Amount of Foreign Debts owed by FG is Detrimental to our children – Mku
Mike Mku was Senior Special Assistant to Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo on human Trafficking and child labour. He was also the General manager commercial in the defunct Benue cement company (BCC). In this interview with Journalists to mark his 70th birthday, He spoke on the gains and failures of PDP as well as the insecurity in Nigeria. Christiana Babayo reports excerpts.
In few days, precisely June 26th, 2021 you will be 70 years old, how do you feel at this age ?
Well, I feel great, I feel good and okay. I thank God because am still physically and mentally strong. At seventy, I have seen a lot of things in this country and in my community as well. I feel okay, I feel just good.
Can you share your experience, particularly your journey through life over the years?
My Journey started Seventy years ago, I was born in a village in Yandev, Gboko local government area of Benue state. I went to primary school in Gboko, later Saint Michael Secondary school Aliade which was one of the frontline secondary schools in northern Nigeria at the time together with other schools like government secondary Kastina Ala and Keffi. Saint Michael secondary school was one of the very renowned secondary schools in Nigeria. Anybody who was in saint Michael was seen to have intellectual ability, discipline and values. It was a catholic school and the missionaries actually build some specific values in us. Some of us have grown up with those values and we uphold them until today. The school produced the likes of retired John cardinal Onayekon who set a record in northern Nigeria at the time. The schools were in a competitive examination of entry into the University and Onayekon came first in the whole of the northern region, we were told in school that the late premier Ahmadu Bello came all the way from Kaduna to know the school were such a student came from. So that’s the school I went to. From there I went to ABU, graduated in the 70s from there I went for National Youth Service Corps in Ibadon, Oyo state. After the NYSC I eventually got employed by a publishing company called spectrum books from their I left and came down to Benue to work with the state government establishment, Benue Educational Supply Company (BESCO) Which was established by former governor of the state late Aper Aku. I was there for about a year and eventually got elected into the Benue state house of assembly in 1983 under the platform of the National Party of Nigeria NPN. We were in the assembly for three months when the Army struck and took over the government. I went back to school to do some postgraduate studies and eventually joined Benue cement company (BCC) where I spent about eleven years and retired in 1998 to contest to be governor of Benue state. I lost out; tried again in 2003 I also lost out and in 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 all tried to go to the senate without success. So that is it and that’s were I stand.
This year, Nigeria will clock 22 years as a democratic state. How can you describe the journey so far in terms of gains, lapses and opportunities ?
Nigeria within this twenty two years of democracy is not a total failure neither is it successes all the way. There are problems along the line, but starting from 1999 when Olusegun Obasanjo was elected President of Nigeria, from my own perspective I think Obasanjo is one of the very well meaning presidents of this country, because I happen to work with him as his Senior Special Assistant on human Trafficking and child labour, and I knew were he had his mind and were he was steering his government to go. Indeed from my own perspective and from my own analysis and judgment, I think he did well to some extent. Although there were potholes here and there but overall he did well giving the circumstances in Nigeria. I can tell you without missing words that Nigeria is a very difficult country in soo many ways because we are not well meaning. First of all we don’t like ourselves, we keep complaining; I know of some people coming to government with brighter ideas and good intentions but the people themselves just mess them up and that’s the kind of thing we have been seen in this country. After Obasanjo, Musa Yar Adua came in and I think he was well meaning too and he stated well too, unfortunately sickness could not let him go and he eventually lost his life. Jonathan came, he also tried. The only problem Jonathan had was his ambition to become president for the second time which to me caused a whole lot of problems because that was against the zoning arrangement of the PDP at the time. Because of his ambition to become the president for the second time all the gains PDP had made he open up government coffers within one year of campaign and people embezzled all the gains he made with the previous governments. He did quite some work in Agriculture through the former minister Adesina. They were a lot of innovations and what have you. This things would have stood as achievements, but because of what happened in the tail end of his administration all those things were overlooked and nobody now look at him as somebody who did something for the country of course he did but he eventually destroyed it by the way he wanted to be president for the second time. All sort of people came in with their selfish ideas which was virtually to loot and be relevant. That’s what distroyed his administration otherwise he also did well. So overall for the PDP there did quite some work.
I don’t want to talk about the administration of Muhammadu Buhari. To say am disappointed is an understatement because I looked at Buhari to be one of the Icons of this country but the performance now does not justify my earlier thoughts. I contested elections in twenty fifteen, I was the senatorial candidate of the PDP in Benue north -west senatorial district, I lost the election; but I was consoled by the fact that somebody whom I trust and believe in will run this country had won the election and that was Buhari. So I didn’t feel too bad that I lost the election. Of course I felt bad because I invested in it and I also had my own dreams of what I will do in the senate. But overall I believed that he will put a Nigerian that we shall be proud of, at last I was mistaken, because what I have seen in the past five years that he has been in charge is incredible. I have never seen such a thing. This is a government that Buhari is completely unable to control, ridiculous things happen even in his party and I don’t see him taking charge. EFFCC is fighting with DSS, the APC itself fighting and I don’t see his hand in trying to resolve this issues; that is a part from abysmal performance of other sectors of the economy. Yes as a person we regard him as somebody who is not corrupt but it doesn’t stop at that. If you’re not corrupt other people around you must not be corrupt as well. So if he parades himself as somebody who is not corrupt and his government is corrupt it does not make sense.
You have contested and lost so many elections, what in your judgment is your biggest political mistake ?
I won’t say is a political mistake, because when I contested to be governor of Benue state in 1999 I didn’t loose it but I didn’t get it for circumstances that Benue people know very well what happened. I eventually served under president Obasanjo as his Senior Special Assistant I later resigned and contested in another party to be governor again. He actually didn’t like that but I insisted and left, I think if you call it a mistake I would have said that is the mistake I made; I shouldn’t have left him because I was in a vital position to make a contribution to the government of the country under him, because under him I was the one responsible for the establishment of the Agency for Trafficking. I sponsored the bill with Mrs. Atiku who had an NGO, it was passed by the National Assembly and signed into law by the president and the agency was established. I think that is one of the things I succeeded in doing working with him and I believe I would have done more if I had continued to work with him. So if you talk about mistake I think that was the only mistake I made because I would have done much better and would have gone much high in politics.
What is your take on the way Nigerian government is engaging in foreign debts ?
The large part of the budget is dedicated to servicing of foreign debts. A lot of this external debts are not dedicated to specific projects that will improve the life of Nigerians. The level of borrowing and debts we are carrying out in this country is so detrimental to the lives of our children in future, they will live their lives by paying and paying debts, that is the implication of it. Rather than engaging in internal production to up our economy and use the funds for development we have just kept on borrowing and borrowing. Iam not an economist but simple intelligence will tell you that over borrowing is not correct.
There is high level of insecurity in the country ranging from Kidnapping, banditry, Boko Haram to herdsmen attacks. Are you satisfied with the way the government is handling it the situation?
Insecurity is one of the things I have against this administration, because when Buhari came in we all expected that as a general he must have the wherewithal to stop the high level of insecurity and indeed when he was campaigning, that was one of the things he used to convince people that as a general he knows about war even though not a conventional war we expected that he should be able to stop this. Till today killings are still going on in the country. In fact, apart from the Boko haram they mate on ground so many other killings came up, Kidnapping is at it highest level with the other new one the bandits and then the Fulani herdsmen stuff all over the country. So the issue of insecurity in the country has really worsen.
Do you see the establishment of regional security outfits as an option to stop the killings ?
When you have a problem that is disturbing you, you use all kinds of ways to address the problems that you have and so if people believe that the establishment of regional security outfits is the way out there is no harm in trying them, if you try and it doesn’t work automatically everybody will know and the people will try another option. For now I think that is what is on the frontline so I support it.
Last year President Muhamadu Buhari signed the Executive order 10 giving room for the state legislature and the judiciary to have their own autonomy, do you support the development?
Yes I do, I look at it as the right step in the right direction. Unfortunately the governors don’t look at it in that way but I personally believe that that is the way to development in this country. Not just state assembly and the judiciary, also the local government because local governments are the smallest units of development in the country if you don’t develop local governments the states can’t do it. If somebody is independent he is in a better position to look at issues more dispassionate.
