Evil people in leadership holding Nigeria down – Ubani
Continuation…
What, in your view, is the way out of the woods?
The way out of the woods is for the people to now realise that they are being taken for a ride; that they are being manipulated and have been deceived by people who want to keep them in perpetual poverty. What they will do is to liberate themselves; that liberation process has to be done by the people. That will certainly not be easy, they will call you names and all that, but the people must come together and say, no, our eyes have opened; we are not going back to what has held us back. We are going for the right people, whether they have money or not, but we know them; when they go in there, they will change the narratives.
Look at the smaller parties, are you seeing them on televisions? Do you hear them on radios? They cannot afford it! So, the people are kept blindly to the people that have held the country hostage, but if people can stand up and get themselves liberated and say we have seen these people, we know their strength, we have seen their depth, they cannot in anyway continue to rule us, we have to make a way out for ourselves and all that.
For some time now, some people have been canvassing restructuring; what is your view? Can restructuring resolve the issues?
There is a lot to be done. The structure presently is wrong! There is a lot wrong with the structure. I don’t understand what people mean by saying there is nothing wrong with the present structure. If we are running a federal system of government, let us run a federal system of government where power is generated by the people and goes up. Whatever power is given to the federal government is as a result of the consensus of the federating units, not the other way round.
In a proper federal system, it is the federating units that determine what goes to the federal. That is what is meant by proper restructuring. Let there be economic inflow from the federating units to the federal; not the federal collecting everything and giving stipend to the federating units; that is not the proper way of running a federal system. Let us look at our constitution; why must electric power be generated at the federal level? You generate everything at the federal level and then you distribute. States can do this. There are so many things you can remove from the federal and allow the states to compete.
What we are saying is that if we have experienced a proper federal system and we have seen the level of progress we made, even Singapore and Malaysia, we were better than them, they now came and overtook us when we were running a system that is skewed against us. That does not encourage competition; that does not encourage growth, but stultifies us. Can’t something teach us to know we are doing the wrong thing? So, when we sit in a parliament to say something, the North will say no because we never agreed on a common goal and because we never agreed; no agreement today, no agreement tomorrow. They want you to remain at a level where all of you wii be crawling.
And we say no, you can’t run a federal system that way, you can’t grow that way! Allow individuals to exhibit his or her skill, so that others can find a way to catch up or you begin to learn what others are doing. There are resources all over, but when one particular person stands up in the House and say no because it will not favour him as an individual, not because it will not favour his region.
I discover we could have gone far. Somebody like me, if I’m given the position of a governor, if I don’t turn around the state within a reasonable time frame, I have no business being there, I know what it takes to run a state – the basic infrastructure – I won’t give money to anybody, money will go into provision of infrastructure in the state; make it so conducive for people to work and improve the economy. People will start trooping in, people will be coming back when your state is run very well: you are developing road, you are developing houses for people to live and making sure the security is very superb and people are secure. A lot of people from Abia will leave Lagos and start coming home; the economic situation will turn around and there will be so much economic activities. Aba alone will attract the entire West Africa. You can imagine how much internally generated revenue will be derived from that environment. But go there, Aba stinks, Aba smells; there is no functional road in Aba, light is non-functional. During rainy season, you can’t pass anywhere, people are suffering.
What, in your opinion, are the major issues likely to shape the forth-coming general elections?
Well, the point is economy; economic management. People will look at management of the economy under this government because we had to drive away Peoples Democratic Party because they messed up the economy, they managed the economy and so much corruption in the system and we effected a change, so that they can turn things around and identify with the poor people.
Now, people will look at the fortunes of the masses that voted for President Buhari. Has he been able to change the economic fortunes of the masses? Has he been able to generate employment? Has there been an improvement in economic fortunes of the average Nigerian? People will ask questions: what are the hopes? What were the attitudes of government when we cried over these matters? What has been their attitude towards us?
These are the issues that will shape 2019. The economy will determine who we are going to vote for; who has managed the economy better. People will say that in the time of PDP, thing were better, in spite of the fact that things would have been worse if we did not intervene by the time we did.
Generally, life was a bit fairer and better. Under the present government, they cry the met a badly managed economy; that they need to build afresh. In building afresh, building from the proper foundation, is there truth in the rebuilding? Is there rebuilding in basic infrastructure? The PHCN, is there anything going on there? If anything is going on, how will a minister say having no light is no more the problem of the federal government?; that people should blame those they sold power distribution to; which means it is no longer the problem of the federal government. It looks hopeless! They are incapable, they are not going to find solutions; we will remain in perpetual darkness. What I expected is something hopeful: we will address the problem and so on. But the man is saying, don’t hold the government responsible. So, what kind of thought is that? It is scary for me!
