Dr. Festus Okubor, a renowned medical doctor and accomplished public servant, currently serves as the Chief Strategist to Governor Sheriff Oborevwori. Before this appointment, he held several critical positions in public service, including chairmanship of the Delta State Hospital Management Board (HMB) and the Governing Councils of Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku, and Ozoro. A graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), where he honed his expertise in medicine, Dr. Okubor also made his mark, first, as Commissioner for Information and, later, in the health ministry. His career reflects a seamless blend of strategic leadership, dedication to public welfare, and an unwavering commitment to excellence.
In this conversation, Dr. Okubor delves into the complex realities of Nigeria’s challenges, exploring foundational issues that have shaped the nation’s trajectory. The discussion traverses pivotal themes such as the absence of a unifying national culture, the pervasiveness of systemic inefficiencies, and the cultural decay that fuels corruption and hampers development.
He spoke to The Pointer’s team comprised of Tony Eke, Chairman, Editorial Board; Patrick Mgbodo, News Editor (Weekend), and Chukwuka Uzu, a photo journalist.
Excerpts:
If you are invited to a conference to look at Nigeria’s problem holistically, what suggestion will you make to enhance Nigeria’s future greatness?
The question of Nigeria is a very complex one. I have very complex views. First, I will shock you by telling you that the foundational things that ought to have happened in Nigeria are non-existent and you can trace all our problems to it. I can argue that while I may be a Nigerian, I do not know who a Nigerian is. People and their ways of life and who they are is defined by their culture. Their culture drives growth and development. It dictates their ethos, ethics and mores. It is the foundation of their cohesion, growth and development. In Japan, for instance, it is compulsory that no matter how high or low you earn, you must save a percentage of your income; that’s their culture and that became the source of the cheap loanable funds that drove their industrialization. In Israel, you cannot retire until you have finished paying the school fees of your grandchildren. So, every young man is available for military service.
If you come to Nigeria, in Delta State, I can readily tell you the Aboh, Ukwani, and Urhobo culture and their ways of life from their music to their mode of worship and marriage. I can tell you their customs and traditions. I can tell you that of the Fulani and the Yoruba. But I ask you, what is the Nigerian culture? We have been made cultureless and therefore, there is no path for development, or growth because a cultureless people are a ‘yaga-yaga’ people and that’s what we are.
There is no business in Nigeria, from the NNPC to the IOCs or a n y p r o f i t – m a k i n g organization that is not involved in crime. We are producing oil but it is being stolen. Who is stealing it? They will tell you that the foreign reserve is growing in billions of dollars but people are eating from the dustbin? What is that? So, it is a national problem. In Delta State, we are trying to do everything possible but you cannot do more than what Nigeria offers you.
The dollar was N180 when the All Progressives Congress (APC) government took over and in just a few years it has gotten to over N1600. Why, for instance, should we be exporting primary products? Why are we exporting corn, wheat, and cocoa when we can process them and create industries and employment? Why are we exporting crude oil? The same IOCs own the best refineries around the world and they are the ones operating here. They cannot say Nigeria is a very difficult place because the IOCs are operating the LNG project that is doing very well and paying billions of dollars. Why should our refineries not be functioning in the last 20 years when billions are being spent both for salaries and for what only God Knows? What kind of people behave this way? It can only be so because we are a cultureless people. A place where traditional rulers will give chieftaincy titles to known criminals, where girls are looking for men with loose cash and do not care how they got it. These are cultural issues; they are foundational issues. Some persons will say ‘if the foundation is poor, what can the righteous do?’’
But I do not believe that we should throw our hands up. When the foundation is wrong, it can be re-dug, relayed, or reinforced. Many things can be done and I think that is where Nigeria should be thinking. It is not a question of the Constitution. If you change the Constitution a hundred times without the necessary foundation, we will be running around the same circle. Why can we not process our crude oil and create employment? Each time you are exporting primary produce, all you are doing is creating jobs for those abroad while your people remain massively unemployed. What about the issue of patriotism? It is a function of culture and until we deal with that issue, we are on a journey to nowhere.
We just clocked 64 years of post-independence existence some months ago. So, how do we reconfigure Nigeria?
We have to sit down as a people. Culture, luckily, can be created. Today, there are a lot of discussions on multiculturalism. The world is moving towards one culture gradually. Talk of the world being a global village. That’s why you are having talks on multiculturalism because that global village is being worked on. If the world can do it, why can we not? What we need is quality leadership. The culture of any place has never been happenstance, people sit down and decide. Before, some people would kill twins but now, they had better knowledge and decided that it was wrong and aborted the killing of twins. If people sit down and decide that anybody who buys a car or builds a house must be able to disclose his source of wealth and that anybody who sees and does not speak up will be sanctioned, we will have a better culture before you know it.
But we must know that this is where we are going and that standard must be accepted by all. It will not be a one-year or five-year thing but that is the road we must embark on if we are going to redeem this country. Any society where the elders fail to guide the young ones and the young ones insurrect is irredeemable.
You have been in politics since 1999. How do you look at the performance of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state as the dominant and governing party in Delta?
In Delta State, we have been blessed with a PDP government since 1999. When we came to Asaba in 1991, there were no hotels to sleep in. The only hotel we had at the time was Hilton owned by Chief Adaora Giwa-Amu; that was the only hotel in Asaba then. People were coming as far as Ibusa, Agbor, and Ughelli. There was only one road in Asaba which is the Nnebisi Road and it was a tiny lane then. All around the state, you could see severe neglect from the military administrations. Of course, from the then Western Region, these parts were grossly neglected. To Midwest and later Bendel, again the whole of Delta, apart from Warri was essentially rural.
There was no accommodation for civil servants; both for offices and for living purposes. They had no schools for their children. That was the state Asaba was when we came in. First with Chief James Ibori and then Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan followed by Sen (Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa and now Rt Hon Sheriff Oborevwori. Incrementally, you can see that Delta State has progressed. I use myself as a typical example to show you what happened between 1999 and today.
In 1998 my father died and we had to bury him. If you know Agbor, from St Peters Anglican Church where we had the commendation service for him to St Michaels Ute- Erumu where we had the funeral service took us two hours for the convoy to move from Agbor to Ute-Erumu. Today, that same journey takes you about 17 minutes because of the state of the roads. Now we have good roads. When you look around Asaba, I do not need to tell you that there has been a massive infrastructural development in the state capital; from hospitals to schools. All the schools that the PDP built in Asaba will pass for universities in some countries. Go to the Model Technical College in Asaba, visit the St Patrick’s College, and go to the model primary schools. Because the subsequent governments emphasized peace, Asaba became a favoured destination for most Nigerians looking for where to settle or do business. So, Asaba also blossomed. There was a heavy influx of non- Deltans with investments.
If you look at Asaba from the housing point of view, it has grown because most of the structures are privately owned. The hotels in Asaba are countless and I think Asaba must rank as one of the first three state capitals in Nigeria in terms of quality hotel presence after Abuja and Lagos. From the Delta State University (DELSU) Abraka, we now have four universities; one in Abraka, one in Ozoro with a very big campus in Orerokpe, one in Asaba and another in Agbor. We also have the Ogwashi-Uku Polytechnic, we have a polytechnic at Oghara and we have a college of education in Warri. We also have degree-awarding schools of nursing.
In the healthcare sector, when we came in, there was just a tiny Okwe Hospital but today, that hospital has been expanded. We also have the Asaba Specialist Hospital which is bigger and better than most university teaching hospitals in the country, equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, staffed with very high-level staff and consultants now serving as a teaching hospital to university medical students. We have the Oghara Teaching Hospital, the teaching hospital arm of DELSU Abraka Medical School. If you go to Owa-Alero, we have the best-equipped advanced diagnostic centre in the country. We have the Mother and Child Hospital there too. These are monuments on their own. We have the highest number of hospitals in this country. We have the highest number of primary and secondary schools fully staffed. We have about the highest number of teachers per state in the country.
Our children, because of the four universities, three polytechnics, and one college of education, are accommodated at the tertiary education level because education is our major industry in this state. The number of courts has increased with a functional court in every local government area. We have a modern headquarters for the High Court in Asaba. Our civil servants who transited from no accommodation to renting accommodation all over the place are now quartered in one place with the state civil service secretariat being the finest in the whole of West Africa. We now have a Government House. When we first came in, there was no accommodation for even the governor of the state. I remember the accommodation that the governor had; if he stepped down from his bed, he was stepping right into the bathroom. The deputy governor fared no better. We rented accommodation and then bought it for the governor and then later for the deputy governor. Eventually, we built one of the best government houses in Nigeria. Our commissioners were coming from all over the state but today, they are beautifully quartered.
Roads were being constructed but there was a problem. We started with, because of the enormity of the problems, not paying attention to quality. We paid more attention to quantity, to provide enough roads. Over time, the roads were upgraded and even with that, the roads dilapidated quickly. Studies had to be conducted. I dare say that the problem would have to be in all the local government headquarters in the state. It was discovered that without adequate drainage, any road you do will not last. So, the last administration embarked on massive storm drainage construction. Today, it rains and under five minutes the water is evacuated. So roads are now being built that will endure.
Therefore, we have grown systematically. We also had the same problem in Warri. Chief Ibori did lots of roads in Warri. He also built a stadium, the government house annex, a radio house and other infrastructures. Uduaghan also did a lot. But the perennial question is always there; Warri roads are not good. What is happening to the roads constructed in Warri? Again, the problem was that the floods were not being evacuated and asphalt and water are not friends. So all the roads were being destroyed by water. Again, massive efforts have been thrown into storm drainage. This is why I keep saying that there are lots of benefits to continuity. Delta is one state that has benefited massively from the stability of governance. Today, Governor Oborevwori is doing a yeoman’s job in Warri with clover bridges, flyovers, and beautiful roads being undertaken at immense cost by Julius Berger.
So, we are hoping that in another one or two years, Asaba, Warri, Agbor, and Sapele will be comparable to other cities around the world. As a policy of the party, we refrained ab initio from benchmarking Delta against any other state in Nigeria because we thought we should compete in the world. If we are expecting world-class businesses to come to set up a presence here, if we are expecting world-class doctors to come and practice here, if we are expecting world-class hotel managers to come and manage the beautiful hotels that are coming up, then we must create world-class communities that can accommodate such people.
So, we had to benchmark and continue to benchmark against cities that have become world-class around the world; that’s the focus of our drive as the government of Delta State. To a large extent, you will see from where we came in to where we are that the PDP has done so much. Is it the staff strength of the civil service? The PDP has been good. It is no wonder therefore that you hear people saying that Delta is a PDP State.
For me, because your question is two-pronged; my experience as a person and Delta as a PDP State; I am grateful to the PDP for the opportunities to serve and to make friends with patriotic people, who are focused on developing the state. I was the Director of Protocol to Chief James Ibori, I was the Commissioner for Information, and I was the Commissioner for Health to Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan. I was Chief of Staff, I was Chairman of the Hospital Management Board (HMB) to Dr Okowa. I was also the Chairman of the Delta State Polytechnic Ogwashi-Uku. I was also the Chief Strategist to Dr Okowa and now to Rt Hon Sheriff Oborevwori. The opportunity to participate in discussions, contribute ideas and join in the execution of projects, programmes and policies as well as their formulation gives cause to be grateful to God and the PDP. It is hoped that at the end of this life, those who will come after us will be able to speak about us.
You have seen it all from 1991 to the present day. What is your impression about Delta in the past 33 years?
Delta in the last 33 years has witnessed a lot of growth and development. If Delta was a human being, at 33 it would be judged as an adult. I can also say that Delta State has become an adult state in Nigeria. We are no longer a baby state. Everything is set to live as adults live. Facilities have been put in place and as my grandmother will say ‘’the only direction for Delta now is up-up-up’’.
Again, Delta is lucky. For a state that has at least 10 cities that can compare with the capitals of other states in Nigeria; Asaba, Warri, Ogwashi-Uku, Agbor, Ughelli, Sapele, Kwale, Orerokpe, Oghara and many others. Each of these towns can compete with many state capitals around Nigeria. To have been able to develop all the nooks and crannies simultaneously is not a small achievement. Just recently, a ministry for riverine development was created. Work has been going on in the riverine areas but now, you will see an intensification of work in the riverine parts of Delta.
It is important because those areas are also burden-bearers and because of their peculiar terrain, they may not show the same level of visible development as the upland areas. But growth and development, even as it is in a human being, is stage by stage. You start by crawling, and walking, and then you begin to start running. So, we are focusing on riverine areas and that is why I say that at 33, Delta is ready to be called an adult.
How would you react to the opinion of some critics that Delta should have gone beyond where it is today considering the huge resources at its disposal?
It is natural for humans to think in that manner. Even with your current status, you still aspire to be better than where you are today. But go to other states that were created at the same time as Delta, you will give thanks to God. Now let me tell you. In the comity of states in Nigeria, the average Deltan walks with his head held high. There is no Deltan that is ashamed of being a Deltan if they were truly underdeveloped.
In some other states, some people would be ashamed to mention where they are from but that does not happen in Delta. Nobody will ask me where I am from and I will say I am from South-south.
Could we have done better, I do not think so. We are where are and where we can afford to be. There is a mistake that people make; they think Delta is a rich state but Delta is not a rich state. We have one of the highest wage bills. Should we have employed only one-quarter of the staff strength? What will happen to the others? We have the highest number of schools and hospitals. We have the highest number of consultant doctors. We have terrain that per square meter is far too expensive to develop.
People are not comparing the quantum of money coming to the work going on. If they do, you will realize that Delta is not a rich state. We are managing to go by and we are lucky to have had prudence in governance. Governance is a continuum. When we came, there was urgency, money was not coming and money had to be borrowed. It was the same thing in the second administration and also in the third administration. But you are not a good citizen if you are owing and you are buying cars without paying. Borrowing is also scientific. It is not flimsy.
Now, we have come to a stage where Governor Sheriff Oborevwori has said ‘’Let us reduce the burden on the neck of future generations, let us pay down up to 30 per cent instead of debt servicing that has been going on.’’ This is a new phase. So, when people say we should have done more, I ask them ‘’what more?’’ In any case, no one does everything in a day. We have done well as a state and our state is peaceful. The day Chief Ibori was sworn in, there was heavy gunfire in the riverine areas between the Itsekiri and the Ijaw. But today, we enjoy a very high degree of inter-ethnic peace in Delta. The pockets of security challenges we currently have are a result of the abysmal failure of the APC government otherwise, we have done well as a state.
