Chief Emmanuel Avworo is the President of the Delta State Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry Mines and Agriculture and also the President of the Coalition of South South Chambers of Commerce. In this interview with Francis Sadhere he talks about how to deal with the insecurity facing the country, state of the Warri economy, Warri Ports and other sundry issues confronting the country. Excerpt.
-Chief, please may we meet you?
My name is Chief Emmanuel Avworo, from Agbon kingdom, Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State. I am currently the President of Delta State Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry Mines and Agriculture. I am also the President of the Coalition of South South Chambers of Commerce. This comprise all the association of Chambers of Commerce in all the States in the South South.
-What is your assessment of the Nigerian Economy at the moment?
The Nigerian economy has slowed down drastically over the years. But when you consider it that we had a recession and we came out of it, and when your statistics from that point, we can say we are trying. After recession we had a growth percentage of about 8 – 1 percent. But unfortunately, due to the stagnation that usually occur after election year, that growth has been stagnant at 7 percent. Of course we can see the effect on our life. When the growth rate is stagnant unemployment will shoot up and your industrial production will be slower.
-How do we resolve this issue of unemployment in Nigeria?
There are two things involved. One, you have the government who is an employer of labour but not supposed to be the highest employer of labour. Apart from creating job, government function is to create infrastructures, create security and provide the enabling environment for businesses to strive. It is only the private sector that has the capacity to employ more people. But you can only employ when you are doing industrial production. If you are producing, distributing, and you are retaining, these are the employers of labour and not the civil service. The civil service has a limit that can take. But how can you have employment if production is not taking place. Production cannot take place when there is no power. A lot of industries have closed shop because they cannot survive by depending on Generators .
What I am trying to say is that if government can provide the necessary infrastructures like power or provide the enabling environment for the private sector to generate power in such a way that there is enough power, then industries will spring up all over the country. I was on a local flight from Abuja to Benin and I was served a fruit juice produced in Ghana. I then asked why I am being served fruit juice produced in Ghana. I was told that the owner of the company was a Nigerian who relocated to Ghana because of production cost. He peoduces the fruit juice in Ghana and export it into Nigeria. These are the challenges we are facing and we have to address the challenges of power and other infrastructures, otherwise we cannot move forward.
It is not only production problems that we are faced with. We are also faced with severe industrial problem too. You think that because the Lagos Port is working service is being rendered. But I will tell you that a lot is being wasted in terms of conveying goods from Lagos to Onitsha and Delta. If the Delta Ports and Eastern Ports are working then there will be no congestion in Lagos Ports and the roads will not be chocked up. What we are saying is that you should provide the power, road network and other infrastructures then you will be creating jobs and employment all over the country rather than causing delays because of concentration in one place which leads to lost of time.
-Please, comment on the Electricity situation in the country, considering the amount the Federal Government has invested in the power sector right from the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo till date?
Nigeria is not supposed to have electricity problem because we have the River Niger and River Benue. We had Kainji dam and for a long time that was the main source of power generation in the country. We also have gas that is being flared. So why can’t we be able to generate enough power. One, we are not generating enough power because of the concentration of power in one place. For example, if you generate power in Delta State, it has to be connected to the national grid. How can a State that is generating XYZ amount of mega Watts not get enough power. It does not make sense. What I expect is that when you are generating power, you should take enough and give out the extra that you are left with. But what we have today is that you generate, put it into the national grid and all you get is a small share. It’s like telling somebody living in Ibusa that you want to take the water in River Niger to another place and give him a small amount. It does not work like that because if you have enough power in your State, then the industries in your place should be powered. When you have industries in Delta, is not going to employ only Deltans but other people also. This is why we have industrial park all over the world where you concentrate production where the raw materials are in abundance. Take for instance, if there is enough power in Delta then the industries would work and you can employ people from all over the world.
My take is that Nigeria has what it takes to generate more power. We can have more thermal power and then if we need to have more hydro power, well and good then. I know that there is need to go green because of the pollution and all that. There is nothing wrong if we set up solar farms in the North. In the South in the Atlantic coast, we can have wind Mills and turbines to generate power. So in all, I think we have the capacity but the problem is that implementation and that is why we are having these challenges.
-Has the Privatization of NEPA done Nigerians any good, if not, how do we address the situation?
To me I still believe that government has no business in business. However there is this fear that the private sector will take advantage of things and will want to make profits. But this is why the government is there to regulate. As a government you provide a target for this XYZ company to
provide electricity for this sector and if you fail to meet your target, your license is revoked and is given to somebody else. It is better to privatize but we have a situation whereby for over sixty years we have a government that runs, from ECN to NEPA to PHCN before the privation. There is this entrenched beurocratic system in place that is making it difficult to separate. Don’t forget that power system has been split into three; generating, transmission and distribution companies. If the man who generate, generates and the transmission company does not transmit, he cannot get revenue. And the man who transmit cannot get revenue until it is distributed. So there is no proper synergy between the generator and the distribution. So you are tired down. I know there is an exchange point where you have a government agency that does the exchange and does the computation of what to pay the generating companies and the rest. But I believe that the best thing to have done is to allow a company generate power in Delta state, transmit it in Delta State and distribute it in Delta state in such a way that you know I am going to generate one thousand mega Watts, transmit and distribute one thousand mega Watts. I can’t go beyond one thousand mega watts. Once you have that arrangements, you know that you are going to buy your raw materials and quantify your profit. This area where you have a problem in terms of computing your generation and distribution is a problem. The transition between the generation and distribution is not smooth. For instance, the man who is distributing wants to buy what he can sell. Meanwhile the man who is generating can only generate according to the capacity of good equipment. I have a generation plant that can generate five mega Watts and the distribution man buys only fifty kilowatts, what then happens to the rest. Power generated cannot be stored. So if the distribution man cannot take that much, the generation man loses. These are things that are supposed to be managed by Government and so there will be a form of subsidy and I believe this is why we are having deficiency in power in this country.
We should adopt what is being done in the Western world. A city for instance like Okumagba should be supplied by Western blue distribution. Once you do that there will be competition. But when the power from the man that is generating and what you buy is small, it will not work. You should generate what you can be able to sell so that you can determine your profit.
-What do you have to say about insecurity in the country?
I think the question of insecurity in the country is two fold. Poverty is a challenge especially in the South. You have a young man who has no job to survive and next thing he does is to go into crime to survive. In the North I don’t want to be political, but there is element of politics in it. In power the South here we call it crime. But when you talk of militancy, it is something else. It has to do with your idealogy and when people are not listening to you, you do something to enlighten the people about your believe. This is just like Boko Haram. People go into crime because they do not have a job. It will be very difficult for someone to leave his well paid job and go into crime. No business will strive in an atmosphere where there is no peace. If jobs are available, it will be difficult for people to go into crime because one day you will be caught and thrown into jail.
One the reasons why there is low level of crime in the developed countries is because of this social security system. A young man in the US or Britain who does not have a job knows that he will not go hungry because he knows that he will get a stipend to survive. The government also will want to do everything possible to ensure that he does not continue to pay that money by creating jobs. Government has the responsibility to create social security services from the tax being collected from the people so that people who do not have job should have a living wage. We know that jobs do not grow on trees, so you must create jobs. Though Government is not good in doing business. So that should create jobs in connection with the private sector. Private businesses strive more than the government businesses because people look government business as not belonging to anyone. I am trying to create jobs government should try to collaborate with the organized business sector, even if it is farming. They can do it in such a way that they own 50% of the shares. This will make them to manage their profits and expand.
Insecurity in the North where you have the Boko Haram which is very difficult to deal with. In this case you have to use the strong arm tactics. One, defeat them on the short term. Two, re-enlighten and educate them and let them know that their idealogy is also affecting because it is not everybody that will believe them. If you defeat them and allow them to go just like that, they will come back again. So there is nothing wrong if you give them some kind of amnesty. But the most important thing is to defeat them.
Insurgency like the ones going on in Zamfara and other states can be labeled as crimes. That have gold, uranium and special metals in those states. The criminals take over these mines in collaboration with foreigners and continue to engage in illegal activities. Government must do something about this because they are not getting any revenue from these illegal minings. There is no peace in the Congo for the past sixty years because of the minerals in that place. So government must nip this in the bud before it escalates. I heard in the news that a general in the army gave money to his boys and the boys ran away with the money. The money is believed to be proceeds from mining.
-What is your sincere position on the suspended RUGA by the Federal Government?
I think the problem with that is that you have the legislative arm and the executive arm. If this had come through the legislature our people would have been involved in it and debate on it and pass it into law and there would have been no problems with it. But because it came from an executive fiat managed by a permanent Secretaries, there were a lot of suspicions. The way it was been proposed is wrong. It should not have said it was meant for only the Fulanis. Anybody who is interested can go into it. The best way to solve this Ruga thing is for it to pass through the legislature so that our representatives would have a chance to debate on it.
-You have been in Warri all your life. How do you feel about the present condition of the once bubbling oil city?
I don’t want to talk too much about Warri because in the 60s we have Sapele. Sapele used to be a bubbling place because of AT&P. AT&P is Africa Timber and Plywood and because they were deforesting the region and at a point there will be no wood and so AT&P died. And because they were employing between five to ten thousand people, when it died, the whole city died with it. The same thing happened to Warri. Warri used to be a bubbling city not because of oil alone. In the 80s when the Warri Port was working there used to be a company that used to employ people that work in your ships. Delport has over four thousand workers and when they closed for business at the end of the day, the chunk of people that come out from the port will tell you that Warri is a bubbling city. There were different activities going on in the port. The port was so busy that they had to build another Port. Delta port brought a lot of jobs to the city.
Don’t forget that in the 80s DSC also came on board and they employed over ten thousand workers. The oil companies were even the least employers of labour because once you drill the well, you don’t need a lot of labour. So when Delta ports closed and DSC closed the unemployment rate rose to 60%. To get back to where we were. Now that DSC has been privatised we hope that there will be more activities because we now have a railway line running from Itakpe to DSC. This rail line is to transport iron ore to DSC. Am not expecting Premium Steel Company to employ as many people as they can. When that company starts working the economy of that area will pick up. The only problem we have with Delta port is the shallow nature of the Escravos River. Now that the river is being dredged we believe that more ships will be coming to Warri. One of the biggest challenges we in the shipping industry has with Warri Port in the 90s was that the custom officials were so difficult that many preferred to use ports outside Warri, but today we have more friendly custom officers. When you bring in cargo here they will give you one excuse or the other so that you can cough out more money. If Warri Port must work optimally, we have to remove ‘deve’ from our communities and roads
If you go to Ologbo, you see trucks parked on the road. They only come into Delta State in the night because if they come in during the day time, that is when you see all Tom, Dick and Harry coming out to harass them with one ticket or the other. All these things disturb businesses in the state and it is not good for a state that wants to develop businesses. You must provide incentives for business owners by protecting them. If you continue to harass transporters coming into your state, they will add the cost to the goods they are selling to the people. These are the things that the government should look into. On the part on the private sector, they will invest in a place that is peaceful and that has power too.
-Give us your fair assessment of the administration of His Excellency Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa in Delta State?
Because if the experience of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, having been a council chairman, an SSG, and a senator, he knows the plight of the people and I must confess that he did very well in his first tenure. He was able to construct roads to a lot of places where people did not expect. He also created a lot of jobs with this YAGEP and STEP schemes. The problem with that schemes is that the people that received today training were not able to get jobs and that is the area I think Okowa should look into this time around . We most appreciate that a lot of infrastructures were done during his first tenure.
-What are your expectations from the newly created Warri/ Uvwie and Environs Special Areas Development Agency of the Delta State government ?
I think this issue has been talked about in 2007 because this kind of agency is an essential way to get funds for an area. If you depend on the ministry of works and housing, they will be talking about the whole state. But when you have a special agency like this the target area will be that particular environment. It is very essential if Warri and environs as the economic base of the state then the government must be seen to be doing something because if the chunk of the revenue is coming from here, then of course there is the tendency for people to move away from Warri. And again so say if they move away that going move within the state. They are surely going to move out of the state. This is why it is for for government to invest in Warri oil area. These are areas that do not have boundaries. You can drive from Uvwie to Warri without knowing it.
So the idea of this development agency, we in the private sector want to commend him for creating this agency and we appeal that it should be well funded. Apart from funding, the agency should have a well articulated plan so that we will have a well development plan that will open up the city in such a way that there should not be one way out and one way in. Take for example, whenever it rains, the roundabout will be blocked and you cannot come into Warri. There should be several entrances into Warri. There is a bye pass road that passes through Jeddo to the army check point, that road must be opened up. We also need to build more bridges too.
-If you have the opportunity of meeting President Muhammadu Buhari and Governor Okowa, what are you going to tell them?
First of all I will congratulate them because power belongs to God. When God puts you in power, he puts you there to help the people and people will always remember you for what you did when you were in power. My appeal to them that is that they should follow the will of God because it is God that place them there. Do your best because you cannot do more than your best. But also don’t listen to sycophants. You should look at your mind and your abilities.
The Governor I think is doing well and I believe that he does not need much spur to do more. This is the first time I have seen a Governor go inside the river in Ijaw areas. The usual projects I used to see in the Ijaw areas are jetties. Now we are seeing physical roads being commissioned and we want him to continue. This should also apply to the Itsekiri areas too, though these areas are more urbanized and not as small as the Ijaw areas. If you do roads in Ode Itsekiri and Omadino areas which are islands, people will go there to stay like what is happening in Lagos where people take boats to work.
For Buhari, his case is entirely different because he has a country that is as big and diverse in his hands. And each section of the country has different requirements. He is taking too much time to appoint his ministers. Permanent Secretaries cannot take the place of ministers. Ministers should have a short term plan and long term plan so that we must look at how to provide social welfare in this country. There should be no room for Almajiri system in the country. You must provide for every child in the country so that they do not go into crime.
Secondly, all the training we have given to our military I am not seeing it been in use here. Why I all saying this is that, why is it taking such a long time to shut down this Boko Haram insurgency? If we think that they are being funded by foreigners, then why not take the matter to the EU and the United Nations so that we can nip this in the bud.
In the 80s we have the Nigeria armament industry who even building armored tanks in the factory in Bauchi. Today we are still been shut down by Boko Haram. Last week a Colonel was killed in an ambush by Boko Haram. Why are we not having enough armored personnel carriers to take our boys there. I believe that our boys have been trained in conventional war fare. That are not been trained in the new form of war fare involved in fighting a hide and seek terror group like Boko Haram. We must provide that training even if we need to partner with countries like Israel and South Africa. Bring in foreign experts to help us because this must be curtailed. If this is not curtailed, we may not be able to develop the North East. And if the North East is not settled, Nigeria will not be settled.
Thank you sir.
