Moses Iloh, a cleric, political commentator and social critic is the founder of Soul Winning Chapel in Yaba, Lagos. In this interview, he speaks on issues as they affect the polity. PATRICK OKOHUE reports.
Nigeria recently marked 57th year of its independence, how will you describe Nigeria at 57?
Nigeria at 57 is a country that has refused to put itself together and move forward. Nigeria for me is a county of plenty and so whenever you have people with plenty they are always lazy, they are usually fraudulent and careless.
And that is what has been harassing Nigeria. Unfortunately nobody has taken time to see it so, this is where Nigeria is today.
Nigeria could have been far better in Africa at least. It has been so blessed in everything, but it is very easy to steal and make money and so nobody cares. Nigeria is a blessed country; everything in this country is blessed.
Despite the blessings by the Almighty God, what is the problem hindering the country from moving to its rightful place?
Nigeria’s problem is bad leadership, poor leadership. Once the leadership is poor and is not intelligent, not organized, there is little or nothing you can do.
What then is the way forward?
Well, few things. Right now we have tried military rule, civil rule and these didn’t take us anywhere. We have tried everything we can and it is not really working out. And for some reasons, one thing that is bedeviling the country is corruption and fraud.
That is where you see the brilliance of a Nigerian. Even in the churches now there is fraud and corruption. So anywhere Nigeria wants to go forward, they introduce fraud and corruption.
So, I think what we can do is to get ourselves to a county where your sex is not vital to who you are. We don’t care about the word religion, it is nothing to us. It is what you manifest that indicates who you are, not the name of your religion.
If we remove sex, religion and we do not mention the word tribe, things will be better. All these things should be played down, we don’t need them.
How can you be in a country that want to move forward and you are giving a form, where you even fill your local government, that is fraud.
It shows that the form is so designed for fraud, there is a particular local government you want to treat better than the other.
There should be no tribe, no sex, no religion, these are all things that put us apart and therefore should be removed. You are a Nigerian, that should be all.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has saddled itself with the task of fighting corruption. As a demonstration of that, the President few days ago sacked Lawal Babachir as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and also sacked the Director of Nigeria Intelligence Agency, Mr. Ayo Oke. How do you see this development?
It is a thing he knows he should have done, it is a thing he can do and he has done.
I suspect and I keep on suspecting that the very brilliant and clever Nigerians around Buhari have used the word democracy to tie Buhari.
Whatever he wants to do he is under the fear that if you do this it is anti-democracy and the National Assembly will impeach you. So instead of being impeached or messed around with, he has just been doing what is right by keeping silent.
He wouldn’t do it, though he knows if he does it, it will be very good, but he won’t do it because everybody is telling him they would impeach him.
He was never a civilian leader before and Nigerians know that as Buhari keeps going to arrest the corrupt people, it will come back to them, especially those that are corrupt and are in his team or in his party.
So, even people in APC are doing everything to make sure that Buhari does not succeed, so that he doesn’t turn the barrel on them. So it has been very tough for him and what does he do, he is trying and we see how it goes.
You know to fight corruption in Nigeria is a battle that should be fought by Nigerians.
You know corruption is so powerful, corruption is spiritual, it is demonic and destructive.
There is nothing good about corruption and no man can stand up and say he wants to fight corruption, because the man who is helping you in fighting it some profits will come to him and he is happy that something is coming out of the fight against corruption, so he will not help you to fight it, he would find a way to shoot you at the back.
Fighting corruption is possible, but it must be holistic, I used the word ‘holistic’ not in the method, but by the people who are fighting corruption.
If you want to fight corruption Nigeria, you must return Moral Instruction to its school syllabus.
I am not saying religion. Teach them the right way to sit, right way to eat, right way to speak to elders, you grow up with it. The Nigerian youths today are not well trained at all.
What is your assessment of the Buhari administration?
I supported Buhari 100 per cent when he was coming in because I know who Buhari is and my hope was to see him set up a Buhari/Idiagbon in a civilian clothing and Nigeria will be what God wants it to be.
Unfortunately he doesn’t have an Idiagbon, so he is trying, but as he is trying one thing you should know is that those who put Buhari there most of them are corrupt, so they can’t trust him.
If they support him to fight corruption, they should be ready; it would be their turn because they are corrupt also. So, it has not been a team work. It is a leadership that is surrounded with suspicion.
So it has been forward and backward, it has not been easy for him and it will be difficult for him to do what he did under the military regime.
But having said that, he has done one great job, he has exposed corruption that is different from fighting it. So he has done very well, he doesn’t have to kill everybody for him to be seen as fighting corruption.
But it should be recorded that Buhari has exposed corruption in Nigeria. So if we tactically and fully work together, we will limit the growth of corruption and with time, corruption will shrink.
Some people are already urging Buhari to go for a second term though he is still midway in his first term, what is your take on this?
I support him going for a second term. If you don’t want him for a second term, who are you going to put, any other likely person has tasted corruption.
So he should go for a second term to allow people to be ready and know that corruption can be stopped. We can’t kill it but we can tame it, corruption should be tamed. You see, you need to support Buhari.
Many people believe that the agitation in the country and the call for restructuring can be resolved through the implementation of the decisions of the last National Conference, what is your opinion on this?
As far as I am concerned, if we are serious about restructuring it should not be a juju matter. You need to come out with your restructuring plan, make it as clear and as simple as possible.
Put it in all the newspapers, make them available in different languages, allow people to study them. Then have different conferences at different levels, let the people look at what they are going into.
Only a fool will follow you if he didn’t know what you are trying to do. So restructuring is good, it is a wise thing to think about, but what is the shape and form of the restructuring you are producing.
You said earlier that moral decadence is prevalent among the youths, what are the churches doing in this regard?
The churches are making the situation worse. The church today is not what the church should be and so the church today cannot save Nigeria.
The church today is one of the problems of Nigeria. I think the church has lost its purpose, lost its texture. The pastor of the church today is competing with the Managing Director of NNPC.
The church in Nigeria has lost its purpose, lost its meaning, and lost its mission. It is rotten and we need revolution to clean the rubbish.
I know you are one of admirers of the former Lagos State governor, Mr Raji Fashola (SAN), how will you rate the performance of his successor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode?
What I will say is that he can be called a sanitary inspector. He wants to see a clean, healthy Lagos and that is good. That means inside him there is cleanliness.
So I expect much from him because he is trying to continue what Fashola did to make Lagos clean, then my prayer is may God help him to manifest what is inside him that Lagos will be clean in character, clean in mode of living, let fraud roll down. So, for Ambode, so far so good.
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I support him going for a second term. If you don’t want him for a second term, who are you going to put, any other likely person has tasted corruption. So he should go for a second term to allow people to be ready and know that corruption can be stopped. We can’t kill it but we can tame it, corruption should be tamed. You see, you need to support Buhari.
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