‘Obasanjo thought he knew so much’
How did you come to speak French, Arabic and Spanish? I lived in Tunisia so I have a smattering of Arabic. It’s just basically conversational. But I wish I had opportunity because my work at the [African Development Bank] ADB did not allow me to learn Arabic properly. I have a deep interest in Arabic […]
How did you come to speak French, Arabic and Spanish?
I lived in Tunisia so I have a smattering of Arabic. It’s just basically conversational. But I wish I had opportunity because my work at the [African Development Bank] ADB did not allow me to learn Arabic properly. I have a deep interest in Arabic and even Islamic philosophy. Of course I speak French. It’s a language that for me, I find it better than English, with apologies to Shakespeare. French is a whole way of life. It’s a way of thinking. I have also a smattering of Spanish, nothing much to write home about and of course, I can bluff my way in German.
For somebody who works in a bank and knowing how demanding working in a bank is, how do you manage to find time for all your interests?
You know, I have to be honest; you just have to create the time, like weekends when you have nothing to do, to develop some of these interests. Like I used to dabble into some poetry and I used to act in plays. I believe that literature and poetry humanise us. Like the scientists say that our brains have the masculine and feminine sides. And you operate best when there is a balance between the two sides. Some people emphasise more the masculine side and some people do the opposite. If I am in a big city, I always go to the arts gallery. I enjoy arts for instance. When there is an exhibition, I find time to go. I used to collect a lot of art myself. I believe that as educated people, you need to have a balance, whether as a doctor or an engineer. For me, I don’t know how anyone can survive without music. I believe that Beethoven’s 9th symphony is the greatest music ever made. You listen to it and it humanises you. You know, President Jimmy Carter insisted that in his office in the White House, they have to play classical music, from start to finish of the day, at a low tune of course. Perhaps that is why some people say he wasn’t aggressive to fight a war (laughs). American presidents are always fighting a war.
Why are American presidents always fighting wars?
It’s a complicated question. It has to do with the history of the establishment of the American republic. It was founded by violence as you know, first suppressing the Indians who resisted their lands being taken. Then, there was slavery that went on for centuries, of course, it was not a peaceful thing, it needed force and violence to keep people down. And then the young republic wanted independence and had to fight Britain and King George III which lead to independence in 1776. The whole American republic was founded on violence.
There was a great French-American writer called Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote a fantastic book called Democracy in America. Nobody can truly claim to understand America unless he reads de Tocqueville’s book. He explains further that the mentality of the open land and to keep such a land, you have to be a violent person. And in fact, almost one in three American presidents has had to fight a war, sometimes multiple wars. The US has intervened in Latin America over a hundred times in its history. The US is an empire and empires are kept by force not by non-violent means. It is a very complex society. It has got the good, the bad and the ugly mashed up together and still the greatest country in the world in economic terms and technology.
As an economist now, would you recommend such an aggressive drive for Nigeria to become a stronger country, economically and socially?
My old teacher, Paul Collier, developed an econometric model in which he said that wars are actually very good for growth and we were all concerned and the question now arose; that should we encourage wars to be fought? You know what he meant was that there are good and bad wars. If you are fighting to defend your country, that is a good war. If you are fighting for freedom and for justice, these are very good wars. If you are fighting against an oppressive leader, a tyrant, as people fought Abacha, these are good, good struggles. But I believe in non-violence. I believe in peaceful approach and for us, we don’t really need this kind of conflicts. In fact, we don’t know how blessed Nigeria is. We are one of the few countries in the world where there is nobody in a corner somewhere who is about to invade us. At least, throughout our history, we have never had to confront these kinds of challenges. Even the earthquakes that afflict countries like Turkey, Japan and Haiti and much of the Caribbean, tornadoes and so on, God has spared Nigeria. We don’t know how extraordinarily blessed we are. We don’t need force and violence to make this country one of the greatest nations on earth.
What we need is a stable society, righteous and just rulers who follow the rule of law, harmony, massive investment in our people and structures and then give our youths a sense of hope and a sense of high destiny. That is all Nigeria needs.
And of course, you know, we have all kinds of cabals. All the big groups work according to cabals and secret societies and cults. So power becomes a form of cultism; we are in there, you are out. It’s our time to chop. And then we sideline you with all kinds of tricks and monkey business. That is what is happening, whereas all my readings of political thoughts, ancient as well as modern, show me that every society is supposed to be an open society in which there is fair representation. It is an open government based on the rule of law and not the rule of man. Big difference!
If you are that kind of society we don’t have to behave as though power was a form of cultism. If we ran an open government where every individual can aspire to rule and can only be limited by his talent, his ability and his public appeal. You know, if we have that kind of society, we should have no problems whatsoever.
In order words, you think some of our leaders are cultists?
Well, they may or may not be. That is beside the point. The problem for me is when you run a government as if it’s a cult. You noticed that during the Yar’adua period, didn’t it surprise you that these people don’t talk to anybody? They would not speak on public policy, they would not communicate, they would not discuss their policies and what they are doing, they would not even take questions from the media.
What many of them were doing was simply to package a PR video and some cuttings of some newspaper adverts that this is what we are doing and then you see some pale buildings being put forward that this is what we have achieved, these are the dividendsh President Obasanjo.