National Conference can’t solve Nigeria’s problems – Chief Berkhout

Continued from last Sunday How is e-book eating into your book publishing business?All our books are online. The world is now one, you can’t isolate any form of publishing. Some of our books are on Amazon.com. El-Rufai’s book was bought on Amazon before we released it here. Nigerians bought the book before we launched it […]

Continued from last Sunday

How is e-book eating into your book publishing business?
All our books are online. The world is now one, you can’t isolate any form of publishing. Some of our books are on Amazon.com. El-Rufai’s book was bought on Amazon before we released it here. Nigerians bought the book before we launched it here. We sent the books to them and they put them up for sale; and a lot of Nigerians bought them from Amazon for as much as 20 pounds a copy.

You adopted one George, an Igbo man, as a son. Why did you choose him?
If a person comes from a very poor background, or has no home, and there is an element of promise for the future in him, one can adopt him. Now, George bears my name, Berkhout, and that means my name continues into the future. He has a wife now, and in the near future they would have a son. I started the Berkhout name, and this family will bear that name. That is very important to me. If I go, there are two Berkhout left.

You’re based in Ibadan, and one would think that you would adopt a Yoruba man?
He’s an Igbo man, but I don’t see anything wrong in that. I’m a Yoruba chief from Ife.  But George is good, I like him, and he’s taking on my name as well. He’s married. His wife is called Mrs Berkhout, his son as well. I’m quite emotional about it.

What does it take to be a successful book publisher?
You should be creative. You should have good ideas. Nothing is for nothing. If you sit down and wait for things to come, nothing will come. You have to do it yourself. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does work. But you have, at all times, answer to the market the people want. I think I know this country pretty well. I met Gowon in 1967.

Has he written a book for you?
Something is coming. He’ll be 80 in October next year. I have been pushing him to write. Again, Ojukwu had written a book on the Civil War, and it is in a safe somewhere. The problem is that the family would have to sort some things out first. The problem is that in Nigeria we don’t keep information. You know where all the information is? British Library. They’ve got more information that we have here! Kole Omotosho, while writing his book, Just Before Dawn, had to go to the British Library where he found more information than he could obtain here in Nigeria. We don’t keep information here. Most newspapers published in Nigeria can be found in British Library. Here, we burn them.

What about the Yar’Adua book?
I didn’t publish it. But it’s a very good book. Everyone has his own contacts. Lt. Gen Bello Dambazau’s book is one of the ones I’m working on currently. I had known him since he was a Captain in the Nigerian Army. Many don’t know that he has a doctorate degree in Law. He will write on his experience in the Army. The military are very intelligent men. You know, in the army, they don’t tell you what they know. He got his PhD from a UK university. But to them the rank is more important than the title. Many people carry useless titles. They’re not doctors, but they are called doctors. They just make themselves doctors. They want to be called ‘Your Excellency’. In the House of Representatives, people shake each other and say ‘Honourable.’ They don’t even know each other’s names. So I asked one of them jokingly: “Do you really know what ‘honourable’ means?’ They were surprised. What it means it to be above board! It is honour! That means every penny you have in your pocket has been earned! How many of those characters we call honourables keep to that standard? We all know who they are. But there are still a lot of good people in the system. Unfortunately, most of the time they get frustrated. I know good politicians who say the problem with Nigeria is civil servants and public servants.
In the United Kingdom, local governments give you a leaflet every year. They’ve collected so much, they spent so much on the police, fire fighters, education, town planning, salaries. They account! I’ve never seen a document from any local government who would tell me, at the end of the day, this is how much we received and this is how much we spent. Let me tell you a story about politics. Years ago there was a Bendel Book Firm under Governor Ambrose Ali. There was a head of the Bendel Books who was given a document to read. He said, “Sorry, I can’t read. I can’t find my glass.’’ Then they found out later that the man cannot read. It was a true story. They complained to the governor, and he said, “Leave him there. He gave us many votes from his village.’’ That is not the qualification to head such an agency. That same man went to Rome and Frankfurt for a book fair. What he did in Rome? The first available tree he saw, he attempted to ease himself at it. People said, “Honourable, you can’t do this here.’’ He answered, “But I have to urinate.’’ They said: “Not in Rome. You can’t do this here.’’ In Frankfurt (I was there too), he couldn’t market his books. He went to Mark & Spencer to spend his ‘estaco’. That is not a criteria to run a company. It’s just like in a newspaper company where you appoint a stark illiterate as an editor! You can’t run any organisation on sentiment. There must be discipline, integrity. If you appoint people who are not to be in positions, then the organisation will fail.
You have many chairmen of organisations and ministers who have not got a clue about what the organisations are all about. As Father Kukah would put it, Nigeria is like a plane without a black box. There are a lot of people in positions who should not be there. You know what? Things were not like this before. The Native Authorities in the North had every detail of the people under the authority. You may not like the colonialists, but what the British left behind was a good system.  They knew how many teachers there were, and all those teachers were engaged in teaching. To be a teacher was a very honourable job. When I came to Nigeria, a Standard Six qualification was employable. They had a vocabulary of 1,500 words; they were educated. They could write and read. Today, a primary school child has no such background, except he attended a private school. Upper Standard today is like Form Five. We should have kept the Higher School Certificate. Today, holders of School Certificate don’t know Geography, History. These are now consumed by Social Studies. Some can’t read and write! Writing has been destroyed by text messages, but in the end people think they know more.

Have you attempted to persuade President Goodluck Jonathan to write his own story?
I don’t think he is able to write yet. Many have written about him, but he has not written one. But I do prefer autography to biography. It’s far more valuable than biography. Some biographies are very good, but they would not be as good as a person writing about himself. Some people have tried to write about me. When I went through what they did, I told them they wrote fiction! I believe in autobiography. Obasanjo has written about himself, and it’s good.

What about T.Y. Danjuma? He is somebody that should make interesting reading?
We’re talking to him.

What does it mean to you to be an Ife chief and an Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON)?
Both of them are important. The chieftaincy I got from the Ooni of Ife, and the OON I was given by Obasanjo when he was president. It was for my contributions to education. I was told he wanted to give me a national honour and that was it. It shows that people appreciate what you do. Everybody likes a pat on the back sometimes.

Have you ever persuaded Malam Adamu Ciroma to write?
I hope he would write someday, but he is not getting younger, too. If you don’t write, at a point you tend to forget some facts unless you keep records. He is in his 80s.

What does it mean to be 83-year-old and kicking?
I don’t know. One thing is, and what all of you should know is that whatever you do, make sure you enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it. I say it to my friends, ‘in essence, I’ve never worked in my life.’ Work has never been a problem to me because I enjoy. When I play golf or write a book or fly a plane, I enjoy it. Whatever you do, you must enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t try to do it. I see too many people pick up a job and they would be all-day on the watch trying to see when it would be 5.00pm. That’s not it. People try to make life complicated, but it is not. Some people are their own enemies. Like the Catholics say, ‘it’s not my fault; it’s not my fault.’ It’s not true.
A lot of people are responsible for their successes and failures. Don’t blame the society. All of us have a duty to the society, but the society has no duty to you. One of the things that worry me immensely in this country is that the poorest people give birth to many children. I tell my people that no child asks to be born; never. You created this child. You’re responsible to educate the child. Now children are born and parents don’t care. They don’t see the children; nannies bring up the children. Parents hardly know the children. I was asking somebody, “How do you cope with seven children?” The answer he gave was, “God gave me seven children.’’ That is rubbish! God didn’t give you seven children; you created seven lives! You are totally responsible until the child can stand on his feet. In the UK children will abuse parents if they don’t take care of them. And it would happen in this country.

We understand you don’t have a university degree?
Yes, I’ve never been to a university. I am self-educated. Let me tell you something: people think because they went to the university that is the end of it all. Every day is learning. Every night, before you go to your bed, just take 10 minutes to think: what have I learnt today? Not what you learnt yesterday. If the answer is ‘no,’ then you’ve failed today. Here, when one has a university degree, he thinks he has known everything. That’s not all. I was having a discussion with my son: I said, you did a book in 1987… and he said, “Oh, that is old. What I did then are no longer applicable. We’re now in 2013, and things have changed.’’ So even what he wrote to obtain a doctorate is no more applicable today! Especially in the sciences, the knowledge of 1987 is no more applicable today. Look at the telephone, for instance. In the past it was a box. Then even the handset you had was heavier than the smart phones of today. In 10 years time, the smart phones will no longer be in vogue. Things would change. Go to Google. I use it every day. Because of Google the Encyclopaedia Britannica is no longer published. This is because the Brittanica can’t keep you up-to-date. But Google does! It keeps you up-to-date every minute. I have a friend in Silicon Valley, a Nigerian. He said to me, ‘’You wouldn’t believe it; the people today who are doing new inventions are 18, 19, 20, 21 years old. I’m 39 years old, and I’m old-fashion. They think on entirely a different level than I do.’’ The world is changing, and if Nigeria is not keeping pace, then we’re our own greatest enemies. You can’t stop development.
You are concerned about Nigeria. What are your thoughts about the planned national conference?
 It is a waste of time; recycling of sort. We have to change our attitude, that’s all. Sitting at the table and talking can’t work. We all know the problem. Everybody in this country knows the problem. What we need is attitude: discipline, integrity, honesty, living together, stopping corruption. You think the dialogue would stop corruption? At the moment, if somebody puts a tender, if it costs a certain amount, then you would be called to negotiate. In the old days, you would say, ‘I give you N80.00,’ and that is it. You know what happens to day, if you say N80.00, they would say, ‘ask for N100.00 and give me the difference!’ Can the national conference change this attitude? Some people say we’re not poor. We’re suffering from one disease – greed. Emeka Anyaoku said so. There are far too many people in government.
In developed countries, the private sector is always in charge of affairs. The private sector can stop a government in developed countries. But here, the private sector is just coping. The conference is not the solution to the problems in this country. If in a newspaper house like this your machine breaks down; how are you going to fix it? Would you call a conference to discuss the matter? You ask: what is the problem? Do you get spare parts or something else? Then you take action. We can deal with our problems with the use of commonsense. Everybody has got commonsense. I spoke to Ben Nwabueze on this. He’s a great Nigeria. He’s my friend. In Nigeria you have to forget religion or ethnicity. You have to deal with people as human beings. Sixty per cent of the Nigerian population is the young generation. They have to do it. If they take to the example of the old generation then we have a serious problem.

You said you spoke to Ben Nwabueze on the conference?
No. He is writing about it. To me, he’s wasting his time. The national conference cannot solve our problem. Every individual in this country must do it through acts of integrity, discipline. These are the things we need. I’m not saying we’re worse than the rest of the world, but there’s a big difference between what we have here and what is out there.
There’s a big difference between Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa and here. In Kano we used to have groundnut pyramid; from the East we were the largest exporter of palm oil. In 1900, we were ahead in trading in Africa: groundnut in the North, cocoa in the South, palm oil in the East. We were exporting all these. Now, we’re importing palm oil from Malaysia. They came to Nigeria and picked the seed to their country. They established a palm plantation of about 50 kilometres in size. Now they export palm oil to Nigeria. We export our crude oil and import them as refined products. Do you know the cost?
We should build refineries. Refine our oil and export refined products! Do you know why electricity doesn’t work? We’re the largest importers of generators in the world! If we don’t import generators, the Chinese, Indian and British economies would be affected. Personal interest could be negative to the society. I’m not saying anything new. I was discussing with Obasanjo that we’re the only country without a paper mill.
Do you know what it costs to import newsprints and other papers? You need to purchase two to three months’ stock. Then transport the paper from Lagos to Abuja! If we have our own paper mill, this would not happen. We have no reason not to have a paper mill in Nigeria! Ghana has a paper mill. Tanzania has a paper mill. Kenya has a paper mill. Zimbabwe has a paper mill. South Africa has paper mills. I went to South Africa and some investors asked me if there were Nigerians interested in paper mills. They came and discovered that power is a major problem. They realised that the energy cost was 42 per cent. They said, “We can’t compete,’’ if we want to export. The energy cost in Abu Dhabi is 1 per cent of cost of production, but here it is 42 per cent.  We know the problems. Why do we hold a conference over what we know? Let’s change our attitude.