In this exclusive interview, Leonard Umunna, a cleric and a public affairs commentator, urges Nigerian government to emulate other countries in moving the country forward. He said that the essence of governance is to improve the lives of citizens. He cautioned against politics of hate and violence as the country prepares for the next round of general election in 2027. ZEBULON AGOMUO brings the excerpts:
There is high level of corruption in Nigeria which is affecting a lot of things, including the fight against insecurity. How do we overcome this?
Very simple. Nations that have overcome this took to this same step of going to the foundation. But we want to reach the top without a good foundation. It’s not the best way to bring down the tree with all its fruit, by going to cut the fruits one by one and then cut the branches one by one. Just go to the root, right? And the tree is down with all on it, including the branches, leaves and fruits. The institutions that produce are defective. It’s like they want to correct the school system, and you don’t start from the nursery, primary and make the children to become good in the basic subjects of mathematics, English, Art and science. And you do not make them to be very capable in writing; very legible handwritings. If you don’t produce good and very legible handwriting, you know that whatever you are going to write is going to be suspect. Because somebody may not have time to read the bad writing, because the person has many question papers to mark within a given period. And the person may be tempted to mark by whatever sentiment or assumption. The same thing in governance. If the institutions that train them were allowed to be partakers of those who will be monitoring them in the office, it will be, hey, what were you taught on this subject? What are you practising? You know by that they will correct it. Even if they don’t take this system, make something along that line. But our own is, they allow the National Assembly, which in most cases, most of them are corrupt. Some of them are ignorant. When sycophancy meets with ignorance, and ignorance meets with corruption, these three in one group cannot be easily broken according to the Bible. It is a dangerous tripod! So, if we can change that system, so that we will not be fighting the fire, but catch the chap with the match. You know, if the fire is on now, we call in these fire fighters to put out the fire. But if you had already presumed that somebody might come to burn this place, then ensure that nobody goes in with any fuel, any combustible material, let alone a match; I mean, nothing to strike and ignite fire. And with good security personnel positioned, and the smoke detectors are there, it will be minimised, and even if the fire starts, it can be easily arrested. But when they are trying to tackle it at the top, the ones under are coming up. So, if you want to put out the fire, put it out to the down level, so that the smokes are well put out. We are battling with insecurity. The question to ask is, why have we not won the battle? The answer is simple, weak institutions.
Nobody is being brought into account for doing the wrong things. Corrupt people produce corrupt outcomes. What are people saying about our police, military, judiciary, the INEC, National Assembly, name it- these are institutions that should be respected for what they do, but how are they being viewed on the street? We must get serious as a nation. The system must be changed. I have shouted and getting my voice hoarse by saying that our constitution is bad, that if you give a bad leader a good constitution, he will not do well, he will still do his will. But if you give a good leader a bad constitution, he will do well, because his good conscience, character formation, background will not allow him to go that corrupt way.
It is being alleged that governors on the opposition platforms are being coerced to join the ruling party. What danger do you see in this mass exodus to the APC?
It portends an escalation of danger. The danger is the attempt to make Nigeria a one-party country. And it will not work because it will corrupt them the more. The electoral body in charge is not ready for a credible election too, which makes the opponents to doubt about 2027. That may be one of the reasons they are defecting. Again, the opposition is showing its bitting teeth too early in the day. Our people say that if an animal continues to show the strength in its teeth all the time, its enemies will devise an effective way of defeating that animal, because they know that its power lies in its teeth. If I were political opponents, I would keep my strategies to my mind and then take those they would be fighting against by surprise. Again, the opposition should bother about what is the level of preparation of the electoral umpire? They must not wait until when it is too late. In all of this fight, it is the ordinary citizens that are suffering. Government must take the people’s interest seriously.
Again, concerning the alleged move to make Nigeria a one-party state, that is not the major problem of Nigeria for now. What I think is that the type of system we are operating is not working. If they like let it be one state or they split into various divisions or have 24 or 36 nations come out of Nigeria, they have only learned wrong and not right. They will go and continue and even expand it and make it worse.
What we need is to begin to formulate African system that will best meet our needs. Before, they talked about different types of the presidential this and that. Presidential system came from America, so they said. And we are not operating the way America was operating it when they were at the stage we are now. Let’s say now that America system has reached 400 years and ours is 100 years; we are trying to imitate America at 400 years. I hope you get the point.
In those days, where we are now, was when they allowed their great critics to talk and correct leaders. In our own, we dont allow criticism. And America were using the various things they were encountering to formulate rules, regulations and laws. Here, we have already allowed that the north must have this number more. The east must have this number less. And the oil is in the east. So, east will produce what will take care of the north. And the north, their leaders are not ready to care for their people first. They themselves want us to join and loot the thing, take it abroad, so that when anything happens, they will go and enjoy their ill-gotten wealth. So, that’s a very big cause of this issue of corruption in Nigeria. All politicians want to belong to the ruling party. America has advanced, they are still doing well. So, systems of governance we practised in those days were far better than what we have today. In the 60s, our leaders would bring some traditional leaders to join and say their mind. And they carried them along to the people to formulate laws. But now, no, no, no; the laws we pass must be two-thirds of so and so.
And those two-thirds people may not really know that Nigerians are suffering. They are mainly rich people. They are not a mixture or middle-income people. You see, that takes me to the next thought coming to my mind. Where are the people who we used to call middlemen? No more middlemen now. Then we used to have middlemen, right? The middlemen have been knocked out now. We now have super rich men versus paupers all over the place. So, they can easily be bribed. You see, the trouble anytime there is election; I mean, the story will be “there is a glitch” here, while they are bribing the people to come out and vote for them. And you will be hearing of war here and there. They now use guns and use people they have bribed to stop these ones. This is what actually I think is one of the main causes of this very problem. The right thing is to review these things. I don’t think by our present kind of National Assembly we can arrive the El Dorado. No way. Because when you hear their contributions in the chamber you wonder what is going on. The other person who was talking to them on the National Assembly platform just a few days ago was using strong words. I recorded those strong words. To them, it was just like somebody shouting to people, saying, all of you are blindfolded. You are going down, down, down. They are going to push you all into the river. And you have come to the edge of the precipice. You can’t even wake up. You can’t even shout. Just a little push and all of you will enter. They are not moved because they are blind.
Politicians will always bribe people to campaign for them. They come with a slogan- The worst civilian government is better than the best military. It’s a lie. People have asked me, which one does God support. I told them, check Israel and the other nations. God has no preference.
He says that when the righteous bear rule, the people rejoice. But when the wicked is in authority, the people suffer. It means there will be anarchy, trouble, and complaints, crying, woes, and weeping. Yeah. So, they will tell you, no, no, no, no, no. We don’t want it. We will follow that way which will perpetuate corruption, perpetuate ignorance, perpetuate the mighty, going always against the poor. The poor become poorer. The rich become richer. With Nigeria’s case, it is super rich versus the abject poor.
The youth in Nigeria, though highly talented, are languishing in penury because there are no opportunities to make them explore and eke out a living for themselves. How do you think the youth can excel in this environment?
The advice I’m going to give, I have given it several times, let them make a try at it and see what will be the result. Whether it is curriculum you call it or whatsoever, change the whole system. Let them not be graduated based only on academic qualification. Change the system. Let them come up with their profession and be trained there so that at the examining stage, even if you have 100-level, something has started. 200-level team will be sent to go and see how you are going with it or your strategies or what you have started or what you and others you have invested in or are coming out with.
They can ask for loan, whether from government, and they will see where it is being invested. If they at the end know that you are going to graduate based on your output, your professional know-how, that is your product; not all this telling us to export, you should increase the value or do this; you know certain songs they are singing to make us feel that if we export you will make it. And then they will be giving us many training institutions which are in the private sector too. Which are themselves looking for ways to exploit and make it because the economy is bad.
But if government now changes their method and makes it that you are not going to go and graduate with paper and come out. Your products will be the things that will graduate you. Before you reach level 400, you would have become somebody who is even eager to get out of school and go into full scale production. You would have got a network of friends and partners from other areas. They are even thinking of how to expand. If they adopt it, they will do better. Two, you see many secondary schools. I do see them on television. They are wasting talents. They are now going between those who enroll to study computer, computer to turn out to be Yahoo, Yahoo. And those who are trying to model some nations. You see them, they make some aero planes. They make some machines. Different, different things like Americans do. Japanese people do. They try to manufacture certain things. Who is sponsoring them or taking them? Except you go through, who do you know? My mama, my papa, my brother, my sister, my friend, my family, me and my friend, my political party. That is what is destroying Nigeria. I hope our leaders will learn to do the right thing. The interest of the people must override political considerations.
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