Dr. Eddy Olafeso was a Commissioner for Information in Ondo State. In this interview, he says President Muhammadu Buhari must live by example, remove subsidy from the petroleum products and reduce the cost of governance in order to move the country forward. Excerpts:
What should be the priority of the new administration?
In my own view, personal example of leadership can change a lot of things in this system. The president’s personal example must drive those following him and he must make institutions stronger so that he can pursue people that are not doing what exactly he asked them to do. I think so far, so good his body language and utterances are beginning to convince those of us on the other side that this man might be able to set personal example.
How should he tackle the issue of corruption?
It starts with his own personal example. He should make sure all institutions are strengthened and ensuring nobody is allowed the latitude of indulgent. They should not allow anybody to have the political strength to continue to manipulate the system. The leadership by example will come to play, strengthening the institution to go after those who feel that public service is about amassing wealth to themselves and becoming kings while those who put you there are your servants.
What should happen to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other anticorruption agencies?
These are the institutions I was talking about. They have to be strengthened, may be the personalities involved, those at the top may be asked to leave and you get new turks in; young and vibrant people who know that this country must start again. Also, the police must be made to do its jobs too. Our police must be renewed. There are lots of ills in the police system. The security system must be improved upon because they have roles to play in combating corruption. This issue of corruption permeates our entire world from the home to the street to the market and to government institutions. When you enhance security, people would not assume it is business as usual.
What about electoral reform?
If there is any legacy the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) left behind, it is the improvement in the electoral system. This is the reason why the opposition party could take over government in Nigeria. There are few places where the opposition party can take over government in Africa They must do more; they must ensure one man, one vote. They must find a way to kill the monstrosity call money influence in politics. What destroys Nigeria is when criminals, hoodlums, people of shady characters assume offices because they come into politics through dubious means.
What should be the size of government?
I have said it countless times, the size of government is too large. If you look at our budget year in year out, you see the quantum of fund that should have gone into capital budget and development being just recurrent expenditure. This money is lavished on civil servants and the National Assembly, the combination of the two is less than one per cent of the population yet the country spend its earnings on one per cent of the population, allowing 99 per cent to be wallowing in abject poverty.
The money that should have gone into developmental projects has been spent in paying salaries and rewarding politicians. We have too many ministers in the system. What is the job of a minister of state? I have friends that have been ministers and ministers of state, what do they do in their office? Most times they don’t do anything, yet they drive Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), they have retinue of aides and followers and they continue to acquire bad names in their local governments.
They really do not have anything to do in their offices. Why do you keep them there if they are not going to be supportive of the system? Why is idea that everybody must be made a minister in a country like this? I don’t think you have more secretaries in Britain than ministers in Nigeria where you have established economy, strong institutions that can guide what we are trying to do. The less of ministers, commissioners and political hangers-on and freeing resources to build an enabling environment where you can have sustainable development should be the priority of the new government.
How should the president handles the infrastructural development?
He should jump-start it, whatever it takes, whatever economic arrangement and equation they have to put in place, all these roads must be tarred, our airports must be upgraded because that is the only way you can engender economic development where people move freely within zones. Our rail system must be improved upon; President Goodluck Jonathan did the best he could do within the years to keep it running even at the worst mediocre level. I go to Europe and America, if we say we have railway system here, we are deluding ourselves.
Akure, the Ondo State capital, is not too far from Abuja if we have an express train that people will get up here around six o’clock and be able to transact their business in Abuja and return to Akure in the evening by express rail road. But long years of abandonment and locus years of the military have denied us the opportunity.
All the contracts we have given out must be honoured; Lagos/Ibadan expressway, Shagamu/ Ore second River Niger Bridge, Benue Bridge and all the projects that are life-impacting on the citizens must be completed. We must not play politics with it otherwise we lose money and resources.
On the economy, what should the new government do about it?
When you look at the exchange rate, rate of unemployment and infrastructural decay, there is no other definition for the Nigeria’s economy than the fact it has gone to the dogs. I refuse to believe any statistics from anywhere that says unemployment is six and half per cent.
How about underemployment? How about people in their 50s and 60s that can actually contribute to the nation, where are they? What about teeming graduates that we have been producing all these years? We have to do something as quickly as possible, reengineer our agric system, and diversify the economy in such a way that we are not dependent on oil. We should begin to pay attention to solid mineral wherever they are and continue to get off ground all those things that lead to documentation here and there, remove the needless bureaucracy.
We have gold in the South-West, coal in South-East and other minerals in other parts of the country; we sit on top of enormous wealth and yet we live daily on abject poverty. If I were Mr. President, my focus will be on those and I will create an enabling environment for investors to come in and attract them. We should develop our tourism potentials.
What should the new government do about the petroleum sector?
The downstream and upstream sectors are names we gave to our petroleum sector to confuse ordinary man on the street. The ordinary man on the street knows that we have five refineries in this country and that we have in quantum crude oil reserves.
And that if these five plus one privately owned is allowed to operate at maximum level, if the turnaround maintenance is done, you can supply petroleum to the West Coast and other parts of Africa needing this resource. To me, we should focus on what we can consume, cancel this subsidy thing that is becoming big headache for this country and conduit where some people wake up in the morning extremely poor person and somebody just sign something on your paper and you become a multibillionaire.
The state must begin to acquire the oil wells and should be on lease and we must discourage a situation where the owners of oil wells in Nigeria are richer than the ordinary person out there. The law must be looked into in order to protect the environment. The law must be strengthened that the man who lives where this resource is taken is protected.
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