
CALABAR-LAGOS HIGHWAY PROJECT, A DISTRACTION – IHECHUKWU MADUBUIKE
Scholar, author of “Nigeria and the Lugardian Hubris”, and two-time Minister, Prof Ihechukwu Madubuike, in this interview with Sunday Sun, assessed the one year of the Tinubu Presidency, rating his performance low.
He also looked at the continued incarceration of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway, state police controversy, restructuring and the Governor Alex Otti leadership in Abia State, among others. Excerpt:
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway is generating huge controversy in terms of demolitions and all it will deprive the affected people. What do you think about the project?
The Calabar-Lagos highway project is a distraction. It looks like a highway to nowhere. In politics everything may look probable, but not everything is acceptable. Politics, responsible politics, I mean should be a moral vocation, tracking always some value addition. There is a Lagos to Calabar Railway project announced by the APC administration with all the necessary aplomb. Where is it? I think this administration should first complete that project before it begins a new road project. Let the administration begin it from the Calabar end.
The Southeast economy is being gradually destroyed due to sit-at-home directive. As a strong voice from the zone, what do you think should be done to tackle the issue?
It is a bad situation. Sit-at-home is a situation that does no good to anybody. We need to promote free discussions and increased communications and understanding, between the governed and the leadership at all levels of the polity. Fundamental rights are constitutive, difficult to do without. They are the backbone to freedom and development. Yet, sometimes, discretion, it is said, is the better part of valour. Governance should not be a war between the governed (the weaker body) and the governor (the father). What would the government lose if Nnamdi Kanu is released as a peace gesture, to assuage the agitation of those driving the sit-at-home agenda? It goes beyond pride. An eye, for an eye leaves the world blind. The continued confinement of Mr Kanu seems contrived, as at each turn, the government would adduce a new reason for his incarceration.
At this time of anomie and increased insecurity, Nigeria should rally round to promote peace, reduce poverty and increase productivity. All over, if the release of Nnamdi Kanu, a solitary figure, is part of the panacea , and I believe it is, let it be done. We in the East so demand. The poverty in the Southeast does not and will not increase the wealth of Nigeria. It rather increases Nigeria’s poverty index, and there is a link between poverty and insecurity.
It has consequences which are not in the national interest. Government should release Nnamdi Kanu, at least, to his Local Government, in the first instance and monitor his behaviour. It was done to some politicians of the Second Republic. I was detained in Kirikiri Prison in 1984, with some of them, following the overthrow of the then newly elected Shagari government.
After interrogations both at the federal and state levels, I was asked to go. I know what a day’s deprivation of freedom can do to the psyche and personality of a person. (And nobody has told me why I should be in detention because I served in the governments of the time). Some courts of competent jurisdiction have found Nnamdi Kanu not guilty as alleged by the prosecutors, in all matters particular and have not labelled him an incorrigible or irredeemable person.
Rather, at almost each trial new charges are thrown up against him, giving the impression that the traducers are bent on keeping him perpetually incarcerated. There are persons who have been charged and accused of treasonable felony in this country and have been unconditionally released. What is the difference between them and Nnamdi Kanu? We still have the nolle prosequi as part of our legal process.
Now that the issue of State Police is generating serious concern at the National Assembly, do you think it will provide the needed solution to the present state of insecurity if adopted?
Nigeria cannot constantly be glued to the past and its mistakes and hope to build a prosperous ranking community. We must think ahead as other developed and developing countries are doing. The fact is that the past has not served us well in the arena of securing ourselves and our commonwealth. Part of our patrimony is in the hands of the enemies of society and we must restore the integrity of the state. There are nation builders and there are nation destroyers, and they are all within us.
The present security architecture has not worked, is not working and only fools take recourse in anachronism. State Police is necessary to contain countrywide insecurity and violence. State Police will increase safety and reduce insecurity. Governors, some of them, may think that because they control the instrument of public and private safety in their states that they are forever immune from insecurity and accountability. That’s shallow, for security is an existential challenge that confronts the mighty and the low. Their security is only for a while, and events and arrests and interrogations by the EFCC, are useful lessons.
State Police is part of the silver bullet that ensures that we and all of us can move around with confidence; that we are protected by an additional security agency that knows our environment, its nooks and crannies.
Governors do not only have themselves to protect; they have also, their sisters, friends, brothers, in-laws, supporters in the general insecurity basket. A majority of these folks do not travel or move around with bullet-proof vehicles. The self- serving governors, who may be against novelty cannot continually, we believe, be cutting their noses in order to spite their faces because of a vengeful instinct to retain power.
The fact also is that eight years in power should not be enough reason to stop us from taking necessary steps that will protect ourselves, even if it is for one day. They die twice, who fear to die. As we debate and procrastinate many of our country men are killed, kidnapped, raped daily, even in areas we think are sacrosanct.
Why is there so much hardship in the land contrary to expectation of Nigerians that President Tinubu’s presidency cannot be worse than the Buhari era?
The APC is still the party in power and the present administration is its offshoot. President Tinubu promised to continue with the policies of that administration, that inflicted untold hardships on our people. Being an offshoot of that administration, one should not be unduly optimistic about substantial changes.
But as an administration of ”hope renewed”, the president should chart a different part of redemption. The phrase implies a departure, and President Tinubu should change the gear and the content. The suffering is too much. Government must not see itself as always against the genuine interests of the people, even if it is perceived to favour some of the people for ethnic and chauvinistic reasons. Buhari’s administration openly and unapologetically did so. It must also not take the resilience of our people as a sign of permanent weakness.
Tinubu must fight against incestuous party terrorism, the way he did under NADECO. When he was the governor of Lagos State, I, in the company of the Senator Chuba Okadigbo led a team, set up then by the Senate to locate the causes of insurrections and social discontent and dislocation in Nigeria, and make recommendations for their harmonious resolutions, visited him. The governor of Lagos was more than willing to lend a helping hand. There cannot be a more appropriate time.
The President Bola Tinubu-led government will this month clock one year in office. So far, so what, in your assessment?
There is nothing magical about one year or hundred years in office. Performance is not time bound. It is not a journey. It is a destination. Yet a journey of a hundred years begins with a first step. President Tinubu began with a misstep – the announcement of the subsidy removal, even before his inauguration. That has hunted his administration and his style till now. He has not publicly told us he has recanted the subsidy regime.
The situation is worse than what he inherited and there are no policy directives to tell us what has replaced that regime. Communication is important in governance. Telling the populace the truth increases trust and public confidence. Today, many families can hardly eat three square meals a day nor sleep with eyes closed. Inflation rate at 33.9 per cent is said to be the highest in over 28 years.
Manufacturing companies, or what is left of them are shutting down, with some industries relocating to other countries. Unemployment is increasing with many Nigerians fleeing the country with consequent brain drain. We are still walking the tight rope economically speaking. Development goes where there are talents and merits appreciated.
It is time to restructure this country, going forward. We need a better structure that will lead to a better society, self-apprehension and better system of governance. We have never faired well with this system of governance with all the imbedded banana peels.
Therefore, it may not be with Tinubu, even though he knowingly applied for the job. We are under system capture – a system of purposeful corruption, where public policies are not directed for the interest of the people – at least not for all, an Emilokan sort of.
How will you assess the performance of Governor Alex Otti, your state governor?
Governor Alex Chioma Otti is doing well so far and we all wish him well. May his shadows never grow less as he continues with his people oriented projects and policies.
In one of your interviews you condemned certain reactions coming out from President Tinubu’s inner quarters…?
(Cuts in) Ahmed Tinubu presented himself to the Nigerian electorate for election as our president based on his personal qualifications. We did not vote for members of his family who appear now to be helping him through public statements that strike directly at the sensibilities of the Nigerian public.
They should keep their know-how in public affairs to themselves. If they want to run for public office they should wait till their father’s tenure ends. They can then present themselves for election. That is the civilized practice and has been followed in some civilized climes, like India and Canada. Pierre Elliot Trudeau was a four-term Prime Minister of Canada. His family members supported him quietly, until he quit office. Then stepped in his son, Justin, who is the 25th Prime Minister of Canada, and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, since 2013, two years before his election in 2015. He climbed the political ladder as a member of Parliament and knew the party values. India, an older democracy had the same example through what may be called the Gandi dynasty.Leadership does not come about through imposing oneself to the public nor done through a sense of entitlement. It is a learned process, and comes through a democratic process as enshrined in our constitution.