‘Why we need ministers urgently’

MOST states in the country today are saddled with inability to pay salaries of their workers as at when due with many of them are owing as much as eleven months.

Although the Federal Government could not be said to be guilty of this, it is not absolutely clean going by the report credited to the former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that Abuja had to borrow money to meet its salary obligations early in the year.

This issue, which is fast degenerating into a scandal, has continued to draw the attention of concerned Nigerians, some of who have expressed utter disgust and are of the view that the problem is self-made because of the country’s continued dependence on oil as the mainstay of its economy.

Chief Richard Osunolale Akinjide (SAN), former parliamentarian, former Minister of Education as well as a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, is one of those who are not only upset by the development but are insisting that this is the time for the country to rediscover itself and take a decisive step to diversify the economy.

Akinjide in an interview with The Guardian said, “I believe two basic elements are responsible for the wage crisis; the first is that we depend too much on oil and gas. There is no country in the world, which depends solely on one commodity to survive.

“There was a time when there was no gas and oil in this country, and the country was doing very well. When the British were here and at the time they were leaving, we had a lot of foreign reserves, which we kept abroad. Western Nigeria at that time was the wealthiest, it got its money from cocoa, palm kernels, rubber and groundnut and we were extremely wealthy. We were not importing food, we were producing our own food.”

He noted with sadness, the extreme extent the country has gone in engaging in blind importation of virtually all items into the country. According to him, this importation impunity must stop if the country must be self-reliant and compete favourably with her contemporaries.

“I find it very sad and inexplicable, that we as a people as a country today almost totally depend on food importation to survive. In my view, that is scandalous. Nigeria, given our rich land resources, should be able to feed the whole of Africa. So to say that we are importing food is absurd. And also, we are now importing palm oil. Why should we import palm oil? The countries from where we are importing palm oil, Malaysia and Southern Asia came here to take the seedlings of palm to their country. We supplied them those things. The irony now is that those we supplied the seedlings are now supplying us with palm oil.

“ It is not enough to blame the British and the foreign powers. Yes, in the past, they did terrible things to us in the area of slave trade. But China suffered more than us, and China is now the second richest country in the world. Within a period of 20 years, they moved from abject poverty to extreme wealth, and I believe that in the next 20 years, China will even have more than what the United States of America. So, we are the authors of our misfortune. We should not blame anybody.”

The former Education Minister however blamed the leadership for the country’s inability to take the right decision, break away from this circle of mono-economy crisis and put the country on the part of development.

“I will tell you in one word, and I will repeat that word three times: leadership, leadership, leadership. Anybody who is blaming the followers must be wrong. If you have the right leadership, the sky is not the limit for us. So, what we should be having is the type of leaders we had in the past. The leaders we have now, how are they performing? What are they doing? Will they move us forward or not? This is a critical question.

Advisers are reflections of the leadership
“The type of advisers a leader gets depends on the quality of the leadership. A good leader will not appoint bad followers; a good leader will appoint very good advisers.

“Look at Singaporean leader, Lee Kwan Yu. He as a leader of that country, assumed the leadership from totally nothing and he transformed Singapore from Third World to First World. From what I have seen in publication of recent, the development in Singapore now will even make that country better than USA.”

Buhari’s non-appointment of ministers
“I cannot explain that, I have been in Federal Government twice, and the first time I was there under the government of former Prime Minster Tafawa Balewa in the Federal Ministry of Education. Also, I was under President Shehu Shagari as Attorney General of the Federation. Never in the history of Nigeria have I seen a leader of the country elected leaving his cabinet un-composed and not sworn-in. it is just unbelievable. All that is going on now are advisers through the civil servants. But you need ministers as critical people to implement policies.

“In fact, the doctrine is that, the earlier you do it the better. There was a time the British election was conducted and the results were announced, and within 48 hours, the Ministers of Finance and Defence were announced, and a number of other officers were announced. You don’t leave such a thing lying down. It’s just unbelievable.”

Bad governance and huge pay for lawmakers
“Good leadership at the centre is key to good governance. If we have good leadership which does not seek power to make money, but goes there to serve you should surely expect that others who work with such a leadership would fall in line, so also are the entire citizens. Anybody who wants to make money should go to business, don’t go to politics. That is the problem. But when you go to politics just to make money, it is certainly scandalous.

“The payment to our lawmakers in Africa in modern times is ridiculous and I think our own is the highest throughout Africa and in most part of the world. I am shocked by the take home of our legislators; I mean their salaries and allowances. The country cannot afford it. I am not surprised the economy is expressing the downturn it is going through now. How could we be paying our legislators this kind of salary and allowances and the country would not go into insolvency, as it is the case today?

“As I said before, you don’t become a legislator or a minister because you want to make money. You go there because you want to serve. If you wan to make money, go into business. In business you can make as much money as you want to make. That is the heart of the matter.”

Need for part-time legislature
“I don’t see why legislative should be full time. If you are a Minister or Assistant Minister, yes, you should be full time. But if you are a legislator, you should do your work and then go to parliament when it is sitting. That was the situation when I entered parliament before and after independence, it was part time.

I was practicing my law and I attended sittings. But to say it is full time, you want money, money, money, that is a launching pad for corruption.”