Hon (Chief) Modestus Umenzekwe, a Chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in this interview with CYRIACUS NNAJI, in his office in Lagos says that Ndigbo should not be drawn into the call for nationwide protests against government policies and the attendant economic hardship, saying that Ndigbo are enterprising people and need no distractions. Excerpts:
After eight months of ascending the presidency, you have seen how the President has been piloting the affairs of the country, as a believer in the APC and the President, do you still believe in Tinubu?
Thank you so much. If you ask me that question 20 times, my answer will be yes 20 times, I still believe in him and what he can do.
The way things are going do you also think there is peace in the land considering the way the President is piloting the affairs of this country?
And let me ask you is there any war in the country, answer me?
That is why I am here to get your opinion on the issue and many other things, if you are comfortable with Tinubu’s policies
You see, we make one mistake; we rush into conclusions without proper analysis. We lack patience, Tinubu is a human being and not a magician; tell me how you start criticizing him now, the time he started everybody was clapping, then eight months into the administration, some of us are talking from both sides of our mouths. How do you expect a child of eight months to behave like a child of eight years? It is impossible. Look around the whole world, and see what is happening. Nigeria is not an exception. In fact, I pity the man, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, but then I have confidence that he will try his best as he has said because he applied for the job. We are saying he has not done this, he has not done that, but, we are not saying what he has done right. Take for instance during the last African Cup of Nations, AFCON, matches, I was watching the games with some of my friends, people started calling them all sorts of names, they didn’t do that, they should have done that, when they score goals, they started applauding them, when Ivory Coast equalize they condemn them, eventually when Ivory Coast won, hell was let loose, that Super Eagles don’t know what they are doing. Some of these people don’t even know how to play football.
My advice is that we have to be very careful in whatever we are talking. What Asiwaju is doing, I don’t see anybody doing better than him, because from his background, he understands economy. He came in as a businessman, by business, I mean, he has been in business, private business, he came in equally as a technocrat, he came in as a professional, someone who studied finance, an accountant, he came in as a seasoned politician, he came in as somebody who is tested and trusted in governance. He also came in as somebody who at a point in time put his life on line, in defense of democracy in Nigeria. He came as somebody who has seen the life outside there, being on self-exile, he came in as somebody who has double experience in religion, having married a Christian and himself a Moslem, he came in as a great political thinker and philosopher. He came in as somebody who looks for talents and develops human talents, what else? And he has been bringing these things to bear into this governance, and some people are attacking him here and there, let us give him some time to work. Why are we not talking about those things he got right? The other time I learnt he has paid some of our debts we owe to India, Germany, or whatever, about some billions of dollars, nobody is talking about it.
Nobody is talking about the steps he has taken to make sure his ministers are on their toes, we are all living witnesses, we all saw how he handled Beta Edu’s issue; nobody is talking about it. I read in one of the dailies, that Tinubu has approved Kano-Lagos narrow rail express service. It will help farmers to move their goods and aid quick products export from the hinterland. He has just switched payment of crude oil sales to CBN instead of retaining it with NNPC. He has secured a financial partner EDIB to develop the $27. 29bn Escravos Seaport Industrial Complex, he has also ordered the federal housing authority to build 5,000 low cost housing in every state of the federation. President Tinubu has provided a written confirmation of a new era free trade zone, with a workable financial model 99years concession.
Recently he established a tripartite economic advisory committee and has released 42,000 metric tons of grains to farmers nationwide, it is a litany of sound economic decisions he has taken. And he has not denied that Nigerians are suffering. So why can’t we give him a chance? Anyone who says that Nigerians are not suffering is being economical with the truth. He has admitted that, everybody has admitted that, the federal executive council has admitted that, the national assembly has admitted that. So let us have patience, did he commit a crime by removing fuel subsidy, which everybody was clamouring for? He has the courage to remove it, we applauded him; the next thing, we are condemning him, haba! haba! Let us give that man a chance.
There is no gainsaying the fact that subsidy is gone has thrown Nigeria into undue economic hardship, with cost of goods and services hitting the roof tops, as a chieftain of the ruling APC we need your honest and sincere advice and direction, which other area do you think the president is not doing well and what he needs to do to really get things working?
The president the other day said on the television that he doesn’t know it all, and of course, the government is government of unity and he reflected that during the appointment of ministers, and that is why he has called the federal government representatives, the subnational representatives, and the business community despite the fact that he has ministers, but he called them to a meeting and that is why he formed the tripartite advisory committee to add more value to what the national executive council and the national assembly are doing. He has equally set up a committee to review the minimum wage and now the national assembly is talking about the review of the Constitution and they are going ahead. He gave them unfettered hand, he is not interfering. So those areas that are not getting proper attention, he is going into them. He is not the cause of our woes, Tinubu is not the cause of our problem, and the problem of Nigeria didn’t start today. Look at the other day, the Minister of works was worried, Engr Dave Umahi, about the cost of cement, he called the manufacturers, he shouldn’t have done that without the president s approval and very soon we are going to get result.
Dave Umahi is an expert. He is an Engr and that is why he is going from one road to the other, dismissing fake contractors, those who don’t know what they are doing, improving seriously on the foundation laid by former honourable minister of works and housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, so I think having admitted he doesn’t know everything, asking me where he is getting it wrong is neither here nor there. The question is dead on arrival because he has said I don’t know everything, come and help me, come and assist me. Look at what Wike is doing in Abuja, trying to restore the Abuja master plan, Wike is in PDP, but he appointed him and gave him a sensitive area like federal capital territory, and he is blazing a trail no matter the criticisms. I still insist that Asiwaju is not a magician, he is a human being like all of us, but his background has given him enough experience to handle this country, let us give him some time.
Do you think labour going on nationwide strike is the best at this period of our national life or what do you think is the alternative to strike?
It is right for Mr A or Mr B including you and myself to express our feelings. It is their right, but my worry in all these protests, is, let it not snowball into anarchy. If I am protesting and you are protesting, we should be very careful, so that criminals and hoodlums do not hijack it and bring this country down. You see, in most cases these don’t play out very well as we think, as the planners think, they might have good intentions but how do you manage it? So I believe in serious engagement with the government like labour has been doing.
Some people are worried that the southeasterners have not joined in the protests against government policies and its attendant suffering in the nation, why are they no joining?
You see, people should leave Ndigbo alone, the Igbos are highly enterprising people, why must they join the protest, when they have that sense of reasoning, when an Igbo man can put on a thinking cap in a hard situation to know how to sort himself out, that is what they are doing. When you troop out on the street, will it solve the problem, the southeasterners, they have analysed the situation, they have seen the way things are going, if you go out on the street and come back and your son, your daughter tells you, Daddy I want to eat food, you would tell him that you went out to the street to protest, does it make sense? It doesn’t solve any problem. So what they are doing, they have gone back to the trenches, in my village now, it is a law that everybody must go into farming, I have been farming but I am going down to do more. So Ndigbo or the southeasterners are busy thinking about how to come out of the precarious situation, instead of going out to protest, to cause trouble, to attack government, and in the course of that lives may be lost, who loses?
In the course of that hoodlums might hijack it and it would turn to another thing. So any serious thinking Igbo man is working on how to improve his or her economy, the economy of his family, the economy of the nation, that is the way I look at it, so people should leave them alone, and think of how to assist the president. Look at what our revered Vice President, Shettima said the other day about the southeast, that is to tell you where we are going, because he believe that if southeast is okay, Nigeria will be better, so with that opinion he has formed, you now expect southeasterners to start going about the streets, it is not done.
And I want to advise every section, every part of the country protesting because of hardship to, please, pipe low, because the government of the land is still young in the day. Myself talking to you is not finding it easy but shouting and protesting will not solve the problem, at my own small level, I try to engage those people I know that can reach the president, we keep talking, keep discussing and keep giving ideas, and I know that those statements are being noted.
Did you listen to the president the other day, as if he read my mind; the president tongue-lashed labour unions for always calling for strike. Of course, they should give him a chance to work. He said “The labour has gone on strike four times within my nine months in government. That’s a record. Calling for a strike in just nine months of an administration is unacceptable.
You see, all those individuals calling Ndigbo to come and protest against Tinubu, I am begging them, let them leave Ndigbo alone. We are working on how to feed our families and assist the president achieve the renewed hope agenda.
Some say, not joining in the protest is also a protest, when according to them, Nigeria has opportunity to make a better choice for the presidency and they chose to bring in someone else.
My dear, election has come and gone, we are now talking about governance. That is what we are talking about now, how to keep this country as one, how to be our brother’s keeper; that is what we are talking about; the issue of election is over, nobody is talking about election again, and on that election, I have addressed it extensively in the past.
The southeast development commission has passed the third reading awaiting the president’s assent, is this cheerful news and can you tell us some of the background to this and why southeast should deserve a development commission?
You see the policy of reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation that was enacted after the civil war has not been consummated, that is the way I look at it, and a lot of other things that have happened. Just as I am talking about giving us additional state, it is a step in the right direction. Like I said, learnt it was the deputy speaker that sponsored the bill, God bless him, and God bless the entire national assembly that gave it fair hearing and passed it accordingly, and God bless our president in advance, because I know as a technocrat, as a detribalized Nigerian, he will give assent to that bill, so it is cheery news.
Many have averred that a government that cannot feed her people is a failed government, now there is hunger in the land, has Tinubu government failed
I have addressed this issue in your previous question, how can he fail when he has not started or when he is just starting, how can he fail? There is hunger in the land, I can’t deny that, but asking me whether Tinubu has failed, that question is too early. He is taking steps to quench all these conditions. Take time to listen to his ministers, take time to listen to the central bank governor, the problem is that most of us don’t make time to listen, watch television, and know what the other person is talking about, whether he is still talking sense, we are always angry, on a slightest something we become angry. And it doesn’t help us.
However, he takes note of these statements and he understands. I think these statements are statements to make him be on his toes. That is the way I look at it. And Tinubu knows, he has been there when he governed Lagos, he needs to be on his toes, so that these people attacking him will not be right in the end.
Indeed there is hardship in the land, people bare hungry, those that are rich can no longer sleep with their two eyes closed because they are surrounded by hungry people and a hungry man is an angry man. But there must be solution, is anything wrong with importation, our farmers have deceived us for long that they can feed the nation, government can import or license people to, at least in the interim.
That means putting their thinking cap to know how to cushion this effect, taking into consideration the insecurity in the country up North there, the farmer that produce most of these things is not going to farm again due to insecurity, I think government is right by trying to, just like the way they have released 42,000 metric tons of grains, it is exactly the same thing, and you can see some nationals are now coming in, various states are coming up with one program or the other to assist the president, for instance in Lagos, Sanwo-olu has said some categories of workers should come to work three times in a week, it is one of those things, he has slashed transportation fares to half or so. It is part of it. Other state governors are coming up, and I want to encourage them to do more because this is not one man show, families should be involved, local government chairmen should be involved, town union president generals should be involved, individual families should be involved, in your families assist your brother, assist your sister, you don’t wait until they die waiting for Tinubu, that is what we should be doing, and when we start from the family to address this issue, it would help the government, I think government has turned to the right direction by bringing in things to support whatever that is available.
One of the selling points of Tinubu during the electioneering campaign was this claim of his sterling performance in Lagos, with the way things are, what do you think is the problem, is Nigeria too big for him
Are you denying those qualities that made him to excel, starting from when he governed Lagos, judging from the road map that he established, judging from when he put his life on the line to make sure that democracy comes to stay. I said it before and I am saying it again, Lagos is a mini Nigeria and anybody that governed Lagos can govern Nigeria. I say it without apologies. So those qualities are there, look, certain things that was done in the past by Lagos all states copied it, at least when Fashola started sanitising Lagos, clearing roads and all that, people thought he was not doing the right thing, now every state of the federation is clearing shanties, illegal structure, and all that, so what are you talking about? I am not a Lagosian, I am a visitor here, but I must tell you that any person that governed Lagos can handle Nigeria, it is a mini Nigeria, I said it and I still stand by it. Tell me that state that has the population of Lagos, 20million-plus people by the last census, let us reduce pressure on the president and allow him to work at least after four years we can then assess him to see how much he has performed.
Many are of the opinion that Tinubu’s government has been hijacked by the same cabal who regularly dictate how Nigeria is governed, your view.
Hijacked, by who?
Tinubu as a person ordinarily would not watch and allow Nigerians go through pain of this magnitude
And it is the same Tinubu that suspended Beta Edu, when you are not in the system you may not understand what is going on, mark you that this is democracy, not a military regime, when you get up and give orders, I am yet to believe what you are saying. I said it that we are all suffering it, but for us to get things right this hard decisions must be taken and implemented, the hunger is there, people don’t eat three square meals a day, some people trek seven kilometers in a day before they can get to their houses because there is no money, but then those who will be able to endure it will laugh at last. It is quite an unfortunate situation, it is painful, but then, a journey of one thousand miles begins with a step.
Your message to Nigerians
The only message or advice I have for Nigerians is that no matter the condition, let us calm down, let us be very very hard working and prayerful, because God is the finisher of all things, God knows we are in this situation whether you are a Christian, a Moslem, go down on your knees and draw the power of God down to give our leaders the wisdom of Solomon so that we come out of this situation.
