Former Minister of Education and founder of FixPolitics, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, in this interview monitored on Channels Television, speaks on recent developments in the polity and other national issues.....See Full Story>>.....See Full Story>>
You’re once said that ‘we are headed for a disastrous run if we are not careful’. Did you fear that these were going to happen in the long run?
Well, very much so. The indicators were right there. It depends on what direction you take it; whether you decided to think of the ruinous situation we have in the country from the political perspective, it was bound to happen.
I mean, what we had in 2023 was not an election, properly so called. There was nothing credible about the presidential election of 2023 and the outcomes that followed.
It was very clear that the concept of “Snatch, Grab it, Run with it,” was going to haunt us if the credible path to competitive democracy was not what we followed in the elections, and it has become clear increasingly, as we have seen as the days go by, that we have become victims of absolute collapse of our institutions.
And so whether it is the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) or it is the judiciary, we saw that complete denigration of the principles on which institutional mechanisms are founded. So, if you took it on the economic side, it was very clear that we were already in trouble.
But guess what, the individuals who are today saying that they met trouble were part of those who said to us that the economy was doing well and that there was no reason for any kind of counter opinion or contrary opinion, on the state of economic policy management in the eight years of their predecessor.
So, they are very complicit in what became of the economy of this country today. And if you look at it from a social perspective, the complete ethnocentrism that drove the campaign in the elections of 2023 basically advanced by the kind of political culture that the President enabled has made that our social cohesion and our social capital even got really depleted. So where do we start from?
Some say President Muhammadu Buhari’s government set the economy backward 20 years and anyone after him will experience the kind of problem that we’re experiencing today. Do you think that’s not the case?
I actually did say publicly that it was not going to be a piece of cake to run the economy because of the absolute devastation of everything that even resembles economic policy. I don’t think they were doing economic policy under President Buhari, but this particular administration agreed with it.
They agreed with everything that Buhari was doing. So, in their own case, nobody should feel sorry for them. They were culpable in it. I think that the problem with the Nigerian society is that we quickly forget these things.
I’m particularly concerned about the very public with my opinion about the governance of the country I’m from, and that’s because I understand the basic principles of democracy that you cannot simply be a person who has got the privilege of education, not just basic education, but you are very advanced in your knowledge, and also you have political literacy. And just because you are in a place of privilege and comfort, then it doesn’t matter to you how the country is governed. It should matter.
Even when I was in government, my boss used to say, in cabinet, he would say to anybody, just never be alone, you are all in my cabinet, do I need to be a Gani Fawehinmi? I used to think it was a compliment. And I would say that to him; that, that’s a compliment. If we did not interrogate ourselves, if we did not question ourselves, then we would lead the country into the bush.
So, my point is that when this economy was badly run under the APC administration of President Buhari, all of these people that are telling us that the economy was badly managed were agreeing with the policy direction of that administration. Why now should they try to disassociate themselves?
How would you rate this government in the last one year from your own assessment? We use the indicators. We always say that in God I trust, but every other person must come with their data. And all the data, the economic indicators show clearly that they haven’t done a good job of it. Instead they worsened it.
For one, they could avoid the fiscal recklessness and rascality that we see. If you are a Nigerian, you should be very vexed at this government. I don’t even know the word, I’m trying not to use harsh words, but it is difficult not to, because of the divergence between what I know to be the daily pain and misery of the Nigerian poor person.
I am a pastor’s wife, so I get to be in the midst of all segments of the society. I know what families are going through. I cry every day because of that, I cry when we read some of the texts that my husband, as pastor of a church gets and to see the political class of this country being totally reckless with scarce public resources. A country that is highly leveraged, being highly leveraged means that we are overburdened with debt, we are crumbling under the weight of debt.
When you talk about debt and these guys begin to tell you debt to GDP ratio, that’s an incredible nonsense because that is not the important indicator you use when you don’t have the kind of GDP base and structure of economy and revenue size and scale that those in advanced economies can do. What you are paying attention to is tax revenue, or total revenue to debt, and the total revenue to debt has gone from 80 per cent to any numbers that are higher than that.
Despite all the promises, why is the economy still in such a devastating state that it is right now?
They said some of the policies made are like the pain of childbirth. At some point, you will feel the pain, but that we will start feeling the benefit at the end of the day. The thing about economic policy choices is that, it’s like pregnancy, no matter how you try to cover it, it will show up.
So, if you run economic policies that are well designed, sequenced properly, and we looked at intended and unintended consequences, meaning that, there could be things that happen as a result, even though you know the outcome is good, there will be some consequences that will not be so good.
So, let’s take the matter of removal of subsidy. One of the things that have been made public is what we have seen over time; that merely changing the price of petroleum products does not give us a sustained benefit of the sector. And so I have been very vocal in saying that what the country needs is a complete deregulation of the petroleum sector.
We did price shifting many times over now, and we have seen that the sector just does not respond to that. Why is that so? It is because there are serious governance issues in that sector. So, just saying that we are removing subsidy was not going to be sufficient.
The governance architecture of that sector is still intact with all of its challenges. And what you have done is one little part of what is supposed to happen in the sector. Look, the petroleum sector is just like any product. Telecom service is a service, petroleum is a product.
The same concept of how markets work would affect outcomes when you do the right reforms, the right reforms that should happen in the petroleum sector, of basically changing the roles and duties and responsibilities of the market and that has not happened. Why is that so? It is because people continue to use discretionary powers in that sector.
They want to be the ones making the decisions concerning the sector. And what we know about discretionary powers in a sector that can be market driven is that it will create distortions. So, I’m not surprised. I am not at all surprised; that’s one part of it.
What is your view on corruption in the oil and gas industry?
If you want the petroleum sector to deliver well, we have an example before us. We did the structural change of the telecom sector. Are you still running after NITEL? There is not much of a significant difference, other than the issue of a refinery.
You see, the thing about investment is that it is skittish to environments that it is not sure of. There’s a certain level of moves within a sector that will signal to the market that this is a sector I can enter.
We haven’t done that because the politicians hug the petroleum sector to themselves. They love the petroleum sector. They want to have it in their full control. So, what they’ve been doing has been, at best, building a halfway house.
Do you think the government is still not serious about fixing the petroleum sector?
When they are ready, they will do complete deregulation of the sector. And it would mean that the Nigerian National Petrolum Corporation (NNPC), which operates as though it is a federal republic of the NNPC, will just become a player, and it would have to be efficient or perish, because the market will discipline it. Our politicians don’t like market discipline.
They don’t like it. The market is an anathema to them, because the market just enables what we say in the telecom sector, they don’t want that. I recall in the days of the sector reform to prepare us for telecom sector liberalization, how it was that the people who were in the Ministry of Communication were so angry, including the minister at that time.
It was like taking away power from them. You see discretionary powers, as we know, in Transparency International is what is killing most of the developing countries because if someone is holding so much power to determine life and death, they’re going to abuse it.
Can you give one candid advice on that?
My goodness; it will be to get some competent technical advice and begin the process of designing a full deregulation of the petroleum sector. You have to get beyond the articulation.
You have to actually sequentially unbundle the situation that you have because it’s a matter of what incentive are you signaling. You’re signaling chaos. You’re signaling intervention and interruption in the sector. You’re signaling administrative powers that are totally unquestioned. You’re signaling lack of public accountability.
We do know that investors care about the rule of law, the predictability, a certain level of predictability, meaning that they expect to know the rules of the game. Where are the rules of the game in the sector, in the way it’s operated? Well, you know why the sector is still so opaque.
l look at the latest thing that we saw with the Dangote Refinery. I mean, that was a global embarrassment. I’ve had people ask me questions, especially because in this country, we were the first country that stepped up and did what we call the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and I led it.
What is your view on the fuel subsidy impasse?
I think I’ll just simply be repeating myself if I answer it that way because I have said it that there is something about preparing a sector to become a market driven sector. We haven’t done that. You have what was agreed in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Now, how much of that has happened? People are still holding to power in government because the NNPC is still a government entity. I mean, the NNPC man would go to the president, just in the same way that they used to go all this time, including when we were in government. But the whole idea of the Act was to tilt it. Government has no business.
What’s the President doing, sitting with the NNPC Managing Director every time, to talk what? You should go to the market! So, this sector is waiting for a proper deregulation. And as you said, they need to get serious about implementing the Act, because we implemented the Act on the telecom sector.
That’s why today, Nigerians have access to telecom services. They don’t need to call anybody. The competition is going on very well. There are issues occasionally, and there will need to be more investment in the backbone and all of that. But it’s a sector that is market driven, and it is working. The same thing could happen to aviation.
The same thing could happen to petroleum sector, the energy sector, we also had a proper sectoral reform that ended up in the Energy Sector Act. I was a member of that reform team, and for the energy sector, the unbundling of NEPA and then the preparation for the privatization.
What went wrong? As soon as we left government, the next administration rolled back on it. Otherwise, the energy sector would have been a greater fashion, as a matter of fact, of the telecom sector, because when subsequently they began the implementation of the roadmap of action for the sector.
What happened the kind of Jokers that they gave the various Genco’s to run. Look at the sector. They haven’t told us the story of that sector yet, because that sector is part of the reason that the financial sector faces crisis that are right now under the government funds.
And guess what! The truth of that sector is that the sector holds back a lot of the productivity of the economy, and that’s something that people should really give attention to. That sector could have just been, as I said, a greater version of the success of the telecom sector.
Now, with this petroleum sector and the shenanigans going on there, the government wouldn’t even have 0.1 credibility of accepting that the deregulation of the sector has to really be launched in the way that is very short term, medium term, long term, and we see evidence of it. What would happen is that it sends a signal. Right now, all the signals about that sector are going in the different direction.
What is your take on the presidential jet that has just been replaced?
You mean the Obasanjo’s new aircraft that is now 19 years old? Let’s not speak in general terms. That aircraft is a 19 year old, and it was a new aircraft. I think it was a B727.
Now, in everything that we have heard justifying the basis for a new aircraft, and by the way, I’m absolutely upset that these fellows would dare to play with the intelligence of the Nigerian public. Between the executive, the presidency, the National Assembly, I think they have decided that they are the bandits.
Who are the bandits?
All of them! The political class has decided that they are the bandits against the people of Nigeria, because I do not see why the topmost priority of a government that has this level of biting hunger in the land, this level of poverty, where people are dropping into poverty per minute, would consider the purchase of a befitting aircraft for the President, the construction of a 20 billion Naira home for the Vice President, the purchase of all kinds of funny looking cars and the fleet of the National Assembly members and the executive.
What exactly is that? And I stick with a lot of moral authority. I said, this country, they want everything about what I earn? They can find it in their folder.
As a minister, there was something called Minister’s Impress or vote but my permanent secretary will tell you that I did not touch it, not a dime. So, when people say were you not in government, I wasn’t in a government that watched women screaming: ‘We are hungry, we haven’t eaten.’
People used to do what they call 0-0- 1 or 0-1-0,; today, a family will tell you ‘our children haven’t eaten in the last three days because we just cannot afford the prices in the market.’ When inflation is at 40 per cent, it erodes the poor.
If you were the president, wouldn’t you get a befitting aircraft, or would you fly a commercial aircraft?
If I were president and I see the people of my country in this state of affairs, I wouldn’t go out and buy an aircraft for myself. When you are a leader, you are first in the line to inconvenience yourself.
That’s what leadership is about. Who told you that leadership is about long story? With this version of political leadership in our country; I think Nigerians need to wise up. There is nothing about leadership that gives an advantage over the people. The leader is the one who takes the cost, so that the people can get the benefit. That’s what leadership is.
This bunch of people in the National Assembly, in the executive and in government houses in the states are not political leaders.
These are rascals by every definition of the word and I’m not mincing words about it because you can see clearly that they don’t care about the people. If you look at the choices that our political class is consistently making, you can see clearly that they don’t care about the people.
This country can go to ruin for as long as they can feed the avarice, their unending appetite for the public treasury, they’re fine. But if citizens are fine with it, so be it. If we are not fine with it, there is a class war they have launched against the people and that war needs to be fought.
Do you see anything that looks luxurious in the approach of this government in terms of lifestyle?
I think you are going to ask me questions to infuriate me, to make me angry, thank you very much for doing that.
The thing is that, when your priorities are all going in the direction of things that do not add in any way to the productivity and competitiveness of the economy that you are responsible for, and your people are sliding more and more in poverty, and your young people are looking at their future and seeing it bleak, and all you are saying is, you justify the fact that you need a new aircraft, you justify the fact that you really need the vehicles that cannot stop on the road because we are senators and we are members of the House or you justify being given a brand new house as vice president of the country, you are justifying just nonsense waste of public resources and you are telling me to debate that?
There is nothing to debate. I can tell you clearly that there is a cell binding for this kind of behaviour. It can’t sustain. We just don’t have the bandwidth for it to sustain. Where are they going to?
This is not going to be sustained. Look at the kind of the divergence that exists right now where members of the political class think that they belong. So, we have got this sense of the few of them that are in office are thinking of it as, this is our empire, and we give to the head of the empire, whatever he wants. The President wants a new aircraft. So what do you think happens?
The National Assembly pretends to itself and they even dare to say to us that they did some investigation. Well, what investigation did they do? Let them share it with us. What is wrong with transparency and to think that you got a 14 year or 15 year old craft, that as you are the third recipient user of the aicraft you bought, and you tell us this long story, and then you go by an Airbus.
There’s something wrong, a delusion. You know this is delusional because it means that, the political class have seen themselves as being in a class that they don’t belong to. I said it when we were in government to my colleagues, I would say to them, you know, we haven’t produced the kind of a country that can be compared with Singapore.
If the Singaporean minister comes out and is saying certain things, he or she has every right to say it. But we, with the misery around us, we can’t indulge. So, for people to indulge please don’t cut this kind of slack for anybody; there’s nothing in the expenditures that have happened. And by the way, the critical thing for this country is the restructuring of this country.
The truth is with a credible, legitimate, transparent and honest set of actions, we can get the conversation toward restructuring this country. And by the way, don’t think that restructuring is a long term objective. We have to finish running the economy. Part of the reason that they can mess up in the way they are doing is because of the structure they operate.