*Insists it’s easy to become a minister or governor in Nigeria
*Fashola: Nothing strange about people leaving the country in face of globalisation
Wale Igbintade
Former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has urged Nigerians not to flee the country in what has come to be known as ‘japa’ syndrome, stressing that there are abundant opportunities in the country.
This is as the former Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), also declared that there was nothing strange about people leaving the country, pointing out that the world has changed radically with globalisation and with increasing penetration of the internet.
Speaking yesterday on the ARISE NEWS Channel programme, Perspective, which had earlier featured Fashola, the former governor of Rivers State, however, noted Nigerians have the kind of leaders they voted for.
Amaechi, who was a guest on the programme to answer questions on ‘Life After Office,’ said he had always discouraged people from fleeing the country, adding that there are a lot of opportunities in Nigeria.
“I have always discouraged those who want to leave the country. You can always get 9a.m. to 5p.m. jobs when you leave the country but you can never get the kind of opportunity you get in Nigeria. You can just wake up and you can become a governor or a minister in Nigeria,” Amaechi explained.
Speaking on the quality of leadership in the country, Amaechi said: “Nigerians get what they want, what they deserve. You don’t complain after. You don’t. Nigerians at all times have had opportunities to vote. So, whatever you voted for is what you deserved. But, let’s not go into politics.”
On the legacies he left behind in the past 25 years of being in politics, Amaechi cited the construction of the Lekki Deep Sea Port, and the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja/Kaduna railway lines, among others.
“Another thing that is interesting to me is the railway and I’m happy that the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna railways are still operating. These and others are legacies that I would like to watch,” he added.
Amaechi said after leaving office he focused his energy on education and enrolled in several degree programmes in Law at the same time.
Asked to advise the Nigerian youths, he said: “I will ask young Nigerians to look at my situation. I was born into a poor family. My father was a dispensing pharmacist; he found it difficult to train me and my siblings. I was lucky to be trained but my siblings were not able to go to university; anybody that went to university after me was trained by me. Some of them are working; some are not working. You just have to struggle. The elite would not want you to join the elite class. But you just have to push and continue to push until you push yourself to be part of the elite.”
Amaechi explained that the crime rate is high in Nigeria because the economy is too small and not able to absorb everybody.
On what he did after leaving office, he said: “I enrolled at the Nigerian Law School. At the same time, I got registered in King’s College for my master’s degree in Law.
“Again, I was doing a first degree course in Law at the University of London. I did my last exams last year in October and you will be shocked to know that I failed two courses.
“Out of five courses, I failed two because I was combining the Nigerian Law School; I was also doing a Master’s Degree in Corporate and Company Law, and I was doing an LL.D programme at the University of London. So, because of the multiplicity of academic work, I had to fail two courses in the LL.D programme.”
On life after office, he said: “I have a huge number of friends that if the politicians go, I have other friends at all times. I am not such a protocol person; so, while in office, I was like every other Nigerian.
“However, law school enabled me to have a lot of young friends in their 18s, and 20s; so, if some of my friends are not calling me again there is nothing to worry about, I will just focus on my achievements and the things I set out to do before becoming a minister and the legacies I left in Port Harcourt.
“I do rest, I have a lot of time to sleep and time for my poor wife who has not had the opportunity of seeing me as often as she should since when she got married to me. Soon after we got married, by 1999 I had become the Speaker, and from then only God knows what has happened. From speaker to governor and from governor to minister and director general of campaign of the last government twice.
“These are huge responsibilities that got my family almost seeing me as an absentee husband. My wife is such a wonderful manager, managing me, managing my responsibilities, managing the children, and helping to keep my responsibilities to the children so that they wouldn’t see me as an uncle.
On whether he would run for political office again, he simply answered: “No comment”.
He said the difference between him and most Nigerian elites is that he says things the way he sees them.
“I say it the way it is. I will tell you the truth even if you put a gun on my head. I wanted to go to heaven; so, I tried to tell the truth at all times. I choose to be honest all my life.
On his part, Fashola, while featuring earlier on the programme, argued that there was nothing strange about people leaving the country, adding that the world has changed radically with globalisation and with increasing penetration of the internet.
He stated that ‘Japa’ syndrome should not be used to measure how bad or how good Nigeria is, stressing that the world is imminently migrating and travelling at a pace perhaps never witnessed before in the history of human evolution.
“My dream about Nigeria is a place where every person’s dream can come true. It is the driving force of my offering in that book about the fulfillment of the possibility of Nigeria of my dream and I think some of the suggestions that I offered there will provoke people to reflect on choices that we have made and choices that we may make going forward.
“I am an optimist, and when I look back and see where we are we are sailing against headwind now, but I think in the future we will have some winds behind our sails.
“One of the things that interest me is helping the process of leadership development and leadership recruitment, especially in public space. That is something I find really exciting and I hope that whatever experience I have acquired, can be beneficial to another set of younger people.
“In terms of political choices, I don’t look too far ahead of myself. What is uppermost for me now is to reintegrate myself back as a citizen into my community and get on with life at that level. So, I don’t look too far at myself politically.
“People seldom see the amount of work that is in public service. It is really unforgiving work. Before I came into public service, my other life was as a legal practitioner. Nobody could fairly accuse me of being lazy, but in the public service, I have never worked as hard as I have worked in public service.
‘’To the extent that Nigeria is our motherland, our home country, place of refuge, the necessity for patriotism in my view, is not open to debate. We just have to be patriots and continue building the best version of our country that we want. We must be original and authentic in our thoughts and our actions.
‘’For eight years, I never used a siren in Lagos, and worked throughout the traffic and we managed it. I was in traffic all through the period; people were in traffic, and we stayed there together. My parents always told me not to take what I cannot afford just because somebody else is paying for it,’’ Fashola explained.
The former Lagos State governor further revealed that he only receives a N577,000 monthly pension from the Lagos State government.
He further clarified that he does not collect any pension from the federal government.
The former Lagos State governor stated that despite all the stories that they got several billions of naira, which he had denied repeatedly, he only receives N577,000 monthly pensions.
He said: “The benefit I get is N577,000 monthly pensions from Lagos State, which is all I get. And despite all the stories that we got several billions of naira, I have come out to deny that repeatedly. I don’t know how long it will last, but I still get it every month, and nothing from the federal government, nothing at all.”
On life after office, Fashola said he is still a politician, but not in active politics.
He said: ‘’There is a politician in every one of us. I am still a politician. Politics for me is a noble undertaking in terms of a 9am- to -5pm job, getting up and going again. My term in office has ended and happily so. It ended at the time I was going through some pain; so, it was just a good time to let it go.
“For me, over the 21 years, my hours were three to four hours sleep; so, I use Saturdays and Sundays to reboot and start again. That was why I literally seem to have disappeared from the social scene because the problems never end. So, I ran my race as hard as I thought I could.’’
