An All Progressives Congress Senator representing Ebonyi Central Senatorial District, Kenneth Eze, argues in this interview that President Bola Tinubu is an experienced person who has been involved in the Nigerian project for a long time and that the President means well for Nigeria. He also speaks on how to tackle corruption, salvage the country from economic bondage and other vices. Excerpts:
Sixty-three years after independence, it appears that Nigeria’s journey to nationhood is yet to begin. What do you think are the forces behind this unfortunate narrative?
Yes, it’s true that it is 63 years since we gained independence and a man born 63 years ago is no longer a young person. So, ordinarily, Nigeria should be getting it right at this point in time. But that is not to say that we have not made achievements as an independent nation.
We have, but the question is: Are we getting it right? No; not completely right. There are some areas where we have gotten it right, and as you can see, we are growing. Even though we are classified as an underdeveloped nation, we are only striving now to be counted as a developing nation. Being underdeveloped, it’s obvious we will be recording a lot of challenges and it’s obviously going to be a tortuous journey.
But what all Nigerians should be doing is to look for a way to get it right. And that is starting from the people. Many people are interested in leadership; yes, I agree, but the leadership comes from the people. So, the people have to be prepared for the changes that are required to achieve the height we need to become a developing country.
We’ve been trying to have good leaders in this country but the journey has not been easy. We have been moving from military rule to civilian administration, back to military rule again, and now back to civilian administration, which is the democracy that we have today.
Having moved in between these two stages of government, there is no doubt that we have recorded injuries, and that is what we are striving to see how we can amend and get it right.
So, it is so far so good and I will say let’s give the present administration a chance and see how far it can go.
There is every indication that the President Bola Tinubu administration, from its policies, means well for this country. He is an experienced person, who has been involved in the Nigerian project. So, I believe that with his Renewed Hope Agenda, a lot is expected from him.
“Once you are sure of a stable society, where everything works, corruption will gradually go down. Corruption is just a product of a failed system”
How can this situation be tackled, so that Nigeria can make progress economically and otherwise?
There is no nation that depends on importation that makes meaningful progress.
It will be very difficult for such a country to succeed. Nigeria being a heavy consumer nation will definitely be put to pressure. That is why we are seeing the pressure on the Naira. But when you say that we are a consumer nation, that we are not producing, it goes beyond that.
There are factors that determine our capacity to manufacture and they cut across many sectors. One is power. You can’t run a lucrative industry without a stable power supply. If you have an industry that has capacity and you want to achieve your aims and objectives, and you depend on a running generating set, you can’t achieve them.
Power has to come from the national grid and that is the cause of the collapse of the industries. You will agree with me that some industries came up in the 60s but they never survived because of the decay in infrastructure.
These infrastructures include power, refineries because our refineries ought to be supplying gas to the gas stations to drive the industries.
That’s why the DisCos are not working today. Then we move from power to water. You can see that everybody is depending on boreholes these days because of the non-regular supply of water, especially in the rural areas and even in the urban cities.
It is difficult for you to get running water in about 60 per cent of the urban areas. Everybody is resorting to self-help.
Then you move to our education system. Our tertiary institutions are churning out graduates on yearly basis, who are unemployable. Our education is not research-based.
With institutions that are purely theoretical, how can you produce graduates that can work in the industries when they are half done on practical knowledge? So, all these problems are interwoven.
Therefore, we must start solving these problems sector by sector. Also, the people and the policies of the government put together, led to the collapse of the manufacturing sector.
There is no magic that can be done for the manufacturing sector to work if you don’t handle these problems holistically, taking it from one section to another, from one department to another, until you go round the departments that make up the government.
If we do that and get things right, then you will see industries springing up again because the cost of producing goods in this country will be cheaper than the cost of importing them from other countries.
As long as the cost of producing goods in this country is higher than the cost of importing from other countries, people will look for cheaper ways of doing business. And if you know that the cost of importing from outside is cheaper than the goods that are locally produced, people will go outside and bring goods and sell them here, and nobody will listen to you.
How can this problem be addressed in the shortest possible time, in order to salvage the country from economic bondage?
That is what is called the Renewed Hope because I don’t want us to dwell in the past. It’s obvious that we have not gotten it right. But from the experiences of the past, we can use them to develop the policies of the present that can lead us to get to the resolution of our problems.
That was why I said that there is hope. We have the Renewed Hope Agenda and I believe that if we give this government the needed support to implement its policies, it will bring the expected change we are yearning for.
Corruption is a cankerworm in this country and has led to most of the socio-economic challenges Nigeria is facing. How can this be tackled?
Corruption is the product of the society we have. If we get the society working; corruption will go down. If the system remains the way it is, it will continue to breed corruption because people will be striving to survive because that is the main cause of this corruption.
If you have an education system that is working, notwithstanding what you are doing and how much you are earning, you will not crave to acquire more because you know that your children will go to school. Let me start from the basic things of life; food, clothing and shelter.
If these three basic things are provided, so that you can afford good food, without necessarily being a rich man, we won’t have problems.
Secondly, if you know that you can afford a comfortable accommodation without turning around to look for extra money, what’s the need of craving for more? What’s the need for going the extra mile to look for more money when you know that you can afford these basic things of life?
If your children go to a good school, you enjoy good clothing, what is the difference between you being a low-income earner and a high-income earner?
The line becomes narrower so that you don’t make unnecessary demand for the things you do not need. That is why I say that when the system begins to work and we strengthen our institutions, and you are sure that you won’t want to commit crime in order to survive, the society will be better.
Some of these tendencies for corruption are as a result of survival instinct. You need to survive. So, once you are sure of a stable society, where everything works, corruption will gradually go down. Corruption is just a product of a failed system.
Don’t you think that it’s the other way around, that a failed system is rather a product of corruption?
Whichever way, but if a system fails, there will be corruption. But it is a by-product of a failed system because if the system works, corruption will go down. It is a by- product of a failed system because even if you continue to fight corruption and the system is not working, the problem will still be there. Look at the many agencies that were already created to fight corruption; is corruption abating?
The answer is no because the system is still not working. For that reason, you must get the system to work for corruption to also fizzle out, otherwise, you will continue to imprison people, the ones you can get, but new ones will still continue to spring up.
In our country, the institutions that were set up to stamp out corruption are equally corrupt, because everybody is striving to survive. There was a time that civil servants were provided with car loans, and with a little amount you have a car. Gone are those days.
If it were those days, you wouldn’t look for extra money to buy a car because you know that the institution where you work will provide you with a loan to buy a car, and it will be deducted from your salary without any negative impact on your output. But now, how much will they provide for you? In fact, it will be so outrageous that you won’t even want to venture into it.
That is because the system is not working, and in that process an average person will want to have the luxury of owning a vehicle. Then, you start looking for how to improve your pay in order for you to live a good life.
Do you see the Tinubu administration taking Nigeria out of the woods?
Yes, I am optimistic that if given the enablement and the necessary support by Nigerians, he will take us out of this quagmire.
If you look at his speeches since he assumed office, you will notice that he has made promises that he will bring the necessary changes that will transform our system.
You will agree with me that he knows the problems of this country, and once you know what the problems are, you can provide solutions. If you know the problems, you will research for solutions and administer them to the problems.
A lot of people are crying over the removal of fuel subsidies. Some people are saying that he would have waited for the refineries to start working before removing the subsidy. People should understand the problem of fuel subsidy, which is one of the things that breed corruption in the system.
If you go into the reason why fuel subsidy was removed, you will appreciate Mr. President for having the courage to do that. If that fuel subsidy was not removed, the country was already running into serious debt that Nigeria would not have money to even pay workers’ salaries and also run other services the government is saddled with.
The states were even affected because it is when money is shared that all the tiers of government can have money to carry out their statutory functions.
And it is when you sell crude oil that you get revenue to share to the three tiers of government. It is this revenue that goes to the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission.
Now, the question is, after paying, what amount is left in this revenue to pay as subsidy? It was getting to a point where almost all the revenue generated from our crude oil were being ploughed back to pay for subsidy, leaving the government with very little to run the affairs of the country.
That’s what prompted the immediate removal of the subsidy. But I will tell you that the revenue base of different agencies of government is growing because more money is being saved now from the subsidy removal.
If you ask the local governments, they will tell you that the amount of revenue they are getting now has tripled what they were getting before under the subsidy regime. Before, it was going down; sometimes, you hear that they have gone to borrow in order to have money to share with the three tiers of government. Before, we were taking money from the reserves in order to have money to share.
Now, we are beginning to grow our reserve and still have enough to share among the three tiers of government to run the administration and render services to the people.
So, if Nigerians can be patient, we are going to overcome these challenges and begin to enjoy ourselves.
People keep asking why the refineries are not working. The refineries lack maintenance, and they were grounded.
It has been the intention of past governments to revamp the refineries, but each time they came up with the idea of doing a Turn Around Maintenance, they would not have enough money to do it. Initially, contractors would be mobilised but when they come for a second payment, what they will hear is that there is no money.
Then the contractors will remain on site and later pull out. Therefore, the only option left for the government is to resort to quick means of getting fuel from outside the country, so that the country won’t run into shortage of fuel supply.
If you check the cost of importing fuel, if you want to sell to Nigerians at that cost, it will be very difficult for them to afford. That is how the government decided to subsidize it, with a lot of revenue going into it.
Now, this government has decided that we need our refineries to be working and we need to save and generate money for fixing the refineries, so that we can reduce importation. That is why I am asking Nigerians to be patient with President Tinubu and his team, to fix our system. When this is done, the free fall of the Naira will be resolved.
“You will agree with me that he knows the problems of this country, and once you know what the problems are, you can provide solutions. If you know the problems, you will research for solutions and administer them to the problems”
As the chairman, Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, what are the core functions of your committee and what do you aim to achieve within your tenure?
My committee is saddled with the responsibility of oversight functions. I will be over-sighting the Ministry of Information and all the agencies under it – Nigeria Broadcasting Commission, Radio Nigeria, Nigerian Television Authority, Voice of Nigeria and Nigeria Press Council, among others.
We are just starting in the area of information.
We want to ensure that you journalists are granted access to information. But that does not mean that you will begin to feed the public with false information.
I am out to see that the media should feed the public with the right information. You will have all the necessary protection required but you should not go beyond the confines of authentic and reliable information.
We should know that information has a lot to do in society. By the time you feed the people with wrong information, they will go with it and it will produce the wrong result, which is not good for the country. We will ensure that the broadcast industry serves Nigerians well with quality news content.
They are to woo and improve the psyche of our teeming youth. They should not be fed with wrong information that will corrupt their mind.
I intend to take MultiChoice up on some of the contents they feed our teeming youth. They need to explain to us about the content of Big Brother Africa.
Even though the programme is entertaining, look at the quality of entertainment they are giving to our youths, where they are exposing our youth to obscene and indecent contents, with serious questionable moral characters.
On revenue generation, each agency is saddled with its own civic responsibility, which is generating revenue for the government.
Some of these agencies are not remitting revenue to the government, and you expect the government to function.
The agencies must generate revenue for the government. I learnt that some of them are not remitting the little revenue they ought to remit to the government, and they want good governance.
Everybody has to contribute towards this good governance we are talking about.
I also intend to look at the various litigations that have frustrated the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission from discharging its constitutional mandate, which is obviously retarding the industry.
Some institutions have taken the NBC to court just to frustrate it. These are some of the problems we suffer.
So, I believe that by the end of my tenure as chairman, Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, I would have achieved a lot, that Nigerians will say that the committee has done its oversight very well.
