Chief Olabode George is a former military governor of old Ondo State and a former National Vice Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party. In this interview, he speaks on the state of the economy, state police, judiciary, insecurity and the 2023 general elections. Excerpts:
What are your thoughts on the state of affairs in Nigeria?
Whatever I want to say, I would like to be genuine and honest because whichever party that’s in government, the day you finish the elections and you’re there, we have no other option than to give advice. The state of affairs of the country is abysmal. It is heart wrenching for people my age; I will soon be 80 years.
As the giant of Africa, there is no profession in the world that you won’t find one Nigerian as an expert. We planted two evils in this country; tribalism and religious bigotry. These are prevailing issues we have never resolved. If there’s an agitation, if people don’t play the card of tribalism, they will play the card of religion. And as a Christian, the first commandment of God says, “Hear Oh Israel, you must love your God and fear Him”. He must be the first in everything you do. And the second commandment is, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself”. Did He (God) define who your neighbour is? Anybody from any tribe can be your neighbour. And he went ahead to add that you do unto others as you wish they do unto you.
These are basic tenets for development, camaraderie, oneness of purpose; something that would translate the nation to greater heights. But here we are, over 60 years of existence. We’ll be pretending if we say all is well.
Take the economic indices of this country, for instance. There was a time our naira was equivalent to the British Pound Sterling and even stronger than the American dollar. But look at where we are now. We should ask ourselves what went wrong. We cannot pretend because people have been running the system.
Where is our debt portfolio today? I saw something recently when I went to Onne (in Port Harcourt, Rivers State). Onne is the heartland, the cash cow of this nation. It is the centrepiece of oil and gas operations in this country.
Today, Onne is like an abandoned graveyard. My heart tore when I saw it. What happened? Who closed down the refinery and for what reason? Today, we’re borrowing from here and there. Is it a free launch? Somebody will pay for it. And the current ‘Japa generation’, have gone for a better life abroad.
There will come a time when they would decide to return to their fatherland and they would be confronted with a humongous ‘gbese’ (huge debt profile). The debt they would meet on ground will sink the ship of this country.
Some people are telling us that they have removed the petrol subsidy; others are saying the subsidy is still there, so who’s lying? It is frightening.
All is not well. Mr. President should come clear and tell the nation the exact situation the man who left office before him handed over to him, sector by sector. It is our right to know the truth.
For instance, who is the current Minister of Petroleum? Who is the chairman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)? The person there now also worked with former President Muhammadu Buhari. What is the exact story? Why are you hiding it? This is not a military government. The power rests with the people. They trusted you and voted you into office to go there to manage the resources of the country for our benefit. Essentially that’s the basis of democracy.
“I support the call for the establishment of state police”
Has the fuel subsidy actually been removed?
We don’t know what is actually happening. People are saying different things. Who are the characters behind it? Whatever the government says, we are bound to believe it. Those who say it’s a lie are also credible people because they’re operating in that field. So who’s lying? We’re drifting very badly.
I know that the heartland of this country is in Onne, but Onne has been shut down. It’s now a free zone.
In the meantime, the Central Bank Governor is going about borrowing money here and there. That’s not his job. Where’s the Minister of Finance? The Governor of the Central Bank is not a member of the cabinet. The real financial gurus of the administration are in the ministries. All the Central Bank does is to make inputs in the areas of cash flow, foreign exchange rates and so on; basically fiscal and financial measures.
The Central Bank’s role is to act as an advisory body to the Minister of Economic Affairs. That’s all. But here, it’s like we are operating a voodoo economy. We have no income. The businesses can’t break even. In fact, we’re still a country and not a nation yet. That’s my conclusion. A leadership of a nation would listen to the people and demonstrate love for the nation, show dedication and commitment to the people, irrespective of wherever you come from.
That raises the issue of restructuring. Do you think that’s the solution to Nigeria’s problems?
Absolutely. We have to restructure the country. I retired as a General in the military. And I can tell you that the constitution we’re operating at the moment is absolutely suitable for a military organisation, where you have one boss, the chief. That cannot come into politics. In the military, the chief may get some advice from the directors and others, but once he puts his pen to paper and says this is the direction, the response is “yes sir” And you simply comply.
What’s your take on the call for state police as a panacea for the insecurity across the country?
I support the call for the establishment of state police. People are saying the governors will misuse the state police; let them misuse it. Can a governor be in office forever? He will pay a dirty price at the end of his tenure if he misuses the state police while in office.
Better organised countries found out that policing is a communal responsibility. Under a state police, you don’t bring somebody from another area to come and work in a place he does not understand the people’s language and culture, or the geographical environment.
The essence of a state police is that the personnel speak the people’s language and understand their culture and the geography of the area. They know the dos and don’ts of the people. If anything happens, the intelligence would pick it because they live among the people. And they know they’re responsible. And if you’re so honoured and you mess up, forget your future. So there must be a revisit of this constitution that the military handed us.
The military said they modeled our constitution after the American constitution. Is this the way the Americans operate their own constitution? The answer is no. In America, every state has its own police. They also have the County Police; that is the local government police. They have the police everywhere so that the people can sleep with both eyes closed. Who is safe now in Nigeria? Whether you’re rich or poor they can kidnap you for ransom or ritual purposes.
Can’t the security challenge be dealt with?
Of course it can be dealt with. Let’s move away from the lies that the police can be used by the governors to their benefit. If any state governor knows that once the people disagree with what he’s doing, he will see them on the street, he will sit up.
The primary responsibility of any government is the security of life and property of the people. The local government chairman also knows that there must be peace in his local government, otherwise the people will react. All we’re saying is revisit the constitution. Fortunately, I was a member of the last National Conference in 2014 that reviewed the current constitution which is very defective.
At the moment, Lagos State is the most populated state in Nigeria. It is the largest electoral state today. We have only 20 local governments defined by the constitution. Every month the states collect money for local governments from the federation account. Ogun State, which shares borders with Lagos, is not even one quarter of Lagos in terms of population. It has 20 local governments.
Kano State is the next most populated after Lagos; it has 44 local governments. Jigawa State, which was carved out from Kano State, has either 24 or 26 local governments.
We need to revisit the constitution. The policy that established local governments allows the states to determine how many local governments they want because they must sustain them. You’re free to have 200 local governments if you can cope with it. If it is only one local government you want, that’s your business. It has nothing to do with the federation. It is purely a state matter. We can have a United States of Nigeria, where each state would control its internal resources to be managed for the benefit of the people. Of course, we will still have a Federal Government like the United States whose headquarters is in Washington DC. But California is the largest state in America with an economy that is the sixth largest in the world.
The governor knows what he must do for his people because it’s well defined. He has no business with Washington DC. Of course, every state has a certain amount of what it contributes for the maintenance of activities at the national level. They have the County Police, the State Police and the FBI, which is responsible for national issues. Once a matter gets to a certain level beyond the county or state police, the FBI is there to deal with it. Why can’t we have the same structure? Why are we deceiving ourselves?
The representation at the national level is unequal and that’s unfair. We have seven states in the North West; six in North East; six in North Central; six in South West; six in South South and five in South East. Why? The people who conceptualised that constitution might not have seen the flaws. But we’ve practiced it and we’ve seen the loopholes and weaknesses in the constitution.
But are there deliberate and sincere efforts to correct the flaws in the constitution?
That is the responsibility of the National Assembly. When we finished the report of the 2014 National Conference, which was the first time a civilian administration in this country would start the review of the constitution and conclude the exercise – every matter went through the plenary session, debated and a unanimous decision was taken. When the then President Goodluck Jonathan received the completed paper, he was not too far from the next general election. Ideally the Federal Executive Council revisited that report, made little changes and it was ready. It was sent to the National Assembly, but the then Senate President, David Mark and his team, the same party in government, said ‘no, we’re going into election, we can’t discuss it’. We (PDP) were controlling both the Senate and the House of Representatives. We also had more states under our control. They handed the document to the incoming president, Buhari, and he thanked them and put it in the archives where it has been till today.
People forget that when they come into public office to serve the people, there are pages of history of what they did or failed to do while in office. And the question is, what will you want to be recorded for you in your own pages of that history? Today, we still read about all the things Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Chief Obafemi Awolowo did. What are people going to talk about the present generation of our leaders?
As an ‘irredentist’ PDP member, are you not bothered about the manner some of your party bigwigs are romancing the ruling APC?
It’s not a healthy development. But the truth will, someday, be told. We’re not drifting to that level. The founding fathers of PDP got together at the instance of the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme to find a solution to the frequent military coups in the country. The civil administrations were not helping matters. Dr. Ekwueme invited people from every zone across the country, irrespective of their political leanings.
He invited Chief Bola Ige from the South West. He invited Baba Solomon Lar, Adamu Ciroma, Bamanga Tukur, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, and other people across the country, people with diverse political leanings to form the G14. The experience of the First Republic was such that the majority tribes had their way and the minority tribes were just mere onlookers. If you’re a member of an association, whether you’re a majority or minority, are you not a human being? Are you to be treated as if you’re not wanted here?
That was the bane of the Tafawa Balewa led government of the First Republic. Then there was a military coup and a counter military coup. There were differences in the approach to governance. Each region had its government. The truth is that the British parliamentary system of government is not suitable for Africa. It’s so archaic and alien to African culture and tradition. In Britain, a member of the parliament can stand up and pass an insult to the Speaker, in acceptable language though. A member of the House could tell the Speaker that all he said was a load of rubbish because he may have woken up from the wrong side of his bed and everybody would laugh it off. But can that happen in Africa? When you look at our culture, every locality has one man as the Oba, who represents various quarters. What does that look like? Is that a parliamentary system? It’s completely presidential. That’s what we were used to. That was why the parliamentary system didn’t work after the British left.
“Nuhu Ribadu was still there. He investigated the matter and said ‘if you want to fight Chief Bode George, go to the political field. As far as this matter is concerned, it’s absolute nonsense”
What’s your impression about the 2023 election?
What happened was shambolic. Disgraceful. It is especially so for somebody like me as a systems engineer. Look, on board our ship, we have computers these days, not like the old time. The early warning radar picks up the incoming missile to your ship. In microseconds, the computer would have done some work, assessing the time of flight that the incoming missile would reach you. In microseconds, it decided what weapon you’re going to use, what the weather is; it would have prepared everything and sent that information to the appropriate weapon. And in microseconds the Captain has to fire.
The INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, said they had a glitch in the last election. Glitch of what? Which kind of system do you have that is not robust enough to be able to switch to another channel once one channel blocks? Why did you have to go back to interlopers and manipulators? Are we moving forward or backward?
Remember that INEC gave us all the assurances that they would deliver a credible election and even boasted about how they did it during the elections in Anambra State, Edo State, Ekiti State and Osun State. They bragged that they had done a test run and everything was perfect. And, on D-Day, they told us shamelessly that there was a glitch, and so they returned to the system that was designed in the dark days. Remember when Prof Yakubu said there was a glitch, he forgot that the manufacturers of the electoral gadgets were being labeled as irresponsible, and guess what, they immediately replied to him. They made a statement and said: “We were watching you online, you switched off the system, there was no glitch!” So what do we want for ourselves? Let’s leave a positive taste in the minds of the people, so that they can remember you for good. Nation building is not a 100 metres dash race. Let every generation build up and build up because it never finishes.
The judiciary ought to be the last hope of the common man, but recent developments seem to suggest otherwise.
I was reading something last night about Justice Emmanuel Oseloka Araka. I also read what the first Chief Justice of Lagos State, under the Mobolaji Johnson administration, Justice J.I.C Tailor, said concerning the rule of law.
Justice Tailor wrote it down that he would not participate in anything or meeting that would make him a stooge to the executive, because the state government had a lot of pending cases with him. That was a judge. Justice Araka did the same thing. And quoting Justice Tailor, he said, ‘I cannot be invited to the Government House. To do what? Because the people are watching. What are you going there to do? Are you subordinating yourself?
The executive, legislature and judiciary are three equal arms of government that form the tripod, and as an engineer, any three legged structure that forms a body must be a stable platform. They were asking the current Chief Justice of the Federation, in their write ups, why he should go to the Presidential Villa for breakfast? What did he go there to do? If you have independence, reflect on it. Let that be the norm. And if you fail, whatever the president or executive does, whether right or wrong, you must support them.
I suffered from it. As chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, I was doing my work and some people didn’t like it. And, from the blues, they accused us of splitting contracts. Which contracts? At the board meeting, I asked the chairman, ‘did I prepare the memo?’ It was brought before us for consideration. So who split what? Who benefitted what? And you know the joke; the actual executive director who wrote and presented the memo to the board for discussion was never arrested. The Executive Director, Finance, was not arrested. The case was Bode George and others versus the Federal Government and they brought it to my political enemy, to the judiciary of Lagos State, which is my state. I was told that one very senior retired justice of the Supreme Court wrote the judgment to be read against us. Unfortunately, he was my senior in secondary school. They sentenced us. They said we split the contract, which was not awarded. All the then legal officers in the EFCC are still alive. Nuhu Ribadu was still there. He investigated the matter and said ‘if you want to fight Chief Bode George, go to the political field. As far as this matter is concerned, it’s absolute nonsense.
And then, all the legal officers in the EFCC said ‘there’s no case here.’ He didn’t commit any offence. That was how they sent us to two years imprisonment. And they said, yes, we’ve gotten rid of this man. But I thank God that at the end of everything, the Supreme Court quashed the sentence and declared it null and void. And as a Christian, I have forgiven those who masterminded my travails.
