Igwe Ezeoba Alex Nwokedi, the sitting Uthokpo Na Eze Achalla, had his impact in virtually all segments of Nigerian public life.
He was in the oil sector as General Manager, Group Public Affairs of the NNPC; Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) as General Manager, Public Relations Department; Chairman, Nigeria Cricket Association (NCA); Press Secretary to the Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo and President Shehu Shagari. Above all, the immediate past Chairman, Anambra State of Traditional Rulers is a veteran journalist.
He spoke to Vanguard on the state of the nation. Excerpts:
As a former General Manager, Public Affairs Department of the NNPC, what is your view regarding the recent shake up in the nation's oil corporation?
Let me start with Igbo adage which says, "Corpse is not new to the ground". So shake up is not new in NNPC; it is a culture. I don't know what they did and I don't know what was their offence but I told you once in one of my past interviews that when I was general manager, Group Public Affairs, in NNPC, I served under nine managing directors in one year. One year! Nine managing directors! That's not good enough.
Okay, look at even this recent shake up, if what I read in the paper was true, it was reported that it was the fifth board under Umar Musa Yar'Adua/Goodluck Jonathan administration, which was only four years, isn't it? Now, five boards in four years, does it infer stability? But it does not!
(http://vml1.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Igwe-Nwokedi.jpg?9d7bd4) (http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/03/why-people-consider-obasanjo-as-troublesome-nwokedi/igwe-nwokedi/)Igwe Nkwokedi So the most important thing is to set up a very good board and let the NNPC function like British, Norwegian oil companies. And we have the men and so I'm suggesting that the President should contact somebody like Mike Olorunfemi, prominent members of the OPEC at that time; people like Philip Asiodu and even Major-General Tajudeen Olanrewaju all of who had at one time or the other contributed their own quotas to putting the sector on its feet; for them to give him (the President) papers on what to be done with NNPC. Sacking people on regular basis is not it. When you appoint people and after sometime they make some mistakes and you sack them at a time they are already gathering experience about how to move the place forward, it doesn't help.
The solution to the problem is to get able, brilliant and well experienced people. We have them and so appointing people today and sacking them tomorrow will not help. That is my angle to it.
Do you see this popular suggestion for NNPC autonomy as anything to go by?
But that is what I told you. That NNPC should be run like the oil company in Norway of Britain. Then, they will give accounts on yearly basis, they will make profit and so they will be taxed like any other company and then government will have its own share. That way, the country's foreign exchange will be derived from the profit the government derives from the NNPC just like in Norway where the foreign exchange for that country is made by the oil company.
For example what has been holding the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) that it still drags till today? It was debated upon for many weeks and everybody aired his own view. We thought that by now, that Bill would have been passed to give the NNPC the required backing. So the ball is in the court of the Federal Government and I'm quite sure that our President, who has a lot to do on this matter, will pay attention. And members of the National Assembly too should assist him with that PIB.
Let's now come to the other vital area, the security. Col. Sambo Dasuki's emergence as National Security Adviser (NSA) has been met with different reactions. What is your opinion about his ability to deliver?
I have implicit confidence in the retired Col. Dasuki and he has started very well by approaching stakeholders and those he felt would respectively assist him and the nation in curbing the Boko Haram problem. He is a very good choice that the President has made and I have very implicit confidence in him that he will deliver, if that is what you seek to know.
As for those who spoke against a Southsouth-fed President appointing a Northerner as his NSA, I must tell you, just like you rightly said, that we have passed ethnic level in matter of solving our collective problems. That was what I also said on NNPC that he should look for brilliant Nigerians and it doesn't matter wherever he finds them. Similarly, the issue of South-South or South-East man as security adviser does not matter. What you need is a competent Nigerian as National Security Adviser and that is what we have just got in the person of Dasuki. It is up to us to rally round him in ensuring that his job is made much easier and much successful by the cooperation of every Nigerian no matter where he comes from.
You have had your feat in virtually every facet of the nation's life because just like you were in NNPC, Sports, power sector and, of course in your primary constituency, the media. What is your feeling about government's proclaimed effort at improving the power sector and general infrastructure?
The power system hasn't been anything yet. Especially in the South-East where I have my kingdom where people have not enjoyed light for months. We just talked about security now and you cannot do that successfully without power backup. For example in the night, if it gets very dark in the village and there is no light, anything can happen. The President has promised us that he would look into this problem area and I'm looking forward to that promise because the power sector is still very useless at the moment and the sooner the staff in the sector sit down to business and think about what to do to make the place work to redeem their image the better.
Now, coming to what you asked about general infrastructure, let me tell you for example that Enugu-Onitsha Road is impassable. I'm told that some of the contractors are not paid. In fact when I was coming to Lagos I found out that part of that road had been well done and so if the contractors handling the road is paid, they will do a first class job. Onitsha-Owerri Road was a job that was not meant to last beyond ten months, for how many years now that job hasn't been completed and it is now becoming add infinito. From what I heard, the oil producing states are not even paying the contractors.
So all I'm urging is that efforts should be made to improve our roads. We are talking about agricultural development, but is there any way agricultural produce can be moved from farm to market places without good roads? That is why it is important government should consider the issue of roads proper fixing concurrently as it goes about other things it is working on. I'm not expecting that the government should do everything in one year but at least, they should ensure that the contractors working on the roads should be paid because I was reading in the papers that some of the construction companies were already laying off their staff as a result of non-payment by the government for the job done. That again increases the insecurity that is already the bane of our national peace and development.
I am appealing, as a concerned traditional ruler and veteran journalist, to the Federal Ministry of Works to assist the government in ensuring that the money voted to these roads is paid to the contractors so that they can go on with their work. Now some contractors, instead of closing at 4pm, are closing at 2pm. Some don't work on Saturdays again, I'm informed and so by not paying them, the Ministry of Works should realise that they are part of the insecurity that is facing the country presently.
Vanguard Nigeria