Naijaonpoint

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Navy, Senator Chris Anyawu, says there are a few things that are needed to be changed in our democratic system, adding that the present system where a party has absolute majority such that it doesn’t need other parties to do whatever it wants to do is not good for our democracy. In this interview with EZREL TABIOWO, Anyawu says that Nigeria needs to get more engaged in businesses in Liberia even for the sake of the children born of Nigerian fathers that fought the war there

2015 and Igbo presidency

All things are possible when you do the right thing at the right time but you see, the question is, are the right things being done and whether the time is right. Power is not given, it is taken, it is not given at concession and so you have to prepare yourself and say the right thing. You have to meet, discuss and form coalition, you have to love each other, you have to have them buying into your ideas, others have to buy into your mission. Today, we have President Goodluck Jonathan not just because people sat down and said it is an entitlement but because others bought into that vision and mission. So, if that is going to happen, then, others have to be made to buy into that mission, and that is a lot of work. You have to work on your neighbours, because this is a nation of great diversities, different tribes with different orientation, beliefs, religions, and so we must have a cross section of Nigerians buy into that mission and that is possible. But whether the time is now is what I can’t tell.

APGA’s position on the merger

APGA has already taken a decision that anybody who wants to go to APC can go and join as an individual and those who joined in the past joined on their own cognizance and not as a party, because also, there was no consultation that they should have done before they joined, and that is undemocratic. We have to imbibe the spirit of democracy, there must be consultation, and there must be consensus building. We cannot run an authoritarian system under the guise of democracy, it will not happen and that is what has been the problem with many democracies in Africa. Many of us are in democracy, we mourn democracy but we have not imbibed the spirit of democracy, the tenets are disregarded. So, if you want a new political party and you want the party to go along with you, you have to convene a meeting of stakeholders and say this is what I am thinking. Some will agree, some will disagree and then everybody will have his say, the majority can now do what they want, either stay or go but this did not happen and therefore, many of us assumed that nothing had happened. If in the future, I want to join APC or CPL or ANPP or APGA or whatever, I join as an individual.

Are you going to join the APC?

Wait until I do (laughs). A lot of people are going about speculating that I have done this and that. I have not shifted one inch from where I was yesterday, but I know what is good for the system, even when it is coming from the opposite side, I will say that it is good so long as it goes along this way.

The merger of some opposition political parties

I belong to any place or any vehicle that will make Nigeria a better place, add more value, give Nigerian citizens more value for their efforts and hopes. It doesn’t matter how you could do it. What we have could be a multi-party system, it could be all the parties come under one house, so long as it is giving us more value, that is a democratic system. There are a few things that needed to be changed in our democratic system. Right now, we have a multi-party system but we have a party that has absolute majority such that it doesn’t need other parties to do whatever it wants to do. And I think there is a point where that becomes a little bit of a problem, because you relax too much, you do not reach out to other players and politics becomes a winner takes all game. You exclude others and others don’t have a sense of belonging and they do not see themselves having any stake in the success of the system. In fact, the Nigeria situation even see people get frustrated to a point that they even wish the system ill and wish their leaders ill and all they want is for the ruling group to go out so that another group can come in. There is a disadvantage in that, I think that a system, a political party system in which there is a narrower majority or no absolute majority may work better for Nigeria because everybody will talk, there will be a need for coalition building, there will be a need for those that have a slim majority to include others, there will be more inclusiveness and a more sense of belonging and people will have a higher stake in the success of the system and the coalition will be like a fire wall to check and balance the system and you are likely to have a higher accountability from the executive in a situation like that. Our democracy is very new, very young and these are the things that we expect are going to be working themselves out. So, what is going on now is not altogether bad. It will work out in such a way that we will be able to bring all these elements that I talked about, I think that will stabilize the system and ensure economic development and give Nigeria a good life that democracy promises.

Deployment of troops to Mali

Very few countries in the world spend their money keeping peace without having other motives or gain that goes along with it. America never goes anywhere without its business friend, even when there is war. Who provides the tools of the war, when they overcome a city, who connects the electricity and all that? When they went to Libya, you know what they did, they used their money to fight for Libya and at the end of the day, they used Libya’s oil to get back their money. Nobody jokes with that. In Liberia, we spent a lot of resources and all arms of our armed forces were involved in the liberation of Liberia and we came out with very little. Today, it is China that is tapping into the huge resources in that place. Even the few traders that we have there are not being treated well because Nigeria hasn’t shown much interest in that aspect of engagement. So, we feel that as Nigerian army goes, our businessmen should go along with them to look at opportunities that will help us. In Liberia for instance, their agricultural sector is something of interest, they have land, they have very rich land, nobody is farming there, virtually 90 percent of what they eat, they import. I understand that and we said when we went there, we should have gone with our businessmen there. We have human resources in abundance, and so we said if you were to have an understanding with this government, let us get into agricultural sector, let us begin to do some work there, that will be one way of engaging our people; that will be one way of getting something out of it. Now, Nigeria forces left a whole lot of Children out there. That is one more reason why we must engage seriously in  Liberia because we have people, a lot of children born of Nigerian fathers there and we should go into developing schools for Liberian children, helping them, not just helping to maintain peace but also help them shape a better future, a future that will connect them properly with Nigeria. And so, I don’t think it’s enough to take our armed forces to go and fight, but there are other important and enduring things that we can gain and those things have the tendencies to gum the two nations better than actually fighting. That was what I was talking about, I hope it’s clear.

Oil theft and pipeline vandalism

The issue of oil bunkering and oil theft and pipeline vandalism is not a new development. As a correspondent for eight years, I did a special documentary on oil bunkering. I recalled that there was a team when I went to Port-Harcourt, near the refinery, they took me to some water, I don’t know what water that was and they showed me where a canoe was actually drilling holes through the pipelines and they said see them, they are drilling holes so they can extract crude oil or refined crude and that was way back in the early 80s before I became a commissioner. These things have been there, they have been going on incrementally but in the typical Nigerian way, problems are not addressed when they are small, they are allowed to grow and grow until they get out of hand and become a national issue. So, it has grown from the practice of a few men in canoe to what is now a major industry. In the Niger Delta, you see young men setting up their own refineries, they have gone to China to manufacture small portable refineries and they are at work all the time. I remember I had a cameraman from that area and there was a day he asked me if I know the new business now, that he wanted me to learn for us to go and refine and I said refine what? And that was maybe about five years ago. Now, it has grown incrementally that it has become a major national threat. And  I can tell you that a combination of oil theft, bunkering, illegal bunkering, the three of them come together to affect our economy drastically, and they affect our budget and lead to the inability to actually implement budget fully, because you have to have the money in order to implement budget. This is my own saying, nobody is saying that but I know that given the degree of this illegality, there is no way that it will not affect negatively and it is. That is why the president was so concerned that the first thing he said to the Chief of Navy Staff was; “go and deal with oil bunkerers, pipeline vandalism and oil theft.”

The oil theft is when all the refining and bunkering come together, they take a medium level vessel to the high sea, to foreigners who come with big tankers out there and receive the fuel illegally. So, this whole thing is being aided and abated by foreign oil men and so, when they mock us and talk about the money and corruption, we have to know and we have to tell them that you are part of this illegality but the moment we are able to control the source at home, it will dry out the oil that goes into those illegal tankers in the high sea. So, this is where the Navy comes in. The Navy comes in because it is the dominant force at sea, in the maritime sector. It can chase the bunkerers at sea, it can also chase the large vessel out there at sea but you see, for you to chase people, you cannot do it on your wings or on your legs, you have to have the right vessel to give them check, we have to completely dominate, we have to have control of every inch of our territorial water, our territorial waters are massive, I understand that taking it as far as the EEB, they are up to one third of the Nigerian land mass. Imagine having to cover one third of Nigerian land mass at sea, in the water, which means that you have to be ubiquitous, you have to be everywhere, you have vessels everywhere and they don’t have that. So, what I said is that we have to equip, re-equip, re-engineer our Navy. It will take a lot of money because the vessel we need is that type that is like a town, a small town. And you don’t make them overnight, it takes one or two years to building them and that is a whole lot of money and I keep saying that the last time we got such a vessel was during Shagari’s time. Where do we find the money in a situation where our finances are drying out because of this illegality? That is why I keep saying that we have to think out of the box, look for extra-budgetary means of funding the Navy, funding the Air Force, keeping all the players that have to control this mess well kitted and ready. We can’t do it through budget because budget is very limited, we can only do it through very creative ways of raising funds.

Encroachment of the Nigerian territorial waters by foreign oil bunkerers

The Navy is at work, as soon as the current Chief of Naval Staff came in, he spent almost ten days at sea, our vessels are there, some of the old vessels are being rebuilt and last week, we got three new vessels but the problems have been that they are not the right sizes for the far sea, some of them will saturate in the internal waters. They are doing enough for the tools they have at their disposal, they are doing enough with what they are able to. What we are hoping for is that they will get better equipped and they will do more. The will is there but the capacity is not really there but I think it is not going to happen overnight. But I think that before the end of this administration, if things continue at this pace and if some of the ideas that we are giving are thought about and implemented, we will get to a point that we can say yes, we are on top of the situation. So, I think that they are doing far better now than they were two years ago or three years ago. Nigeria is so rich in terms of fish resource and a lot of  this is stolen by foreigners just coming in without permission and our fishermen are always being attacked and they are always under threat and they call the Navy all the time for help.