It is steadily becoming clear to the discerning public since the fatal October 3 air mishap in Lagos that such tragedies do not always have to do with a treacherous or so-called unsafe airspace. There may be fair weather to prompt a bad ill-maintained aircraft into the air. There may also be a flight fatigued crew pushed into action by greed. We have also had cases of tipsy or sick cockpit crew who underestimated those physical limitations.

In all these hypothetical instances, disasters resulting in loss of lives and maiming and destruction have been the outcome as in the case of the October 3 crash, where early findings of the Accident Investigation Bureau are suggesting that a combination of human error and aircraft defect caused the crash and not the challenge of airspace.

Still, it is heartwarming to note that in Nigeria the federal authorities are not giving any room to chance on the question of ensuring an all-round and eagle-eye watch over the aviation industry, which has witnessed great improvement lately under the direction of the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah.

 

She has adroitly deployed the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) with Engineer Nnamdi Udoh as the Managing Director to offer critical intervention in the country’s airspace. The agency’s activities have debunked comments that her tenure is characterised by the aesthetic ambience she has given some of our airports. Critics are wont to claim that there is more to aviation than the beautification of where aircraft take off and land.

I agree; but I disagree that it is only in the resplendent features of our airports that the aviation ministry has excelled. With such operational facilities as NAVAIDS incorporating Instrument Landing System, VOR and Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON), among others, NAMA has succeeded in delivering safe skies to the country.

 

TRACON is the pivot which President Goodluck Jonathan commissioned on October 18, 2010. It has nine radar locations in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano with each having both primary and secondary co-fixed radar head. There are five other stand-alone stations in Ilorin, Maiduguri, Talata Mafara, Numa and Obubura. The primary has a range of 65 nautical miles while the secondary covers 250. The overlapping range enables the air traffic controllers to monitor flights far beyond the shores of the country.

Recently NAMA took some journalists to the TRACON control room in Lagos where they saw the screens and the controllers at work. They viewed aircraft landing at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana, through the monitoring screens.

Lately, the agency has unveiled a new plan to boost security in the Niger Delta and protect the country’s oil industry using multi-lateration surveillance in the delta creeks. The initiative will cover helicopter activities of the oil companies. NAMA’s MD Nnamdi Udoh says the move will increase the agency’s revenue.

 

It is reckoned that since there are more than 160 daily flights of such type in the region, the new NAMA drive would attract tremendous patronage to benefit both the agency, oil companies and the nation at large.

NAMA has also been known to be working on the completion of WGS-84 survey of 26 airports to prepare them for performance based navigation system (PBN). Procedures for the four major airports in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano have been completed while trials for PBN were arrived at last year by some airlines. They recorded outstanding results!

Recently, 13 towers of some airports in the country were refurbished to eliminate communication breakdown within the airspace. In this regard, NAMA is planning to install Controller Pilot Data Link Communication (CPDLC), the modern system used globally to sustain uninterrupted reach among airborne and the ground control.

 

The operations of these highly technical devices, needless to say, are digitalised with skilled and well-trained staff required to man them. Their training, locally and abroad, together with capital investment on critical areas of air safety, is said to have cost the federal government more than $9.5 million.

The picture we have then is of a government and an agency which are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that they create an enabling environment for players in the aviation sector to offer flawless service to the people and the nation. For without safe air corridors, monitored round the clock by well-trained technical crew and modern and regularly maintained tracking systems, the best pilot flying the best aircraft would be a mere accident waiting to happen. Good aircraft and good flight crew operating in unsecured skies are potential tragedies.

–– Bamidele, a writer on aviation issues, lives in Lagos.

Association refers to a psychological process that enables a person generate the memory of an event through a related idea or word. ‘White’ automatically conjures the idea of ‘snow’ just as ‘lion’ represents ‘fierceness’. In the same manner, the associative memory of Nigerians will essentially connect the word ‘medicine’ to a series of eminent personalities who have traversed the Hippocratic profession and impacted on the national healthscape in Nigeria—Umaru Shehu, Adeoye Lambo, Oritsejolomi Thomas, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and many others. These are figures who—each in his own instance—transposed the medical profession into a national concern; a metaphor for the dynamics of national health.

 

Yet, that association resonates with one figure: Oladipo Olujimi Akinkungbe—father, teacher, physician, intellectual and administrator. Akinkungbe’s negotiation of the complex medical landscape in Nigeria is nothing less than definitive. He charts an illustrious trajectory of healthcare-education nexus girded about with a patriotic dedication for more than fifty years of his renowned life as a Nigerian. He brought a resolute and patriotic dedication to a lifetime of dogged professionalism combined, almost superhumanly, with an unassuming, humble character.

 

‘The first qualification for a physician is hopefulness,’ says James Little, the American physician. Hopefulness, in this context, is the determination that consistently labours within the limit of rough reality. Hopefulness is required in the heroic art of snatching wellbeing from the grasp of sickness; and hope must accompany plying that art in the midst of traumatic social anomie. Akinkugbe began the practice of medicine on what he called the ‘rugged path’. It was a case of beginning with all the hopes that medicine instigates in those who trust that the Almighty would work through their medical skills to accomplish the wonders of healing. Yet, before their very eyes, the best of infrastructural expectations turned to a nightmare of depreciation and rot. The excitement of impending medical voyage and discovery as well as the promise of therapeutic release all fizzled out within the complex dynamics of a nation coming to term with the euphoria of independence and the agonies of postcolonial development.

 

At this critical juncture, the University College Hospital, Ibadan became a metaphor for possibility and disillusionment. It came into existence as a exultant signal to the nation’s readiness to confront its citizens’ psychosomatic condition as a dimension of unravelling the deepest exigencies of making life worthwhile within the context of national development. Health is wealth, goes the saying. Health is also an indicator of a nation’s willingness to make progress, and the University College Hospital was one of the markers of Nigeria’s development aspiration buoyed by the abundance of oil and a robust and vibrant development projection.

 

Professor Oladipo Akinkugbe was right in the midst of the excitement of progress and possibilities. He had a vision of preventive medicine interjected by a robust practice of clinical research in cardiovascular care. He wanted to study in order to be able to serve; so he became a perpetual medical student. He wanted to embody the connection between medicine, education and national vision. He wanted the University College Hospital to be a flagship for a continental achievement in medical advancement. ‘A good clinical teacher,’ says Oliver Wendell Holmes, the American writer and physician, ‘is himself a Medical School.’ And for Prof. Akinkugbe, the two objects of such a medical education were to be healing and the advancement of medical science. These two subjects possess intrinsic qualities that a nation cannot ever hope to neglect. Thus it was, for instance, that within the cauldron of a rigorous vision of a national health framework which Akinkugbe carried in his heart, the foundation for the first Renal and the first Hypertension Clinics in Africa was laid.

 

Preventive clinical medicine, for Professor Akinkugbe, was to take on a national and indigenous hue in the sense of serving as the medical platform to tap into a vast endogenous body of remedial knowledge that could jumpstart Nigeria’s development efforts. UCH and various multidimensional researches in medicine were to take their place in ideological and nationalistic renewal alongside such academic phenomenon as the Ibadan School of History and the Institute of African Studies. The national profiling of diseases, mortality and morbidity gives unique insights into national development while instilling its brand of therapeutic vitality into the national project. It would seem, in Akinkugbe’s reckoning, that even the aetiology of diseases and sicknesses is not so immune from colonial surveillance. Independence therefore requires a remapping of tropical diseases.

Eventually, as with all other areas of national significance, policy inertia and infrastructural collapse caught up with the UCH and healthcare in Nigeria. And then the brain drain took root; and healthcare was dragged into the muddy context of political shiftiness. Healthcare administration got caught up within a complex national and constitutional gridlock that ensures that, together with education, it becomes difficult for healthcare to unfold in a simple policy atmosphere. It therefore became inevitable that Prof. Akinkugbe would seek the path of education/medical administration. The challenges are too enormous and complex to settle alone in practice or the classroom. More can be done within the ambit of administrative negotiations to fashion a viable national health policy that would rethink the dynamics of healthcare in Nigeria. As Dean of Medicine, Vice Chancellor, Pro-Chancellor as well as the Chairman of the Management Board of the University College Hospital, all at various times, Prof. Akinkugbe was presented with the opportunity to intervene in the thorny process of recalibrating medical education, healthcare policy and educational advancement that would restore the enthusiasm and promise of the past. According to Peter Drucker, ‘Before an executive can think of tackling the future, he must be able therefore to dispose of the challenges of today in less time and with greater impact and permanence.’

That was the challenge Prof. Oladipo Akinkugbe set himself. At 80, he still doesn’t have an iota of regret over Nigeria. Nigeria is a worthy project. And if it must work, according to him, ‘The salvation, whether it is education or health, lies in collective partnership and in sacrifices.’ Collective partnership requires a huge dose of leadership willingness to set in motion the necessary policy and institutional dynamics and frameworks that would arrest the drift of social and infrastructural anomie plaguing the nation.

Prof. Akinkugbe represents a part of the critical mass of patriotic professionals who have committed ideas, time, energies, and vision to the Nigerian project. Akinkugbe represents those who are still not too old or tired of believing in the imminence of greatness in Nigeria.

 

And, as Margaret Mead, the American anthropologist, counsels: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’ Maybe oil reserves will be here with us for a while; but human capital is not available for ever.

 

The hearts grow old, the passion becomes dispirited, and even the most hardened will diminishes in ardour.

Professor Oladipo Olujimi Akinkungbe believes in Nigeria. For so long, he has toiled and sweat at the noble task of exploring her possibilities in what he knows how to do best. He is still hard at the breach of national renewal. But the promise of giving birth to a national future needs many more Nigerians to step beyond cynicism and join Professor Oladipo Akinkugbe on the other side of national commitment. And, for Robin Sieger, ‘When enthusiasm and commitment take root within a project, that project comes to life.’ With people like Professor Akinkugbe, the Nigerian project is assured of life.

–– Olaopa is Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Youth Development Abuja. tolaopa2003@gmail.com

An arrested member of the outlawed Boko Haram sect Saturday painted a gory picture of life within the enclave the sect members had been pushed to by the military forces.

 

According to him, many of the sect members are living as if in hell and if not for fear that they could be killed if caught by the group they would have fled their forest camps.

 

The captured Boko Haram member was allowed by military authorities to recount his ordeal to journalists.

He said his brother forced him into the Boko Haram sect.

 

Accoding to him, the brother was always coming home with guns, which he would hide at home.

The 22-year-old member of the terrorist group, while advising youths to stay far away from the sect, said life of Boko Haram sect members was a life of hardship through and through.

 

He stated that his brother told him he had a choice to either join the sect or get killed, as he was already aware of some of the group’s secrets.

He said his brother, who had since been killed in one of the attacks launched by the sect, equally told him that either way he would be killed if he did not join the sect as he was at the mercy of the Boko Haram or the soldiers that may come home looking for him.

 

On how he was captured, he said: "We launched an attack in Damboa and I was shot and my colleagues who thought I was killed left me behind but later when I regained consciousness I crawled to the road.

 

"I was picked up by the police later and I told them I was willing to volunteer information. I was asked by a senior police officer how I got recruited into the group, which I told him. He later handed me over to the army where I was kept since."

The sect member, who said once initiated into the group, it was suicidal to denounce its membership, added "We are counted after every week or two to know who might have left and any of us found missing will be looked for and if he is found to have fled would be slaughtered if caught."

 

He said he fled from the group to Lagos at a particular point, but came back and that his life was spared after a long argument.

The sect member, now on clutches, said should the federal government grant him amnesty, he would like to be a soldier fighting on the side of the nation, stressing that while in the forest camp he lived a life of perpetual fear. "Sometimes when we going for attacks I always felt like hiding. But there is no place to hide for me," he said.

 

He said he has come to realise that there is nothing religious in their fight against the Nigerian government, "I now see it as banditry but others that are still there see it as a Jihad, working for God."

 

He also revealed that the war being waged by the sect was now against everybody and anybody, and not restricted to the army or police as it used to be in the past.

 

The sect member said once the society had shown resentment against them and and chased them away from particularly Maiduguri, they chose to take the battle to the civilian Joint Task Force members and every resident of Maiduguri in sight and this was responsible for the highway attacks.

 

He said the sect had lots of food and medicine in their stores, adding that during "our raids we steal food and medicine and other needs which we keep in our stores."

 

Meanwhile, the Acting Brigade Commander of 21 Armoured Brigade, Maiduguri, Col. Ibrahim Yusuf, said the federal government had always shown that it was ready to end the Boko Haram crisis as soon as possible and was still willing to give amnesty to any of the sect members who is ready to drop his arms to embrace peace.

 

He said: "Once you come out, we will treat you as a captured member, we all know the intention of government to see an end to this crisis."

 

 

In continuation of moves to map out an overall strategy to remain in contention for future political contests, members of the New Peoples Democratic Party will today meet at the Sokoto State Governor’s Lodge, in Asokoro, Abuja, THISDAY has learnt.

 

New PDP is a splinter group in the Peoples Democratic Party formed by state delegates, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and seven governors, who had walked out of the August 31 national convention of PDP in Abuja. The group is chaired by former acting national chairman of PDP Abubakar Baraje.

 

Today’s meeting of the New PDP, which was postponed from last week, would be taking place amid alleged unease in the group about the perceived presidential ambition of House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal.  Tambuwal is widely believed to have sympathy for New PDP.

 

Those expected to attend the meeting are key promoters of the group and members of its National Working Committee. They include Baraje, the faction’s deputy national chairman, Dr. Sam Sam Jaja, the national secretary, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, and some former governors, comprising Senator Bukola Saraki, Senator Danjuma Goje, and Senator Abdullahi Adamu. Some National Assembly members are also expected at the meeting.

 

The seven governors in New PDP – Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwankwanso (Kano), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), and Chibuike Amaechi (Rivers) – are also billed to attend the meeting scheduled for 8pm today.

 

According to a governor who spoke to THISDAY on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, the meeting is expected to discuss, among other issues, the modalities for receiving five new governors that have indicated interest in joining the New PDP.

 

Yesterday in Ilorin, Baraje told newsmen that five governors – besides the seven named above – had concluded arrangements to join New PDP.

 

“We are only telling you five. They may be more than five. Don't be in a hurry,” Baraje said regarding the new governors expected to join New PDP.

 

Asked how the current factional crisis in PDP could be resolved, the New PDP national chairman said the settlement would come, “Once there is stoppage to impunity, lawlessness, disorderliness, and then whims and caprices being perpetrated by the present leadership, the so-called leadership of Bamanga Tukur."

 

Apart from the new membership of New PDP, today’s meeting of the faction is expected to deliberate on its next steps after the recent court rulings against it.

 

A Lagos State High Court presided over by Justice Oludotun Adefope-Okojie had on October 10 dismissed a suit filed by the Baraje-led faction to try to stop Tukur and other co-defendants from parading themselves as National Executive Committee members of PDP. The court struck out the case for lack of jurisdiction. And on October 18 in Abuja, a Federal High Court presided over Justice Elvis Chukwu restrained Baraje and other national officers of New PDP from operating as officers of PDP at any level. The case was brought by the Tukur-led PDP.

 

The Independent National Electoral Commission had also recently stated that the Tukur-led party was the authentic PDP recognised by law.

The meeting of the New PDP today would deliberate on whether or not to continue discussions with President Goodluck Jonathan and his team on resolution of the PDP crisis in the light of the recent court pronouncements as well as a growing onslaught against New PDP members by institutions believed to be allied with the federal government. The last reconciliatory meeting held on October 7 had agreed to adjourn until after the Muslim and Christian pilgrimages.

 

Meanwhile, most of the G7 governors – the seven governors that had walked out of the PDP convention – are said to be uncomfortable with an alleged presidential ambition of Tambuwal, and the controversy generated by this is believed to be delaying the governors’ declaration for the All Progressives Congress. 

 

Tambuwal is from Sokoto State in the North-west, where many believe that APC would eventually zone its presidential ticket, and he is a close ally and friend of Wamakko.

 

A source told THISDAY that the G7 governors were worried by alleged secret meetings between the speaker and APC chieftains, which they believed had taken place in Abuja and Ghana lately. To circumvent any untoward effects on their political careers, in the event of their defection to APC, the governors are said to be insisting on being allowed to control the APC structures in their respective states. 

 

“The problem now is not the governors joining the APC, but what will be their gains. They are more worried because they are coming in rather late. This is why they are holding seriously to their condition that they should be allowed to control the political party structures in their respective states.

 

“Apart from this, there is this suspicion that the governor of Sokoto State is one of the forces behind the presidential ambition of Tambawaal. They believe that his governor is behind his romance with the APC.” the source said.

 

While Aliyu and Nyako were said to have met on Friday over the issue after the Jumat service at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Abuja, Kwankwaso and Lamido were said to have discussed it in Dutse.

 

The governors would be expected to express their fears and harmonise their positions at a larger meeting this week. But, “Where this fear could not be adequately addressed, then, this could be the end of the New PDP, because the entire idea is how to ensure that one of them emerges a presidential candidate of APC, as the presidential candidate of PDP is already known. The ticket is reserved for President Goodluck Jonathan,” the source said.

The House of Representatives Saturday said it had no problems with the three-man administrative panel set up by President Goodluck Jonathan to investigate the controversial purchase of two armoured BMW bulletproof cars by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority for N255 million.

 

Chairman, House Committee on Aviation, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, who stated this in a chat with newsmen said the executive arm of government had every right to investigate one of its own and should not be vilified for doing so.

 

She said the more investigations conducted on an issue, the more the likelihood of getting to the root of the matter.

 

“We are not in any way against the setting up of the committee by the president to investigate this matter. For us here, one thing that is very clear is that we have three arms of government. There are rules and procedures. Because we’re investigating a matter, does not mean it is wrong for the executive to investigate themselves. I commend the president for setting up the committee. I’m a very progressive person and I believe that the bottom line at the end of the day is for us get to the root of the matter.

 

“Let the Nigerian people see us as clear and credible people. The point is that we’re working for one Nigeria, and we want to move the aviation sector to the next level. So, if setting up of 20 committees will make the sector to be safe, credible and move to the next level, it is a welcome development. I don’t like people saying the president wants to shield somebody and that is why he set up an administrative panel to investigate the issue.

 

“Let me tell you, two heads are better than one. Maybe in the course of our investigation we may not discover some things, and they may discover them; or maybe they will not discover some things and somehow we will discover them. But at the end of the day, let Nigeria get the best,” she said.

 

Onyejeocha said contrary to the insinuations in some quarters, the aviation committees in the National Assembly never approved the purchase of the bulletproof vehicles.

 

According to her, all available records including the Appropriation Act 2013 show that the aviation committees of the National Assembly only approved the purchase of 25 operational vehicles at the cost of N240m only.

She acknowledged that the NCAA did submit a proposal for the armoured cars during the budget defence process but the National Assembly turned it down.

 

“The budget that we approved did not have armoured cars at all.  We asked them to take it back and remove it entirely. Now we’re talking about two documents: one had armoured cars, but the one that we signed did not have them. If the document we approved did not have any armoured car, where did they get the approval for it? That is the critical question. So, I want Nigerians to know that at no point did we approve armoured cars.

 

“For God's sake, N240 million was approved for 25 number of vehicles for 22 airports across the country,” she said.

The lawmaker said since the matter was still under investigation, it would not be appropriate to join issues with NCAA or any other persons.

On the likely effect the car purchase controversy would have on the aviation sector, Onyejeocha said the fact that the NCAA was under investigation did not mean the sector had not recorded improvements.

 

She said the current happenings in the sector were an eye-opener and an indication that both the parliament and Nigerians were keeping a close tab on the aviation sector.

 

Onyejeocha said,“Let me tell you why this thing is healthy. This kind of exercise is putting us in check to know that it is not just people coming here and you appropriate; it means that Nigerians will scrutinise the budget that we approve. The future is brighter for the aviation and all the other sectors.

 

"Before now, somebody would see this kind of thing and say ‘na dem dem.’

“But this time around people are saying that it is not good. The problem is about people knowing that this country belongs to all of us. It does not matter whether I am involved or somebody else is involved. What I’m saying in essence is that we should give ourselves a chance.”

The political crisis in Bayelsa State took a worrisome dimension when an aide to former Governor Timipre Sylva of the state, Tonye Okio, was Saturay morning abducted by unknown gunmen from his Abuja residence.

 

Okio is a leader of the New Peoples Democratic Party in the state and one of the most ardent critics of President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Seriake Dickson’s administration.

 

Following his abduction, the Bayelsa Democratic front (BDF), a Yenagoa based group, yesterday linked his incident to his critical views on political issues in the state.

 

The group, in a statement signed by its President-General, Promise Okpoebi, said "until evidence is adduced contrary, we strongly suspect that Sir Okio's abduction is linked to his current political convictions, including his open membership of the New PDP in Bayelsa State."

The group said the fact that Okio's phones and that of his sister who was leaving with him at the time of abduction were seized was a pointer to the fact that the action may have political undertones.

 

BDF lamented that all efforts to establish communication with Okio and his abductors had proved abortive.

"But we know it as a matter of fact that since leaving office along with former Governor Timipre Sylva, Okio has remained a fiercely loyal aide of his principal. He has also been a known social media critic of the Goodluck Jonathan syndicate and their puppet administration in Yenagoa.

 

"Until evidence is adduced to the contrary, we strongly suspect that Sir Okio’s abduction is linked to his current political convictions, including his open membership of the New PDP in Bayelsa State."

The group therefore demanded for the immediate and unconditional release of the politician.

It was a harvest of tragedy in Kaduna when unknown gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram terrorist group attacked policemen at a check point in Ungwan Dosa area of Kaduna metropolis, killing one police man while some others, including a passerby, were injured.

 

The incident happened just as six people died following a petrol tanker explosion at Mararaban Jos, a suburb along Kaduna – Zaria road, at the outskirt the metropolis.

 

The attack on the police was said to have occurred at about 8pm on Friday when the hoodlums swooped on them at the checkpoint and opened fire.

 

One of the policemen was said to have died at the St. Gerald Catholic Hospital. Kakuri, Kaduna where they were rushed to for medical treatment following injuries from gun shots.

 

The other policeman, along with the passerby who was caught in the crossfire, was said to be at the emergency ward of St. Gerald Catholic Hospital.

 

Kaduna State Police Commissioner, Mr. Olufemi Adenaike, while confirming the attack and the killing of the policeman said one of the culprits was arrested while others escaped with bullet wounds.

 

Adenaike, however, said the police were yet to ascertain whether the gunmen were members of the Boko Haram terrorist group or robbers.

The tanker explosion that claimed six lives was said to have occurred in the early hours of Saturday when an oncoming trailer ran into the petrol tanker, which was reversing into the busy Kaduna – Zaria expressway.

 

Eyewitness said as soon as the vehicles collided, they both went up in flame and the drivers and other accompanying workers on the vehicles were burnt beyond recognition.

POLITICAL NOTES

 

Peoples Democratic Party and All Progressives Congress busied themselves last week with mutual diatribes over the proposed national conference. While APC said the 11 states under its control would not participate in the national conference, PDP retorted that organisers of the dialogue would be pleased to miss the opposition party. But both parties goofed.

 

Every opportunity to discuss offers a platform for struggle against an unwanted political system – or struggle for its control. No one should really jettison an opportunity to discuss, particularly, in a democracy.

Yet, PDP did not exhibit a thoughtful approach to the situation.

 

President Goodluck Jonathan had said while announcing the national conference that it was in recognition of the “suggestions over the years by well-meaning Nigerians on the need for a national dialogue on the future of our beloved country,” adding, “When there are issues that stoke tension and bring about friction, it makes perfect sense for the interested parties to come together to discuss.” A political party that produced such a president should not be making statements that exacerbate the already widespread impression that the planned national dialogue is meant for only some people to rubber stamp certain narrow political ambitions. 

 

Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa is president of the Abia Think Tank, a group of experts and business people that have undertaken to partner the Abia State and federal governments in efforts to restore Aba to its former glory as the industrial and commercial melting pot of the Igbo nation. The group is organising a two-day conference, tagged “Aba Summit”, November 20-21, in the commercial city aimed at harnessing the professional competences of stakeholders from within and outside the state to articulate an economic blueprint for Aba. Ohuabunwa, who is national president of Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce, in this interview with Vincent Obia, speaks on how the rejuvenation of Aba would help to resolve some of the socioeconomic factors behind the country’s growing security problem. Excerpts:

 

What is your motivation for organising the Aba summit?

As an Abia think tank, our desire has been to see how we can support the development of Abia State from a non-governmental perspective. We are a group of Abia businessmen and intellectuals most of who live outside Abia. But it has been clear to us that government alone cannot develop Abia State, and they can never develop any other state in the country. So there is always a partnership from the private sector. And also with my background, having been the chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, being in that system for a long time, I realised there is need to create dialogue between the private and public sectors to prosper a particular nation or subunit.

 

When did you conceive the idea of holding this summit?

We have been working on this for a long time. But we did a recent survey of the state and we discovered that the government was struggling to bring back Aba to its prominence. After reviewing the budget of the state and the allocation to infrastructure, education, healthcare, environmental management, etc., we found that if government was left alone to continue to fund the development of Abia it will take a long time because government has too many competing demands. So we thought that one area the private sector can come real strong is to look at an existing commercial city that has lost its glory and is abandoned, more or less. Companies that were established there – PZ, UNILEVER, Nigerian Breweries, etc., have either left or reduced their activities.

 

How did you factor in the question of power while planning the Aba restoration scheme?

We noticed that a major activity was coming on, that Geometric Power had decided to build a power plant that was going to be dedicated to Aba. For us, as people in the industry, we know that one major problem we have had is power. We thought that if Aba was going to get a ring-fenced power – the power from Geometric Power is going to be ring-fenced for Aba – then that means that it should become a base for industrial resurgence, output.

Secondly, we also know that one of the things that affected Aba and Abia State, generally, was the problem of insecurity, especially, kidnapping. But in the last two years, that has been cured by the hard work of the government – the state with the support of the federal government.

We had seen that the Nigerian economy continued to pose a challenge to everybody. Unemployment remains high, underemployment is still troubling. With these, we’ve had dislocation in the social milieu. First, is the high level of drift of people out of that part of the country to Lagos, putting pressure on Lagos, and all sorts of things going on.

So as a think tank, we said, how do we halt this migration, the growing social dislocation and criminal tendencies?  We know that when people are fully employed and fully utilised, they would have little time for negative social activities. We decided that was an area we could play to help the government draw attention to Aba, to let people know that Aba has become a major opportunity for industrial resurgence and commercial activity.

This is our motivation.

 

As part of your resurgence drive for Aba, do you have any arrangement with the security agencies as regards measures to try to make the relative security in the city a permanent feature?

We are not interested in short-term security. Government is already maintaining that. If you go to Abia State, you will see that there is no security problem. Kidnapping is gone, there are no militants, and armed robbery rate is not higher than the national average. Of course, during the period of this conference, there will be additional security for guests and visitors, just to ensure that nothing untoward happens to anybody.

But these soldiers and police will not continue to be on the roads forever, they will go back to the barracks someday. For peace to be maintained when they go back to the barracks people have to be gainfully employed. That is our position.

In the course of preparations for this conference, I chanced into Ariara market in Aba, I went to where they make shoes. I was dumbfounded to find that everyday about one million pairs of shoes are shipped out of Aba to Cotonou, Lome, etc. If we can help those people to move up their game and put some kind of sophistication, they would be able to supply to the U.S., UK, etc. This is what we are looking for. The baseline industry exists. By the time we get international investors and expose them to what is going on in Aba in the areas of garment, foundry and all those indigenous technology that exists in Aba, they can take the local manufacturers to the next level. That would create so much jobs that will not only absorb the workforce that is available in Abia State, but in other parts of the South-east and South-south. Aba is between the South-south and South-east; it’s just like the central milieu. People come from all parts into Aba, and that’s the role it was playing before the war. We need to even go beyond that level.

 

Would you say the recent forced relocation of some Anambra indigenes by the Lagos State government is also part of your motivation for the summit?

We suddenly saw this altercation between people from the South-east and some South-west people, especially, when Lagos deported so-called destitute. It got us worried and we started asking, shall we continue to allow this to happen? Everybody sees Lagos as the only salvation, as the only place to go. Why would we not make Aba as an alternative node, Kano as a node, Abuja, and other nodes?

There is a maximum capacity for Lagos. If it goes beyond that capacity, whether it is a mega city or whatever, the quality of things would begin to go down; we would begin to march on each other. So we are strategic, because if we get Aba working, we are helping Nigeria to work better, it would give a permanent relief to the security issue in addition to raising the quality of life of Nigerians.

 

What makes this summit different from the various business seminars Nigerians have witnessed in the past, which have not really achieved much?

As a think tank, we do a number of things, writing position papers to government, etc., whether or not they do it is not under your control. But in this summit, we are arranging businessmen; we are asking government to come on. If they don’t come on we go on with our business. For us, it is a different way, we are going into the implementation side, not the just recommending or proposing or theorising. We want to be in the forefront and attract entrepreneurial investment into Aba.

 

At what point do you think the deterioration of Aba as an industrial, commercial centre began? Was it something that happened suddenly?

It was not sudden. First, was what happened during the war. Then, the war ended, and we went through all the military governance and everybody was hoping that someday things would get better.

 

Throughout the military government, there was no focus on rebuilding Aba. We were just living on the vestiges or ashes of the war, individual efforts. But when Aba was no longer able to support the industrial growth, given the infrastructural needs of the state, industries began to relocate. Then, in the latter day, especially after the civilian government came, after eight years, there wasn’t much progress in the place. Things began to go out of hand, and that caused the further precipitation, which was the last one we saw, where Aba became inflicted by miscreants and deviant behaviour. So it didn’t happen all of a sudden. It has taken a long time, Aba had tried to stand on its own, but the issue is that if you are building on an uncertain foundation, the pressure will be piling and you may not know. But the day the thing gets to the point that it can no long carry that weight, it crumbles. And people would think it just happened.

That was what happened.

 

There hasn’t been sufficient investment in Aba, no concerted effort to rebuild Aba and make it a centre of excellence. Look at what happened in Lagos. Lagos was a place you came because you had nowhere else to go. People didn’t see Lagos as a place you come to rest or have fun. It was just, go there and do business and run away. But now, Lagos is being re-engineered, to the extent that people now on their own volition come to Lagos.

Aba is doable, not only rebuilding the old city, but creating opportunity for new evolution, new city around industrial nodes and clusters. Those are the kind of things we are looking at, to go beyond where Aba was. Because, everything you are doing, you must know you are operating in a global economy, you must have your eyes on competition with China, India, Russia, etc. Aba would be built along those lines. We check what Aba can do better than most. I’ve told you about shoes, garments, and foundry.

 

Aba can produce the parts of any machinery from purely indigenous technology. Besides feeding the steel and automobile industries, foundries are key in the local content of the oil and gas sector. Most of the local content in oil and gas is fabrication and Aba provides abundant opportunities here.

There is so much that can happen in Aba only if people are willing to champion. Anything that nobody champions would grow at a very limited rate.

 

Do you have a reorientation component in what you are doing, to try to bring back interest in productive activity among the locals and residents of Aba?

Yes, it’s a component of what we are doing. A system can imperil people; we are all victims of our circumstances. If you are a child where every morning you wake up and somebody calls you an idiot, after a while you will start believing that you are one. When you get to that place where there is a limitation, your thought doesn’t go beyond it, everybody is held by a ceiling. So we want to open up that ceiling to show that there is much that can be done, to show that Aba is a place where people from diverse cultures and backgrounds can come and do business. Of course, with the additional human development component to brush up people and take away this limited vision that has been forced on them by the decay and firth in the environment, and apparent lack of help, which leads them to self-help. When they know that people are interested in them, they see people from different parts of the country and the world coming to see how Aba can be brought back to life, they are bound to change.

 

How is the response from the government and the people?

Since we set up our billboards for this summit, I have been getting calls everyday, because they put my number on the billboard. People have been showing excitement and asking how they can participate.  The response has generally been very exciting, especially, from the people.

It took us some time to explain to the government what we wanted to do. You know, there are always people around government who would see other things that you are not seeing when you come with proposals like this. I must admit that we have a governor in Abia who wants good for the state, but he is constrained by the resources available to the state. He was complaining that about 80 percent of the state’s income every month goes to payment of salaries and allowances. So how much is left for development. He is managing that so much to build even minimal infrastructure. But if the industry is there, investors can do things like roads and toll them for some years. Look at the Ikoyi bridge that is being tolled, people are ready to pay to save themselves the inconvenience of using the general route. Those are the things that come to a city when big businesses are there. 

In those days, people used to say there is no water, light in Lekki, I told them this place would be dwelt by top people and they would solve their problems. That’s what we are trying to do in Aba, to bring more enlightened people and businesses to Aba and they would work with government.

The Abia State government has assigned people who are working with us, from the Ministry of Commerce, the SSG’s office, etc.

There has been great excitement. It’s not just for Abia people, it’s for those who love Igbo land and Nigeria, because Aba used to be a melting pot of cultures. Most of my school mates in those days, the Agboola’s the Diyas, etc, they lived in Aba, they came to school in Port Harcourt.

What is your budget for this summit, and where is the money coming from?

Our budget is just N22 million. We hope to get the money through three methods: sponsorship by companies and agencies, advertising in our programmes, and exhibitions and participation. A couple of individual members are already making their contributions.

 

Are you working with other states in the South-east?

Right now, because we called it the Aba summit, we are trying to be careful. We know the normal human tendency; people would want their own summits with the same focus, because every area wants to grow. Awka, Enugu, Onitsha, etc, want to grow. But we are inviting them to the Aba summit. Like I said, Aba has long been recognised as an industrial centre in Igbo land. It will benefit all the states, but we are starting the charity at home.

Many of our speakers, like Professor Pat Utomi, are not even from Abia State, but they are willing to come because they understand. We are mixing Abia people with our other brothers and sisters so that we can be talking to ourselves. Of course, many of them grew up in Aba. Virtually every Igbo man today has had one contact or the other with Aba.

 

How would you ensure that this summit does not end at the talking stage like many others in the past?

First is that at this meeting, we are bringing businessmen – International and local – and they would see the opportunities. We are bringing in locals to present the opportunities, and those who are coming, to see what they are bringing – technology or finance. Two, we have established an office in Aba so as to continue the post-conference matchmaking and follow-ups. Three, there is a group, Ukwa Ngwa professional group, that was also planning to do a few things for Aba and they wanted to join us now. But we said, no, support us to do our own, next year, that thing you are trying to do you will do it and we will support you.

 

That will create another wave. So when we finish, next year we come to assess what we have done in the last one year. We are not going to make it an annual event, but that event will give us an opportunity to measure our success and maintain focus and momentum. These are some of the things I have learnt from the Nigerian Economic Summit Group. So we are going to set up a process to continuously intermediate to ensure that it is not a one-stop shop.

We are not expecting instant change. Investment decisions take time. But we want a continuous sustenance of the dialogue and investigation of the opportunities that exist.