In this interview with CHIBUZO UKAIBE and IMMA IGBOKWE, national chairman of mega party, National Unity Party (NUP), Perry Opara, spoke on state of the economy and gave his verdict on the performance of the present administration as it clocks two years in office.
In a matter of weeks, this administration will have been in office for a second year, how would you assess this administration?
Before now, I have avoided assessing the government but I think this is the right time to now start looking at what they have done. I want to start by saying that it is unfortunate that they have inherited some of the things they did not expect. I know it took them aback. The only thing that was constant is terrorism and corruption, nothing changed about that. But in terms of provision of dividends of democracy and meeting up with electoral campaign promises they were taken aback. In terms of terrorism and fight against corruption, I give them pass mark. But the hardship in the land has increased. The economy has not been better managed and these are the ways I want to assess them. I want to give them two passes and two failures, they have not succeeded in bettering the lives of Nigerians, they have not succeeded in providing good economic blue print for Nigerians; for business men and private practitioners to buy into and plan their own lives. This has also affected the investment in Nigeria, it has affected the level of unemployment and the poor activities in foreign investments. But there is better security now than it was two years ago, the fight against corruption had increased, people are now afraid to get involved in corrupt practices be it at government, agencies or private individuals. People are now very conscious of what they do so I give them kudos on that. But I do know that is an unfortunate situation in the sense that our president had been around for election many times before he came on board and our president is not a very young man and he is not getting younger and our president came to find himself not to been too strong so he spent some time abroad taking care of himself and this affected a lot of things. But we give God the glory that he is healthy, he is alive and he is back. We thank God for making that possible. We don’t wish him dead, we don’t wish anything to happen to him but it is going to be a herculean task to combine campaign for 2019 and providing dividends of democracy. So I don’t know how that will figure it out. I think that they should look inwards and outwards at people who are at the helm of affairs and look for a way to add fresh blood. They should look for fresh ideas and ways to move forward. It does appear that things are moving a little bit slow. Efforts should be made to ensure that things move at a rapid pace. Nigerians want nothing but rapid development to reduce the hardship, if not totally eliminate it, that is my assessment of this government.
But do you think much will change in the next two years?
I think that the government is becoming more pro-active. The government is becoming more inward looking which has resulted in a some changes. It has resulted even in the exchange rate which has rekindled hope that there may be light at the end of the tunnel. But it is not enough. They should look inwards. They should bring in fresh blood with fresh ideas so that at the end of the day they will have something to campaign on. The only thing this government can campaign with in 2019, if it continues the way it is going, is security and anti-corruption. But I want them to improve in such a way that they can also say that since we came in, we have made the lives of Nigerians better and provided dividends of democracy. They have to do a lot of work to convince Nigerians on why they should allow them continue.
But there are concerns over the anti corruption war and security situation. In the case of anti corruption battle, there are no convictions so far, while on the security aspect, we have seen a rise in herdsmen and farmers clash and kidnapping?
Looking at security generally, not just terrorism, I think armed robbery and terrorism has reduced. We have not experienced serious bombing here and there like it used to be and I hear that the Boko Haram has been decimated which means it is under check. Even kidnapping has been reduced to a very low level and the Nigerian police are doing well. Nigerians are very happy with the military they are doing well. But that is not to say that it is perfect. It is not perfect. I feel very uncomfortable to see cattle around my residence. I don’t feel fine about that I find. It is very difficult to read the pages of newspaper and see people saying that their wives and daughters are being raped by certain people that are rearing cattle. I think the Federal Government needs to do something about that. Lately, I heard the National Assembly shouting and saying something has to done, but no situation is perfect. I still maintain that this particular government has done well with security but they need to do better with the herdsmen. In any case, after the herdsmen another thing will come up because society is dynamic. On the issue of anti corruption, they have done quite a lot. But you know we are not in a banana republic, we are not in a lawless society where you can just hack people down all in the name of anti-corrupt activities. We are in a situation were an accused is presumed innocent until convicted. Conviction takes a lot of time and even when you convict somebody, he has right of appeal. We are not in military regime, we are in a democratic system, so to that extent, we have seen a lot of revelation that people hide money inside suck-away. We never knew that people, instead of putting air conditions for humans to have good air, now put dollars in air conditioned rooms just to protect it. We are getting a lot of revelations and it is making Nigerians to be aware but I am thinking that something more has to be done. All the money that are being recovered should be plunged back into the society, so that our youths can get employment, and for people to begin to feel the impact of this government. Nigerians are suffering. The World Health Organization recently announced that 16 states in Nigeria will be facing famine. If care is not taken 16 states in Nigeria out of 36 states plus Abuja, which means we are not secure. I am thinking that efforts should be made to ensure that we look inward like what is happening in Kebbi, Anambra, Lagos. There is partnership between Kebbi government and Lagos State to produce rice. The Anambra State government is producing rice so when we produce and sell at affordable price, it will reduce the cost of living and people will have food sufficiency. There are other parts of the country that produce other things. They should start looking inward. They should not allow famine to kill our people. The price of things are high. You can’t buy beans which is the most common source of protein for children and now milk is very difficult to get. Garri has gone up, so Nigerians are suffering. I think there should be a way to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians.
In terms of injecting new blood and ideas for federal government to get things around, what kind of cabinet would you want to see if there is a shake up?
I will not be happy if Mr President does not change his cabinet. A little shake up in the cabinet is necessary. After two years, I expect a change. I expect him to inject some new blood. I expect him to get new people who can do the work. I expect him to begin to look at those areas that are not doing too well. I am not very proud of the economic team of this government. I am not very comfortable with their efforts. They should be made up of people who are taking care of our infrastructure. More effort should be put there, even though provision for infrastructure takes a little more time before you begin to see what is happening. Somebody was praising FCT minister for trying to complete abandoned project, that is the way to go. Instead of starting new ones, complete the old ones that were started by previous governments. When you do that it will provide employment opportunity, ease hardship in the land and there will be a lot of multiple effects to the citizens I think that is what I should expect.
What do you make of scenario playing out between the presidency and Senate over the confirmation of the acting EFCC chairman, Mr Ibrahim Magu?
I think part of the reasons why this government has not done very well as it should do was that the Senate was weak from day one. The Senate become a toothless bull dog, struggling to make peace with the executive and it affected the economy and the administration. For the government that was a mistake. If the senate had started work from day one by performing their oversight functions, knowing full well that they are the third arm of government, we would not have this scenario.
The only thing that makes a democracy thick is the legislature. In a dictatorship there is executive and judiciary. So the only thing that makes democracy is one arm of the government called the legislature and this legislative arm has oversight functions. There should be independence of the arms of government. They have power to even oversight Mr President. They have powers to reject bills coming from Mr President like the way is it done in America. You saw what happened to Obama care recently. The Republican Party controls the Senate and the House yet, the Obamacare reform process could not succeed, that is the beauty of democracy. Our Senate is waking up from their political slumber but that is not how it is done. Nobody should shake the legislature. It is the symbol of democracy. The legislature is the only arm of government that protects democracy and every constituency in Nigeria that is why they are many.