Reminiscences with Pa Uma Eleazu

Elder Uma Eleazu, 88, desired, as a young man, to be a pastor. But circumstances disposed that ambition and, instead, took him out of Nigeria twice to study abroad. Since he returned, he had been a member of two committees that wrote the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions. He once headed the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria […]

Elder Uma Eleazu, 88, desired, as a young man, to be a pastor. But circumstances disposed that ambition and, instead, took him out of Nigeria twice to study abroad. Since he returned, he had been a member of two committees that wrote the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions.

He once headed the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), as well as facilitated the creation of the manufacturers associations in Kenya and Uganda. Pa Eleazu had consulted for both the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). He had also once headed the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC). He had also been a lecturer in both Nigeria and the United States. In 1993, he was a presidential aspirant in the Social Democratic Party (SDP), contesting against Chief M.K.O.

Abiola, who eventually won the ticket. In this interview, Pa Eleazu discusses how the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, offered him an appointment as a Grade 2 Lecturer after he had been an Associate Professor in the USA, the making of the 1979 and 1999 Constitution,  NNPC, IPOB and other issues.

 

Was there something significant that happened in your growing up years that eventually prepared you for the versatile mind you later became in life? 

I was brought up in the Mission by Methodist missionaries. My father was a priest and my mother a woman leader in the church. It was from church that I went to a training school for teachers (not a secondary school.) My father intended that one of his sons should be a minister of religion. I actually directed my mind towards that but the opportunities were not coming in the Mission, so I began to nurse the ambition of going to England to study.

I left the mission to take general certificate examinations (GCE) O’level and A’level. I passed and got a federal scholarship to study Policy, Philosophy and Economics in England in 1958.

When I returned, I went straight to the civil service. After spending nine months there, I resigned and went to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, which then needed lecturers. I was at UNN for two years and then left for the United States for my doctorate degree. By the time I finished my doctorate, Nigeria was at war with itself. I was in the US throughout the period of the civil war, teaching and only returned to Nigeria much later.

When you came back, which did you choose to go back to  –  teaching or the civil service?

I went back to Nsukka but I wasn’t offered what I considered a good position. Already in the US, I was an Associate Professor. When I came back 10 years after I had left Nigeria, UNN still wanted me to be a Grade 2 Lecturer, the same grade I was on before I travelled. They told me they would take their time to promote me to Lecturer 1 and Senior Lecturer.

I was still at that when I was called upon to help Mallam Maitama Sule set up what was called the Public Complaints Commission. I wrote the report on which it was set up. When I finished that, I went back to teaching at the Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Enugu, as its Dean of Studies.

I was asked to help set up a policy research unit for the government.

The week that was recommended, a coup that toppled Yakubu Gowon happened and the government officials involved in it left. Muritala Muhammad, who became the new Head of State, still invited me to join the Cabinet Office. Then, a National Policy Development Centre, a think-tank arm of the Supreme Military Headquarters was created. I was there from 1977 to 1979. I was there when Muritala was killed and Obasanjo took over. In Obasanjo’s book, Not My Will, he wrote how I helped the military hand over to civilians in 1979.

I was asked to set up the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, near Jos. I was its first Director of Research and was qualified to head it. But they ditched me. There was a rule then that you cannot put an Igbo man to head such a strategic position. I never knew until someone hinted me. Someone else was brought in to take over from me. The person and I didn’t quite agree on what NIPSS should be doing, so I resigned.

Due to the work I had done for the government, the Manufacturer’s Association of Nigeria (MAN) hired me as its Chief Executive. I worked for MAN for five years. I was handling all its policy papers, and representing it at the Senate and House of Representatives, discussing with the political leaders the need to put in place the needed industrial climate to make the private sector grow.

After Gen Muhammadu Buhari arrived in December 1984 and sacked everyone, including the Parliament, and as there was no need for me to be going to the Senate and House of Reps, I told MAN that the kind of job they gave me no longer existed, so I resigned.

Thereafter, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) invited

me to consult for them. From there, I went to the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in Vienna with a responsibility to assist some nations develop their private sector.

They sent me to Kenya where I established Kenya’s Manufacturers Association. I also went to Uganda to organise an association for their manufacturers. You must have a virile private sector to assist the government because the latter cannot do everything.

What informed your initial participation in politics?

I returned to Nigeria when I was 60 years old to join politics. My aim was to participate actively in politics for 10 years, with the hope I would retire at 70. But the military, headed by Ibrahim Babangida, didn’t make it possible because they wasted a lot of time. I was well over 60 during the 1992-1993 elections when I participated.

At the Social Democratic Party (SDP) convention in Jos in 1993, I had the flag for Abia State, but I discovered tha what was destroying Nigeria then was money, as it is now. The Abia delegates that I took to Jos surprised me. During the first round which they were supposed to vote for me as their candidate, they didn’t do that because all of them collected money from some other people from left, right and centre. Only four people eventually voted for me out of 110. Everybody else voted for Abiola.

Since politics couldn’t work out for me, I went back to where my father wanted me to be in the first place – the church – to be a pastor. I am now an elder in the Presbyterian Church. My main job now is fishing for disciples, fishing for followers of Jesus everywhere.

What memories do you still have of your school days, including the pranks you played?

Boys must be boys. We played all the kinds of pranks that boys played. We kicked balls, and deliberately looked for girls’ trouble. If you liked a girl then, you would first play a prank to gain her attention.

You could push her down with her pot, first instance. While she would be fighting with you on your reason for doing that, you would get to know each other.

But I didn’t really do any major prank because I was a mission boy; I was brought up in the church. And my father believed in the adage: spare the rod and spoil the child, which put me in check. He didn’t condone any nonsense. We were brought up with a cane and on so much discipline.

When a child is well-disciplined at a young age, such a child will continue to follow that path as an adult even when there is nobody around him as a guide.

One interesting thing I remembered was that I was hoping to get a secondary school scholarship because there was only a slot for parishioners. My friend, Mr Uluma, got the scholarship during our time, so the rest of us could not go to a secondary school. I went to a boy’s vocational school to learn carpentry. After graduation, I became a Vocation teacher. I did that for two years before I went to a Teachers’ Training College.

Due to the kind of discipline I had in primary school and at the Mission, I didn’t have time for pranks, especially stupid ones. I was very short- tempered for stupid people.

What about your university experience?

I attended Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, for two years, where I had my A’level. I applied to the Ministry of Education for a scholarship and it was approved. Thereafter, I went to England where I got a Honours degree. I was satisfied with the Honours because I could teach in the university and be the Principal of a school. Those were my goals.

In the US, I had risen to become an Associate Professor. There, they don’t promote you unless you have written articles, refereed and published.

How did your career start?

My career was planned by God. Each time, I would meet something like a disappointment and then the next door would open to something else. I never wrote an application for a job. I was always invited to come and take a job. I don’t know how to write an application for job.

You once chaired the board of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. What is your experience dealing with a lot of the sleaze many people widely believe bedevils the nation’s oil sector?

Yes, I was Chairman of the PPMC board during the Ibrahim Babangida regime. It was when I was Chairman that Babangida wanted to split the commercial side of PPMC and let it run like a private company. The PPMC was registered as a private company but we didn’t own shares in it. It is still publicly owned by the Federal Ministry of Finance, NNPC and Ministry of Petroleum. They were the shareholders and we were merely public servants recruited from the private sector.

One of the first things we did was to audit what was handed over to us by the PPMC. Our audit was on all the pipelines, depots, vehicles and vessels of the NNPC. So much was discovered by the auditor, obviously secrets the NNPC was hiding from public glare. We did what is now referred to as forensic auditing. I got a query from the NNPC headquarters. They gave me, the Chairman of the Board, a query for asking an outsider to audit the PPMC and a part of the NNPC without their permission. When I got the query, I took it to my fellow Board

members and everybody laughed, saying they didn’t know who they weredealing with. A letter signed by me was sent back stating, ‘Chairman of Board does not answer query.’ We were a Board not under the NNPC; at least, our letter never indicated that.

There were all kinds of intrigues. Later, I sent some hands to check on the illegal activities of some people who were loading at our depots but taking fuel to Niger Republic to sell. Big people in Nigeria owned those trucks used for the business. People were making millions of naira on a daily basis. We would be suffering here because there was no petrol but our fuel was being sold in Cameroon, Niger and Chad at lower prices than Nigerians were getting it.

There was a period I didn’t know what some people did and there was so much scarcity of petrol and we were being accused. Government set up a Commission of Enquiry on the issue, headed by Justice Muhammed Bello. Our Board wrote our own report that we gave to the Commission.

At the enquiry, people were asked to talk but I wasn’t called. I learnt someone told them, ‘Don’t bring Dr Eleazu to the witness stand.

I know the man, if you put him there, he will reveal more than what was in the paper submitted.’ They never found anything PPMC did wrong.

You said prominent people were taking Nigeria’s oil to neighbouring countries. Is it still happening?

Yes, it still happens, only that those prominent people who engage in it no longer use trucks. They now bring vessels from overseas, load tons of fuel and take them away. Otherwise, how can someone have billions of naira through oil money? If I give N1 million to someone and that person spends N30 everyday, even if he lives to be 90 years old, he won’t exhaust it.

Some of the people in the National Assembly don’t know the value of what N1 billion is, in the real sense of it. I had been on a plane sitting behind a member of the House of Representatives and he was asking his colleague beside him, ‘This billion naira they are talking about, how many zeros does it have?’ Some of those representing us have no sense of value of the money in question and what it can buy. A trillion naira can build another University of Lagos, in the same size as it is now. It makes me sad. This is why I now prefer to be at home and not go out to talk so I won’t raise my blood pressure.

What was your experience working on the Nigerian Constitution?

Every new Constitution has a background that can make people design the kind of that document they desire. We had just gone through a Civil War when Nigeria almost fell apart so the thing uppermost for the military when they called for the 1979 Constitution was how to have a strong Constitution that would produce a strong leader.

In the speech that Murtala Muhammed read, he more or less ordered us to design something like the American Presidency. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was very wise; he refused. He was supposed to be the Chairman but he made it point blank that if he would be heading the committee, the military cannot dictate to him what kind of Constitution to produce. Rather, he said, the people should be allowed to talk first. 

The military didn’t quite agree, so he told them to leave him out of it. Rotimi Williams was brought in and he was more or less ready to play ball. They manoeuvred every decision till we were able to have an Executive Presidency.

Before then, the military had already created a Federation Account, which more or less put all federal money in one account that they were distributing to states and local government. It wasn’t so before then.

In a federation, that is very wrong. 

The thing with a Constitution is that as you run it, you will begin to discover where it is weak or too strong. That will then lead to amendments. And that is why Constitutions have amending processes.

Before we could say Jack Robinson, Buhari came in and threw out the 1979 Constitution. Babangida took over and so many things started happening.

Abacha’s tenure led to the end of the 1979 Constitution. He wanted to introduce the Sharia into the Constitution but many people said he couldn’t because that would become binding once it became law. We didn’t succeed.

When Abacha died and Abdusalam Abubakar took over, I was back there working with some others on a new Constitution.

So how have those Constitution committees in which you participated developed the country?

The committees cannot develop the country.  Rather, it is the respective arms of government that are given the opportunity to do so.

These are the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. The Constitution gives them the opportunity to make laws for the good governance of Nigeria. The Constitution also gives power to the President to execute all laws enacted by the Legislature for the good governance of Nigeria.

What we are seeing now is that the Legislature will not enact good, people-oriented laws and, of course, the President cannot execute what is not enacted. As a matter of fact, the President cannot spend a kobo that has not been appropriated by the National Assembly. But the President dips his hand into the Federation Account, takes N1b and buys aeroplanes without telling the National Assembly.

Would you suggest a new Constitution, or should the existing one be amended?

The best thing now is for us as Nigerians, and for every part of the country, is to ask ourselves the question, ‘Do we want to be part of Nigeria? Can we live with one another as Nigerians?’

To have a new Constitution, every nationality or units in this country should be asked whether they still want to be part of the

Nigerian federation – and under what conditions. Let them say yes or no. If anyone says he doesn’t want to be part of Nigeria, he should be allowed to go. Nigeria will remain.

If you ask me as an Igbo man, for example, I’d tell you I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder and be worried about who wants to kill me the next day. Ask the Benue people now, they will tell you the same thing.

I will like to be part of a Nigeria where there is law and order, where the police and the army will do their work as they should. And if they are not ready to do so, there should be a way I should be allowed to protect myself. That is what self- determination is all about.

They gave IPOB a bad name to kill it. Its people are saying they are tired of being part of Nigeria. In my 30s, I was already a graduate and I had dreams for Nigeria. But things have changed. In today’s Nigeria, unless a child is sent abroad by his or her parents or he/she wins a scholarship, that child can no longer acquire quality education, or even no education at all. Our children are saying enough is enough and they should be left alone to build their lives as they desire because Nigeria has failed them.

But we don’t seem to be listening to them. We are not talking of any particular tribe here. Why should the child of the affluent go to school in Oxford and not with the almajiris in Kano, for instance?

Until we sit down and decide to build a country that is worthy of the name, left to me, we should be allowed to leave to build the kind of country we want.

Do you support the IPOB movement?

I support the principle of what they are saying. I don’t need to carry a placard and join them. I have more or less stated their case in a language other Nigerians should understand. The country has failed the youths. They are saying unless things change, they should be allowed to leave to build a country of our own.

You are knocking on 90 years; how do you keep yourself busy these days?

I make disciples. I go to church and also teach people what Jesus said. All the things Jesus commanded are what I teach in any church.

How do you keep fit?

I walk with my stick, maybe 100 yards and I walk back. It is good for the health. This will make the muscles and bone to be strong. I have been doing the walk for a long time. I played football and lawn tennis as a young man.

It seemed you were the hyperactive type as a young man, especially in academics. On the lighter side, what was your relationship with girls?

I grew up when it was a taboo to speak with or touch a girl. If you must speak with a lady, you must be at one end of the road and the lady at the other end. If you like the girl, you will find the opportunity of going with her to the stream.

In my place, you could never touch a girl, although things are no longer that way. When I was in primary school, when girls returned home from school, they would remove their school uniform (a gown) and go to the stream naked with beads all over their waist, but nobody dare move close to them to touch them. Both boys and men cannot touch them because it was a taboo. If anybody dare did that, the father or intending husband can kill such a man (or boy). Things were that strict then.

If that was the case, how then did you eventually woo your woman?

I married from my town. I knew her background because I knew her when she was 4 or 5 years old. When I returned from England, I saw her.

Upon enquiry, I discovered she was the daughter of the headmaster. I went home to tell my family who later went to her house to talk on my behalf. She didn’t even know who they were talking about, but that didn’t stop her from agreeing. Once there was an agreement, an arrangement was made for me to visit the lady’s home. After that visit, my family members met hers, and the lady wasn’t even present there.

What is your take on the state of the nation?

Terrible. The 2019 election is by the corner and it is all fight within and among the political parties. They can’t even agree on who should represent whom. They go to the extent of carrying guns and shooting in the court. What kind of country is that?

Nobody in the House of Reps or Senate should stand for re-election in 2019. All of them should go home. They should all retire so that a new set of people can emerge.

The President of France, how old is he? Obama, when he became the President of America was 42. There are so many young people in Nigeria who will perform well if given the chance. You, as a reporter, if given the opportunity to become the Minister of Information, will know what to do and how to make the ministry better.

The people in the National Assembly will not retreat to their homes to think of how to make things better. Instead, they are busy thinking about what more they can get out of the sorry position we are now.

Their salary was supposed to be N750,000 but the first thing they did was to work on increasing it, so they legislated for themselves and jacked it up to N13.2m per month. Yet the workers of this country who move the country have been clamouring for an increase in their minimum wage of N18,000. To the legislators, that’s too big, too much. They can’t make the law just to enforce an increased minimum wage.

You once aspired, for the 1993 elections, to be President but couldn’t achieve that ambition. Why didn’t you try again?

In 1992, I was already 60 years old, and that is the age when one can still have the energy to move around. After I contested against Abiola in the same party and didn’t succeed, I wasn’t able to try again because the military took over and wasted everyone’s time. The next election after 1993 was in 1999 when Obasanjo emerged President. By that time, I was already almost 70.

In the politics that brought in Obasanjo, I knew I had no chance. The ex-Generals had already decided who would take over from them.

Obasanjo said he was worth only N20,000 then, but they told him not to worry. Danjuma and the rest of them contributed $2 million and gave him. They sponsored the election and he became President.

No one can become the President of Nigeria the way it is being run unless there are multi- millionaires backing such a person. Without such backing, it was an exercise in futility. Alex Ekwueme tried to compete against him, how far did he go? He sold almost all his properties to run in the election, while other people were contributing for Obasanjo. It was an effort in futility for him.

When Obasanjo’s tenure ended, he had interest to install Umaru Yar’Adua a his successor. By that time, I was already tired because I was 75 going to 76. At that age, I knew I didn’t have the strength to start touring the whole country.

Did you have any political relationship with Abiola in 1992/1993?

Yes, I did. We were both in the SDP. When he won the convention in Jos and emerged as the party’s flagbearer for the 1993 Presidential election, he called a meeting with the other aspirants on how the country would be run. I gave him the booklet I made as an aspirant, highlighting the problems in Nigeria and how I have proffered solutions to each of them. He told me I would work with him if he emerged President, and I assured him I would give him any contribution from my end.

Then they annulled his election and scattered all of us. We tried to form a government in exile, it didn’t work. The military blocked the way for anyone who wanted to do anything.

What are the books you have written?

I wrote a book, Nigeria, The First 25 Years. It was published by Heinemann in Ibadan. I wrote another one, Federalism and Nation Building, which was published in London in 1956. It grew out of my PhD presentation. I am revising the book to contain what has happened up till now. I hope I finish it before I die. There were many other articles, too. I also wrote a collection of essays, Failed Dreams, when I was still advising the government. It was also published by Heinemann and still available in bookshops. In the first chapter, I mentioned how Nigerian leaders underdeveloped the country. I looked at some of the projects we were to do in the first development plan that were not done.

I wrote about the Ajaokuta Steel Plant, Iwopin Paper Mill and Oku Iboku Paper Mill. At that time, we were planning what would give Nigeria independence from importing. If we had developed Ajaokuta, all the steel imports that we have been using in building our rail tracks and related projects would be made in Nigeria. Now, they are talking about building railways. How can you build railways and you are importing steel all the way from China? It’s stupid.

How did you create time to write despite your busy schedule?

What to write is up here (in my head), so anytime I can, I write what I have down, polish it and look for facts.

You were an Executive Director at the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria. What was manufacturing like in those days?

Whey they hired me, I first of all looked at the constraints to manufacturing because I didn’t have a manufacturing outfit of my own.

My job was to educate both the manufacturers and the newly elected members of the National Assembly on how to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. We were doing well at the time and there were so many manufacturing companies.

But then, I looked inward and asked myself, ‘What are we manufacturing? Where do we get what we are manufacturing?’ Most of the

industries that were set up by the UAC, PZ, Unilever and others were doing what is called the finishing-touch manufacturing. They would bring things they had already mixed overseas and print the wrap paper in Nigeria and call it Manufactured-in-Nigeria. That was not real manufacturing.

We started discussing how we could locally source raw materials so everything can be done here from start to finish. I took them to Aba and we had a Made-in-Nigeria trade fair. Many complained there were no big manufacturing companies in Aba but I made it clear to them those people there were the real manufacturers. We went there and saw shoes they were making. We asked them where they were getting the leather they were using and they replied it was from Kano. The shoes were not flexible because they could not tan it. We got the UNDP to build for them a common services centre so that if they do size 9, that would be what would be done all through that day. Then the machine would be reset for size 8 or 10 the next day, not when the right is 9 and the left is 10. I told them that was the process of guiding people to do local manufacturing. While we were at it, the military took over and everything was halted.

What has kept the manufacturing and industrial sector down from thriving despite the establishment of a body like MAN?

There is nothing MAN can do unless the government provides an enabling environment for manufacturers to develop. What is constricting manufacturing is the inability of the government to provide an enabling environment.

up in the church. And my father believed in the adage: spare the rod and spoil the child, which put me in check. He didn’t condone any nonsense. We were brought up with a cane and on so much discipline.

When a child is well-disciplined at a young age, such a child will continue to follow that path as an adult even when there is nobody around him as a guide.

One interesting thing I remembered was that I was hoping to get a secondary school scholarship because there was only a slot for parishioners. My friend, Mr Uluma, got the scholarship during our time, so the rest of us could not go to a secondary school. I went to a boy’s vocational school to learn carpentry. After graduation, I became a Vocation teacher. I did that for two years before I went to a Teachers’ Training College.

Due to the kind of discipline I had in primary school and at the Mission, I didn’t have time for pranks, especially stupid ones. I was very short- tempered for stupid people.

What about your university experience?

I attended Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, for two years, where I had my A’level. I applied to the Ministry of Education for a scholarship and it was approved. Thereafter, I went to England where I got a Honours degree. I was satisfied with the Honours because I could teach in the university and be the Principal of a school. Those were my goals.

In the US, I had risen to become an Associate Professor. There, they don’t promote you unless you have written articles, refereed and published.

How did your career start?

My career was planned by God. Each time, I would meet something like a disappointment and then the next door would open to something else. I never wrote an application for a job. I was always invited to come and take a job. I don’t know how to write an application for job.

You once chaired the board of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. What is your experience dealing with a lot of the sleaze many people widely believe bedevils the nation’s oil sector?

Yes, I was Chairman of the PPMC board during the Ibrahim Babangida regime. It was when I was Chairman that Babangida wanted to split the commercial side of PPMC and let it run like a private company. The PPMC was registered as a private company but we didn’t own shares in it. It is still publicly owned by the Federal Ministry of Finance, NNPC and Ministry of Petroleum. They were the shareholders and we were merely public servants recruited from the private sector.

One of the first things we did was to audit what was handed over to us by the PPMC. Our audit was on all the pipelines, depots, vehicles and vessels of the NNPC. So much was discovered by the auditor, obviously secrets the NNPC was hiding from public glare. We did what is now referred to as forensic auditing. I got a query from the NNPC headquarters. They gave me, the Chairman of the Board, a query for asking an outsider to audit the PPMC and a part of the NNPC without their permission. When I got the query, I took it to my fellow Board

members and everybody laughed, saying they didn’t know who they weredealing with. A letter signed by me was sent back stating, ‘Chairman of Board does not answer query.’ We were a Board not under the NNPC; at least, our letter never indicated that.

There were all kinds of intrigues. Later, I sent some hands to check on the illegal activities of some people who were loading at our depots but taking fuel to Niger Republic to sell. Big people in Nigeria owned those trucks used for the business. People were making millions of naira on a daily basis. We would be suffering here because there was no petrol but our fuel was being sold in Cameroon, Niger and Chad at lower prices than Nigerians were getting it.

There was a period I didn’t know what some people did and there was so much scarcity of petrol and we were being accused. Government set up a Commission of Enquiry on the issue, headed by Justice Muhammed Bello. Our Board wrote our own report that we gave to the Commission.

At the enquiry, people were asked to talk but I wasn’t called. I learnt someone told them, ‘Don’t bring Dr Eleazu to the witness stand.

I know the man, if you put him there, he will reveal more than what was in the paper submitted.’ They never found anything PPMC did wrong.

You said prominent people were taking Nigeria’s oil to neighbouring countries. Is it still happening?

Yes, it still happens, only that those prominent people who engage in it no longer use trucks. They now bring vessels from overseas, load tons of fuel and take them away. Otherwise, how can someone have billions of naira through oil money? If I give N1 million to someone and that person spends N30 everyday, even if he lives to be 90 years old, he won’t exhaust it.

Some of the people in the National Assembly don’t know the value of what N1 billion is, in the real sense of it. I had been on a plane sitting behind a member of the House of Representatives and he was asking his colleague beside him, ‘This billion naira they are talking about, how many zeros does it have?’ Some of those representing us have no sense of value of the money in question and what it can buy. A trillion naira can build another University of Lagos, in the same size as it is now. It makes me sad. This is why I now prefer to be at home and not go out to talk so I won’t raise my blood pressure.

What was your experience working on the Nigerian Constitution?

Every new Constitution has a background that can make people design the kind of that document they desire. We had just gone through a Civil War when Nigeria almost fell apart so the thing uppermost for the military when they called for the 1979 Constitution was how to have a strong Constitution that would produce a strong leader.

In the speech that Murtala Muhammed read, he more or less ordered us to design something like the American Presidency. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was very wise; he refused. He was supposed to be the Chairman but he made it point blank that if he would be heading the committee, the military cannot dictate to him what kind of Constitution to produce. Rather, he said, the people should be allowed to talk first. 

The military didn’t quite agree, so he told them to leave him out of it. Rotimi Williams was brought in and he was more or less ready to play ball. They manoeuvred every decision till we were able to have an Executive Presidency.

Before then, the military had already created a Federation Account, which more or less put all federal money in one account that they were distributing to states and local government. It wasn’t so before then.

In a federation, that is very wrong. 

The thing with a Constitution is that as you run it, you will begin to discover where it is weak or too strong. That will then lead to amendments. And that is why Constitutions have amending processes.

Before we could say Jack Robinson, Buhari came in and threw out the 1979 Constitution. Babangida took over and so many things started happening.

Abacha’s tenure led to the end of the 1979 Constitution. He wanted to introduce the Sharia into the Constitution but many people said he couldn’t because that would become binding once it became law. We didn’t succeed.

When Abacha died and Abdusalam Abubakar took over, I was back there working with some others on a new Constitution.

So how have those Constitution committees in which you participated developed the country?

The committees cannot develop the country.  Rather, it is the respective arms of government that are given the opportunity to do so.

These are the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. The Constitution gives them the opportunity to make laws for the good governance of Nigeria. The Constitution also gives power to the President to execute all laws enacted by the Legislature for the good governance of Nigeria.

What we are seeing now is that the Legislature will not enact good, people-oriented laws and, of course, the President cannot execute what is not enacted. As a matter of fact, the President cannot spend a kobo that has not been appropriated by the National Assembly. But the President dips his hand into the Federation Account, takes N1b and buys aeroplanes without telling the National Assembly.

Would you suggest a new Constitution, or should the existing one be amended?

The best thing now is for us as Nigerians, and for every part of the country, is to ask ourselves the question, ‘Do we want to be part of Nigeria? Can we live with one another as Nigerians?’

To have a new Constitution, every nationality or units in this country should be asked whether they still want to be part of the

Nigerian federation – and under what conditions. Let them say yes or no. If anyone says he doesn’t want to be part of Nigeria, he should be allowed to go. Nigeria will remain.

If you ask me as an Igbo man, for example, I’d tell you I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder and be worried about who wants to kill me the next day. Ask the Benue people now, they will tell you the same thing.

I will like to be part of a Nigeria where there is law and order, where the police and the army will do their work as they should. And if they are not ready to do so, there should be a way I should be allowed to protect myself. That is what self- determination is all about.

They gave IPOB a bad name to kill it. Its people are saying they are tired of being part of Nigeria. In my 30s, I was already a graduate and I had dreams for Nigeria. But things have changed. In today’s Nigeria, unless a child is sent abroad by his or her parents or he/she wins a scholarship, that child can no longer acquire quality education, or even no education at all. Our children are saying enough is enough and they should be left alone to build their lives as they desire because Nigeria has failed them.

But we don’t seem to be listening to them. We are not talking of any particular tribe here. Why should the child of the affluent go to school in Oxford and not with the almajiris in Kano, for instance?

Until we sit down and decide to build a country that is worthy of the name, left to me, we should be allowed to leave to build the kind of country we want.

Do you support the IPOB movement?

I support the principle of what they are saying. I don’t need to carry a placard and join them. I have more or less stated their case in a language other Nigerians should understand. The country has failed the youths. They are saying unless things change, they should be allowed to leave to build a country of our own.

You are knocking on 90 years; how do you keep yourself busy these days?

I make disciples. I go to church and also teach people what Jesus said. All the things Jesus commanded are what I teach in any church.

How do you keep fit?

I walk with my stick, maybe 100 yards and I walk back. It is good for the health. This will make the muscles and bone to be strong. I have been doing the walk for a long time. I played football and lawn tennis as a young man.

It seemed you were the hyperactive type as a young man, especially in academics. On the lighter side, what was your relationship with girls?

I grew up when it was a taboo to speak with or touch a girl. If you must speak with a lady, you must be at one end of the road and the lady at the other end. If you like the girl, you will find the opportunity of going with her to the stream.

In my place, you could never touch a girl, although things are no longer that way. When I was in primary school, when girls returned home from school, they would remove their school uniform (a gown) and go to the stream naked with beads all over their waist, but nobody dare move close to them to touch them. Both boys and men cannot touch them because it was a taboo. If anybody dare did that, the father or intending husband can kill such a man (or boy). Things were that strict then.

If that was the case, how then did you eventually woo your woman?

I married from my town. I knew her background because I knew her when she was 4 or 5 years old. When I returned from England, I saw her.

Upon enquiry, I discovered she was the daughter of the headmaster. I went home to tell my family who later went to her house to talk on my behalf. She didn’t even know who they were talking about, but that didn’t stop her from agreeing. Once there was an agreement, an arrangement was made for me to visit the lady’s home. After that visit, my family members met hers, and the lady wasn’t even present there.

What is your take on the state of the nation?

Terrible. The 2019 election is by the corner and it is all fight within and among the political parties. They can’t even agree on who should represent whom. They go to the extent of carrying guns and shooting in the court. What kind of country is that?

Nobody in the House of Reps or Senate should stand for re-election in 2019. All of them should go home. They should all retire so that a new set of people can emerge.

The President of France, how old is he? Obama, when he became the President of America was 42. There are so many young people in Nigeria who will perform well if given the chance. You, as a reporter, if given the opportunity to become the Minister of Information, will know what to do and how to make the ministry better.

The people in the National Assembly will not retreat to their homes to think of how to make things better. Instead, they are busy thinking about what more they can get out of the sorry position we are now.

Their salary was supposed to be N750,000 but the first thing they did was to work on increasing it, so they legislated for themselves and jacked it up to N13.2m per month. Yet the workers of this country who move the country have been clamouring for an increase in their minimum wage of N18,000. To the legislators, that’s too big, too much. They can’t make the law just to enforce an increased minimum wage.

You once aspired, for the 1993 elections, to be President but couldn’t achieve that ambition. Why didn’t you try again?

In 1992, I was already 60 years old, and that is the age when one can still have the energy to move around. After I contested against Abiola in the same party and didn’t succeed, I wasn’t able to try again because the military took over and wasted everyone’s time. The next election after 1993 was in 1999 when Obasanjo emerged President. By that time, I was already almost 70.

In the politics that brought in Obasanjo, I knew I had no chance. The ex-Generals had already decided who would take over from them.

Obasanjo said he was worth only N20,000 then, but they told him not to worry. Danjuma and the rest of them contributed $2 million and gave him. They sponsored the election and he became President.

No one can become the President of Nigeria the way it is being run unless there are multi- millionaires backing such a person. Without such backing, it was an exercise in futility. Alex Ekwueme tried to compete against him, how far did he go? He sold almost all his properties to run in the election, while other people were contributing for Obasanjo. It was an effort in futility for him.

When Obasanjo’s tenure ended, he had interest to install Umaru Yar’Adua a his successor. By that time, I was already tired because I was 75 going to 76. At that age, I knew I didn’t have the strength to start touring the whole country.

Did you have any political relationship with Abiola in 1992/1993?

Yes, I did. We were both in the SDP. When he won the convention in Jos and emerged as the party’s flagbearer for the 1993 Presidential election, he called a meeting with the other aspirants on how the country would be run. I gave him the booklet I made as an aspirant, highlighting the problems in Nigeria and how I have proffered solutions to each of them. He told me I would work with him if he emerged President, and I assured him I would give him any contribution from my end.

Then they annulled his election and scattered all of us. We tried to form a government in exile, it didn’t work. The military blocked the way for anyone who wanted to do anything.

What are the books you have written?

I wrote a book, Nigeria, The First 25 Years. It was published by Heinemann in Ibadan. I wrote another one, Federalism and Nation Building, which was published in London in 1956. It grew out of my PhD presentation. I am revising the book to contain what has happened up till now. I hope I finish it before I die. There were many other articles, too. I also wrote a collection of essays, Failed Dreams, when I was still advising the government. It was also published by Heinemann and still available in bookshops. In the first chapter, I mentioned how Nigerian leaders underdeveloped the country. I looked at some of the projects we were to do in the first development plan that were not done.

I wrote about the Ajaokuta Steel Plant, Iwopin Paper Mill and Oku Iboku Paper Mill. At that time, we were planning what would give Nigeria independence from importing. If we had developed Ajaokuta, all the steel imports that we have been using in building our rail tracks and related projects would be made in Nigeria. Now, they are talking about building railways. How can you build railways and you are importing steel all the way from China? It’s stupid.

How did you create time to write despite your busy schedule?

What to write is up here (in my head), so anytime I can, I write what I have down, polish it and look for facts.

You were an Executive Director at the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria. What was manufacturing like in those days?

Whey they hired me, I first of all looked at the constraints to manufacturing because I didn’t have a manufacturing outfit of my own.

My job was to educate both the manufacturers and the newly elected members of the National Assembly on how to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. We were doing well at the time and there were so many manufacturing companies.

But then, I looked inward and asked myself, ‘What are we manufacturing? Where do we get what we are manufacturing?’ Most of the

industries that were set up by the UAC, PZ, Unilever and others were doing what is called the finishing-touch manufacturing. They would bring things they had already mixed overseas and print the wrap paper in Nigeria and call it Manufactured-in-Nigeria. That was not real manufacturing.

We started discussing how we could locally source raw materials so everything can be done here from start to finish. I took them to Aba and we had a Made-in-Nigeria trade fair. Many complained there were no big manufacturing companies in Aba but I made it clear to them those people there were the real manufacturers. We went there and saw shoes they were making. We asked them where they were getting the leather they were using and they replied it was from Kano. The shoes were not flexible because they could not tan it. We got the UNDP to build for them a common services centre so that if they do size 9, that would be what would be done all through that day. Then the machine would be reset for size 8 or 10 the next day, not when the right is 9 and the left is 10. I told them that was the process of guiding people to do local manufacturing. While we were at it, the military took over and everything was halted.

What has kept the manufacturing and industrial sector down from thriving despite the establishment of a body like MAN?

There is nothing MAN can do unless the government provides an enabling environment for manufacturers to develop. What is constricting manufacturing is the inability of the government to provide an enabling environment.