 Okay, this is Plus Politics in case you're just joining us and my name is Nyam Gul Agadji. The elections have come and gone. A lot of people may be aggrieved, but now we should be talking more about the healing process of our community, of our society and what do we do about that? Why do the things that even happen in Nigeria happen? We're glad today we're being joined by a political scientist who is going to help us actually some of the things that need to be addressed by the incoming administration come May 29. And it's my pleasure to welcome today Mr. Fred Noho, a political scientist. Welcome to the program sir. Thank you very much. Okay, well this is this moment that you know we've had this election and a lot of people are aggrieved, a lot of people are saying it didn't go the way it should go, even though some people may not be complaining that they lost, the people that they supported lost, they're talking about transparency that was not there, so many issues. But now a major issue that we should be addressing is how we can heal as a country. Let us just get to know, in your opinion, some of the things that we need to start putting in place even before the inauguration so that we can move on as a country. Okay, thank you very much. You know, as a society, as Nigerians who are not new to things like this, it's been like part of us since 1960. We've had a series of issues that have devolved our society, our politics up to this moment. Yes, I would have thought that by now we would have has grown some of these ills that affect our society in terms of politics and all of that. But here we are. What's done is done, but again we must move on. And then because society must continue to grow, whichever way you look at it. So some of the things we need to do to heal the wound is to actually try to talk to the people, the Nigerian society, the common man who do not see as much as the big man out there sees. Because the reason why we have issues in society is there's gap in understanding. Once there's gap and those gaps are not being filled, people tend to feel in certain ways and that leads to conflicts of issues and for that leads to what we can call violent confrontation. So first and foremost, with the controlled election, we've seen winners. Those people who has won must see themselves as magnanimous winners and they should also be able to talk to the Nigerian society, talk to the Nigerian people, make them feel that okay, I understand that we have issues and that the election that has brought us this far is not totally free of certain ills. So that in a little, actually I showed the Nigerian society that there is need to tackle certain things in the society that they, those who have won will, at the end of the day, attempt to do things that seem to divide us more than unites us. Okay, using Delta as a case study because you're from Delta, would like to know the political climate in there. Some people before the election were complaining a lot about the governor who eventually was the running mate to the PDP presidential candidate or COA and the way it's saying a lot of things about how he could have done better and all that. So in your opinion, if he failed to satisfy the people, I'm not saying he did but if he failed to satisfy the people or if the people saw that he failed to satisfy them even though he did his best, what do you think were some of the things that were missing that he could have done better that whoever is taking over from him should do because everybody would just be thinking, someone who is contesting as a vice presidential candidate in an election, you will even win like a hundred percent in your state. It didn't happen that way in Delta state. So which means some people still felt that he didn't deserve it. So what are some of the things that he could have done that the next person would do or should do? Okay, Delta state is more like a micro-Nigeria because it has, last time I checked, about five or six different nationalities. You have the Jaws, you have the Socos, the Robos, the Chakiris, the Ndokwa who are also in their own rights fragmented into different people because the Ndokwa people are part of the Ndokwa people, but if you ask the Ndokwa person, it tells you he's not a Ndokwa person. So we have different people in that sense, in that place. To refer to the government of Okowa, he has in certain ways done well because if you compare his administration to the one before himself, you will see a bit of improvement in what he has done. But I like to say that it's not important for, it's not really possible for any government to try to, you know, satisfy everyone in any society. It's impossible, no matter how good you are. And so to that extent, some people will feel that he hasn't done much but you know, most times when we respond to issues of politics in Nigeria, we tend to respond based on our political affiliation. So you tend to see that a man in party A will always not speak well of party B, even if they are doing the right thing. But you also find that the man in party B will always speak good about party B, even if they're not doing the right thing. So most times our response is colored by where our, you know, our interest lies in politics. Oboe Oboe is there today, he has been elected, the incoming governor, I wish him well in his, in whatever it is he's going to do. But I also would like to suggest to him that part of the things that the president and the session did that a lot of people didn't get to know about, already feel good about, is that the reason is mostly because civil servants tried all the time, always tried to hijack those things. For example, this government did something about they did a lot of empowerment to young people, you know, but if you ask yourself, who are the beneficiaries of those empowerment, they are usually younger ones to civil servants, you know, politicians. My brother must be there, my sister must be there. And you find that at the end of those empowerment, those who got starter parks end up, you know, selling those things right there. So if I trained you on how to, for example, on computer, for example, and I gave you a laptop and if you were that printer to kickstart your business and right there you sell it, then the idea, the reason for the training is actually lost because it means that whatever monies I have invested in you, you are not going to plow back into the society. The idea of why governments give, you know, train people and say, okay, I'll give you a starter park, you should be able to build, to encourage, you know, cottage industries, small businesses, that at the end of the day we end up employing one more person. Because if you have two people that are taking any something from particular business, those two people end up, you know, affecting other people, which is the shame at the end of the day. So my advice to Braver is that if he has to do anything, he has to find a way to ensure that whatever he does are not being hijacked by one politician. Secondly, civil service people who are almost all the time, you know, in France who become a beneficiary at the end of the day. Okay, let's move to the national scene as it is. A lot of times people do so many things. Corruption that we're talking about, sometimes we point at only politicians and we leave the ordinary man, the civil servant and all that out of it. But we know that corruption is in every sphere, especially in this Nigeria. I don't know about other clients, I've been talking about the country, I know. So, but what we fail to address is not the corruption itself, but the reason some people behave the way they behave. Why would a permanent secretary steal? Why would a cleaner, not or a messenger, not find a file in an office? Why would, why do these things happen? What do you think that the next administration, the national I'm talking about now, should do to make sure that we begin systematically to fight this corruption? Well, Nigeria is a society that has bred more of powerful men than powerful institutions. What works for America is not a powerful man, it is an institution, a system that you cannot avoid, but key into. We have corporations in our Nigerian society, SPDC, Chevron and all of that. The man that works in Chevron or Chevron and the man that works, that works in our civil service or the minister, there's no difference, they are the same Nigerians. But why the man in Chevron, the file comes to his table, he pushes it on, he pushes immediately, he does his part and moves it to the next person. The man in the civil service just keeps the file there because there's even nothing to show that the file got to his table in the first place. So nothing tracks it because it is manual, whereas in SPDC it's automated. You don't push, you know, hard files, you push soft files, so that when we begin to locate where is that file, a click tells you that this file is on that table and in fact it has been on that table for the past 48 hours. So if you know that there's a file on your table that you need to deal with and that if you fail to deal with it, deal with it in the next 48 hours, I'm going to get the query, you want to deal with it immediately. But that doesn't happen in our civil service because at the end of the day we always want to get something before we push the file. So the problem with our civil, with our government is actually systematic system because the system has not encouraged the man to do what he should do. Year in, year out we find projects, national budgets, with billions voted for computers. But go to these offices, do they really use the computers? Why is it that I, who is not a member of the civil service, cannot in my own house type something and query that particular office and I get a response. Why should I have to leave my house to go to that office to do things? So these are some of the things that you know are bedeviling our society. But when you say, when you say someone has to ask for something before they can do a thing and they're not paid salaries and when you retire you don't get your pensions and all that. That is another thing. For example, currently what is the takeover of the lowest earner in the civil service? 30,000 error. In some cases less. How much is a bag of rice? It's about 40,000. So the man cannot even afford to buy a bag of rice in the first place. The man cannot even afford to live in the house in the first place. He has to rely on that salary. So that is why we say the corruption in Nigeria is systematic. It's a systemic process because the system that treats you, the reward system, does not treat you in such a way that you cannot live above certain things, above certain thresholds. It keeps you down at that perpetually. The highest salary in the civil service in the civil service may not end up to 200,000. I doubt it very much. But if you end 200,000 error in today's economy, and you have two kids in the house plus you and your wife, that's four of you, you need a bag of rice in the house for 30 days. You need to buy a car. You need to close the children. You need to pay their school fees. You need to pay rent. You need to transport yourself to and through. Even if you have a car, you have to fuel it. You have to fuel it. So how does 200,000 error take you home? In the first place, it's going to be difficult. Yet we have people who end 30,000. We have people who are direct or indirect to Kedah. Ending not more than 100,000. So the system has in certain ways built in those people, psychologically, that for them to get by and get by reasonably, they must be able to look for ways to augment whatever that costs to them at the end of the month. And where else will they gather from? But from their customers. And who are their customers? Me and you. I like the way you put it, customers. We all are good customers. It's a matter of survival as it is, no matter what. So which means if we're looking at corruption, we can't just be looking at the people who are doing it, but we'll be looking at the reason behind that doing it. A psychological thing, that's a very strong way to get addicted to something as it were. But how can we start this consciousness, this national consciousness, this awareness, to speak to the people how to do better? What medium can we use to do that? Actually in Nigeria, as it is today, actually it preps you to become very poor. And so you spend 30 years of your time, or 35 years or 60 years at 60, whatever whichever is the case, to work for your government and by the time you retire, you retire poorer than you were when you started your career. In addition to that, your severance benefit may not even get to you until you die. In fact, you may die in the process of asking for that particular thing. Yeah, right now I just lost a sister who retired like five, four years ago and she didn't have her benefit and she's gone. So where should that be? And so some people in the civil service have gone to think about it, okay. So here we are, we have governors who's been governors in their respective states and they only have to be there for at maximum eight years. And when they leave, they live with handsome pecs, just eight years with handsome pecs. But I've spent my entire life here trying to make the system work. I leave, the governor doesn't even think about me when he's living. He doesn't think that I need to get my retirement benefit. The moment I leave the system, so I keep coming back to remind him every day. I think this is the time we need to start, first of all, building that conscience in the Nigerian person. I remember very well when we were growing up after the civil war. We were having movies, cinemas that were coming, those ones that used white clothes and projectors and all that, to show us the effects of wars. So that everybody, whether you witness the war or not, if you watch those movies, it will tell you that a war is not something you must think about at all. So there is that propaganda that is positive enough. I think we should start telling our stories and talking to ourselves using the arts and everything that we have at our disposal. Music is like one of the greatest in the world. Our movies are also only next to Hollywood and all that. Why not we use these avenues to begin to tell our stories and talk to ourselves as well? Fred has done his part. I'm hoping that you too will do your part. Thank you so much. Thank you very much and thank you for having me here. And with that brief discussion with Fred Noko, political scientist and author. We wrap it up on the show today. We thank you so much for being there. Stand up to your responsibility and be the Nigerian that you are supposed to be. Let's build our country together. My name is Nyam Gul Agadjon. We have all the entire team saying thanks for being there and have a wonderful night.