Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe can be termed an elder statesman or an accomplished politician. The former minister of works has been in and out of government on some occasions and he is currently in the campaign team of President Goodluck Jonathan. Ogunlewe has been playing a leading role in the Lagos State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which he said would spring a surprise in the south western region in 2015.
In this interview, Elder Ogunlewe speaks extensively on the
problems with Nigeria, how we can get out of our travails and the best way to
run the nation’s economy.
Let us identify our areas of problems and difficulties, number one
is youth unemployment, it is so dangerous to any country, over 80% of Nigerian
youths are unemployed and unemployable, then we can now look into every other
problems. If you have disgruntled youth, no matter the plan you have, they will
try to disrupt it. This now led to poverty level, our poverty level is
increasing, but we are not addressing it, how do we reduce poverty, how do we
eradicate poverty, number three is education, the standard of education is too
high for the elites, but for the poor people, there is no education at all to
the extent that 10 Million Nigerian children are out of school. Believe it or
not, in a capitalist education that we run, this 10 million belongs to the
poor, no children of the political class will be among them; either you are a
councilor, a member of the state house of assembly, National Assembly, civil
servant, once you have employment, it is not likely that your child would be
among these 10 million children, you can see how compounded the problem is, the
parents are poor, the children of the poor are out of school, there is no
future for them other than to disrupt whatever the capitalists are building,
capture them, kidnap them and get their own share of the economy to the extent
that in some states like Lagos, 80% of the children attend private primary
schools, private secondary schools and these schools are only attractive to the
capitalists, so government school is no longer a fashion for the elites, it is
private school. We have now left public schools to the children of the poor, so
what do we get from that kind of configuration. It is a problem. All over the
world, the basic thing that a child requires is education, all other things
would flow, that is why our indices in the world are always going down, our
economy is growing at 6%, our GDP is growing, we have foreign reserves,
Sovereign Wealth Funds, all those ones are capitalist gauge of the economy, the
real gauge is the poverty level, level of education and access to education
that is available. Food are so expensive for the poor to have access to,
government is not supporting food security. All over the world, basic food must
be available to the citizens at the expense of government, government must
create a body like the commodity board that would buy up all these produce from
the farmers and sell to the poor at subsidized rate, that is what is done all
over the world. You cannot say a tuber of yam that is N500 would be
available to a family of six a day, what is their income and the minimum wage
is N18,000, how can they cope. It is the government that must come in and make
sure that the people that are Nigerians that voted for them are taken care of
no matter what the economy is saying. Nigerians cannot eat three square meals a
day, they are angry, government must make provisions to feed them at the
expense of government, and they should be able to send their children to school
at the expense of government. Democracy is government of the people, by the
people and for the people, our own is government of the people, by the people
and for the elites, we run a capitalist economy, this is destructive and it is
going to destroy our economy easily, but we should go welfarist or else we are
shooting ourselves on the foot because 10 Million children out of school will
become 20 million, 30 million, 40 million people unemployed would become 60
million, they would fight the system and that is what causes revolution all
over the world, so we must think of the people first rather than running economy
on the pages of the newspapers attractive only to the World Bank, but not to
the people.
The present government comes on air and issues statements that
they have done their best, so is the problem with the present government or
what has been happening over time, can’t we start doing it well now?
It is a question of the people we have donated our sovereignty to,
Section 14 of the Nigerian Constitution specifies that sovereignty belongs to
the people, but we have donated the sovereignty to the elected public officers,
but their voices have been hijacked by capitalists to favour them. Any attempt
to change any portion of the constitution to favour the capitalists would not
work for the people, it is not that they don’t know what to do, that is why
they are saying let us have a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) because it
seems they are handicapped by the pressure of the capitalists. Who does not
know that education must be funded by the Federal Government? Under the
principles of education policy, they said education as deemed fit instead of
making it compulsory because if the government fails to provide education for a
child, he can take the government to court. It is the responsibility of the
government to make sure that a Nigerian child goes to school up to secondary
school level, but if you read the constitution, it is not there. If things like
these are not in the constitution, how do you now say they are working for the
people, which is why everybody is talking about SNC. It is not a government, it
is all the tiers of government in Nigeria that has failed us, there is no
opposition in this matter because they cannot do anything if the constitution
does not compel a government to act in a way. Everywhere in the world, the
parents would get money from the government; the child would get money from the
government until you are 18 years old. We take what is good for us from all
over the world, but we have abandoned the most important ones. It is not part
of our own constitution that a Nigerian child must be educated by the state at
the expense of government; the constitution just hanged it there. Everywhere in
the world, that is the first function of the government, how can a Nigerian not
eat in a day and we are comfortable and you don’t care, it must be there that
no Nigerian should be without food, he can take the government to court. Then
they would give him subvention or even N10,000 in a month if you are not
employed. So, how can you now say once I am not employed, government does not
care and they want me to be a good citizen, it is not done anywhere in the
world. Once you are unemployed, you must be entitled to a stipend, so it is not
a question of one opposition, the opposition cannot do anything if the
constitution is not structured to favour the masses.
We have had a review of the constitution by the National Assembly,
but some people have said that we need a new constitution entirely; do you
think we should have a new constitution or SNC?
It depends on the road they take, any road you take would determine
that, the least that is not there in the constitution is that there is no
national referendum, the issues are determined by the people we have donated
our sovereignty to, but that is the extent of the sovereignty we have donated
to them. They don’t want to change anything in the constitution that will
affect; them there must be a national referendum. If there is a national
referendum on any of these issues, you will be surprised that this constitution
will work. Let the people participate in the process and let it be final, which
is what they call sovereignty. They say sovereignty is donated to our
representatives, but where our own interest is important, a national referendum
on an issue should be final and we should put it into the constitution, that is
what we are saying. We are not saying dissolve the National Assembly, or
convene a national conference that would solve all these problems once. But,
you can pick an item like education and say all Nigerian children should be
educated by the government, let us vote. Let it be a national referendum and we
vote for it, then it should be part of the constitution, nobody should change
it, but now it is the capitalists, the Governors Forum that would want to
dictate what would happen at all levels, they would come together, only 36 of
them, would determine what would be in the constitution, the Governors have
taken over everything. They are talking of the autonomy of local governments,
minimum wage, let us have a national referendum so that the donors of the sovereignty
would now be part of decision making and we will now pass that one into law.
So, it is not a question of PDP, APC, it is the problem of not submitting to
national referendum.
During your own time, especially during the time of the late Chief
Obafemi Awolowo, there were free education, scholarship awards and all that, so
is there anything that makes people to change over time to the new generation?
It is capitalism, the Governors are capitalists, they determine
what goes on everywhere, they confiscate the money of the local governments,
the presidency is also part of the dictatorship, so the people are not involved
in governance, there is a total disconnect between the elected representatives
and the people they voted for, they don’t even go back to ask them what they
want, they tried it during the constitutional review process, but when they got
to Abuja, they changed everything. That decision at their constituencies’ level
should be the main thing, not to go back and change it along the line. Which
one do you support, is it the sovereignty you get from the people or the
dictate of the capitalists that would not allow you to work. Corruption would
be reduced if you carry the masses along, if you give unemployed youth money,
if you give a child born today and the parents money to survive, if we make
sure that it is the right of a Nigerian child to have primary and secondary
education at the expense of the state, there would be no or little money to
steal. The capitalists have made things worse now, they have domestic debts in
trillions of naira; both at the state level and at the national level, but they
would invite Chinese and Lebanese as contractors to take over the works of
Nigerians and Nigerians are looking at these Chinese, they are driving tractors
and doing constructions in a country, where we are poor. One day, they would
attack them and it would be a national problem. They have also surrendered the
running of the economy to the economists and the economists parameters are GDP,
SWF, and the amount of money you can keep in foreign accounts whereas every
country has other means of developing the nation. We have Nigerian Academic of
Science, the President constituted a team as Economic Team, we need another
three teams so that we can have a comprehensive development plan for Nigeria
such as Nigerian Academy of Science Team, Nigerian Academy of Engineers Team,
Nigerian Political Class Team. Economic Team would destroy the country because
they are never talking about wealth creation, everywhere in the world,
industries are funded by the government and you hand over after completion to
the private sector. If you believe that foreign investors would come and
develop our economy, you are wasting time, Alhaji Aliko Dangote is not a
foreign investor, he is a Nigerian, why can’t we have 20 Dangotes, why can’t
you encourage your own people, give them more money to develop industries as
the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello of
blessed memory too did. Why are we believing only in foreign investors, the
foreign investors are not the answers to our problems, it is our people, our
scientists, our engineers that would develop our nation. Draw a master plan,
the government would fund these industries and give the management to the
private sector. I was with him one day and the president did not notice, when
he went to commission Abagana Cement Factory and Alhaji Dangote said ‘I don’t
have a foreign partner’ and he said he didn’t need a foreign partner to run his
business, he was sending a message to President Goodluck Jonathan that all
these foreign investors you are talking about would never come, it is a mirage,
how was it possible for Dangote, he didn’t go to Harvard University in the
United States, University of Ibadan or University of Lagos, which economics did
he learn to be able to develop his own industrial based infrastructure to that
level and Nigeria as a nation cannot replicate it and have another 100, we are
waiting for foreign investors, is Dangote a foreign investor? It is all to
blackmail the government by the foreign investors that would never come, we
have 20 million foreign investors coming, it is correct, where are they, what
have they done? Recently, the Chinese Head of Parliament came here and he was
talking about cultural interaction, 40 Chinese technology companies went to
Kenya the same period to participate in the development programme in Kenya. So,
all these Chinese that are coming are contractors, which is not what we need.
They should come and domesticate whatever they do and our people would take
over from there, they are business people, they are extortionists, they are
capitalists, they are not coming here as our friends, whereas you have your own
people that can build all these things better than them. Who is building all
these things for Dangote, he is now talking of a refinery, you will not hear
that a company built the refinery for him, he would not award a contract to
anybody to build, these things are sold as if you are buying a car. Go there, buy
it and they would install and maintain for you and go away. But to say, you are
awarding contracts to them, you are wasting your time. My appeal is for the
governments; both at state and national levels, not to have economic team, call
in the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, call in the Nigerian Academy of
Science, let them be part of your team, then have a political team because
economy is not only about trade and investment, it is wealth creation,
industrialization. You see so many states, for 14 years, they have not
sponsored the building of a factory, they only employ people into civil service
and create mini-parastatals that are not creating wealth. But in the past, each
state government was creating factories and supporting establishment of
factories and industries and you give such to the private sector to run for
you. So, there is nothing like foreign investors, they would never come.
Presently, ASUU is on strike and even our schools are not properly
organized and we say education answers all, how do we reconcile this?
If I have my way, I am a pro-chancellor of a university, it is not
the business of any government to run universities, they should be grant-aided,
let them do research for you, you pay them, they invent for you, you pay them,
let them be part of your government. Instead of giving consultancy to
expatriates, outsiders, the universities should be the consultants on every
aspect of Nigerian development to the government of the federation and the
state governments, such money is enough to develop the universities, they don’t
need your grant or salaries, they are academics, they should be supported to
invent with research funds. Give them tasks and pay them and let us see if
Nigerian universities will not be comparable to others in the world. We are
just saying we are paying allowances, salaries, you are making them to be civil
servants; they are not supposed to be such at all. How can you employ someone
to dream, tell them, once you do this, we will pay you this. The role of a
government is in the primary and secondary school education. They should have
Federal Unity Schools Management Authority, they should remove it from the
Ministry of Education and let the Nigerian secondary schools be the best in the
world like we used to have, when, we were younger. They were the feeders for
Cambridge, Harvard, and Oxford Universities, they came back and became
professors, they went to all these colleges, where is our Queens College, Kings
College, Igbobi College, Arewa College, Government College, Keffi, Government
College Kano, these were standard colleges, you cannot abandon all your
colleges to the private sector and believe you are running an educational
system, no. Government at that time, Awolowo, Azikiwe, before they had the
universities, which came later, they had invested a lot of money in primary and
secondary schools and they were the best in the world, and that is where the
crew of your intellectuals would be moulded from secondary schools. By the time
they move to universities, they would be inventing for you and patent, one
university in the United States can have 80 patents in a year, when you patent
it, you develop it and you now sell it to industries for manufacturing. Our own
university professors would be funded from research, give them money for
research, plenty of money, they don’t need you salary if you patent their
research works and they would get a lot of money from that. They would agitate
because we are not treating them properly, no matter the salary you pay them,
it cannot be equal to the salary of a professor anywhere in the world, what
they are even asking for is token compared to what they can earn from their
research works that can be patented. So, they are just there and they very
brilliant and resourceful, they can develop the technology more than you can
imagine, but there is no equipment, no water in their environment, they don’t
have good houses to live, their children attend private schools. So, there is
no consideration for the intellectuals in your community and you want to
develop that economy.
Recently, in the PDP, we have new PDP, the Kawu Baraje faction,
Bamanga Tukur faction, how would you describe the crisis in the party as a
stakeholder?
It is a power game and their demand is clear, they want power to
return to the north and they ssaid that President Goodluck Jonathan should not
run, but he said he would run, defeat me at the primaries, they are saying no
‘just say you are not running.’ To me, that is not logical, what you can do is
to defeat him at the primaries, bring out your own candidate that can defeat
him. But in a situation, where you are saying you are creating a new PDP, is it
a political party, is it a caucus within the party and you have a parallel
executive, to my mind, that is an insult on the sensibility of Nigerians and it
should not be encouraged. If you want to form another political party, you are
free to do so, it is an illegal association, are you recognized by the
Independent Electoral Commission (INEC). Under our constitution, to call yourself
a political party, you must apply for registration and if they apply for New
PDP, they will not be registrable. To my mind, they are just buying time to
whittle down the resistance of President Jonathan so that he can dance to their
tune, but that will not work, the man said he would contest, so look for
another way of defeating him. Even if you have 200 New PDP, they would not stop
him from contesting and the more you waste time, the more you lose out. They
have gone so far to the extent that they cannot say they want reconciliation
because they are not sure of what they are coming to see. Unfortunately for all
of them, they are going out, they have served their terms, they are now saying
what do we do after the expiration of our tenure, we want to be president and
Jonathan is saying 'no, I am going to be president again,’ so, what will all
these Governors do, so they are in a dilemma.
People are saying the President should not re-contest, you are
part of the 44 people put together to work for him, how do you see this?
We are saying that the President must re-contest. Let us know the
opposition first, we don’t know their candidate, let us know their candidate
first and see how capable he is, may be he is going to be a walk over, may be
they are just making noise to get oil blocks, they are capitalists, so don’t
rely on them, I don’t lose any sleep over them. My team has started campaign,
strategizing, they would be surprised what we are going to do and we are very
capable, they have no chance at all.
The APC or ACN has practically taken over the South-West, do you
see the PDP coming back to power there in 2015?
Nigerians would be surprised what they are going to see in 2015,
what is happening in APC in the South West is tragic, it is colonialism, it is
oppression, it is a disgrace to the Yoruba race, that the Chinese and the
Lebanese are the ones destroying our houses, Chinese, Lebanese are the ones
constructing all our roads, no single indigene of any of these states has been
given any contract and that is what has created poverty in the South West now,
people are really suffering, they don’t have access to anything that is
government, they are the ones driving the caterpillars and the tractors, so
where is the fate of the Yorubas in the South West now. One day, you woke and
Chinese have destroyed more than 200 hundred houses, you cannot talk to them,
they don’t understand Yoruba Language. So, it is real calamitous, and
disgraceful. When Chief Obafemi Awolowo was in power, we had Banjoko and
Company, Oni and Sons, we had Yoruba construction companies that were doing all
these things for him. But, these capitalists have taken over the economy of the
South West and gave it to the Chinese, who are their friends. Tell me any
indigenous construction company that is doing construction company in Ogun
State or anywhere in the South-West, that is the surprise Nigerians would see,
we have taken stock and enumerated all the properties they have destroyed,
Hi-Tech is owned by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and they are handling many
construction works all over the place.
For over 14 years, the PDP has been in government, and you have
highlighted the problems of Nigeria, you have been a participant, now we have
Boko Haram insurgent and President Goodluck Jonathan is there and he wants to
come back, do you think things would be okay if he comes back?
That is why I said Nigeria should involve engineers, scientists,
and politicians in the running of government and the development of the
resources of the nation rather than leaving it for the economists. They should
encourage states to also create employment, the Federal Government alone cannot
create employment, state governments should also fund the establishment of
factories and they should not give all the contracts to the Chinese or
Lebanese, the Federal Government is guilty and the states are guilty too. They
have domestic debts in each state running to trillions of naira, you will never
see any state that is paying pensioners or engaging the services of local
contractors, so it is not a national issue alone, at the state and local
government levels, it is a problem. Who should run primary schools, if we have
10 million Nigerians out of primary schools, which primary schools are they out
of, they are state primary schools, if you say unemployment, it is not only the
Federal Government that can employ, what are the states and local councils
doing to employ the youths too. If you say there is insecurity, what are the
federal and local governments doing and this insecurity issue has been
exaggerated by the Northerners, they said they would make the nation
ungovernable for President Jonathan and they even said recently that Nigeria
would dis-integrate if he contests election, so they don’t know where they are
going.
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