Fontline politician and member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT), Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, in this interview advocated ways of ending the Boko Haram insurgency, electricity problem, how to fix collapsed federal roads. He also spoke on the politics of 2023 and the possibility of an Igbo presidency, as well as other issues affecting Nigeria.
Q: Nigeria just celebrated her 59 years of independence; as an elder statesman, how do you feel?
Certainly, I cannot be satisfied because when we had independence in 1960, I had finished my secondary school and was in a higher school. I saw what Nigeria was between 1960 and 1966 and I am also seeing what it is today. Yes, in terms of physical development, we have made a lot of progress. We have got many infrastructures – schools, roads, hospitals, etc. Communication has also improved. We can now communicate easier than before with telephones and so on. We have done a lot in many areas. But the question is: Is this commensurate with the resources we have? The answer is no. With the resources God has given us, we should have done better. In terms of performance, I cannot score us very high because we have not performed the way I think we should.
I still believe the government we had in 1960 was the best democratic government. I feel that if the military did not interrupt that government, Nigeria would have been a better place. Nigeria should have been competing with countries like India, Malaysia and even Singapore because those countries did not have many resources. Nigeria has been lucky to have oil and rich agricultural potential. There is no mineral in the world that you don’t have in this country. And of course, we have very vibrant and articulate human resources that God blessed us with.
But the question is: At 59, why is it that today, in spite of all these, we are not doing well. Why do I say we are not doing well? If you look at us today, the purpose of government everywhere is the protection of lives and property. In Nigeria today, life and property are not secured. In 1960, Nigerians could travel and live anywhere without any fear of armed robbery, kidnapping, insurrection, insurgency or anything. But today, it has changed. I think insecurity is now the biggest problem. And we still have the Boko Haram insurgency. I want to say that up till this moment, I don’t understand what these people want. And I think many Nigerians don’t understand either.
In times past, we had something like Biafra and it was clear why Nigeria invested so much in the fight to reunite the country. We’ve had the Niger Delta insurgency and their purpose was very clear. Their grouse was that they were not getting a fair share of the oil resources in their domain. And the government, especially under the leadership of the late Umaru Yar’adua, was able to set up structures that accommodated their interest and the insurgency stopped.
Boko Haram said they didn’t want western education, but the arms they are using are a product of western education. So I believe it is not what they want. So the first thing the government should do is to understand what these people want. Now the second question is this: Is it a foreign invasion or an internal insurrection? However, it is believed that they are Nigerians. And that’s what makes me worried about the approach the government is taking. The armed forces and the police have tried their best, but if you give somebody an impossible task, it is not going to be possible to achieve good results.
If your people are fighting, the first thing is to find out what they want. You must use every skill available to find out why they are doing what they are doing. And since they are your citizens, you have to do everything to reconcile them. I don’t think that bombing and shooting would work. If you try many methods for many years and they didn’t work, why don’t you change?
What we are asking our armed forces to do is an impossible task. From experience, when you defeat them in one place, they go to another place and start attacking from there. Whether you like it or not, people are very resilient. Today, there is a different dimension. All these kidnappings are part of Boko Haram, no matter what you call them. They are Nigerians, so we cannot win the war by killing them. We can only win the war by reconciliation.
Fighting Boko Haram has been very expensive in terms of resources and loss of human lives. We’ve lost a lot of bright soldiers and policemen in that process.
The Federal Government should immediately set up reconciliation committees. One committee should be at the level of town unions in Borno and Yobe States, for example. There will also be a reconciliation committee at the local government level because they are earning money. There should be such committee at the state level. Even the Houses of Assembly should not be left out.
If we are not careful, the thing is spreading down South. Kidnapping started from the South-South, but now, it has gone to the North, and it has assumed a very dangerous proportion and is affecting the economic life of the region. We have to find a means of solving it. I believe that if Boko Haram ends, kidnapping will stop. My concern is that it has become a very easy way to make money. And these criminals are armed with better weapons than the ones our security men have. The matter is very dangerous and if we don’t look at it with the seriousness it deserves, it is going to destroy this country. Right now, it is mainly northerners, but in the future, they will start recruiting people from the South. You will soon see some Igbo people, Ijaw, Yoruba joining them. When a young man is looking for a job and he finds out that if he joins this gang, every day he will make half a million naira for doing nothing, they will be happy to join.
I think the Federal Government should look at this option of reconciliation as a matter of urgency.
You were part of those who managed and maintained Nigeria’s federal roads. From your experience, how can the nation solve her road infrastructure problems?
Let me talk about power. Many years ago, I was contesting to be president of Nigeria and I made it clear in my manifesto that I would remove power from the control of the Federal Government and hand it over to the states. I believe it is better that way. It is not easy for somebody to stay in Abuja and Lagos and control power for the whole country. Nigeria has grown bigger, and industrial needs have grown too.
But you know, some people gain from leaving it in the hands of the Federal Government, therefore, nobody is thinking of removing it from there. From 1991 till now, the amount of money invested in power in Nigeria runs into trillions of naira. You can give power to the whole of Africa with that money. When it goes through that place, most of the money goes to federal pockets. If they had done what I planned that time, today we would have had power stability. If we continue with this type of thing we are doing, before the money trickles down, it has been shared out.
Some people said there’s an improvement in power, but I’ve not seen any. In fact, in my place here at Oji, Owerri, I’m running generator here and spending a lot of money on diesel. Power has not changed in the past 10 years. If something doesn’t change, can’t we find a solution? As long as we are treating power the way we are doing it today we will never have steady power in this country. And they will tell you that people have broken pipelines here and there; therefore, no power supply. The implication of what we have done over the years without good results is that power has destroyed the economic life of Nigerians. It is embarrassing.
On insecurity, I felt very sad when I heard that Toyota had set up a factory in Ghana due to insecurity and irregular power supply in Nigeria. And our country uses more Toyota vehicles than any country in Africa. Perhaps Nigeria is one of the biggest users of Toyota in the world. But you.
(Daily Trust)
