Our generation failed the North – Aliko Mohammed

Weekly Trust: Can you start by telling us briefly about your background?Alhaji Aliko Mohammed: I was born in Misau, Bauchi State and by September this year, I will be 80 years old. I started my elementary education in Misau before I went to the Middle School Bauchi and much later I went to the United […]

Weekly Trust: Can you start by telling us briefly about your background?
Alhaji Aliko Mohammed: I was born in Misau, Bauchi State and by September this year, I will be 80 years old. I started my elementary education in Misau before I went to the Middle School Bauchi and much later I went to the United Kingdom to study Accounting. I have been a Chartered Accountant for the last 50 years since I qualified in 1964. It was the Gaskiya Corporation that sent me to study in the UK and when I came back, I became the Chief Accountant and Secretary of the corporation and after the military coup in 1966, because of the policy of the then Northern Government that expatriates will not handle financial responsibilities, I was brought into housing corporation which was later merged with the New Nigeria Development Corporation (NNDC). I moved to the NNDC as Chief Accountant and later National Comptroller. There was an agreement then, between the NNDC and CDC to form the Northern Nigeria Investment Company (NNIC) and I was transferred there as investment manager. I also served as Chairman of the Bank of the North and NICON Insurance. I was at the bank for 16 years; ten years as Chairman and six years before then as a director. I was again appointed by the Federal Government as the chairman of Daily Times where served for five years.
What memories do you still have as a child growing up?
Is a long time, I can’t really remember many. Well as a child, I had the hope of joining the state government, then the regional government and I always wanted to be an accountant. I was lucky I got the opportunity.
You are said to be the first or is it second Chartered Accountant from the North, what made you to take that line?
I am not the first Chartered Accountant from the north. Late Wazirin Katsina, Hamza Zayyad, was the first and a year later I became one, but I was the first northerner to be appointed as Chief Accountant of Gaskiya Corporation in 1964 because then, that was the apex in accounting or finance. I later became Finance Comptroller of the NNDC. I chose accounting as a profession because I was good at Mathematics and because accounting job is a position of trust.  
You served as the Chairman of the Bank of the North in 1974, and it was said that in 1976, your name was penciled down for the CBN governor’s job, but Adamu Ciroma was given the job while you were named the Chairman of the Daily Times. What exactly happened at that time?
No, I went there in 1969 as a director representing the marketing board at that time because I was a member of the board. When late Waziri Ibrahim left the Bank, I was appointed as Chairman.  I was not aware of the CBN job, but what actually happened was that during the administration of General Murtala Mohammed, he appointed me as the Chairman of Daily Times while I was also the chairman of the Bank of the North and NICON. After taking over Daily Times by the government, NICON was asked to buy the shares of the British owners of the company and I was made Chairman of Daily Times but I was not a journalist. At that time Malam Adamu Chiroma was appointed CBN Governor and people thought I should have gone to the CBN, but I was not in the position to know what happened.
As an Accountant, you most likely had no idea how a newspaper organization was ran. How were you able to cope?
Daily Times was a group of many companies; the newspaper is only one side of it. They’ve got the printing side and other subsidiaries. It’s more of a business and I looked at it as a business which I actually had the experience of handling. In any case, the person heading the company does not need to be a journalist.   
After that, you were also a former Chairman of NICON and one-time President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Tell us about your experience.
NICON was set up by the Federal Government during (Gen Yakubu) Gowon’s time to control the insurance industry and every insurance company had to bid 10per cent of their business to NICON and therefore, it became a leader. We started NICON with about less than half a million pounds and we made a 138,000 (hundred and thirty eight thousand) as first year profit and since then it has been gaining much. I became a member of the Stock Exchange and a member of the Council and it was the Council that will appoint the president after every three years for a renewable term. They are the brokers, bankers and business people so, they can elect the president. I was there for about six years.
As someone who has served on the boards of major Northern Nigerian corporations, how do you feel about their present state?
I feel very sad, in the sense that if the northern governments had supported the NNDC and given it enough resources, it would have been much bigger than the Odua Group because they set up so many industries. All the textiles started with the NNDC as a partnership and the housing corporation also, but when the states were created in 1967, they set up their investment companies and ignored the NNDC and that was the beginning of the problem. They have so many things to do, but don’t have the support of their shareholders. 
You were reportedly taught by prominent Northern educators such as Aminu Kano, Yahaya Gusau, Sa’ad Zungur and even Tafawa Balewa. What can you say about their personalities?
Tafawa Balewa was not my teacher, but he was the Education Officer in Charge of Bauchi when I was a student at Middle School.  I was taught by Malam Aminu Kano by which time Sa’ad Zungur was not a teacher but came to lecture us from time to time. You should know that politics in the North started in Bauchi with Aminu Kano, Tafawa Balewa, Sa’ad Zungur and Yayaya Gusau in the Middle School and Teachers College and they started as nationalists.  Dr. Dikko from Zaria came to Bauchi as a medical officer at that time and joined them, but when politics started; he resigned as a civil servant.   
You have no doubt wanted to be president at a time. Why did you shelve the idea? Is it that what you wanted to do has been done?
During the administration of former Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, there was the need for new breed politicians, because so many experienced politicians were barred. I had the qualifications to go into politics and contest for any position. I indicated the interest to run for president, but one month later, the same General Babangida came back and unbanned those he banned. So, the professionals who were far better came back. They were well equipped, there was no way a new person could compete with them and I withdrew.
Babangida said he wanted all politicians to be new and one month later he changed the policy. The professional politicians knew everything; they know who and who; they have their contacts and it will be an affair to compete with them. And happily, it was not ‘money politics.’  The major problem in Nigeria was that when the military wanted to give power, the people who should go into politics did not go, because they were suspicious that the military are not really serious in handing over the government. Those who went into politics were school dropouts and some who did not have any other job. They made money and turned politics in Nigeria into ‘money politics’ which is up to now what it is; if you don’t have money, you can’t take part. The good people who want to go back to politics cannot go, because those who made money will make sure that they did not come back.
There is this story being told that the late Premier of Northern Nigeria wanted to appoint you to a certain position, which the white men opposed on the grounds that you didn’t have the experience, but that Sardauna insisted that if you were not appointed, how would you get the experience? Can you shed some light on that?
People misunderstood the situation then. Before I went to England to study Accountancy, the Board of Gaskiya Corporation resolved that I should go and study, when I become a Chartered Accountant, I should come back and take over from the Chief Accountant who was then an expatriate. I came back in 1964 and on the very first day I would want to resume, the Chief Accountant, Mr. Godwin, started handing over to me by which time we have got a new chairman, late Alhaji Abba Jiddun Gana, who wanted the expatriate to continue but there was a board resolution, he cannot continue. Then, he said I haven’t got the experience and can only be accountant secretary until I get experience before I become the chief accountant. I wrote a petition to the minister of internal affairs who was in charge of Gaskiya Corporation, now the present Emir of Katagum.  In the petition I said that I was asked to go to UK to study accountancy, when I qualify, I should come and take over from the expatriate and when I came back the expatriate started handing over to me while the executive chairman said I had no experience. The minister took the letter to the premier because I couldn’t go to the premier. The premier said he wanted to see the three of us including the chairman and myself in Kaduna. The ministers were having a meeting then. We went to the see the premier and we were given three chairs and he said I should sit in the middle, the chairman on my right. The premier asked me that you sent a petition to me and said I didn’t send a petition to you. I sent it to the minister. I narrated to him what had happened. He then asked the chairman; why did you say that? The chairman answered that it was because I didn’t have the experience and the honourable premier said ‘I am the premier of the North, I didn’t have any experience, I am doing the job now and it is on the job I am learning. Then you go back and let him do the job, if fails to do it, you can come back and we will change him.  He should have the experience on this job.’ That was how I got that job. 
Recently, you issued a statement over the alleged attempt to bribe some top northerners to support President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2015 ambition. What have you found out since then? 
What happened was that the ACF wanted to make a statement over the issue and they insisted that I, as the chairman sign the statement. Some people, who claimed that they are friends of the northerners, (Chief Raymond) Dokpesi was the one leading them, told the President that they wanted to induce some top northerners and we understood that would cost him money and we don’t know whether money was provided.  The list was not 400 as the Chief Servant of Niger State Babangida Aliyu was saying; they were about over a hundred but almost all the top northerners in this country were there. If you take where I come from, Bauchi, for example; Wazirin Bauchi was number one, then my name came second,  then the Emir of Bauchi, Emir of Katagun and Wamban Katagun who was the former Secretary to the Federal Government. There were 10 of us in Bauchi. Anyway, we have this list and we made a statement and said it is not inducing those northerners but justifying what he has done to the country.
As ACF chairman, what is the forum doing about the problems bedeviling the North in the area of education, poverty, insecurity etc? 
About three years ago we did a northern summit where we invited everybody in the north. The vice president and all the governors came. It was a two day affair. Prominent northerners presented papers on various themes and we did what we called roadmap for the north and for Nigeria in the sector of education, health, security and everything. We did it in a form of recommendations in a booklet and delivered it to the states. We cannot as ACF implement them, so we sent it to the people who are going to implement them; the 19 northern governors. We went to Minna, Niger state and handed over those recommendations to the Chief Servant who is the chairman of the Northern Governors Forum and he promised to work with it. I understand a committee was formed on that, but we don’t know what happened. So, we are still waiting for the implementation. We cannot publish it as such because we have passed on to the governors and will be disrespectful of us to publish it.
Some people say that the problems are because the generation of Northern leaders who took over after Sardauna have failed to sustain the tempo, how do you respond to this?
I agree entirely.  I think we did not really sustain the tempo on what they have done because if we had, this country would have been a different place.  I think what had actually happened, unfortunately, is that money again came into it. People were interested in making money. People were interested in backbiting each other and so on, and many people have got different agendas; they don’t think as north. That is what we are actually trying to do in the ACF, to bring back what has happened in the past.