THE FALCON CAN NO LONGER HEAR THE FALCONER:SAGAY SPEAKS TRUTH TO POWER
Why Northerners Should Stop The Hostility Towards Restructuring – Sagay
Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), in this interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI, speaks on latest issues in the polity. Excerpts:
Given the kind of debate it generated
before the just concluded elections, do you think President Muhammadu
Buhari should pay attention to the issue of restructuring in his second
term?
Yes, I think so. In his first term, restructuring was not something that was of priority to him. He
was more focused on process, doing things in accordance to laid down
procedures and doing it with honesty and integrity; in other words, to
purge the country of corruption and establish a system of integrity and
honesty. I think he has to move on to restructuring to a certain extent
now because that is the wish of significant proportion of people in
Nigeria. So, it cannot be ignored. The APC has a paper which strongly
supports restructuring. I think this is the time for him to pay more
attention to the issue and see what can be done to strengthen the
federating units and make them less dependent on the centre; and also
give them the capacity to be productive and self-sustaining. This will
make us move closer to how we were in 1966 before the military came when
the regions were the ones funding the federal government then. I don’t
want us to go back to that but it will be enough if the states can be
self-sustaining and be more productive so that this obsession of federal
allocation should end. They should stop doing like babies who need
federal feeding bottles in order to survive. It is humiliating for 36
state governments to send their commissioners of finance once a month to
Abuja with what I will call ‘begging bowls’, looking for allocation.
Civil servants collect salaries, states should not be collecting
salaries every month. We need them to be self-sustaining and restructuring will greatly assist in making that possible.
There is this general belief that Northerners are opposed to restructuring. Why is that so?
Yes, it is true that Northerners are
hostile to restructuring. The fact is that they are so dependent on oil
revenues that they are afraid that if restructuring takes place, the
proportion of oil proceeds they will get will be much smaller and
therefore, their capacity to look after themselves will be much more
reduced. That is a fallacy
that they believe in because they are not looking inwards. Honestly, if I
were from the Northern states; the states that produced cattle; that is
a sustainable, renewable source which oil is not. Cattle should not be mainly for people to slaughter and take to the market to sell. No! I believe that we should have a system where cattle is used for milk, butter, cheese, milk and frozen beef that can be exported, because the world needs meat that can be exported in a clean environment. If
they can do this and move away from the current way of rearing cattle
for just slaughtering and eating, you will see that the North will have
an advantage. My own calculation is that at least, $5b can come
initially from the cattle industry by the time they maximise all the
benefits from the cattle and export some. This is not like oil that can
dry up or lose its value because the cattle will breed, new cattle will
come and they can continue to expand. Oil
right now is contracting, getting smaller and one day, it will go. I
have pointed out all these in some papers I have written. If I were the
Northerners, I will never be afraid of restructuring. I will rather
concentrate on this natural resources that
we have, which will be self-sustaining permanently and it is the
Southern part of the country, particularly the South-South that should
be worried about the future of oil. This is because once oil goes and
there is no replacement economy, then there will be very dire
consequences.
Were you surprised by the resignation of Justice Walter Onnoghen, the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria?
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The resignation has come too late. It was
a face-saving resignation because if he had not resigned, he would have
been sacked. There is no question about that. At the very best, he
would have been retired if not actually dismissed. There
is no value in the resignation anymore. It lacks the honour and dignity
that would have accompanied it if he had done it since January when the
charges were made at the very beginning when he admitted in his writing
that he forgot to declare his assets.
By that admission, he should have
resigned on the spot. But instead, he went into a very dirty battle with
the federal government and with the Tribunal, going to three different
courts to get the same order which is a gross abuse of court process. He
even went to Industrial Court which is a labour court and has nothing
to do with the matter. It is when a worker is sacked without due
procedure that is when you go there. So Onnoghen ridiculed the entire
judicial system the way he went about it, whipping up sentiments in the
South East and South South. Everybody was being threatened in spite of
obvious guilt and then Senior Advocates capitalised on the issue to show
how loyal and obedient they are to iniquity. So, to me, the resignation
is too late and I am not impressed. He should have handled the matter
with dignity and self-respect
As someone who lives in Lagos, there
are fears that some projects which Akinwunmi Ambode, the outgoing
governor of Lagos may not complete will suffer under the incoming
government. What advice will you give to the governor-elect, Babajide
Sanwo-Olu?
My advice is that he should complete all
on-going projects in Lagos state, just like what the federal government
is doing now by completing the projects that were not finished by the
Goodluck Jonathan administration. You don’t leave uncompleted projects
and go and start new ones. My advice to the governor-elect of Lagos,
Babajide Sanwo-Olu is that he should complete any project that Ambode,
the outgoing governor has started because at the end of the day,
government is a continuum. What Ambode did about the Lagos Homs project
that he abandoned will not speak well for him when the history of Lagos
is written because a lot of Lagosians need accommodation in the state
now and you can see the buildings wasting away without being completed.
To resuscitate them in future will cost a lot of money. You
can even see that the Lagos Metroline has slowed down. Nobody is
working there. Since Babatunde Fashola left, there is hardly any
construction going on and this is something that will have a fantastic
and positive impact on Lagos because people can now drop their cars from
Badagry areas right to the centre of Lagos. When they are done with
their businesses, they can take a ride back; pick up their cars at the
rail station and go. This is how it operates in civilised countries. They
can drop their cars at any of the stations and take a ride to Lagos.
So, what he did by not completing the Lagos Homs project is wrong but
nevertheless, I will not want Sanwo-Olu to do the same thing on projects
that Ambode is unable to complete. I don’t believe in that kind
of politics because your achievements will be undermined if you
abandoned projects which your predecessors couldn’t complete. I will
advise Sanwo- Olu to complete the ones that Ambode couldn’t complete. In
fact, he shouldn’t start new ones until he completes the existing ones.
Today, the federal government is basking under the glory of the Abuja
rail line. The same with the rail line in Itakpe- Warri. We have
forgotten that it was Jonathan who started these projects but they
didn’t do much and so, all the credits are going to the Buhari
administration which is completing these projects.
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