I see revolution –Kokori – FG used juju on Labour

Posted by admin Headlines Sunday, January 29th, 2012

Kokori
• Photo: Sun Publishing
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Remember Chief Frank Kokori, former General Secretary of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG)? Any day, his name rings a bell in Nigeria. He is one of those whose names are synonymous with the labour movement in Nigeria.
During the reign of late dictator, Gen Sani Abacha when many Nigerians cringed at mere mention of his name, Kokori was a thorn in the flesh of the maximum ruler. For those who followed events then, his union, NUPENG literally brought the nation to its knees when he mobilized his workers for a nationwide strike.

The Delta-born labour leader has once dared the odds for the people. In this interview with him in Lagos, he appraises the state of the nation among other issues. Excerpts…

With recent events in the country, how do you feel as a Nigerian?
As a Nigerian, I have always been in these things, so I have seen a lot. What we are going through, it seems the government is alienating itself from the people and this is very unfortunate. President Goodluck Jonathan was popular and many had thought that he would make a good change. But the crux of the problems of this country is just being scratched at the surface. The root cause of the whole problems in this country is corruption and if you cannot wipe out corruption, then there is a problem.

There is no way you can say you are reforming anything in a country like Nigeria where corruption is so rampant. That is the problem. I am saying that until Jonathan decides to face the issue of corruption headlong, I do not see Nigeria moving forward. People who are not even corrupt will now see it start saying what about those who are corrupt. Those who are corrupt are milking the people dry. The so-called fat cows are milking the people dry and government is doing nothing about it.

So, when you start preaching that you want good governance, you want the people to be good and that you want to carry out reforms, where are the reforms when corruption is eating up everybody? At the end of the day, what reformation are you doing when corruption is so blatant? I think that until that is done, the people would not even be satisfied. If you are corrupt and government is serious about fighting corruption, the government would go in and within six months, people have been caught, prosecuted, sanctioned with heavy punishment.

That would be a deterrent to other people but if you do not do that, you are not serious about reforming the society. And Nigeria has got to that stage where we need real serious minded people to handle the issue of anti-corruption so that the people would see results. The people are tired of waiting and if people are even ready to make sacrifice, they cannot make sacrifice when people at the top are wallowing in obscene wealth. How can they tighten their belts? They tighten and tighten until there is nothing to tighten again. They see fat cows living flamboyantly and moving about everywhere.

How do you account for a man who yesterday did not have N50,000 in his account and he is made a local government chairman or voted into the House of Assembly or National Assembly and overnight, you see him building about two mansions, big estates and plazas. Where did he get the money within three years? It is so easy to catch people who are corrupt. That is what they do abroad. They see money in your account and they ask-how you came about the money. So, I feel they are not serious in the fight against corruption and until the anti-corruption agencies are serious with the backing of government, and put people in handcuffs, we would not move anywhere.

Do not tell me like the former chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Farida Waziri would say that you do not put people in handcuffs. You must put people in handcuffs. If a whole president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) just because of a case of rape was put in handcuffs, why can’t corrupt people suffer the same fate in Nigeria? The Lehman brothers’ executives and the Enron people who ran down the American economy were given terms like 22 and 25 years in prison. And they were in handcuffs. So, who are the Nigerians? Even when you charge them, they go to court with a retinue of people with Aso ebi and all those rubbish. There is no deterrent yet and that is what is leading to all these.

With government not taking care of the people, no social security structures and so on for the poor and old people, the youths become restive. These are some of the most active years of a man’s life. If you do not go to higher institutions, from 18 years through 25 up to 30, you start thinking about life. You are vibrant and everything. In our own generation, we knew what we were already doing. It will surprise you that some of us then who were even 26 were already heading a section of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) with school certificate. So, how would I have become a militant? I was in Lagos and entered the ECN and the whole top people were all white men and they take you on merit.

So, I entered when I was about 23 years old and at 26, they had seen my brightness. By that time, you could not even have a meter in Lagos without passing through me. It was me who would now make the final recommendations to the commercial engineers (what they call consumers’ engineer). I was part of the tariff section in Ijora. So, where would I have time for militancy, armed robbery and all that? So, that was the country we had. It was after that period that I went to the University and I already had two children then. As I talk to you, my first two children who today are still based in the United States, are in their early 40s.

Today, you have people of all manner of professions that are unemployed. So, how would all be well with Nigeria?
But from the picture you have painted, what do you think is the future of this country?
Nigeria has a bright future. It depends on leadership. If I am the president of this country, I will wipe out corruption. One to two years, you will not hear of corruption in this country. You can fight corruption to a standstill. If your hands are not clean and you have skeletons in your cupboard, they show you the red card. I was locked up in one of the worst cells in this country in the fringes of the desert in Borno State. I was in solitary confinement for four years.

They could not even take me to court because all the investigations they did were all rubbish. They went to banks and everywhere and they did not see anything. I was charged for industrial relations offence. I was given mandate by my union, National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), they knew that and you cannot even charge me to court. But now they went to other extraneous issues and that was Abacha himself who was terribly corrupt. They just wanted to embarrass me at that time. They went everywhere and found out that it was only this house they saw that I have in the whole world.

This is somebody that dominated the oil industry for about 20 to 25 years. I sat with the whole Managing Directors and oil Ministers. People felt I am a strange fellow but unfortunately, this country does not give chance to people who are clean because corruption pervades everywhere. They are all looking at it shamelessly and they tell me they are rulers. Why should the youths not be annoyed and take arms and do anything they want to do because the society itself has not provided for them.

In our own time, government provided for us and in Lagos here, one could move about freely even to night club no matter the time. Small children went to school in Warri where I was brought up and nobody was afraid of kidnappers. But now, the society does not cater for its people and the Nigerian masses themselves are not committed because of the way they see their leaders. We are not patriotic. So, any small chance, they would like to make money in order to survive. But everybody is getting aware because I am surprised with the recent resistance over oil subsidy removal. It shows there is improvement and that the awareness is coming. Most of the protesters were not paid or hired and they went to all these grounds. So, the awareness is already coming.

Do you think that with the attitude of Nigerians during the recent strike that the poor masses are close to being emancipated from their “oppressors”?
Well, it is a starting point. The people have done their best but I was feeling that labour would have given them real direction and leadership. And I was happy when I saw my comrades doing that but suddenly, I saw the change in the negotiations. It is like the government did some “juju” on them because at the end, I could not understand the labour leaders any longer. You know Africans believe in juju.

So, may be, they did juju for them because I do not believe the rumours people are carrying about that they were compromised with “Ghana must go” bags. But the labour leaders I thought could lead the people and give them leadership and look at the humiliation they gave to labour. The body was humiliated by government because the negotiations were going on and they were saying they had not reached a compromise. They gave them the last minute suggestion that everybody should go and consult. That was what I was made to understand, the way I was following it because I still phone some people there.

At a stage even up till late in the night, they said they have not called them. Up till midnight, I was still calling some people who were in the negotiating team. Suddenly in the morning, I saw that broadcast and I was thinking labour would react sharply to it because they said they had not been called. The mandate they gave to them was on N65 per litre and even if you are going to change the mandate, it would be in a meeting with the government. That is the way everybody knows the art of negotiation and collective bargaining which I did for more than 13 years in this country. Now, they were not called and the next minute, government fixed the price unilaterally which labour insisted that that was what government did.

If it is the type of labour I know, when the government does that type of thing with arrogance, then labour would go back, reinforce and mobilise. You cannot do that to labour. That is heavy humiliation on labour. So, that is why I said, is there any juju that they used for them in Aso Rock. But if even they used Juju on Omar and Esele who were leading them, can the Juju affect all of them? This is because in labour, it is collectivity. Even as president or Secretary-General, you cannot take decisions on behalf of any union. You cannot take unilateral decision. You must go back to the people to get their mandate. And these were the two biggest leaders of labour in Nigeria. The president of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) which controls three quarters of the workforce and then Esele of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), they were small boys who were saying, we would take over from you.

You know much about Nigeria’s oil sector; what is the way out of the crisis facing the sector especially with regards to corruption?
That is another long story and it would take a day to talk about the rot in the oil sector and the close shop by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). You do not know what is happening there. And they were able to run a close shop because they have the support of the Federal Government which uses the NNPC as a honey pot. They go there, dip hands into funds and use the money for undercover jobs. They have not been able to open their books to the public and even the National Assembly who are supposed to enforce it have not been able to do that for about 12 years. But there is a lot of rot in the oil sector.

But the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been invited to look at the books. What is your take on that?
That is a good development but that is if they will go the whole hog. Normally, if the books are opened, good auditors can fish out all the whole rubbish going on there. But there has been a collaboration with some governmental officials. You always see the Senate or House of Representatives Committees summoning them every year but at the end, you do not see anything. If the government is not behind them, they would force them to open their books.

How do you feel with the deployment of soldiers to Lagos after the strike over removal of oil subsidy?
Normally, when you deploy soldiers to places like Borno State, Yobe, Kano where the rule of law and everything has broken down, where the security of lives and property has become so bad, it is in order. But when you deploy soldiers to a place like Lagos where people just sit at the Gani Fawehinmi square and they vent their anger by demonstrating and dancing and you now bring soldiers to come and stop them, it is not right and unacceptable to human beings especially those of us who fought for democracy.

We put our lives on the line to fight for democracy. Then, the whole country was in emergency but there is no emergency now in the country. How can you put soldiers on the streets when you do not see any insurrection? I am not happy with the presidency over that. That is a minus on their side and I felt that the international community would just laugh at us especially with what happened in other countries recently like the Arab spring. In other countries, they allow people like that to demonstrate especially when you know that they do not carry arms. But that is actually a fallback of the military era. That was why we decided to challenge them at that time.

As one of those who fought the military, how do you feel today looking at the type of democracy that we practise?
I am disillusioned from even the second year of democracy. When Obasanjo went in, I was so happy but after about two or three years, I felt things were getting worse. And since then, it has not improved. We fought for democracy to remove the military people and we brought bigger thieves to run the country. But like I told you, corruption is the main issue in this country.

If corruption is wiped out, you do not talk about subsidy. The mystery surrounding the subsidy is because of the corruption. I have told people and I said if I am the president, even if you have to subsidise, you block all the leakages in the whole areas of the physical regime, you would now see that you would save so much. I do not see Nigeria subsidizing oil consumption to the tune of N1.3 trillion in nine months. If there is anywhere you say because of the international oil market prices and everything, do not forget that we are major producers of oil. Actually, we are not even supposed to get to this level where we have to import refined products into this country. I knew that the Warri refinery, the second Port Harcourt refinery and the Kaduna refinery were built within 1978 to about 1983.

Warri refinery was built in 1978 and we opened Kaduna in 1980. So, we now had three refineries. The old one that the British petroleum built in Port Harcourt was there before. So, it was the new Port Harcourt refinery that came about five or six years later. So, the question then is-what happened between 1984 and now? It is about 30 years, and no more refinery. So, what was the magic they used in building those refineries? This is when we even have superior products. You cannot compare our kerosene or fuel with the rubbish they import from abroad. People go to the most inferior markets to buy those products to bring them to Nigeria, pad them up in form of over invoicing and nobody asks questions.

As long as we do not fight this octopus they call corruption, Nigeria would have a long way to go and we would be a laughing stock in the comity of nations. Nigeria is not properly ruled since we fought for democracy. The leaders have become fat cows and they have allowed the people to wallow in poverty and penury. In a society like this, when you push the people to the wall, there would be a revolution. These are historical things I am telling you. It happened everywhere. The Russian revolution led by Lenin started that way. You go to places like Britain, America, the way they won their independence was through marginalization.

The people were overmarginalised. With the whole respect they have for the British royalty, in Britain, a whole king was beheaded. Remember the French revolution. The Bolsheviks took over Russia. If the leaders are not careful how they manage the affairs of this country, I see revolution on the way. They are still fortunate that Nigerians have not started such a revolution although the Boko Harams have started their own. However, that is not to say that I am in support of them because their own is a senseless fight. I do not know what they are fighting for because all what they are doing is to kill innocent poor people. They have no ideology or demand that is reasonable. I do not see how we can go back to the dark ages again without western education.

Do you agree with those who insist that it is a ploy by the northern elite to recapture power in 2015?
If it is a strategy, that is rubbish. They are only killing their people in the North because I do not see how a Boko Haram person would come into Delta or any of our villages and I would not detect him. Even in Lagos here that is so cosmopolitan, if you see a stranger in your neighborhood, you will detect him. That is why they have not been able to come to the South. They are just killing their people in the North and they do not even obey their emirs even though some of those traditional institutions, Nigerians are fed up with them.

An American intelligence agency predicted that Nigeria might break up in 2015. Do you see an international connection to all of this?
There is no international connection to it. The Nigerian presidency is one of the most powerful in the world. They know what they do and they can do the right thing. The legisature is supposed to be the watchdog of the people. They are supposed to call the governors to order. The state and National Assembly do not do what they are supposed to do. That is why Nigerians are so pissed off with them. They collect so much money that Nigerians get baffled about. They receive obscene salaries. For the state assemblies, they have sold out. The governors are now emperors in their states.

Many expected that your man, Ogboru, was going to be victorious in the last election but it never materialized. What happened?
I was involved in that election but it was massively rigged from the riverine area. That area is very difficult to monitor. We have 25 local governments and the three local governments of the riverine areas, they just rigged the election there and those are areas that are sparsely populated. It defeats all logic when you see people in riverine areas that are sparsely populated coming out with votes that are fictitious.

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Posted by admin on Jan 29 2012. Filed under Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry