There's No Governance Right Now

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Chido Onuma, media practitioner and author of the book, Time To Reclaim Nigeria spoke with our Abuja Bureau Chief, Oluokun Ayorinde on the media, politics and the need for a national conference

What is the African Centre for Media Information and Literacy all about?

It is basically a media training institute. We are involved in the issue of information dissemination as well as training of journalists and also the public on issues around media and media literacy.

The Centre is dedicated to the new media generally, issues of the media, Internet and computer-assisted reporting and how that affects the work of journalists. Also, we do a lot of work in training young people to be media savvy.

As somebody who has practised as a journalist and is now involved in the area of training, what would be your assessment of the present landscape of the media in Nigeria?

The Nigerian media has always been robust, one of the most diverse if you look at the media landscape around the world. If you talk about the media in the United States, in places like India, some of the biggest democracies; the media has played a very prominent role as far as the enthronement of democracy is concerned in Nigeria. They were in the forefront of the fight against military dictatorship in Nigeria, the support they gave to the pro-democracy and the human rights groups was quite enormous and over time, they have managed to find a way to leverage on the acceptability by the Nigerian people of the work they are doing.

The only drawback though is, like every other thing, the media itself is affected by the things that are happening in Nigeria. So, they are victims of the poor leadership, lack of seriousness on the part of the government to make this country work. So, you find that there are media houses that hardly pay salaries, journalists plying their trade without the necessary materials and equipment they need to carry out their jobs. So, to an extent, that has affected the work of journalists.

But having said that, by and large, the Nigerian media remains one of the most vibrant, one of the most focused, and one of the most consistent in terms of its support for the civil society and the mass of the Nigerian people.

What is the idea behind your new book, Time To Reclaim Nigeria …because some are even saying there is nothing to reclaim…

It’s a very good question you have asked. I remember when the book was first presented to the public in December, Governor Rauf Aregbesola was the keynote speaker and it became an issue that you can’t reclaim what you didn’t really own; that what is behind this idea about reclaiming Nigeria?

My attitude is that whether we like to accept it or not, the country is not where it ought to be. More than 50 years after independence, we are still struggling with the basics of nationhood. You are here now, this is a workplace, we’ve not had light all day. Even the generator had worked throughout the night that it packed up and it has to be serviced.

That’s how bad it is. And here, you are even talking about a major city of the country. You can imagine the situation with people who live in the hinterlands, who live in the rural areas. Look at education, our educational system has all but collapsed. The Minister of Education came out some days ago to say that they are going to sanction private institutions because of their exorbitant fees. But the question is: Why do people go to private institutions? Is it not because the public schools have collapsed? So, instead of trying to focus on the reasons for the shift to private education, you are trying to solve a problem that you can’t solve.

People build schools and there is demand for public education, people will look for money to send their children there. A lot of us grew up in the era when public education was very effective in Nigeria. I benefited from it, but all that is gone. So, rather than focusing on that, we are chasing shadows. The same thing goes for the level of poverty in the country, youth unemployment. So, rather than making progress, the country has actually gone backwards in the last decade or so. Things are getting worse.

The thrust of this book basically is to say that how do we reclaim what we had 15-20 years ago, making some progress and suddenly it came to an end, so to say. How do we get it back? How do we bring back Nigeria, so that we can collectively work together to make this country a global contender, because right now, we are not.

We just like to claim we are the giant of Africa; we are the most populous black nation in the world. But that counts for nothing when you look at, for instance, there is a list of the best 1,600 universities in the world and no Nigerian university, with all the oil money we have, with all the resources, with all the academics we have, no Nigerian university ranked among them. So, the country has actually taken a nose-dive.

Things have gone from bad to worse and there is urgent need for us to go back to that era when the country meant something. But having said that, I am also even looking at the political arena —even though we have democracy, things are really not well with the country. Different groups whether you talk about MEND, MASSOB, the OPC, Boko Haram, everybody is pulling the country from different angles.

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No country survives in such a situation. People go out for their daily activities everyday, not knowing what will befall them, not sure whether they will come back home safely to their families. No country survives that way. You can imagine how that will affect foreign investments in this country. You go around Abuja, most sections of the city have been cordoned off. It is so difficult to access traffic because either the major security agencies, the Police and Army, or the Central Bank has cordoned off a portion of the road. That is what you get when a country is at war. Nobody agrees that this country is at war.

But Nigeria is really at war, whether we like it or not. So, how do we get the country back to the stage that people can begin to function normally? That’s really the focus of the book.

Based on your perception, would you say governments at various levels are really working to reclaim Nigeria?

Nothing has shown that. Of course, you may have one or two people, maybe some governors, members of the National Assembly who are working to move the country forward. But they are just like one out of a hundred and they really can’t make any difference. If you look at the generality of the political class in this country, there is nothing that gives you an indication that this country would move forward if we continue the way we are going.

There is no governance going on as I am talking to you now. Everybody is talking about 2015, so they are amassing wealth, they are stealing as much as they can because they know they need so much money to prosecute the election.

So, that is what governance is, barely one year into the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. People are already doing all kinds of permutations, holding midnight meetings.

So, the act of governance has ceased. There is nothing that gives any inkling that those who run this country are interested in moving it forward. No, it is not in their interest to do so and that is why I think there is a need for serious intervention. My attitude is that people should forget about 2015 because we do not have a country. We just have a country in name called Nigeria. Nobody feels any patriotic zeal towards this country and that is why people will steal N3.5 billion from the national treasury and store it in their bedroom, because they think that this country will collapse tomorrow.

And at the end of the day, you arrest them and take them to court, but nothing will happen. So, it is important that people wake up from their slumber and realise that this country might actually collapse before our very eyes. Now, some people are saying if their side of the country doesn’t get the presidency, they will make Nigeria ungovernable. The other side is saying it is our time to be President. What time do you have for development, what time do you have to work in the interest of the country? So, people should call themselves to order and say ‘look, do we have a country called Nigeria that we want to salvage?’ Now is the time to salvage it.

What roles do you think the masses should play in this since the political class is always obsessed with how to get into or remain in office as you have also analysed?

Again, you raised a very important point and that is why I think this book is very timely, both in terms of content and the title. For me, this goes beyond mere journalistic work. It is great, it’s fine, it’s the result of many years of writing and so on. But I am first a political person before I am a journalist, so the book is to help start a debate, it is a wake-up call and that’s what we are hoping for after the public presentation in Lagos on Saturday, 14 April.

We have put together an array of who is who in the Nigerian society, from the former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to the present Governor, Babatunde Fashola. There will also be representations from different political parties. We have the APGA representative in Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, the PDP’s Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, the Femi Falanas, Tunji Braithwaite, Ben Nwabueze and others who have all agreed to come together. But we are not limiting it to them.

We have students’ leaders, market women, Okada associations will be invited. Let people come and let’s have a national dialogue or discussion. Already, there is a serious conversation along the line of a sovereign national conference and I have written quite a bit on that, and I am one of the major supporters of the need for a national conference in Nigeria.

So, we are hoping that this can form the basis of that debate, because the alternative is anarchy or war or violence. So, if we don’t want that, what we can do now is to start off as a small group. You have Babangida or Abdusalam, for example, they are meeting, they have a committee in a particular section of the country and these are people who were leaders of this country. So, why can’t they put together an all encompassing platform or forum for all Nigerians? If you solve the problem of one section of the country, what happens to the other sections?

So, my attitude is, let us bring everybody together to the table and tell us what their issues are, what do they want? If people say they want to secede, of course, they have the right within the context of the Nigerian state to do that, so let us not be quibbling and talking in our bedroom, it won’t solve any problem.

If you want to turn Nigeria into a religious state, you have the right to make that demand, people also have the right to question you, that this place belongs to all of us, why do you want to take it all to yourself? You advance your reasons and if it doesn’t work out, then we know how to go about it. So, that’s the essence of this —we shouldn’t be afraid of any dialogue or debate, let people come out and discuss.

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