In this Interview with JOHN ALECHENU, a former Minister of Health, Prof. A.B.C Nwosu, speaks on the Nigerian Civil War, the life of late Biafran warlord, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the proposed national conference, the PDP crisis and sundry other issues This is 53 years after independence. Can you assess Nigeria’s progress in social, political and infrastructural development? If you look at certain things that are on the ground, you will say that we have made progress. But for me, the problem has always been human development and our fire brigade approach. Administrations in the past anticipated growth; in 1953, seven years before independence, they built Government Secondary School, Afikpo where I went to. And a year later, they found they had none for girls; so, they built one. They anticipated for the population and tried to recreate what was there. We had CKC, and others. But sadly, we have not added to these things. We should have anticipated the growth. What could be responsible for the seeming deterioration in governance and leadership in the country? Would you blame this on military incursion into governance as many have done? I have a strange attitude to the military, which is unlike others. I judge every administration on its own. For example, it was the military that built the Third Mainland Bridge. Since 1999, why haven’t a civilian government done a forth mainland bridge or any? So, it’s not the military. It was the military that did the fuel depots, it was the military that did the Federal Unity Colleges. I don’t have a dichotomy between military and civilian governments, maybe because of the school I attended. Government Secondary School, Afikpo had a cadet unit, so many who made Division 1 opted for the Army, the same with Umuahia, many who went to schools that had cadet units made Division 1 and opted for the Army. It is an individual thing but what I think is responsible was captured properly in two novels of Chinua Achebe, ‘No Longer at Ease’ where Obi Okonkwo, brilliant, trained by the community came and got obsessed with the perks of the civil service instead of thinking about how the community that trained him could be mobilised to be lifted up. He was thinking of his cars, his Government Reserved Area quarters and in the end, he got jailed for taking two pounds bribe. It was that early that we lost the spirit of public service. In the second book, “Anthills on the Savannah,” he had completely lost interest in the military. He looked at the military, and the civilian regimes, whose ills the military came to correct, he found no difference. In fact, he found that the military was worse and he made a profound statement that ‘those who make plans for us only make plans for themselves and their families.’ If we are to get back the spirit of public service into public officials such as (Nnamdi)Azikiwe, late Michael Okpara, Sardauna and the wonderful Prime Minister we had in the person of the late Tafawa Balewa, if we get that type of spirit back into the people, who lead us, it will be a good start. South-East PDP governors recently endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan for a second term and some other Igbo groups have done so. What has happened to the aspiration for Igbo presidency? Will there ever be an Igbo man in the Aso Rock and when? I neither belong to the South-East PDP governors forum nor to any of those groups that you have referred to. More importantly, President Jonathan has not declared that he is running. As for the Igbo becoming President, it used to be a make or break point for me, it is not any longer. What I want is a nation where there is a level-playing field. I believe in restructuring this country in a way that it will give every ethnic nationality a sense of belonging so that each ethnic group has a chance to produce the President. Since Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu died, there has been no clear leadership or unity of the Igbo. Why is it so? Even the late Dim, never considered himself as an Igbo leader; if you called him an Igbo leader, he would just chuckle. Don’t get me wrong, he enjoyed the respect and adulation he got from his people. If you saw the way he lived his life among Ndi’igbo, everybody is trying to recreate those attributes that made him so loved by his people. Leaders emerge; leaders are not crowned in Igbo land. By their fruits you shall known them. The greatest unity the Ndi’igbo had was from 1966 to 1970. Can you tell us your civil war experience. Did Ojukwu conscript you to fight during the war? No person of my age was conscripted. We desired to join the Biafran Army, we did not fear the military front, we did not fear to die and that was what made the war last as long as it did. If Ojukwu didn’t declare that war at the time he did, we would have killed him. In my set in the Biafran School of Infantry, I was commissioned the same day with Ojo Maduekwe, he wasn’t conscripted. I was commissioned the same day with Joseph Okonkwo, the first Peoples Democratic Party Chairman in Anambra State, he wasn’t conscripted and so many. In fact, if you were turned down, you agonised you didn’t take part. We didn’t regret dying, that was a war we didn’t regret any wound we got. And I had serious wounds in 1968, which I’ve carried till today. Looking back now, would you say that as a nation we have learnt lessons from that sad episode? Definitely, we have learnt lessons. To us, the issue was not a matter of Biafra; it was a matter of security of lives and property. It was also a traumatic psychological experience for us to feel unwanted by brethren and by societies where we wanted to belong. In typical Igbo fashion, we said to ourselves that if people rejected us, we should not reject ourselves. I think we’ve learnt that lesson now and we are all over Nigeria and even the killings that happen now, only a few are targeted at us. Many are collateral damage. In 1966, it was definite pogrom. We’ve learnt the lesson that you can’t have pogrom and expect to be one country, if that is one lesson we have learnt, I think we have learnt something. You were close to Ojukwu, tell us some things about him that many people do not know. I thank God that I was privileged to have known him for as long as I knew him. I had admired him as a young man. Two things about Ojukwu that the world may not know: He was strong physically, he was strong emotionally. In the language of young people, he was the one person I wanted most to chill with. There are two things he told me: The decision to declare war was the most agonising time of his life, he spent time alone in his office clutching his rosary, this is not the attitude of somebody who wanted to be emperor from the word go. The second thing that he told me was that he could never get out of his system the picture of those people who were killed after he had asked everyone who fled the North, to go back. If those people, who had come to safety, went back and died in gruesome circumstances, he was always praying to God to forgive him. If you entered his study, you will see this picture of a huge Igbo man who was beheaded and his body sent down to the East by train. He had people like Uche Chukwumerije, the late Chuba Okadigbo, Ambassador George Obiozor and others around him. What came out was not Ojukwu’s view, what came out was superior argument but in this superior argument, you saw that Ojukwu was a man of great intellectual capacity. I can see why those who didn’t have that kind of intellect will feel threatened. One other thing during the war that people didn’t know was that Ojukwu always slept with his boots on; so, whenever there was crisis, Ojukwu needed just five minutes to move out and to get to the point of the crisis. He wasn’t afraid of a fight. Sometimes, we thought he had a death wish, he wasn’t afraid of bullets and mortars. Would you then describe him as suicidal? Ah, you could say so. Fleeing Biafra was a collective decision. Let me put it this way, If Ojukwu had been captured and humiliated by remaining as he wanted to remain, it would have dealt an irreparable damage on the Igbo psyche. Anybody who knew the details of the Ugwuta operation will know that Ojukwu was suicidal. Since the end of the civil war, the Igbo claim to be the target of victimisation, a recent one being the deportation of some Igbo people from Lagos. What can be done to stem this trend? That was completely inexplicable. Up till now, I cannot understand it. I also don’t think Governor Babatunde Fashola gave an apology, Fashola said he was sorry, that he was misunderstood by people, he was sorry that he was misunderstood, he should have said he was sorry for what he did. Fashola is a person who gave us the greatest respect when we went to see him as members of the burial committee for Ojukwu. I think he must do more than he has already done. What people feel is that that was not an apology, that it was a contrived thing not to damage the campaign of Chris Ngige (the All Progressives Congress candidate in Anambra governorship election). Fashola is a person we as Igbo people love; we have the greatest respect for him. The family and Igbo families are so interwoven. It was Asiwaju (former Lagos Governor, Bola tinubu) that appointed Joe Igbokwe (APC’s spokesman in Lagos). What Fashola did frightened many of us and he needs to go further than what he has done, it is almost like Okonkwo killing Ikemefuna who called him father. I think I will stop here because I like him very much, if I didn’t like him, I would have said a few things. What do you think should be the outcome of the proposed National Conference? Should the Igbo seek secession, the way they wanted Biafra? It amuses me when Nigerians say the Igbo sought Biafra. The Igbo did not seek Biafra. If the Igbo sought Biafra, there would have been massive support for the Movement for the Actulisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra. The Igbo felt rejected and thrown out by Nigeria and being a proud people, said to Nigeria we are capable of existing by ourselves and we will call ourselves the Republic of Biafra and when in 1970 it ended, it ended. So, the issue of secession is completely out of the question. What the Igbo want are exactly those things which you look for in a normal association with your fellow citizens. Treat me as you treat yourself, if you have a law, let that law apply equally to you and to me, if you have a right to be President, I also should have a right to be President, this is what the Igbo are looking for. The Igbo don’t want to be excluded or marginalised, they want to exercise their full citizenship rights as Nigerians. The people who should bear the greater blame for secession are the people who mutilated Aburi because there would have been no Biafra. If you found that there were 10 agreements in Aburi and you could only implement four, why didn’t they implement four and then consult Ojukwu again and said look, these other six, we have problems with it, can we renegotiate? There would have been no Biafra. You reached a ten-point agreement, signed them as men of honour and got back and thought you couldn’t implement them and instead of getting back to the person so that you can review those agreements, you went ahead, buoyed up by your power, to crush these little ants in 24 hours. That was exactly what led to the war. From your point of view, will the Igbo support resource control or rotational presidency? It is not a matter of support. These two issues were championed by the Igbo. The resource control that is being enjoyed now by the South-South was championed by the Igbo and those who were at the Abacha Constitutional Conference knew that. These are things that we feel seriously about. These two issues are matters we must resolve in the interest of Nigeria and I cannot see the Igbo not supporting them. Resident doctors are on strike again. As health minister under Obasanjo, why did you fix some of these issues in our health sector that are leading to doctors strikes? These things are dynamic. Society is dynamic, the problems that I faced as health minister are not the same problems as the current health minister is facing. In fact, in my own time, I even got a prize from resident doctors. They honoured me and we had peace for the duration that I was there. The people that gave me problem for the period that I was there were nurses and the other workers but we resolved the issues. I went into office with a five-point agenda. I initiated the anti-retroviral drugs in Nigeria, we had health insurance. We had war on fake drugs and when I recommended Dr. Dora Akunyili, I was even accused that she was from Anambra and I am from Anambra and the drug counterfeiters were also predominantly from Anambra. Thank God she delivered. What exactly is the problem with our health sector? Why do government officials and former government officials like you keep going abroad for medical treatment? I don’t go abroad for medical treatment. But when I go outside, I take the opportunity of a second opinion. The main reason is that it is expensive but I go to Abuja Clinics here, I like Abuja clinics. I like the endocrinologist when I have their tests, when I travel outside in London, I go and confirm and find that their tests are accurate. When I go to stay with my brother who is also a Professor of Medicine in the United States, we confirm that their tests are accurate. So, I don’t really have to go outside. I don’t know that I have ever slept in a hospital outside Nigeria but I do my tests. What is your view on the current ASUU strike? Who should shift ground ASUU or Federal Government? Both should shift ground. What government has done, which is take inventory and find that the universities are in decay, is a beginning. We had a system; government should try and go back to that university system. I was there; it was the frustration that made me to leave. ASUU, what percentage of members have doctorate degrees? Which of their certificates will stand scrutiny? They don’t want to retire until they reach 90, haven’t they heard of Professor Emeritus if you are good? How many of them have publications in learned journals? How many of them really teach, is it handouts? In 1975 when I came back to teach at the University of Nigeria, we were at least 50 young people about 30, years of age who had PHDs from the most reputable universities in the world. What is the quality of the lecturers and the professors you now have? How many of them are being invited? The current university lecturers should do what they are supposed to do and raise themselves to the standard of excellence and the university should provide research grants and facilities that will help them to do that. As a founding member of PDP, do you support the so-called revolution being carried out by the rebel governors of the New PDP? I am amused by it. Once upon a time, when the PDP was going funny, we formed a group, if you remember, I was the keynote speaker and I said there was nothing in the PDP constitution that allows for a PDP Governors’ Forum, PDP governors had pocketed the party. They were now determining who would go for Senate, who would go for this or that. Of course, they fought us, everybody was depended on the money the governors could offer, we got expelled, nine of us. We preached internal democracy, we should give the people of Nigeria who they want. We said we should be having something like PDP convention not just to endorse candidates. It was at such a Democratic Party convention in the United States that threw up brilliant people like Barrack Obama, why can’t we have such? We were thrown away including former Presidents of the Senate, Speakers of the House of Reps. I don’t know what to make of this thing (New PDP)? What is their agenda? I remember it was the same Abubakar Baraje and those people running about today that called us names and threw us out. It was this (President) Jonathan who called us back. In your opinion, do you think President Jonathan should run for a second term in 2015? Does he deserve a second term? We should leave President Jonathan to decide. I personally felt insulted when governors went to him to say he should not run, who among them will brook it in their states? The institution of the Presidency deserves the respect of every one of us. I say this with all seriousness because you can’t ridicule what you ultimately want to aspire to. What will then happen when you occupy the office and some people come and insult you and you take precipitated action?