President Goodluck Jonathan, in this exclusive interview with JONATHAN POWER, a syndicated foreign affairs columnist and commentator, speaks on how his administration has succeeded in tackling corruption, especially on fertiliser procurement and distribution, and why the security threat posed by the Boko Haram sect remains a hard nut to crack, among other national issues. Excerpt.
You have a country with an image problem – crime, slums, poverty, corruption and poor governance. I have just been to Calabar, a city with one million people. I was amazed. I had never seen anything like it in Africa, and I have been travelling all over Africa for decades. It is so well run: the streets are clean; no potholes; there are trees and flowers planted all over…;? has well controlled traffic; hardly any slums; good health facilities centres and schools for all and a low crime rate. Along the river front, there is a beautiful esplanade. Why can’t all Nigerian cities be like Calabar?
The states in our federal structure are literally autonomous. They are not under the direct control of the federal government. Our history has been truncated by military intervention.
That is why there was very little competition between the states. That is why you didn’t see other states getting to the level of Calabar. But now, you will see other states coming up. There is competition. Look at Lagos – a city of 15 million people, the streets are cleaner, the slums are smaller, the traffic flows more easily, there are bus lanes, trees have been planted along the main roads and crime is down. Now, every state wants to do the same. Abuja, our nation's capital, is rather like Calabar in many ways.
Cross River State, of which Calabar is the capital, in terms of the revenue they get from the centre, it's quite low; but they have spent it well during the rule of two progressive governors. They set their eyes on tourism to increase the amount of investment in the state.
What does it take today to get other cities to be like Calabar?
It is commitment. Other cities could be developed to the level of Calabar.
I have heard repeatedly? that half the governors are corrupt. For years, not much has happened in the north because the corruption has been so extensive. How can you replicate Calabar when that is the situation?
Yes, I agree. Transparency International speaks of our corruption everywhere, not just the governors. Our rating is totally unacceptable. Corruption is not just a group of people.
Look at fertiliser. When government used to distribute it, there was a lot of corruption. Today, the farmer buys fertiliser directly from the manufacturers and dealers. The government subsidies the fertiliser. We give farmers tokens so they can buy it and cut out the middleman. So corruption is reduced.
That is exactly what I want to do with the oil? and banking sectors. There are massive corrupt practices there.
To make a state rich does not require so much money. Most of our towns, except Lagos and Kano, are not very big. I don’t think the issue is corruption per se alone – it is commitment; but now, you see this in many states. You see this in Uyo, capital of Akwa Ibom State.
Port Harcourt was a total mess when I visited there four years ago.
It was a garden city before the civil war. Then they began to call Port Harcourt a garbage city. In the? past four years the administration has worked very hard. They are developing monorail, and the general cleanliness of the city has improved significantly. They want to get it back to a garden city status.
The city is the centre of the oil industry, so you expect the good, the bad and the ugly.
When these armed militant gangs started, they complained that their areas were not benefiting from infrastructure and development and the land was being ruined by oil spills.
Some of them were bad eggs, kidnapping oil workers and demanding ransoms.
This insurgency went on for at least 10 years. Your predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo, tried to deal with it. His successor, Umaru Yar’Adua made a lot of progress. And it was his controversial “buying off” the leadership that quietened the situation. But Obasanjo told me he was critical of it. An important principle is lost when you start to pay them off. It sets a precedent for blackmail and other groups like Boko Haram, the extremist Islamic movement in the north, will emulate it. And since the last two weeks I have been here, there have been newspaper reports about a rekindling of the insurgency. Some felt left out of the pay-offs.
Amnesties are done all over the world. It is not 'paying off'. The Niger Delta militants were making a lot of money from illegal bunkering.
To get these people out of this, we send them for training here and abroad and pay them monthly allowance for training.? But once they get a job, they are on their own.
And what about the rekindling of this insurgency?
When the late president, Yar’Adua, announced a particular date for the amnesty: if you gave up your weapons, you were then registered and then you would be trained.
Most went along with this, but some doubted government’s sincerity. So, they refused. But they were in small groups of 15 or 50 men each with a leader who calls himself a “general”.
Many researchers have concluded that Nigeria is the most religiously minded country in the world. How do so many people see this as compatible with corruption? How do Nigerians who go to church or mosque reconcile this with their beliefs?
It is contradictory. The world is a strange place. The whole world is full of contradictions.
What legacy did you inherit from the democratically elected Obasanjo and Yar’Adua?
The acceptance of the rule of law was one of the key legacies,? and the growing acceptance of electoral laws since the presidency of Yar’Adua. The most recent election was recognised as fair all over the world.
The world and Nigerians have accepted them. We inherited from Obasanjo reforms in agriculture, power and the economy. Look at manufacturing – for example, cement,? we are now export it. We are trying to do the same with rice and sugar. I can’t remember anything negative.
Let’s talk about Boko Haram, the extremist Islamic grouping in the north that has blown up churches while their congregations prayed and, strangely, killed Muslim innocents. You have said it is a challenge to the country comparable with the civil war. But a couple of days ago, I spoke with the governor of one of the most affected northern states, Yobe, and he argued that Nigeria was taking control of the problem.
To deal with Boko Harem is more difficult than dealing with the civil war. With civil war, you know where the enemies are and what weapons they have; but with Boko Haram, you don’t know from which direction they are coming. It might be the cleaner in your house or the maid looking after your children. They could plant a bomb.
But I do agree with the governor of Yobe State; the government is not sleeping; government is fighting. We are getting help from neighbouring countries because they don’t want Boko Haram to take root. Before now, insurgents could go into Cameroon and hide, but now we have that route completely blocked.
Southern Chad was a haven but no longer. They have gone into Kano and killed Muslims randomly. So, what is the justification? Most Muslims are very angry. Gradually, we are getting it under control.
Is there support from Al Qaeda or the Somali militants?
Yes, of course. Some (sect members)are being trained in Nigeria, but most are being trained in some parts of North Africa and Somalia.
People say Boko Haram thrives on the poverty of the north: people there are living without much work or schools or health clinics.
I am not one who associates crime with poverty. Yes, it correlates with poverty where the means of survival are difficult, but this excessive violence of Boko Haram is beyond poverty. Some of the leaders of Boko Haram are medical doctors.
The violence is a psychological problem. You probably know of that church in Latin America where the whole congregation committed suicide by drinking poison under the influence of its leader. Someone came with some strange ideas and some people are very gullible.
How does Boko Haram survive? How do they eat and buy the fertiliser they use for explosives? The rifle is expensive. I don’t think it’s poverty per se.
I agree that whilst you have poverty and degradation of the environment, people who can’t make a living and young people who have no jobs, violence? appeals to some.
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What are you going to doabout this extreme poverty?
We have a special provision for agriculture. We plan to refine all our petroleum needs. We are looking into petrol-chemicals and being able to export petrol-chemicals and fertiliser.
We launched a programme today to create temporary jobs for young people. We are encouraging companies to adopt them. We will give the companies an allowance; then overtime, companies can train them and decide to keep them.
Also, we will recruit them for building sanitation projects, primary schools, health centres, planting flowers and trees for beautification. We will pay them an allowance.
Over the long term, this is not sustainable but they will be trained to be skilled workers as carpenters, builders, plumbers, etc.
But what specifically are you doing about agriculture? Planting trees is not enough.
The area where we can create massive employment is in agriculture. We want all our irrigation projects to become functional.
We want to be able to export more of our products. We are looking at agriculture as a business, not just farming.
The non-oil sector is already the main driver of growth, with increased crop production being an important part of it. Food inflation has fallen.
This season, we are subsidising the interest rate on farmers’ loans, to bring it down from 15per cent to seven per cent per annum. We are going to guarantee, through the banking sector, 70 per cent of the principal of all loans for the supply of seeds and fertiliser
I know you have cut your own salary by 25 per cent but the discrepancy of wealth in Nigeria is obscene. Parliamentarians have too many allowances. Bankers and industrialists make fortunes. The government’s bureaucracy is bloated. What are you doing about it?
If you talk about bloated salaries, I don’t agree with you. About three years ago, the chairman of the Revenue? Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission once took Obasanjo to court for spending money that belonged to states and local governments.
So, he is not someone who plays into the hands of government. But he said that once you compare these salaries with other African countries, Nigerians are the least paid.
But what people look at here are high allowances, travelling, overheads. The issue is not salaries.