Chief Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) is a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). He speaks in this interview on the 2023 general election and the kind of President needed to move the country forward. He also shares his thoughts on the Electoral Act Bill and other issues.
EXCERPTS:
With Nigeria preparing for the 2023 general election, what kind of challenges do you think the next administration is going to face and how would they solve the challenges?
The expectation from this government with the time it has cannot be much again. It is like setting an agenda and asking questions of what would this new presidential aspirants or candidates do when they emerge, how would they confront the fragile nature of our economy, the fragile nature of our political process and the fragile nature of our security situation. Across the six zones, clearly, the security challenges are such that we can say that Nigeria is in a low-grade civil war, there is no question about that but we must really carry on somehow. So, one area I thought we should look at, which is often ignored and it has pained me very much having been in this legal policy work in the last 30 years that little attention is paid to law. You can see that Nigeria is seriously challenged because if we are paying a debt to revenue profile of N90 if you earn N100 for debt and you have N10 left, how do you run your family. That is Nigeria’s situation right now.
Look at the budget of last year and the budget of this year, you will see that almost 70 per cent of this year’s budget would be borrowed. So, that challenge of how do we sustain the nation is paramount because all the economic parameters are in red hot zones; inflation is high, food prices are up, yet there is a lot that can be done. People might not really understand that in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) circle, there are 45 key drivers of growth. Supposing government revenues are to stop entirely, people would be shocked to know that it will not affect us because Nigeria’s contribution in terms of revenue to the GDP is only five per cent, which means that it is the private sector and the informal sector that drive the economy. But the government has a big role to play. It is what the government does that shapes the policy and drives the private sector. So, if the government is policy challenged, it is a big issue.
Why is it that in spite of all, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), not me, says that Nigeria has €798.11 billion worth of dead assets. Now if those assets are to be liquidized, we would not have revenue challenges again. There is one I can refer to immediately, which is just down the road there and this one is the Federal Secretariat. The Federal Secretariat is worth about N150 billion. Ajaokuta Steel Company is there and there are all kinds of assets around Nigeria that the PwC did in their report, which they titled Liquidizing Dead Assets in Nigeria. So, our problem is it that policy drivers to grow the economy are not being utilized properly.
You have talked much about the agenda for the presidential aspirants; what kind of person do you think Nigeria needs at this point in time?
We need a driver in the shape of someone like Lee Kuan Yew. We need someone who understands what the issues are because if we have someone who doesn’t understand the issues, it will be difficult to have aides. What will aides do?
If you have a very good crop of aides, they can’t assist you if you are deficit. So, the first thing is that the leader must be able to understand the issues. Of course, he would need assistants but he would have to understand the issues. Look at President Joe Biden of the United States, he has a clear agenda of what he wants to do and he gets people who would fit into that process and assist him. So, point number one is that the leader we want must have the type of vision and defined characteristics that understand how to run a complex country like Nigeria as well as how to harness the resources. But what I find is that most members of our political class have no clue on how to find a model and part of what it is and in my experience mixing with politicians, I find out that they have no idea that law is a growth driver.
In fact, it is very shocking to me that the connection is not there. For instance, every policy that drives the country forward is based on credit because you never can have enough cash to buy a car or to buy a house. So, in advanced countries what happens is that there is a mortgage system, so that people working in different places will take their letters of employment and go to the bank and then the mortgage is given. You know that is not possible here. Now, why is it not possible here? Take this building, for instance, I want to get a loan from the bank, the first time the bank is going to ask me is, how do I intend to pay back the loan I want to take? And I said I have a house at 10A Ilabere Avenue and they ask: Where is the title document? I don’t have it. I don’t have it because the land registry in Alausa is incompetent. It takes six to seven years to get a title in Lagos State. Now, if that happens, it means that this house is dead capital. It has capital in the sense that it’s worth N400 million but it cannot multiply itself into the system because there is no title. So, in economic terms, we refer to it as dead.
Now, take all the houses in Lagos, the pricing of all the houses in Lagos is €3.81 trillion yet Governor Sanwo-Olu is looking for N1.3 trillion. But if he is to fix the land registry that is under him and remove himself, that is what the law says as the person who signs because he is too busy and create an executive agency and someone is there to attend to people who need titles 24/7, he would create an instant credit market. Why they don’t do it? I don’t know but the law is there to do it. It is the Land Use Act that gives the government powers to issue certificates but it has become so bureaucratized. I have a title document in Alausa in the last six years.
Supposed I want to borrow money on that property down the road there, I can’t because I can’t go and tell the bank to give me N200 million, so that I can pull this out. Then as I pull it out, the effect is that lawyers, surveyors, estate agents and the whole chain in the housing sector get busy and if you multiple it and all the guys who have properties in Lagos are also busy, then you will see the impact on the economy. So, that is what law can do.
