By Dennis Udoma
Former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah, was in Uyo where he spoke on good governance in the country and his contributions to the development of the state during his tenure.
the secret behind your good looks? Is it diet or peace of mind? You said it all: Peace of mind and contentment. As someone who has achieved so much in your professional and public lives, how is retirement from politics treating you? Retirement is something everybody really should look forward to if you had had a good career in life. I thank God I had a very good career in my profession as an architect and town planner. Even when I ventured into politics, I went there as a professional in politics rather than a professional politician. So, it was easy for me to step back from it and go back to my profession. But I must admit that Nigeria is a very peculiar country. Going back to my profession is not quite what I thought, it would be because I was a prosperous architect and town planner; but since coming back, people feel that, having been governor, I shouldn’t go back to work. So what do people really expect? Do people expect governors to amass wealth, steal money so that they never have to work again after leaving office or do they want honest service? Jimmy Carter left the presidency in America and went back to his groundnut farm. I find it very disappointing that the projects that really should come to you without you asking, even when you ask, people will ask, ‘are you still doing this thing?’ What else do they want me to do if not my profession? So, I enjoy being where I am. I am quite happy and contented and I thank God for the good health that I have. Do you miss anything about public life you once lived? When you talk about missing, the word could be misunderstood. There are times I get annoyed by things you see, things you know are obviously wrong and you have no means of saying ‘please don’t do that; even if you do, nobody listens to you. That is the only thing I can say I miss; the inability to contribute to anything specially, to correct some of the things that definitely go wrong. When you leave office, there are bound to be some regrets about what you should have done right in some instances or a situation you should have handled differently. Do you have any regret? No! As I said, I do have feelings of dissatisfaction. Certain things I started but I couldn’t complete. That was because we started when there was money and you went with it as far as you could with the money available to you, and you expect that whoever comes after you will follow through and complete them. But in terms of regrets that I did this or that, I don’t have. Let’s talk about that moment you announced you’d quit politics in October 2015. You gave the reason that you needed to play the role of an elder statesman. What does that role actually entail? I will answer that question in a way that perhaps you don’t expect. General Gowon is not a politician but is working to help this country. T. Y. Danjuma is not a politician, he is working to help this country. Ambassador Emeka Anyaoku is not a politician but he is working to help this country and I can name quite a few more. These are elder statesmen. They are not partisan in politics but they are being consulted, they are asked questions on how to move the country forward. And they are involved in things that can actually help to move the country forward. Those are some of the things that honest elder statesmen should do. No divisiveness about what they do; they engage in straight-forward thinking to help the country move from one level to the next. That is the kind of role I want to play because there is lack of that in this part of the country. When you took that decision, you said ‘let nobody take this to mean that I don’t want to remain in the PDP or therefore jump to opposite conclusion that I am going over to the APC or any other party for that matter’. There may be people who are still confused that even though you are an elder statesman, there is still this affinity to the political divide. Where are you presently in? Presently, I am in Akwa Ibom and for the good of Akwa Ibom and I can’t define it better. In fact, to buttress what I’m telling you, in your introduction, you said I supported Umana Umana in 2015 but you forgot that I supported Udoedehe in 2011. The answer is very simple. I didn’t like what was going on in Akwa Ibom and I wanted a change; and I think I have the right to tell Akwa Ibom people that, this is my honest understanding of what the situation is and, I think we should do something different. That is the role of an elder statesman. I can even give you another example. When I was campaigning for my own election, we had a meeting in my village and my paramount ruler, who was also the Clan Head of Asutan, attended the meeting. The SSS people came and said to him, ‘Oh! Sir, you know you are a traditional ruler and not supposed to take part in partisan politics’. He looked at the guys and said, ‘Listen my sons, I’m not taking part in partisan politics but, I, as the paramount ruler, should be interested in who governs my people and how my people are governed’. That is the role of an elder statesman. Since leaving the Hill Top Mansion, it is said that you have never set your foot there until you were recently seen in company of incumbent Governor Emmanuel and some former deputy governors of the state. So, how do we take it that you have been performing your role in this capacity as elder statesman in Akwa Ibom? Let me correct an impression. I had set my foot in the Hill Top Mansion in December 2012. In fact, it was a Christmas Day. If you remember, in that year, some people came from Abuja, Kaduna, etc and said they wanted to reconcile me with Godswill Akpabio. And I said it was a wrong word as I did not tell anybody that I was quarrelling with Godswill Akpabio. They said okay and we had a meeting. At the end of the meeting, I was taken to the Government House and we had lunch. But prior to that, we had gone to the Catholic Cathedral where there was Mass celebrated for us and I made a statement. I said I had advised my successor in office that I was out of office but not out of ideas. And I emphasized the fact that Godswill Akpabio never invited me to offer an opinion on anything or give him any kind of advice. Do I impose myself on him? Do I have to go and sit in front of the door and say ‘Mr Governor I want to see you’ because you have to be invited. That is not to say that I didn’t try to bring ideas to the government because I wrote letters to the government that were ignored or sometimes answered on the pages of newspapers like, ‘What does Obong Victor Attah want?’ So, if nobody asks for your contributions or your opinion on anything, you can’t do anything. So, that is what happened. I was never required in Government House and so I didn’t go. So, staying away was not intentional? Staying away was not intentional in the sense that I would have loved to help this state, but if I didn’t have the opportunity, I would not insist. But in the recent meeting, in fact it was a private meeting with the governor, as you rightly said, I was there as a former governor with some former deputy governors. It was purely to discuss the issue of the pension law that affects us and that’s all. Let’s establish something regarding what you said that, in 2011, you supported Udoedehe and you put that side by side with your support for Obong Umana Umana in 2015. You said you did that because you had issues with what was happening in the state that didn’t go down well with you. What were the issues? The issues bordered on what was going on in the state. What were the issues? If you lived in Akwa Ibom, you would know. I can’t say more than that. For the benefit of those who have not been in Akwa Ibom? Then go and look at what was happening in Akwa Ibom at the time. What level of development did we have? What manner of social security. Go and look at Akwa Ibom and make your own decision. Because somebody asked me: ‘Would you support Godswill Akpabio for second term? And my answer was ‘don’t ask me personal questions. I will not answer personal questions. Ask me whether I like what is going on in Akwa Ibom or whether I would like what is going on to continue in the next four years and, my answer will be no’. It is not a matter of not supporting Godswill Akpabio, but it was a matter of not liking what was going on in the state and it’s not for me to tell you the things that were going on. If you don’t know, please go and find out. Considering your role as an elder statesman, how would you describe the political and economic climate of the country, in terms of what is right and wrong before talking about what should be done? The economic situation in the country is obvious to everybody, it is not good. But the underpinnings that brought it about were always there. They just burst open at the time that somebody like Buhari is here and, everybody wants to heap the whole blame on him. Perhaps there is a lot more that could be done to rescue the economy and I believe they are doing it. I travelled out only four weeks ago and Naira was exchanging at N500 to the dollar and, when I came back, Naira was exchanging for less than N400 to the dollar. So, something must be happening that is good, and hopefully the economy is improving. But certainly, even a person that does not like Buhari must, at least, like him for the fact that he is honest about his fight against corruption. Corruption is one thing that seems like if we don’t kill, it will kill Nigeria. Then this thing that could kill Nigeria, I hope we can come together and kill it. But let’s look at the corruption issue; when you hear of the amount of money recovered from certain individuals and organisations and what was hidden in several places, then you will know that we have been unfair to ourselves by supporting the actions that brought about that kind of thing. I feel sad that because we don’t like Buhari, we don’t want to support his fight against corruption. Why would he select somebody he knows is capable of fighting corruption and we refuse to confirm him? I’m not saying we should accept every nominee of Buhari, but I read certain things even while I was away that greatly disturbed me, unless somebody tells me that those things were false. I read that even the DSS had advised Magu to discontinue his investigation of certain senators. That the DSS had advised Magu to discontinue his investigation of certain governors accused of having diverted the Paris Club loan refund. For goodness sake, if the reason you don’t want to confirm Magu is because he is fighting corruption, then you are on the side of those who are really saying corruption must remain. Why would you select certain people and say ‘don’t investigate them?’ And yet, the same government is opposed to the fact that some people went to court and obtained injunction against being investigated by the police. So, this country has to make up her mind whether it wants to endorse corruption or it wants to accept Buhari’s fight against corruption. But the question being raised against Buhari’s corruption fight is that it is selective? Unless you explain that word, I reject it. Show me how he is selective. Some say it is against political opponents. Some say instead of institutionalising the corruption fight, he is busy fighting corrupt people and that that can’t help Nigeria? The people with the easiest opportunity to be corrupt are people who were in government. And the people in government before Buhari came were the PDP people. So, should Buhari now say ‘I want to fight the APC people who were not in government and did not have the opportunity to indulge in corruption?’ He has to fight those who were indulging in corruption. The preponderance was just in PDP because they were the ones in government, taking monies to do all sorts of things. So, how does that translate to selective? He is just being practical in that he is going after those who were corrupt. They are saying that there are some people in his cabinet who were hitherto in the PDP but now APC members, and they seem to be excluded in this fight against corruption because they align with the status quo? I happened to read a statement by the Chairman of the APC the other day when he said ‘if you decamp to APC and you think that will shield you from corruption, you are lying’. I want to believe him and I want to see that happen and I want to see some people who have now defected to APC being prosecuted. But let me ask a question; is the Senate President an APC or PDP member? He is an APC member Is he not being prosecuted up to the point he said he was being persecuted? So what are we talking about? Let us be honest, if we don’t like Buhari, let’s say it out. But I like a lot of things Buhari is doing and one of them is this fight against corruption. The other one of course is the fight against insecurity as he did with Boko Haram. But I’m not okay with herdsmen being allowed to go on the rampage, rape women and kill people as they feel and we don’t pursue them with the same kind of force applied on Boko-Haram. We have read all kinds of statements that they are not herdsmen but people from Niger. Do Nigeriens have no visa? Or do we have such a loose boundary that we cannot control them? The issue of insecurity; there are two aspects of it that are, in my own opinion, totally inadequately done: the herdsmen and kidnappers. Let’s go back to 2001 when you went with about 21 people to the United States in search of foreign investors. You promised on that occasion to improve electricity supply; you talked about telecom and replicating the Silicon Valley in Akwa Ibom amongst other projects. You also promised to build an airport in Uyo. What did that trip yield? I think we have seen the results. One of the things that happened was that I succeeded in engaging somebody like Mike Espy who was the only black man to have served in America as Secretary of Agriculture under Clinton. He came in to help us on our agricultural policies, etc, and then we were able to convince people to support our power, airport, and ICT projects. Interestingly, Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem, Mr Uwaje and Prof. Ntuen of the Science Triangle in North Carolina and NASA were the three people that developed our ICT policy. We were in North Carolina when we were told that they were expecting the Federal Government delegation three days after we would have left. So, we had an ICT policy before the Federal Government of Nigeria. That is how forward-thinking we were about certain things. You asked how successful I was. Today, you know we have an airport, started a science park which unfortunately has been abandoned; started the Ibaka Deep Seaport which unfortunately has been abandoned; we have a power plant delivering 191 megawatts of power but, sadly, it does not translate to 24 hours power availability to our people and I don’t understand why; we also started the University of Technology which has since been bastardised and made into something else. I heard you reading out telecommunication numbers but, it saddened me when I didn’t hear you read 0802 because that is the number for Akwa Ibom when telecom came. Those were some of the results that came out of that trip to America. You mentioned some projects which you said have been abandoned and another bastardised. It raises the question of continuity in government. What is responsible for the abandoned projects not just in Akwa Ibom but in Nigeria? I also mention some of those ones today that are in existence. Honestly I don’t know. You have to ask those who caused the break. Why would they cause the break? Having said that, I would also like to add that one of the most successful states in Nigeria today is Lagos. And one of the major reasons is because they have not instituted that break; successor- governor liaises very closely with his predecessor so that there is a continuum as it is supposed to be. If you watch, any state that adopts that policy, cooperating with the past, is bound to be successful than the one that decides to abandon the past. You are a renowned advocate of resource control for the Niger-Delta. Would you say that struggle yielded any result? I believe we have succeeded because it was not a solo effort. I led the movement because I was convinced of the need for it and, today it is taking a new dimension called restructuring. People are now talking about accepting the need for fiscal federalism and marrying it with the idea of restructuring and so on. So, thank God we have moved from one point and, we will soon get to another and I agree with those people who say that, unless we go back to fiscal federalism, Nigeria will break. You know there is a formula but the important thing is to create the situation that we always had before. Contribute 50 percent of what you have to the center and use the remaining 50 percent to develop yourself; even what you contribute to the center, some of it is coming back to you. That was the basis of the agreement for staying together and forming Nigeria. So, if we destroy the basis of our agreement, then the consequence of what we agreed should also disappear. That is Nigeria and, unfortunately, I am speaking like this because I believe passionately in the need and I believe that eventually all the government that should make it happen will make it happen; that there would be fiscal federalism. We should return to true federal democratic principle.
the secret behind your good looks? Is it diet or peace of mind? You said it all: Peace of mind and contentment. As someone who has achieved so much in your professional and public lives, how is retirement from politics treating you? Retirement is something everybody really should look forward to if you had had a good career in life. I thank God I had a very good career in my profession as an architect and town planner. Even when I ventured into politics, I went there as a professional in politics rather than a professional politician. So, it was easy for me to step back from it and go back to my profession. But I must admit that Nigeria is a very peculiar country. Going back to my profession is not quite what I thought, it would be because I was a prosperous architect and town planner; but since coming back, people feel that, having been governor, I shouldn’t go back to work. So what do people really expect? Do people expect governors to amass wealth, steal money so that they never have to work again after leaving office or do they want honest service? Jimmy Carter left the presidency in America and went back to his groundnut farm. I find it very disappointing that the projects that really should come to you without you asking, even when you ask, people will ask, ‘are you still doing this thing?’ What else do they want me to do if not my profession? So, I enjoy being where I am. I am quite happy and contented and I thank God for the good health that I have. Do you miss anything about public life you once lived? When you talk about missing, the word could be misunderstood. There are times I get annoyed by things you see, things you know are obviously wrong and you have no means of saying ‘please don’t do that; even if you do, nobody listens to you. That is the only thing I can say I miss; the inability to contribute to anything specially, to correct some of the things that definitely go wrong. When you leave office, there are bound to be some regrets about what you should have done right in some instances or a situation you should have handled differently. Do you have any regret? No! As I said, I do have feelings of dissatisfaction. Certain things I started but I couldn’t complete. That was because we started when there was money and you went with it as far as you could with the money available to you, and you expect that whoever comes after you will follow through and complete them. But in terms of regrets that I did this or that, I don’t have. Let’s talk about that moment you announced you’d quit politics in October 2015. You gave the reason that you needed to play the role of an elder statesman. What does that role actually entail? I will answer that question in a way that perhaps you don’t expect. General Gowon is not a politician but is working to help this country. T. Y. Danjuma is not a politician, he is working to help this country. Ambassador Emeka Anyaoku is not a politician but he is working to help this country and I can name quite a few more. These are elder statesmen. They are not partisan in politics but they are being consulted, they are asked questions on how to move the country forward. And they are involved in things that can actually help to move the country forward. Those are some of the things that honest elder statesmen should do. No divisiveness about what they do; they engage in straight-forward thinking to help the country move from one level to the next. That is the kind of role I want to play because there is lack of that in this part of the country. When you took that decision, you said ‘let nobody take this to mean that I don’t want to remain in the PDP or therefore jump to opposite conclusion that I am going over to the APC or any other party for that matter’. There may be people who are still confused that even though you are an elder statesman, there is still this affinity to the political divide. Where are you presently in? Presently, I am in Akwa Ibom and for the good of Akwa Ibom and I can’t define it better. In fact, to buttress what I’m telling you, in your introduction, you said I supported Umana Umana in 2015 but you forgot that I supported Udoedehe in 2011. The answer is very simple. I didn’t like what was going on in Akwa Ibom and I wanted a change; and I think I have the right to tell Akwa Ibom people that, this is my honest understanding of what the situation is and, I think we should do something different. That is the role of an elder statesman. I can even give you another example. When I was campaigning for my own election, we had a meeting in my village and my paramount ruler, who was also the Clan Head of Asutan, attended the meeting. The SSS people came and said to him, ‘Oh! Sir, you know you are a traditional ruler and not supposed to take part in partisan politics’. He looked at the guys and said, ‘Listen my sons, I’m not taking part in partisan politics but, I, as the paramount ruler, should be interested in who governs my people and how my people are governed’. That is the role of an elder statesman. Since leaving the Hill Top Mansion, it is said that you have never set your foot there until you were recently seen in company of incumbent Governor Emmanuel and some former deputy governors of the state. So, how do we take it that you have been performing your role in this capacity as elder statesman in Akwa Ibom? Let me correct an impression. I had set my foot in the Hill Top Mansion in December 2012. In fact, it was a Christmas Day. If you remember, in that year, some people came from Abuja, Kaduna, etc and said they wanted to reconcile me with Godswill Akpabio. And I said it was a wrong word as I did not tell anybody that I was quarrelling with Godswill Akpabio. They said okay and we had a meeting. At the end of the meeting, I was taken to the Government House and we had lunch. But prior to that, we had gone to the Catholic Cathedral where there was Mass celebrated for us and I made a statement. I said I had advised my successor in office that I was out of office but not out of ideas. And I emphasized the fact that Godswill Akpabio never invited me to offer an opinion on anything or give him any kind of advice. Do I impose myself on him? Do I have to go and sit in front of the door and say ‘Mr Governor I want to see you’ because you have to be invited. That is not to say that I didn’t try to bring ideas to the government because I wrote letters to the government that were ignored or sometimes answered on the pages of newspapers like, ‘What does Obong Victor Attah want?’ So, if nobody asks for your contributions or your opinion on anything, you can’t do anything. So, that is what happened. I was never required in Government House and so I didn’t go. So, staying away was not intentional? Staying away was not intentional in the sense that I would have loved to help this state, but if I didn’t have the opportunity, I would not insist. But in the recent meeting, in fact it was a private meeting with the governor, as you rightly said, I was there as a former governor with some former deputy governors. It was purely to discuss the issue of the pension law that affects us and that’s all. Let’s establish something regarding what you said that, in 2011, you supported Udoedehe and you put that side by side with your support for Obong Umana Umana in 2015. You said you did that because you had issues with what was happening in the state that didn’t go down well with you. What were the issues? The issues bordered on what was going on in the state. What were the issues? If you lived in Akwa Ibom, you would know. I can’t say more than that. For the benefit of those who have not been in Akwa Ibom? Then go and look at what was happening in Akwa Ibom at the time. What level of development did we have? What manner of social security. Go and look at Akwa Ibom and make your own decision. Because somebody asked me: ‘Would you support Godswill Akpabio for second term? And my answer was ‘don’t ask me personal questions. I will not answer personal questions. Ask me whether I like what is going on in Akwa Ibom or whether I would like what is going on to continue in the next four years and, my answer will be no’. It is not a matter of not supporting Godswill Akpabio, but it was a matter of not liking what was going on in the state and it’s not for me to tell you the things that were going on. If you don’t know, please go and find out. Considering your role as an elder statesman, how would you describe the political and economic climate of the country, in terms of what is right and wrong before talking about what should be done? The economic situation in the country is obvious to everybody, it is not good. But the underpinnings that brought it about were always there. They just burst open at the time that somebody like Buhari is here and, everybody wants to heap the whole blame on him. Perhaps there is a lot more that could be done to rescue the economy and I believe they are doing it. I travelled out only four weeks ago and Naira was exchanging at N500 to the dollar and, when I came back, Naira was exchanging for less than N400 to the dollar. So, something must be happening that is good, and hopefully the economy is improving. But certainly, even a person that does not like Buhari must, at least, like him for the fact that he is honest about his fight against corruption. Corruption is one thing that seems like if we don’t kill, it will kill Nigeria. Then this thing that could kill Nigeria, I hope we can come together and kill it. But let’s look at the corruption issue; when you hear of the amount of money recovered from certain individuals and organisations and what was hidden in several places, then you will know that we have been unfair to ourselves by supporting the actions that brought about that kind of thing. I feel sad that because we don’t like Buhari, we don’t want to support his fight against corruption. Why would he select somebody he knows is capable of fighting corruption and we refuse to confirm him? I’m not saying we should accept every nominee of Buhari, but I read certain things even while I was away that greatly disturbed me, unless somebody tells me that those things were false. I read that even the DSS had advised Magu to discontinue his investigation of certain senators. That the DSS had advised Magu to discontinue his investigation of certain governors accused of having diverted the Paris Club loan refund. For goodness sake, if the reason you don’t want to confirm Magu is because he is fighting corruption, then you are on the side of those who are really saying corruption must remain. Why would you select certain people and say ‘don’t investigate them?’ And yet, the same government is opposed to the fact that some people went to court and obtained injunction against being investigated by the police. So, this country has to make up her mind whether it wants to endorse corruption or it wants to accept Buhari’s fight against corruption. But the question being raised against Buhari’s corruption fight is that it is selective? Unless you explain that word, I reject it. Show me how he is selective. Some say it is against political opponents. Some say instead of institutionalising the corruption fight, he is busy fighting corrupt people and that that can’t help Nigeria? The people with the easiest opportunity to be corrupt are people who were in government. And the people in government before Buhari came were the PDP people. So, should Buhari now say ‘I want to fight the APC people who were not in government and did not have the opportunity to indulge in corruption?’ He has to fight those who were indulging in corruption. The preponderance was just in PDP because they were the ones in government, taking monies to do all sorts of things. So, how does that translate to selective? He is just being practical in that he is going after those who were corrupt. They are saying that there are some people in his cabinet who were hitherto in the PDP but now APC members, and they seem to be excluded in this fight against corruption because they align with the status quo? I happened to read a statement by the Chairman of the APC the other day when he said ‘if you decamp to APC and you think that will shield you from corruption, you are lying’. I want to believe him and I want to see that happen and I want to see some people who have now defected to APC being prosecuted. But let me ask a question; is the Senate President an APC or PDP member? He is an APC member Is he not being prosecuted up to the point he said he was being persecuted? So what are we talking about? Let us be honest, if we don’t like Buhari, let’s say it out. But I like a lot of things Buhari is doing and one of them is this fight against corruption. The other one of course is the fight against insecurity as he did with Boko Haram. But I’m not okay with herdsmen being allowed to go on the rampage, rape women and kill people as they feel and we don’t pursue them with the same kind of force applied on Boko-Haram. We have read all kinds of statements that they are not herdsmen but people from Niger. Do Nigeriens have no visa? Or do we have such a loose boundary that we cannot control them? The issue of insecurity; there are two aspects of it that are, in my own opinion, totally inadequately done: the herdsmen and kidnappers. Let’s go back to 2001 when you went with about 21 people to the United States in search of foreign investors. You promised on that occasion to improve electricity supply; you talked about telecom and replicating the Silicon Valley in Akwa Ibom amongst other projects. You also promised to build an airport in Uyo. What did that trip yield? I think we have seen the results. One of the things that happened was that I succeeded in engaging somebody like Mike Espy who was the only black man to have served in America as Secretary of Agriculture under Clinton. He came in to help us on our agricultural policies, etc, and then we were able to convince people to support our power, airport, and ICT projects. Interestingly, Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem, Mr Uwaje and Prof. Ntuen of the Science Triangle in North Carolina and NASA were the three people that developed our ICT policy. We were in North Carolina when we were told that they were expecting the Federal Government delegation three days after we would have left. So, we had an ICT policy before the Federal Government of Nigeria. That is how forward-thinking we were about certain things. You asked how successful I was. Today, you know we have an airport, started a science park which unfortunately has been abandoned; started the Ibaka Deep Seaport which unfortunately has been abandoned; we have a power plant delivering 191 megawatts of power but, sadly, it does not translate to 24 hours power availability to our people and I don’t understand why; we also started the University of Technology which has since been bastardised and made into something else. I heard you reading out telecommunication numbers but, it saddened me when I didn’t hear you read 0802 because that is the number for Akwa Ibom when telecom came. Those were some of the results that came out of that trip to America. You mentioned some projects which you said have been abandoned and another bastardised. It raises the question of continuity in government. What is responsible for the abandoned projects not just in Akwa Ibom but in Nigeria? I also mention some of those ones today that are in existence. Honestly I don’t know. You have to ask those who caused the break. Why would they cause the break? Having said that, I would also like to add that one of the most successful states in Nigeria today is Lagos. And one of the major reasons is because they have not instituted that break; successor- governor liaises very closely with his predecessor so that there is a continuum as it is supposed to be. If you watch, any state that adopts that policy, cooperating with the past, is bound to be successful than the one that decides to abandon the past. You are a renowned advocate of resource control for the Niger-Delta. Would you say that struggle yielded any result? I believe we have succeeded because it was not a solo effort. I led the movement because I was convinced of the need for it and, today it is taking a new dimension called restructuring. People are now talking about accepting the need for fiscal federalism and marrying it with the idea of restructuring and so on. So, thank God we have moved from one point and, we will soon get to another and I agree with those people who say that, unless we go back to fiscal federalism, Nigeria will break. You know there is a formula but the important thing is to create the situation that we always had before. Contribute 50 percent of what you have to the center and use the remaining 50 percent to develop yourself; even what you contribute to the center, some of it is coming back to you. That was the basis of the agreement for staying together and forming Nigeria. So, if we destroy the basis of our agreement, then the consequence of what we agreed should also disappear. That is Nigeria and, unfortunately, I am speaking like this because I believe passionately in the need and I believe that eventually all the government that should make it happen will make it happen; that there would be fiscal federalism. We should return to true federal democratic principle.
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