrs. Hilary Clinton? She said that corruption in Nigeria is unimaginable; you can't begin to describe it to anybody from civilised society, because they won't understand. What happens in Nigeria most times is what is impossible by all definitions in a very civilised country. Here an ex-convict becomes a minister or governor, things that are impossible in other societies. In the future, when Nigeria has turned around, because this country will definitely turn around, when you tell people of these things that are happening today they will say it's a fable, they will say you made it up, people will find it difficult to believe. I am very angry and bitter the way this country is being run. All members of our association are equally angry and I know too well that every other brilliant Nigerian either here or in the Diaspora is very angry. As regards what is happening in Nigeria today, the leadership issue as far as I am concerned is a non-issue.

How do you view the making of Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President?

That is the normal, regular, legal and moral thing to do.

But some see the action as illegal?

Yes, the way it was done maybe illegal, I am not a lawyer but there are two ways I think it could be done and I have seen that the leading lawyers do not all agree. Some say the doctrine of necessity is inapplicable but that it can only be applied properly in a judicial context but that is not my area of expertise. What they needed to do in my opinion according to section 145 is get the same President Yar'Adua they claimed that signed the budget to sign the letter to be transmitted. It was what the Presidential Liaison Officer for the National Assembly said was going to be done, and that is the right thing to do. If he didn't do that they had the option of section 144 medical incapacitation by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and if the FEC refused to do that, National Assembly should do it. Also, a court can compel them to do that, so there are many ways to do the right thing. It is just that these people are desperate and committed to doing the wrong thing. What if the court quashes the elevation of Jonathan? Although I don't want that because it will cost the country a lot, I don't wish for it to happen but we always keep booby traps for ourselves. I think the third option is impeachment but I think that is not politically possible because they may not get the two-third. And don't forget his party has the majority, whether fraudulently or legitimately in both houses and that shows you the quality of the party that is in leadership. They are not able to get their acts together. We are saying that we can do politics legitimately in a very legal manner or you can do it corruptly or criminally.

Your group appears to be raising objection on the issue of deregulation.

Our organisation is committed and totally dissatisfied with the issue of deregulation for many reasons. First, deregulation does not make economic sense; deregulation does not make common sense. It will result in increased cost of petroleum products due to corruption, wastefulness and inefficiency. It undermines the utility of national assets and investments in refineries. It undermines our national energy security. There will be subversion of our national GDP by lack of domestic productivity in the strategic refining sector and this directly undermines vision 20:20:20. What are the fundamentals? You produce crude, you are a world major exporter definitely among the top-ten, some believe that we are among the top-six, you are a key member in Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), now you have total installed national capacity of 445,000 barrels per day in your four refineries, you corruptly run them down then you carry your crude for over ten years now, you pay haulage, you pay insurance, you pay brokerage etc. You see all the additional cost that you are paying? You pay port taxes even in foreign countries, you move the product abroad , you help people employed in the refineries abroad refine it, add value, keep their people employed and send it back to you, transport it all the way back, that is the definition of economic wastage. It is very wasteful and this is completely unacceptable. Secondly, why is it that petroleum products costs so much? Why is it that you have to subsidise it? In 2006, we did a study, published it on our website and sent it to the media that we are subsidising inefficiency and corruption but they have always refused to listen. The documents are there. Now, if your refineries remain down where are you going to employ your chemical and petroleum engineers as well as your mechanical? And we are complaining of unemployment. The basis of economic development and growth is productivity. We have become very unproductive. Even the upstream crude oil that we produce, it is clearly dominated by foreign interest and it is the major channel for capital flight.

What is the way forward?

Leadership is key; we must get the right leadership. I don't believe that 20,000 people can over power 200 million people, it is our apathy, and we sit down with our wives and criticise Nigeria in our living rooms. Everybody agrees it is bad but nobody is ready to lift a finger because, nobody wants to die, we still have all those silly excuses for not doing the right thing but we always have wrong excuses of doing the wrong thing. If you are my neighbour and I am so poor and you are so wealthy I will come to ask you for money, if you don't give me I am going to insist and even an armed robber will be there on the road waiting for you, nobody is safe. Obasanjo was in power for 8 years he couldn't solve the power problem, now he is back in his house and is using generator like no one else, he should be ashamed. If I get to power I will solve it in 2 years, I challenge anybody.