OUR OVERHEAD COST IS CRIMINALLY HIGH-KAKA
Alhaji Sefiu Adegbenga Kaka is a former deputy governor of Ogun State. He also represented Ogun East in the 7th Senate between 2011 and 2015. In this interview with AYO ESAN , he speaks on the $2.1bn arms scandal, the recent visit of IMF Managing Director to Nigeria , the clash between the Shi’ite sect and the Army among other issues of national importance. Excerpts:
I believe also like those who are skeptical that IMF and the World Bank don’t have absolute solution to our problems , So the solution is within us.
IMF Managing Director, Ms Christine Lagarde recently came to the country on official tour and many Nigerians were skeptical of her visit because of their past experience during the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida when IMF conditionality led to hardship. How will you react to Lagarde’s visit to Nigeria?
First and foremost, IMF is for committee of nations, and Nigeria is one of them. So any IMF officials should be free to visit Nigeria. So I don’t see anything wrong but if it is the issue of IMF recommending solutions to our problems that is where we have to be circumspect, in the sense that one, IMF is dominated by the advanced countries. Most of the experiences IMF and World Bank are having they are the one concerned with the happenings in advanced countries. Those advanced countries have well established system. There are necessary infrastructure already in place to key into whatever prescription IMF and World Bank will be giving . So as a result coming to our own crawling economy and then prescribing medicine for us, we just have to be careful. It is in that line, that I would say the government of the day should be careful and be very watchful of the type of prescription they would be taken from the IMF and the World Bank. We have had it before under Babangida .
IMF may be having good intention for us but like the Hausa man would say, you are recommending a medicine for me, have you suffered the same ailment I had. Did you used the same medicine, did the medicine cure your ailment before you can give me that medicine. So this time around all those people from IMF prescribing for countries , all those officials have they gone through what we are going through, was the same medicine prescribed for them and did it cure their problems. So if not we should be contented with our home grown solution . Our problem is peculiar, we created problems for ourselves, so our solution should be within us . And I am sure the president is capable of doing that .
So if IMF want to assist, we should take their assistance with a pinch of salt because he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches most . We have experimented before with Okonjo Iweala from World Bank and we have seen what happened . Even though we trusted the economy into Okonjo –Iweala’s hands as the coordinating minister, yet we find ourselves in the mess that we are in. I believe also like those who are skeptical that IMF and the World Bank don’t have absolute solution to our problems , So the solution is within us.
There is an ongoing probe into the $2.1bn arms scam, most of the people that were arrested so far are from the main opposition party, the PDP and one of them who was recently released on bail and he is facing charges in court, Dr Raymond Dokpesi said the probe is just a way by the APC-led government to decimate the PDP leadership and membership. What is your take on that?
Sincerely speaking this is an issue that is already before the law court so ordinarily we should not pass any comment on it. But from the political and social angle I will say that rather than trying to hide under politics, ethnicity or whatever I believe if somebody is made allegations against , the best thing for the person is to go and clear him or herself. The law is no respecter of anybody, and it does not presume anybody is guilty, nobody is proclaimed to be guilty until proving so. We still believe that all those being arrested are still innocent. But like I said in one of my interview before now, if it was the PDP that was in the saddle for 16 years and we found ourselves in the mess we are in, I don’t expect members of that party to be saying that arrest or suscipicion were channeled against their party or to destroy their party. They don’t expect the government of the day to go after the then opposition and if there is any member of the opposition who either cross over to the ruling party or whatever, if there is anyone that is involved naturally if need be they will be handled or they, PDP members can equally fingered them out like the president said . That is just the way I feel we should rest the case.
Ogun state chapter of the Social Democratic Party, SDP has disassociated itself from the N100m collected from Chief Tony Anenih by Chief Olu Falae. The money is said to be from the $2.1bn arms fund. As a chieftain of the party what is the correct position on this?
It is the party executives that are competent to speak on this, as I don’t have information on this.
The INEC under the new boss, Professor Mahmood Yakubu had just conducted two elections in Kogi and Bayelsa . How will you assess its performance?
In any administration there is continuity. Mahmood Yakubu has just come on board and he met all the structure on ground. Not much changes happened except for few new INEC electoral commissioners that were appointed. But we have left over from Professor Attahiru Jega, so we can say that the two elections conducted in Kogi and Bayelsa were still being done by Jega’s team, only the head has changed . So within that limit, I still believe they are following what they are doing and we should give INEC under Mahmood Yakubu a chance to stabilize and to show its true colour . So I haven’t seen anything that is so critically important as to start doubting his integrity .
But the first election in Kogi was declared inconclusive and there had to be a supplementary election. The same thing happened in Bayelsa . Do you think INEC will be able to conduct a general election with its performance in these staggered elections?
Even if it is general election and there is reason to remove ambiguity I believe we should go the whole hog to ensure that possible ambiguities are removed. And after doing that, to show that they are transparently honest any other thing that happened will be resolved at the tribunal . So what INEC is trying to do the way I see it is that they were trying to do a thorough job.
In that of Kogi , the general consensus was that they ought to have declared the winner of the election. But after conducting the supplementary election though at the expense of tax payers’ money, possible ambiguity were removed . Some people were saying 49,000 votes were in contention, some were saying 25, 000 votes but when the election was conducted, only 11,000 people voted . So they have removed that ambiguity and with the benefit of the hindsight, anything that could be done to remove ambiguity should be done. But let give INEC chance to prove itself.
There is this plan of the national assembly to spend about N4.7bn on vehicles. You are once in the Senate; do you think this is normal with the economic situation of the country?
I am sure they haven’t passed the budget yet . How much is in that edge I won’t know but let us do a little arithmetic. Assuming each of the car would cost probably N10m to N15m, whichever way . If it is N10m for roughly 500 people in both chambers, we would be talking of about N5bn . And if it is at N15m depending on the brand of the vehicles they are buying, we will be talk ing about N7.5bn . So the figure is just not normal. And I don’t want to talk on it until we know the quantity of the vehicles they want to buy , the brand of the vehicles and the total number of people that will get the vehicles. It is a simple mathematics, we can calculate it and we will be able to know whether it is right or it is not right . But the President even said with the allowances they are collecting, the figure for the cars’ purchase is too high We have said it times without number that our overhead cost is criminally high . So if it is too high and is telling on our economy there is the need for sacrifice from everybody without exception whether in the private sector or in the public sector . We need to do away with our ostentatious lifestyle . We need to boycott the boycottables and we need to ensure that our insatiable veracious appetite for foreign goods and services are tamed so that we would have enough to plough back. Without money nothing can be done . So we need money and once you are able to mop up the money and you are channeling it to the right course , then the future will be easy for us
From what is happening, the Federal government may likely remove subsidy on petroleum products. What do you think is the best way to guarantee regular supply of petroleum products in the country?
I have said it times without number and it will be like repeating oneself. I personally have been saying it for the past 10 years that I don’t believe that there is any subsidy left to be removed because the cost of production is predominantly accounted for by the raw material which is the crude oil . So assuming that we are producing locally, assuming that all the leakages are blocked, all the inefficiency within our system are blocked, all the turn- around maintenance maneuvering are effectively done I am sure we won’t be talking of subsidy . If subsidy is the difference between what should be and what the government wants it to be, then the unit cost of production should be the one to determine what we are doing with ourselves.
In America I think when the price of crude was about 120 dollars per barrel, the price of four litres was about four dollars, 26 cents. When the price now came to 40, 35 dollars per barrel automatically right now in America I think it is about 88 cents to a litre. So if those ones are responsive and we make our own also to be responsive to changes I am sure we won’t be talking of removing subsidy. It is a non-existing subsidy and in the interest of the common man interest that is supposed to be protected, there is nothing we are subsidizing. But the question remains that the cost of having to ship the raw materials that will be used locally abroad and then bring back the refined product back to the country with all the attending costs elements that is what we need to remove. All the leakages, we need to remove them so that we can make our refinery work and I believe that all the money we have squandered in the past on subsidy, they are more than enough to give us small to medium scale refineries to be scattered all over the country. If the same economists were telling us privatise this , privatise that so what stops us from privatize the refineries . What stops us from going ahead to build new ones and either sell it outrightly or privatise it, provided we are sincere because all the privatization done we have a lot of shoddy jobs done there whereby our collective patrimony were given as a giveaway if not outrightly free to our so called pseudo- entrepreneurs. So those are the areas we need to address.
For the solution to the continuous scarcity of petroleum products, it is never too late. With what we still have, there is no alternative to local production or local refined of our crude oil. That will eliminate a lot of wastages in terms of cost. It will generate the much needed employment, rather than allowing the shipment abroad, it will generate employment for other people locally. And if the need be, within our neighbouring countries if there are any idle functional refineries we can lease them . So this thing is so simple it is because we are not sincere.
My expectations revolves around fostering a positive attitudinal changes that can help the Nation rationalise frivolous spending, tame our insatiable appetite for foreign goods and services
Recently there was this clash between the Shi’ites and the Army in Zaria. Many people are having the fear that the issue if not well handled by the government may lead to another insurgency like that of Boko Haram . What is your view about this?
God will not allow such to happen again. The experience of Boko Haram may we never witnessed it again. Like we are talking about fuel subsidy, we are talking about insecurity and with the revelation we had recently , we should know that something is fundamentally wrong with us. Ability of people to commit crime with impunity is our limiting factor . The insecurity that we are having, even if the Shiite members have committed any offence, we are told that they are not just starting, then why now that the country is under a fragile system that such a thing should be precipitated . Again, the issue of insecurity is the issue bothering on religion that must be handled very carefully. No country survives religious war and we must not encourage such a thing. I am a Muslim and to the best of my knowledge Worldwide Islam is one. If there is any extremism, we ought to have tamed them not allowing them to blossom, then we now mishandle it to create problem for us. So with proper orientation of various religious sects, even traditional religious sect, I am sure we will discover that we don’t have any problem with whichever denomination we belong. Shiite is a mere denomination.
So I am not saying what happened in Zaria is good or bad but the most important thing is let us handle it with utmost care and then be careful not to precipitate another crisis akin to the Boko Haram insurgency that you have just mentioned.
How will you assess President Muhammadu Buhari in the last seven months ?
Assessing him in the last seven months I will say it is because we are in hurry. He has just presented his first budget and within the first budget, engineering and re-engineering , financial re-engineering is still going on . So to say now that we are assessing, on what ground are we going to assess him? Will he be based on the budget prepared by his predecessor which was totally truncated by all the assumption upon which it was based.
So let us wait for the passing of the budget , let’s see the physical discipline they are going to bring into the implementation of the budget . And let us see whether they are going to get the priority right because the administration seems to be coming on the back of a populist programme, but the reality may be proving otherwise . So they may need to modify a lot and since they didn’t create the problem we are in, we must give them the benefit of doubt to do the necessary engineering , so that our judgement will not be flawed.
So what is your expectation from Buhari administration in 2016?
My expectations revolves around fostering a positive attitudinal changes that can help the Nation rationalise frivolous spending, tame our insatiable appetite for foreign goods and services, tone down on ostentatious lifestyle and embrace the enthronement of the rule of law in our day to day life both in public and private sectors.
I also want us to make quantifiable efforts to regain lost opportunities rather than engaging in rhetorical blame game. Opportunities once lost can hardly be regained. Yes hardly! But with tenacity of purpose and divine intervention all things are possible. After losing the golden opportunity to diversify with crude oil windfall that span 15years, and failing to make our hays when the sun was shining most. What we need to do now, is to conscientiously humble ourselves to endure the inevitable hardship with complete submission to the will of God, for future reprieve and ease.
We must also learn to put our horses before the carts and not vice-versa, by ensuring that necessary infrastructures are put in place for purposeful oil and gas policy to work, and for power, solid minerals, and agricultural exploration and exploitation ventures to thrive, before deployment of those jargons about diversification, deregulation, removal of non-existing subsidy on petroleum products, and open /global market participation, could have any meanings. The various sectors have respective gestation periods that cannot be short-circuited, ranging somehow, between 4-8years. Hence, real medium to long term plans are required and not just annual budget rituals.
We must as a matter of necessity learn to crawl like a baby, before wanting to run. I love to see the formulation and implementation of a workable economic plans, adaptable to our culture and values rather than pandering to the IMF or World Bank prescriptions. Those prescriptions are mainly suitable for advanced economies with established systems and infrastructures needed for success. May God direct us unto the right path, the path of those He had bestowed His favour not of those who had gone astray. Nigeria greatness is in our collective hands
I believe also like those who are skeptical that IMF and the World Bank don’t have absolute solution to our problems , So the solution is within us.
First and foremost, IMF is for committee of nations, and Nigeria is one of them. So any IMF officials should be free to visit Nigeria. So I don’t see anything wrong but if it is the issue of IMF recommending solutions to our problems that is where we have to be circumspect, in the sense that one, IMF is dominated by the advanced countries. Most of the experiences IMF and World Bank are having they are the one concerned with the happenings in advanced countries. Those advanced countries have well established system. There are necessary infrastructure already in place to key into whatever prescription IMF and World Bank will be giving . So as a result coming to our own crawling economy and then prescribing medicine for us, we just have to be careful. It is in that line, that I would say the government of the day should be careful and be very watchful of the type of prescription they would be taken from the IMF and the World Bank. We have had it before under Babangida .
IMF may be having good intention for us but like the Hausa man would say, you are recommending a medicine for me, have you suffered the same ailment I had. Did you used the same medicine, did the medicine cure your ailment before you can give me that medicine. So this time around all those people from IMF prescribing for countries , all those officials have they gone through what we are going through, was the same medicine prescribed for them and did it cure their problems. So if not we should be contented with our home grown solution . Our problem is peculiar, we created problems for ourselves, so our solution should be within us . And I am sure the president is capable of doing that .
So if IMF want to assist, we should take their assistance with a pinch of salt because he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches most . We have experimented before with Okonjo Iweala from World Bank and we have seen what happened . Even though we trusted the economy into Okonjo –Iweala’s hands as the coordinating minister, yet we find ourselves in the mess that we are in. I believe also like those who are skeptical that IMF and the World Bank don’t have absolute solution to our problems , So the solution is within us.
There is an ongoing probe into the $2.1bn arms scam, most of the people that were arrested so far are from the main opposition party, the PDP and one of them who was recently released on bail and he is facing charges in court, Dr Raymond Dokpesi said the probe is just a way by the APC-led government to decimate the PDP leadership and membership. What is your take on that?
Sincerely speaking this is an issue that is already before the law court so ordinarily we should not pass any comment on it. But from the political and social angle I will say that rather than trying to hide under politics, ethnicity or whatever I believe if somebody is made allegations against , the best thing for the person is to go and clear him or herself. The law is no respecter of anybody, and it does not presume anybody is guilty, nobody is proclaimed to be guilty until proving so. We still believe that all those being arrested are still innocent. But like I said in one of my interview before now, if it was the PDP that was in the saddle for 16 years and we found ourselves in the mess we are in, I don’t expect members of that party to be saying that arrest or suscipicion were channeled against their party or to destroy their party. They don’t expect the government of the day to go after the then opposition and if there is any member of the opposition who either cross over to the ruling party or whatever, if there is anyone that is involved naturally if need be they will be handled or they, PDP members can equally fingered them out like the president said . That is just the way I feel we should rest the case.
Ogun state chapter of the Social Democratic Party, SDP has disassociated itself from the N100m collected from Chief Tony Anenih by Chief Olu Falae. The money is said to be from the $2.1bn arms fund. As a chieftain of the party what is the correct position on this?
It is the party executives that are competent to speak on this, as I don’t have information on this.
The INEC under the new boss, Professor Mahmood Yakubu had just conducted two elections in Kogi and Bayelsa . How will you assess its performance?
In any administration there is continuity. Mahmood Yakubu has just come on board and he met all the structure on ground. Not much changes happened except for few new INEC electoral commissioners that were appointed. But we have left over from Professor Attahiru Jega, so we can say that the two elections conducted in Kogi and Bayelsa were still being done by Jega’s team, only the head has changed . So within that limit, I still believe they are following what they are doing and we should give INEC under Mahmood Yakubu a chance to stabilize and to show its true colour . So I haven’t seen anything that is so critically important as to start doubting his integrity .
But the first election in Kogi was declared inconclusive and there had to be a supplementary election. The same thing happened in Bayelsa . Do you think INEC will be able to conduct a general election with its performance in these staggered elections?
Even if it is general election and there is reason to remove ambiguity I believe we should go the whole hog to ensure that possible ambiguities are removed. And after doing that, to show that they are transparently honest any other thing that happened will be resolved at the tribunal . So what INEC is trying to do the way I see it is that they were trying to do a thorough job.
In that of Kogi , the general consensus was that they ought to have declared the winner of the election. But after conducting the supplementary election though at the expense of tax payers’ money, possible ambiguity were removed . Some people were saying 49,000 votes were in contention, some were saying 25, 000 votes but when the election was conducted, only 11,000 people voted . So they have removed that ambiguity and with the benefit of the hindsight, anything that could be done to remove ambiguity should be done. But let give INEC chance to prove itself.
There is this plan of the national assembly to spend about N4.7bn on vehicles. You are once in the Senate; do you think this is normal with the economic situation of the country?
I am sure they haven’t passed the budget yet . How much is in that edge I won’t know but let us do a little arithmetic. Assuming each of the car would cost probably N10m to N15m, whichever way . If it is N10m for roughly 500 people in both chambers, we would be talking of about N5bn . And if it is at N15m depending on the brand of the vehicles they are buying, we will be talk ing about N7.5bn . So the figure is just not normal. And I don’t want to talk on it until we know the quantity of the vehicles they want to buy , the brand of the vehicles and the total number of people that will get the vehicles. It is a simple mathematics, we can calculate it and we will be able to know whether it is right or it is not right . But the President even said with the allowances they are collecting, the figure for the cars’ purchase is too high We have said it times without number that our overhead cost is criminally high . So if it is too high and is telling on our economy there is the need for sacrifice from everybody without exception whether in the private sector or in the public sector . We need to do away with our ostentatious lifestyle . We need to boycott the boycottables and we need to ensure that our insatiable veracious appetite for foreign goods and services are tamed so that we would have enough to plough back. Without money nothing can be done . So we need money and once you are able to mop up the money and you are channeling it to the right course , then the future will be easy for us
From what is happening, the Federal government may likely remove subsidy on petroleum products. What do you think is the best way to guarantee regular supply of petroleum products in the country?
I have said it times without number and it will be like repeating oneself. I personally have been saying it for the past 10 years that I don’t believe that there is any subsidy left to be removed because the cost of production is predominantly accounted for by the raw material which is the crude oil . So assuming that we are producing locally, assuming that all the leakages are blocked, all the inefficiency within our system are blocked, all the turn- around maintenance maneuvering are effectively done I am sure we won’t be talking of subsidy . If subsidy is the difference between what should be and what the government wants it to be, then the unit cost of production should be the one to determine what we are doing with ourselves.
In America I think when the price of crude was about 120 dollars per barrel, the price of four litres was about four dollars, 26 cents. When the price now came to 40, 35 dollars per barrel automatically right now in America I think it is about 88 cents to a litre. So if those ones are responsive and we make our own also to be responsive to changes I am sure we won’t be talking of removing subsidy. It is a non-existing subsidy and in the interest of the common man interest that is supposed to be protected, there is nothing we are subsidizing. But the question remains that the cost of having to ship the raw materials that will be used locally abroad and then bring back the refined product back to the country with all the attending costs elements that is what we need to remove. All the leakages, we need to remove them so that we can make our refinery work and I believe that all the money we have squandered in the past on subsidy, they are more than enough to give us small to medium scale refineries to be scattered all over the country. If the same economists were telling us privatise this , privatise that so what stops us from privatize the refineries . What stops us from going ahead to build new ones and either sell it outrightly or privatise it, provided we are sincere because all the privatization done we have a lot of shoddy jobs done there whereby our collective patrimony were given as a giveaway if not outrightly free to our so called pseudo- entrepreneurs. So those are the areas we need to address.
For the solution to the continuous scarcity of petroleum products, it is never too late. With what we still have, there is no alternative to local production or local refined of our crude oil. That will eliminate a lot of wastages in terms of cost. It will generate the much needed employment, rather than allowing the shipment abroad, it will generate employment for other people locally. And if the need be, within our neighbouring countries if there are any idle functional refineries we can lease them . So this thing is so simple it is because we are not sincere.
My expectations revolves around fostering a positive attitudinal changes that can help the Nation rationalise frivolous spending, tame our insatiable appetite for foreign goods and services
God will not allow such to happen again. The experience of Boko Haram may we never witnessed it again. Like we are talking about fuel subsidy, we are talking about insecurity and with the revelation we had recently , we should know that something is fundamentally wrong with us. Ability of people to commit crime with impunity is our limiting factor . The insecurity that we are having, even if the Shiite members have committed any offence, we are told that they are not just starting, then why now that the country is under a fragile system that such a thing should be precipitated . Again, the issue of insecurity is the issue bothering on religion that must be handled very carefully. No country survives religious war and we must not encourage such a thing. I am a Muslim and to the best of my knowledge Worldwide Islam is one. If there is any extremism, we ought to have tamed them not allowing them to blossom, then we now mishandle it to create problem for us. So with proper orientation of various religious sects, even traditional religious sect, I am sure we will discover that we don’t have any problem with whichever denomination we belong. Shiite is a mere denomination.
So I am not saying what happened in Zaria is good or bad but the most important thing is let us handle it with utmost care and then be careful not to precipitate another crisis akin to the Boko Haram insurgency that you have just mentioned.
How will you assess President Muhammadu Buhari in the last seven months ?
Assessing him in the last seven months I will say it is because we are in hurry. He has just presented his first budget and within the first budget, engineering and re-engineering , financial re-engineering is still going on . So to say now that we are assessing, on what ground are we going to assess him? Will he be based on the budget prepared by his predecessor which was totally truncated by all the assumption upon which it was based.
So let us wait for the passing of the budget , let’s see the physical discipline they are going to bring into the implementation of the budget . And let us see whether they are going to get the priority right because the administration seems to be coming on the back of a populist programme, but the reality may be proving otherwise . So they may need to modify a lot and since they didn’t create the problem we are in, we must give them the benefit of doubt to do the necessary engineering , so that our judgement will not be flawed.
So what is your expectation from Buhari administration in 2016?
My expectations revolves around fostering a positive attitudinal changes that can help the Nation rationalise frivolous spending, tame our insatiable appetite for foreign goods and services, tone down on ostentatious lifestyle and embrace the enthronement of the rule of law in our day to day life both in public and private sectors.
I also want us to make quantifiable efforts to regain lost opportunities rather than engaging in rhetorical blame game. Opportunities once lost can hardly be regained. Yes hardly! But with tenacity of purpose and divine intervention all things are possible. After losing the golden opportunity to diversify with crude oil windfall that span 15years, and failing to make our hays when the sun was shining most. What we need to do now, is to conscientiously humble ourselves to endure the inevitable hardship with complete submission to the will of God, for future reprieve and ease.
We must also learn to put our horses before the carts and not vice-versa, by ensuring that necessary infrastructures are put in place for purposeful oil and gas policy to work, and for power, solid minerals, and agricultural exploration and exploitation ventures to thrive, before deployment of those jargons about diversification, deregulation, removal of non-existing subsidy on petroleum products, and open /global market participation, could have any meanings. The various sectors have respective gestation periods that cannot be short-circuited, ranging somehow, between 4-8years. Hence, real medium to long term plans are required and not just annual budget rituals.
We must as a matter of necessity learn to crawl like a baby, before wanting to run. I love to see the formulation and implementation of a workable economic plans, adaptable to our culture and values rather than pandering to the IMF or World Bank prescriptions. Those prescriptions are mainly suitable for advanced economies with established systems and infrastructures needed for success. May God direct us unto the right path, the path of those He had bestowed His favour not of those who had gone astray. Nigeria greatness is in our collective hands
Post a Comment