‘Govt Must Engage the Youths to Really Tackle Nigeria Economy Woes’- Prof Ozekhome SAN

A Constitutional Lawyer, Human Rights Activist, Pro-Democracy Campaigner and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Prof Mike Ozekhome, in an interview with “Apples Bite” speaks about the causes of Nigeria economy woes and the ways out of the economy stagnation.

Excerpts:

There’s a palpable tension over proposed protest by Nigerians between August 1 to 10 bothering on the state of economy collapse. Can you make us understand what the problems really are?

The problems are simple but the government is dealing with them adequately. At a function recently where the president was seated, I advised the president that it is in times of crisis that great leaders are known and that the image problems of Nigeria need to be protected.

I told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that in Nigeria today; there is hunger, there is starvation, there is abject penury, there is suffering there is national gnashing of teeth, there are no jobs, I reminded him that when he came to office, fuel was about 192 naira per litre. Today, it is between 550 Naira to 800 Naira and that things have since gone from bad to worse, and from worse to worst. And that, when he came to power that the Naira was about 750 naira to the dollar.

Today, 1,500 Naira is to one dollar. I reminded him and in my lecture I told the government and the audience about late Claude Ake’s theory of what he called a disarticulate economy and you consume what you do not produce and I said we produce crude oil which we cannot consume and we consume refined produce gotten from this crude oil which we sell to the outside world and which we cannot refine and therefore cannot produce. So, I therefore advise the government that it must engage the youths because today the Nigerian population has the highest youthful population in the whole world so the Nigerian population of about 229 million people of it 70 percent of it’s below 30 and 43 percent of it is below devil’s worship and I am now repeating it because that day I give the example of Kenya like Nostradamus, the man who saw tomorrow. I normally see things ahead, predict and tell the government what to do so that things do not go bad.

In 1987, I sued IBB the as the President of Nigeria but I must be banging down at the Armed forces ruling Council (AFRC) and the Attorney-General of the Federal against removal of oil subsidy. This is the same oil subsidy we are still talking about 37 years later and I was detained over that case. They said who is this small boy because I was just about 29 years old and they said who’s this small boy daring to sue IBB and AFRC. Now if you read National Concord of December 30, 1987, 37 years ago, you will see this story there.

On the 3rd of July, 2014, at the 2014 National Conference, I moved the motion that Nigeria should revert to its old national anthem ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee’ and I did write a book by that title in order to emphasize its titled ‘Nigeria We Thee’. In the National Conference, they carried my motion, unanimously, one of the few instances that the 492 delegates ever had a consensus on any matter. It was consensually carried and we all got up without prompting and you can see that about two weeks ago what I said ten years ago has come to pass. Now to the warnings of the youths as regards the National planned protest. We don’t want EndSARS again. I advised the present government that these youths need to be engaged because an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, and I am now repeating it that the government should work out a way were the youths can be actively engaged. I had warned Tinubu that I do not want ENDSARS to repeat itself. I said it that day.

Now, what is going on in Kenya is an eye-opener. The youths have decided to change their story, William Ruto the president took his country for granted because he came in as popular mandate. Two years ago, Kenyans were dancing on the street when he won, two years later, life has become so hard for Kenyans under President William Ruto. life has become so hard. The story has changed. They are barely managing to eat and then you now brought a $2.7 billion dollar taxation. Taxing everything up to bread that people can’t eat.

And the people said no more. Enough is enough and they went on the streets and instead of empathizing with the people the government addressed the nation flexing muscles calling them common criminals and the people said they’re not criminals, we are responsible we voted for you we were not criminals when we voted for you how come we are now criminals because we are telling you to rule us well they took to the street the military and the police came hard on these people using live munitions, tear gas as at today, about 39 people have been killed to the extent that one human rights organization had to go to the high court to obtain another restraining the police from using live bullets and ammunition.

Now the situation in Kenya is still tense and Ruto refused to back down even after the president Wednesday last week 26th of June now came on television literally apologized, I feel you, I hear you louder and clear, I will withdraw this bill, it’s not going to be signed into law but even then the people said no more. You see, a goat is known not to bite, only a dog is known to bite, but I tell you one thing, if you push a goat to the wall, it will turn around when there is no further place to go beyond the barricade it will turn around and bite you. So, Nigerians are being put in a situation where life has become more and more meaningless where we have water water everywhere like in the ancient marina but not fit enough to drink, where we have light from gas flaring not from NEPA or PHCN the PHCN. The rates have been doubled and some people can no longer use light, they can’t use fuel they can’t use diesel, even the candle they would have used the price of everything has gone up. To buy a tomato one cube of tomato now is like what you use to buy a dozen as at last year.

Painfully, gas up, kerosene is up and there’s nothing the people are enjoying and the mass are suffering. Unfortunately, the people supporting Tinubu’s government continue to say oh everything is fine that was why in my speech last week I told President Tinubu, this is my advise you sir. Go around in the evening or in the night incognito by disguising yourself. Go around and then you will see the suffering of the people first hand. I said do not, don’t listen to your minders or what the bootlickers are saying or the people in government will tell you. There is suffering in the land. Anybody who does not see that, then I told the government, I said, I’m also advising that they should reduce their convoy because it is provocative.

It may call for a class war and that’s bad. So, the government must arrest the slide of the Naira against the dollar and you can’t say you are leaving it to free market economies because it can’t work, you must control it because everything in nigeria is virtually dollarized because we are an import dependent country and we put everything virtually on it. So, the government must take measures quickly, reduce import duties, reduce taxes, reduces electricity tariffs, insecurity is on the high speed now, we take cognizance and care of insecurity which has become devastating with more crime now because of the suffering in the land more cases of kidnapping in Abuja now, cases of kidnapping are everywhere, armed banditry, no one is safe, armed robberies happening on an hourly basis. can anyone beats his chest and say Nigeria, we are better off today, that we’re where we’re in 2015, or in 2016, or in 2012, or in 2010? Can anybody pick up the Holy Quran, as a Muslim, and swear by it? Or as a Christian pick up the Holy Bible and swear by it? Or an Ogun worshipper pick up the iron and swear by it that we are better off today than we were 10 years ago or 20 years ago. I’m waiting for such a person and I think the President should do something very quickly.

Kenyan economy woes is nothing compared to what Nigerians are facing today, is it a case of suffering and smiling?

Well, some people have said that Nigeria is one of the most difficult countries to understand because just when you think that they have been beaten to the wall and they may protest or demonstrate, the average nigerian may prefer to further break down the war to further retreat from the aggressor rather turn around to fight the aggressor otherwise. Kenya, a small country of less than 55 million people is doing this to its government and Nigeria of 229 million people are still suffering and smiling as fella will put it, always putting forward the “God dey” mantra. The God I know is not a God that will come and do the work of you, you have to seek and it shall be found, because he will bless the works of our hands.

Leonard Woolsey Bacon once told us that the price we have to pay for our liberties is eternal vigilance because if we are not eternally vigilant, then like I said last week in my lecture you will find that a democratic government which I say we have been having is civilian governments, not democratic governments. It could also turn into a dictatorship. That is why in my Ozekhomepedia I have coined words like Celetrocracy, judiciacracy, executocracy and legislatocracy to describe the various forms of democracy that we are practicing which are different from the genre which Abraham Lincoln defined during his Gettysburg Declaration on the 19th of November 1863 when he defined democracy as government of the people, for the people, and by the people. I’ve argued that this is not democracy we are practicing, but we are practicing electionocracy where Leaders campaigning for election after winning, use one or two years to do some things, so after then they stop and makes the average Nigerian look forward to the next election year instead of the next dividends of democracy.

As I talked to you, governors who barely came to office barely a year ago, including the presidency, are already campaigning for 2027. So, when I therefore ask the question, and I’m now asking the question again, I say, dividends, when we talk about democracy dividends, I say, dividends, when we talk about democracy, dividends, dividends is a word borrowed from the corporate world, which means a share, yeah, gains, and I ask the question, from where even profits are made from which dividends can be shared to the people? And I said no. Things are bad. the govt must rise up immediately to ward off any mass national protest.