- There are indications of neo-colonialism staring at us
- There’s need to review our contractual terms with China
- Foreigners allegedly pluck cocoa in our farms in Ondo and other states in SW of Nigeria
Hon. Uzoma Nkem-Abonta is a lawyer, fourth timer in the House of Representatives, he represents Ukwa East-West Federal Constituency, a former lecturer and activist, in this chat with Emman Ovuakporie, he bared it all chronicling Nigeria 50years ago and the Nigeria of today laying it bare that Nigeria has been busy purchasing dependency in the name of development, excerpts.
Our independence celebration is in view, what are your observations, how we have fared so far as a nation?
A: It gives me mixed feelings to talk about independent day celebration in Nigeria. In a few days time, we will be 59years, if I may ask you what changed positively within this period. If you compare Nigeria 50years ago and today you will see retrogression and then what independence are you celebrating? Are we not celebrating what we cannot keep, therefore I should think rather than go into large scale celebration we should have a sober reflection, there is nothing to celebrate, there are a lot to think about.
I see neo-colonial on the high ways of Nigeria, on the highest spate, I don’t even know if our road safety can really caution neo-colonialism headed to Nigeria now; so are we celebrating independence when we are now buying dependency, when we are buying neo-colonialism in all perspectives, so I think we should rethink very fast. I think that we should go back to the drawing board and bring back the pragmatic approach to assert our independence; I think that we should do certain things that would make us giant indeed and not things that would make us dependent on other nations.
We are 59 today, in the 1950’s and 60’s, we were at par with China, Japan; Malaysia, Indonesia were under us, we were rated higher than these other countries but when you mention Nigeria, Japan, China at 50yeara ago but today we are going cap in hand with these nation we were at par with and you say we are independent?
Independent does not mean ruling yourself, it means having, financial, political, well being of the citizens and that makes you, that makes you independent. We are into medical tourism, we are begging for one loan or the other, we are begging from one organisation or the other, whereas we are independent. So we should think and know what to do.
So we shouldn’t just celebrate and match, there is nothing to match around for, we should do a sober reflection and think, what should we do to be really independent. If you say you are independent, what does it mean, that you are in control of yourself but with a leaking bucket you cannot be independent, a hungry man cannot be independent, you will be dependent on who gives you food.
Independence really still deserves interface with other countries, there is that collaboration that needs to exist and we are seeing government even trying to ensure the procurement of arms and other things to safeguard Nigerians in the area of security; are you saying they are not doing enough?
I am saying not only that we are not doing enough, I am saying we are confused in the doing. We have not come out with a clear cut guideline, policy and what we want, not trial by error, we should sit down and decide what we want and for what purpose. We should prioritise our needs and wants and move towards that; no country can be an island you must collaborate with others, you must sit down and look at what to do, we must have a critical analysis of what we do.
America will tell you in the year so and so, this the balance sheet of the trade, what is our own balance sheet? Is our trade with other countries favourable? What is your balance trade, are we buying more than we sell, are we buying more than we consume, you must be able to counterbalance it; if you get more than you give, are you independent, are you doing the needful? And that was why I said neo-colonialism is on the high way approaching Nigeria, they have crossed the border, we must be able to stop them because we are getting more than we can give.
An agreement, a trade should balance, the deficit is so huge on Nigeria’s side. One of the Asian tigers reminded us that our debt profile is so much we should be careful. So we are not just doing enough, in the half we are doing is a confused half, so we must pick up and begin to do the very needful now.
We have a planning sector, what are they planning? The ministry of planning and whatever should be able to do that. Look at our budget we are going to call that realistic budget, if we budget 7trillion and we implement 4trn or 5trn then we should be able to do a realistic budget, that would face our needs, that should face the realities of our time, that would focus on the core areas, don’t budget for the sake of budgeting, we should budget for the sake of our needs, something that is doable, practicable, otherwise it would be rhetoric’s.
For the secondary school person who is watching you on air, for instance, will not understand when you say we are buying independence, can you explain that further?
We have entered into several agreements with a lot of other countries China to be specific, those contractual agreements for them to provide us infrastructures do they really favour us. I filed a motion in the House that we should review all the contractual agreements we entered with the Chinese firms and with some other Asian tigers. We should also be careful on how we import the so called technology and transfer and all what not.
Today, can the immigration tell us the number of Chinese that are residing here legally? Go to Yaba, Idumota, go to all over Lagos, you see a lot of Chinese, do what. Go to Ondo you will see Chinese, you see other people picking cocoa in the farm, do we have the data? Can they tell us specifically the number of foreign firms set up in Nigeria and what they do, we do not have. Can they tell us the expatriates here, so the place is over flooded. So we are buying dependency by relying so much on them.
So if you watch out now we have entered into a lot of contractual agreements with them and they are lopsided and how can you sign an agreement where the person will provide you materials, labour, capital, maintenance and so on; so at the end of the day you now became a dumping ground and then maintenance becomes an issue for you and then you lean on them to train you.
For example the Abuja international airports it was built by the Chinese, you all travel, take a good look at the materials there and then compare them with any other airports abroad, you will see that it does not meet the local wing of BA but yet they now either build, operate and transfer, they are in control, they are building it and then the huge cost of it.
My worry is this, they brought the material, the labour, we hear that some of the workers there, when you jail them in China, you serve the sentence in Nigeria; so are we not now running their prisons for them, are we not now subsidizing that, meanwhile we have labourers here idle youths doing nothing. It is not free money we are also going to pay back the cost, so the whole thing is dependency we are subscribing to, I mean we should review them and see that there is element of survival in it.
Above all, I heard that there are some Chinese companies that are proscribed, blacklisted by World Bank and also proscribed by own central bank are also working for us.
We had an issue with South Africa recently, can Nigeria tell us the South African companies working here in Nigeria, there are so many of them, not only ShopRite, DSTV and MTN, there are a lot of them here but we need to have the data, the statistics and what they are doing here. Are we understudying them, are they of any use to us, we do not have the details.
Therefore I think our ministry of planning, foreign affairs including immigration should sit up and tell Nigerians; the problem with us is that we do not study the market, we need to study the market, find out a data, find out futuristic, what do we need in the next 5years, how do we bridge the gap but we are not planning and failing to plan is planning to fail, that is just the problem we have in Nigeria.
So we have not done enough and in the little we are doing we are doing it confusedly, we are not doing it with a vision. It is a question of are we helpless, no; we can turn around Nigeria.
I now ask you, what makes China thick, what makes Singapore thick, what makes Malaysia thick, what makes Thailand, even Ghana, what are they doing, what have they done that we are not doing, the answer is simple, fall back to agriculture, use what you have to get what you need.
So that is why I said my legislative focus, agenda is purely now going to be on agricultural drive, agriculture entrepreneurship that is the magic wand that Nigeria needs to solve the problem.
And I make bold to say except we introduce revolution in agriculture, we will face revolution. A hungry man is an angry man. The rich cannot sleep because the poor is awake, the poor cannot sleep because they are hungry; so for us to sleep we provide food for the poor, they will eat and sleep and then the rich can sleep.
So if we cannot introduce revolution in agriculture, then we will contend with revolution. Are we not agrarian country, before the coming of oil, in fact oil caused the Nigerian woe, it cause our problem because oil came and put dependency on oil because if we had not gotten oil we survived on agriculture, Nigeria had remained to a large extent agriculture economy, we were doing groundnut, palm oil, cocoa and others, as we talk today the best and tallest building in Ibadan was built by cocoa; so what happens today. Ibadan hosted the first television courtesy of cocoa, today foreigners are picking cocoa in Ondo state and all over the West.
I make bold to ask you, have you ever done the analysis of the cocoa plantations, they go out and check the cost of chocolate we eat in Nigeria, so we merely produce cocoa, shelf it, dry it, send it out and then they turn it into millions of dollars, we go out there, we shop for chocolate and bring back to Nigeria, we lose money.
So until we venture into agricultural sector pragmatically we can’t do anything. How can we say we want to diversify economy when we are not thinking that way; if you go to India the total number of tractors in New Delhi is more than all the tractors in Nigeria; so we must have a frame work on agriculture, we must have a clear cut policy to say we are diversifying we are launching into agriculture.
Agriculture can produce 5million jobs for the youths if we are sincere because it is something if you study how to do it, what others did, we can do it. It is a whole chain, it is an entrepreneurship thing.
So we should even introduce agricultural teachings in our secondary school curriculum not to talk of what does not make sense in our curriculum, to put things that will not help us, we should think fast.
If you look at what the Asian tigers did, they did nothing different from what we are saying. Thailand can give you one shipment of rice if you want it now but we cannot in Nigeria. When we tried the rice experience in Nigeria did it not yield and I give government kudos for that and today we are having rice mills here and there because of that, so we should launch into agriculture meaningfully and that is the only way to go, there is no other way.
We tried to repel a law that banned exportation of food; that law came into existence because they wanted to ensure food security but I keep telling them that law is now obsolete because you cannot stop me from exporting food if I am a farmer I also want to earn dollar but what you can do is to regulate it and that is why you need the commodity exchange commission. You can tell somebody, you want to earn dollar, you want to export your yam, for every ten tubers you produce, we will allow you export two and if I want to o I will increase my production so that I can also export two.
But today we smuggle yam into Ghana and Ghana will it to UK and earn the foreign exchange and then we doing. So we said repel that law and allow people to export.
In Thailand they allow farmers to export their rice but for you to export rice you must have enough production and export a percentage. Just the central bank is now saying for you to deposit 500,000 you pay some charges or for you to draw excess cash of 500,000 you pay 2%; so also you can say if you manufacture or produce this number of yams, this export this certain number, we must wear our thinking cap and agriculture is the way to, there is not other way and that is how other countries are leading.
Let me talk about steel, how can we talk about development and we are done with the steel sector, we cannot develop without steel. You cannot even do mechanise agriculture without steel, you cannot build a house without steel, and you cannot build a vehicle without steel. If you know the amount of steel we import in Nigeria, it is enough to run our budget, yet we have steel materials and resources wasting; the Indians came here and catered them away, under fake agreement again, under fake privatization; so who are those drawing this agreement, are they enemies of Nigeria, they are not because you don’t do an agreement that will not benefit your people.
How can you open your eyes and write an agreement where people will come and revive a factory but yet they take the raw materials away, that is what we witnesse in the export of the iron ore all through.
Look at what brought about the 9.6billion dollars debts we are talking about now; we saw no infrastructure, we saw no company, we saw no agreement, the consultation was not there. Can’t you see negligence in everything we do, that is why we are just not doing it well, we are confused in it.
I make bold to challenge the government that if they are real and sincere, we should launch into agriculture and steel, we should cause a revolution in the agriculture and steel sector otherwise we will face revolution, we shouldn’t be scared, we should do things that we need to do, I can’t see any other and that is the only way we can guarantee our independence.
This cannot be achieved without the synergy of the three arms of government; are you seeing the synergy for both especially with the legislature and executive in this regard?
Of course, there should be synergy, we must work together. Our speaker Femi said joint task to develop the nation and I agree with him. Legislatively we have said do the steel for reasons or the other it was not signed; legislatively we are saying develop agriculture; legislatively we will go to the budget increase it and they give you an envelope.
I am saying now if the speaker is also serious we should tear the agriculture envelope in budgeting this time and expand it and I challenge government within some days come out with a framework agriculturally.
The major problem again in Nigeria is that we are saying you are independent, you want to celebrate, we are federal government practising unitary government, there is no federalism and until we practice true and fiscal federalism we will continue to be dependent on people.
Therefore the federal government should come up with a clear cut policy in agriculture which states will adopt. I make bold to say half of the civil servants are idle, go to the local governments they have no work but they are being paid. So you can still pay them as social benefits and task them to produce.
So are we going to pay by taxing people, no, it is a fault system by increasing tax. Taxation should be used to discourage the consumption of certain goods that are of high profile, taxation if properly used will cause social engineering in the economy.
Ghana reduced taxes on spare parts, on average consumptions, on some importations knowing that is what you need to re-engineer the economy but now we are increasing the taxes discouraging those things, so how will you keep your factory running.
Therefore place a tax on champagne, on cigarette, on high utility vehicles that is the only way you can do but not when you tax what the poor man uses, not when you increase the VAT so that if you have a supermarket you retail, you pay VAT on that you will discourage people from buying but there are certain things you reduce.
You should be able to categorise the luxury and non luxury; in taxation you don’t do a general policy, you discourage buying and selling, you discourage manufacturing, you should look at the critical sector when you will downplay and say encourage them, you can even give them tax holiday depending on what they do but here we give tax holiday for the luxury things which is counterproductive.
I thank God for President Buhari that he acknowledge that the other economic team failed, there is no need keeping a bad team, he has chosen a new team and let’s hope the new team will produce a pragmatic economic policy. But I want to ask, it is another for them to advice will they hear. If you implement an idea that you don’t know how to drive and you cannot drive it well.
I thank him for giving us a pragmatic economic team and I pray he gives them the opportunity to say their mind, to practicalise what they know therefore the House of Reps I believe that we will go on and I want to believe that if Femi is realistic in the joint task, he should incorporate the best brains in the House to move. We must guide the executive to produce good governance through good legislations that is what we need to flow.
Nigerians are worried like you alluded to in the previous assembly that it is like the national assembly did not really make so much impact as expected because they cave in, it has turned almost to an arm of the executive, rubber stamp.
It is very unfortunate that we are yet to have the independence of the various arms of government; there won’t be I must admit total independence there must be co-operations but that cooperation shouldn’t be subservient.
The last leadership emerged in a manner that they fought and fought till almost the end of it, even when they try to cooperate and show good will, there was total rejection on what they were doing.
Now that the anointed has been chosen, let’s hope there will be a difference in it. We want to collaborate, we want to do with the needful in legislations so that we can move Nigeria forward.
The paramount thing, whether you cooperate or you don’t cooperate is that the masses there are fed, the welfare of the people therefore, I should think that President Buhari should stoop to conquer, he should listen very well; thank God he won’t be distracted again on another tenure, so he should give the teeming population what to eat otherwise a hungry man is an angry man no matter the tribe you are and once you are angry you cannot control your thought therefore we should feed the nation.
In the military era we used to have what we called operation feed the nation, it worked. What is the policy now, a clear cut focus rather we hope on oil to buy things. Iraq got burnt we are happy jumping that Nigeria will get more money we are not thinking elsewhere only oil.
Now that they are producing vehicles that are electrically driven are we going to drink the oil, can’t we begin to think that in the next 10years there will be change in things, so not planning to change is planning to fail. So we must plan now and come out with a clear cut agenda, so must force the states to do things that will make them stand, not every year you do FAAC and give them money, unitary system but we answer federal government, there should be true fiscal federalism.
Until we have true fiscal federalism we are not heading anywhere. We have been running around in circle saying we are independent, no, we are suffering neo-colonialism. Check our GDP, check the capital flight, check who is dominating and check what is happening.
My final word for Nigeria is that check neo-colonialism now before it gets entrenched, check neo-colonialism now of the Asian tigers, the fake tigers before it gets too late; we are on a dangerous trend the way we are running the affairs of Nigeria.