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By Omoniyi Salaudeen
Elder Asu Beks is one of the formidable voices in the Niger Delta region. He is the National President of Ijaw Media Monitoring Group.
In this interview, he spoke on the need for a positive change of leadership in the country in next year’s elections.
A lot of people were excited when the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) was passed into law. To what extent do you think it can address the issues of concern in the Niger Delta region?
First of all, I want to congratulate the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timpre Sylva, for being able to pull the bill through, even though most of the yearnings of our people were not achieved. If you go to the Niger Delta region, the issues are still there staring us in the face. Environmental degradation, pollution and poverty are still very much there. In terms of farming and fishing, we can’t retrieve what we have lost. Our lands have been polluted and the Ministry of Environment is not doing enough to protect the environment. There is no reason the Ministry of Environment should not have an office in all the states in the Niger Delta to monitor the activities of oil companies. The law itself cannot come into operation until 2023. So, the law is just there on paper. The actual implementation that will uplift the lives of the people of Niger Delta still has to wait till 2023. What I think will solve all this problem is the issue of resource control and restructure. But in a situation like this, you win some and lose some. The fact that PIA has come to stay is a thing of joy.
NDDC is another intervention of the Federal Government. Why is it taking so long for the government to reconstitute a new board?
Anytime from now, campaign will start. If the board of NDDC is not constituted now before the commencement of electioneering, we will stone any campaign train of that ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) that is coming to the Niger Delta. So, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the party, should arrange a meeting with the Minister of Petroleum and other Niger Delta stakeholders to dialogue with President Muhammadu Buhari and make sure that this issue is resolved immediately; otherwise, we will stone any campaign train coming to the Niger Delta region. As we already know, Mr. President has sent the nominees to the Senate and the Senate has approved it. I don’t know why the man who swore to protect the constitution of Nigeria is the one now breaking the law. There is no aspect of the NDDC Act that says there should be interim management or sole administrator. But we have had up to four or five of such since the beginning of this administration. It is totally unacceptable. This contract that he has given to Tompolo is not enough to assuage us because the contract was given to him on merit and on the basis of his capacity to secure the pipelines.
The tenure of this government is gradually inching to an end. How would you say Nigerians have fared in the last seven and a half years of this administration?
When former President Goodluck Jonathan was handing over, he said “it is when I am gone that you will appreciate me”. Everybody can now see. Just a few days ago, the presidential candidate of the APC and some governor went to visit him in his residence in Abuja. This is a man they were carrying about his caricature coffin in the build up to the 2015 general elections. There was no name they did not call him. Now, Nigerians are begging the APC to take them to where they were in 2015. This is what happens when a government is founded in propaganda. All Nigerians can now see that this government had no plan from the outset. In which sector can you feel the impact of this government? Is it in security, economy or power sector? They have borrowed so much that no creditor is willing to lend them money any more. I only pity whoever will emerge as the president of this country in 2023. I don’t know how the incoming government will cope with the level of our indebtedness. They constituted an economic team that only exists on paper. We have a political CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, who rose to the position of the Managing Director of the Zenith Bank, but has fallen so low that he thinks that the only way to address the sliding of the naira is by pumping dollars to the banks and Bureau de Change. Where did he learn his economics? To make matters worse, we have a Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, who has virtually nothing upstairs. This country is too complex for an amateur to manage. They said they wanted to lift 100 million people out of poverty when they cannot fix electricity. How is that possible? This administration has completely lost it. Even those who vigorously campaigned for him (Buhari) in 2015 are disappointed. This is why people are now looking for a better option.
What are the issues you expect the candidates of the various political parties to put forward in their campaign manifestoes?
With the level of our debt profile, the first thing is the issue of debt forgiveness because our debt has grown so much that the next administration will not be able to embark on any capital project for about two to three years on resumption. Much more grave is the issue of insecurity. I find it difficult to understand why we have not been able to curb the menace of terrorists. We can’t keep on like this as a nation. We can build rail from Nigeria to Niger, we can give them money to buy SUVs, but we cannot meet the demand of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for adequate funding of education. A country that toys with its education is doomed to fail. Now, you can imagine how our lecturers are finding their ways out of the country because we cannot provide a conducive environment. That is why people are saying that they are tired of these old brigades who will tell the same old story. Let’s look for something different, let’s look for a positive change not the kind of change APC brought on us in 2015.
Beyond the issue of capacity, what are the measures to be taken to make Nigeria work?
There is a need for us to restructure this country. But the impression our Northern brothers have about this issue of restructuring is that they want to deny them the benefits of oil resources in the South. There is no part of this country that cannot stand on its own. For example, they have gold in Zamfara. Is anything coming to the centre? First of all, we need to get leadership right. When we get leadership right, other things will follow. We can’t centralize everything. We can’t have an IG of police in Abuja to know what is happening Okerenkoko in Delta State. We need to decentralize. If we do that, this issue of everything going to the centre will not be there. We have made the centre so attractive that everybody wants to go to Abuja.
Some of the presidential candidates in the race have long been mouthing restructuring. How can Nigerians extract commitment from them so that they will not renege on their promise to do a restructuring of the country when they get elected?
The various sectors should challenge them now and extract a social contract from them. Nigerians should stop waiting for them to come and reel out manifestoes they will even deny when they get there. They should invite them to town hall meeting and engage these candidates so that they can extract social contract from them. Stakeholders in the power sector, education sector, banking sector, maritime sector and aviation sector and so on must engage them in the way they have never been engaged before, and enter into a social contract with them sector by sector. That is the only way we can get it right.
As a stakeholder in the Maritime sector, what are the reforms you are looking at in the Nigerian Port Authority?
There is a recent change of guard in the Nigerian Port Authority. When Hadiza Usman was eased out as MD, a lot of people, who accused her of insubordination to the former Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, were happy. Some even said she was too tight fisted and incompetent. In her place, one Muhammed Bello-Koko, who was the former ED Finance, was brought in. I can tell you, there is little or no difference since he has come. From the feelers I am getting from the stakeholders in the industry, they are already regretting it. They said all he has been doing is inviting people and having photo shoots with them. It is the responsibility of the Nigerian Port Authority to build park for the trucks. I have not seen the will in this current management. Whosoever is coming in as president in 2023 should appoint a professional as Managing Director of NPA. The port authority should not be an all comers’ affair.
