Former Abia State governor, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, in this no-holds-barred interview, with Iheanacho Nwosu, speaks on the national question; Biafra agitation, call for restructuring and other issues. Excerpts:
What’s actually the cause of the growing agitations in the country?
Something is definitely wrong. I feel that Nigerians have gone a little bit crazy on issues that are not supposed to be; few politicians have used their background and contacts to polarise the country, which is not supposed to be but I have no apologies in what I am saying.
Few politicians, when it is good for them, they will preach religion; when it’s very good for them, they will preach ethnic group where they come just to win votes and it has sunk into our psyche. Since the return of democracy, you will see leaders, telling lies openly and people will be clapping for them and this has happened for almost 18 years or thereabout and you will see that people, who are now 18 years old have structured that as a way of life. You see betrayals here and there; you see people doing things that honestly are supposed to be antithetical and people are clapping and this is not the way we’re supposed to be.
So, we have all manner of fight; one is between the rich and the poor, the other fight is between religion and religion; the other fight is between tribes, the other fight is among the minorities or the majorities over who is fully hated by other parts of the nation, and this is not right.
Wherever you see the Igbo, somebody will tell you that you are Igbo, ‘why are you Igbo’ scornfully. It’s not right for a nation, it is not good for nation building and nation building takes time; it takes trust, compassion, tolerance, perseverance and other things to help in nation building. Nation building is not one-day affair.
Regarding those who are shouting restructuring, some of them might not even understand what they are looking for. I feel restructuring doesn’t mean dividing the country. Anybody who is talking about dividing the country or questioning the unity of Nigeria is mad; Nigeria should remain a very big country. In fact, if we have the opportunity, we should bring Equatorial Guinean, Chad and all the rest to be part of United States of Nigeria. So, we need it and nobody should think that we had fought the first civil war for nothing. I wouldn’t want to say publicly what Dim Odimegwu Ojukwu told me before he died, but I have him on tape; video and audio.
He fought the civil war; he succeeded in fighting for what he believed in, but you ask yourself, are we ready to do the same thing again? The answer is no. Now, what we have to do as Nigerian people is to fight economic war among ourselves, to put things in order for poor people, middle class people to enjoy; we should be busy building up millions of people from the lower class to the middle class, that is what we should be concerned about.
Some persons are saying, ‘go back to the region or make the state the federating unit’, which is constitutionally appropriate because what we are operating now is what I call a unitary democracy. To them, that is restructuring. Unless you remove these impediments, holding down our democracy, we cannot have true federalism. So, when they use the language restructuring, it becomes problem for people who actually want to stand by it. Restructuring ordinarily appears as if people are saying you must divide the country.
But, what we are saying is, go back to fiscal federalism. If we do that and feel the six geopolitical zones cannot meet what we are looking at, we will go back and see if we can make it eight to ten zones. Let me give you example, in Bende the Local Government, Abia State where I come from, many people from Alayi, Ozuitem, Igbere, Itumbuzor, Ugwueke, Ezeugwu, Umuhu speak Ibibio. So, how can an Edo man be a brother to an Ibibio, when we are their next door neigbour? The Ibibio man is my brother. So, we need to renegotiate the geopolitical zones to suit properly and then go fully for devolution of power at the centre. What they should have said is that they want regional government to come back without even saying they need restructuring.
I understand that there would be election in 2019, so all kinds of politicians are saying what they do not believe in; when it comes to doing what they had said; they would not be able to do it.
Does your idea of renegotiation include resource control because some northern elders say that their region is not yet developed to a level of devolution of resources?
If you want to practise democracy, as it is done; that is not unitary democracy, resource control is part of it. The problem we have is that we are not able to think out of the box. If I am allowed to make decisions, the North can produce more money than the oil; the North is feeding us; it’s just that people are not thinking about it. I went to school in Maiduguri; I know the amount of fish, beans, cow, onions and tomato that come out of that region. If properly harnessed, the North can feed the entire Africa; anybody telling you that the North is poor, it’s not true. They are taking it for granted. If there is peace and unity, if there is stability and security, the North can be the focal point.
People want to come from America; all parts of the world to see the Sahara desert; people want to come to our beaches. So, I don’t agree with them; it’s just that people are not thinking, people are not ready to say things the way it is. I believe that if the right investments are done and every part of the country starts producing, oil will be forgotten because agriculture will make money, I can tell you that, tourism will make money, manufacturing will make money.
If you are saying the North is disadvantaged, states which are producing can give 10 to 20 per cent to the disadvantaged states, as contribution for them to develop; it is possible.
So, the only way we can move this democracy and allow the masses to enjoy democracy is to go back to regional government. Sir Ahmadu Bello had a regional government and he was very successful. There was regional government under Chief Obafemi Awolowo and he was very successful. Chief M.I. Okpara also ran regional government very successfully. Sometimes, people ask me you were governor of Abia, why didn’t you build ingenuity of factories? Yes, it was because there was a unitary government when I was governor. Okpara used to borrow from Barclays Bank in London, from Bank of Canada, from Bank of Australia directly. I got a proposal to Federal Government under President Olusegun Obasanjo by the Israeli Bank to invest in agriculture, real estate, by today Abia State is not supposed to be touching federation account if they had done that in 1999. But we couldn’t because there was no sovereign guaranty for them to take from our state allocation.
These are features of unitary democracy and we should exit from it; this is the issue. I could have cultivated over 10 million pounds by this company and processed it and 10 million pounds in place could have been better than any crude oil.
So, the North can do groundnut; there are lots of mineral resources in the northern part of Nigeria that are untouched but people are not realising this; we need to go back to the drawing board. We are mismanaged and misrepresented by the oil boom. Our youths don’t think anything than coming to Abuja to live, or any other city. If we had gone back to agriculture like the Agric Minister, Chief Audu Ogbeh, is preaching today, urging people to go back to farm, we would not be where we are. It’s not caused by President Muhammadu Buhari, it’s not caused by anybody; it’s just caused by negligence of both the business class and the political class.
What you have explained is not what IPOB is clamouring for; they seem to be calling for secession. Did you get the message wrong?
IPOB has right to say whatever they want to do, but is what they are saying consistent with Nigerian constitution, the answer is no; there is no part of our constitution except you make a new law that has referendum, no part of our constitution has restructuring, unless we go back to the National Assembly to amend the constitution accepted by 24 state Houses of Assembly. So, if we don’t have those things, what to do is to go back to the National Assembly to say can you approve this to be able to do this or if we cannot do it, it’s to go in-house and take a clinical analysis of ourselves, all the states, Federal Government and everybody will go back and task ourselves on how to move forward.
Nobody can tell me that a country has no right to discuss; it is just that the president is not feeling well; if he is well, we would sit down and explain to the president why there should be a discussion by all nationalities.
There was the 2014 National Confab and even others before it. Are we not talking too much in Nigeria?
We will talk more and we will implement it because I want us to have sincere talk; not political talk. I congratulated those who sat before to talk; it is always good to talk because when you are talking, there would be peace; it is when you block communication that people will say ok, we’d rather carry arms. People like IPOB are young people; they never saw the civil war, they didn’t hear about the war and they did not think about the war and they do not understand the sound of the gun. They were there when we were governors, Sam Egwu, Chris Ngige, Achike Udenwa and I, we were able to control them because we came together and said no, this cannot happen in our region and we were able to control Uwazuruike and his MASSOB. We were able to put them in check in Abia. I used to tell them you can carry your flag, you can be here but the moment you cross this line I will come after you because nobody can put a state to stop because he is saying he wants secession. They have the right to agitate but not to disrupt business. They used to carry their flags and come in good numbers to the Enyimba Stadium, they would sit quietly with their Biafra flag and I would come and wave to them and go but going to stop people, who are doing legitimate business in our region, going to stop Cameroonians, stop Chadians, stop people coming from Niger and everything, that is where I never agreed with them and I will never agree on that.
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