What I am saying is that we will look into that case and all other cases which has to do with government officials borrowing monies and making the poor taxpayers of Nigeria responsible for their personal borrowings.

These are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Chinedu Ogbuagu focusing specifically on the issue of debt. For the full article, please see http://allafrica.com.

At 44 Dr. Chinedu Ogbuagu says he is primed for generational power shift in Nigeria. The presidential aspirant from Enugu State says he is not out for any Igbo Presidency but challenged Nigerians who feel they are qualified to a free and fair contest. In this interview with Political Editor, Sani Babadoko he shares his controversial views on several national issues. Excerpts.

As a way of relieving our debt problem you promise a probe of all past debts. Don’t you think you will be opening old wounds and creating more enemies for yourself?

I am far more interested in what is good for the taxpayers of Nigeria. I am not going to condone sacred cows in this country. The laws of this country are made for everybody and nobody should be above the law. Also I feel that unless we clean up Nigeria there is no way we can know how we are doing as a country. There is no why the image of the country will be good no matter how much we try to defend a very bad thing.

So what is before us is to clean up the mess. In as much as I will not carry out a wholesale probe of past administrations but when it comes to the issue of debts which is about the most important element of our problems in this country. We spend a great part of our income on setting debt. In fact at the rate we are going we may never service all those debts. We have all along been paying interest, we have not started paying the principal so for how long are our people going to bear the burden of debts. So what I want to do is to pay off all our debts.

And in doing so do we go and pay bougus debts? Debts that were taken by individuals and who now turn the debts to the taxpayers of his country. Are we going to pay debts that were taken for projects that were never extended? Instead the debts found their way from one western bank to another except now that they are in individual’s personal accounts? Are my people supposed to pay this debt? Not!

If that is carrying enemies then I am sorry. But these people only need to examine their conscience and ask themselves whether it was wise for them to do that they did.

You cited the example of a carpet industry that never took off. Can you give details of that?

It is in the old Anambra State. It is a very long and very sad story of a carpet industry in the old Anambra State Ihiala to be precise. It is now in the present Anambra State. In fact that happens to be the home of the present Governor of Anmabra State, Chinwoke Nbadinuju. It was a terrible thing and it happened to be during the regime of Chief Jim Nwobodo as governor of old Anambra State. We have read the stories, I do not have the facts. What I am saying is that we will look into that case and all other cases which has to do with government officials borrowing monies and making the poor taxpayers of Nigeria responsible for their personal borrowings.

You also promised paying statutory salaries to all full time housewives. How do you seriously hope to implement that?

Just like many of our other policies questions are bound to be asked as to how we intend to implement them. Let me just tell you, Nigeria as a very wealthy country. The amount of money that has been unbezzled by any of our well known embezzlers of public funds is enough to pay all our housewives full time salaries over the years. I am talking about billions sometimes of US Dollars, but mostly of Naira. These huge sums that has been associated with certain individuals in this country will be sufficient to pay every housewife in this country.

Finally, how would you assess the performance of the present administration?

How else can anybody assess the performance of this administration? They have failed woefully. I have never in my life seen any government like the one we are seeing today and I have travelled to many countries in the world. Even in Nigeria, with our history of bad governments, none has surpassed this one in incompetence and corruption.

Daily Trust (Abuja), August 7, 2002