North should retain presidency in 2023 – Senator Owie

A former Senate Chief Whip, Senator Roland Owie, bares his mind on the state of insecurity, economy, restructuring and the next presidential election in this interview with Mudiaga Affe

Many say the current state of the nation is worrisome, what was it like when you were in the Senate?
It was not as bad as this and the country was not as bad as this. When Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, St. Augustine wrote that three years before that destruction, no new child was born. God told Abraham, can we find 100 hundred newborn babies, and if we can, I will not destroy it. It was even narrowed down to five, there was none. If children were born as of then, God would have used the newborn babies in Sodom and Gomorrah to save their situation because a newborn child has no sin.

What you have been seeing since the Second Republic is the injustice of those who are in charge of administering this country because it is written that when the just are in control, the people rejoice. But when those who are in control are not just, the people suffer.

A man is the head of his own family, while a governor or council chairman, or president is in charge of the different tiers of government. When a father has no compassion, the Holy Spirit will desert that family and there will be chaos. When the governor of a state has no compassion, that state will be deserted and when a nation’s head has no compassion, certainly, there will be chaos.

No Igbo man should work against fellow Igbo man in 2023 presidential election – Group

The late Shehu Shagari was President of Nigeria for only four years and three months. The Naira was 60 kobo to a dollar and 90 kobo to one pound throughout until Major-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari came in the saddle. And between January and April 1984, the dollar had risen to N6. By June of that same year, people were now begging for food because the headship of the country had no compassion.

As we are talking today, what is saving Nigeria is that newborn babies are being delivered every day. There is no day that, at least, 200 new babies are not born in the country. It is not because of us who are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. When a man who is heading a government does not believe that he has sinned, and does not believe he is not capable and competent, the Holy Spirit will desert that place. From what is happening in the country in terms of insecurity, you can see that the agonies and pains are more in the north than the south. It is even more in Katsina State, where the President comes from.

The unfortunate aspect of it is that because we are very shallow-minded, we are not looking at it deeply. President Buhari should not waste his time, he should go into his mosque on any of these Fridays immediately and raise his hands to Allah kneeling and admitting before his Creator that he has failed and has not led the nation well. He should seek forgiveness and divine intervention. If he does not do that quickly, it will be unfortunate.

Why are you saying the President is not competent?

He is not competent. When the late Gen. Sani Abacha was head of state, he set up the Petroleum Trust Fund, despite all they said he did, roads were being constructed. Even though Buhari headed PTF, it was his staff under him that were in charge. He was just there as a figure.

He was not in control. So, the problem is that there is complete incompetence. His inability to ask God for forgiveness and his inability to know that one-sided administration is dangerous. Look at all the appointments in the various security agencies, it shows he has no compassion. He has to openly confess his sins to God in front of a mosque.

But he was applauded when he was military head of state…

Cuts in: No. It was a little bit better then because Tunde Idiagbon was the one ruling. But today, his deputy is not ruling and that is why no one knows who is in charge. I pity the ministers in his cabinet because some of them have no blood flowing in them.

What is happening is that some of them do not dare to quit. You send a memo to the cabinet, it is not looked at, and you go another Wednesday for Federal Executive Council meeting and it is not looked at, this keeps repeating itself until you bring your memo back to the ministry and you sit there in your ministry when nothing is happening. If you go ahead to implement what you have planned, it becomes anti-government. The truth is that there is no governance.

A major security concern is the recurring cases of farmers/herdsmen conflicts, how can we sort this out?

Firstly, the President must be ready to be resolute, firm, and not to pretend. I read a few weeks ago that he said any herdsman with AK47 should be shot, but there is no law backing such pronouncement. The President knows how to issue executive orders, but he has not done this in the case of the pronouncement for shooting on sight herders with AK47. It shows it is pretence.

Do we also think that all that is happening is perpetuated by Fulani herdsmen alone? In Benin City, Edo State, the Hausa community along First East Circular has coexisted with us for nearly 500 years. I had my education in Benin and the Hausa quarters had always been there. They also have a base in Ikpoba Hill. These people are peace-loving and do not create problems in their communities.

From all indications, what we are seeing now as herdsmen became strong towards the 2015 general elections. They said some Chibok girls were abducted and I said the number of girls that were abducted can only contain 18 Toyota Hiace buses. I said where did these buses pass through without being spotted by the police or military? The teachers and principal of that school were not abducted. I concluded that it was arranged. They arranged it to create a problem for former President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigeria.

Leah Sharibu is still there with her captors and if Buhari means well why has he not been able to secure the release of that poor girl? Buhari was named by Boko Haram during the era of President Jonathan to be their spokesman to negotiate on their behalf. He did not reject that proposal. Invariably, President Buhari and these herdsmen are together. If Buhari wants these herdsmen to stop their atrocities today, they will stop.

You just recalled the kidnap of Chibok girls and the trend of kidnapping pupils is increasing, what does it portend for the country?

You are aware that Boko Haram started with the propagation of “say no to western education.” What we are seeing is a continuation of “western education is not good.” It is an organised plan for these children not to be educated because once they are educated, even if you have no job, you are free from oppression. You can see that kidnap of students started from that end. It shows that they are not interested in education. The unfortunate aspect of it is that they are sowing what they are going to reap.

As we speak, the key stakeholders of businesses and politics in the north are now hiding in Abuja. They no longer go home. When they were using these children for under-age voting while their children are studying abroad, they never bothered. Now, these abandoned street children are asking for their flesh, and very soon they will ask for the flesh of their children. Let the northern leaders kneel, all over the country, apart from Ibrahim Babangida and the late Shehu Shagari- if he were alive, and seek the face of God for offending and destroying their people.

Do you think these dangerous trends of student kidnap are capable of shutting down our educational system?
Very well. You recently heard the Niger State governor saying that he closing down schools. That will have its implication. They should call the traditional leaders in their state to discuss with other stakeholders to stamp out new faces in communities that are causing these mayhems. In the Uhunmwode local government area of Edo State, there is a strong vigilante force that detects strangers in every community and I think that is the way to go.

How would you describe the role of Sheik Ahmad Gumi, who mediates between the government and the bandits in recent kidnap cases in the north?

I am not comfortable with what he is doing. I have read the Quran and I found out that there is no space for destruction. For Gumi to be negotiating with bandits shows that he has something up his sleeves. If we had a government, by now Gumi should have been arrested. If President Buhari knows what he is doing, Sheik Gumi should be arrested and tried for kidnapping.

The clamour for restructuring Nigeria is not yielding results, why?

Goodluck Jonathan became president by the doctrine of necessity. He set up the 2014 Constitutional Review Committee that came out with a fantastic report. I keep asking myself why that report was not implemented. I have heard people talk about implementing the report or setting up another committee to review the constitution.

Any other committee set up to review the constitution is a waste of public funds, resources, and time. In the past, there were three regions namely western, eastern and northern. Along the line, there was the victimisation of the present Edo/Delta region which gave rise to the mid-western region. Mid-West was the only state that was created in the country by a referendum to become the fourth region.

Each region at that time was developing at their rate. In those regions, there were industries, where are those firms today? The Mid-West was a beehive of industries. We had the Asaba Textile Mill, Okpella Cement, Bendel Breweries, Ewu Flour Mill, Ughelli Glass Company, Delta Steel Company, rubber industries, pharmaceutical companies, fishing companies, and many others that were ruined by us with our habitual urge for corruption. Was it restructuring that led to their downfall? No. For us to restructure the country, we should first restructure our minds and our orientation to governance.

I just read in the papers that for 26 months, magistrates were owed salaries in Cross River State, why is it so when the governor has not failed to collect his security votes. These are parts of the problems. Restructuring can come later, but before then, let the present government start performing.

The first step is to restructure the revenue allocation to the various tiers of government. The percentage that presently goes to the councils and states is too small. The local government areas and states should get more while the federal government should hand over most of its responsibilities to the other tiers. The power at the centre is too much, there is a need to redistribution these powers to the states and local government areas and let us see what happens.

What is important now is economic restructuring. Unfortunately, however, there is an imbalance in the creation of states and local government areas between the north and the south.

What do your take on the on going debate between the north and the south over zoning and the 2023 presidential election?

In 1979, during the Second Republic, the presidency was open, there was no issue of zoning. Shehu Shagari, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and others contested in that election. There was no clear winner in that election but the then military constitution had a provision for Electoral College. If the Electoral College had decided, Awolowo would have won the election and Nigeria would have been different today. But to weeks to that election, the provision for Electoral College was expunged from the constitution and that was the greatest disservice that the Olusegun Obasanjo-led military administration did to democracy in the country. The second disservice of the Murtala Mohammed/Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration institutionalised was corruption which we are all harvesting today.

Before that administration came, 95 per cent of the civil servants in Nigeria were contented with what they received as salaries. As a permanent secretary, you have a government flat with good working conditions and when they retire they get their benefits. Corruption was very minimal. As soon as that administration came, civil servants started hearing their names on television being retired compulsorily and with immediate effect. They swept a crop of federal and state civil servants and these were men that were committed to the welfare of this nation, they were not corrupt.

It was that action that brought corruption in the civil service because those that came after them vowed to settle themselves before they were retired with ignominy. The civil servants of today are the ones teaching the politicians how to steal. Under the Abacha administration, six zones were created namely south-west, south-south, south-east, north-central, north-west, and north-east. It was at that point that rotation was conceived even though it was not in the constitution.

So, in the Fourth Republic, the south-west took the first slot. If all zones had participated, Obasanjo would not have won that election because he lost in his region, Olu Falae won. In that election, the Peoples Democratic Party lost Obasanjo’s unit, ward, local government, state, and zone to the opposition defunct Alliance for Democracy but Obasanjo won because other zones voted for him. That is the outcome of unity. So, this zoning that was started should be run for a minimum of 100 years and handover to our children who may have grown beyond the pettiness of tribalism.

Obasanjo did the first eight years and the lateUmaru Yar’Adua, may his soul rest in peace, took a turn for slightly over two years. Jonathan took over to complete that regime and ran another four years. When Jonathan was contesting in 2015, I was one of those who told him not to contest because what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

If you add up Obasanjo and Jonathan presidencies, the south has taken 14 years and 180 days. If you calculate Yar’Adua and Buhari regimes, in 2023 it will be 10 years, 240 days. By 2023, there will be four years more for the north to produce the president of Nigeria. Let nobody be deceived, Governor Nasir El-Rufai that is clamouring for a shift is deceiving us. By the time their four years plus is over (2027), it will be the turn of the south and when that time comes it should go to the south-east. By 2023, the presidency must remain in the north.

Some are of the view that in the overall leadership of the country, the north has had more shares, does it not count?

Those who are thinking in that direction are pretending. When Obasanjo and Falae contested, there were no complaints, when it moved to Yar’Adua and Buhari, still no complaints. If Yar’Adua was alive to do his eight years, there would not have been complaints and it would have come to the south again. That is why I am saying that zoning should remain for a long time to remove the sentiment of where the president is from.

The federal government says we are out of recession but the latest report from the National Bureau of Statistics pointing to high unemployment rate seems worrisome, what are your views on that?

The government is lying. We are not out of any recession. The NBS said 33.3 per cent are unemployed but I can tell you that the unemployment ratio is over 50 per cent. Graduates are roaming the streets because there are no jobs. If our educational system is restructured and becomes more technical and entrepreneurial, our children will not look for white-collar jobs, they will be on their own.

If state governments can take the issue of agriculture and skills development seriously, in 20 years’ time things will change. The south-west, south-south, and south-east can save this nation if they take the issue of skills development seriously, but the north-east and north-west will continue to drag us back because nothing is happening in those regions. They have a high level of children that are not educated. If you go to Kano, Sokoto and some other northern states, those with skilled handwork are southerners.

Some Nigerians regard the present Ninth Assembly as a rubber stamp to the executive, how do you feel about this rating as a former lawmaker?

I was the Chief Whip in the Fourth Assembly and Deputy Whip of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria in the Second Republic. There is a convention among us that we should not castigate our colleagues in the public. But all I can say to the leadership of the Ninth Assembly is that they should know that there is God. They should know that they will give an account of their activities before God when they pass on. They will also give an account when they leave the National Assembly.

Government has earmarked $1.5bn for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery to boost fuel production in the country. Is this a step in the right direction?

The $1.5bn that is earmarked for that project is for stealing. They will not rehabilitate anything. I am of the view that enough is enough of stealing. Our youths in the Niger Delta should not allow contractors to be mobilised to the refinery. It is a clear case of robbery.

Why did you say that?

For the past 12 years or more, refineries in Nigeria have not worked yet the amount of money voted for Turn-Around-Maintenance has been huge and nothing came out.

‘No Igbo man should accept position of vice-president in 2023’

A factional Secretary-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, speaks with Mudiaga Affe on the split in the Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation and the clamour for Igbo president in 2023.

The drumbeat for the 2023 presidential election has already started, what direction do you think the pendulum should swing to?

Under the present situation in the country, the north is doing everything they can through heightened insecurity to see how they can retain power.

They have also hijacked the party machinery in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). The Igbo people have been faithful to the course of the PDP in the last 20 years, unfortunately, the party seems to be reneging on the rotational principle between the north and the south, while its national chairman is saying anybody can contest in 2023.

In the APC constitution, the issue of the presidential election is open to anyone. There is no agreement on the rotational principle between the north and the south. We are of the view that power must rotate between the north and the south and when that happens, it is the south that will now decide where it will go- whether south-west, south-east or south-south. If there is no power shift from the north to the south in 2023, there will be an increase in violence and this will portend grave danger to the unity of the country. However, I believe the pendulum is swinging towards having an Igbo president in 2023 because it is what will hold the unity of Nigeria.

What is your reaction to the belief in some quarters that the South-East hardly speak with one voice and may not stick to producing a candidate for the slot in 2023?

Let us not limit it to the south-east, we have Igbo people in the south-south and Benue State. However, the Igbo people have at various times risen to speak with one voice. From 1967 to 1970, Igbo spoke with one voice and during the June 12 struggle, Igbo took a stand to support M.K.O. Abiola and the Yoruba. Irrespective of the induced marginalisation in the country, some forces seem to be scuttling the yearning for an Igbo president.

In Imo State, for instance, there is a battle between the incumbent, Hope Uzodinma, and his predecessor, Senator Rochas Okorocha. In Ebonyi, there is a battle between Dave Umahi and the former Senate President, Pius Anyim. While in Abia State, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu is having issues with the anti-graft agency. In Rivers, Chibuike Amaechi and Governor Nyesom Wike are fighting. These are all eminently qualified Igbo people that can run for the presidency in 2023.

We believe that external forces may have taken advantage of this in-fighting to destabilise the yearning to be president and that is why you now hear of people thinking of a vice-presidential slot for the people. Those eyeing the vice-presidential slot have not shown the capacity to drive the presidential dream. But we are calling on Nigerians to make the yearning of an Igbo president come to reality as it will cement the unity of the country and kill the agitation for a Biafra nation. If the Igbo presidency project fails in 2023, whether you give an Igbo man that vice-presidential ticket which many of the governors and ministers are eyeing, there will be political distancing for an Igbo man that accepts the post of a vice-president because we believe it is our turn to produce the president in the next general elections.

Ohanaeze Ndigbo seems to be having factional issues, how is this going to affect the 2023 presidential yearning of the Igbo?

In any organisation, there is bound to be a misunderstanding. What happened in Ohanaeze was that there were attempts by some politicians who have the vice-presidential ambition to hijack the organisation, which is the mouthpiece of the Igbo nation. However, notable Igbo leaders, both clerics and traditional, have waded in to see how they can bring all the warring factions together as one. As a faction, we are in support of that settlement move, but if the crisis in Ohanaeze continues, it will destroy the 2023 Igbo presidential move.

What is the primary cause of this division in Ohanaeze?

The constitution of the association was abused. The process that led to the emergence of the executives in the other splinter group did not follow the laid down constitutional requirement. The matter is, however, in court as we speak. So, I would not want to duel so much on it. But what I am trying to say is that the President-General and Secretary-General of the other group have some issues that border on the 2019 general elections. One supported the PDP, while the other threw his weight behind the APC and that was the split that happened in Ohanaeze. What happened then is still affecting the group to date because the man that supported the PDP did not follow the constitutional requirement in setting up the electoral body that conducted the election. As I said, these issues are in two separate courts. However, there are attempts by some Christian leaders to settle the matter out of court and we believe it can work.

Are governors in the region playing any role to settle the dispute?

The governors are the political leaders and we believe that once the roles being played by the Christian leaders have gathered momentum, they (governors) will join hands with the traditional leaders to get the issue resolved.
What is your take on the issue of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Eastern Security Network (ESN) particularly that is in the news lately?

There had been attacks on police stations in nearly all the states in the south-east by hoodlums and the people have become apprehensive on what could be the outcome. Like you have the Amotekun in the south-west, the south-east governors opted for community policing, but the lack of uniformity has made that plan redundant. We constantly have clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in the region and this may have given rise to the protection being offered by the ECN. As a group, we will support any process that will protect the Igbo from external aggression until the federal and state government finds a lasting solution to these attacks on our people.

So, what is your reaction to the clampdown on the activities of ECN by security operatives?

It was unfortunate that the Imo State Governor decided to use military action on our people. There is no record in the north where a governor has used the military to attack harmless citizens of his state. We condemn in totality the use of military actions against our people. There are other means the governor would have used to settle the perceived threat in Orlu instead of military action. That military action opened the dark wounds of the 1967 to 1970 civil war in the region. Governor Hope Uzodimma owes the Igbo nation an apology for doing that.

A former Niger Delta militant, Asari Dokubo, recently threw his weight behind the Biafra agitation, what is your reaction to this?

If the aspiration of our people is Biafra, all of us will come together (all stakeholders) and the Ndigbo will take a position. These splinter declarations of Biafra here and there is a sign for the north to bury their ambition in 2023 and support an Igbo man to become president. A president from the Igbo extraction will give us that fair sense of belonging. The declaration by Asari Dokubo is a call for an Igbo man to be the next president of Nigeria.