He is bold, courageous, pragmatic and Charismatic. Above all, he is highly cerebral and not given to speaking with his tongue in his cheek. He is the Bishop of Isi-Mbano (Former Okigwe North) Diocese of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) the Rt. Rev. Godson Ukanwa.
A former chairman of the Imo State Pilgrims Board, the Prelate in this interview with EMMA OKEREKE in Owerri reviews the transformation programme of the Federal Government three years after. He gives kudos to the programmes, says Boko Haram is a scheme, even as he laments the growing security challenges and insists that security is the business of everybody in the country.
EXCERPTS:
Could you assess the transformation programmes of the President Goodluck Jonathan led Federal Government, three years after?
Transformation is not an easy business. Those who have laboured to transform situations or people have not seen it as a cheap labour. In the United States of America, President Obama is not finding it easy. Julius Nyerere of Tanzania did not find it easy either. Nelson Mandela of South Africa, trying to knock off apartheid did not see it easy because sometimes it has to be a holistic thing. And so President Goodluck Jonathan is not finding transformation easy. When people talk about transformation they think that it is all about giving a person tea cup and allowing him to make his tea. But it is more than that.
However, we know that it is something that can be achieved. Yes, it is achievable. President Jonathan has laboured taken into consideration what his tenure has suffered in his transformation bid. He has laboured to scout for the best brains that will help him actualize his transformation vision. In the money market, he had to look for Dr Okonjo Iwuala who is one of the best in that field in the world. She has laboured to positively impact on the finances of our nation. She has laboured to develop our revenue base; Prof Chinedum Nebo in the Ministry of Power is another great brain. When he was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN). He did a great transformation business of this citadel of learning. And I believe the President saw what he did as the VC of UNN to have him translate what he did in this University in the power sector. Now, at least once or twice in two days we have light. And it is a gradual process. It is not something that will come like a miracle. It is not as easy as saying I release light in the name of Jesus Christ! That is not Power. So in Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan has imparted the power sector.
Similarly, in the agricultural sector he is doing a lot of things. Today farmers get their fertilizer on or as at when due, although, in the East here we don’t experience it so well because we have a bunch of selfish agricultural Commissioners who sell their allocation to the Northerners. And at the end of the day our farmers lose out and complain. So in the agricultural sector the President is doing well.
One can also appreciate what he is doing in the housing sector; I think he has laboured also. The problem we have here is whether those whose duty it is to make them available to the grassroots will make them affordable. More often than not, a president may have a good agenda but those who implement it will make it impossible for the people the projects are meant to serve to benefit from them.
He has also laboured a little in the transport sector. You will recall that immediately after the fuel subsidy protests, he promised to roll out vehicles. That he did. But today how many of such buses are on the road? Who are in the custody of the buses he rolled out to make up for the hardship the removal of the fuel subsidy created? That is the issue.
In so many states you also see state governors give out cars as taxis to people at subsidized rates. How many of such people appreciate that what they have is for the alleviation of the suffering masses? That is the problem. Here again, the leader may have good intensions but the implementers are to a large extent the problem. I am not saying holistically that he has perfected, but I am saying that he is on the right track. However, it is important to note that this administration has during this period suffered a lot of tribulations. We have to ask God to uphold him.
It is obvious now, in Nigeria that security challenges have been a major setback to this administration. How can this be over come?
In some advanced countries of the world, security is not a holistic business of the government. Security is a business of all and Sundry. That is why in a state like Israel, if a child is fifteen years, or graduates from secondary school he will enroll in the military. And for three years, he will be carrying arms and deployed at sensitive areas to engraft it in the heart of that child that security is the business of all.
Similarly, in a place like the United States of America, everybody knows 911. Every person is security conscious. For instance, if you want to destroy any public property, the next person there will call 911. Even when you are standing at a place and someone feels you have over stayed your welcome in that place, the next person to you will call 911 to find out what might be the matter with you, because these Policemen are no spirits. They are human beings with flesh and blood, and need everybody’s cooperation.
However, that is not to say that it is not the role of government to protect our people. It is their role because they have the authority to protect us but we are expected to aid them to protect us.
So President Goodluck Jonathan’s government has suffered lack of support from people who would have aided his administration to protect us taking into cognizance the porosity of our borders. Nigeria is almost a borderless Country – people can walk in and out of the country with ease.
And that is part of the problem of insecurity in the land. I think that the government should do something about it. For instance, in the Cameron we have our brothers who are in the Bakassi Penisula. Some of them will today tell you they are Nigerians and tomorrow they will tell you they are Cameroonians. And so it is easy for insurgents to come from anywhere to destabilize us.
Again you will agree with me, that from the day the former president died, a very wicked spirit visited this land and has not departed from it. It took time to announce his death and even after his death some people feel that Goodluck Jonathan was having the mandate of a Northerner. Therefore for him to complete that mandate and continue, they considered an encroachment into their mandate.
I won’t like remind you of what happened on 12th October, 1960, when Othman Danfodio told the Parrot Newspaper that this whole estate called Nigeria is the estate of our forefathers and we must own it, rule it, govern it, and we must resist every attempt to make us not to govern it. That spirit is in every Muslim and every Hausa man. Goodluck is only trying to give democracy a name in Nigeria.
I think he has not done very well in his interpretation of democracy because as an academic he looks at democracy in Nigeria from a developed country’s concept. Democracy in the United States of America is not the same with democracy in Nigeria because for former President Obasanjo to apply democracy in Nigeria, he had to marry military disposition and democratic disposition to have his way. When there is need for the military man in him to come out, it will come out and people will be silenced in a place for some time. But for President Goodluck Jonathan who is not a military man, he is looking at democratic process from a holistic perspective. And now people are counting it as a weakness on his part. That is why even the press is complicating the issues. The way they talk to the president today, they couldn’t have done so to President Obasanjo, without being picked.
I however commend the president for applying a defined and refined democratic approach to issues.
My Lord Bishop in other words, you seem to agree that the insecurity issues in Nigeria have both political and religious undertones. Is that right?
Yes, it has political and religious undertones. It is political because some people are not happy that President Goodluck Jonathan is also looking forward to staying there longer than they had imagined. So politically, many are not happy. In as much as, those who are not happy should be happy because he has almost given them everything to allow him to stay.
Then religiously the Christians and Muslims are separated brothers. It is difficult for Isaac and Ishmael to agree. In the North Africa and some other areas that are today known as Islamic nations it started this way, gradually, gradually. But the faith of our fathers will see us through. So it has political religious and also social undertones.
How then should it be handled? Which way forward?
It is not difficult for the government of the day to handle this state of insecurity in the land. It is difficult only because the president is using the type of democracy that can only apply in the United States of America and other developed countries for Nigeria. Nigeria is still a developing country. Our mentality is still jungle, to a large extent.
Now let us look at the Chibok issue and cries by the minority Christians in the North. Do you see it as a grand plot to Islamize?
The Chibok episode is a scheme. And this scheme is a very bad one. For adults to decide to cart away young girls is very ungodly. But the problem is that of people who are involved being asked to look for the girls. Who is looking for whom? Are we sure that those who are articulating how to find the girls are not involved in the whole thing? Why must Chibok harvest 70 to 80 percent of Christian girls? Are there no unity schools in the Northern area, where majority of them are Muslims? Are we sure that those girls are within the country? More questions that need answers you will say.
However, I commend the efforts of the first Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan to find out the facts from WAEC etc. And since then, the issue has taken a new dimension. Now other nations are coming in to help us find and liberate the girls. But I have my fears. My fear is that some time ago, the US said that by 2015, Nigeria will be a failed state. If the US said that Nigeria will be a failed state in 2015 and all these things are happening now, I don’t know what it will implicate for us in Nigeria. But what is happening in Sudan should be instructive to us.
It is my prayer that the search for these Chibok girls will not lead us into war in this nation. But we also pray that time will not be long when these girls would be found and liberated. I know that if the US means business, it will be hard for them to find them. After all they trailed Osama Bin Ladin, one man and got him.
Against the backdrop of the security situation in the country, what is year reaction to the president’s bid to continue after 2015 polls?
The president is yet to declare his intensions for 2015 presidential polls. But you will see the president in all the political rallies of his party – The People Democratic Party (PDP). That is indicative of the fact that he will run. Meanwhile it is important to note that his friends and brothers from the Niger Delta have sworn that he must. But what is bad in President Goodluck running? I don’t have anything against his running. But the truth of the matter is that he is yet to declare, and I am not saying Goodluck declare. When he declares, then we will know where he is going.
Recently, it was reported that the house of the former Imo State Governor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, in Owerri was burnt by unknown individuals, less than 24 hours after he disclosed to some friends his intension to run for the 2015 governorship. What is your reaction to this development?
Yes we woke up that Tuesday morning to hear that the house of the former Governor of Imo State, Chief Ikedi Ohakim has been set ablaze. We condemn it because Ikedi has not been violent. The governor of the state, Owelle Rochas Okorocha also said it that since Ikedi got out of office he has not been violent. He has been quiet looking at issues. Trying to find out why he failed the election. You know Ikedi is a strategist and brilliant. So for some people to decide to burn his house is ungodly. I have been privileged to be there. If one tells you this is the governor’s house you will not agree. He had all it takes to give him a village as the governor’s house but he said no. it’s just a bungalow. But he built it to taste. If you are passing through that area, you won’t see anything special to make you know that the former governor lives there. So, for some people, to begin to think of burning that house is very, very ungodly.
We have to charge him to bear it with fortitude. Tough times never last but tough people do.
Let’s look at the Isi-Mbano diocese. So far, how far? What are the new challenges?
We want to thank God for His grace and mercies to us as a diocese. We have been able to change the name of the diocese from Okigwe North to Isi-Mbano. We have done the proclamation of the Diocese of Isi-Mbano and on that day I told the people that I was going to start the building of a befitting Cathedral for the diocese. And that it is going to be the way we built the Bishop’s Court Complex. I did that without levying anybody. We will only have to tap into people’s conscience so that they can help build for God. When you build for God, He must definitely bless you. Now we have started the building of this befitting Cathedral. Indeed, God has been so gracious and He will continue to be. He said if we are faithful to Him, He will be faithful to us. If we call upon Him in the days of trouble, He will answer and He will reveal greater things to us. And we will praise and adore Him. He has been so wonderful and I owe Him everything.
Again our clergy have been wonderful and hard working. So I want to thank them¸ because sometimes you see that the greatest enemy of the Bishop is his priest. But that has not been the case here. I told my clergy that my diocese is a family. We don’t have boss/servant relationship. I consider leadership against the backdrop of authority that comes from God.
Authority not power and it comes from God. When you tell people that you have power they start to look for a greater power. But when you tell people that you have authority and it is from God, then they talk of influence and leadership has to do with influence.
The women’s ministry under my wife has been doing marvelously well. They have completed many projects and many more are ongoing. In this diocese many churches are under renovation. But above all, is the spiritual life of the parishioners which is on the increase. And the spiritual life of the people is something you cannot quantify. So I owe God the gratitude for all these.
Gradually, we are planning for our synod. And for this year I have decide to articulate the theme: Going Back to Shiloh: a Religio-Pragmatic approach to Onurube Nwanne Agbalaoso. This has become necessary because if the glory departed from Shiloh when the announcement of the death on the sons of Eli was made we have to go back to announce the return of the Glory to Shiloh.