Former president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr. Festus Iyayi, says President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration has no clear programme of action to develop the country.

Speaking with Daily Sun in Benin, Dr. Iyayi, an author and social crusader, observed that more than a year after the administration has taken over, Nigerians “do not know the direction in which it is going and so you can’t talk about measuring anything.”
According to him, the Seven-point agenda of president Yar’Adua amounts to nothing. His words: “There’s nothing there. There is absolutely nothing there,” the University of Benin don told Daily Sun.

Commenting on the administration’s war against corruption, the ASUU former president said President Yar’Adua like the former president Olusegun Obasanjo and, indeed, the Nigerian ruling class lacked the orientation and the commitment to end corruption in the country.
“In fact, the ruling class is founded upon corruption. It thrives on corruption. If you kill corruption, this ruling class will die. So, it cannot end corruption. It is impossible,” Dr. Iyayi said.
Dr. Iyayi spoke extensively on the problem of the Niger Delta and identified the problem as a creation of successive Federal Governments, which defined the Niger Delta question as a security problem rather than a political problem, arising from inequity and injustice formed around the relations in oil and gas exploitation and allocation of revenues flowing from the region.

“So, the Niger Delta problem is one that has been created by the specific understanding of the Nigerian state about the problem in the Niger Delta and, of course, that understanding is shared by the oil companies because the oil companies collaborate very closely with the Nigerian state in everything that the Nigerian state does,” he said.

To resolve the problem of the Niger Delta, Dr. Iyayi called for a change of mind-set by both the Federal Government and the people of the oil-rich region, assuring that those who had criminalized the Niger Delta struggle would be dealt with by the people themselves once they were convinced by the Federal Government’s readiness to tackle the problem as a political one.
He condemned calls for resource control, saying that resources from the Niger Delta must be used to develop all parts of the country, even as he called for equity in resource allocation.
In his view, the outcome of such a summit would reduce the plethora of voices who claim to be speaking for the Niger Delta, just as demands arrived at during the summit should be presented to the Federal Government for negotiated settlement.

The full interview below:
What is your assessment of the Yar’Adua administration one year after?
Honestly, frankly speaking, what I know about governments that do well is that they have a strategic plan. They don’t talk about a seven-point agenda or a two-point agenda. They have a strategic plan with a clear vision for the country that they follow and then they have indices for measuring progress towards the goals that they have established.

When you talk about this administration, I am not familiar with what it has set out to achieve. Even if you say power generation, what is the target? Are we saying that by the year 2010, we’ll be generating 6,000, 10,000 megawatts of electricity? Or is it that by the year 2010, the probe of the power sector will be completed? or that by 2010, there will be an emergency declared in the power sector? So, for you to be able to evaluate the performance of a government and talk about the speed with which it is moving, there should be a clear vision, there should be a clear programme of action. That is not before us, so that we can actually say that more than a year after, the government has taken over, we really do not know the direction in which it is going and so you can’t talk about measuring anything.

In other words, to you, Yar’Adua’s seven-point agenda…
There’s nothing there. There’s absolutely nothing there.

With specific reference, what is your view about the administration’s war against corruption?
Again, when you talk about the fight against corruption, it’s like I read the newspapers and I hear talks about Ribadu being demoted, Bode George being arrested, Ibori being released, Igbinedion being released, in fact they are on holidays in the Bahamas or wherever.
And the idea that people raised is that maybe the anti-corruption campaign of the last administration is being abandoned by the current administration or maybe those who were favorites in the past administration are now the enemies in the current administration. I believe that that is a totally wrong way of looking at what is going on in the country. If you want to understand what is going on, we must look at the issue of class politics in Nigeria.

We are dealing with a group of people, members of the ruling class who are divided along ethnic lines, along religious lines and along economic lines.
If you look at it from that perspective, then the question of corruption also falls into place. I have done a lot of work on corruption. Corruption is the principal means in Nigeria by which members of Nigeria’s ruling class are acquiring their economic position because when the British left, there was no indigenous ruling class in Nigeria and as at now, there’s no… When you say private sector in Nigeria, there’s no private sector as such. What you have is a foreign-led, foreign-dominated private sector.
Nigerians wanted to own part of the private sector, to have businesses but by the time the British left, there wasn’t a Nigerian businessman as such, because the British took over control of the whole economy and what Nigerian class has done since independence, they have used the political power that they had to steal public funds. That’s what they have been doing and so political power is converted to economic power.

Unfortunately for them, because of the fight between among sections of the ruling class, you find that when one wing takes over, removes another one, it then probes the one that it removed and so, the probes normally will become matters of public concern.
And so, the ruling class as a whole is not interested in fighting corruption. What they are interested in is who gets what? Why should what that faction of the ruling class got be more than mine? That’s what they are fighting over, not that they should end corruption. Neither Obasanjo nor Yar’Adua is interested in ending corruption in Nigeria. That is the truth of the matter. They cannot end it. They do not have the orientation to end it. They do not have the attitude that is required for ending it. They do not have the political commitment required for ending it. They do not have the base, the mass support of the country for ending it because the proceeds of corruption also benefit people who are outside. A lot of the money goes outside, so they are available in other economies.

And so, the foreign businesses that come here, that collaborate with Nigerians who steal money are linked to powerful forces in the Western world. They want the process to continue. So, they are not interested in ending corruption. But what is important is that a semblance of an anti-corruption fight is given to the people, so that people believe that this is going on. They are members of the same class. That’s why when I hear people say look why should Ribadu be removed? Why should this woman be appointed? Why should that one happen? They are raising the wrong questions.

So, people are saying Ribadu should not be demoted. It is an intra-class fight. They are fighting for control of the state apparatus, so that they have access to the resources of the country, so they can steal more. The fight is not about ending corruption, it’s a fight about who gets what. That’s what the whole fight is about. So, we should not be confused at all. If Yar’Adua goes and another government takes over, people like Olabode George will become heroes just like people like Ibori now are heroes. That’s what will happen. People are not interested in fighting corruption at all.

In fact, the ruling class is founded upon corruption. It thrives on corruption. If you kill corruption, this ruling class will die. So, it cannot end corruption. It is impossible.
The point I am making is this, what is happening in the country right now is this. For us who are concerned, committed to the progress of Nigeria and Nigerians, the only advantage in what we see in terms of what’s going on, in terms of the probes going on, removal of Ribadu, appointment of this and that, is that it is revealing to us a lot of information about how members of the ruling class steal, the power sector probe even now I read on the front page, how N80 billion worth of contracts were awarded in the NPA probe, how wives of two former heads of state were involved, how Olabode George awarded 2,400 contracts while he was there in office.
So, Ribadu and co, yes they belong to different wings of the ruling class and they are fighting one another. The public is getting to see the fight. Anybody wise enough should know that following these people is going to lead to perdition, they won’t end up anywhere.

So, what is the way out?
The way out is this; there are other forces. You have the Labour Party that is there but is weak. You have other parties like the National Conscience Party, you have PRP, they are there. You have other progressive forces in Nigeria who are genuine forces, even among professionals, who are interested in the fate of Nigeria. Those forces need to come together. They need to come together as many of them as possible, need to come together under one political movement or platform to rescue Nigeria from this group of toilet flies. That is what is needed. If that is not done, I can assure you… in Latin America many of them there, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina. They have been there for the last three, four hundred years going through the same motions, no way out. Nigeria would be like that. We won’t get anywhere unless there’s radical transformation of the society, rescue it from these people and so, that’s why I am saying that the probes going on should help Nigerians see clearly, that nothing can be done or achieved through these people. It is impossible.

When Babangida was there, in fact, starting with Shagari, people said this was the worst government. Buhari came, they said oh! This was worse than Shagari. Babangida came, they said this is worse than Buhari. Then Abacha came they said this is worse than Babangida and then Obasanjo came and they said oh! This is worse than Abacha and now we have a Yar’Adua and the build up is that by the time he is leaving they would say he was worse than Obasanjo.

This privatization programme that the government did, Obasanjo just gave out state property to his friends at nothing at all. If you go to Britain there is a ruling class, there is a capitalist class, America has a capitalist class, Japan has a capitalist class, India has a capitalist class. What do they do? They build enterprises. They build organizations. They produce things that people want. That class does not exist in Nigeria. What you have are public servants, politicians who steal government money. They are not entrepreneurs and because they are not entrepreneurs they are not creative. They do not even know how to apply that money. They take that money out. So, they don’t have a clue about what to do to make the country better.

They are hedonistic; they take pleasure travelling, building houses, buying houses, marrying women. Those are the kinds of things that they are interested in, going to parties
When I went to Seoul, South Korea, I saw the Koreans tunneling through a mountain, building a train line, through a mountain, tunneling, blasting rocks, to build a tunnel through the mountain, South Koreans, not Americans. That’s what happens in other places where you have a ruling class that is interested in developing the country. These people are not interested in that. They are not interested in building a Nigerian car, they are not interested in building a Nigerian train, they are not interested in doing anything that will be the best in the world, no. They are in the toilet of their own greed. So, they can’t get anything out. Anybody who counts on them is a fool!

Since the Willinks Commission report on Niger Delta was made in 1958, successive governments have made it an issue, yet none has delivered on promises to develop the area. What do you think is wrong?
In fact, my book on the Niger Delta has just been released and before the book was released I have had some further rethink on the problems of the Niger Delta. The problem with the Niger Delta is that initially during the struggles in the 50s, people were saying the Ijaws presented their memoranda to the Willinks Commission, the Itsekiris did and all of that and they say let us have our own economic, political regions, let us have autonomy and Willinks said no. Look, the terrain is very difficult, so let them be part of a larger unit called Western Region.

So, that is what happened. And then after that, of course, you know that in 1956 they discovered oil near Oloibiri and then they continued with the extraction until oil became a major source of revenue. When that happened, Isaac Adaka Boro and others said, look, we should have a state. In fact, he got the Niger Delta Volunteer Force to fight for our own independence. The struggle then started. It started for the development of the Niger Delta because the Niger Delta peoples were underdeveloped. The resources coming from the Niger Delta were being appropriated by members of the ruling-class outside of the Niger Delta and also within the Niger Delta for their own purposes, not even for the development of Nigeria. They are not using the money to develop Nigeria. They are using the money for themselves and so, the struggle then started that look like: let us have resources that belong to the people used for the development of the people.

Of course, the effort was beaten down. Isaac Adaka Boro and his people were captured, they were sentenced to death but then because of the coup that took place in January 1966, they were then pardoned. Isaac Adaka Boro went and fought and then died in that war. We know what happened.
But from that time onward, the Nigerian state instead of defining the Niger Delta problem as a political one, a problem of underdevelopment, equity, a problem of injustice, in the relations formed around oil extraction activities, the Nigerian state defined it as a security problem.

They didn’t see it in the way the Niger Delta people saw it, that look, resources come from my area but we are very poor, we are uneducated, we do not have jobs, there’s no electricity in our area, there are no roads in our villages, we use canoes and boats to get to our homes, our rivers are getting polluted, our streams are polluted, because of the problems of the indiscriminate way in which oil companies are operating salt water and fresh water are mixing, fishes are dying. Something must be done. They did not understand it. They refused to understand it. They said it was a security problem because the people in Niger Delta first of all started by writing petitions.

From petitions, they started going on demonstrations, they would seize flow stations and demonstrate and then release them. They said no, it was a security problem. On that basis, especially beginning with Babangida. Babangida said they had to garrison the Niger Delta. After discussions with the managing director of Shell in Nigeria, he decided that they were going to garrison the Niger Delta. Horsfall, who was head of Nigeria Security Organization (NSO) at the time, said the head of Shell came into his office with maps of the Niger Delta, showing where the military was going to locate its facilities, and he said to the Shell man, look, the problem in the Niger Delta is not a security one, it’s a development one, let us go back to the head of state.

So, he then went back to see Babangida, who then set up Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) and made him, Horsfall, the head. It did not stop Babangida from the garrison agenda. They introduced the military, they introduced policemen and all of them to beat down the resistance of the people and that has happened since. And that is why in 2008, in the budget that was approved, the N444 billion appropriated for the Niger Delta is called a security budget; it is not a development budget.

So, the government defines the problem of the Niger Delta as a security problem, that the Niger Delta people are resisting the effort of the oil companies to extract oil, so that they can “have revenues” to develop Nigeria. Not really development, but to share. That’s what they are doing.
So, the Niger Delta problem is one that has been created by the specific understanding of the Nigerian state about the problem in the Niger Delta and, of course, that understanding is shared by the oil companies because the oil companies collaborate very closely with the Nigerian state in everything that the Nigerian state does.

I was at the trial of Ken Saro Wiwa in Port Harcourt. I visited Ken Saro Wiwa in jail, while he was there at the military barracks and I know the discussion that we had. Shell was present at the trial of Ken Saro Wiwa. They were there; they provided information to the government. So, Shell has had and other companies, Mobil and all of them, had an interest in securing the Niger Delta through providing support, security, military, intelligence support to the Nigerian Army and other security forces.
And recently, Yar’Adua went to the UK. He negotiated for the British soldiers to come and fight in the Niger Delta. He also negotiated with American soldiers to come and fight in the Niger Delta, but then, the 100 American soldiers that came are located in Abuja and they say that they are training Nigerian troops about how to use certain equipment in communications and other military equipment.

So, the definition is in terms of security. They do not see the injustice in the relations because all of them are blinded by the amount of oil that is gushing out, amount of money that is realized from the oil and, of course, their foreign masters are telling them if one barrel of oil is short that affects our economy. They are more interested in developing the American economy than developing the Nigerian economy. America is pushing them, Britain is pushing them and they gladly do what those people want.
The European Union did a study in which I participated. A study of how effective micro credit scheme that they were involved in Niger Delta has been. What did the study find, my own study found that the micro credit scheme collapsed because the monies provided to the farmers, first, were small, N20,000, N30,000. When they were applied in buying things for planting they didn’t germinate because the soils have been heavily polluted.

So, you can’t farm in marshy areas of the Niger Delta and so if you have a mind-set that says that the problem of the Niger Delta is one of development, one of injustice in the relations formed in these areas, you would have a different approach, you will understand why the people are fighting. You will also deal with forces inside the Niger Delta that are taking advantage of the struggles going on there now because the people themselves, once they understand that you are on their side, they will deal with those forces by themselves.
There are many criminals in the Niger Delta who are taking advantage of the genuine and legitimate struggles of the people there for equity. But you see the Nigerian government by defining it as a security problem is drawing the criminals into collaboration with those who are genuinely fighting, making it impossible for those people to say these are not part and parcel of what we are doing because if they define it as a political problem, they would call these groups and say look: let us have a genuine plan, agreement for developing the Niger Delta, let us have a cease-fire in the Niger Delta so that would remove soldiers from the land; just like you have policemen everywhere, let’s have policemen in the Niger Delta just like you have in other parts of the country.

We won’t have soldiers there, we won’t have militarized atmosphere, women would not be raped. Odi was razed to the ground. A few days ago, Agge, another community, was razed to the ground. Those kind of things will not happen because they will be talking to people and they will be showing that they have an interest in dealing with the problem of injustice.
So, the point I am making is this, the Nigerian government needs a different mind-set. It needs to say look, the problem of the Niger Delta is not a security one. Why is there security problem in the Niger Delta? It should ask that. The people are resisting the operations of the oil companies. They are resisting the operation of the oil companies because there are disadvantages; there is injustice in what is going on. Why is there injustice? When they ask questions like that they would come to the root of the matter. They would then know what to do. If they did that, there will be a different atmosphere in the Niger Delta.

I have advised that, look, what the people of the Niger Delta need to do is to agree among themselves what their minimal demands are because right now many groups, many voices claim to speak for the Niger Delta. Many of the groups have very valid points, but the points are very different, taking each of the groups. And the differences can also be seen in the competition among the different ethnic groups, competition that is also anchored upon conflicts that have been engineered both within and outside the communities.

So, let the people of the Niger Delta have what I call a regional summit of the Niger Delta peoples. The regional summit should then discuss what the demands of the Niger Delta are, harmonize them, take all the reports that have come together on the Niger Delta, harmonize them into log of demands.
Then when they have their log of demands, they can then present the log of demands to the Federal Government. The Federal Government would then raise a panel that would then negotiate with the people of the Niger Delta because not all those demands may be acceptable, they will be negotiated.

People have said look, the revenues that flow from oil let it go to the host communities. I disagree with that. Which host communities? The fact that oil is being tapped there doesn’t mean that the oil comes from there. It may come from different parts of the communities in the Niger Delta and if the money goes there, how will the money be shared? What will the money be used for? We should think in terms of development like Abuja was developed. That’s how we should think about the Niger Delta. So that if the money becomes available we can say, yes, we would use this money for the development of the Niger Delta, not that it should go to the communities.

Other parts of Nigeria, Maiduguri, Yola, they have rights to the resources, that flow from the Niger Delta. We are one country. We cannot say because we have resources in the Niger Delta, it must be used solely for the Niger Delta. Other parts of the country must share in the blessings as well as curse of the Niger Delta. They must share in it. But the formula for sharing has to be equitable, so that it leads to development in all parts of the country. So, there are no conflicts between certain parts and others. If the Niger Delta is developing and other parts are not developing there will be conflict.

So, we should use resources in such a way that all parts of the country develop, so that people are also encouraged to develop the resources they have in their areas.
What you are saying now, does it not negate Niger Delta peoples demand for resource control?
I am from the Niger Delta, and I have told them that, look, it is not right. Resource control is not the answer. Why are you calling for resource control? You are calling for resource control because there is inequity in the distribution. If there is equity in the distribution and allocation of the resources, there will be no calls for resource control.

By resource control, you control the resources, say okay, the state, the community. Some members of the community will seize those resources and others will also be marginalized. So, there must be justice, there must be laws, there must be norms, there must be values that are in place that encourage people to see that things must be used for the advantage and benefit of all. If that is done, there will be no problem.
Even the 13 per cent that goes to the Niger Delta now, the governors seize the money and steal it. That’s what the governors do. It is not used for the people. So, the politics of allocation must be based upon justice. If that is not the case, the conflict will be there. Alamieyesiagha and all the people from the Niger Delta, the members of the ruling class who are there, they don’t think about the indigenes of the Niger Delta. They don’t think about them just like the people from other parts of the country do not think about them.

If you go to Bayelsa, Yenagoa, see the house that Alamieyesiagha was building, huge palace and see the huts next door, see the poverty next door. He is not thinking about the people of the Niger Delta, he is thinking about himself. Members of the ruling class think of themselves first.
So, I am saying that Nigeria government must change its mind in the way it defines and understand the problem of the Niger Delta. It’s not a security problem. It’s a problem of justice and, therefore, it’s a political one.

Two, the Niger Delta people themselves also need some change in mind-set. This idea that resource control, resource control, has to be understood as occurring within a context in which they are not deriving any benefits, in which this injustice exist and so if there is justice, there will be no need for that kind of resource control. Third, the cacophony of voices that currently speak for the Niger Delta need to come together. It’s a difficult process but I believe that with patience, it can be achieved.
And then fourth, the genuine forces fighting in Niger Delta must also learn to separate themselves from those criminal forces that are lending the struggle they are involved in a bad name. But that will happen to the extent that the government changes its mind-set because they are all related. One cannot happen without the other and there must be a cease-fire in the Niger Delta.

I have also argued that the government must offer an unreserved apology to the people of Ogoni, to the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other members of Ogoni who were murdered by Abacha. They must be buried properly and they must be paid reparations for what happened to them. Those things must happen.
For Odi, reparations must be paid to the people and an apology must be rendered and now Agge, the same thing must happen and also Zak-Ibiam.
We must learn to live as a civilized people in a world that is becoming more and more competitive. People say that one out of every five black persons is a Nigerian. Nigeria carries with it the weight of the history of the Blackman. If Nigeria cannot make it, the blackman will not make it, and so we have a historical duty to show examples that we can do things differently, that we can do things better.

Let our rulers begin to think about how to bring down inflation, how to create employment, how to build a Nigerian car, how to make Nigerian products that can compete with others in different parts of the world. Let those be our goals not this idea that look, I am sitting on top of money, who should sit on top of the pot of money, which ethnic group is he from? How should the money be shared?
That is what they are thinking about, how should we beat down people? Suppress them, beat them down who are saying that what you are doing is wrong? Those things must change, otherwise this country would not make it.