Former president of Botswana and winner of the highly coveted Mo Ibrahim Prize, Festus Mogae, was in Nigeria recently. He spoke to Abimbola Adelakun and Joel NWOKEOMA on development issues plaguing the country.

Why are you here?


I was invited by the Rivers State Government to give the inaugural lecture for the Prof. Claude Ake Memorial lecture. He was a prominent economist, a brilliant political scientist and a development commentator. I am also here to speak on a topic of interest to me, which borders on development in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. I was asked to address the topic of “Doom to Boom: Re-engineering the Economy of Rivers State.” I looked at it from the Port Harcourt experience and the angle of compare and contrast of situations. They asked me for instance how we were able to emerge from a poor, least developed country at independence in 1966 to being one of the best today. So I shared the experience in Botswana.


Do you mind sharing those experiences that translated Botswana from a poor country to one of the most stable economies today?


I must say a variety of elements but there is political stability. Minerals were discovered and I suppose that is everywhere. In the case of Nigeria, it is oil. Minerals were discovered after independence. Diamonds were discovered and we became a diamond- dependent economy, too dependent. What we did was to agree that previously, the mineral was invested in some cases, private hands and in some cases, communal territories. It was agreed before the mines were discovered, that they would be invested in the state and be used for the benefit of all and not just for people who were from the district the minerals were discovered. One of the things is that the interest of the public was raised and people will ask that, “What has been discovered? “How much are we selling them?” “What are we getting from them?” and “What are we doing with the money?” So, there was transparency. What we did was to have a five-year economic development plan and it was revised every three years.


Basically, that was what we maintained. Our revenue estimate shows how much we derive from company taxes, personal taxes and from indirect taxes, mineral revenues, incorporation tax and royalties. Because in the case of diamonds, we have 50 per cent and so everybody could see how much we were getting from there. When we allocate the budget, the members of parliament know how much of our revenue will go to infrastructure, poverty alleviation, education and training.


We did a lot of ordinary things for the benefit of the ordinary people like expanding education and making it free, expanding secondary education. In other words, you build the schools and train the teachers and make it free. We built health sectors, built hospitals, district hospitals, community and peripheral hospitals.


Basically, all I can say is that we spent the money on development. We decided what the national priorities were. The ruling party basically agreed on education, physical infrastructure and public health. Because of the nature of our country, water development was very important. Electrification came later. The roads were more important because we are a small population scattered in a big country so it was important to link the communities so we could feel like one. That was what we did, people-oriented development.


This was under you government?


This was both before and under my government. I was a civil servant playing my role before I became a politician. I retired as a secretary and the head of planning. By the time I joined politics, I became a minister of finance and development planning and later, vice-president. I was VP for seven years before becoming president. So I was associated with all the policies that had been pursued and implemented. I was president only for 10 years. Not 25, 30 or 40 years. Just 10 years.


What is it that Nigeria is not doing enough in the management of her resources which Botswana did to transformed hers?


I don’t know what Nigeria is not doing well, but I know what Rivers State is doing and is doing well because they are doing exactly what we did. They are spending money on education, health, reconstruction of infrastructure, revitalizing the economy and telling the people that these are the projects we are implementing and this is the money we are receiving. They are telling people where the money is going.


What do you think is responsible for poor infrastructure development in Africa?


Many factors are responsible but political instability is one of them. We have heard in these countries of so many coups so there is no guarantee of development policies. Whenever each regime comes in, it has different development priorities. The most important thing here is to agree and know that you have elections. Tell your politicians that they must be telling you what they are going to do for the ordinary man for the development of the country. They (many African countries) only undertake development project when it is going to them but when you undertake development programmes for the majority, you are reducing poverty.


Military men like toys and military toys are very expensive. It is easy to buy but it takes a lot to maintain. If there is real development, like building a road in Lagos, it won’t take you three years to do because it will help the people and that is real development. Whereas, if you want to buy 10 fighter jets, you can spend N30bn, but where does the latest fighter jet get you? What are the national priorities? My suspicion is that because you have had a series of military regimes, you intend to spend more on expensive things that are not really priorities.


What people need should be the national priority. In a big country like this, if you provide infrastructure in a place like Lagos for instance, you will be creating jobs. By creating jobs, you are also creating income and by doing so, you are reducing poverty.


Hosni Mubarak and Ben-Ali of Egypt and Tunisia respectively have just been chased out. What is the way out of leadership crisis in Africa?


The way out is democratisation. Throw out the military and have proper democracy; free and fair elections are the solutions.


Do you think we can achieve that here? It looks as if democracy has been a problem for Africans generally?


That’s true but you know democracy cannot be built overnight. It has to evolve and as far as I am concerned, democracy is taking root in this country. You have had two successful elections that produced Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Yar’Adua. Now we are looking forward to this election to be reasonably credible. It might not be perfect but credible, at least.


It is credible when there is no obvious cheating or interference. Here, you Nigerian press are very combative. That is the characteristic of democracy and the various parties are also very combative. That is good. I have hope for Nigeria because of Rivers State. That governor discusses with his people. He says “You are asking for one, two, three, four, five… and I will give you this and that. I don’t agree with you.” They tell him, “share the money” and he says, “if I share the money, who will build this and build that one? I am building the schools, the town, the hospitals. Someday the oil will be gone and you will need to survive.”


Nigeria was an exporter of agricultural products. I witnessed Nigeria’s years of exportation of groundnut, cocoa and about three or four products and that was why you had a marketing board to trade them. I don’t know what agricultural products you export now but I get the impression you left everything else you were doing as soon as oil started flowing and the dollars started coming in. That is what is wrong with Nigeria.


You have the capacity. You have the educated people and a judicial system that works. You were highly developed, you had engineers, teachers, etc, before many other countries. So, decide what your national priorities are and pursue them. Education is one of them, especially primary and secondary because that is what everybody wants. Not everybody wants to go to the university.


How does it feel winning the Mo Ibrahim Prize for leadership in a continent with leadership crisis?


It means not all African leaders are failures. It makes me optimistic that ultimately we will get it right even if in a majority of cases we have got it wrong. Some of us have got it right and if some have, it means his brothers and sisters can get it right too.


As an African statesman, what advice do you have for Nigerians?


Draw up a development plan in areas that are perceived by the nation as necessary. I must say one of them is agriculture because you used to be a leading agriculture nation and you are not anymore at present. I knew you to be a leading exporter of agriculture but you are not, at present. Some will say that is because the population has grown but the population of other countries has grown but they are still exporters of other products.

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Posted: at 23-02-2011 12:16 PM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

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