Reminiscences with Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo

Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo was elected governor of Enugu State in January 1992 and held the office until November 1993 when the military took power through a coup. He was elected Secretary General of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from 1999 to 2001.

In 2007, he was awarded a national honor, Commander of the Niger (CON), by then President Shehu Yar’Adua. In 2010, he was elected National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party. The 70-year-old statesman shares his experiences in this interview.

Could tell us about your childhood and growing up experiences, your primary and secondary education down to the apex of your career?

I was born to his Royal Highness, Igwe Dr J. U. Nwodo and Josephine Nwodo in Ukehe in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State in 1950, hence my recent 70th birtyday on July 28. What I remember most about my childhood is that I had parents that God blessed in the area of upbringing of children. Out of 10 children, eight of us survived before they died and the eight of us ended up well. In terms of education, about seven out of eight of us got second degrees. It was only one that passed on as an undergraduate that didn’t make a second degree. All of us eventually got married, both male and female and raising their families, doing well. I think we had the opportunity of being fathered and mothered by two people God gave the experience of bringing up children. Secondly is that the schools they sent us were schools where we were properly mentored. Almost all of us went to a primary school that was built mainly for children of coal miners. And my parents chose that school because of a reverend father, one Reverend Father Micheal Eneje. He later became bishop in Enugu and he grew up with my parents and they knew him very well. They sent us to him to be brought up. Till he died, he was the spiritual director for my family. So, we had a very good academic and moral upbringing. Most of us males went to either CIC or Government College Umuahia. I went to Government College Umuahia which we felt was a premier institution in Eastern Nigeria at that time. And if you say that to my brothers who went to CIC, they would argue that CIC was number one. But the most important thing is that we went to good secondary schools where we were properly mentored and had sound academic upbringing. As for university, most of us went to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. It was a premier university, the first founded in Nigeria. Those from Ibadan would like to compete with us but Ibadan was a University of London in Nigeria. But the first indigenous university was the University of Nigeria. It was well founded and has produced a lot of important people in our country today. And then of course, we all went abroad for second degrees. Some went on to have PhDs. So, we had very good academic training apart from home training. And I think all of us turned out successful in life. These were the two major influences we had; the schools we went to and home training.

How was it after university?

Having come out, everybody pursued his or her profession. I pursued medical profession and ended up a Pediatric Surgeon and I loved it. The best thing you can do for me is to leave me in the theater for three days just to be operating on people and I won’t complain. I was the least political in the family. My younger brother became president of the Students’ Union at University of Ibadan, a school that was predominantly populated by Yorubas.

How did you enter politics?

For me, I was not interested in politics. I was interested in Medicine. I was persuaded to come and run for governor of my state since my younger brother who was interested in politics was banned by the blanket ban that Babangida placed on the politicians of the First and Second Republics. My senior brother was running for governor but at the end of the day, he was disqualified with his closest challenger after my brother had won the primaries.

So, I rode on the back of my senior brother’s name and his campaign and that was how I found myself in politics. Having entered politics, if you enter and do well, people will not allow you to leave. So even though I was governor in Enugu State for just 22 months-between 1992 and 1993, when Abacha did his coup and removed us, our people still believed that I left a good record and were always coming around for political direction each time that the political gate is open.

What do you think are some of the landmark things you did in your position as a top PDP leader?

So when in 1999 we formed the PDP, I became the founding National Secretary and in that capacity, I set up a solid foundation for the administration of the PDP which is still carrying the party till today. I brought a lot of innovations which were not there within previous political associations in Nigeria. For example, I established a manual which guaranteed the staff of PDP as career political civil servants and I put them one step ahead of the civil servants in the federal government because their jobs were not as guaranteed as those in the government being a political party that could win or lose and the vagaries of whatever happens to the political party would be suffered by them. Then I sent them to ASCON and trained them and today, they are the most experienced civil servants under a political party organization. Some of them who came in as fresh graduates ended up as directors in the place and they have roofs over their heads in Abuja, they have roofs over their heads in the village and they are riding comfortable cars, their children are going to good schools. Some of the contested elections, became House of Reps members, some of them went to the senate so, I take great satisfaction in what we did. Number two, for the first time in a political party, all the departments in the PDP secretariat-youth wing, women wing, the chairman’s office, secretary’s office or treasurer’s office; all the departments, you do budgets of what you are going to spend during the year and we assessed how much you are going to raise for the party to meet that budget as against previous political parties where monies were dumped in a room and disbursed without checks. We had a well disciplined way of making money and spending money in the secretariat and I appointed the highest financial auditor in Nigeria-Akintola Williams, to audit the account of the PDP at the end of every year.  So, I set up that discipline and accountability in the party. I also brought a lot of other innovations. For example, the Peoples Democratic Institute which I put in place was supposed to be an institute where we have politics discussed at the lowest and

highest levels. Because we had done many years of military rule and most people who were entering politics were seeing democracy for first time, I had to make sure that we had an institute that would put them through, from councilors, local government chairmen state assembly members, National Assembly members, governors, to organize seminars for them to teach them about what this democracy is all about so they can practice it better rather than just groping in the dark. Then I set up what we called the foreign chapters, because I wanted to bring the Nigerians in diaspora into politics and to tap from the experience they had gotten outside in order to improve on what we have at home. At the same time, to turn them around from cyber crimes to other things, and to see that they are part of what is going on in their country. But the most important thing I think I achieved in the PDP was setting up an internal democracy because while I was National Secretary, I made sure that our internal elections to select our candidates were as transparent as possible; a level playing ground was provided so that the best candidate can emerge to find the best candidate coming from the other party, but if we allow godfatherism, godmotherism and money bags to pick their candidates, those people will just go and serve their masters, he who pays the piper dictates the tune. So I didn’t want such situation, we want genuine leaders of the people to be selected by the members of the party to bear the flag. Initially, I think we were able to produce good and quality leaders but when I left, things became to go bad.

How would you want to compare the PDP in those days with the current situation in the party?

Well, let me say that things get bad and if you work hard, they get better. PDP now in my estimation is working very hard to get better but they had barely fallen to the ground by the time we lost power, things were not working well in the party and the quality of leadership we were producing was very much diluted but now, if you look at the primary election we had in Port Harcourt for choosing our presidential candidate during the last election, where about seven of them contested and at the end of the day none of them complained. Everyone accepted the result, made speeches and congratulated the person that won because the election was transparent. If we keep that standard and I think we tried in Edo and Ondo to do the same thing, as long as we continue to provide level playing ground knowing that we are in opposition and we are down. If we give the electorate our best candidate, then we have hope. Let us now fight the impunity of the federal government using police and the army and INEC to try and rig elections. But at least, all over the country, our candidates will give the APC a run for their money. If election in the South West were free and fair, PDP would have been ruling in at least four out of the six states because we came very close to winning almost all of them and eventually, we won in Oyo State. So, the same thing in the North; as far as East and South South is concerned, it is all PDP all the way. In Enugu State, anybody who is not PDP has ever won a council election.

Let’s go back to your early days. You studied in England and Yugoslavia, how did you find life as a foreign student in the course of your studying abroad?

Then, it was not bad. For example, when I went to England, there was an examination they called Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board test, PLAB for short; Nigerian foreign medical doctors who sat for that exam usually scored 100 percent. Nigerian medical doctors who went there for specialized courses passed the exam excellently to be part of the training programme. By the time I got there, the pass rate had dropped to 95 percent but that was still very high compared to India and China who were around 40 percent for their doctors passing the PLAB test in England. And again, Nigeria had a robust scholarship scheme at that time. As an undergraduate, I had bursary award and as a post graduate student studying Pediatrics Surgery, I had federal government scholarship. So, things were not as difficult as they are today. The fees were not so high and our exchange rate was strong. One dollar was almost equivalent to one naira in those days but now, you can see that a dollar is almost N500 and how many families can afford that now to send their children abroad. And the federal and state governments are not doing so well in terms of scholarship schemes. So, things are very rough for students now.

Why did you choose to study Medicine?

Let me say that my initial ambition was to be a reverend father, I wanted to be a priest and my mum encouraged me but my father was not excited. He wanted me to be an engineer. So, when I went to Government College, I was reading Engineering subjects. But when the civil war came up, I was working with the Biafran armed forces. We were going into the war front bringing out wounded soldiers to the hospital for treatment. In fact, at the time the war ended, I hadn’t taken my school cert. I was about taking my school cert when they war started. By the time the war ended, I could do a lot of things that doctors do in hospitals because there were no doctors to do those jobs. And the few doctors I worked with taught me how to set up broken bones and put POP on them. They taught me how to cut open the POP to be dressing the wounds until it heals. They taught me how to change plaster, they taught me how to stitch wounds and a whole lot of things. So, I was a small quack doctor before the war ended. And that was how I picked interest in Medicine.

In the course of your medical practice, was there any particular incident or occurrence that made you regret choosing the medical career?

No. In fact, on the contrary, after I finished my specialist course, I got an admission and scholarship to go to a children’s hospital in Los Angeles in California to do a research in solid tumours in children because as a pediatric surgeon, my specialty was to operate on children from day of birth until they are 18 years.

You became chairman of the PDP after serving as National Secretary of the party, how would you compare the politics then with what obtains now?

Let me say that when I was national chairman and I was for seven months, I had targets which I believe if those targets were met, we would have better politics than we have now. Number one, I was fighting for internal democracy because as national chairman, I believed and said repeatedly that if you have internal democracy, the true leadership of Nigeria will emerge. If you allow imposition of candidates on the people, you can never get the best. You can only get people who serve their masters. Somebody who has no interest in politics would just be brought on board, he has never gone to campaign, he has never met the people and doesn’t know the needs of the people before  going there. I have always said that there are many Obamas and Clintons in Nigeria but the selection process for leadership does allow the emergence of quality leadership. And I devoted myself to fighting that. I remember, we went to Enugu for a thanksgiving service after I emerged chairman and they called me to the altar to give a vote of thanks. And one of the things I said was that the leadership in Nigeria, more than 90 percent of them entered through the back door but we were going to open the front door and let the true leadership of Nigeria  emerge and I also said, if Martin Luther King didn’t die, Obama, the son of a Kenyan black man wouldn’t have become president in America and that I considered myself as a wood thrown into the lion’s den to rescue our people so that the true Obamas and Clintons of Nigeria will emerge and I was sacrificing my life to make sure that happened. When I came down, my wife approached me and asked whether I was mad for making such a comment. She said this country was not worth dying for. But I said somebody must have to do it for true leadership to emerge. I said there was need for transparency and level playing ground in the choice of candidates. I was striving to give the PDP an ideology. What does this party stand for? What are we offering the people? It was very clear then and it was different from what others were offering. Also, I wanted the party to be financially independent because they say he who pays the piper dictates the tune. In most states, you cannot be anything if the governor does not approve. If a state does election, once they are in charge of that state, they win everything. So, that scenario must change. Politicians nowadays are fond of cross carpeting at any slightest opportunity, do you think parties still have ideologies?

One of the things I was very passionate about was to rebrand the PDP. I fought against carpet crossing. If somebody who is voted into power under the PDP decides to cross carpet, the seat of such person should be declared vacant. A lot of things have gone wrong.

Nigeria has practiced democracy uninterruptedly since 1999, would you say our democracy has impacted the citizens when compared with the military regimes?

I’m going to be partial in answering that question, if I’m going to be honest with you, under the 16 years of the PDP, I don’t think the situation is as bad as now. The level we brought democracy in Nigeria was the level that most people cannot say was dictatorial in any way. Our president even before they announced the result of the election, when he felt he was losing the election, he accepted defeat and congratulated the winner. But look at the five years of this government, today, we are one of the poorest countries in the world, we are the flagship of hunger and unemployment in the world. The economy is nowhere. They said they were going to fight corruption but Transparency International index has rated it as one of the most corrupt governments since 1999. They promised to put an end to insecurity, when they came, there was only Boko Haram in Borno and in North East states. But now, virtually every part of Nigeria is under fire. If it is not herdsmen, it is bandits or kidnappers. For those that want to compare PDP with APC, I don’t know what they want to compare. In PDP’s 16 years, was it like this? In five years, look at where we are. So, the government you have is very critical in evaluating the democratic progress we have in a country. And if we don’t elect good government…even though, Zik said that the worst civilian government is better than the best military government, but if you don’t elect the right people, even the best civilian government could compete with the worst military government.

You were governor of Enugu State in 1992 but 22 months into your administration, there was a military coup that brought your government to an abrupt end. How did you feel about that particular development?

I am writing a book. I have written this book on my 22 months in office but I am still trying to come up with an appropriate title for it. I named it “The Unfinished

Business”; then I thought about the achievements we made; I thought about the ideology I fought for as governor and how to bring them in. Two words that I coined which Enugu people still remember till tomorrow was one, “Triangular Equilibrium” because we fought for over 30 years to get Enugu State and we felt we were marginalized amongst the Igbos and we were fighting to be recognized and have our independence. So, when I became governor, I made sure that anything I did for Enugu senatorial zone, I did for Abakaliki zone and I did for my own senatorial zone which is Nsukka senatorial zone. That was how triangular equilibrium became a policy of government. Number two, I felt that it was important to use quota to reach every part of the state but we will not sacrifice merit in trying to use quota. So, I coined another policy tagged, “Meritquotocracy”. I was looking at how to make these two policies to form a title of the book. It was sad to see that the vast opportunity we were creating for people of Enugu State was extinguished just like that. When I won the election, I went into isolation and I wrote out what I wanted to do in Education, Health, Infrastructure and all the key ministries. We allowed only six ministries when I was governor. I wrote out what I wanted every ministry to do. I formed a committee of experts from our state and people from outside the state. I gave them this write up and I said, you can tear it to pieces, you can add or subtract and the set out to work and produced a roadmap in all these key areas. So, when I had my commissioners, I asked every senatorial zone to nominate five people; two elderly men, two youths and a woman and I set an exam for them. Those that came first and second from every senatorial zone were those I made my commissioners. So, again, quota and merit and when I swear you in, I give you the Bible which is the roadmap and I give you a timeline every month to let us know where you have reached and if there were things we were supposing to be doing to support you which we were not doing. We were actually in a hurry to develop the state and we had our roadmap. Even if succeeding governments were to follow the roadmap, we would have been far better off than we are today. It would have been a different story because our agricultural programme, when we submitted it to the World Bank, they said they had not receive such from any third world country. Babangida had stopped guaranteeing loans to state governments because the loans were too much but when he read what the World Bank wrote, he guaranteed our loan. We were working to get that loan before the coup . The road networks we planned for Enugu State made sure that the food producing areas, the major markets and LGAs headquarters were all linked to the state capital. From the state capital, you would drive on a motorable road to local governments, markets and food producing areas. The World Bank again approved this. We were trying to do the things they asked us to put in place before could draw down and the coup happened. If I tell you the extent I went with even what was available to the state while waiting for those loans, you would know that we were serious. And, let me say that when I was governor, the salary bill in Enugu State was N63 million and what we got every month from federal allocation was N60 million. So, we had to look for N3 million before we could pay salaries. The internally generated revenue in Enugu when I become governor was N500, 000. Before I left, I had surged it up to over N5 million. Then some grant that we were able to get from the federal government was fixed in banks and the interests they were generating was what we were using to run Enugu State while doing the projects that the grants were there for. So, it was a very tight schedule. I formed a small committee with myself as chairman, my deputy as deputy chairman, the commissioner for finance, the accountant general of the state and director, budget and planning. We had to sit every Monday to see how much we had in the state’s account and approved jointly. All of us must agree that this voucher was the most important voucher to be paid for in the state. This one is the next one and so on. The time we exhausted what we had in our account, we drew the line. So, even when they did the coup, I was in America and people were asking me to start rushing back to cover up tracks and I told them there was nothing to cover up. All the members of the finance committee knew where the finances of the state were. There was no money to chop even if we wanted to unless if you don’t want to pay people their salaries and eat their money. I paid everybody salaries until I left. I paid pensions till I left. I was still able to find ways to do one or two things for the people.

You are a proponent of zoning of the presidency to the South East, you were also quoted recently as saying that if Igbos are not given opportunity of the presidency in 2023, they would align with IPOB in the agitation for Biafra. But the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, said they are not linking their determination for freedom to any conditionality but are after Biafra. How would you react to that?

Well, the truth is that in every situation, everybody must not align in one way of thought. The younger people in Igbo feel that the only choice available is Biafra because, 50 years after the war, our people are still being marginalized. In Nigeria today, no Igbo man is heading any agency where they carry guns (security agencies) in Nigeria, whether it is army, navy, airforce or police, customs, immigration etc. You can count the number of parastatals in this country, they are over 700 but I don’t know how many of them you find an Igbo man heading. So, the marginalization is too much. In the past five years, there is no federal government industry coming up in the South East. There are no roads, you can’t drive from Enugu to Onitsha. You can’t drive from Enugu to Umuahia or Owerri. So, you don’t blame the young people when they graduate from school and they made first class and after five years, they are still working the streets without jobs because they don’t have people at the top that can help them get jobs. Everybody is employing his own people. We understand what they are saying but we are saying that Biafra gotten on the battle field is not an option. We have done it before and nobody survives two civil wars. We don’t want our people to perish again. The three million that died, none of them has been woken up since after the Biafra war. Therefore, we will not continue to allow Kanu to be abusing our leaders, abusing everybody, abusing Nigeria and abusing our neighbours. We are not going to get Biafra like that. But what he is saying about our marginalization is true. And we are saying to Nigeria, after 50 years of end of the war, how long else do we have to wait to be Nigerians? How long do we have to wait before we can be part of this country? That we can aspire to the highest office in this country? Every major tribe in this country-Hausa and Yoruba, have tested power. South-south has produced Jonathan first as vice president and later as president. South-west, Obasnjo was president for eight years, Osinbajo for eight years. In the North, you can’t count the number, from Shehu Shagari to Gowon, Buhari etc….and if you are counting the military regimes…

But some have expressed fears that if the presidency is given to the Igbos, they will compromise the unity of the country giving their persistent agitation for Biafra.

No, the people who are making such argument are those that don’t want the Igbos to ever become president of this country. I’m being honest to you. Today, we are talking about restructuring. South-east, South-south, South- west, Middle Belt are crying for restructuring. All of them feel marginalized by the far North who are in charge. Why is the far North sticking to unitary system in a federal country where you have federating units? There is no true federalism. Those of them who are opposing are doing so because this unitary system favours them. They are in charge of the oil wealth of the country when they are not producing even one barrel and the country’s economy is hinged on oil. So, it will be difficult for them to understand that a restructured Nigeria is good for every part of the country because God has given every part of the country what you can use to survive if you go home and work on those things. We did it in the First Republic and we all survived. So, what we are saying is that if you restructure Nigeria, then these people will go back and rejuvenate their economy. The same thing is what I say to people. If we restructure Nigeria and the Igbos are doing well as they did in the First Republic when the eastern region was the fastest growing economy in the world under Michael Opara. And if we are benefitting like that, why should be talking about Biafra? We will resist the breakup of Nigeria the way the North is resisting restructuring.

You recently clocked 70, how has life been with you generally?

A friend of mine recently asked me how I feel now that I’m 70. I told him I didn’t feel anything differently from when I was 69. To be honest, I thank God for life. God himself said a man’s days is three scores and 10 and when you have had it, anything after that is ‘jara’ (extra) so, God has been so magnanimous for giving me 70 good years and I’m still very strong. There is not one year of my life that I look back and say I regret it. It’s been wholesome years, with a good wife and children. I had the best opportunity God can give anybody, governor at 42, national leader of a political party, what else can I ask for. God has been good to me. To be honest with you, most of the time when I pray, I ask God, please, do for others what you have done for me. I’m not the only one. You have done enough for me, please, do for others. I’m a very contented person and the little that God has done for me, I’m extremely grateful. He has been in terms of blessing me. Let him do for others too.

Are you still aspiring for any political office?

At 70, I can’t be struggling to be anything again after all I have been. It will be greedy. But having said that, with the experience I have gathered over these 70 years, if there is any small place, may be in the engine room somewhere, I can be giving advice for things to be going well. I will not hide this experience and deny it to my children. I am somebody who doesn’t want to be on the stage. I like to be where the arithmetic is being done. And when things are happening, I will be shaking my head, but nobody knows that I’m where the thing is being worked. That is my life.