Maxi Sam Ohuabunwa, is seeking the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to contest the 2023 presidential election. A pharmacist by trade, the former chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has since commenced active consultation with stakeholders towards the realising his ambition. He sat through an interview to interrogate some of Nigeria’s problems and speaks on how he will solve them if given the opportunity. LEON USIGBE brings the excerpts.
What is your thought on zoning of the presidency to the Southeast?
I’ve written in my book, Nigeria, need for the evolution of a new nation, published in 2010, that given our level of political development; given our ethnic diversity, lack of effort to unite us and harmonise us; given the differences that exist in religion, that we need to organise the country in a manner that creates inclusiveness, that creates belongingness, where we protect the majority, we protect the minority. If we get to a point in our evolution as a nation, zoning and exclusion will become irrelevant. But the way it is today, you cannot have a wholesome nation if you do not have the opportunity to exclude and zone. That’s why I think framers of the 1999 Constitution as incompetent, as it is, provided for the federal character. What’s the essence of federal character? Federal character is no single group, ethnic or religious group or racial or tribal group should dominate public space, public office. Therefore, federal character is applicable to the office of the president. It is occupied by one person at a time. It means that no one group can continue to produce the president all the time. It is a way for the groups to understand how to rotate so that every part of the country can feel that they belong to the nation. If there is no federal character, then we would have found our civil service manned by predominantly, by a group of people. Even with all the federal character, we see how it is being done. In some cases, federal character is being ignored. But for me, it is important that we zone till we get to every zone of the nation.
If every zone has had the opportunity to produce the president of the country, we can then decide collectively again that we no longer want to zone. It’s not when it is your own turn that you say it’s your turn. When it’s another person’s turn, you start preaching that we should stop zoning. It cannot be done unilaterally. We all must agree. For example, PDP has in their constitution, rotation of power, moving it north and south. How can they come in the middle of the day and tell you stories? I believe that one day zoning will end. And it will not end by what we are doing. It will end by doing what others that have ended zoning did.
A Nigerian wife goes to America, goes to the United Kingdom (UK), almost nine months pregnant, she delivers on arrival. That child becomes a citizen of America, a citizen of the UK. But here in Nigeria, even if your great grandparents or grandparents come from somewhere, Nigerians will say that’s where you come from. There’s no reference that you were born here. So, that segregation cannot unite the nation. And when it cannot unite the nation, we must find, devise or design ways to live happily and to live in unity. So, zoning is important for our grade and level of development until we get to where we no longer care where people come from. Then, zoning will become irrelevant. Right now, the South-East is one of the zones that has not received it and since the presidency is in the North, it should come the South. And if it comes the South, law of equity says it is South-East.
What is your view on consensus candidacy? Do you subscribe to the idea of selecting a candidate by consensus rather than dissipating energy on primaries?
Before you get to the issue of people agreeing, you must see who they are, you must understand who they are, and it is not just for a few political people to sit together and say ‘it is this man.’ What is the man going to deliver? How does it relate to the needs of the society, the needs of the nation? So, that consensus concept does not arise because we may end up making the wrong choices and using the wrong criteria for selecting the so-called consensus. That is why we wanted direct primary. Let the people who own the party decide based on what they think the person is offering. What is he coming with? What solution he has, what is his pedigree? Where is he coming from? What has he done before? What is his competence level? What is his character? What is his courage level? What is his vision? I think we should interrogate those things before we talk about sitting down in a room and sharing money and sharing positions and then, people go home. That is what has kept us this way. So, let dissipate energy and let the people of Nigeria decide who has the superior presentation or who has a superior vision or who has a potential to solve their problems. That is what we are looking for.
You want to be the president of Nigeria at a time the country is rated one of the most corrupt in the world. How do you hope to tackle corruption?
There are four demons buffeting this country and we need to exorcise them because if you do not exorcise them, Nigeria will not get well. First demon is poverty. I will come to that. Second demon is corruption. Third demon is injustice, and the fourth demon is insecurity. We have spoken about insecurity and may be some bit of poverty. When it comes to corruption, sir, do you realize that in Nigeria, corruption has become endemic? Many Nigerians do not differentiate between corruption and lack of it. Do you know that the only corruption they see is the one you are committing, not the one they are committing. There are three things causing corruption in our country. Number one is poverty. And that poverty is related to those who have work and are paid starvation wages and those who have no work at all. So, they must balance their budget. They must eat. They have children. They have house rents to pay. So, if they cannot get the money in genuine way and opportunity comes, they will take it no matter their level of religiosity. So, we are going to deal with corruption holistically. Number one is, we are going to make sure that every Nigerian adult has a means of livelihood. That is where we are going to start. And it is going to start from when they are in school. We are going to change the orientation of our education. People should not go to school to cram up things and come and recite and get first class and yet, they cannot solve any single problem. Our educational re-orientation would be, you are going to school to do two things; first, to learn how to solve problems; two, to learn how to create wealth. That is all. That is educational orientation – how to solve problem for society, how to create wealth. So, you cannot come out of school and become part of the problem. You come from school, and you have solutions to the problems of the society including how you can create wealth, whether you are doing geology pharmacy, engineering, English Language, history, Philosophy, Igbo language, whatever course, you will in your final year, if you are a tertiary institution, you will develop business plan, not project.
Right now, the country is bedeviled by insecurity: the North-East, North-West, South-East, everywhere. If you become president, how will you handle the situation?
Insecurity has a causative reason. Nothing happens without a reason. Every act has a consequence. Even physics talks about it that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Insecurity in Nigeria is caused by several factors. The way to stop them is to look at those causative factors and remove them. I am a pharmacist, I am a healthcare professional and part of our training is to look for the cause of a disease, look for the cause of a problem, not just treat symptoms because if you treat symptoms, it just gets temporary relief, but the disease will stay and may worsen. The first thing that I am going to do if I become president is to first secure the nation. Securing the nation will require two immediate things I will do. I am going to invest on intelligence because the people causing us this problem, most of them dwell in our territories. As someone used to say, ‘armed robber no be spirit, na person.’ If we have such intelligence, we will find out where they are, what they are doing and then use our security forces to nip them. One thousand trained intelligence professionals would rout these guys out wherever they are.
So, I will invest in intelligence gathering. It will not just be physical intelligence gathering only, you also use technology to gather intelligence. So, I am going to invest on technology. It will help intelligence gathering and will help to deal with these miscreants wherever they are located. Because today, you do not even need the infantry, you do not need physical contact with your target. With technology, you can locate where he is, with armored drones and such other sophisticated equipment, you can take the person out precisely, without even seeing him or going there. Assuming Nigerians are so disoriented, demotivated, it will now show whether they are ready to move forward. While we are going to deal to the problem, we go to the next stage which is re-orientating our military, our security forces, revamping them, re-kitting them, retraining them, re-motivating them, ensuring that they are assured that they are working for a nation that values them, they are assured that they have an insurance that if anything goes wrong with them whether it is disability or mortality that they or their families will not suffer. We will let them know that even while they are alive that they live well. We pay them good salaries, good wages, kit them very well, give them comfortable abode, make them enjoy because they are doing job that they could die tomorrow. While they are alive, let them live well. So, when you guarantee a soldier or a security man good living while he is alive and you promise that his family would not be left uncared for, he would jump to anywhere you ask him to go.
and then