Politics
PROF. Joseph Ezigbo speaks on the forthcoming elections and how it affects the economy of Nigeria. “I believe for the first time in the history of Nigeria, we are coming to terms with the fact that we need an expert that can lead us to the so-called promise land”.
As managing director and chief executive officer, MD/CEO of Falcon Corporation Limited, Prof. Ezigbo’s responses are insightful in this exclusive interview conducted by Maureen Chigbo, editor, Realnews, Anthony Isibor, reporter and Chukwuma Ejenike, an intern, Prof. Ezigbo explains how the economy of Nigeria will be affected by the the outcome of elections. It is a must read. Excerpts:
Realnews: How is this current election affecting Nigeria’s economy?
Ezigbo: I believe for the first time in the history of Nigeria, we are coming to terms with the fact that we need an expert that can lead us to the so-called promise land. We need somebody who is able to articulate the problems of Nigeria and have the ability to carry us through. We have been in the wilderness for years. A journey that would have taken a couple of weeks has taken us years. We have a situation where we have an economy that’s badly mismanaged over the years and because the leaders don’t have the political and economic will to do what is right, our economy has been dancing to the tune of several vagrancies that has made it impossible for us to have a true nation. Currently, we are facing a situation where in Nigeria today there is no money, no fuel, and everyone is complaining. It is terrible that we are where we are at the moment. I think what is happening today in terms of where we are; we deserve it.
Realnews: Why do you say that we deserve to be where we are?
Ezigbo: They say each group of people deserve who they elected as their leaders. If we open our eyes and rather than vote for competence, we vote for tribalism, we vote for religion, that’s why we’re where we’re today because it is so plain to everybody. We do things for our selfish reasons. The reason we’re here today is because there is no Nigeria. There’s nobody who is a Nigerian today. Everybody is either Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa or Muslim or Catholic or protestant. We need to have Nigerians that care about Nigeria.
Realnews: Has that journey towards giving birth to Nigerians started?
Ezigbo: Of course!
Realnews: What makes you say that?
Ezigbo: if we look at the candidates that are coming out for election and we ask ourselves, who amongst them can take us to the promise land? Not because he’s Igbo, not because he’s Yoruba, not because he’s Hausa, not because he’s a Muslim, not because he’s a Christian, but because he has the capacity. The moment we are able to sit down and ask that question honestly and answer it honestly, we have for the first time in the history of this country, a solution. If you ask me again, “where the economic condition of Nigeria at this point in time is?”, straightforward I’ll say Nigerians are suffering. I think it is good in our own interest that we should suffer because any human being who has not suffered will not succeed.
Realnews: Talking of our journey to redemption, what gives you hope that Nigeria will soon be redeemed after this 2023 presidential and gubernatorial elections?
Ezigbo: The redemption process of Nigeria can only occur if we put our mouth where our money is. Then we have a chance of bringing up Nigerians that would care for Nigeria.
Realnews: Could you explain what you mean to put our mouth where our money is?
Ezigbo: For the sake of argument, let’s look at where we are today. Do we know what our problems are? The answer is yes, every Nigerian is a pocket-politician, if you ask anyone on the street, they will rule out to you what is wrong with Nigeria, getting to know what is wrong is not even the issue, the issue is, do we have the moral, political, economic strength to do what is right?,if we can do that, that is when we put our mouth where our money is. Most people out of sheer selfishness and personal aggrandizement will not do anything because it’s self-interest first. Who needs cabals at this point? We’ve been fighting cabals for forever. Cabals exist when a leader is incompetent.
Realnews: You are saying that Nigeria has been ruled by incompetent leaders. Is that why we cabals, mafias and strong men ruling the country?
Ezigbo: We have been ruled by people that don’t have the political strength, economic strength, the moral strength to impose a direction for Nigeria.
Realnews: And with the array of presidential candidates – we have about 18 of them.
Ezigbo: If we choose rightly amongst the 18, there’s a chance we’ll all be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
Realnews: In your own calculations, given the state of the economy, who amongst the 18 presidential candidates do you think is the right person to occupy the Aso Rock seat?
Ezigbo: Let me ask you a question in retrospect. Do we know the history of the contestants? Do we know the antecedents of the contestants? If we do, do you think Nigerians have the capacity to look at their history and say “this might be the best man for us, irrespective of religion, irrespective of tribe, and also the mental and visible sagacity in which to lead us?
Realnews: If you’re to advice Nigerians, who will you advise them to vote for?
Ezigbo: I will advise them to check the antecedents of all the contestants and pick out somebody they know has the political will, who has shown what he has done in the past, who has the economic strength.
Realnews: Who amongst the four prominent contenders do you think should occupy that seat?
Ezigbo: Let me ask you a question. Of all the governors that has ever ruled in this country, how many of them is today not receiving pension from the meagre amount of money being given to the states? How many of them did not borrow money for the 8 years they were in service? How many of them came in when the educational strength was at zero and left with their state topping all the others? Do I need to tell you a name? I don’t.
Realnews: It’s not every Nigerian that is conversant or aware of that.
Ezigbo: That’s a pity, because it’s being shouted from the rooftops everyday. So anybody who’s a Nigerian who has not listened shouldn’t even try to go and vote because they may vote out of place.
Realnews: You’re running an oil and gas corporation. How has the economy of Nigeria affected the oil and gas sector in the country?
Ezigbo: Nothing ever thrives well in a political uncertainty. Nothing thrives when the political situation is not right no matter the sector because whether you like it or not, policies govern everything. Once there is uncertainty, business doesn’t thrive well. So that is what’s simply happening.
Realnews: So how has the oil and gas sector fared because we’ve had this perennial fuel problem since mid-last year.
Ezigbo: The issue of fuel scarcity has nothing to do with the sector. It has to do with again, political will. I’ll tell what’s happening here. We do know that most of the fuel imported into Nigeria are not used by Nigerians because in our neighboring countries, the cost of fuel in those countries are about twice or three times the cost of fuel of fuel in Nigeria. So fuel is brought into Nigeria and Nigerians being “creative” take them and go to the neighboring countries, sell them and make money, and there’s no fuel here. There’s scarcity and then there’s escalation.
Realnews: Why is that so?
Ezigbo: Because we subsidize fuel. For instance, how can you buy fuel in the market for maybe N300 and you sell it to your retailers for N100, and you absorb N200. Of course, they’ll pick it up and go and sell N500 across the border. Do you see the analogy I’m making? So how would you have enough for the people you’re selling to at a discount and you pick only one aspect of the economy, fuel. What about others? Why aren’t you selling beans at same cost in Kano as you’re selling in Lagos? Why are you not selling palm oil the same price in Port Harcourt as in Maiduguri? Nobody is doing that. You allow the market to drive itself and is reflective in the pricing. If we have a government that has the capacity to control the economy and drive that subsidy back to the people, then the people will get a payback.
Realnews: The issue here when you’re talking about removal of fuel subsidy, from the NLC point of view, they’re talking about refineries; that you can’t remove the subsidy without building or refurbishing the refineries to function at optimal.
Ezigbo: Please, let’s not be confused about issues. Refinery and subsidy are two different things. Anybody bringing them together, for me it’s deception. We are talking about the subsidy, the fuel and the populace. The unions understand the issues but play ignorant. The fuel is sold by few people to outsiders elsewhere and they’re are the ones making the money, not the masses. If this subsidy came in and the fuel was left alone, the volume of petrol that comes into the country will be enough for all the cars in Nigeria and there will be no queues. So because of unavailability of subsiding the fuel for the masses, we suffer. Have you ever been to the east to buy fuel? Have you ever bought fuel anywhere in the east at the normal price? I haven’t, unless you have, and yet, this fuel is regulated. We should get in the fuel in the east for the same price but we do not. Why I said the issue of the refinery is different; our refineries are not working because, call it a cabal, a group of people have refused to allow it to work. Everybody knows that there are refineries outside this Nigeria owned by some Nigerians, why would they own refineries outside Nigeria that are working and refineries in Nigeria would not work. Why is it that we have refineries that have been shut down and not working and yet every month, they tell us about billions of Naira that have been spent on those refineries. Some of them are very obsolete but if you’re told the amount of money spent on those refineries in budgets every year, you’d shudder. Money that could build you several modular refineries, the problem is that a group of them have decided the refineries would not work because people are making a lot of money in importing fuel, people are making so much money in refining fuel that belongs to Nigeria that Nigerians take to refine outside and bring back to sell in Nigeria. It’s not news, it is out there to for people to see. The problem is, do we have somebody who has the strength of character to say no. We are so docile that we’re like trained dogs you can lead by the nose, that’s what Nigerians are. If not, we wouldn’t be where we are. So until we have leaders that can lead by example, we follow our leaders, we behave like our leaders, because we behave like our leaders, we simply follow their examples, so if we have somebody that can give us a good example, Nigeria would be on the road to crossing into the promised land.
Realnews: Oil theft has really been an issue, how is it affecting your business?
Ezigbo: You know, Nigeria is a gas country, not an oil country. Nigeria is a gas country with little drops of oil. However, the volume of gas we produce at the moment is as a result of the explored crude oil. It’s gas that has come from exploration of crude oil, the problem is that if you look at the entire eastern region and down to the western region, the Benue trough, they’re all sitting on gas and by the time we actually explore gas basins we’ll probably find that Nigeria might be the second in the world in terms of volume of gas. And because we’ve not started exploring for gas, any theft that affects crude oil pipelines will immediately stop the flow of crude oil and once it stops this flow, it stops the flow of gas because at the moment we’re dealing largely on associated gas. By the time, we get to using our non-associated gas, NAG, we won’t have this issue at the moment. The issue we have is because we’re only dealing with gas associated with oil.
Realnews: When are we going to start this gas exploration?
Ezigbo: When the PIB is fully functional. That is, when we get our pricing right. What has pricing got to do with it; when we drill for crude oil and we find gas, it looks as if the gas is for nothing so you can sell it at any amount because the crude oil has paid for the exploration. When you now drill for gas and the entire cost is for gas, the price will, of course, be higher than gas you get while drilling for oil. But now, we are fixing prices for gas. It is not market driven and when you do that, nobody will have the incentive to go and drill for gas. So they’re waiting for gas that comes from oil because oil will, of course, pay for the gas, so it’s cheaper. So you can sell at any rate fixed by the government. The moment you want people to go and seek for gas and drill for gas, you must also live out the price of gas from being controlled and let it be market driven.
Realnews: Is the price of crude oil now market driven?
Ezigbo: Crude oil is market driven because in the international market they tell you the prices, that’s why it goes up to 100, comes down again. In Nigeria the price of gas is fixed, overseas when you export gas, it is market driven, when you use gas in the domestic arena, it is fixed. That’s why it’s difficult to find people who are drilling for gas because gas is not market driven.
Realnews: The security that has been made for the situation in the oil and gas sector to safeguard the oil facilities and stop the crude oil theft, has it helped the industry?
Ezigbo: Whatever they’re doing at the moment is palliatory. It’s a long term thing. We’re very lucky in Lagos, in the sense that there’s so much anger in the country, but you see, up here; how do I put it now, You asked about security in the south-south? Do you know what’s causing it? Educational, economic and environmental situation in the country is responsible for that crisis? That’s the only way to put it. Until we get that right, no matter what you do, it’ll still continue. It might reduce today, tomorrow it’ll fulminate again, unless we are able to look after the people, it will continue. I will tell you a story. I was talking to somebody in the Niger Delta. He said he didn’t know that each time they asked questions, the people in Abuja will tell them “it’s in the pipeline”, and then they actually came to Abuja and saw Abuja, and realized it was their money in the pipeline that built Abuja. They started breaking the pipelines, the problem is simply this, people in the oil-producing areas live in abject poverty. If you’ve there you’ll see where they live, oil spills and the rest of them, however, we have also not trained them well. I remember there was a time I got a contract in Niger-Delta. I was told by the community that I have to employ 10 welders and 10 fitter. So I asked to be given me 10 welder and 10 fitters. They gave me 20 people. I hired a houseboat and took them to the site. In the morning they were sleeping, they didn’t come to work. Second day, the owners of the contract called me, that they’re about to cancel my contract. I rushed there. That was when it dawned on me that the 20 people they gave to me, none was a qualified fitter, none was a qualified welder. I had to come to Lagos and employ another 20 and took them there and they were working. But I still had to keep the first 20 on site, when I went to the chief I. I said, these people, I know they’re not fitters. They’re not welders. I realize that now, can I get somebody from Lagos who would come and teach them how to fitter well so that next time around, they’ll have a job. They laughed at me, and that was the end of it, until we finished the job, and we paid them off. So they also need to go through a bit of orientation, they don’t understand that you don’t just sit down and things would come to you, you have to work for it, but you have to create an enabling environment for them to do that.
E.C
Tags: Anthony Isibor Chukwuma Ejenike Maureen Chigbo Prof. Joseph Ezigbo Realnews
