Former Minister of Power, Prof Chinedu Nebo, in this interview with ABIODUN NEJO takes a look at Nigeria’s ethnicity issue, the politics of power supply and the need to focus on areas of comparative advantage, among others. Excerpts:
Some people have identified diversity as one of the country’s major problems, what is your take?
I do think that diversity is crucial to survival and striving. If you become monotonous in anything, it is so easy to burn out and run out of line, but if there is diversity: intellectual diversity, cultural diversity, bio diversity, orientational diversity as the case may be, and even religious diversity, you will see that people are stronger and better formed out. I think one of the best things that have happened to this country is in those days when people could be transferred to any part of the country. There weren’t such barriers in those days as they are now. State of origin didn’t come into it. I do hope that one day, people would be allowed to be the real indigenes of where they were born, not necessarily of where their father or mother or grandfather was born. So, I see the diversity that we have in Nigeria as a very strong point.
But why is it difficult for Nigeria to take advantage of that diversity for development?
Because we are too ethnic, everybody wants it to be my kin, my brother, my sister and my cousin. Let me take it from my angle, when I was vice chancellor of Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Ekiti State (FUOYE), It was not easy to be vice chancellor in Yoruba land. This is because the people thought that it was the wrong person that had come and that it should have been a Yoruba man. But if you think about it, it was very wise for the Federal Government to have chosen me as VC of FUOYE. I didn’t have any relative here, so I had nobody to bother me. I just had to work. I didn’t have any communal clashes to wade in, I didn’t have any distractions, all I did was work. And because I was here, I was able to reach out to people of other tribes of the country. You know if a Yoruba man has been here, it is possible he would have been able to get his own people around him. I had people from all tribes – Yoruba, Igbo, and also from the North. I believe that the university, because it comes from the word universe, must be universal. It is not a local thing, it is a university and so it should be for everybody. We don’t cultivate the habit of nationalism because we are too ethnic and that is the reason why we don’t do very well in research, and in production because we are always looking for people who speak our language and then this whole thing about federal character, that everything must be balanced. Sometimes, it is good, sometimes it is bad. I also heard somebody complaining the other day that the North is heavily marginalised in the Super Eagles, so why don’t you put more people there?
As if football or soccer or whatever depends on where you come from. No. We should put our best forward. That clanishness is what keeps us behind. But having been here, many people don’t realise it, you know that FUOYE is rated webometrically number 16 in the whole country, above most of the federal and state universities, that is the trajectory upon which we put it. I have that commitment even that I am away, I still have to raise funds for the Faculty of Engineering and I will continue to work to mentor this university because it is my baby and nobody can take that fact from me.
Some people say Igbos are sidelined in Buhari’s appointments, how true is this?
There is humour in everything! If you want to calm tensions, I use to describe three or four types of caps: The type my Yoruba brother here is wearing is what I call the OPC solidarity cap; the type I used to wear, I call it the marginalization; and the type that our Hausa brothers use to wear, we call it the power shift cap. So I use to describe the various caps to depict the place where you are coming from. You see, the Igbos are essentially marginalised, there is no doubt about that. But President Muhammadu Buhari hasn’t finished his appointments. I believe that by and large, he is going to accommodate the Igbos in his appointments. So, I don’t think there is any reason for anybody to worry over Buhari. Of course, he might be slow in doing, but the Igbos should also realise that the government jobs is not the best. My thoughts, my ideas about my Igbo people is that we should rather be the Taiwan or Japan of Africa by looking to the President for such thing because we need to be in areas of our best capacity, and I believe industrialisation is that area. So, I believe that Buhari would eventually open the door for the Ndigbos. Of course you know that the Igbos did not vote for him during the elections, so slowing down in appointing them would be humanly understandable, but because he is the father of the whole nation now,we expect that he would open the doors for all. We are all Nigerians, whether you voted for me or not, come let us work together and that is the way to build a formidable country.
Guess you will like to serve again if invited by Buhari?
Well, I’m not God. The body language that many are talking about does not indicate that they are looking for any of us, I mean the ministers under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. But the good news is that many of us are getting jobs internationally, but I am not really interested. I think I have paid my dues. I have been Vice Chancellor twice in two federal universities, and the universities I headed are among the top 16 in this country. I have paid my dues. I have been Minister of Power and by the grace of God, I helped to midwife the privatisation exercise that is improving the power sector now. I think I have done well. So, if I’m invited and I pray about it and the Lord gives me the leading, I would be happy to serve my country. I must be frank with you, I think I really deserve to be given time to do my own things now that I still have a lot of blood in my body and strong enough to continue for several years. I should be allowed to set up my own company, you know, do things that I know would be better for the country, would help create jobs for the young people because I will never stop mentoring the young people. I will always mentor the young people, whether in engineering, the power sector or especially the academia.
It is believed in many quarters that Buhari’s body language is responsible for the improved power situation at present, as former power minister, do you agree?
I don’t know the kind of body language that would turn around the system that took many years to be put in place and change it. Nobody’s language did that. The fact is, those who were sabotaging the power sector decided to stop. Only God knows who was doing it before, because as we talk today, not a single bursting of the gas pipeline has occurred since President Buhari’s inception. So, if it is the body language that is making the haters and traitors of Nigeria to stop, glory be to God. But I don’t think so, I think it is sabotage. Some people were orchestrating the sabotage because they didn’t like the previous government. Now that the previous government is no more, they feel that they have achieved their aim. But everything you are seeing today is a labour of the past administration. The current administration has not added any value to the current power situation in the country.
What should Buhari focus on to effect total transformation of the power sector?
President Buhari would do wonders in the sector if he promotes embedded generation and also strengthens the transmission infrastructure. Each power plant takes years of gestation, three years, four years , five year, six years to build a 4000 Megwatts station, if you decide to do 20 mega watts each, you can do like 50 of them in one year, that is 1000 megawatts in a year. You can as well do a hundred of them, 2000 megawatts in a year. So, Nigeria can leapfrog by doing embedded generation. One advice that I wish to also give is to change the requirement for licensing from one Megawatts to five megawatts so that nobody should ask to get a license if he is generating only five or less mega watts. Today, it is one megawatts and that doesn’t give a lot of incentives. Some industries need two to three megawatts and they go through the process of licensing and that takes time, so if you fix it at five mega watts, it would make the country leapfrog. So, I believe in embedded generation and the strengthening of the transmission infrastructure so that the power that is generated is easily transmitted. But embedded generation is something that is wonderful because you don’t need the transmission, it goes straight to distribution or it can be active power where you just give to manufacturing clusters, agricultural clusters, free trade zone clusters and things like that and you just give them power without any encumbrances. These are ways it can work. That means that the President should very strongly support the privatisation exercise.
After VC, ministerial, what next?
What I’m doing now is to set up an engineering consulting firm and I have been talking with international partners who are interested. A lot of things we will do would have to do with the Nigeria power sector because I think one of the greatest ways to leapfrog in industrial revolution is to get better power supply. At the same time, because of my deep concern about the marginalisation of the poor Nigerian-child whether in the village or rural areas or those who didn’t go to school where they are supposed to, I also want to be involved in developing the educational curricular and developing technical and digital devices that would help young people be able to pass their school certificate well, be able to pass their JAMB well and be able to go to the university.
National Mirror.
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