Nigeria @ 52: Tribune Interviews

TRIBUNE INTERVIEWS EXCLUSIVE

NIGERIAN GOVT SHOULD WEEP FOR THE COUNTRY AT 52 - FASANMI

Senator Ayo Fasanmi, a First Republic senator, clocked 87 a few days to Nigeria’s 52 independence celebration. The octogenarian who was an aide of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, speaks with STEPHEN GBADAMOSI on status of the country, among other national issues. Excerpts:

WHAT were those things that usually marked Nigeria’s independence celebrations when you were growing up?

When Nigeria attained independence in 1960, I was already 35 years old. Then, they would declare public holiday. People were usually happy that Nigeria became independent of colonialists. Anybody who gains freedom is usually happy. And so, we celebrated in the mood of joy.

Your leaders then, yourself and your peers fought for Nigeria’s independence; would you say we are moving towards the Nigeria of your dream now?

My mentor and leader in politics under whom I served period of apprentiship, the one and only indefatigable Chief Obafemi Awolowo, taught us that when you are in politics, you want to serve the people. His watchwords were free education, because of those who could not afford to send their children to schools, free health services and so on. Due to his ingenuity, we have the Cocoa House, Wemabod Estate, the first television station in Africa and so on and so forth. He was a man of action; he was very honest and very dedicated.

But 52 years after, one gets worried. And many of us wonder; is this the Nigeria we fought for?

There is unemployment. Some of the institutions our leaders built are going down. The roads that were built even by colonialists then were solid. But the roads that are being constructed now are being done in order to achieve political purposes. You constructed a road yesterday and, today, you find out that it is falling to pieces. There was a lot of honesty and dedication during our time. There is a difference now; we have exchanged one imperialism for another. We exchanged British imperialism for Nigerian imperialism.

When I was in the National Assembly, we were controlling the entire South-West. When we began the democratic experience again in 1999, we were controlling the six states in the South-West. Four years after, we had lost parts of the states and had one left. You know what has been their lot in those five states. I am happy now that we are coming back now to the old situation. We are getting back to the glorious past.

Are you saying that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government at the centre has no cause to celebrate independence?

What are they going to celebrate? Are they going to celebrate corruption? Are they going to celebrate insecurity? People are being kidnapped; people are being killed. The Boko Haram thing is there. What are they really celebrating?

Even in the home state of the kingpin of the ruling party, Olusegun Obasanjo, the party is in disarray. So, the PDP has no cause to celebrate, they should be weeping. Nigeria has fallen into bits.

What should be done to make an occasion like this a joyous one for Nigerians?

The progressive elements in this country must come together. There must be a rescue operation. The ship of state is almost submerged, and there must be a rescue operation. In the South-West here, I only pray that we can win Ondo back into the fold. And the regional integration that the people are asking for must seriously be enforced. That is the way I see it. You can see what is happening in the South-West now.

You are referring to the South-West only, besides South-West, what about other parts of the country?

The same is true of other parts of the country.

Why I’m making reference to the South-West is that the South-West is the showpiece. If they were looking for the best governor, they picked from the South-West; they were looking for the next one, they picked from the South-West, then, the region is the showpiece.

And in the other states, what have they got? In most part of the entire North, you cannot go to church. You want to go and serve your God and some mad people, for religious or political reason, starts to wield guns. I don’t even know what to say; there is so much insecurity. Now, government is asking America to help it because of Boko Haram. You are asking them to come back and colonise us again, because we cannot ensure security of our people.

You mentioned America and I know you are aware of other stable countries which have passed through difficult times. Can’t we say Nigeria is also going through the learning process?

Learning process after 52 years of independence? I know that we must start from a point, but the most debilitating factor in Nigeria, which is looking like an incurable one, is corruption. It is like an in-built institution within another institution. That type of thing happens in other countries too, but the degree in this country is terrible.

If we had continued the way Awolowo started in the Western region or if they had allowed Awolowo to become president, or prime minister of Nigeria, the situation would have been different. Nothing works in this country anymore; electricity does not work, pipes are not running with water, the roads are bad, other infrastructure are decaying and even the educational system is not working.

When you were senator, who among your colleagues then can you say made the most impact?

I recall Senator Abraham Adesanya. There was also Senator Adebiyi. In the First Republic, we had Shitta-Bey from Lagos. Some of them are gone, but they were known for their sense of dedication and selflessness. From Kwara State, we had Cornileus Adebayo. There were friends also from the North who could be said to be progressives.

Awolowo said before he died; I remember the last congress we had in Abeokuta; he said people of like minds should be able to come together, no matter the party they belong to. Remember that when Awolowo wanted to contest the Presidency of this country, he had associates from Igboland and from the North. That was the situation.

The people of that time were patriotic. Their purpose in politics was to serve the people. It is only today that you see a boy of 18 years in a Jeep. And I ask: How did he come about the money?

Now, you begin to wonder if the presidential system is not too expensive for this nation. Shouldn’t we now be considering other options? It is either we make the presidential system less expensive and more manageable or we adopt the parliamentary system. But I think what we need, however, more than anything else, system or no system, are people who are committed and dedicated. Politics should not be for wealth.

You just turned 87, what advice do you have for Nigerians to make the country better?

We should review the whole system. Are we really having a federal structure? What is the fiscal policy? Does it reflect the federal nature of the country? Are we not having too much power in the centre?

What I would suggest is that we place less premium on wealth. We should return to politics of life. Awolowo did it many years back. We can now start doing it again. The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) governors in Ekiti, Osun and Lagos are good examples.

You can see what Rauf Aregbesola is doing in Osun; it is complete revolution. Revolution is not all about arm struggle, but fine character. Fayemi in Ekiti is also putting more premium on service. If they all do that, Nigeria will be better.

We must fight corruption to a standstill and the young ones must imbibe that spirit.

Awolowo said life should not only be in abundant for the people on top, but also for those below.

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Rules and Business, Honourable Albert Sam-Tsokwa, who represents Donga/Takum/Ussa and Special Areas Federal Constituency of Taraba State, in this interview with Kolawole Daniel, speaks on a number of national issues. Excerpts:

WHAT is your take on the insistence of the House that Ms Arumma Oteh’s sack as Director General of Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) stays?

Our resolution of 19 July, before we proceeded on our annual recess, was based on the fact that the law establishing that commission specifies qualifications which a person must have before getting to that office. The committee found as a fact that Oteh did not and doesn’t have that qualification and recommended that if she doesn’t have that qualification, she should not be in that office and that is what the law says, it is not what the House says. If we are a country that runs democracy based on the rule of law, everybody is equal before the law and the executive, judiciary and legislature should not be seen as violator of the laws they swore to uphold. Even at that, the law was passed by the National Assembly, the law was signed into law by Mr. President. So, we should obey the law we have set down for ourselves as a country. I don’t see any vendetta; in fact I am not aware of any such fact.

As the Attorney-General of the House, often, the executive would refer to resolution of the House as merely advisory; are you not worried about this trend?

There has never been any time Mr. President called the resolution of the House mere expression of opinion. It was Reuben Abati that expressed that view and Mr. President proved Abati wrong by going back on his words in subsidy removal palava. Fuel subsidy was removed 100 per cent on 1 January, but following the intervention of the House which was based on the outcry of Nigerians, we resolved that the fuel subsidy should not be remove and Mr. President wore a human face and revisited the issue.

Mind you, Abati said it would not happen. But the president said it would happen and it happened.

Aside our resolution on fuel subsidy removal, just of recent, the Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, said there was no going back on introduction of new N5,000 note, despite our resolution that it should be halted. But Mr. President proved him wrong by saying that it should be suspended because the House and the people said no to it.

So, I won’t subscribe fully to saying the executive has been treating our resolutions with levity. Some of our resolutions do not require action, but the one that require action; I think it will not be too fair to say Mr. President has been outright in rejecting them. I think that we are making a headway.

So, are you saying Mr. President is listening to the voice of the people?

Yes he is. I give Mr. President kudos; he has behaved as a statesman. There is nothing wrong in reverting yourself when you discover that you have taken a wrong decision and that is what leaders should be.

In view of what you just said, what will be your word to Mr. President’s aides? My word will not go to Mr. President’s aide because I have no business with them, I don’t know them; they are not politicians, they are businessmen in political uniform.

None of them went out there to canvass for vote. My worry is that I have said and I will repeat it until Mr. President hears me. Mr. President never visited my constituency to campaign for vote; I campaigned for him and I staked my own election for his. I told every person during my campaign; if you are not going to vote for Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, don’t vote for me. They voted for me and for him also.

So, anything I say is in his interest because he will come again and want vote. I want a situation where the people will come and say Mr. President, we want you to contest again because you have done well for us, rather than him coming to beg for vote.

So, it is well that he has realised that he surrounds himself with enemies, rather than friends; whoever is not doing what will project your own image positively is not your friend, he is your enemy. If I am going to advise anybody, I will just tell Mr. President to take a second look at the list of his aides and know who are working for him and those who are not working for him; who are working in the interest of Nigerians and who are not working in the interest of Nigerians. He should take a second look at the list of his ministers. Yes, they have signed performance contract agreement, how many of them delivered based on the signed performance contract agreement? We are today just some few minutes from 1st of October and the capital aspect of the budget implementation is below 40 per cent. What are we going to tell Nigerians? What is the president going to tell the National Assembly to get approval for 2013 budget?

So, Mr. President is a good man; he has Nigerian’s interest at heart, but he surrounds himself with people who don’t even know Nigeria, let alone having Nigerian’s interest at heart. He should take a second look at the list of those who surround him.

Do you subscribe to it that Mr. President should come back in 2015?

It is not a question of wanting Mr. President to come back or not. If Mr. President wants to come back, he knows what to do; it is not I who will bring Mr. President or say he should not come, it is the people outside there. What are Nigerians saying? Well, for example, this is my second tenure; I suffered in my first election more than I did in my second election. There are places I went to campaign for my second elections but the people told me that I didn’t need to campaign in their area again because they knew I was contesting again and they had seen what I had done.

This is exactly what I expect people to tell Mr. President. All those people making noise that Mr. President should contest, telling him that constitution says he should contest; constitution doesn’t vote, the people do. So, Mr. President’s vote is going to be determined by how much smile he has put on the faces of Nigerians and how much food he has been able to put on the table of Nigerians. A hungry man outside there will fight back.

So, I will love Mr. President to come back because he is a good man, but how much of his goodness fills the stomach of Nigerians, he knows; I don’t. But it is too early to be thinking 2015; we should be thinking 2015 from 2014.

Sir, you just said that you love Mr. President to come back in 2015. As the House member representing your people, what are those things you can pinpoint that the president has been able to achieved so far?

The only major federal presence in my constituency is the Kashimila Dam and Mr.Presient has been pursuing the execution of that project religiously. But the Kashimila Dam is not a project just for my constituency. The hazard that may come if the Dam fails is national in nature. It is linked with Lake Nyos and any problem with the Lake Nyos now is going to affect the whole country.

I am looking at Kashimila Dam as project of the nation, but I thank God and Mr. President that it is sited in my constituency. We are going to derive a lot of other benefits from it. It is going to generate power and once a power project there is completed, I think we will say bye to blackout. Just as we enjoy the sun for 12 hours, we will enjoy electricity in my constituency for 24 hours. So, that alone is speaking for Mr. President in my constituency and I want him to extend this to other constituencies so that by the time 2015 comes, we will work and win, rather than run and sweat before we win.



POOR INFRASTRUCTURE, ATTITUDE MAKE NIGERIANS SEEK FOREIGN MEDICAL TREATMENT - OAUTH CMD

Recently, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital (OAUTH), Ile-Ife, Osun State, Professor Olusanya Adejuyigbe, spoke with some select journalists after touring the facilities at the hospital complex, on the breakthrough in the health sector, and declared that the hospital can now perform any form of DNA. JACOB SEGUN OLATUNJI was there. Excerpts:

RECENTLY, a Lagos-based laboratory operator, Dr. Afolabi said his laboratory was the only one that got capacity for DNA technology in the country during the DANA air crash. What is your reaction to this sir?

That is not true. Our hospital has been involved with organs from plantation for about 10 years and in the last five years, we have established facilities to carry out Tissue tapping which is part of the DNA analysis. When the DANA Air crash happened, the Honourable Minister of Health who is aware of our laboratory got in touch with me and asked that how do we help and I told him what he could do and he said I should get across to our colleagues in Lagos. We got to talk to them and gave them the address of our consultant in charge but till today he never contacted us.

Let me say a little about DNA technology. One, the DNA is like an identification tag that is individual-specific. If you know your DNA, no other person except probably your identical twin can have the same DNA. You understand what I mean. So, if we can access DNA, we may be able to identify an individual. If we will have records of what it was before or if we have blood relations with whom we share genetic materials. The original set up we have was that we could do it only in blood. We take the blood from the individual, but as we realise many of the victims in the DANA air crash were burnt which means blood was no longer available and this was conveyed to the Honourable Minister, that if blood were available there is nothing we could not do. But then, he advised that we should get the reagent to do it in any body tissue. While we were concentrating on the issues of blood then, that is the common requirement whether for paternity dispute or for tissue merging two people. But we can now even do it in any body tissue because within two weeks after that incident, we arrived at it though it may not be needed often, we have to incorporate that into our armamentarium, and we are now able to do that. We hope very soon we will even go beyond that to be able to do DNA, what we call gene frequency, to identify the genes on the DNA. We have requested from our partners abroad to let us know the equipment needed and that is just it. We funded everything about tissue tapping laboratory and DNA works from our internally-generated money.

Bone-marrow transplant, which is said to be one of the choicest medical means of solving major health problems, has been reportedly done successfully in some hospitals outside Nigeria. What has OAUTH done towards carrying this out?

We have a building, the transplant building, where we can do it with its own dedicated facility, what is holding us back is the hardware to use, and we have trained one of our consultants, Dr Oyekunle, in this technology. He has gone abroad I think twice or more for this purpose. And we can say by the next few years, very soon let me say, we will also be able to do that given our man and material strength.

Why train only one consultant? Why not more, given the size of this hospital and the work that will be available for him to do?

We have identified another younger consultant to train. You know people have their practice interest, he expressed an interest in this area, and we think he can be the nucleus of this project. If he has expertise, with the people on ground he can succeed.

It is not something that we need many doctors to do. We need a lot of support, equipment-wise and laboratory-wise. Except for the transplant centre to become functional, it is one of the things we thought we will be able to do in this financial year; that is why we said in the next one year, we will be able to do that. But we have identified another younger consultant who is likely to partner with him, to be with him.

Sir, there are groups in Nigeria who are less-privileged and they have medical challenges. We have been having problems of even young people now having problems with their hearts and they needed heart transplant and most of them are taken abroad. Is it that this teaching hospital does not have the facilities to do that?

We can’t do heart transplantation now but we can do cardiac surgery because many people go abroad not because of transplantation. They go either because their valves are diseased or some of the vessels are blocked which they will bypass and that is what they call it coronary artery bypass. You bypass the blocked area, if the valve is diseased, you replace the valve. We can do that in this hospital.

Most Nigerians who have problems which request bypass operations still go abroad but you said this hospital can handle such effectively, why do you think this hospital is not being patronised effectively for such operations?

The programme started about a year ago and why are people not patronising us? I have been asked that question several times but I know that those who go abroad as at today in this country are from the upper echelon and they spend their money in many instances, though a few of them may be sponsored by government organisations. On many occasions, for a variety of social reasons, they may prefer to go abroad, not necessarily because of the technical expertise, but as we agree, in many of these countries they go to, social infrastructure is better and they may factor that into their plan. If you are coming here from Akwa Ibom, there is no direct flight, you come by road, whereas if you go from Akwa Ibom to Lagos, you take a plane and go to Calcutta in India, if you take off from Lagos, the person will be in India before the person from Akwa Ibom will arrive here in Ile Ife, that is what I mean by social infrastructure. It is not just about the hospital, it part of this attitude, this act of going abroad is not just on technicalities. The other thing is this, in many of the countries they go to, particularly in the Indian sub-continent, there are already in place infrastructure, the government and the society deliberately support health institutions to attract foreign funds. That is still in the infancy in this country. Like all forms of tourism, the infrastructure to support people leaving their own place to come to your place and still feel at home, is still being developed in this country, like hotels, transportation and so on. It is common to hear people say “if we get there now, there will be no light,” you understand? Unlike other countries, each hospital in our country is like a local government—provide your electricity, water and security, possibly manufacture the tools you use, which in other countries might not be necessary.

Do you think the health sector in Nigeria is properly funded?

To answer in a simple sentence, we are not well-funded. It is not that the government is not trying, we are not there yet but we are making progress. Other countries that we go, they don’t depend solely on government. There are lots of non-governmental funding coming in into the sector to give helping hands, to allow it develop maximally. For example, if I am going to buy an equipment in Nigeria, I will be forced to pay in cash down, whereas a hospital of this magnitude in England would have a relationship with manufacturing company that is based in England, we can lease and pay a sort of rent which would be affordable, so rather than looking for 250million or 300million at a time, all I may need to do is for the first quarter 5 million which may be affordable and the difference is that if there is a new model, they will come and take away the old model and replace it with new model because they also want their equipments used and recycle the old model and possibly resell to Africa.