By Willy Eya
Prince Tony Momoh is former Minister of information and National Chairman of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). He believes that despite the challenges facing the nation, people should not lose hope. In this interview on phone, he spoke on various issues including his belief that President Muhammadu Buhari would lead the country out of the present crisis confronting it.
Not long ago, the Minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun said the nation’s economy was technically in recession. Today, the economy is actually in recession with Senator Dino Melaye urging President Muhammadu Buhari to sack his economic team for failure to save Nigeria from the situation? Do you agree that the economic team should be sacked?
What is wrong in saying so? There is nothing wrong in Melaye saying so. It is his own opinion; freedom of expression. People have their own views. For instance, there is hunger in the land and people are expressing anger at the hunger but everybody knows that the only language that hunger understands is food. Manna does not fall from heaven now; when the Israelites got to Canaan, manna fell from heaven. So, Nigeria is Canaan. We prefer importing rice to the rice we grow in Nigeria. But you pay money to import rice but you don’t have the money to pay. There is no magic to it; you must grow the food you need. For instance, there is economic recession worldwide; there is hardly any Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) country including Saudi Arabia that is not either in recession or expecting recession soon. Only a few countries in the world today are not economically in trouble; only a few. Nigeria is not an island unto itself. The money we earn from oil has reduced substantially as we are trying to settle the problem in Niger Delta.
You see, there is problem in the land. This problem is not caused by economists, it is not caused by politicians, it is not caused by farmers; it is a result of the kind of life styles that we live. As long as you refuse to grow your food, the food you can eat, and you prefer imported food, since you have no other food and you have no other money to import any other food, you go hungry. So, I agree that we have a problem of discipline in management of our own resources. And the indiscipline did not start yesterday when President Buhari came into office; it has been there over time. First of all, you must secure the land and when you have insurgency, you do not need economics or an economic team to know that you must secure the land by overcoming insurgency, overcoming armed robbery, overcoming kidnapping and so on and so forth. And also, until we have the price of oil improving, and then our own exportation increasing; until we increase the volume and the price rises, and the situation improves worldwide, things are not likely to be easy for us. Are you saying that most of the countries in the world have no economic teams? You see, what is happening in the world today is a failure in the management of resources and availability of resources worldwide. And we are passing through that stage.
And some people who are trying to find answers, will prefer it on what is wrong with the administration; it could be economic or otherwise. So Melaye is expressing his opinion.
Do you think we are going to get out of the present economic situation in this country?
Why not? Is this the first time? There was one time the oil price was $49, we got out of it. It is a phase; there are ups and down in the management of resources worldwide; it is always a phase. We will get out of it. Very soon, we will get out of it.
So you don’t agree with those who insist that the present administration lacks the capacity to lead the country to the Promised land?
There is nobody who can say that about the present administration; if there is anybody who has come to bring order and institute discipline in the way of doing things, it is President Buhari. President Buhari is the man who can do it. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going and President Buhari will bring the change we need to get things going. If there is any other person who can do so in Nigeria more than President Buhari, point to the person. PDP did it for 16 years and failed; so they are part and parcel of the problem we have today. Okonjo Iweala said when they had excess crude, they saved but since 2011, people insisted on sharing everything. So there is nothing for the rainy days now.
Despite being the ruling party, the APC has crisis in every state with former President Obasanjo recently making insinuations that while his former party, PDP is almost dead, the APC is not also a strong party. Are you comfortable with the state of affairs in the party?
The fact is that we are in a democracy. APC was packaged July 31, 2013 and it has taken over government and it has a lot of things to grapple with and APC is showing its presence in every polling unit. So I understand that there are problems and why shouldn’t there be? But they are not problems that cannot be surmounted.
2019 is far away, but already there are so many political moves being made ahead of that election. Do you think it is proper for us to start talking about 2019 now when nothing practically seems to have been done by most state governors for instance?
Why should people not be thinking of 2019? People are already thinking of 2023. So that is politicians; politicians are always planning ahead. Even the struggle in the National Assembly, what do you think it is for? Are you not aware that it is because of people’s ambition for 2019? Usually when elections are over, governance starts; then a year or two to elections, people can express their desire and aspire to offices. But in Nigeria, we are permanently aspiring to offices and that is a failure. But what do you do?
Are you worried about the level of division in Nigeria since the present administration came on board? Many groups are agitating for one thing or the other. Some are for self determination and some for restructuring. There are several of such issues in the polity now, what is your take on that?
You see, these things are not new. They have always been there. You know people will want answers to their problems, and look at the volume of hunger, the volume of unemployment and poverty; all these are pressures that people will provide different answers to depending on where they are looking at and they are all legitimate. Restructuring is a very legitimate answer to ensuring that we manage our resource better. For instance, personally, I don’t see why there should be full time law making. So, that is an answer to restructuring. I don’t see why you should have 54 states or 52 states when 36 are even too many. I don’t see why we should have so many private cars, I don’t see why you should have executive governor position, I don’t see why you shouldn’t have parliamentary and make it rigid parliamentary; you know, I don’t see why all these things should be there. You try to deal with approaches to management. So, anybody who is expressing an opinion will know that in a recession like this, options are there and people who express them are expressing them from their own perspectives and they shouldn’t be beaten up because they are saying so.