Restructuring is the only thing that can solve the problem of Nigeria – Eze Festus Odimegwu (2)

• Says Nigeria is having a monstrous unitary hegemony with total leadership failure at all levels
• Insists any country that wants to progress should look for its brightest and the best to serve its publics

In this second part of the interview with IKECHUKWU AMAECHI, erstwhile Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc and former Chairman of the National Population Commission, Eze Festus Odimegwu, looks at the Supreme Court judgement that sacked Governor Emeka Ihedioha, the civil war 50 years after and the issue of restructuring.

Your state, Imo, is in the news again. What do you make of the Supreme Court judgment that sacked Governor Emeka Ihedioha and installed Hope Uzodinma?

I told you that when you are knowledgeable, and you have a lot of experience, you may see a situation with one million symptoms as problems but when you look with the eye of knowledge, you can just see where it is tied and when you untie it, everything will become normal.

Imo State in the political cosmos of Nigeria is like a small dot. It is what is happening at the national level that is not only affecting Imo badly but all the states in Nigeria.

In governance issues at the political level, Nigeria should be a federation of regions and a centre. Those regions and centre have executive, legislature and judiciary while sovereignty resides with the people. So, when you have federal and state governments messing up at the executive level, the judiciary should intervene and restore justice if the constitution itself makes sense.

But when the judiciary fails and its highest form is the Supreme Court, people say it is the last, but the Supreme Court judgment is not the last in a democracy.

If the Supreme Court does something stupid and they don’t want to change it, the legislature can change it by making a law that will force them to do things differently.

If the legislature does not want to change it, like the constitution of Nigeria is not good and they don’t want to change it, then the people will invoke their sovereignty and change it.

If you don’t allow the people to invoke their sovereignty to change it because sovereignty resides with them, that is why we are a federal republic, if you continue to mess up, you will provoke a just war. And some people who think all problems of Nigeria have been settled because the war was fought between 1967 and 1970 and that war has settled everything, and the constitution is therefore non-negotiable, these are people who don’t understand.

Every constitution is negotiable until there is order. If the constitution has been settled and, therefore, non-negotiable, why is Nigeria like this? Or are they saying they like the way Nigeria is?

So, Imo State is one of millions of example of the nonsense happening in Nigeria because the constitution is faulty. And the constitution is not just faulty, the federal government that could even manage better in governance to smoothen things out is worsening the bad constitution and the judiciary that should call them to order has been corrupted with the type of leaders they got recently, a man who is technically speaking not a lawyer.

And the National Assembly that should call all of them to order, has some people there who say anything the executive wants they will do.

Don’t you see what is happening in the U.S.? You see what a National Assembly should look like?

And people who say let us have restructuring, let us have a sovereign national conference, call a meeting, if Jonathan called his own politically and he didn’t call it when he will implement it, call your own and implement it, you say, we cannot do it, we must continue with the status quo whether it is good or bad. You are just saying indirectly that the only thing that can resolve the problem of Nigeria is violence because there are only two ways to organise a country – either by freedom of speech, negotiation, discussion and you have a good constitution that everybody signs on to or war.

Every country gets what it deserves. You do not say that revolution will not happen by mouth. You say revolution will not happen by action, what you do. Doing the right things, making sure everybody is accommodated, everybody has a feeling of equality, every region has a feeling of equality, freedom, and a sense of equity that what is happening is fair.

When you put buffoons to govern over people who know a million times better than them, it is not a fair system. They are messing up things ether mischievously or by ignorance.

And there are people who can solve these problems overnight without breaking a sweat. When a country is in that mood, it is sitting on a keg of gunpowder.

You can disarm the people and arm the army but when the people are angry, there will be trouble. Nigerian military is about 165,000 people, nobody knows the exact number of Nigerians. Some people in the north claim they have more population, if they do, why then are they afraid to have accurate population census?

Why are they afraid to put even in the fictitious population they have, ethnicity and religion because they know they don’t have more population. And now they are compounding it by making elections not to count, just write results. There is a limit to everything.

So, Imo State is one of millions of example but the day it will unravel, the thing that will solve all of them will happen. And everybody will see it.

Did you ever see that judgment coming?

I told you yesterday over dinner that the problem in Nigeria is not Buhari per se. The problem is a total leadership failure at various levels. Why will you not see the judgment coming with the type of Chief Justice of Nigeria that you have? Why did the National Judicial Council (NJC) allow a CJN to be imposed on them? They could have said no and shut down the Supreme Court. Why did the National Assembly not rise up and say we will not allow the executive to mess up with the judiciary? Don’t you have senators from all the 36 states of Nigeria in the National Assembly? Are they representing their people? If they are, will Buhari have influence over what they are doing?

They can say Ahmad Lawan, you cannot say anything the executive wants, we will give them. They will vote him out, because he is only first among equals.

There is leadership failure across board – at the local government, state and federal levels, in the judiciary, legislature and executive.

Why are we running away from restructuring, the most important issue in Nigeria and the only thing that can solve the problem of the country?

Restructuring means many things to many people. There is no national consensus on what it actually means. What is your own idea of restructuring? What does it entail?

I am coming. There is no principle that you will pursue that will make a unitary system where one man will decide whether in your backyard, you will have security or not work. None!

It is a question of leadership failure. For example, the three southern regions are supporting restructuring, North Central is supporting restructuring, and you say North West and North East are not, I know Atiku is supporting restructuring, but let us just say four regions are supporting and two are not, how can Buhari stop restructuring of Nigeria when you have people in the National Assembly?

If all the South East senators say they want restructuring, that is what the people they are representing want, ditto South West, South South, and North Central, and people like Atiku will come from North East and the Southern Zaria people will come from the North West, the country will be restructured tomorrow irrespective of what Buhari thinks. But is that happening? It is not because there is leadership failure at the ethnic nationality level and at the political levels.

Where are our intellectuals? Intellectuals in every country are people who solve all problems identified in that country effectively and efficiently. That is what intellectualism means.

When I was at the Nigerian Breweries, any problem you bring to me, I solve it effectively and efficiently as a professional, as an intellectual. There was no problem that was brought to my attention that I didn’t solve. Go and ask.

Where are the Nigerian intellectuals? People who are vast in human sciences, who know everything about you sitting there, how you function, and how they can get the best out of you. Are they educating Nigerians? The social scientists who know how to solve all problems in a society. The natural scientists. The world has come to science. When you see people say they believe this or that, they are ignorant. The world passed the time of belief about 500 years ago. That is why the people who are telling you they believe this and that, when they want to travel, they use science tools. They don’t use belief tools. When they are sick, they use science tools. They don’t use belief tools. When they want to eat, they use science tools, they don’t use belief tools, because we have passed that era.

Their whole life in their doing is science. But they confuse people who don’t know.

The world has passed the era of philosophy. Argument for the sake of argument. What somebody called Purism! That has no meaning. It is called idealism. It is called delusion. It is sheer illusion because you ask the philosophers, when they want to eat they use science tools, when they are sick, they use science tools, when they want to travel, they do same.

We are in the era of science and technology. So, when you bring people who are vast in human science, you bring people who are vast in social sciences, natural sciences, which covers all areas of knowledge in life, value theory has a foundation in the essence of technology. Where are those people to advice Nigerians? Our intellectual citadels have failed.

Most of you who are writers, when they write, they quote all the literature books they have read, but what they are saying has no meaning because the people they are talking to don’t even understand them, they didn’t read all those literature books.

What is the objective of the media in Nigeria? If it is the mass education of the people to improve the lives of Nigerians, and improve Nigeria, then the media has failed.

So, the failure of leadership cuts across. Buhari is a tiny bit of the tip of the iceberg.

But why that tip is important and why I am calling his name is because from that level, he can unravel everything and make it good. People say build institutions but no institution will work without leadership first establishing it.

Man is the measure of all things. There is nothing in the cosmos that is more important than humanity.

So, what does leadership mean to you?

In Igbo cosmology, every Igbo man and his personal spirit, his personal Chi or personal god are equal. Anybody who is bigger than you is bigger than your Chi. And the personal spirits and personal gods of all Igbo assemble in the cosmos as the collective Chi of the Igbo people called Chi Ukwu (Chukwu), the amalgamated Chi of the Igbo people.

And in that cosmology, elu na ala, is the same thing. And people go from Ala Nmuo (land of the spirits) to Ala Nmadu (land of the living). So, leadership is everything. Any place you go, any country you go to, and there is decay, it means that the leadership has failed because a capable leadership will solve all problems.

They don’t hope, they don’t believe, they don’t pray. They work and solve all the problems. Then after that, those who want to pray can then even have a peaceful atmosphere to pray.

But when you see people all over Nigeria messing around and everybody saying it is the will of God, if it is the will of God for all these evil to happen, what is the difference between God and devil or Satan? It cannot be the will of God. It is because of inefficient, unethical, ill-informed, uninformed leadership.

Leadership is everything. And a country that wants to progress should look for their brightest and the best to serve their publics, not the worst and scumbags of the earth.

Check world history, check the countries that are doing well, whether it is under the Chinese influence or American influence, you need people who know, the brightest and the best to serve a nation and turn it around, not scumbags and bigots.

Still on the Supreme Court verdict. What came to your mind when you heard it? Did the arithmetic that gave Uzodinma the governorship add up for you?

Did the arithmetic that Buhari won the 2019 election add up? It is the same thing. When the fish rots from the head, the tail may not be rotten at the time you touch it but if you want to eat it, it is smelling.

Everything is possible in the negative direction in a useless setup. People can express opinions, everyday people are talking, and those of you who write are writing prose and pumpkins. But in Dante’s comedy that he took somebody and gave him an escort of hell, there is nothing in hell that is worse than the devil himself. Every representation of evil in hell is less than the devil himself because it is the devil that is being projected and being represented.

The representation cannot be more authentic than the essence and objective issue. So, why should I not expect what happened in Imo? If it happens in Benue on January 20, why wouldn’t you expect it? If it happens in Sokoto, why would you not expect it?

This is the phenomenology of reckless impunity that can overstep itself and unravel. I am not surprised because it is predictable. You can see it. It is predictable and the antithesis is also predictable. There is what is called tipping point. When something reaches the tipping point, it unravels. When you build a dam and water is rising and rising, when it reaches the top of the dam, it tips over. Then if you have a turbine there, it will turn it and you generate electricity. But if what you have there is something to crush human beings, and you are throwing human beings, it will also crush them and you have blood on the river.

The rhythmic movement of the logos of existence will take the form that human beings want it to take. If you understand that, then you cannot be surprised at what happened in Imo. I am not.

You continue talking about the tipping point. Most of the countries that are boiling today didn’t go through half of what Nigerians are going through. Is there really any tipping point in Nigeria?

You know, people at individual levels, people at group levels, ethnic levels, at social class levels are different. Somebody like me for instance, all these things that are happening, are of no consequence to me.

Why not?

I am not surprised they are happening because they are things that happen when you have darkness over a place. So, I expect it. You measure my blood pressure; it is 100 over 70. So, I can’t reach tipping point. I am always at ground level happy. And there are many people like that.

So how will the situation change if everybody remains indifferent and happy?

The people who are causing the problem will react to themselves. Nigerian elites are of two types. My type – ethical, professional, happy. They are not looking for $20 billion in a bank account because they know it is of no use. But there are others who are benefiting from the rot in the system, who are colluding with the violent men in the political space to loot Nigeria dry.

Your Central Bank is handed over to a banker. How can you use a banker to run the Central Bank that will regulate banking? You put yam and goal and tell the goat to watch over the yam. You are insane. Some people who don’t know their left from their right say ah, they are business genius but what they do is to collude with government in tax avoidance, in concessions, in looting the country dry without adding any value.

So, while they are declaring billions of profit, the economy they are supposed to be declaring it from is collapsing and is being raped to death.

So, these two elites are different. And they will go on their trajectory. Then you have the masses of Nigeria who have been completely dehumanized and decimated in the whole north. No education, no jobs, no father, no mother, no guardian. Nothing. They are just moving on the streets. And their elites look at them and they don’t care. What do you think they will do one day when they are sufficiently angry and hungry which they will determine for themselves? They will act.

You come to the South. In the Niger Delta, you see people that their lands have been destroyed completely and can never yield fruit, the rivers can never habour fishes again. Everything has been destroyed. And people come there to take the oil and say if you talk, we will send soldiers. And they have governors? Don’t worry.

Are you hopeful of the Uzodinma governorship in Imo?

I have told you that in my perspective, Imo is insignificant. From what I am telling you, the real issues on the ground, when you look at them, everything in Imo State is inconsequential as far as I am concerned just like anything in any other state is inconsequential. The problem of Nigeria is neither at the state level nor local government level.

But they are all part of it?

They are certainly part of it but the problems are not there. The problem is having a monstrous unitary hegemony that is stamping on Nigeria and wants to cow people. That is the problem. And all evil in this land emanates from that and that is where people should spend their intellectual capital to find solution and to take action if their being will have a good life. Being, knowing and doing are the same thing.

January 15 was the 50th anniversary of the end of the civil war. Do you think Nigerians have learnt any lesson?

The newspapers reported that General Gowon said that he has no regrets having gone to war against Biafra. General Gowon should be about 83 years now or more. If he made such a statement 50 years after that calamity, it means that either he has not reflected on it to learn from it or he has no capacity for reflection. Which is what I am calling ignorance. Because that war was 100 per cent, completely avoidable.

There was absolutely no reason for war. Some interests that the young military boys then didn’t understand because they didn’t go to school and they were not old enough to know, manipulated them into that war. But at their ages now, they should have reflected on it to know that they were manipulated and to start serious efforts to address and correct the ripples of that unfortunate incident.

But if at his current age and with a claim that he has gone to the university to get a Ph.D., this adult education thing, I don’t think they learn anything from it, he comes out to make such a statement, it is one of the unfortunate situations in Nigeria.

That entire group has learnt nothing. When they speak, you see it. And that is a major problem in Nigeria, which explains why the country is in this sorry situation. They don’t see themselves as people who have brought Nigeria to this unfortunate situation as soldiers of fortune.

They see themselves actually as saviours of Nigeria who made Nigeria one. What did you make Nigeria one to be? To be what it is? Will a sensible human being actually say he fought a war to unite Nigeria and make it one to have what we currently have? Only a fool will say that. Because, the Nigeria we have now is not worth having compared to the Nigeria of 1966.

And instead of taking action to return Nigeria to federalism, for it to begin a match that they aborted, all of them are pontificating.

Some say ah, if you know what I know, you will be crying. Why are you not crying yourself who knows what you know?

Some want to put their ethnic group over and above all other Nigerians, an ethnic group that has no capacities and capabilities except violence. Do civilized people resolve issues by violence or by dialogue and debate and reasoning?

Nigeria will unravel at that level, not at the level of states. States are just consequences and symptoms of the nonsense at the federal level.