Follow Us on Google
By Christy Anyanwu
Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo is the senior pastor and founder of Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) in London with several branches in Europe and Africa, including Nigeria.
The cleric , who will clock 70 years on the March 17, spoke to Sunday Sun about the state of the nation.
What would you say about the state of the nation today? A lot of things are happening these days. If it’s not fuel scarcity, it’ll be insecurity?
I think the challenge of Nigeria is that we focus a lot on and talk about the leadership, but fail to look at the system. If the system is good it can be handled even if the leadership is bad, but if the leadership is fantastic and the system is poor, there is nothing the leadership can do. For example, if you have a fantastic trained ship captain, but the ship is leaking, there is no way the captain can successfully pilot the ship, he will still have problem. The challenge of Nigeria boils down to poor systems. In the first place, at 62 or 63 years of nationhood, we are still importing fuel and we are exporting the crude, it just shows there’s a poverty system in place. If the system is robust and good, we wouldn’t need to import, we will be the one exporting finished products. But here, we focus on the leader, the president is not good, the governor is not good… if the system is good and you have a bad president, you wouldn’t know. I live in the United Kingdom, I still live there, I have lived there for 38 years. Because the system is robust, even if we had prime ministers that are very weak, we didn’t know because the system is good. I think what Nigeria should look for, is not just let’s change this president, let’s have somebody who is educated, let’s have somebody who is from the South, let’s have someone who is from the North, we have done all of that. There was a time, we said educated people should be the president, and the late president Umaru Yar’Adua has a Masters, former President Goodluck Jonathan has a PhD, it did not change the challenges of the land. Again, we said oh, let us have somebody from the North, they had somebody from the North, it did not change anything. So, I think Nigerians should begin to question our system. If there’s scarcity of fuel, what caused it, why, what is holding it back? When they bought bad fuel, who sold it to them? There’s a certification that is usually signed where you buy fuel. Were they not given a good certificate? How come they got a good certificate from where they are bringing the fuel and it became bad by the time it got here? So, that is the challenge.
What about the insecurity in the country today?
The insecurity in the nation again boils down on the system too. I keep on hammering on the system and I would tell you why. I’m 70 years old, we talked of bandits in the North, they never existed before now, where did they come from? There was no Boko Haram in the North, they never existed, where do they emerge? This same country handled the civil war and brought it to an end within three years from July 1967 to January 1970. That is two and half years, but has not been able to stop Boko Haram in up to 15 years. That tells you, in effect that somebody is likely to be benefitting from the insecurity, somebody is benefitting from Boko Haram and somebody is deliberately, not intentional, in bringing it to an end. So, you can discuss it from now till tomorrow, until there’s a change in the system nothing will happen.
How can we change this insecurity system?
In my opinion, everybody should be security conscious; secondly, Nigeria should be trained. The nation should come on TV, teach us how to be security conscious. Even the guys who we send on national youths service should not just go there and be marching and doing community service. We should train the Nigeria young person to be part of the security apparatus of Nigeria. When you go to Israel, the people who check you as you are entering the country are between 18 and 19 years old, Israeli young people trained by the nation. So, for our youth corps members, do more for them than making them to do community service, like cleaning gutters. Train them not in guns, but being security conscious, knowing how to detect bandits and stuff like that. These are some of the things that would help coupled with the fact that when you look at the biggest place of insecurity, it’s the North. The reason there’s a huge level of insecurity in the North is because the nation will allow a policy, but not follow through. We said primary education is compulsory, but nobody has jailed a parent who gives birth to a child and did not ensure their children are in school. In the United Kingdom where I live, if your child is not in school, you are the one they would come and grab and throw in jail, when the child is 16, he can do what he likes. There’s a huge case of students who don’t go to school, parents give birth and put them on the streets. The North is such that people when they will give birth to a child and when that child is two years old, they put a plate on his hand to start begging. There are 17 million almajiris in Nigeria. The insecurity issue in Nigeria will not be resolved until there’s job creation and compulsory education. Job creation because when you look at the number of kids who are riding Okada, it tells you there’s no job. Our office of statistics, I do hope they are giving us accurate figures of how many Nigerians are unemployed? Create jobs. Make education compulsory so that as kids have education, it’s an access to get out of poverty. Then make parents responsible. Let nobody hide behind religion. Former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido, said people should not hide behind religion, marry many wives, give births to so many children and put them on the streets. When the kid has nothing to do and he sees wealth, he’s living poor in the face of wealth he would react. Nigerians, we hide our heads in the dust. We know the answer; we know where the bandits are coming from; 90 per cent of the bandits are kids who never went to school, but grew up as almajiris. Stop the almajiris system, make education compulsory, work at possible job creation possibilities in the nation, make every part of Nigeria such that foreign direct investment can come in. I don’t think you will meet many people who would want to leave Europe and go and create business where the almajiris are or in the parts where the bandits are because they know they will capture them and ask for N5 million ransom.
Talking about education, you own a private university and today, there is ASUU strike, what is the problem in the educational sector?
University is intended to be part of the solution to Africa challenges. To raise quality leaders, to raise quality citizens, to make a difference in Nigeria, in Africa and ultimately in the world. I’m a chancellor of a university, so I have to be picky with my words. I want to just say that maybe the two sides have to be honest with themselves. If the Federal Government wants to run universities, they should competently equip those universities. And equipping should go beyond the salaries. If you look at what ASUU is saying, they are looking beyond salaries. They are saying make the place a good environment. Let’s face it, if you look at our universities, they are underfunded. When you check Nigeria’s budget on education, it is not up to 20 per cent. But, our budget on defence is so huge because of some funny war we are fighting with Boko Haram. Forgive me readers, maybe I may be controversial here. I was born in the barracks. I know Nigeria’s military capacity when they want to stop any war. Nigeria single-handedly in two and half years fought Biafra war and brought it to an end, yet they cannot mess up Boko Haram in 20 years. You want to know my opinion? This is my opinion; anybody in the military may feel that I have said too much. Boko Haram gives some people the opportunity to make unbelievable wealth. Somebody is importing the weapons to fight them, somebody has to go and import the guns, somebody has to import the ammunition, somebody has to import the planes, and somebody has to handle the armoured tanks, Nigeria only makes very simple guns in the defence industry in the North. Everything used in fighting Boko Haram, Nigeria is pouring trillions of naira to fight a bunch of yoyos. The same country that fought a sophisticated war in Biafra, the war in Biafra was sophisticated and yet Nigeria finished it in two and a half years, but cannot fight Boko Haram in almost 15 years. Somebody is making unbelievable wealth. ASUU has a point. So, the kind of money that should have been put in the future of your children and my children and the children of every Nigerian is being used to fight a meaningless war with a bunch of guys which is amazing. Up till tomorrow, you cannot see where this Boko Haram are. Are they in anyplace more than this Nigeria? Are they in some underground place where a plane cannot reach? A plane leaves Nigeria and reaches London in six hours, how come Boko Haram members have become so invasive. So, ASUU has a point. Many of those professors, they want them in universities abroad. They chose to stay, they want to build their nation. But the budget towards education is so flimsy, so small compared to defence budget. Defence against who? Against a bunch of boys. Interestingly, the boys know when our boys are coming. Who told them? How do they know? How come Boko Haram can enter army barracks and take over barracks?
March 8 is known as International Women’s Day. And recently, Nigeria women went to the streets due to the National Assembly disapproval of their bill, what would you say about this trend?
I believe very much that women are as equal as men. Unfortunately, women have kept quiet for too long. The women on earth are 49.7 per cent of the population of the earth. They are almost 50/50 with men. Yet, women have accepted too many traditions and that’s the reason you can have such a jocular passing of the law at the National Assembly recently. Women have accepted a tradition in Nigeria where a man dies and automatically leaves all his companies to his first son and he had three daughters before the first son. Who in the world says a woman cannot run a business? Again, if you go through list of boards of organisations, you find out that, there can be nine men, and one woman. Also, women now, themselves, say I just want to make enough money to take care of my children. I believe a woman has equal capacity like a man, can achieve like a man, a woman can go far as the man, can do things like the man but it’s not enough to have just a woman’s day. It’s not enough also to pass a law at the National Assembly and think that would change things. A lot of women should also begin to form sorority, groups and speak out their voice and create pressure groups. There were not enough pressure groups when that bill was being passed. There should have been huge mobilisation of women in every local government. There are 774 LGs in Nigeria. Imagine, they only sent just 10 women from each local government to Abuja on the day the laws were to be passed; 774 x10 is 7, 740 women. And this number of women showed up at the National Assembly on the day the law was passed, they will think twice before passing the law. In any society, you form a pressure group particularly when your opinion is not as popular as it should be. You form political pressure group particularly when your opinion is not yet as popular as it should be. In fact, you create deliberate systems whereby you enter into the system, you send women to become part of their cabinet office where they will write the final policies. Not when one woman raises some points for women and you expect they will pass it. A greater percentage of the men in Nigeria Senate and House of Representatives wear the goggle of religion when they see a woman.
2023, what kind of leader should we be looking for?
We are so particular about the leader; we are not particular about the system. Even if you chose an angel, he’ll have difficulty ruling Nigeria. Why? The system is broken. When you came to interview me, there were Okada boys riding in front of you, were they riding in the right track? And they don’t care. That is part of a broken system. The traffic was bad, that is part of a broken system, there was no fuel and it has a spill over on the road, that is part of the broken system. I’m now 70, but before now, I used to think when you choose this kind of leader so many things will change, except a leader who has the feeling of the nation and he is ready to do surgery. Surgery is very difficult, let me honestly tell you. I’m not being despondent. Nigeria has hope, Nigeria is an amazing nation, one in eight black persons in the world is a Nigerian. Nigeria is respected. When I travelled a whole part of Africa and I came back, I thanked God I’m a Nigerian. I go to some places they are too slow, I go to some places they have no dream, they have no ambition, I go to some places and I’m wondering what a bunch of lethargic people. However, you come to Nigeria, it is broken. From our airport, it’s something seamless. You give your passport to an immigration officer, it takes five minutes for him to handle your passport. In the UK, as a British citizen, I don’t see the immigration office; I just put my passport in the machine, once the machine reads my eyes, I am good to go. I don’t have to talk to anyone. I want to open a company in the UK, it takes me four minutes online. I pay my 15 pounds, my company is registered. Somebody has to create a disorder in Nigeria because disorder helps bribery; disorder helps PR, disorder helps people to feel they are in control. Where there is order, you don’t have to see the person. Every part of Nigeria, all our systems are full of disorder. You want to go to the police station to report a matter; you have to know an ASP, DSP, or somebody . that is a disorder. You shouldn’t know anyone, anywhere for anything. Once the system is seamless, robust and on automation, you just operate. Things work. That’s why, for example, in the UK, whether it’s a prime minister that is good or a prime minister that is not good, doesn’t UK work? it works. Some people don’t like Boris Johnson, they think he’s playful, but UK is bigger than him. Some people don’t like Theresa May, the woman before him because they feel she’s so starky, so stoic, and had not led anything major, the system still worked. Some people don’t like Margaret Thatcher because she was a very tough woman, the system was bigger than her, some people didn’t like John Major because he didn’t go to the university at all and 99 per cent of our prime ministers went to either Cambridge or Oxford, John Major did not go anywhere, yet the system worked. When you have big men and they are bigger than your system, then you are in trouble. Anyone you choose now in 2003 it’s the same until you correct your system. All the people we see right now, we see they are all bigmen, they are bigger than the system and we are still going to have the same problem. Look at America, when a farmer was the president, it didn’t matter, Jimmy Carter, the system worked. When an actor, Hollywood man (Reanald Reagan) was the president, the system worked, it’s bigger than him. When one guy who used to struggle with alcohol and eventually became president, George Bush (Jnr), the system still worked. In fact, the reason Donald Trump has problem was that he was like Nigerian big men. He came like a big man.
