The anti- graft crusade being waged by President Buhari would make the needed impact if tough and ruthless steps are taken to punish corrupt public officers Chief G.E. Ezekwere, Deputy president Benin Chamber of Commerce and Industry and C.E.O, BEES Coy Ltd has said.
The businessman, who spoke in an interview with the Weekend Observer urged president Buhari to make capital punishment the lot of looters of public funds. He said this is the only measure that is strong enough to send the right message to Nigerians and the International Community.
How would you describe the Buhari’s Administration?
The Buhari administration is on a redemptive mission; to sanitize the entire system which is indeed rotten. The government is not targeted at any particular sector. It is a government that has promised to address the problem of corruption that has eaten too deep into the fabric of our entire national life. We recall that during the electioneering, he promised to uproot corruption and inject sanity into the way things are done in this country. Everybody is involved – importers, consumers, and Nigerians in general. For me as an importer, some of the policy initiatives of the CBN which has outlined about 41 items excluded from foreign exchange is hurtful and disturbing. That is to say if you must import them, you have to buy foreign exchange from the black market. But what happens at the end of the day, it is the poor masses that would suffer because they are at the receiving end. As a patriotic Nigerian; I have to bear the heat if that is what the government needs to move the country higher. So my suggestion is that corruption should be ruthlessly tackled while all the decayed infrastructures resuscitated. All the four refineries should be made to work at full capacity utilization. And central to our pursuit of industrialization and economic growth is availability of power. We need uninterrupted electricity supply.
The real problem we are facing is corruption. For example, why is it that despite the ban placed on imported frozen chickens, the product still floods our markets? There is no discipline. There is no respect for laws and government policies because relevant agencies charged with the task of implementing these policies are thoroughly and scandalously compromised.
Corruption has infact eaten too deep into all sectors of our national life. The officers at the border posts who are supposed to stop these banned chickens from being brought into the country are compromised. After collecting money, they allow all manner of goods to be brought into the country. If the law is effective, our local poultry industry will grow fast and many Nigerians will be involved in the business.
Throwing our doors open to all manner of goods like frozen chicken; has the capacity of killing local initiatives. Now let us look at rice, it is produced in large commercial quantities in the North and Abakiliki in the South East and yet it is not sufficient. And even if it were, Nigerians would still prefer imported rice. We need to encourage local industries that can produce quality rice and compete with imported or foreign rice.
Don’t you think Nigerians go for foreign rice because it is of higher quality and it is not riddled with stories?
Whether in Nigeria or overseas, we have the same planting method, the only area of difference is the machinery used in harvesting. So what we need is improved technology. For example, there is one new rice mill in Abakiliki installed by Ebonyi state government. Go and see the quality of rice produced there; it is of the same quality and standard with the one imported from Thailand. But unfortunately our cost of production is very high because of epileptic power supply. Nigeria is a diesel-driven economy and that makes manufacturing very expensive, so everything boils down to regular power supply. If we are generating enough Megawatts of electricity and industries are working 24hours a day then the quality of production will step up.
For two to three years now, PHCN has been in private hands and Nigerians expected that by now there should have been improved supply of electricity, What do you think should be done under the present circumstances?
What I think should be done is to return PHCN back to the government, let the government fully invest in the power sector because it is the key to development in any country. Putting PHCN in private hands is for them to make money. What they have been doing is exploiting and extorting money from the suffering masses and giving them darkness in return. So let government invest in power and ensure that there is uninterrupted power supply. Am not even worried about the electricity distribution companies because they don’t produce electricity, they only manage and distribute what is transmitted to them. The real problem is where power is generated and how it is transmitted.
Do you think government will do it better?
Very well. The government of this country can do it better if it is determined to do so. There are so many avenues from which to generate power. Apart from Hydro-electricity and gas, power can be generated from wind like China. We also have the solar energy. God has so blessed this country that what we need is leadership and the political will to translate polices into action. We have a type of sunshine from which we can generate millions of megawatts generated from solar power system. The problem with Nigeria is lack of focus and the way forward is to have focus on what is more important and stop corruption,. Governments may have good intentions to build these structures but if money goes into the wrong hands it will find itself in private pockets.
How do you want this corruption to be fought?
Like I said before, the president must go all out irrespective of political affiliations to battle corruption. He should not do it the Obasanjo way who merely used EFCC to harass political opponents. I will also advise president Buhari not to go back to the mess created by previous governments because doing that will divert his attention and put enormous pressure on him. I think he should put his own policy frame work on ground and ensure that whoever crosses the line is severely dealt with. I would also want him to sponsor executive bills to be passed into law that will make economic crimes punishable by death. In fact, looters should be made to face firing squad because they are the ones destroying this country. I don’t think the laws we have now are tough enough on corruption. Looters do not deserve any mercy. They deserve to pay the supreme price.
What is your advice to Nigerians?
They should exercise patience; they may not be comfortable with most of the policies. Let us bear with the president and give him one or two years so that we will be able to fully understand the direction of his government.
