Buhari’s administration has done better than previous ones – Ajah
Dr. Haroun Ogbonnia Ajah (Doyen of Islam and Nze Nnanyeriugo 1 and Ocho Udo of Afikpo) is an outstanding public figure and personality from Afikpo North Local Government Area, Ebonyi State. The Doctorate degree holder in Public Management and Social Welfare was a National Commissioner in the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), representing Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI). A grassroots politician he contested the governorship election in Ebonyi State in 2015, but lost. In this interview with EDWARD NNACHI, in his Abakaliki home, Ajah speaks on the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government, he also said that the recent report that Nigeria has exited recession is not a mere propaganda.
The recent report that Nigeria has exited recession has generated a lot of mixed reactions from Nigerians. What is your take on this report?
Well, I want to say in the first place we have to congratulate ourselves on the good news that Nigeria has exited recession.
When we heard that Nigeria has entered technically and eventually into the real recession, which is depression, it was a very serious cause for worry.
However, we know some of these things are theoretical quite alright, because even when you talk about recession, an ordinary person on the street does not know what it means and when you say we are out of recession, an ordinary man may not really comprehend it.
The fact is that we are looking at it from the point of practicality. The indexes of recession as you know is a sign of badly managed economy-when the economy can meet the ends of the means of the people and they don’t see real indexes of economic growth, then we say we are in recession.
Now, to convince an ordinary person that we are out of recession he needs to see the practical indexes of it. In the market we know that before there have been a very high level of inflation and there is no money in circulation quite alright and people are a very high on hardship, including myself, because what you could ordinarily do before you cannot do easily now.
So, it’s a cause for worry, but as I have said, while we congratulate ourselves for the news that we have come out of recession, we need government to practically show us that we have truly come out of recession and show us what they mean by that news,
because I don’t want it to be a mere paper work that people can just read on the pages of report from technical drawing board and then tell us that we have exited recession.
It’s good, but as I have said, an ordinary man wants to see the practicality of it; and for me, I feel that except the purchasing power of Nigerians improve and we can be able to put three square meals on the table for our families, nobody will believe that we are out of recession.
So it is still like we entered recession technically, maybe we are out of recession technically, which is why I said that we entered recession technically.
It would be practical when Nigerians see it and even those who sell sachet water and market women would now say we have more customers, and civil servants are paid regularly and our youths are getting jobs.
Today people have goods to sell but there is nobody to patronise them owing to lack of cash, lack of economic potentiality and viability.
However, it’s cheering news as I have said, but the government that said we are out of recession needs to do more to convince Nigerians that we are out of recession. It’s a thing of joy.
It calls for celebration. But let it not end on the pages of newspaper and on the pages of the report from the statistics office of the Federal Government.
And I know that the government promised us so many things or basically three things; which are fight against corruption, fight against Boko Haram and insecurity which I think to a very large extent has been put in place and it’s in progress; and they also promised economic recovery.
So when the country was in recession, it means the economy was not growing and now if you say the country has exited recession, we need to see growth in the economy or ease of economic growth.
So anything short of that means that we are still doing paper work which the journalists call paper tiger. For me that’s how I want to look at it. I will not start jumping up because ordinarily am affected.
Before now I know how we were living and if not that we were told that we were in recession people were wondering what was happening to us, but government said we are out of recession,
but the level of hardship was high all over the place, in the market place, in the workplaces and unemployment rate sky-rocketed and loss of job was part of it.
Now, if you say we are out of recession, we need to see growth, we need to see employment and we need to see reduction in the cost of prices of good, petroleum products inclusive.
Recently there have been unrest in the country; the Arewa youths giving the Igbos in the North quit notice, though this has been withdrawn; Nigerians calling for the restructuring of the country and IPOB asking for secession. Don’t you think Nigerians will feel safer and better if they go their separate ways?
Well, I will not just conclude and say Nigerians would be safer and better because some of these things have more that you can think of to conclude.
Yes, agitation is normal in life and if you are talking about restructuring, yes, that is normal in life also. Ordinarily as a person when you wake up everyday, you need to think of how to wash your mouth and how to wash your teeth and how to enhance yourself for the daily performance.
You are in an environment and the place is overgrown with grasses you go to cut the weeds, you need to trim them to give you a better environment; so the issue of agitation is not anything that is worrisome because agitation is normal in life.
And the issue of agitation is not something to be worried about; the only thing is that we need to specify what type of restructuring we are thinking about.
This is so because even in the home you live, sometimes you see some parts of the paint scratching-off, you need to replace them and sometimes you find part of the structure you put in place giving you a different taste, you need to restructure it and reshape it.
And when you narrow it down to Nigeria, we need to know what type of restructuring we are talking about and clearly define it. Let it not be that we are talking about what is not affordable.
We are a federation, a country made up of so many nationalities. Nigeria was amalgamated in 1914 as a federal state and we have been coming up together one way or the other; you can look at it from the aspect of evolution. Nigeria was before now a regional setup.
We came to 12 states; we came to 19 states, and today we are 36 states. So what type of restructuring are we talking about, which the agitations are all angling for?
I don’t think the agitations should be angling towards separation, because separation may not be in the best interest of our Nigerian nation.
And am saying this because we are not too big to say cut us into pieces; we were smaller in states number, today we are 36 and even some are saying we need to be 50 states.
That is a part of restructuring quite alright and if we think that 36 states is small and that we need to go higher, that shouldn’t be a problem.
It’s just like I said earlier, when you are growing in life you attach with some people even in your sleep environment, till when you get to a point where you will be looking for one room, to where you are looking for two rooms;
then you progress to where you are looking for a flat; and sometimes, that may not be enough for you, you start looking for a full building or modern bungalow with all the facilities for you and family. That is restructuring.
But am thinking that if it’s agitation, that is also normal, because individually people can think of enhancement of themselves and that’s agitation.
A child that you kept sitting down for too long would want to adjust himself and when he starts crying that’s agitation because he wants you to bring him up to straighten his waist.
A son you sent on a message most of the time on foot, would one day say “Daddy, I need Okada money” because that’s simply an agitation that the trekking has become too much and he wants to relax his movement to make it shortened and more luxurious.
That’s agitation. Like you said, the Arewa youths agitating, the IPOB is agitating and others are agitating, then what are the agitations for?
Personally, am also agitating and let me say this that the cause of agitation is when one does not get what he is entitled to in a setting.
Myself am agitating because am from Ebonyi State and I was one of those in the state by all ramification; when Ebonyi State movement started then we were in Imo and when we came to Abia State, the movement became higher.
I donated my personal building and office in Umuahia to the use of Ebonyi State movement; we did those things and eventually we got the state.
And from the date till 1999, when we came into democratic setting and even when we were under military government of Walter Fergabor which was a little bit better, there is nothing I can say I have seen or gotten as a stakeholder in the state or benefit I have been given by the government.
So, am agitating. And if we say the cause of agitation is injustice, yes it could be justified and it should start from an individual to a group and before you talk about nationality.
Agitation is normal quite alright, but what am saying is that we should not be talking about the issue of segregation, separation or down-sizing the country.
Let’s talk about a system that will take care of everybody in terms of justice, equity and fair-play; a system where everybody gets what he wants;
let’s talk about a true federalism where things are done in the right way and it should not be a federal system operating in a military form or of course, operating in a military style.
For instance, today we say we are in democracy but in most cases we don’t see democracy in action. What we find is a sort of autocracy in action, where may be a governor of state would take decisions on his own and force them on others.
This kind of system cannot be said to be a democracy, where members of the state Houses of Assembly are shut-up and tightened for the interest of one person who is the governor of the state;
where the local government system is now bastardised in the name of joint accounts and allocations coming to local governments are not freely given to them.
At the state level, the government takes charge of it and baptises it, at its whims under joint accounts for what does not even benefit the grassroots that the allocations are meant for.
This calls for agitation. If Nigerians are sincere to themselves we should not even be talking about the issue of separation and wrong agitations as solutions to our problems.
We should start talking about how to address the massive grassroots injustices that is in our system, a system where people at the grassroots do not see the returns of the so called dividends of democracy applicable to them would not be seen to be a just system.
Nigerians should start their agitations from the 774 local governments in the country, because I don’t think there’s any local council today that can stand firm and say I am well treated on the issue of federal allocation.
A situation where you see a local government is given N100 million as allocation and it’s asked to come and take may be N2 million or N5 million as the case may be and the remainder goes to a clique that controls the allocation and nobody knows how it’s being expended. This warrants agitation.
The call for separation in Nigeria is not even the issue. The issue is let us as individuals search our conscience and see whether we are just with the position we find ourselves.
Leadership is a trust, a very big and senior trust; it’s not all about confiscating the people’s money and right into one person, family, or one clique or cabal.
It’s a system that warrants justice, fairness and equity because, it’s justice that breeds peace, it’s peace that breeds development and it’s development that breed good governance.
And when this is done I am sure nobody will be shouting that we need separation and all that, after all there are bigger countries than Nigeria; we have not seen them shout the way we are shouting.
So, to cut the issue short, I think the unity of Nigeria is not what anybody can say is not proper for us now, because we have seen some countries, let me take Sudan for instance; that said they were not treated fine and wants to go their separate ways.
And eventually Southern Sudan was created out of Sudan, today let us be sincere and say whether Southern Sudan is faring well, even up to half of what they were doing before that separation.
The thinking by some people that when they separate from Nigeria everything will be rosy and manna would be falling from heaven is a mirage.
It’s important that we all work together to see how we can make this country a better place, because I believe that the bigger we are, the merrier we become. Our people say unity is strength and team work is better than individual efforts.
Going by the economic situation of Nigerians, would you say the All Progressive Congress (APC) has done well to demand for a second chance in 2019?
Well, I know that every political party that comes into power has a manifesto to implement quite alright and I know before they came to where they are, they must have sold their manifestoes and agenda to the general public and so for instance in Nigeria, they must have sold it to Nigerians just to narrow it down.
The issue of recession we have just talked about would be part of the scorecards or scoreboard we are going to use to answer this poser that you have just put before us now.
And I want to believe that the present government has its own master-plan for Nigeria’s economic growth and like I have said they with three point agenda-fighting corruption, security and the enhancement of economic growth in the country.
So we can look at a practical demonstration and this not what I alone can decide, after all election is not won by an individual opinion.
It is the collective decision of Nigerians, since we are practising elective system that would say this person or government is qualified or not qualified to be.
I think we are not yet at that point because in politics which is not a very straightforward system, anything can be turned at any time to what you don’t expect, which is why we say politics is an act of possibilities.
We know that the government has not over spent its own time; it’s still working. They have spent two years plus and we are assessing them from that angle;
may be the time they come back and tell Nigerians that they want to continue, they will look at the scorecard properly and be in a position to ascertain whether they are capable of continuing or say there are areas they have not been able to justify their demand.
So, this exactly is what all Nigerians should be ready to do and like I said earlier, this is not the time; there is no politics on ground now.
Governance is going and Nigerians are assessing the situations, and the government on its own is preparing its scorecard; and Nigerians are also analysing the development here and there.
At the right time I know there will be a time when this question and answer will come up and Nigerians will be able to say to the government that you have been able to justify your demand to continue or we are in a position to tell you it’s payback time, whether negative or positive. That’s my take this.
You are a grassroots politician with both national and international clout, grit and experience. You have also contested for various political offices in the past. Tell us what your ambition is in 2019.
Thank you very for this, Nnachi. You see part of the problem we have in this country is a situation where credibility has being allowed to play or to operate in our governance system.
We may not go very far to see how we got it wrong, because I want to believe that the elongation of the military administration in Nigeria has also created a lacuna where certain things have happened wrongly and we are at the point of trying to correct it, although this is difficult now from 1999.
I have been a grassroots politician and before ever I started my academic journey, I have had the interest of the masses at heart and am a grassroots person.
I know the problems at the grassroots; I know their expectations; and that was why when I came into this country I decided that I needed an opportunity to show the people how they could be served using government apparatus.
Yes, I have tried to represent my people, not that my people rejected me, because I have been a very good candidate in all the elections I have contested;
but because there is a clique or cabal in our system that does not want the grassroots people to see beyond their nose or even to have their rights that are due to them.
The creation of the local government system by Gen. Badamosi Babangida (Rtd.) was a sort of bringing government closer to the people at the grassroots. But what are we seeing today?
Manipulation, exploitation, domination and diversion of local government allocations they because don’t want to tell themselves the truth.
So, I have been struggling to be given the mandate and as I said, not that the people don’t want me to represent them but because the interests that sabotage the masses’ interests are more because they look at people like us as having independent mind, not the mind of others in them that would dictate to them to do the wrong thing even when they don’t want to.
And at each of the elections that we participated, you find that conspiracy would come to play and they say if he goes there he is going to change the system for the better and this anti-people clique would be on the watch to ensure that the good material or candidate does not surface.
That is why Nigeria is still where it is till date and this has brought us back to where we are today. Actually, the government in place seems to be doing some work that we say they can justify their being there as a government.
Before now we know what our security situation was like in this country, but today it has changed to good and to better, if not best.
We also knew the level of corruption that has been endemic in the system, but today the government has been returning some of the stolen funds, even though they have not been able to convict and sent anybody to prison which is what everybody is expecting, so that it doesn’t look like you are recovering people’s money from the back door.
You need to charge the people and sentence them to serve as a deterrent to others, why there is need for them to be fair and just while in public offices and stop stealing.
And because of the level of corruption in our system those corruption perpetrators do not worth to be in the system; they will come up with all manners of gang-ups and sentiments to deny the political mandate because they know that when you come you are going to implement sanity in the system, not corruption which is endemic in their own minds.
In 2015, I aspired to be the governor of this state; because I have what I call the Ebonyi People’s Manifesto and we are coming on the platform of Ebonyi People Power Movement. There are certain things that we need in governance.
Quote
Governance is going and Nigerians are assessing the situations, and the government on its own is preparing its scorecard; and Nigerians are also analysing the development here and there. At the right time I know there will be a time when this question and answer will come up and Nigerians will be able to say to the government that you have been able to justify your demand to continue or we are in a position to tell you it’s payback time, whether negative or positive
Quote 2
The cause of agitation is injustice, yes it could be justified and it should start from an individual to a group and before you talk about nationality. Agitation is normal quite alright, but what am saying is that we should not be talking about the issue of segregation, separation or down-sizing the country. Let’s talk about a system that will take care of everybody in terms of justice, equity and fair-play; a system where everybody gets what he wants; let’s talk about a true federalism where things are done in the right way and it should not be a federal system operating in a military form
