Former Imo State governor, Chief Achike Udenwa, has noted that no constitutional amendment would do much to steer Nigeria from its unstable political and economic paths, insisting that what the country needs urgently are solutions to its myriads of economic woes.

In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the former Minister of Commerce and Industry also asserted that local government autonomy, as being flaunted by the federal government, would weaken the powers of state governors, even as it?s against the constitution. In his words, the federal government is imposing a new type of chaos with its stance on local government autonomy.

He also spoke on many other issues.

What is your view on the state of the nation?

The state of the Nigerian nation is very, very chaotic. We don?t know where we are going. We have a myriad of problems politically, socially, economically, and otherwise. You find out that virtually everybody, almost everybody is in the same type of problem now. So our position is very chaotic, and something needs to be done. A lot of sacrifice has to be made by all, both the ruler and the ruled. Everybody has to make some sacrifice. Look at how we are going down. Going down to the extent that even to eat becomes a problem. The food is so expensive; you can?t buy anything.

Even the minimum wage of N70, 000 cannot even buy anything. Even the economy cannot sustain paying N70, 000, especially in the private sector. So, that is the dilemma we find ourselves in.

The government has at different times told the citizens to make sacrifices and tighten their belts. But many people have wondered, are the leaders? showing good examples?

Definitely not. And that is why I said sacrifice by all, not by some, but by all, both those who are in government and those who are not. Definitely, they have to lead by example. Quite frankly, the situation Is disturbing when you look at the retrogression we have had in the past, let?s say, two years only, I?m not going back so much. The retrogression we have had in the past two years is frightening. It tells you where are you going? At this rate, I doubt for how long we can sustain it. Look at our external borrowing. Look at how much it is. Look at our budget, the amount of money we spend on debt servicing. Can you sustain it?

When you have debt servicing with over 90 per cent of your income, for how long can you sustain it? When we were in government in the year 2000; I think precisely about 2005 to 2006, the government then, under Obasanjo, had an agreement with our creditors and we had our debt cancelled. So, we?re almost starting at level zero. Our old debts with the Paris Club and the rest of them were cancelled. It has built up again. Look at where we are today.

Every day, the exchange rate is very much against our Naira. It is deteriorating on a daily basis because we are not producing. What are you producing? We are producing virtually nothing. The oil you are producing has been sold in advance.

The rest are through the theft of oil in the high seas. So you get credit for just a little, and yet you are importing virtually everything. So, this is the dilemma. Our economy is in dire distress.

The Patriots spoke to the president on the need to jettison the 1999 constitution and put in place the process of getting a new people?s constitution. What?s your view?

I support them because our present constitution is not one of amendments. There is a lot that needs to be expunged completely. So it?s not a question of trying to amend it. Amendment of the constitution cannot help us. We need to write a completely new constitution based on our present realities. Based on our present realities, our old constitution cannot be amended. Will you amend every aspect of the constitution? So, let us just sit and draw up a new constitution. But that is not the end of our problems.

What is bothering us now is more economical than even a constitution. The major problem is economical and political framework. The political framework has to be looked at. What we need so urgently is to look at our economic situation because here the population is growing in bounds, but yet production is low. And it?s the same production that is supposed to cater for this growing population. We need to look at the economic framework. What are we going to do? What is the best for us? Everybody has to make a sacrifice as I said. It?s not a question of being in the government. The government has to cut its coat according to its cloth and not according to its size.

Ohanaeze, Afenifere, Arewa groups are pushing for a regional government. What is your position on this?

The Issue is not just only the system but also the practice itself. We have been talking about restructuring. I will repeat myself for the umpteen times, and I have said that we should go back to the 2014 National Conference Report, look at it. If it needs any brushing because it was ten years ago; maybe something has happened since then, we set up a small committee to look at it to see whether there is anything to brush up and then we start off from there. They are in three parts: One part requires only administrative measures. There are issues there that don?t need any law; it is just administrative. The second one is the issue of law, which the National Assembly can pass for certain changes to place. The third one requires constitutional amendments or if we are writing a new constitution, we copy it into the new constitution. It is not magic, this can be done quickly.

We need to restructure; we are just going round and round which takes us nowhere in the long run; there is nobody that is gaining from what is happening today. Some people thought they were gaining before, but by now they should have realised that nobody is gaining. What is restructuring? Honestly to me, the major issue in the restructuring is rearranging our legislative list ? those in the Exclusive legislative list, those in the Concurrent legislative list and those in the Residual legislative list. That is the major issue. We have seen that there is over centralisation, which has not helped us and cannot help us in the present circumstances. We have so many untapped resources at the local level and that is why we should bring down government closer to the people, and strengthen the local government system, give more powers to the states, reduce the Exclusive legislative lists. What has federal government got to do in business? Look at security alone. The federal government is in charge of the armed forces, which is good, but it is also in charge of the entire police. How is our internal security today? You can see that this internal security can better be handled from the local level becausee each local level has its own peculiarities and that is why we have advocated for state police, local government police. These are some of the things that can be done when you give more powers to the states and the local governments, and there will be a healthy competition among the states and you will see the economy grow, you will see better administration than what we have been having.

Now, everybody is killing himself to be at the centre because that is where the power is and that is where the resources are; that is why we are killing ourselves all the times over who will control the centre. By the time we decentralise and people realise that they have to go home and they have to look for their well being back home because what used to be at the centre are no more there, then we will begin to make progress. What do you have at the centre ? Defence, currency and citizenship? What again do you want at the federal level? The rest are things that you can decentralise. Look at Aviation, if any state can build an airport and run it, that is beautiful and they can go ahead as long as you meet with the national standards that have been set. Let us go back to the 2014 National Conference Report and we will get a starting point from there.

The Federal Government said it has saved about $20 billion from fuel subsidy. Yet same government is trying to borrow another $2.2 billion. What do you say to this?

Honestly, I don?t really understand this economics. If we have saved $20 billion from fuel subsidy, then why are we going to borrow? Are we borrowing for the sake of it? Then we are not telling the people the truth because I believe that the present government is in a very difficult situation. They cannot fund the budget. So, let us not hide facts from the people. We cannot fund our budget. What is responsible? Let us tackle it. If you are able to save that type of money from fuel subsidy, what are you going to borrow for?

Even, we don?t know completely the truth about the fuel subsidy itself. We are only hearing of fuel subsidy; whether they are paying fuel subsidy we don?t know, whether they have withdrawn that completely we don?t know because if they had withdrawn that completely, some part of it at least should be applied to alleviate the sufferings of the people; there should be some palliative somewhere but we have not seen anything.

I was one of those advocating for the abolition of the fuel subsidy; I didn?t support it because there were so much racketeering around it. We didn?t know who got what; we didn?t know how much the real subsidy was. Now that we have removed the fuel subsidy, some part of it should be ploughed back and alleviate the people?s suffering. We have seen what transportation looks like now. How are we subsidising it? We should have some palliatives. Look at food prices. How are we applying any palliative to our food prices? If actually we have recovered this much from fuel subsidy, some part of it should be ploughed back into palliatives so that the effects of the fuel subsidy removal can be cushioned.

You were a state governor. What is your position on local government autonomy?

It is an interesting area. Two wrongs don?t make a right. I agree that some state governments have abused the local government joint account over the years now. It was the same all the time. In our own time, honestly, as the state governor, I didn?t for one day touch local government money. Every month, they have a joint meeting with my special adviser on Local Governments, who deals with the local government chairmen. They know which one goes to where. It was shared, everybody was happy; the local government have their money. I never touched their money. It was running smoothly until recently when I started hearing that governors seized their money. It is bad enough.

Equally, I don?t think the solution to it was the autocratic way of now saying the local government can get their monies direct. It is against the constitution. The implication is that when a local government chairman gets his money direct from the federal government and now the federal government is to set up another independent body to conduct their elections, it then means that the state governments don?t have any supervisory right over the local governments. When you are not Involved in their elections, you are not involved in how they get their money; they are independent of you completely and only loyal to the federal government.

We are imposing a new type of chaos that is going to come with what the federal government is directly working with 774 local governments in the country. That completely undermines the state governments because the state governors have no say in what happens in the local governments in their own states. There is not going to be any cooperation again between the state and the local governments, as the councils will now be accountable to the federal government, which shouldn?t happen. I?m against it. Two wrongs don?t make a right.

What is your stand on this Tinubu Tax reforms?

The tax reforms need to be studied closer. You can see the examples people have given so far, like most of these corporate bodies having their headquarters in Lagos but operate throughout Nigeria. And because they operate throughout Nigeria, they get their income from all over the country. But at the end, the FIRS only recognises their corporate headquarters that remit money to them. So to them, that is a point of derivation. This is the area that needs to be looked into so that we are not short-changing the other states and, would I say, empowering Lagos State because to look at it, the bulk of the derivations will come from Lagos or any other big city that houses headquarters of these big corporate bodies. So this is part of the problem. So, that bill needs to be studied closer and there is a need for amendments to be made before passing it.

There are discordant tunes from different groups in Nigeria ? new constitution, constitution amendment, regional autonomy, etc. How will the outside world look at Nigeria over all these?

I wouldn?t know how they see us as far as we are not an international outlaw. How they see us may matter less. What is important at this point is how we see ourselves and how do we survive; we must first talk of how we?ll survive as a country before we think of how we relate with other countries in the world. What is primarily important to us now is how do we survive as a country; how do we keep Nigeria one. But you cannot continue to keep Nigeria one under a constitution, under a political framework that doesn?t work. That is not good for us. Nigeria is a heterogeneous country; you cannot rule it like a country that is a just one people. No, it is heterogeneous, we must recognise it. If it is heterogeneous you cannot impose a strong centre that doesn?t recognise the different groups that make up this country. That?s why we?ve got to go down to bring up most of the action points down to the local governments and the states, not at the federal level. We actually need to make the federal government less attractive; we need to make it less attractive because the do or die way of winning the election and all what we are doing is because the federal government is very attractive. Whoever holds the federal government holds the whole country. That is the irony of our situation, anybody who is able to break through and holds the federal government holds the whole country.

You can see what is happening. Look at the appointments being made by the present government. Do they reflect the federal character? No. You will not blame them alone, it has been like that. When Buhari was in power it was the same thing. Don?t forget that it is not just new with the present government, it is winner takes all. If we decentralise you will no longer have winners take all; people will bother less about what happens at the federal level

Some have criticised Tinubu for hobnobbing with France at a time that country?s former colonies in West Africa are severing their relationship with France. What?s your view on that?

Well, generally, you will never hope to gain anything from the Western countries. You cannot gain from them, but still, you must relate with them. I haven?t read the outcome of their meeting. I haven?t read the level of economic and political cooperation they have agreed upon until we see such things. However, you will only continue to associate with them, but never think of gaining from them because, by and large, honestly, they are more interested in their own economy. Like now, France is having some problems because most of the Francophone African countries are pulling out now from France. It has some economic consequences, and that might be why they are hobnobbing with Nigeria. But whatever it is, we must be very careful. We cannot be an island. We should relate with them, but we must know the terms and conditions under which we are relating with them.

What is your assessment of Tinubu?s government in the last 18 months?

Tinubu was my colleague; we were governors together, and I had expected something better from him. But I think he has a lot of sycophants around him, and that?s part of why we?re having problems now. And just as I said, and I see that he has an opportunity to put his name down in the annals of history. I don?t see him looking for money any longer.

I don?t see him looking for any other thing than to look for something that will be persevering, something that generations unborn will be told that he brought Nigeria to a better situation than he met it.

So, I think he has an opportunity and history beckons on him to take that opportunity.

But, unfortunately, the way I see him going, he?s not cashing in on that opportunity. Instead, I think he?s being led by a lot of parochial people, a lot of people who think about the welfare of a section of this country. That will not do any good to his name.

He should treat Nigerians as one, even those who didn?t vote for him. That?s not a reason for the government to segregate against anybody.

He has an opportunity to put this country right, and the opportunity is there.

I?m very sure that whatever problems we have now are not insurmountable, if he addresses himself to it. He can address those issues and put himself, his name down in history as somebody who came, met a bad situation, and did the best out of it.

Do you think Tinubu created the problem because of the manner he removed fuel subsidy and floated the naira without consultations?

This is a mistake that a leader can make, but when you see you have made that type of mistake, you find remedies. He still has an opportunity to find remedies. It is not all lost. As I said earlier, I was one of those advocating for fuel subsidy removal. That was the way to go, but the way he did it wasn?t right. It could have been well planned that there could have been some palliative measures built in so that by the time you are removing the fuel subsidy, we would need not feel the effect as we are feeling It today. You will not have galloping inflation as we are having it overnight. Overnight you see prices increasing by 200 per cent. If you put certain measures in place, the effect would not have been as devastating as we are having it today.

There was a lot of scam within that fuel subsidy regime; it created overnight billionaires. We don?t know those we owe subsidy and those we do not owe; everybody become a creditor and a lot of money went and yet we didn?t see any benefit. We are an oil producing country; an important OPEC member for that matter.

Would it not have been better to go after the fuel subsidy scammers than removing the subsidy and throwing citizens into needless anguish?

No, it wouldn?t have been better because there was so much collaboration between the so-called fuel suppliers and the officials in government. So, we didn?t know how to tackle it. You asked yourself, to what extent were we benefitting from the fuel subsidy at the time? If you make me the president of this country, I will still remove the fuel subsidy, but under a guided regime. We wouldn?t have felt it the way we are feeling it today if certain things took place. But a situation where on the day of swearing in, just said ?fuel subsidy is gone? has led us to where we are today. That is the only mistake. As for the principle of removing fuel subsidy, it is right. We need some other subsidy. We need subsidy in agriculture, we need to subsidise our education, we need to subsidise our health. These take more priority than fuel subsidy. If you ask me to subsidise some social structures, I will subsidise education, agriculture, health that have better bearing for the ordinary man in the street than fuel. (Saturday Sun)

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