Igali: Like South Korea, Nigeria Needs to do River Training to Avert Flood Disaster

Former Permanent Secretary of Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Pro Chancellor of Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ambassador Godknows Igali, in this interview with Chuks Okocha speaks on what Nigerian government needs to do to avert flooding disaster in future and the recurring strike by public university lecturers

The impact of this year’s flooding has been massive. Just like it happened about 10 years ago, not only the East West Road, the link Road from PortHarcourt to Bayelsa have been taking off, the link Road from Delta to Bayelsa state has been taken off due to flooding. You have been a major player in this country. Are you not worried?

l am very worried because I was supposed to go home to Bayelsa. If I am lucky to get a friend with a private jet and I fly by air to Bayelsa, I will still will not be able to leave the airport because the road that links the airport to the capital city is broken into two. If I now fly normal commercial flight and land in Port-Harcourt, the road at Ahoda that links Bayelsa is broken into two. If I say let me go to Asaba, the road connecting Bayelsa at Ughelli is broken into two. So Bayelsa right now is completely inaccessible. The only way I can get to Bayelsa is if I get to Lagos, I go by boat and it will take me to my village. It is a serious matter. As you know, Bayelsa is the last state in the country. We are the last local government, most riverine, most coastal so it is a very big challenge.

We have lived with flood for thousands of years but the difference is that with climate change, the flood water is becoming bigger than what our forefathers used to experience but because we are in a flood plain, we are in a wetland, the last state all the water ends up in Bayelsa state. You know River Niger travelled all the way from Futajelon and it is from our state that the water enters the Atlantic Ocean. So we are used to this, every year, we prepare for it.

You don’t hear much noise from Bayelsa because we are born into flood and we have been living with it. This morning they called me, the ground floor of my house has been completely overtaken up to the level of the windows and they moved every thing up to the upper floor. So we shall remain like that for up to a month until the water goes down. It is a terrible situation; a lot of people have been displaced and people like me can run away to Port Harcourt or Abuja but a lot of villagers are held back in that place.

But I want to bare my mind on this flooding issue. I was the permanent Secretary ministry of water resources when the 2012 flooding took place under my eyes.

When the flooding took place 10 years ago, we had series of workshops. I canvassed it and the Minister agreed and we brought in all the experts into Nigeria. We brought in Nigerian professors of Geoscience, Geophysics, Hydrology, Hydro physics, whatever related discipline, we brought them from all over the world and we sat for a whole week and deliberated on solutions to permanent flooding in Nigeria. We should look at those reports and bring them up.

I was informed this morning that I am still a member and I was never called for a meeting for some years now. I am also a member of a committee called Dangote Committee on the 2012 flood and I was the chairman of the sub committee on Flood Preparedness.

When I became chairman of that committee, I read a lot and discovered that South Korea has largely solved their flooding problems. Flooding must occur every year. South Korea has four rivers that end up in the ocean what they did is what is called flood water train. Why does flood water stand, it is because estuaries are silted. We have two sources of water, coming down from the Niger, coming down from the Benue system. By the time they come down, they meet at Lokoja, that is why Kogi state suffers from there they now go to Anambra then they go down to Delta state, the forcados as River null. From Delta it goes to Rivers state as an umbrella, it will now go and flood our communities and stand for like three weeks, everywhere become covered by water but not big like this. This big one is obviously because of climate change. If not this big one comes like ones in a hundred years but this one is coming more regularly now, this is the third time since 2012.

So we need to do River training which is training the river so that when the water is coming, it just passes to the ocean. That was what they did in South Korea. They even have pumps that push the water as it is getting to the ocean so that it causes minimal level of damage. We wrote our reports, so people have to look into it, study them very well,

There is something else that we have not done which we must do and I think that somebody should rise to this occasion. Lado dam in Cameroon was built same time when this problem was identified and we were told that we have to build two dams. One dam was to be in Cameroon called Lado dam, this dam was between 1979 and 1982, it has a big reservoir because there is a lot of rain fall, coming from the equatorial region of central Africa. Lado was built and it is a huge dam of 500 to 600 square kilometers. We on our side, we were supposed to build another dam on our own side of the boarder called Datsin Hausa Dam. When I was permanent secretary, there were several dams we were to build which we did not start. One of them is the mambilla dam, it has been designed completely but we did the other one called Kashimbilla. Kashimbilla was incase lake Huron erupted in Cameroon we completed that one and we did this dam in Niger state, We did two dams and the third one we were supposed to do is Datsin Hausa. So we were able to start two major dams and we said that the next two should take off, Mambilla and Datsin Hausa but in the middle of the whole thing, I was redeployed to somewhere else.

The idea is that Lado will release and our dam will now hold it and gradually release it for dry season farming. Kashimbilla which we have built, takes its water from Benue if not it would have been even worse. We started Kashimbilla in 2010 now it is waiting for the President to go and inaugurate it. So this other dam, Datsin Hausa must be built.

When I was permanent secretary, we paid for some experts to go to Anambra to see where best to locate the dam even if it means using a canal to take the water because they said that the areas in Anambra that are flooded are low land. So we said ok we can use a canal to go into some places in Anambra which has a good geology to build a dam, a major reservoir that can hold water in dry season and we now release this water to farmers. These things are not rocket science. Gadaffi built what he called man-made rivers in Libya in a desert. Libya under Gadaffi became a net exporter of agricultural product into the world. That is what I can say that will solve this problem.

Why are we not building Datsin Hausa, why are we not doing river training. There are a lot of sedimentation, clear these sediments, let the water be able to pass without destroying the ecology.

As Pro Chancellor of Federal University of Technology Akure, ASUU has just called off its eight- month old strike. What implications does it have for the academic development in the country?

It is a thing of great joy that after these months of strike, and after negotiations that seems will not end, the strike has eventually come to an end. Whether it is conditional or provisional, at least the strike has come to an end. There was a committee by the federal government headed by Prof. Lulu Briggs and a few other pro-chancellors talking with ASUU along with other officials of government.

Thereafter, the committee of pro-chancellors of federal universities, all of us met with ASUU, we had sessions trying to see the way forward.

Consequently, eight of us, pro-chancellors were chosen to interface with Mr. President and I was part of it. We met with the President, raised pertinent issues and the President promised us that he will get back to us. This was about three weeks ago. Of course, we know that towards the end, ASUU also started talking with the National Assembly. It has been a collective effort and we are happy because our children, our students can go back to the class room, the lecturers will be able to teach them and we will work rigorously with the university community to ensure that the collateral damage is reduced.

The lecturers assured us, ASUU assured us while the Pro-chancellors were talking with them that they will work extra hard to cover up the lost ground. It cannot be perfect but it will be spread out over time. What that means is that when students go back as they have rested enough at home, weekends will be engaged, public holidays will be engaged, normal holidays will be engaged as much as possible so that we can recover some of the months that had been lost. In the next semester, we shall take more time so that students will not have to repeat a whole year or repeat a whole semester. That is what we intend to do. It is not a doomsday thing. At the end of the day, the amount of time that will be lost will be reduced.

Will government pay for the eight months the lecturers that were on strike?

Let us understand how the university system operates. University system operates slightly different from other institutions. If for instance some other sectors go on strike, the time lost is gone but it is not so with the University system. The lecturers still have to go and work extra like I have said. Normally you take two or three classes a day and you go and rest but going back now they may take six classes, seven classes, eight classes. Some lecturers will have to work everyday till about eight in the night. So the work they did not do before, they still need to do it now. That’s the understanding.

In other sectors, once you lost time, that time is gone but in the academic circle, when you go back, you still have to catch up with the time that you did not work.

They are not going to pay for work that they did not do rather funds have been provided for the extra work they will do which in the first place would have been done during the period that they were on strike. That is the picture in which it will operate. In our discussions, we tried to explain to Mr. President when the pro-chancellors went that we the pro-chancellors are not involved in day-to-day administration. We deal with policies and in the policies of the universities we sit down with the council and senate of the university to make sure that the academic programme is worked out and spread out in such a way that our children will not lose.

It is not easy to train children, parents are making sacrifices and ASUU had reasons to go on strike which many Nigerians stood by them. Now that the strike is over, we shall make sure that the damage is not much. Eight months is basically like an academic year and we can say that one year is gone, no. The lecturers will have to work, the students will have to study more. They will be paid for the work that they did not do that they now have to do.

Are you saying the government policy of no work, no pay will not apply?

No, in the other sectors, I have been over many sectors in the national economy, when people go on strike, after the strike, the damages may have been created, the damages are permanent, you cannot go back and reverse the damages. That is the philosophy behind no work, no pay because the damage has been created with its impact on the economy by the fact that no work was done, services were not rendered but in the case of the academic circle, the services will still be rendered now.

So, if they are paid any extra money for the work they will do, it is because that service will now be rendered. It is a matter of delayed service. So it is not like departure from policy, from law no, it is rather being pragmatic in solving a national problem, national crises.

What can the government do to make sure that lecturers don’t go on this kind of protracted strike again?

The fundamental problem is that there is a lot of depreciation in the university system. The university system you see today is not the same when you and I went to the University. I was chairman of Presidential visitation panel to one of the federal universities last year. When you go on a visitation, you will even look at the water with which the children bath in their hostels, you are to look at their beds what food they eat, you are to look at the books, it a complete audit to the minutest item, the accounting figures that is why visitation panel have accountants, they have lawyers, every panel have an engineer to see how projects are being constructed, if they are meeting the standard and of course there is someone with a broader outlook. So very senior Nigerians with myself were selected in the visitation panel to all the universities before I became pro-chancellor.

Even being a pro-chancellor does not allow me to enter female hostels to begin to look at toilets and so on but as chairman of visitation panel, I had to do all that. We went to the hostels, we went to the cafeteria, we went to the class rooms, we looked at even the lecture notes because we were supposed to report what has happened. What I saw was abysmal. The universities are a shadow of what they were.

There is no doubt that there has to be an overall review of the physical outlook of the universities, look at the pedagogical content. These days you have some graduates that cannot even write their names. We have a class room that is meant for 100 and you have 500. I went to a class in that university and half of the students were outside the window peeping. That classroom was meant for 100 and there were 400 students and I didn’t know where to start but that is what is happening.

Look at the issue of accommodation, where about eight students are craft into one room or where students have to go outside the hostel in order to live in substandard conditions and they are subjected to abuse of all manners. So there is a lot of decay in infrastructure, a lot of demoralization.

Now go to the laboratories, it is not an exaggeration. I saw a laboratory where they were improvised to use kerosene stove for titration for their laboratory work. I said what? This a Nigerian university where I have to teach my students to think out of the box. So things are bad.

As a pro chancellor, I don’t go into those things, I just sit down, hold council meetings, drink tea, take decisions, debate and go. So we are in a lot of problems.

I went to the computer science department of that university and the students who were learning computer science don’t have access to computer. There are 20 computers and students who come in at a time are about 200. So I asked the lecturer how do you do it and he said well, I have a schedule for them but even that schedule is for about 100 and that this 200 is not all my students because I have about another 300, 400. So I come with these ones and they take turns. Engineering students are there that don’t have access to computers.

There is a lot of decay and i think that is one of the things ASUU have been fighting. With this level of decay, there must be e revamping, there must be an upgrade in the system. The working environment, you know psychologically it can be traumatic if you are not able to deliver what you are supposed to deliver.

Mind you, during the military era, the same thing ASUU did with Prof. Jega as President and they fought until TeTFund was established. Now if you go to all the universities in Nigeria, state and federal, what do you see, TeTFund projects because they take two percent of money from company tax and that enables them to be able to do infrastructure, pay lecturers to go to conferences. Lecturers can’t afford to go to conference when the dollar is now going for N700 how will you get the money to go to a conference. They must go to conferences; they must participate in intellectual activities. TeTFund is tying to fill the gap and they have been doing it, funding research which is a critical part of any national development.

So, to avoid this kind of strike, we have to have a rethink. When we pro-chancellors met the President, we said there is need for us to look at how education is funded in this country. It cannot be knee-jerk; it cannot be ad-hoc.

Like TeTFund a major intervention, there must be another major intervention. If we have to increase the tax that is accruable, like 3 percent or 2.5 percent we have to do it from Petroleum profit or from whatever, we have to do it. Our children are our future.

In Britain, when they decided in the early 60s to robustly fund education, they said this is an investment in our future, that is what that Robbin report said, we are investing into our tomorrow. The debt we owe today who will come and pay it, it is these children, better ways of constructing our roads, it is these children in our universities, better ways of managing our economy, it is them. So we must invest in them, we must create an enabling environment for them to learn, we must create the environment for lecturers to be able to lecture properly.

Why I often feel very sympathetic to ASUU is because when you go to a conference abroad, there are people waiting to poach you. I was an ambassador in several countries in Europe. Whenever there are conferences, there are universities, there are industries waiting to poach people from developing countries with bright ideas and I saw some in the Scandinavia when I was an ambassador, you can’t stop them. They are ready to offer you a very huge salary yet all these lecturers go there and get tempted but they still come back to this country and the environment for them to work is not there.

So the way to avoid this strike is to begin to think how we will fund education. We must see it as an investment into our future.

Look at the breakthroughs, you go to London, you go to Germany, you want to do operation, most times people operating you are Nigerian doctors and Nigerian biomedical engineers, the laboratory workers all Nigerians, sound people. Most of them did not leave because they want money, they left because of the working environment.

In terms of remunerations, if a professor earns N450,000 monthly that is quite depressing. There was a time professors were top civil servants with permanent secretaries. Agreed that professors are replicated in larger numbers but something can be done. These are the things they tried to raise and government has listened to them and attended to them through these negotiations.

It is now obvious that the number of students admitted are more that the available facilities and they are overstretched. Is it the government or University Management that should be blamed. At graduation it further leads to the rationalization of those that will go for NYSC?

Today, if you go to Benin Republic, there are Universities in that country that are at the level of secondary schools, that 80 percent of the students are Nigerians. This week, there are six universities from Ghana coming to do a road show for Nigerian children. There are universities in Ghana that all the students are Nigerians. Go to Burkina Fasso, there are Nigerian students in many universities. Go to Niger Republic many Nigerians are studying there.

We are country where every year, about two million people write JAMB and how many do they admit, we are still not admitting enough. Perhaps we are admitting may be about 30 percent. What do you do with the rest: Polytechnics will not admit them, university will not admit them, the bandwidth is such that every university can admit a little bit more if the facilities are in top notch.

If we can put more investment in infrastructure, the classrooms can increase, in the laboratories, more facilities can be provided. University of South Africa (USA), the biggest University in Africa has 600,800, students in one university. It is such a mega university, world class. The lecture halls are like the one you see in International Conference Centre. These same universities can admit more if the facilities are there.

We are not seeing investment in education as investment into the future. There are other things that concerns management of resources which has come up which needs to be addressed. But the first thing is that we must invest more in education.

These young Nigerian people are more creative than us. Time shall come when most of us who have not gone abroad will not find reasons to do so. When me and you were in school, foreigners were coming, expatriates applying to work in Nigerian universities but where will they stay today, in that squalor. People managing universities are trying.

I am not saying that government is not doing anything, no a lot is being done but considering the enormity of the challenge, no one is saying it is in this government, it is a decay that has happened over time. So, we all have to come back and address it.