Osita Okechukwu is the Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON). In this interview with BODE OLAGOKE, he speaks on the low-key 56th independence anniversary among other issues
Many Nigerians don’t believe the country has any reason to celebrate independence. Do you have a contrary opinion?
Yes you are not wrong! They said a hungry man is an angry man. People are hungry but do you know, the irony of the whole thing is that a lot of people don’t want us to look back at why we are hungry, even to mention it. A lot of people do not want to do that. All they are saying is ‘fix it’. Yes that is the wishes of Mr. President. In fact in one of his statements if you can remember he said that why is it now that I am coming that the oil price nose dived? Why is it now that I am coming the reserves that could have helped the regime to pop up isn’t there? A lot of people forgot.
The totality of the major contracting firms; Julius Berger and co are owed about 1.5 trillion because for a long time the previous government stopped paying contractors. The joint venture oil companies which they call IOCs since 2012 they stopped paying our joint venture contribution and do you know how much we owe them? As of today it is about 7 billion dollars and they said Mr. President we want to stop work. That you didn’t pay us when your product was sold high and now we are here and Mr. President said believe me. So we are hoping that gradually he will start paying back and try to build the confidence because he is talking of confidence. The confidence is not there and why is that so? Because promises were made in the past and those promises were rubbished with impunity. In fact, if you know what the English man called impunity; English as a language was borrowed from Igbo language, the Igbos call it Mpu ni te and they have the same meaning; going out of your way to recklessly manage affairs as if it belongs to nobody except you. They asked us ‘please don’t mention it, just fix it! Even those who joined us in clapping on May 13, 2010 when the then President Jonathan I wonder what they called the three great refineries; the Chinese firm threw in 3 billion dollars.
One of those refineries was to be in Lagos, one in Kogi and the last in Baylesa and their time line was for three years so which means by now the three refineries could have been in place and guess what if it had matured? It could have employed over a million people directly and indirectly and each refinery you know in the world manufactures about 34 products which is called the derivatives outside the PMS which includes fuel oil that is used in the textile industry but those opportunities were lost and when you look at it in 2010 Nigeria had about 17 billion dollars excess crude account because President Obasanjo left about 23 billion dollars excess crude account. But it has been a depletion till about 2010 it remained about 17 billion dollars and the depletion continued until President Muhammadu Buhari came. It was less than 10 billion. The first problem that confronted him was the salary arrears at both the state and federal level.
So, as an insider in this government how would you assess this present President Buhari’s administration?
Let me say that Nigeria and Nigerians in the fullness of time will not regret voting President Muhammadu Buhari as president in 2015. In fullness of time, going by our constitution at least we have a four year tenure will be glorious. What we have now is laying a foundation for a prosperous and progressive country. Yes it has not been easy as President Buhari admitted himself.
He knows there is hungry in the land and he knows their despair in the land but he hope that he is trying to couple back the Nigerian state
That today Nigeria is still saying that out of over 100 universities; Federal universities, state, Private that only one can be said as belonging to the first one thousand universities on earth; Mr. President feels bad about that but the way he is going we are looking at going somewhere. By the time he finishes four or eight years the prudence in management of resources will be one of the greatest legacies he is going to leave on ground.
The organised labour believes that one of the ways we can get out of recession is through proper taxation. That the rich in Nigeria don’t pay tax only the working class who earn stipends pay tax?
I think labour is very correct and to be honest with you those Lagos group that transformed Lagos are in charge of our Federal Inland Revenue today and so far the result has been very encouraging. They are taxing even the rich you think they are left out. Don’t forget when you hear about VAT, VAT is about the man who is buying and if you don’t have money you won’t buy and the rich man that buys he consumes more toilet rolls in his household, he consumes more water in his household, he consumes more electricity, he consumes more food in his household. So, one way or the other the taxation in place has produced more money.
You are so confident that President Muhammadu Buhari will be there for 8 years. Considering what is happening in the country and the instability in your party?
Firstly my party isn’t unstable. What is happening in my party is just like what happens in the secondary school when prefects are chosen. Those made prefects for example there was guy in my school close to me that was made food prefect we discovered sometime that he would stay back everyone would finish eating and the cook will bring him better meal than all of us and some people said they won’t be senior prefect, they want to be food prefect so those are the kind of issues that happen in parties. We have won power and there are some people that would even say why was I put in Voice of Nigeria why not in the Petroleum industry. Like when they talk about Ondo for instance in the primaries, I don’t have much to say but I would say if you look backwards you would know what I am saying.