Dr. Chike Obidigbo, a former governorship aspirant in Anambra State and an Industrialist is one man who believes that Nigeria has all it takes to be a developed and prosperous nation if not for the stranglehold of the colonialists and the naive corrupt tendencies of the political class. In this interview, he talks about the need for men of character and vision to take the leadership of the nation and rescue it from lacklustre state.
Analysts are of the opinion that Nigeria has not made significant progress over the years despite its enormous potentials. Do you also share this view?
Nigeria is never a nation. It was Awolowo that aptly described Nigeria as a mere geographical expression. We cannot grow or develop with the way we are. There was no day people came together and decided in Nigeria that they should now become a nation or country. It was never decided and that tells you that what we have in Nigeria is an assemblage of groups of very independent people by the British and they did this specifically for their own benefits. As long as the British benefits from such contraption, you don’t expect development because it was not intended to be so. There will be no development in the real sense of it because Nigeria is not free and truly independent. It is a continuous game of who dominates who, a continuous fight, there is a lot of in-fighting and this infighting is instigated because so long as Nigeria is not united as one, there won’t be decision making that will affect the true development of this country. It is not our making because we are in serious bondage and it will continue. Unfortunately for us, those people who are in a position to do something about it are the people that are benefiting from the mess and because of the shortsightedness of the black man, they will never see anything wrong in what they are doing. Until Nigeria gets to that level where people at the decision making level have the interest of the people at heart, we are going nowhere. When the British man was ruling us directly, if you go to any of the cities, you find what they called European Quarters where only the British lived. When the British left, the Nigerian men in government renamed it Government Reserved Areas (GRA). Today, you have Commissioners Quarters, Governor’s Lodge, Assembly member’s quarters etc but when you go to Britain, the Prime Minister lives at No 10 Downing Street., in the street housing other people within. Here, ordinary commissioners live separately away from the people. You then ask why don’t they live with the people they are looking after, what makes them different? It is in the same eyes that the white man sees us- as sub-human beings, slaves and they do with us whichever way they like, exploit us and even steal the money and nothing happens. The British man is still here in our government.
But we have our petrodollar economy and so many funds that have accrued to government coffers all these years, are you now saying that we have not made progress development-wise?
That is where the problem lies. Those in charge are not deploying the resources accordingly. We have oil as a gift of nature but we seem not to know the value of what we have. Like Mr Peter Obi tried to expose during the presidential election campaigns, there is too much oil theft in Nigeria. A friend of mine from Singapore once told me that he doesn’t know what is wrong with us in Nigeria. He said the Nigerian government doesn’t collect up to ten percent of its oil revenue. The rest of the world is taking advantage of our ineptitude and they just come here and drill and take away to the extent that you see chips of our oil all over the world. Ten percent we don’t get and that little percent they grapple with, those in authority see it as their right because it is only in this part of the world that people personalise power and authority. When someone becomes President or governor, it is the person’s personal right. Even at the expiration of his first tenure, if you are coming to contest, he will see it that you are coming to contest what belongs to him. This kind of mindset is the reason they share the money as they like thereby throwing prudence to the winds. There is no investment of such money knowing that if such money is invested in other areas, then we can generate some exportable items too and it is only genuine exports that can bail us out of our present poverty. They are focusing only on oil and one day that oil will dry up or become less important as its need will disappear. When that happens, what do we do as a nation when we are not planning for the rainy day? We are not using the oil money to develop our country. We are not using it to assist our people but they rather use it as the private property of those managing our economy and the government of the country.
So how actually can Nigeria’s own version of democracy work then?
It’s still very difficult because I told you that we are not a nation and once it is so, you cannot take a decision that binds the people. Two is the fact that Britain intentionally wielded Nigeria together and in the place of doing that, they made sure that the internal squabble remains and as long as that squabble remains, we can’t achieve anything. So as far as they are concerned, our own democracy is just to put your head down and stay quietly, don’t complain, don’t make noise, we are ruling over you and everything you own belongs to us. When Peter Obi was going to talk at Chatam House, I sent him a message and told him that this people have ruled us, exploited and benefited from us for over forty years, the greater percentage of what they are using to run their country comes from Nigeria. Very high percent and you want them to take away their conduit pipe? What happens to their economy? If Peter had gone to them with a compromise that they will still be benefitting, they would have considered him for the presidency. They found the Fulani man and the other person an easy tool to work with. The Fulani man knows how to plot when you are thinking and working hard. Britain saw that and went into alliance with them and empowered them all through, gave them everything they needed including military support on the condition that they be allowed free access to Nigeria’s economy and that’s where we are today. But I am hopeful that one day, someone who understands this game will become the President of Nigeria and when that happens, he will start engaging them. That is the reason Britain is also fighting very hard against Nnamdi Kanu because Kanu understands this game. Kanu has always maintained the fact that Nigeria is too big, too large for one single man to manage as President. Look at the way Nigerian political leaders are grabbing money, in dollars, pounds, Naira in billions. At the end of the day, they do nothing with that huge money and our youths continue to suffer.
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