A former Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank and governorship candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance in the 2019 election in Abia State, Dr Alex Otti, speaks on the state of the nation, economic and security challenges, among other sundry issues in this interview with MUDIAGA AFFE.
You got to the peak of your banking career before venturing into politics, what are you bringing to the public sector?
Whether it is in the private or public sector, what is required to succeed is hard work, excellence in leadership, discipline, and result-oriented skills. My humble contribution to the private sector was the result of a sound vision, clarity of goals and objectives and flawless execution.
You were a candidate in the last governorship election in Abia State. What inspired you to run for that office?
My state of Abia has not been lucky with leadership. Those in ministries, departments and agencies have not been able to experience the kind of leadership where the governor would combine excellence with selfless service. They have not been inspired to see governance as a serious business where set goals must be met at the right time and under the best standards. We, therefore intend to bring to the table creativity, vision, and seriousness that would not only make everyone sit up but one that would inspire a new sense of service both in the leaders and in the led. It is a combination of all these leadership qualities that would result in a much better life for the majority of the people
You were suspended indefinitely by your party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance. What is the latest on the matter, or are you planning to defect to another party?
No! I couldn’t have been suspended. No sane person dispenses with a good product. It is part of the challenges of lack of character and indiscipline that have made a lot of decent people shy away from active politics in Nigeria, but some of us knew we would encounter such disgusting characters in the course of trying to salvage our state, and we were prepared to deal with such as part of the sacrifice to upscale the polity. What happened was that after the shameful sham of election conducted by INEC in connivance with the Abia PDP which saw the return of Okezie Ikpeazu as governor, the government saw there was an atmosphere of disappointment and sadness in Abia, and in a bid to give Ikpeazu’s so-called victory some legitimacy and popularity, they penetrated and compromised our party’s then outgoing state chairman, who had repeatedly denounced Ikpeazu’s so-called election victory and condemned the Independent National Electoral Commission. Shortly after, the former state chairman who was also the state chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council was led to meet the governor to congratulate him. This was after rejecting the results of the governorship election. My party naturally was shocked and was going to apply disciplinary actions but I prevailed on the party not to, since his tenure was coming to an end and also, we were heading to the tribunal. Instead of stepping down on the expiration of his tenure, the former chairman organised some of the renegades working with him to form a faction and subsequently issued a statement that they have suspended me. We went ahead with our state congresses that produced a new executive led by Nkem Okoro as the state Chairman. As far as the state chapter of the APGA is concerned, it had lost its former chairman and his co-travellers to the PDP. We have since moved on without them and we do not intend to take issues with them as that would amount to unwarranted distraction. The party in Abia remains intact with a much stronger and focused leadership operating from the state secretariat of the party at 79, School Road. Umuahia. When the renegades feel no one is hearing from them again, they would issue a press release alleging that one key leader or the other has been suspended. No one knows from where they are operating though some people allege that they operate from the Government House in Umuahia.
How would you describe the state of the nation?
These are not the best of times for the nation. We are grappling with all sorts of challenges. The biggest is the economy. We have just gone through a bout of recession and have recovered. But the economy remains very weak and fragile. For an economy whose population growth is about 3.5 per annum, economic growth of less than 2 per cent means that more and more people will continue to fall into the poverty bracket. Close to 50 per cent of our people are living below the poverty line of $1.90 per day. The unemployment rate is around 25 per cent and even though inflation has come down from around 16 per cent in the last few years, it still over 11 per cent. Banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and other forms of violence are not abating. I have always held the view that poverty, hunger, and illiteracy have a direct relationship with insecurity.
President Muhammadu Buhari-led government came into power with the promise that it would improve the economy and generate employment opportunities, fight insecurity and fight corruption, how well would you say the government has done in keeping to these promises so far?
Some of us believe that a whole lot needs to be done to meet those promises the president made then. Like I stated earlier, the economy is struggling and insecurity has worsened in the last couple of years. The leadership has also realised that we are far from where we should be. I believe that must be one of the reasons the president heeded a call I made in 2016 in my column titled “Mr President, you do need an economic team” as he announced the setting up of an Economic Advisory Council. I believe that is one of the most critical and fundamental decisions taken by this government. It goes a long way to show that the president must have decided to avail himself of the opinion of subject matter experts in the area of the economy. The quality of the members of the team who are all seasoned and thoroughbred professionals inspire a lot of confidence. In fact, in the column that I referred to, three of the names I confidentially sent to the President, made it to the team. I also believe that if this had been done as early as I had recommended it, three years ago, we just might have avoided some of the errors we had made that sank us deeper into crises. However, I will also advise the President to ensure that he takes the advice of the team seriously because it is one thing to give advice and another thing to take the advice and execute. Outside corruption which is a destructive monster that must be defeated to set Nigeria on the path of progress and development, the other challenges of insecurity and youth unemployment you mentioned, are two sides of the same coin. The more the number of people you have without jobs, the higher the violence and vice versa. So I believe that by the time the economic team, with the support of the president would have visited the key economic problems ravaging the country and taken the necessary steps to rejig the economy, the challenges of insecurity and unemployment would drastically reduce.
How would you assess Federal Government and security agencies’ performance in the war against insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, and others?
We know that strategies for curbing insecurity, especially ones like the war against bandits, kidnappers, and Boko Haram are usually top-secret, and therefore there must be some behind the scene top security measures you and I can’t know, but the general feeling out there is that the security situation in the country is worsening. That’s not to say that nothing is being done. Anyone who had taken time to follow the activities of insurgents in different parts of the world in the past would agree that overcoming them is usually a difficult mountain to climb and that is why serious nations put in their best to prevent anything that would create the platform for such security challenges to manifest in the first place. Beyond the purchase of arms from America, Europe, and Asia, we must seek the physical and technical assistance of some of these countries to fight this insurgency. But beyond all these, every discerning analyst would agree that the easiest route to overcoming the increasing threat posed by the insurgency of different types is by building a robust economy that would have the capacity to take the youth off the streets and engage them meaningfully. While it must be stated that there is no justification for crime, it is also true that there are youths who become vulnerable and get integrated into criminal gangs because they are jobless and hopeless and find solace and engagement in crime. We must, even if it is out of self-interest and preservation, provide jobs for our young people. Whatever that is left would be hardened criminals who would be fewer in number and exterminating them would not be as difficult as dealing with a large army of the unemployed swirling their ranks.
Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, there have been arguments back and forth over which zone should produce the President. While Balarabe Musa, Ayo Adebanjo, Edwin Clark and some others have said it should go the South-East, Governor Nasir el-Rufai and Arewa Consultative Forum have insinuated that there should not be zoning and that politics is a game of numbers. What is your position on this?
With due respect to some of our leaders, including those you mentioned, they must realise that they are doing the country and our youths incalculable harm by dedicating precious time discussing sectional politics in a manner that is divisive and destructive, especially a few months after the general election the dust of which is yet to settle. I have no problems with equity, but the greatest equity the average Nigerian desires is good governance. One’s ethnic background cannot instil competence and discipline in one to govern a country. If we must make a case for our ethnic groups or zones, it should be that, what is given to others in terms of good governance or allocation of resources be extended to us. If some of our leaders, especially those who have had the opportunity to lead in one way or the other loved their ethnic groups and zones the way they pretended to do, Nigeria wouldn’t be as backward and underdeveloped as it is today. Take a look at the groups that have produced leaders of this country in the past. Is there any evidence that they have fared any better? I believe the elites play to ethnic and religious sentiments to feather their selfish nests. The real ethnic and religious groups that exist in Nigeria are the rich and the poor. We must face the issue of good governance, justice and fair play for all squarely to bridge the gap between the two. Millions of Nigerians need good roads, they need water, and they need quality healthcare delivery, quality education, security, and jobs. We should stop being arrogant. We should stop playing god by boasting or pronouncing what would happen in 2023, which is still a clear four years from now. It is only God that knows who would be alive and who wouldn’t be in 2023.
A former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, recently called for reduction in the number of senators and House of Representatives’ members, do you share that view, if yes or no, why?
I had written about some of these things repeatedly in my column on the need to cut down the cost of governance. I expected Senator Okorocha to acknowledge that he borrowed the idea from me. In my paper, “Stagflation, Fragility and Arrested Development Of The Nigerian Economy” presented at the yearly Vanguard Economic Discourse on March 10, 2017 and published in Vanguard of March 12 same year, I had argued for the restructuring of the economy and polity, recommending phasing out the 36 state structure and replacing it with six regional structure in line with the six geo-political zones. I also suggested merging the Senate and House of Representatives into unicameral legislators and having no more than 36 members who would not earn salaries but seating allowances. This would ensure that it is only accomplished people who have something to contribute that would present themselves rather than the current practice of turning our chambers to retirement homes. I also suggested phasing out the 774 local government structures, amongst several other changes to drastically reduce the cost of governance. We are running a humongous presidential system that’s not sustainable, especially at a time like this, so we need to prune down the number of personnel in some of our institutions. A situation where we spend 70 per cent of our budget on recurrent expenditure is a recipe for disaster. If we don’t voluntarily restructure, market forces would force us to do so, and that can be very painful and costly.
By next year, the Federal Government’s recent increase of Value Added Tax to 7.5 per cent will take effect. What do you think will be the implications of that to the economy?
Economic policies are not meant to be stagnant, they are subject to review from time to time, thus, one would have been completely in agreement with this VAT increase, but sadly the present economic situation doesn’t seem to make it timely nor sound from the economic perspective. From what has been explained, the government wants to use income from VAT to take care of some financial challenges, especially payment of the N30, 000 minimum wage, but if serious measures are not put in place to raise the tempo of economic activities in order to put money in the hands of citizens, especially ordinary masses, it could end up looking like “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Consumption and consumer spending are on the decline. Disposable income is low. Jobs are not available as businesses suffer from the severe economic crunch. Sound economic reasoning holds that we shouldn’t be increasing taxes when the economy is depressed. The implication is that there will be less money to spend, therefore demand will go down which in turn will force supply down and reduce capacity and economic activity. That is not what we should be doing at this time. We should be doing the opposite!
Apart from the new increment in VAT, electricity tariff will also be increased next year, while the Federal Government is proposing reintroducing tollgates on federal highways, and the Senate is proposing a 9 per cent communications tax bill that will make Nigerians pay more for calls, SMS, data and cable TV services instead, what effects will one of these or all have on people, in a country already considered as the poverty capital of the world?
My answer to the last question applies here also. The fact that all these are coming up at the same time is an admittance that we have serious problems that require a serious response; however, we should not adopt a knee jerk solution to them. I talked about the need to raise the tempo of economic activities, especially through policies that could put money in the hands of the people, and I think that should have been the first step so that these taxes wouldn’t end up worsening our situation. I had defined tax as government’s share of the wealth it has created, so I recognise the place of tax in the economic development of a country, but I also do know that government has very critical role in ensuring that her citizens are given the platform to generate the revenues from which they can pay tax. Until the government creates prosperity for its citizens, it’s a moral right to collect taxes from the citizens would continue to be called to question.
The Federal Government recently shut the borders against contraband, especially rice, to encourage local production, do you think the move was premature and that some things should have been put in place or did it come at the right time?
Responsible governments all over the world always act in the overall interest of her citizens, and I can tell you that there’s never a perfect time to carry out a policy to the extent that it would meet the desire of the citizenry. However, I think that a sensitive policy like the closure of a border is one that should have come with pre-notice and had a set deadline. Having said that, my thoughts are that just like you wouldn’t put your house on fire because you found some rats in it, so should you also not shut down a border because of smugglers. I believe that at border controls, there are people who are paid by taxpayers’ money to ensure that unapproved goods do not come in. What are they doing? If they failed in their assigned responsibilities, what have we done to them? I do not agree that everyone should suffer because of the activities of a few. I have read from different sources in the media that legitimate goods belonging to Nigerians are presently trapped in neighbouring African countries. What offence did those importers commit? Like every other patriotic citizen, I do know that we can’t grow our economy by being import-dependent. But the economy should be operated in such a way that its in-built mechanism would force behaviour rather than using brute force. If importers do not have access to subsidised foreign currency and if our local rice is competitively priced, foreign rice would be bad business in the country. To protect local producers, the government can impose very stiff tariffs and ensure that Customs implements them. This is how it is done elsewhere. It is also for the government to ensure that there is a heavy penalty for non-compliance.
The banking sector has recently come under attack over some unclear charges on customers’ deposits, to the extent that some of the charges are seen as ripping off customers, how would you react to this as a former banker?
The banking sector is one of the most regulated sectors in the country, and interestingly the central bank and other regulatory authorities are there to always ensure that banks operate in line with set guidelines. The cashless or cash-light policy was introduced over seven years ago and it has been implemented in phases. The policy is aimed at ensuring that people imbibe the culture of doing their businesses through electronic platforms rather than ferrying cash around the whole place. The advantages include safety, as robbers are attracted by cash, convenience as recipients of cash, would always count and recount them, and proper documentation to curb corruption and money laundering. I believe that the opposition to the policy has a lot to do with the times when Nigerians are reeling from hardship, rather than the policy itself. In that wise, the Central Bank may wish to consider tweaking the full rollout time table. Somehow, we cannot run away from the policy. It is the way to go.
Nigeria’s foreign reserve was reported to have got to its all-time low in the last 20 months, what does it portend for the economy?
Keeping a huge foreign reserve is good and inspires confidence in the economy. But the rule is that foreign reserves should cover between 3 and 6 months of import. That means that we should be fine with foreign reserves of between $7.5bn and $15bn. From that point of view, we are still very much above that target and therefore, not in any danger. Conventional wisdom tells us that we cannot be putting so much money in a savings account at an average interest rate of 1.7 per cent while we are borrowing large sums at interest rates averaging seven per cent. So, I am not an apostle of bloated foreign reserves, particularly when we are in a crisis. We must be focusing on actions that will take us out of the woods and not the ones that will make us look big.
Nigeria is appealing a court matter after $9.6bn was awarded to P&ID. How would you assess Nigeria’s handling of the contract and the case, from the start to this point?
From what we read in the news, it appears Nigeria didn’t handle the case with the seriousness it required before the shocking judgment came, but thank God we have the opportunity to appeal and we now have a reprieve. I believe that the authorities would also learn a few lessons from this embarrassment. We also understand that the company involved has a questionable and dodgy background. I believe that by the time we are done chasing away the kite, we would come home to ask the mother hen how she exposed her baby chick to the kite in the first place.
PUNCH.
