Highly cerebral and fast-talking Sam Amadi is the immediate-past chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), a position he held for almost five years, during which he introduced several reforms in the sector. A thoroughbred of Harvard University, he holds a doctorate and master’s degrees in law and another master’s in Public Administration from Kennedy School of Government, in the United State of America. He had earlier studied law at the University of Calabar. In this interview with SAM AKPE AND AYO ESAN, he speaks on why he is interested in the governorship of Imo State, restructuring and why there is no solution in sight for the epileptic power supply in Nigeria. Excerpts:
Since you left National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), what have you been doing?
I have put NERC behind me. I have joined the academic faculty at Baze University. Before I left NERC, I already knew that if I would not get an immediate appointment at the level of a chief executive, I would go back to teach. It was a clear choice, and teaching, for me, complements whatever other things I am doing.
I know that at Harvard University, you taught briefly. You were also a researcher. Is teaching a passion for you or something you want to do full time?
Teaching is my vocation. Even what I am doing in politics is teaching. I see politics as a classroom to illuminate, show direction, shine light on problems and mobilise people to solve these problems. Teaching to me is life. I am a perpetual student which means you teach as well. So my life has been with books and I think till I die, I will be more concerned with knowledge. So if I become governor tomorrow, after that I will go back to the university to teach. In fact my fancy is to build a school and live there so that when one becomes old, you can be talking to students. I can’t imagine a better life than one that alternate between government offices and classroom. That is the path I will take.
Yes, I am for restructuring. I am part of Ohanaeze think-thank. I have been part of meetings going on. Restructuring is a necessary condition for Nigeria to survive, but it is not a sufficient condition
You have mentioned politics twice. When did you become so interested in politics?
That is what people have been asking; and I said I have been political all my life. In secondary school, I was political because I helped students to challenge the school authority to sit up. Oftentimes, we have argued whether intellectuals can play politics. This is because often times, intellectuals try to be realistic and they may not be able to face the rigour of politics. What makes politics very interesting to me is that it is like a laboratory of ideas; ideas about change; ideas about human relations; how to behave. So, whether you are an economist, or a philosopher, politics is a laboratory to test those experiments. Number two, yes I have always been in politics because I remember when Professor Eskor Toyo said that Chief Gani Fawehinmi is the best Nigerian politician. He said in all his politics, Gani always sided with the people. Eskor Toyo saw Gani going to court, and Gani challenging the military rulers as politics for the people. So if you ask me whether I have been a politician, yes, I have been a politician but I have not stood for election and what I am doing now is to move from being an adviser to the former Senate President to become a state chief executive. I am now stepping up to say I want to be governor which means I have shifted from the point of view of those who served the leader and want to be a leader leading others.
So, we can safely refer to you as a politician I play politics but I am not a politician. Politicians suggest to me as those who take politics as a profession; those whose profession is political contestation, politicking to win election or owning a structure. My own politics is about intervention. It is a revolutionary movement. It is like taking over political power to achieve a clear agenda. Political power is a resource for creating outcome and you gauge it with a clear objective; and not necessarily taking politics as a profession. If I finish the primary and I lose, I will go back to the classroom; if I become governor, after that I will go back to the classroom. That is the idea. I am a politician if politics is about an intervention to obtain public power to achieve a certain objective. I am not a politician if you are talking of a person who has found a profession, open shop for influence. That is not what I want to achieve.
Have you calculated the risk involved in politics in Nigeria?
The risk is high, but the risk of not getting involved is higher. A real politician may for example, have to be seducing, manipulating, buying everybody mentality. That is a life style that has a risk factor. You now see yourself become manipulative and it could actually end up disrupting the peace in the community. Risk number two is if you want to be a politician who wants to vie for office, you will definitely waste resources; lose money you are supposed to spend on your family. That is a risk because you can lose. And Nigeria today is like what Patrice Lumumba said that the problem in Africa is that men of ideas are not in power and people who have power have no ideas. And when the people have a chance they still vote men with no ideas. The risk is that in our own temperament, in our own environment, you might end up being heartbroken because you make the best effort and people make wrong choices all the time. These are the risks but if you compare it with the risk of things going bad, without men of ideas, things will go terrible. I think it is a major risk for me like every proper person. For me I am going into politics with a great consciousness that this is a dangerous terrain; this is really a bad place to be where you wear all the safety gadgets , put on safety shoes , take all the precautions and insulate your soul and your brain from being damaged by the inevitable crisis of politics.
You know pretty well based on your association with politicians that Nigeria politics is more of material resources than ideas. Are you ready for that?
Nobody is 100 per cent ready about resources. If you say you are ready with resources, you don’t know how much the other person is bringing in. Number two, everything about life is conjectural. Resource is very important but we do know that resources might not buy election. Forget the experience in Ekiti which showed that we are now moving from rigging election to basically no election. There is certain prevalence about our election now because we have graduated into buying votes in political stock market shamelessly. So is there logic for a decent politics in that environment. Maybe people like us should stay out of politics because it is down to buying votes publicly. My answer is very simple, there is existential challenge. This is the worst period in Nigeria but like every other crisis, if those who have these virtues and the competence stay away from solving that problem, there is only one outcome: degeneration. If those who have virtues and competence move close, they may be hit but they may help change the outcome. So, for me, it is clear that there is a risk you have to take. The issue is: are you prepared for the risk? And my own psychology of everything is that you think about the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario is that you lose your bet. But the good case scenario is that you can win and make changes .So, for me it is risk aversion. If I win in a place like Imo State, we will create a new politics. If we lose, we lose everything we have put into it. So, the loss is huge but the possible gain is far more than the loss. That is how I look at it. We don’t want to be like them. We don’t want to lose our soul and our head. I think for me, it is to go into it and protect that sense of innocence, sense of value, sense of intelligence and other risk you can manage.
When you look at Imo State, you have a lot of political giants. And among those you are going to face are those who have tasted political power many times. Compared to them, some people may say Dr Amadi is just like an ‘ant.’ Do you nurse any fear?
No. A product of Gani Fawehinmi should not be afraid. I can say that clearly I don’t have any fear at all .But I believe that, yes, there are people who are more experienced in politics but they lack credibility. Our first projection is this, we are entering into this game, and people must acknowledge that this guy can fix the states. It’s not just about education, but practically for the past 12 years; I have been out, doing good work, designing, reforming ideas, and projects about governance. With that we can say we are the best .That is the idea, this is what we are doing, this is how we will do it. We move from there and say now we close the deal. It is to present ourselves in a clear way that yes we can solve these problems. People say yes we can, then why don’t you allow us to do it. You see, we shouldn’t be too pessimistic about our society. People are ready to move to the next level. They are always looking for those who will tip them over .Those who would lead them, those who would sow the seed. So our coming in is in faith that our people have not totally been without sense of direction. They need leadership. President Muhammadu Buhari by the way, had been a serial loser until there was a shift. So we believe there will be a shift in Imo State now. We are tired of a class of politicians who are called the 419 contractor politicians and they keep failing.
Then what are you promising the people of Imo State?
If you look at my manifesto for the first time, it is clear that you will have a government that is clearly committed to governance .We want to dismantle government as a theatre, a ceremony. It is a shame when I see people on television advertising projects. It is a waste of public money and a waste of time. Governance is based on projects, interventions. Two, you need a government that shows concern. Look at Mbakwe in 1980, Imo was the fastest industrialising state in Nigeria. Mbakwe was a lawyer, a pragmatic man and effective leader. Eastern Nigeria including Calabar under Okpara was the fastest growing economy in the world in the 60s .If you go to my village, there was plantation. If you go to Cross River, there were factories, industries. That was when we had government that focused on development. We have come with our Community Action Plan for Prosperity
The only way economy can grow is when you go back to agro-industrialisation. It makes the local area the centre of prosperity. Basically therefore, we have three visions. One is wealth creation, poverty is high. Part of our suffering is acute scarcity. We are relying on oil wealth and oil wealth is disappearing .Many states are bankrupt. Imo State is one of the twelve most bankrupt states. Their earnings from the federation account and their expenditure on salaries and so on they can’t cope. Look at the level of poverty, no access to basic things of life—maternal care, healthcare. People are calling me every day for a mere ten thousand naira, five thousand naira; to go to hospital. There is no place in Imo State where people can walk in and get the basic medical attention free. Human development is not just about going to formal school; it is also about health care. Health care in Nigeria is in total shambles because there is no investment in health facilities in rural areas. That is part of our second agenda, human capital development. What is the magic? The magic is that I will make sure that 100 per cent of local government allocation stays in the local government. Today, the governors are looting almost all the local government funds. Under Sam Amadi, 100 per cent of local government funds will be used in the local governments. Each local government will have one agro industry every quarter. So in a year, a local government will have four agro- industries. Some local government collect N200 million. Under the Local Government Reforms Act, we are going to implement 60 – 40. Sixty per cent of that money must be used for capital expenditure. That is the money will be used for capital projects. So in three months, N100m can guarantee you a local cottage industry that will give employment to more than 50 to 200 people and these people will come from the local government area. So every four years, you can be sure that at least we are going to have five to ten local industries in each local government area; times 27. Instead of going abroad to look for foreign investors, put back the oil money in local industries. Put it 100 per cent, target low skills agro-industries so that you can employ more people. These are the strategies. But you can’t do this if you are looking for contracts to do, where to make billions and take your family on vacation. No other candidate can make this promise keep it; that is take the whole N100M or N200M local government money back to the local government. And I will sign an irreconcilable commitment to the Finance Ministry to send the money straight to the local governments. So what is different is that we need leaders who are dealing with public interest. We don’t need contractor-politicians who seek public office as another expansion of their fortune empire.
So what is your take on restructuring?
Yes, I am for restructuring. I am part of Ohanaeze think-thank. I have been part of meetings going on. Restructuring is a necessary condition for Nigeria to survive but it is not a sufficient condition. It is a failure of government that calls for restructuring. It is possible for a centralised government to work. Nobody is saying that unless you decentralise, it cannot work. But the level of unity of purpose, the level of essence of oneness is absolutely lacking in our own case. There is always this argument that perhaps if you localise intervention, you would improve quickly. And it boils down to calibre theory of subsidiary idea that problems would be solved at closest range. The future of Nigeria is not bright at all; it is very bleak. Nigeria cannot survive as a totally dissolute, totally chaotic entity the way it is now. But we can re-format Nigeria by letting all Nigerians have sense of justice, and sense of political participation. May be restructuring in the model of Afenifere which is the model of semi-autonomous regions or the model that Ohanaeze brought forward which is of allowing states to coalesce into regions or the Atiku’s and others who probably think there
should be some strategic re-allocation of federal government devolving more power to the states. I prefer two stages: one is that we need to change the idea about Nigeria and I have always been an apostle of what I call democratic citizenship. I prefer a united one Nigeria but united not on a feeder sense of state, the theocratic feeder states which Nigeria is but what I called participating citizenship where every Nigerian is the same. If we can’t get that ideal, then we should have a restructured Nigeria where people who want to see themselves as different can be different and engineer their own survival in competition with others who also see themselves as different but everyone of them sharing common borders that are well structured and with real
reciprocity.
You headed NERC in the past .With your experience, why is it difficult to have reliable steady supply of power in
Nigeria?
The crisis in the power sector has intensified. It has become more and more and heading towards a big crash. There are two problems. The first issue is what I call design problem. We have made some assumptions that are not true. How the market will work, how the private sector will come and solve the problem. There is the failure of design. Reforms succeed based on how you design them .If you make an assumption that doesn’t come true or you are over exuberant, then it might fail. For example, probably we were too ambitious to sell everything .When we should have started with corporatisation so that those NEPA companies became real strong-running companies. Then government would have fixed them when they were strong. When I became NERC Chairman, there was no audited account of any NEPA company from 1960. We organised the first audited account
of NEPA.
