The vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2019 election and former Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi, speaks with OLUSOLA FABIYI and MUDIAGA AFFE on the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 elections and other issues
How would you assess the way the Federal Government has handled the COVID-19 pandemic?
The COVID-19 situation has brought to the fore the cumulative effects of bad leadership over the years in the area of poor health infrastructure, inequality and so many other ills in the country. We have poor health infrastructure that was not created overnight. It also showed where we are in terms of development and that we are performing below expectations.
Who is to blame for this?
I have said that it is (to be blamed on) the cumulative effects of leadership failures over the years. All of us that have been leaders over the years should share in that blame. You cannot pick who exactly to blame, but if you look at the measure of development that is universally accepted which is the Human Development Indices, among which is life expectancy that bothers on health; while globally it is 75 years, in Nigeria, it is 54 and this means that we are 21 years below. If you look at our infant mortality and health infrastructure, we are not there. The second is education and the third is per-capita (income). So, looking at all these indices, you cannot tie the blame to one person or the other.
How do we address these critical challenges?
We need to sit back and appraise the situation. Where are we today? If that is clearly stated, then we would define where we hope to get to and how we got there. So, everybody-the populace who are the passengers in this vehicle-must know that destination and know that the drivers, who are the leaders, are driving to that destination. If you look at the clearest measure of human development (HDI), we are number 157.
It is categorised in three ways: high, medium, and low. The question we should ask ourselves is where are we in this categorisation? We are placed low, if not very low. So, if my target is to be at the medium level in the next few years, then we should start, for instance, to address the issues of poor budgeting in health and poor infrastructure. In the past 10 years, our total budget for health is about N2.7tn, and using the various exchange rates, it came to about $9bn. Last year alone, the second biggest economy in the continent, South Africa, had $17.1bn as budget for health.
So, what we have spent in 10 years is just about 50 per cent of what the second biggest economy is spending in one year. That budget of $17.1bn, when divided with the population of South Africa came to about $308 per person. Let me again bring you home to the second biggest economy in West Africa, which is Ghana.
Last year, the budget of Ghana for health was $1.2bn, which came to about $41 per person. Nigeria’s budget for health in 2019 was $1.2bn, which is $6 per head. So, in South Africa which is the second biggest economy, per head in the health sector is about $300, while in West Africa, the second biggest economy is about $40 per person. It is clear where our problem is coming from. It is left for us to decide which way to go.
Are we doing well in the area of education?
Again, the situation in this sector is unacceptable. Let me take you beyond Africa and compare us with other countries with the same population. In Indonesia, which is the highest Muslim-populated country in the world, the country’s education budget for 2019 was $48bn for a population of 250 million people. Nigeria has about 200 million people and our budget for education is about $2bn. So, you can see the crisis that we are facing.
We can go on and on and you will see that there are gaps all over the place. Every other country that we are competing with has four per cent of their Gross Domestic Product as the education budget, while ours is not even up to one per cent.
But recall that we borrow to augment the funding of our budget. If we have huge budgets for all these sectors, how do we fund them?
I am not against borrowing, but I am against borrowing for consumption. Budgets are funded globally through borrowing. There is nothing wrong with that because nobody prints money on its own. If we borrow for investment, there is nothing wrong with that. It is morally irresponsible, the worst form of corruption, for you to borrow and consume and leave the payment for the future generation. This is because you have impoverished them. But if you are going to borrow to invest, it is allowed globally, because the more you invest from borrowing, the better your economy.
Which areas are the best for the investment of borrowed money?
It is proved that the biggest return on investment today is education. The more educated your people are, the better your development. The second one is health, because the more educated and healthy your people are, the stronger your economy.
There is nothing wrong with borrowing. What we need to do is to put a law in place that if we must borrow, it must strictly be for investment in areas of growth. These areas are education, health, and support for businesses, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises.
Countries that have done that have a robust economy. Examples are Ghana, Kenya, Vietnam, among others. In 2010, Nigeria’s overall debt was less than 10 per cent of our GDP. Our GDP then was $370bn, and our per-capita income, which is a critical aspect of HDI, was $2,325. In 2019, our borrowing has moved from below 10 per cent of our GDP to near 30 per cent of our GDP, which means that we had tripled the debts. Our GDP now is somewhere within the region of $390bn or $400bn, while the per-capita income is now below $2,000.
What does that show?
It shows that we borrowed for consumption. So, it did not impact the growth because they were not interested in that. In 2010, Ghana’s GDP was $32bn, while their per-capita income was $1,310, but today their GDP is $54bn while their per-capita income is in the region of $2,200. So, you can see the difference, they have almost doubled their per-capita income.
There is nothing wrong in borrowing, it is where you throw the money that makes the difference. Singapore, which is another exceptional example, owes more than 100 per cent of their GDP, but there is a law in that country that says all borrowing must be for investment for the future.
In borrowing, you must be transparent. Everybody must know what we are borrowing and what it is meant for. Our leaders spend government money as if they are doing the citizens a favour.
Would you say the present government is borrowing for the right reasons?
Well, I am just giving general examples. It is for you to judge.
We are borrowing for the railway and others…
The question is, do we need to borrow for them? We can try to raise money from the capital market here to do some of these projects which will make it even more effective because if we raise local capital, it means the debt and ownership will be local and they can question what is happening.
How do we address the problem of our dwindling revenue and dilapidated infrastructures?
There are so many countries today that will say crude oil has become a curse to Nigeria. It brought a curse to us to the extent that people stopped thinking, no innovation. Everybody just waits to get money to share. That is why we have said let us restructure the country. Let everybody go their way and become more efficient, competitive, and be able to manage their resources and we will have a country that is functional and competitive. The oil will not save Nigeria.
All we need to do is to do the right thing. The countries that are doing very well globally are not making money from oil. Vietnam, for instance, makes money from other sources apart from oil. Our oil revenue in 2018 was about $18bn, it was not up to the total revenue of Facebook for that same year, which was $57bn; and it was that money ($18bn) that everybody was going to share. We have talents that will create such companies, so, we must take part and invest in them. The world is moving fast to a knowledge-driven economy.
In the $22.7bn loan that has been approved by the National Assembly, it was discovered that none of the listed projects is in the South-East. Does it not show lack of equitable distribution of projects across the zones?
For me, it does not matter which area is going to benefit or not because of our mentality of sharing. If we restructure the country, we need to get people to work. Nigeria is like a car with a faulty engine, we need to fix the engine first. If the car is working, I would not mind where they are borrowing to invest. When we had regions, nobody knew where the other region was borrowing from. Rather, all the regions were simply trying to do what was right.
So, are you advocating a return to regionalism?
Well, I am not just advocating, I am saying let us have true federalism where each area or state is a land of its own that can manage its resources and pay tax to the central government.
Can that be done with the present arrangement?
It is very simple. We must find a formula because what we have now is not working. So, we can sit down and discuss how to do it.
Are you saying we need another constitutional conference?
We need to find something that can work. What we have now is not working and we would need to check that out ourselves. Even the leadership style is not working, so, we need to do something to improve on that.
They say every country gets the leadership it deserves. Do we deserve the leadership we have in this country?
Yes, in a way because it is elected by us.
But you people have a way of rigging your way in?
Well, you can only rig if the citizens allow you to rig.
But do politicians not rig with guns?
Nobody wants to die but anyhow you must die. You could die while defending the votes or be killed by hunger.
The race for 2023 has begun, what are your expectations?
For me, that should not be our priority for now. There are all sorts of things. Considering what the world is going through with this COVID-19 pandemic, we need to focus on the future of our country. However, my position on the election is that we must change our leadership style.
Some analysts believe the South-East should produce the next President while some other zones are clamouring as well. What is your position on this matter?
My position is that the clamor for the South-East is that this enterprise belongs to all of us and it is only fair that we should be allowed to participate in it. Above that, I will still come back to the fact that the car has an engine problem, so, changing the driver might not be the most important thing, let us fix the engine. Yes, agreed, we need to make everybody feel that they are one family. You could see everywhere that they have abandoned us (South-East) in terms of even federal character and every other thing. We have every reason to feel unfairly treated.
