Daniel Kanu

 Respected Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof Itse Sagay, is a die-hard optimist of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government as he believes he is on the right track.

But he told Sunday Sun that those strategizing for the presidency to remain in the North in 2023 are enemies of Nigeria and irresponsible in the extreme.

After taking a critical dissection of Nigeria since independence, his verdict is that leadership has shifted from service to selfish acquisition of wealth, that there is so much indiscipline both with the political elite, as well as the youth.

He located the point of departure where things started getting bad, the issue of restructuring the country, corruption fight were some of the decisive issues he tackled, among others. Excerpt:

 

Nigeria will be celebrating its 59 independent anniversary, so far, so what?

We have made a lot of progress in most areas, in terms of communication, transportation, that is, including roads, in the industrial area, etc; but where we have a major problem is in the area of political development. There is a tendency to conclude that, because one is not making enough progress in the political culture and good governance that there is no improvement. No there has been an improvement; there has been a much higher standard of living for everybody. I remember how it was in 1960 and how it is now, there is an incredible difference. For instance, the picture of Lagos then and now is totally unrelated. Lagos then was just an undeveloped piece of land with small narrow drives and few buildings, but look at it now, it’s a modern city with a lot of estates, etc. So, there has been physical development. Where we have a shortcoming is in the political aspect. The character of Nigerians who are handling the running of the country has not improved, it has degenerated. And it may very well be a reflection on the quality of Nigerians generally. The people they started with, the generation of Awolowo, Zik, Sardauna, Tafawa Abubakar, were people who felt privileged to be given the realms of power. They felt that was all the reward they needed being given that privilege they didn’t look for anything material at all. They just wanted to serve and they took pleasure in serving alone. And if you recall or make inquiries now you find that Awolowo was living in a small house in Oke-Ado, Ibadan, where Ahmadu Bello was living was a very modest house, Tafawa Balewa was living in Onikan in a very small modest house in Lagos here, he had no personal house in Tafawa Balewa (his home town). Those leaders then did not care, they were just burning with the desire to serve. And if you look at their era that was probably the best period we have had in this country, in terms of development generally both political and physical, in terms of the pace because they wanted to serve. What went wrong and really what has plunged us into all this is political intolerance of that era. The party in power, the NPC headed by the Sardauna was totally intolerant of the opposition. He was a good man, he was an honest man, he was a man that served with all his heart, gained nothing material for it, but he could not tolerate opposition and the Action Group Party of Awolowo presented a very effective opposition. So, there was a sort of fear that these people were so ready to take over the government and that they might even take it by force. This was what led to the witch-hunting and led to trials, arrests, and detention of the opposition and their going to prison. It was what precipitated the coup that ended the First Republic. So, that is really what went wrong. The people we have now progressively as you know are people who couldn’t be bothered about Nigerians, everybody is there for himself, they go into politics, particularly into the National Assembly, state houses of Assembly, to see how much they can accumulate within that period. Some ministers also have that mentality, so you can see the National Assembly shamelessly collecting over N15 million per person, per month while we are talking about the minimum wage of N30,000, so you can imagine what we are talking about. Look at the Jeeps that they want to buy whereas they can have a coaster bus per committee and so you have let’s say, 50 coaster buses, but everybody wants an individual Jeep. Of what practical value is that? So, what I will say is that the sense of values, the standard of human character, the level of commitment has dropped drastically and the modern politicians that we now have is for himself, what he can accumulate and he will accumulate more than he will need for 10 lifetimes, he will die and leave it behind for his children to fight over meanwhile the Nigerian masses, millions of people are suffering out of poverty, out of lack of job, they don’t care a hoot and that is why I am very happy that a man like Buhari and Osinbajo  emerged. Those two are like the first old republic politicians in terms of commitment, in terms of integrity, in terms of honesty, in terms of trying to raise the standard of Nigeria particularly the vulnerable. That is what gives me hope and that is why I have committed myself to serve in their government, but by and large, there has been a drastic drop in the sense of values, in the sense of service, in integrity, in honour, etc.  Most politicians are behaving like barbarians’ who are looking for food, food being money and material acquisition. In fact, they lead to acquire those things rather than leading to serve. So, that is the difference and that is what appears to have brought us down.

A lot of resources are being recovered. Things that were encouraged in the past regimes when corruption was encouraged, when people were allowed to simply loot and get away with it without any question, on the contrary, now it’s a big risk to do so. I was saying we have recovered over N1 trillion and this has been deployed to social investment projects. The same thing, a lot of money have been retrieved from abroad, I don’t know the exact amount, but all that is being deployed to the budget. You see previously when money was recovered, particularly from abroad; it disappeared again in the pockets of those in government. Now, it is not only accounted for, but it’s also ploughed into the annual budget and actually used for specific purposes or for raising the living standard of the most vulnerable. There are 12.5 million children having free lunch in schools every day, we have vulnerable families in Nigeria getting N5,000 a month, we have young unskilled people being paid N30,000 a month each about 500, 000 of them to learn skills like electrical, etc, which will enable them to complete their training, become independent and even employ people. We have a lot of money given to small and middle scale traders free of interest and when they pay back they are given more so that their businesses are increased, the tradermoni or marketmoni, of course, you are aware that government is putting so much in the development of our railways, so we have a government that is committed to its people and as I have always said, we are very lucky that the two people (president and vice president) are people of utmost integrity of the highest honour who want nothing for themselves,  but just want to make a name by the manner in which they brought up Nigeria from the doldrums and built up Nigerians again into a proud people with improved work ethics and production capacity. So, the anti-corruption war is working very well. They are doing capacity building to train judges, to train prosecutors, we have trained people from various sectors of the economy, we have dialogued and still dialoguing with so many interests to direct our efforts into positive non-corrupt programme for the development of this country and, of course, as you know we write opinions privately which we hand over to the government for the improvement of the anti-corruption struggle.  Petroleum subsidy fraud has ended. Previously people who don’t bring petroleum in will forge papers assisted by people in government to collect huge sums of billions of naira, as a subsidy, all that has stopped. So, there is much progress if only the government will be allowed to do its work because there are so many people who are helped by this programmes, by the reduced or almost eliminated access to stolen money, stolen wealth, a lot of people are angry because of that, the elite particularly, but this government will continue unfazed until Nigeria gets back to what it ought to be.

Can we say we are winning the corruption war?

Let me say this, there has been a lot of difference brought in by the Buhari-Osinbajo government, a lot of difference, not only by the introduction of anti-corruption committee like PACAC (Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption), but by the rejuvenation of ICPC and EFCC and the Customs, there has been a drastic change and orientation of leadership in all those sectors and you can see how much money that has been recovered, nationally and internationally. Internally more than N1 trillion has been recovered, nationally almost $1 trillion, so there is determined commitment to recover all stolen wealth and deploy them for the most vulnerable sectors. The truth is that it is no longer business as usual and that in itself is worth-commending.

Given all that you have enumerated, how do you feel when you hear comments that Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world?

I read all that, that we have overtaking India and so on, I don’t know where they got their statistics from and what they mean by poverty capital. We should be careful about accepting titles like the enemies of the government were very happy to embrace that title thinking it runs down the government, but if you see what is being done in terms of trying to help youths acquire skills, women, poor families, traders, the expansion of agriculture. The building of railways as I have said earlier etc; that is being done, that title is unjustified. I don’t know where they got their statistics from, but certainly it’s not justified.

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Do you think to restructure the country is a proper thing to do as some people are seriously canvassing it as solution to some of the nation’s problems?

There is no question about that. Restructuring is very essential. The independence it brings to the states, their independent financial status and their increased powers to do things are one of the impetus that helped develop the regions in the First Republic. This semi-unitary system is simply destroying the country; there is no question about that.

What of the issue of rotation of the presidency between the North and the South…?

(Cuts in) But we are already doing the rotation of presidency and it’s a system that is okay for us…

(Cuts in) I asked this question because as we speak many strong voices in the North are insisting that the presidency will remain in the North in 2023?

It will never happen; the presidency cannot remain in the North after 2023 unless they don’t want this country to continue. They can’t do it, the North alone does not produce a president if they try it they will destroy the country. It will be difficult to continue as a country if the North wants to continue after 2023, so whoever is saying it is a dangerous person and has no interest in the future of this country and irresponsible in the extreme.

What is your take on the security challenge in the country?

It’s a major problem, I must admit that. The security challenge is serious; it’s as if all the criminal elements just held a meeting and said: let us all rise at the same time, Boko Haram, kidnappers, banditry, armed robbers, Yahoo-yahoo, advanced free fraud (419), etc; it is as if they said, let us operate together, jointly, suddenly so that the government will not have the capacity to keep us down, that is what is happening now, it’s terrible. Recently as you know, over 70 Nigerians were fingered in America as being involved in 419 fraud, so I must say it’s terrible although the government is doing its best. I know in the case of kidnapping on our roads, the area where Fulani herdsmen have been accused there has been drastic reduction; the same applies to Zamfara, Katsina, etc, where the cases were very bad there is a reduction, but not sufficient and Boko Haram is still having the capacity to strike, so a lot still needs to be done in that area, there is no question about that. But what is important is that the government is not folding its arms, rather the government is confronting it frontally.

Briefly reflect on the latest xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa?

The xenophobic attack is very unfortunate because we strongly stood in for South Africa when they were under the apartheid regime. Nigeria was there firm, not only in condemnation, but in material support that when we got to the United Nations (UN) they included us as a frontline state, in other words, Nigeria all the way from West Africa was officially made one of the states surrounding South Africa like Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia etc in the sense of being a buffer against the maltreatment of the black people, we struggled for them, all the resolutions which were passed in the UN to isolate South Africa economically, in sports, in so many things, were through Nigeria. Nigerian ambassadors were the head of the anti-apartheid committee of the UN. We brought many of their leaders here, including Thabo Mbeki and offered them scholarship, in university education we offered them training, we gave them a lot of money towards the ANC fight, to buy arms, etc. So, for them now to turn round and now attack the same Nigerians who did so much for them and without which they would not have achieved what they achieved to become free; it pains me and I am lost at such display of ingratitude, it shows one thing: that the older South Africans who know all this truth are not educating their youth. We are talking of almost 30 years ago, so many of them were not born, so they don’t know the role that Nigeria played in their liberation, but they are not being educated and they are blaming Nigeria for everything. But Nigerians are hard-working, energetic, they are doing businesses in South Africa, they are doing any type of job, making money while the South Africans are lazy, waiting to be spoon-fed so when they see Nigerians prospering they make them a target regardless of the fact that it is Nigeria that helped to bring freedom to South Africa. It’s very sad, very painful, it’s mortifying. I just pray that it is resolved.

What would you say is your greatest fear about the country today?

It is indiscipline. I mean indiscipline of the elite; I am talking about the politicians. There is also the youth problem, who are supposed to be future leaders of the country, but most of them are into 419, they want to be rich overnight and some will kill their parents for ritual to get wealth. We even have Yahoo-Plus now in addition to the normal Yahoo. Most times I laugh when they talk of not-too-young-to-rule. What is the quality of the young people we have now?  The quality is so low, is worse than the older people that we are talking about because they don’t have any restraint with regards to their desire, their desperation and being rich overnight without making any effort, without working for it. You can see that most of them are angry with this government because the era of freeloading is gone, the era of earning without working for it is over. I am very discouraged about the type of youth we have now.