Prof. James Epoke, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar, had served as a returning and collation officer for the Independent National Electoral Commission in past elections. The professor of Medical Microbiology, who moved UNICAL from 43rd to the ninth position in the rankings of the Nigerian universities by November 2015 when he completed his tenure, speaks with MUDIAGA AFFE on the challenges facing the nation’s education and economic sectors, among other issues
The poor state of the nation’s economy has remained a source of worry. What should be done to fix the problem?
The economy has continued to rely on mono-product, which is oil. We are not diversifying adequately and even the oil itself would have helped us improve if we were managing the economy properly. We cannot have crude oil and still be buying petrol from outside. If we are refining the whole of our oil and selling the refined oil out, we would have doubled what we have. This invariably means that we are not managing the oil itself well. How can we be importing petrol, diesel and kerosene, while we are selling the crude? In addition to that, we do not even know the amount of crude that we sell. Everything has become muddled up and they now tag it corruption. The truth about our economy now is that we are not producing anything. The Ajaokuta Steel Company has been stifled over the years. With the establishment of the steel companies, our railway system would have been working; vehicle manufacturing plants would have sprung up and that would have led to massive exports. We have made the situation worse by not encouraging local manufacturers. Look at Innoson Motors; it is bogged down in litigation here and there, whereas these are the kinds of companies that would have helped the economy to improve. Look at the Akwa Ibom State Government that set up a company that manufactures syringes; unfortunately, they cannot put the needle on it because it is a component of steel. All they are manufacturing is empty rubber syringe while they import the needle. With this type of mono-product economy, the economy cannot move forward. We import virtually everything and we consume a lot.
The development indices were right at some point. Where did the nation go wrong?
We were actually heading in the right direction before the military coup of 1966. The East, West and North had palm oil, cocoa and groundnuts, respectively, as their mainstay. The discovery of crude oil in Nigeria in commercial quantity actually put a stop to the development of other sectors because the crude oil was (and is still) seen as money that could come in without much effort. This is because foreign companies will drill the oil for you. The military coup put a stop to the development of other sectors. Today, our budget is fixed according to the prices of crude oil. It simply means that we believe only in the crude oil and no other sector. After the independence, we were starting a kind of democracy that I am sure many countries would have learnt from, but the interruption by the military brought an abrupt end to it. If you recall, one of the former military head of state said the problem with Nigeria was not the money but what to do with the money. These were people who came in at a young age without knowing exactly what to do. They did not think of developing the rail sector. We already had two rail lines in place which were constructed by the British colonial government. We were to develop the railway in such a way that within every 100 kilometres, there should be a railway station. Most of our leaders today schooled in Europe and they know that the easiest means of transportation is the railway, yet they do not want it to work in this country. A distance of Lagos to Calabar should either be by air or rail. There would have been no need for commercial buses plying such long distances.
There is this recurring debate about resource control. Do you think it is a way out of the economic mess?
It boils down to the same laziness associated with mono-economy. No state wants to look inwards to see what else it can extract as revenue in its area. We have a lot of mineral and agricultural products that are untapped. If there is resource control, which invariably implies restructuring, we could do a lot. Recall that in the First Republic, the West had a lot of money under Chief Obafemi Awolowo. That was why they could afford the free education programme. The same thing went for the East and the North, where the regions had money to carry out massive developmental programmes. If we have that type of restructuring, states will struggle more instead of waiting to collect allocation from the centre at the end of every month which will be badly utilised because they did not work for it. That is why most governors are utilising it the way they like. With that kind of situation, they cannot progress.
Is restructuring really a solution to the nation’s problem?
Restructuring is interwoven with resource control. Restructuring does mean that the states should take charge of what they have and give a percentage to the centre to maintain the federal entity. Under such condition, the states will be willing to look inwards. This is because they know that they will only give a certain percentage to the centre from whatever they have. They will become more productive.
There is this notion that politicians are bad managers. Will you support the view that critical sectors of the economy should be given to professionals to manage?
In other climes, we have technocrats that handle the economy. They give the model of what should be done and that will guide the politicians in the passage of laws and other things. Politicians must always be at the background; they must utilise the technocrats that abound. In most cases lately, technocrats are left out, while politicians overshadow all aspects of the nation’s life. I am of the view that we should always get the technocrats involved in areas where they fit in.
The seaports in the South-South region appear dormant at the moment. What should be done to revive them in order to decongest the Lagos port?
Most of the importers of goods in the country started from the Lagos port. The South-West has a very good hold on importation business. However, we need to remember that Lagos has very deep sea, while those in other ports in the South-South are shallow and heavy vessels cannot pass through them. That is why the issue of continuous dredging has been suggested. The best way out is for the bigger vessels to continue to come to Lagos while the smaller vessels should be used to distribute them to Calabar, Port-Harcourt and Warri. By so doing, Lagos will be decongested. This should be followed with good road networks from Warri, Calabar, Port Harcourt to the northern part of the country. When this is done, all the ports in the country will be busy. If that is done, the dry ports can now be utilised with good rail network. There is no reason why we should not have rail line from Calabar to Maiduguri. I was in a hotel in one of the towns in the United States and for over 45 minutes, I watched how just one train was loaded with different types of goods going from the South to the North. Countries are moving away from transporting goods through the road network. I think part of the ways to decongest the Lagos port is to use smaller vessels to transport goods from Lagos to other ports. The issue of dredging is just a way to milk the country.
Would you say Nigeria is jinxed in the area of electricity supply?
We are not jinxed. The problem is that the main foundation was not laid when very many countries were using more sustainable means of power. The indiscipline in the country makes us to build structures any how without approved plans and where the power will go to. First of all, we need a master plan to determine the exact quantity of power generation and supply that we need. We need to find other means of generating power. Look at Cross River State, for example, I expected the immediate past Governor, Liyel Imoke, who was part of the power system to have converted the Agbokim Waterfall to a hydropower station. But he did not. We have similar one in Kwa Falls and all what you need is to introduce the mechanism that will convert it. But it was not done. The various waterfalls we have in this country should be sources of power supply. Although the government had tried to introduce gas power plants, we still largely rely on what had been in existence. I think we should also explore alternative sources of power like uranium that is used in other countries. Unfortunately, if you see the waste in governance, you will know that we have enough money to do what we want to do. All the governors, ministries, states and the National Assembly waste a lot of the nation’s resources. There is no country that wastes so much money in governance than Nigeria. So, because of that, we do not have enough money to do those things that we ought to do.
The education is also in a mess. How can the situation be rescued?
The ongoing strike in the education sector is two-fold – one on remuneration and the other on infrastructure. The strike that borders on infrastructural development is good because the government has not done sufficiently enough in that regard. I have just said that we spend so much money on things that are irrelevant when things that are relevant are begging for attention. In any country, transportation, education and health are the major things that money is spent on. But in Nigeria, it is governance that is important to the leaders and that is why there is so much tension in our elections. It will surprise you to hear that when you go to defend the budget on education in the assemblies, they give you an envelope of N400m for the whole infrastructural development of a university. Under such situation, what can you build? Remember too that 50 per cent of that money is hardly ever released. This is what leads to shortage of classrooms in our ever-growing university system; and shortage of teaching equipment. In terms of training, we should stop deceiving ourselves that we are offering free education. You cannot train a student in Chemistry Department, for instance, with a school fee of N40,000 per session and expect the student to get materials for practicals from that money; it is not possible. It is not as if I am in favour of exorbitant school fee, but I am of the view that an ideal fee should be at least N100,000 per session so that the school can provide more teaching materials.
Let us come to the salary issue, we have different unions in the university and each group, under the situation, will sign individual agreements with the Federal Government. This is wrong. Such agreements can never be kept. The right thing, which should also be applicable to the health sector, is that you need all the stakeholders that matter. Let us take the education sector, for instance, the Ministry of Education, the National University Commission, the House Committee on Education, the Senate Committee on Education, Salaries and Wages Commission, all the unions on the campus and representatives of the Committee of Vice Chancellors must come together in a roundtable discussion to decide what should be paid to each category based on international/African average. When an agreement has been reached in terms of salaries, every year, as done in other climes, there must be a little increase based on the index of inflation. Check the various budgets of state houses, if it was N210m in 2018, it would have increased to N240m in 2019. Why is it so? They will tell you it is as a result of inflation. Why do salaries remain the same without being affected by inflationary trends? The salaries should be pegged on inflationary trends. If this situation is maintained in the next 10 to 20 years, I assure you that there will be no strike based on salary in the country. In terms of funding, the Federal Government should bear 80 per cent of the cost while students should bear 20 per cent. If this is done, we would have stability in the sector and we would be able to compete. When we went to school, we had stable electricity supply and it was from the same public power sector that is now failing. I do not know how we degenerated overnight.
Will proper funding address the medical tourism being experienced in the health sector?
We have teaching hospitals and federal medical centres in almost all states. Apart from that, each geopolitical region has up to six mega hospitals. All that the Federal Government needs to do is to take one per geopolitical zone and develop it to the best. The government knows what to do but they are shying away from it. We have seen that privately-owned medical institutions can attract a lot of patronage in Nigeria. In Calabar, for instance, look at the patronage that the Asi-Ukpo Diagnostic Centre gets, it shows that with proper channelling of funds, things can work. If such centre is built in every region, no one will go outside the country for medical tourism because it is the same result you will get from any part of the world. Our hospitals need updated machines to compete with their class outside the country. I would want to say here again that our problem is that most of our resources are wasted on governance. The resources meant for development are wasted on governance. Once you reduce the cost of governance, right from the Presidency to the ministries, legislators, governors, local government chairmen, we would have money to do what we need to do.
Will those in position of authority be ready to reduce the cost of governance?
This is where labour should come in. Instead of going on strike for minimum wage, workers should go on strike for the reduction in the cost of governance. Why should a governor, for instance, use 20 to 30 vehicles in a convoy to move from point A to point B doing nothing? Why would a president want to land in an airport and the roads around the airport are closed for between four and five hours after which he (president) is escorted with armoured cars? Who wants to kill him? All those are the reasons for the increased cost of governance. It should stop.
Why should the country still rely on food importation despite its favourable soil and weather conditions?
Those countries that have got it right in terms of reliance on homegrown foods have done so through mechanised farming. We have the kind of favourable weather with the United States but the difference is mechanised farming. With our population and the vast land that we have, we should produce enough food. States could go into mass production of crops that they have comparative advantage in. Without mechanised farming, we cannot achieve food sufficiency in the country. We have vast expanse of land that is underutilised in the country.
In the recent past, politicians have defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress and vice versa. Are we not recycling the same set of people?
In Nigeria, politicians seek elective offices in order to become wealthy or amass more wealth; it is not because they really want to serve. The truth is that the main parties do not have distinct ideologies; so, they are about the same. If we had one that is socialist in nature and the other capitalist-oriented, there will be clear difference. With that clear ideology, politicians might find it difficult to fit into the other system and that will stem defection. But it is not the case in Nigeria. We are still practising the kind of politicking that is for stomach care.
Do you see any hope of the nation’s democratic structure developing under the current situation?
If they continue crisscrossing the way they are doing now, I do not see us developing democratically. They are simply defecting from one big party to the other in order to procure ticket for the contest; it is not development in anyway. How can our legislators earn the highest pay in the world in a country where there is no efficient railway, no national career, no roads and no potable water? It is crazy.
What is your assessment of the preparation for this year’s elections?
The conduct of elections over the years has witnessed improvement and we are now somewhat getting to the area of having a perfect election with the use of electronic transmitter, which is part of the build-up. If we cannot transmit results electronically, it means that figures will be bought. Elections are won and lost at polling units. It will not be seen to be free and fair if that aspect is not perfected. How do people vote in developed climes? It is through electronic voting.
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