Politics
COMRADE Ovuozourie Macaulay is a former Commissioner for Inter-Ethnic Relations and Conflict Resolution, former Commissioner for Energy and Secretary to the State Government (SSG) in Delta State. He was also ex-chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and ex-state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). In this interview with Festus Eriye he speaks passionately about issues affecting the Niger Delta – everything from oil theft, the Amnesty Programme and the NDDC among others.
You were a commissioner and later Secretary to the State Government (SSG) under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan. But you have since defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). How have you been adjusting to your new political environment?
Since I left for the APC in Delta, the major challenge I found is lack of structure and organization. My effort has been on how to work to build a sustainable structure because we won’t be able to win elections if we don’t have a good structure that can stand the test of time. We narrowly missed it; we are not going question the Supreme Court judgment, but that was the closest APC has gone as a party. Since I came back from Abuja on the 19th when that judgment was delivered, this is the first time I’m coming out. I haven’t even been in Asaba; I have been in the village because I believe that politics begins at home – it is very local. So I’ve been trying to organize my unit, my ward and local government. Even as I was driving here today I was already calling a meeting of stakeholders of APC of the whole Isoko nationality. So, to answer your question, my challenge today is how to begin to build the party. I was talking to the state chairman to step into the issue of the divides in APC, because the internal wrangling, the struggle for leadership – who to be called a leader and who not to call a leader – is part of the problem affecting APC. I am a neutral person; luckily I wasn’t there when these divides were created. So, I want to use my neutral position and background in mediation to see how much I can meet the stakeholders so that we can have a united APC.
Delta has always been a PDP-dominated state – governed by the party non-stop since 1999. With the kind of challenges you have outlined do you really see a future for APC in the state?
There is. The name of a party doesn’t make the people, it is the people that make the party. People made Delta to be the home of PDP, they can still unmake Delta and make it a home for APC. The challenge there is the resources. You can’t play politics without resources. The first step is what I told you I’m already doing: to get the people to believe in one cause and think alike. Don’t forget that apart from the last eight years, PDP was in power at the national and in the state. Now, we are lucky that APC is in power at the national. If you allow some of us to play a role, we can give the state a fight, a serious one for that matter. One, look for credible people when it comes to elections, people who on their own have credibility – not just riding on the name of the party. Before that, try and strengthen certain persons financially. Not the city politicians, not the Abuja politicians – but politicians who have followership at home. Let them go and begin to build the party and expand their followership. Once you are able to do that in the next three years, PDP would have a run in 2027.
The Niger Delta is a region that has produced the bulk of the nation’s wealth over the last 60 years. Unfortunately, it remains one of the poorest zones. I am interested in your perspective as a former office holder as to why this is so.
Speaking for myself I would say that the region’s leaders have been playing politics with the lives of the people. When it comes to issues of development we should put our partisan leanings aside. Once you have been elected as a PDP, LP, APC governor, you have been elected. We are governors of our respective states. Can we now come together and think about the region that elected us – because we didn’t elect ourselves? For those who studied the Awolowo UPN government of those days, development was based on regions because the states are interwoven. You cannot solve a problem in Delta and the fallout would not go to Bayelsa or Edo States. So you must have a common strategy in the region – whether it is security, health or education problem, you must have a common strategy. With the kind of wealth in the Niger Delta they should be able to provide electricity for themselves. If it is water they have it, if it is gas they have, why should they be relying on one national grid that is in Minna, Shiroro or somewhere? But because there’s no synergy everybody is trying to do his own. That’s why we are having most of these problems. So, let the governors irrespective of their political leanings come together and let’s throw away the 12-month budget thing. I’ve always talked about it but no one wants to listen. For as long as this country continues to base development on 12 months budget, you won’t have more than six months to execute it. Four or five months for those of us in the South are taken over by rains and you can’t do any construction work. The period of procurement, tender and mobilization takes another two months. So, the real dry period that you have to do construction or building infrastructure is less than six months. I grew up to read about rolling plans. Let’s go back to the days of rolling plans; let’s begin to say for this problem – the immediate solution would take us three years. In five years we would move to the major level, in ten years we would be through with this. For instance, we want to build a railway… what can we do in three years in the region? Where can we take it to in five years? If it is electricity, we can says let’s site it it Bayelsa – whether it is water or gas we want to use Bayelsa is central, pull from Delta, pull from Rivers – those are the major areas where these gas reserves are located. There’s nothing we’re going to do in this country without power; that’s the bedrock of any developmental effort. From there, we go to the governors who can then move it up. For me, NDDC is not meeting the objective for which it was set set up. You cannot set up an interventionist body which is busy painting hospitals, building six-classroom blocks, constructing 500 metres of roads. That’s not the role of an interventionist body when there are major developmental issues confronting the people. But who do you blame? In the last eight years there has been no stable management or board in NDDC. It has either been sole administrator, technical committee or interim management for eight years. So who makes the policies? Who’s supervising the management? Even this board that has been put in place nobody would expect it to make magic in one year. So they need to go back and look at the policies. The chairman and MD have to agree that this old narrative has to be put aside and do something new. Let’s meet with the stakeholders in the Niger Delta. Even if it is one project per state they want to take, let it be a visible one that everybody would benefit from. We should begin to look at the supervisory role of the Ministry of Niger Delta. Is it better under the Ministry of Niger Delta than it was under the SGF in the Presidency? What is the level of interference today? What role are members of the National Assembly playing? It is only when we look at the totality of this that we begin to find a way out of the problem.
We will return to NDDC but let’s take a look at the role of governors. Over the last 20 to 30 years trillions of naira have been channeled into the region by way of allocations. Yet, we don’t see a commensurate level of development. Would an audit of these funds help towards reversing the underdevelopment of the Niger Delta?
There’s a book in the Bible called Lamentations that I don’t like reading because taking so much time to begin to address issues of yesterday that are past, instead of looking forward, knowing that mistakes have been made. If you want to look at yesterday you will spend more time and lose. Where will auditing the past take us to? Why don’t you look for where mistakes have been made like I have just analysed; what has been the shortfall; what have we been doing that we were not supposed to be doing… and correct them moving forward. I think that’s a better way than to say go and audit this or that era. You will even waste more money trying to set set up audit bodies. I don’t think that’s the way to go.
Would you say the problem with NDDC is one of leadership or structural? It is supposed to be an intervention agency to develop the region, yet it has also become a means of dispensing political patronage…
It’s both because if I am the MD of NDDC I won’t approve any proposal to go and sink a borehole in any community. But if you tell me the whole Isoko Nation lacks water and we need to build waterworks that would serve the community, I will approve it. That’s the job of an interventionist agency. If you need a borehole go to your local government council or the Ministry of Water Resources in your state. To that extent the leadership hasn’t been well focused to face specific challenges that would benefit the generality of the people. It’s a metter of proposal… it’s a matter of man know man. I approve a borehole for you that can help you and you take the profit. That’s leadership. It is structural in the sense of the laws. If you give me a mandate to become the MD, what are the laws I am supposed to follow to make policies? Did you tell me I must see the region as one body? Why are we limiting NDDC money state by state? Why can’t NDDC take up regional projects or challenges…like flooding or providing electricity for the Niger Delta region? Or like constructing a world class hospital for the Niger Delta people? So that extent you can say it is structural.
So what would say is the primary developmental challenge of the region?
It’s lack of unity of purpose. Everybody wants to do it for himself. The lawmakers who are representing the people are not fighting for laws and things that would benefit the people. They are more interested in what benefits other people or in general issues, forgetting that they were elected from somewhere for a purpose. Whether APC or PDP, the line of divide is the individual. When we started politics in the 80s, it was to the right or left. But today you can’t say the ideology of this party is to the right or left.
Environmental challenges in terms of oil spills and others have been a nightmare for the Niger Delta. Are we making progress on these issues?
We are not making any progress if not we won’t be crying that there’s no development. Niger Delta today is worse than it was yesterday. That’s why we are saying leaders, governors, who are controlling the resources of the people ‘can you work together?’ When it is time for elections, discuss politics. Now that you’ve been voted into office can you come together; because they are not going to drive kidnappers from Delta and they won’t end up in Bayelsa or Edo, or drive them from Rivers and they won’t end up in Delta State. So can we work together and deal with issues? So, the greatest challenge is for there to be unity of purpose and synergy – especially now that the states are getting so much money as a result of the withdrawal of subsidy. What are we going to use this money for? Is it just for governors and commissioners to fill the streets with fleet of cars? My sense of economics tells me if you get extra you work with it to get something new.
Is it possible to conquer the problem of oil theft?
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I think we can conquer it. But I don’t agree with destroying what they call illegal refineries. Whether you like it or not, 30% of the diesel in use today comes from those places they call illegal refineries. How do you develop technology? If somebody is setting up a small place that’s 10 feet by 10 feet and is able to produce diesel that’s not as refined as the one in the refinery, why not give that man an opportunity? Give him equipment, set the crude to him so that he stops bursting your pipelines. The greatest damage being done to our environment is through bunkering. Why not put them into cooperatives, put their resources together, give them loans and expose them to advanced technologies. Let them continue to produce and refine it. One, you won’t be losing money or crude and there would be more employment. They would pay tax. We have been destroying illegal refineries since the time I was in charge of conflict resolution Delta State. I advised in council back then that we go beyond destroying these things. We have fought this war for almost twenty years and have not gone anywhere with it. Another aspect is to let the communities be in charge. I was one of those involved in resource control agitation but the country didn’t understand what we were saying. Let the individual communities take care of the pipelines in their areas. They know the bad eggs amongst them and would be able to call them to order. Of course, the jobs would be given to them. Then you would see that this thing would die down because that sense of belonging would be there. I once advocated that if you’ve operated in a community for more than 40 years, why can’t you make that community part of ownership? Even if it’s five percent, let them know that at the end of every year this money would come to them as a community. As part of ownership would they steal what is theirs?
The Amnesty Programme in the Niger Delta was supposed to be end after an agreed period. But now it is beginning to look like a permanent thing. The fear is that any attempt to end it would cause problems in the region. So, in a way, it looks like government is paying protection money…
Protection money to who?
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To those who have been collecting it for years.
Amnesty is to settle victims of a crisis for short period. You can’t settle them for life. The Niger Delta crisis, the Ijaw-Itsekiri crisis ended over ten years ago. So how can we be talking of amnesty at this time? Can’t the government take the bold step? Are there no others things that can be done to grow the region? That’s why I ask, pay money to who? When it started Kingsley Kuku was sending boys just brought from the creeks abroad for training, to give them a means of livelihood. Who are we sending today?
But they are still paying money to one-time militant leaders…
Is it a life pension? Who do you blame? Who created the office and who is in a position to dissolve the office? Is it me who is benefitting that would say don’t pay me anymore? The people you called youths 15 or 20 years ago can’t be youths for life. So why are you paying this money? Money you give out without production helps to create inflation and more crises for you. Is it that we don’t have what it takes to manage these people? For me, I don’t believe in it. At the onset I believed in it but not now.
THE NATION
17th February, 2024.
C.E.
Tags: NLC Ovuozourie Macaulay
