University don and former Chief of Staff to Oyo State Governor, Dr Adeolu Akande, in an interview monitored on an Ibadan-based radio station, speaks on why the youth need to make use of their numbers to effect a positive change that suits their vision. Excerpts:
EVERY time, it is said that youths are the future of tomorrow but those who have been serving us at different levels are those who have been there for long. What can young Nigerians do to make sure they assume leadership of this country, putting into consideration the percentage of their population?
The Nigerian constitution guarantees the Nigerian youth a participation in government, not only to vote the moment he or she is 18 years of age, but in terms of qualifying age to stand election. I am not sure if there is a country where there is quota or certain percentage of offices allotted to youth. As it is said, democracy is not served a la carte; you work for it. It is for the Nigerian youth to join the political process and develop a message that would mobilise the youth to identify them as people who could emancipate them from the present decadent system and leadership crisis that we face. It will be too much of an expectation to expect that the society will hand over the leadership to the youth. It is the youth who will need to fight for it. They have advantage in number; they are 65 per cent of the total population. This is a major advantage they could utilize by identifying leaders; either one of their generation or people who are older but who share the vision that could transform Nigeria from where we have it now, to one that suits their vision.
There is nothing that says that younger people are better than the older ones. If you look at statistics, we have had young people who have messed up and we have had older ones who have done well, even at the level of governance in Nigeria. We have had governors in Nigeria who are young and have done well and we have older governors who have done poorly. So age is not the distinguishing factor in whether someone will do well or not in office. Age comes in mainly because a younger person has longer years to live than the older person. So, governance has a responsibility more about the future than the past. And people who are young are supposed to have better exposure as they are expected to approximate the thinking and vision of a younger person; they are expected to be technologically savvy, they should be able to have access to information, internet and to best practices across the world and to mobilize all of these to provide leadership that is better than what the older people have provided. But, like I have said, statistics does not support any generational demarcation on the issue of who can do better.
Having said these, the youth, constituting 65 per cent of Nigeria’s population, do have a big role to play and it is assumed that if that percentage is made up of younger men, then what that means is that the thinking of young men would best approximate the thinking of majority of the population. We need to work at this. It is not something they have to take for granted; the youth need to work for it.
Would you say President Buhari has delivered?
Accessing the government in the last 18 months, I think the conclusion is that there are instances where the government has done well and there are areas where there are challenges and government needs to do more. In the area of fighting insecurity, the government has, to a large extent, fought back Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East but that is without noting that new openings of security challenges, particularly clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers across the country. We also have high rise in the incidence of kidnapping. So, it is a misery in terms of fighting insecurity. Yes, the government has done well in the areas of fighting Boko Haram, but we have to acknowledge that there are new openings and challenges.
On corruption, unlike before, we have high profile cases of corruption taken to court, involving top government officials and politicians and people that were considered untouchable in the history of Nigeria. So, that is a major achievement by the government; a major milestone in the fight against corruption but again, we also have to note the allegation of corruption against top officials of the present government and top members of the ruling party that have gone either uninvestigated or not put on track by the present administration. That again puts a question mark on the performance of government on the issue of fighting corruption.
On unemployment, there is a consensus across the country that unemployment has actually worsened because of the decline in the economy. A lot of companies have closed their manufacturing lines and a lot of small companies have also closed shops. Statistics show that more Nigerians are unemployed today in contrast to the ones that were unemployed before this government came on board. That again underscores the fact we still have a major challenge on the management of the economy which now has impacts on all other aspects of our national life.
On the issue of herdsmen and Boko Haram, there are different issues. We have a right to criticize the government and we should also acknowledge the fact that we need to commend government where it has done well. Let us affirm that government has done well in pushing back the insurgents but don’t forget that the fight against Boko Haram started way back 2001. So, this is what the nation has been fighting for upward of 15 years. So, if a government has been able to achieve this milestone of pushing Boko Haram insurgents almost out of our national borders, let us acknowledge the fact that the government has done well but that does not necessarily means that we don’t need to identify areas where the government needs to do more. In the area of clashes between Fulani herdsmen and settlers across the country, there is no doubt that the issue has not been effectively managed by the government and suggestion of complicity on the part of many top government officials made it worse for the government. The government has not done well in this regard and it needs to wake up; not only in terms of security agencies’ ability to quell this conflict but more importantly to prevent occurrence of such conflict and to apprehend the criminals who have perpetrated this act and ensure they are brought to book. The government needs to wake up on that.
It looks like President Buhari is a loner in the anti-corruption war…?
Well, we have a law enforcement agency that is equally under the control of the federal government. Whatever the state could do could be at the level of advocacy and surveillance and probably play the role of whistle blowers but in terms of enforcement of rules against corrupt practices, the bulk stops at the table of the Federal Government. But even then, talking about the President being a loner will be a misnomer. What we need to fight corruption is to strengthen our institutions. Even if they are not doing well, our duty is to strengthen them through our laws; through the protection of those who report corrupt cases in view of judicial system to make sure that cases of corruption that go to court don’t stay there for donkey years. We commend the government for bringing the hitherto untouchable to trial on corruption but you will still recall that in the last 18 months, I am not sure if any of these high profile cases has been completed. That again raises questions about institutions that have been saddled with the responsibility of fighting corruption. Just like you have noted, it is not possible for the President to enforce the rules in all the 36 states. The fight against corruption would have to be prosecuted by the agencies of the state; institutions of the state like the Police, EFCC, ICPC. Where we have seen that any of these institutions is lacking in its duties, what we need to do is to review their operations; strengthen them where they are weak, review their methods of operations.
We have been dependent on oil as the only means of revenue for our national need and it seems the talk about diversification of the economy is a ruse. What is your take on this?
The major problem with diversification is that the easiest way to get money for our national need over the last 40 years has been through oil. It is the easiest way to generate money. And that has permeated the entire section of the society and successive governments are falling into the trick of this mentality; that all they need to be in government is to be the chief accounting officer; collecting money and presiding over the distribution of such funds. We have been giving enough energy to this rather than to generate wealth and in spite of assurances from successive governments, we have not shown enough seriousness to diversify the economy particular to areas like agriculture, solid minerals, tourism, sports, human capital development and all other means of generating revenue for the government. We have been bedeviled by the crisis of easy access to funds. It will take quite some time before we get out of this but it has taken the country too long. And until we diversify, our economy will remain victim to the vicissitude of international trade. Every time there is a decline in the price of crude oil or there is a crisis in the volume of crude oil Nigeria is given the opportunity to export, they will easily go into crisis. Government needs to go beyond making promises about diversification; we need to pay more attention to agriculture; we need to outline the key projects.
Why are you not volunteering ideas?
When you support a government with ideas, it does not necessarily mean you do it in the public. You have different fora where people contribute ideas to government. Yes, I was Chief of Staff in Oyo State and I have also served as Special Assistant in the presidency. Given my background, I studied political science and I presently teach the same course at the Igbinedion University, Okada. So, at different fora, I do have access to make my own contribution.
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